business

The most successful business owners tend to have a plan for everything. If you ask them where they see the company in one year, five years, or a decade, they have a plan for that. However, one crucial thing that many savvy business owners may forget or procrastinate in planning is how their business will continue after they die.

Yes, mortality is not something many of us are prepared to face, causing the idea of planning for your business after you have passed on to seem like quite a daunting task. However, without a plan, many companies whose owners worked their entire lives toward building will begin to sink after their passing. The loss of your business may not impact only you, either.

Employees, family members, and customers will all feel the implications of your death if you do not develop a survival plan for your business. Considering just how uncertain life can be, there is truly no time like the present for you to create a business survival plan in the case of your death.

So, how does one even begin to create this plan?

Who Can Take Over for You?

One of the most important things you can do to keep your business afloat after you pass is to name your company’s successors. Have you identified who will lead your business when you are no longer around? Would you wish for your business to be sold, passed to a family member, or transferred to a business partner?

Knowing who you would like to take charge of your company after you are gone is crucial to ensuring the safety of your business. A few other questions to consider in this process include:

• Is your important paperwork accessible to them?
• Does your company’s potential future leader have the knowledge to keep your business running? How can you begin educating them if not?
• What will changing hands implicate for your business and its next leader’s taxes?

Look Into Key Person Insurance

Key person insurance is a form of life insurance designed to provide businesses with protections and benefits in the event that the business owner, top executive, or another essential employee passes on. A business may consider buying key person insurance if the company’s livelihood depends on a specific person or persons. The business pays for the key person insurance and, should the key person die, will act as the policy’s beneficiary. The benefit of purchasing key person insurance is that it offers your company a financial safety net in the event of your death, allowing the company to have time to save or shut down business operations.

Getting Incorporated

Getting incorporated is the legal process used to form a corporation. Business owners may choose to get incorporated because it distinguishes an individual’s business assets and income from the assets and incomes of the owner and the business’ investors. This limits the liability of the business owner and investors. Therefore, incorporating your business allows your company to possess its own assets, sign contracts, and be sold to a new owner without disrupting the business. If your company goes bankrupt, being incorporated allows you and your family protection against liability.

Identifying Your Top Clients

Your clients are some of the most critical aspects of the success of your business. Depending on the type of business you run, these clients may rely on the services or products they receive from you. So, how can you protect them in the case of your death?

To begin, you will want to identify a bit of information about them:

• Who are your top clients?
• What do you do for them?
• How often do you work together?

Once you have determined this information, work to ensure that the paperwork needed for your top clients is accessible to your business successor. This will ensure that your clients can continue to rely on your business in the case of your death.

Run Your Business Like You Are About to Sell it

Running your business as though you plan to sell it right now is always good business practice. This ensures that, in the case of any emergencies, the company’s leadership can smoothly switch hands. To do this, you should work to keep all of your contracts, agreements, and other crucial client and business-related information up to date and accessible should somebody else need to take over. You must also work to ensure you are not the only one who knows how to handle the essential pieces of your business.

Get Advice from the Professionals

None of us can specialize in everything. This is precisely why there are lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and other professionals prepared to guide you toward making safe and effective decisions for your business.

Get Your Plans Legally Documented

As you receive valuable advice from experienced and educated professionals, take the time to ensure you get each and every plan legally documented. This will protect your decisions in the case that you are unable to protect them yourself.

Create and Maintain Your Personal Will

Along with legally documenting your business plans, it is also crucial that you create and maintain a personal will. While it may seem intimidating to begin thinking about writing your personal will, having one written up as your company accumulates enough assets will protect your plans for your business’s future.

Stakeholder Confidence

The confidence of stakeholders including clients, suppliers, investors, and employees, in the continuity and stability of the business is crucial. Effective communication and consistent operations can help maintain this confidence.

External Interest 

If the business is profitable, there may be external parties interested in acquiring it. This can result in the business surviving under new ownership.

