It seems there’s a new lifestyle movement cropping up every five minutes. Whether it’s keeping fit, eating healthier or becoming more politically active, there’s plenty for us to choose from. But does the lifestyle change or new fad effect more than just the individual? Could a bunch of people deciding to become vegans impact on your industry?

Here are a few examples to consider:

• If people are getting fit are they less likely to buy your wine?
• If someone can work from home, will they think twice about whether they need to buy a car?
• If a person switches to a vegan diet, is it going to impact on your animal farming business?
• If consumers are changing to online shopping, will it reduce the number of people visiting your retail shop?

There is absolutely no doubt that changes in behaviour on a large scale can have a significant impact on businesses and different sectors.

Veganism and Dairy Farming

The rise of the vegan movement over the last few years, according to some, has certainly had an impact on the dairy industry. Vegans are a step up from vegetarians in that they don’t include any animal products (including dairy and eggs) in their nutrition. This means they don’t go out and buy milk or cheese but opt for substitutes instead. Vegans point to the environment and health benefits of their lifestyle but also the way in which animals are treated by farmers.

According to the Telegraph, the number of vegans has risen in the UK by 360% over the last ten years. This has been driven in part by various celebrities who have promoted their lifestyle with TV programmes and books. The change is seen mostly in the young, those in their late teens and early twenties, creating a population that takes its nutrition seriously. There are half a million vegans in the UK right now. But what about in another ten years, twenty?

Of course, there are still plenty of people who buy milk and cheese at their local supermarket and dairy farmers have a lot more to worry about than just the rise of the vegan lifestyle.  One of their main issues is the price milk is being sold for, as well as non-vegans opting for dairy alternatives.

Going Green and Energy

Another movement that is perhaps having a bigger impact is the desire to live in a greener, cleaner, less climate compromised world. The ability to switch utility suppliers has given consumers more of a choice and those that want to see more renewable technologies can now opt to sign up with companies that have sustainability at the heart of their operation. This in turn has led to more businesses coming onto the market that are divesting themselves of fossil fuel supplies and promising that their power comes from wind, solar and hydro rather than nuclear and coal fired sources. It’s also made bigger utility companies improve their sustainable credentials.

Utilities are being forced to accept renewables via the EU and climate change regulations and agreements. But those in the green lifestyle are having their impact as well.

The Impact of Changing Behaviour in the Population

Lifestyle changes don’t happen easily on a large scale. Usually there is a small number of people adopting a particular fad. New Year resolutions where we try to get healthier may well impact on the local pub or reduce wine sales for a short while but they normally recover. To create any significant change, large numbers of the population need to take up a particular behaviour and maintain it for a