In Conclusion

Thinking about your own mortality can be intimidating for the best of us. However, if you are a business owner, considering ways to protect your business in the case of your death is crucial to being a business owner. Taking steps to protect your business can also provide vital protections for your family, your employees, the company’s future leaders, and your clients in the case of your death. It doesn’t matter what plans you have for your business after your death; taking steps to protect it will prevent the company’s transition from becoming messy and complicated. So, don’t put off protecting your business any longer.

References:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keypersoninsurance.asp#:~:text=Key%20person%20insurance%20is%20a%20life%20insurance%20policy%20a%20company,be%20the%20owner%20or%20founder.

https://www.uschamber.com/co/start/startup/how-to-incorporate-business

DeFi is a collective term for financial products and services accessible to anyone using Ethereum over the internet. DeFi Apps are built on the Ethereum blockchain.

List of contents

• What is DeFi?
• What exactly is DeFi?
• What is so special about DeFi?
• Why do we need decentralized finance?
• What are the use cases of DeFi?
• What are the reasons underlying DeFi as an emerging business trend?
• How to make money with DeFi products?
• Total locked value in DeFi
• Bottom Line

 What is DeFi?

DeFi refers to Decentralized Finance, peer-to-peer financial services on a public decentralized blockchain network, particularly Ethereum. You can build DeFi applications on the Ethereum blockchain that run smart contracts when conditions are met.   

It evolved by combining decentralized tech and finance. The two special features of DeFi are:

• 1 It generated a robust global financial system on the crypto space geared by open-source technology
• 2 It allows anyone to build financial applications without centralization of control

DeFi applications reconstruct traditional finance systems revolving around borrowing, lending, trading, and investing with digital assets. DeFi projects let you earn interest on the deposit of cryptocurrencies.

What exactly is DeFi?

It is a unique way to execute financial transactions in cryptocurrency & blockchain using financial applications.

Defi helps build financial products on the Ethereum blockchain to allow anyone, anywhere with internet access, to gain lending and borrowing services without intermediaries.

DeFi decreases the barrier of entry to financial products and services for people who are unbanked from traditional financial services because of significant reasons, such as lack of credit history, weak banking infrastructure, or limited banking hours.

What is so special about DeFi?

A system that interacts with buyers, sellers, borrowers, or lenders with peer-to-peer technology to access financial products or services bypasses middlemen such as financial institutions.

The magic revolution of DeFi is disempowering the centralized, traditional banking system & empowering people through peer-to-peer exchanges that enable decentralized finance for everyone.

Why do we need decentralized finance?

Decentralized finance has the potential to create more transparent financial markets that are accessible to anyone with internet connectivity worldwide; therefore, we need it.

The project, empowered by Dapps and protocols, uses Ethereum-based code that removes the middleman between transacting parties in a crypto-financial transaction.

It is widely adopted by eagle-eyed investors to make larger returns on capital.

The two popular concepts link to DeFi crypto.

Yield farming:

Yield farming is a process that allows crypto holders to stake or lock up their funds with DeFi platforms to provide liquidity to the pool & earn high rewards in returns. 

Money Legos:

DeFi revolves around the concept of Money Legos–putting the idea that anyone can build a new financial product on top of an existing DeFi product. DeFi apps can compose new apps using code as building blocks.

Besides this, a significant type of DeFi application is being used in Decentralized exchanges, e-wallets, stablecoins, NFTs, flash loans, etc.

What are the use cases of Decentralized Finances?

The mentioned below three key use cases of Decentralized Finance are:

1) DeFi Lending Platforms:

DeFi lending platforms are collateral-based, connecting lenders and borrowers of cryptocurrencies, such as a compound allowing users to lend or borrow cryptocurrencies.

The platform sets interest rates algorithmically & lenders receive higher interest rates when the demand for borrowing crypto increases.

2) Stablecoin:

Stablecoin is another form of DeFi that is pegged to dollars or Euros to avoid price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies. It brings price stability in DeFi markets, therefore; it is highly desirable in lending, borrowing, and trading.

3) Margin and Leverage

DeFi markets allow users to borrow cryptocurrencies on margin using other digital assets as collateral. Smart contracts are programmed in such a way that leverage Defi protocols to maximize high returns on lending crypto assets.

What are the reasons underlying DeFi as an emerging business trend?

There are a couple of noticeable reasons that make it more prominent than traditional finance and the reasons for emerging business trend.

Equal access to financial services:

It let you develop financial products on an open public source platform irrespective of boundaries. Instead of an autonomous central server, the code controls the unique system.

The statistics of the World Bank Global Findex Report, currently, 1.7 billion individuals are unbanked and deprived of financial access due to credit checks or strong financial history. The new digital technology could help bring more people to easily access banking services by collateralizing their cryptocurrencies with DeFi platforms.

Instant and Low Transaction Cost:

The newly launched Ethereum 2.0 platform can make around 100,000 transactions per second to facilitate instant payment.

The distinguishing feature of DeFi projects is a low-cost transaction as compared to exorbitant banking transactions. Expatriates send their remittances to their homeland through payment solution providers or banking systems. These channels charge high transaction cost that eats most of the savings. However, decentralized projects verify the payment transactions through a set of nodes eliminate the intervention of middle authority for payment settlement between the sender and receiver, cutting down the supplement fees and costs and saving a considerable amount of money.

Decentralized trusted model:

It replaced the traditional centralized model with a decentralized trusted model. We often observe that millions of banking customers using credit cards, ATMs, or transacting online have been hacked from the centralized database of the bank.

Conversely, the DeFi system is more secure and transparent that is immutable & irreversible. Each transaction is cryptographically secured & keeps record transactions across a group of nodes distributed decentralized over the internet. The hash function restricts hacking endeavors; it verifies transactions and digests data into a string value. If anyone attempts to hack data, the hash value of the last block does not match the current block making it transparent. Similarly, users have more control over their data when compared to traditional financial institutions.

Unrestricted Operational services:

DeFi markets are continuously operating day and night with no intervals. Unlike the traditional financial industry, DeFi has no working hours restrictions or time zone limits. It can potentially extend nonstop investing and trading services to customers anywhere, anytime in the world.

How to make money with DeFi?

DeFi offers an enormous opportunity for earnings to customers connected to the interlinked digital ledger.

We list some of them below:

Lending:

DeFi platforms allow customers to generate interest income by a lending loan against collateralization of cryptocurrency or stablecoin such as compound or Dai coin 

Borrowing:

It lets you borrow funds from liquidity pools & sell the funds to other DeFi projects, make their profit, and pay back the loan to the loan initiator pool.

Staking:

Users can make money by locking up their crypto with smart contracts on the DeFi pool to provide liquidity to that pool and receive tokens as staking rewards in return.

Total Locked value in DeFi:

The DeFi market is evolving fast. Currently, the total value locked in different DeFi Protocols stands at $99.93 billion as of December 12, 2021. Previously, it touched to a peak of $111.754 billion on November 09, 2021.

Bottom Line:

The scope of DeFi apps is far-reaching, The DeFi market has been emerging fast, and total locked value in DeFi protocols signals the skyrocketed move in the future.

References:

* cointelegraph.com/explained/decentralized-finance-explained

* decrypt.co/resources/defi-decentralized-finance-explained-guide-learn

* www.coindesk.com/what-is-defi
* www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/04/19/financial-inclusion-on-the-rise-but-gaps-remain-global-findex-database-shows
* cointelegraph.com/defi-101/defi-a-comprehensive-guide-to-decentralized-finance
* www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/defi-decentralized-finance/

* www.investopedia.com/decentralized-finance-defi-5113835

* coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-yield-farming
* www.techopedia.com/definition/25777/peer-to-peer-network-p2p-network
* hackernoon.com/earning-passive-income-with-defi-staking-an-overview-4a1y3720
* defipulse.com/

 

What is Inflation?

Inflation is a period in which the value of money falls as the demand for goods and services rises. The rising price of goods and materials will trickle down from manufacturers to businesses to the consumer, impacting everybody in the economy.

Inflation is typically caused by a shortage in labor or materials, which causes the labor or material to rise in price as it becomes more difficult to obtain. As businesses work to afford the labor or goods they offer, they must raise their prices accordingly.

Investopedia explains inflation excellently, stating that it “is the decline of purchasing power of a given currency over time.” As prices rise to keep up with the lack of labor or materials, the value of a country’s currency will begin to decrease, granting it less power to purchase goods and services needed by an individual.

What Can Cause Inflation?

An increase in the money supply typically causes inflation. As the money supply increases, the currency’s value will decrease, holding less purchasing power than before. Three ways in which an economy’s currency will lose its value.

The first is known as the demand-pull effect. In this case, an increase in money supply will increase the demand for labor and materials. This will then make labor and materials more and more challenging to come by, leading to an increase in the value of labor and materials and a decrease in the currency’s value.

The second is known as the cost-push effect. In this case, inflation will occur as the demand for a particular service or material rises. The more it costs to get a service or good to the consumer, the less purchasing value the consumer’s money will hold. For instance, rising steel prices can cause a significant increase in many different goods as the goods cost more to create.

The third is known as built-in inflation. In this case, the expectation of continued inflation will cause continued inflation. As workers begin to expect inflation to continue, they will continue to demand an increase in wages to keep up with the cost of living. This will create a cycle of inflation.

How Does it Affect Small Businesses?

While inflation impacts everybody, small businesses appear to get it the worst. As noted earlier, the goods and labor needed to run a business will become more and more expensive as inflation occurs. This causes small businesses to raise their prices to keep their business profitable.

Rising prices and an increase in demand may lead to higher costs of raw materials. Many materials needed to run a small business may even become more challenging as manufacturers face difficulty keeping up with their consumer’s needs.

As inflation affects everybody in the economy, small businesses may need to raise their employees’ salaries to continue paying them a livable wage. Keeping up with an increase in the prices of the materials needed to continue business and granting employees a raise can cause several financial issues for a small business, creating a need to make difficult decisions. Small businesses may have to raise their prices or let go of valued employees to keep their businesses profitable.

As small business faces a need to raise their prices, they may lose valued business. As stated before, inflation impacts everybody in the economy. Because of this, the business’ customers may be unable to purchase as many goods or services from the small business as they were once able to.

Tips for Coping with Inflation as a Small Business

Inflation can be problematic for small businesses everywhere. Having a plan and taking the necessary precautions might be what your small business needs to stay afloat in financially challenging times. A few steps you can take to protect your small business from inflation include:

Pursue Knowledge

The more you know, the more capable of protecting your business you will be. Work to better your understanding of business, marketing, finances, and the economy daily. Many courses, books, and videos are available to help you better your business practices daily.

Evaluate the Goods or Services You Offer

As the price to run a business increases, the need to offer high-value goods or services increases right along with it. Take a step back from your business and consider what you are offering. Which goods and services are doing the best? Is any piece of your business costing you more than it brings in? Are you ordering more goods than you are selling? As you evaluate every good and service your business offers, cutting the goods or services that do not bring you value may save your profitability.

Charge Accordingly

During inflation, almost all materials and labor will rise in price. To keep your business afloat, you will have to charge accordingly. However, you can’t just raise your prices blindly. Before you raise the prices of your goods or services, consider the competition. What are they charging? You have to work to ensure your product’s value and the prices you charge to keep you in the competition. So, use your competitor’s pricing as a guide when preparing to increase the cost of your goods or services.

Be Transparent

Everybody is impacted by inflation. Be transparent with your customers about your price increases and why they were necessary. Customers appreciate transparency in a business. Being open with your customers about the impact of the economy’s inflation rates will allow them to prepare for future price increases, lowering the chances of losing their loyalty to your business.

Have a Plan

Consider the possibilities of continued inflation. How can you protect your business from scenarios in which the price of labor continues to increase or the materials needed to create your goods soar in cost? Develop a plan and safety net to protect your business from future inflation scenarios.

Debt collections

If you have unpaid bills, do not just write them off. Try to recover by hiring a collection agency.

Final thoughts

It doesn’t matter what industry your small business is in. Chances are, you will feel the impact of inflation. You don’t have to suffer through the consequences, though. Work to educate yourself on the steps to protect your small business as the entire economy faces the consequences of inflation. Consider the goods and services bringing your business the most and least value. Keep your eye on your competitors. Always have a plan for potential inflation scenarios. Regarding inflation, the more prepared you are, the better.

 

For your business, there are never enough ways for you to promote your brand and your company. It is your opportunity to show your local community why they should spend time at your company and why they should trust you over other competitors.

For marketing, there are many routes that you could take to improve your visibility in your industry. You could take on the role yourself, implementing these strategies, but it can be challenging to do that while running your company! Another option is to hire someone else to do this for you.

What is a Social Influencer?

There might be some confusion over this term, but a social influencer is someone who has an audience and can share information about your business with their audience. There are dozens if not hundreds of influencers for you to choose from, but you have to be careful which one you hire and how you see them benefitting your business in the long term.

Choosing the Right Social Influencer

The most important aspect of this process is choosing someone that you feel would positively help your business. For example, if you are a medical office, you have to find someone with experience and a trusted audience in your target demographic for your future patients.

If you are a restaurant, you want to have someone younger potentially who has the right audience to begin finding new customers. You also want to hire someone who has the same values and would be a positive marketing effort for your brand. You don’t want to hire someone who would tarnish your reputation and hurt your brand. If it takes you longer to find someone, that is alright if you find the right person!

Where Do I Find a Social Influencer?

Before you even begin your search to find the right social influencer, you have to be clear about your goals. Outline what you want to accomplish, your marketing objectives, and what your ideal brand spokesperson should be like. This will help you narrow down your choices and even give you a clear idea of what you want your audience to see when they see your business.

Once you do this, you have to research your own. Find people who best align with your values, your goals, and how they present themselves. You might have to spend more time looking, but make sure you create a list of relatively close individuals to your ideal candidate. From there, you can contact them and see if they would be up for the challenge!

Work Closely With Your New Social Influencer

The most important aspect of this process is finding the right person and creating the proper connection to be on the same page with your goals. It can be frustrating to find someone who would best exemplify your business, but they do not understand your goals. However, there’s one solution to this: communicate more!

With more communication, your social influencer will have a clear idea of what you need, and you will have a clear idea of what their plan is by your goals. With open lines of communication, this can blossom into a great business relationship that will help your entire brand with how they communicate with the outside world.

Create an Optimal Agreement and Price

If you hire someone to help you with your marketing, it is only fair to give them a great price and make sure that your agreement benefits everyone involved. For instance, if you have a social influencer helping you promote your restaurant, perhaps you occasionally give them discounts and free meals to promote to your customers. You might even pay them per post.

You might even pay them per post. In most cases, social media influencers can range from $250 to $750 per 1,000 engagements. However, the social media influencers you choose will have their own prices. Generally speaking, the minimum prices depend on the follower count. For those with less than 10,000 followers, you will likely pay $75 to $250 per post. If your influencer has up to 100,000 followers, you could be paying up to $500 minimum per post.

It is essential to treat your social influencers like they are employees of yours because they are! They are technically being contracted, and while they might not be obligated to come into your office every day to report to the boss, they still are working with you to help your company. Your small business is a tight-knit group of people anyways, which is why you should work to find an optimal agreement and make it worth their while to help you and your company.

Audit Your Process and Discover the Perfect Formula

Unfortunately, not every marketing strategy that you employ with your influencers is going to work. Fortunately, you have the potential to change this as needed to make it work for you! While working with your social influencer or even a few of them, you can find out what they notice, what they think would work, and fine-tune your process.

It is essential that you constantly revisit your plan, find out what works, and continue to find the best marketing strategy. Your customers will respond differently over time, even if you use the same ads and marketing tactics. For this reason, your social influencers and your marketing team should always be focused on providing explicit content and updating as needed to continue to excite and reach vital markets.

How Much Does it Cost to Get a Social Influencer?

This depends on the depth you put into their work and how much you expect from them. The most important thing is to work with your company, your marketing team, and your financial division to figure out what you can afford. You should always seek quality over quantity when it comes to influencers and marketing.

Social Influencers Are the Way of the Future

Traditional marketing is slowly dying out, and social influencers are the way to the future. If you want to reach your audience and even grow your consumer base, focus on partnering with individuals who have social influence and could make an agreement with you for the future.

Social influencing is the way of the future, and you could get ahead on this trend to help your small business take off in a way that will ensure your future success!

For most small business owners, handling day-to-day operations and strategizing for the near future is enough to keep them busy. For that reason, not very many of them take the time to game out what might happen to their business if an unexpected emergency arose. And the results of that neglect have been on full display throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it isn’t just once-in-a-generation pandemics that threaten small businesses. If that were true, small businesses wouldn’t have a 50% five-year survival rate. That number reflects the fact that there are countless threats small businesses face that might lead to failure. But there is a way to improve those odds dramatically.

Doing so requires small businesses to take the time to create comprehensive risk management strategies. And doing that isn’t as hard as it might seem. To help, here’s a four-step process small businesses can use to develop risk management strategies that can save them in an emergency.

Step one: Identify potential risks

A conventional risk management strategy is intended to provide protection from foreseeable risks. That means the first step in creating a plan is to imagine what risks could come to threaten your business. The risks themselves will vary from business to business, but tend to fit into one of five categories, which are:

• Property loss or damage – the risk that business offices, production facilities, or equipment might be lost, stolen, or otherwise put out of commission.
• Business continuity risks – events that could prevent the business from carrying out its’ essential moneymaking functions. This is where a pandemic like COVID-19 would fit.
• Legal liability – the risk of financial penalties arising from faulty products, business actions, or accidents.
• Skills and talent losses – the risk that critical employees will leave and take necessary skills and knowledge with them, harming the business’s ability to keep working.
• Employee liability – risk stemming from injuries to employees resulting in medical costs and lost productivity.

At this stage, the idea is to think of as many potential risks as possible. Cast as wide of a net as you can and try to imagine every potential scenario that could harm the business. Even if some of the risks seem remote at first glance, they should be included anyway.

Step two: Assess the likelihood and impact of each risk

The next step is to go through all of the identified risks to figure out two things: how likely they are to happen, and how much harm they would cause. This will allow you to focus your planning on the risks that would have a major impact on your business. And although you can come up with plans to handle every possible contingency, it’s critical to begin with risks that are both likely and harmful to the business.

The most straightforward way to conduct this type of assessment is to use what’s known as a risk assessment matrix. There are countless templates available online that you can adapt to your specific business’s needs. But it’s just as easy to build a risk assessment matrix from scratch.

The goal of this planning stage is to start figuring out which potential risks are worth guarding against. This doesn’t always mean that very likely risks are always going to be worth doing something about. Consider, for example, a high-probability risk that would cost your business $25,000 in losses were it to occur. If purchasing additional equipment or insurance to protect the business would cost $24,000 – it may be a better business decision to simply live with the risk.

Step three: Create specific plans to deal with critical risks

At this point, the process should have yielded a handful of high-priority risks that are worth trying to mitigate. The problem is, there’s never a one-size-fits-all approach to deal with every type of risk. In some cases, the most effective option is to purchase insurance as a default protection measure. But sometimes that’s not the right course of action.

Often, making changes to your company culture is an effective way to deal with certain risks. If you can take steps to lower the likelihood of a risk occurring, that’s even better than having a cleanup plan in place. Approaching risk mitigation in this way should always be the first option. It’s almost always the cheapest solution because as they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Some common risk prevention approaches include:

• Increasing employee safety training and rewarding safety policy adherence
• Instituting rigorous know-your-customer steps to protect against failure-to-pay events
• Improving employee retention measures to guard against talent and skill losses
• Investing in facility upgrades to protect critical business assets from damage, loss, or misuse

Finding the right approach to each type of risk calls for some creative thinking, though. If you can institute workforce or policy changes that lower the likelihood of a risk, you may find that the potential insurance costs of that risk go way down. Then it could be more palatable to pay the insurance costs as a last line of defense.

Step four: Monitor and revise as needed

Once there’s a plan in place to deal with each critical risk, it’s necessary to create a management process to make sure that the plans are being followed as they should be. Risk management plans aren’t worth much if they’re not executed to the letter. So, the final step in developing your risk management strategy is to get every employee on board with the plans so they’ll be carried out reliably.

And once you’ve had your risk management plans in effect for a while, you’ll also want to conduct periodic reviews to make sure they’re performing up to expectations. Sometimes you’ll be able to identify areas where improvements are possible. Whenever that happens, take advantage of the opportunity because anything that leads to reduced risk or lower costs is always worth pursuing.

But it’s also critical to go beyond reviewing existing plans. Since every growing business is always in a state of constant flux, the kinds of risk it faces will always change as well. That means you should set aside management-level time at least twice a year to go through this process from the beginning. That will help to identify new risks that have evolved since the last planning sessions and identify continuing risks. In some cases, you may even identify risks that are no longer a problem. And that will allow you to redirect attention and resources to more pressing matters.

The risk management bottom line

At the end of the day, any attempt at risk management is worth it for small businesses. And, the more complete the planning, the less likely it is that the business will be blindsided by issues that can bring operations to a screeching halt. And this extends even to major incidents like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consider for a moment, that the businesses that kept on working through 2020 were the ones that could either quickly adapt to remote working or that already had contingency plans in place to handle such a problem. You wouldn’t have had to foresee a global pandemic to have been ready beforehand. A continuity plan built to deal with an earthquake, fire, or flood at the business’s primary location would have worked just as well.

So, the takeaway here for small business owners and operators is that setting aside some time to create a risk management strategy is a small price to pay to build a business that’s ready for anything. And given the fact that there are countless threats to small businesses’ bottom lines even in the best of times, a little bit of forethought can improve things considerably. With no downside to engaging in the risk management process and so much to gain, this is as close to a no-brainer as any small business owner is likely to ever encounter.

If you own a business, you are likely looking for ways to be more efficient and save money daily. Whether it’s in operating, creating efficiencies, removing obstacles, settling deals, or how you power your facilities. There are savings to be found, especially when you consider switching to solar energy.

Rooftop solar for homes has been around for decades, and likewise, many businesses have adopted this clean, affordable, reliable way of powering the things they do each day. But solar for business isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. There are several options to consider based on your available space and what’s best for your needs and budget. No matter what form your solar panels take, you can save energy and money every month.

Solar panels and solar energy systems usually come with a 25-year lifespan and warranty because solar panels rarely break.

Here are 10 reasons to give solar the green light for your business. 

1. You have more control over your energy bill with solar.

While the cost of energy from your local electric company can go up and up without warning, the price you pay for energy with solar is fixed to your financing terms. And once it’s paid off, you own your energy free and clear. Going solar offers your business the chance to be free from the electric grid and its problems so that your business can continue every day, rain or shine, like clockwork.

2. Federal Tax Credits

There are special incentives for businesses to go solar that can significantly reduce the cost of going solar for your business. This year, the federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) is set at 26% for solar installed in the next two years and will decline over the coming years until it settles at a permanent 10% for businesses. Get your solar installation done this year or next to make sure you maximize the amount of tax credits available for taking this step towards renewable energy.

3. Set, meet and exceed corporate sustainability goals

Companies like Google, Apple, and Target all have added solar, and while these corporate giants have ample opportunity for solar panels on parking garages, distribution centers, and more, don’t let that deter your smaller business from going green. There are so many different ways that a business can incorporate solar into its energy plan. Don’t let the tech giants get all the solar rewards!

          Reduction in Carbon Footprint: Solar energy is clean and green. By switching to solar power, you are directly reducing the amount of greenhouse gases your activities produce, which is beneficial for the environment.

4. See solar as an investment in your business with a great return

Your return on investment (ROI) for solar starts the moment you turn on your system. That’s because the rate you pay for energy with solar will be much less than what the electric company is charging you. Once your system is paid off, your energy bill can even be eliminated entirely. Solar panels are maintenance-free for the most part.

5. Lower your operating costs.

When your solar energy system is paid off, which can be sooner rather than later, if you take full advantage of incentives and tax credits, your business will reduce its overall operating costs. Most find that installing solar pays for itself within five to seven years, while the system generally has a lifespan of 25 years. That’s potentially decades of savings for your bottom line.

6. See property values rise

Solar energy is a bonus for purchasing commercial real estate, especially in today’s climate. Customers love a forward-looking business that is aware of its impact on the environment, and business owners love saving money on energy AND having the freedom of having a suitable backup if the electric grid fails due to equipment failure or a natural disaster or storm.

7. Going solar today is more affordable than it’s ever been

While solar has been around for a few decades now, today is a great time to benefit from all of the development and technological advancement that has happened in that time. Today the price of solar panels has come down 70% compared to just 10 years ago. Add tax incentives to that and your costs are reduced even further.

8. Be cash-flow positive

Spending less money on your energy bill each month means more money in your pocket or on your books to help improve your business however you see fit. And once the panels are paid off, that cash flow only increases. There are also programs like net metering that can help you sell your excess solar energy back to the grid and actually earn credits on your bill each month.

9. Boost your brand and your corporate image

An often-overlooked benefit of going solar is the optics! Yes, savings are significant, and those are a given, but did you know that sustainability is becoming a more prominent and more important selling point to a lot of consumers? They like to know that the goods and services they are buying are supporting the environment and that the businesses behind them are committed to protecting the planet as best we can for future generations.

10. Contribute to the local economy

Many business owners we talk to are a part of the community where they deliver goods and services. When you go solar, you are likely employing a local company to come and complete the installation. It’s important to research the company you choose because they will become your touchpoint for questions/concerns and even maintenance as the years go on.

Commercial solar is a great way to include clean energy and generate savings that can help your business thrive. It’s easy to maintain, as solar panels are built to withstand the elements of wind and rain and even high-powered storms.

    11. Silent Operation: Solar panels operate silently, which means they don’t contribute to noise pollution, unlike many other forms of electricity generation.

    12. Scalability: You can start with a few panels and add more over time as your needs and budget allow. This makes solar energy an adaptable solution that can grow with your needs.

Here are some ways businesses can incorporate solar

Ground Mounted Solar

Ground-mounted solar is also a great way to use solar panels for a business that has extra unused land. Often Agribusiness—farms are an excellent place for ground-mounted solar, and the energy produced can help power other facilities on-site to reduce one of the largest monthly expenses—their energy bill.

Parking Canopies

Parking canopies are custom-built solutions that cover the area where your employees or customers park their cars. Businesses appreciate this option because not only does it offer the benefits of affordable clean energy, but it also offers shade and rain protection for cars and people.

Parking Garages and Large Buildings

Large building structures are also a great place to install solar panels. Places like parking garages, distribution centers, and warehouses—these locations offer ample rooftop space just waiting for solar panels to help offset energy costs.

Commercial Shops

Commercial Buildings—as long as you own your location, you can add solar panels to your building and offer your customers and employees the satisfaction of knowing you are a sustainably-minded business.

Let’s talk about how your business can benefit from solar panels. There are many options and ways to install clean, affordable solar for commercial use and with the right incentives and tax credits, you could be the owner of your energy for decades to come.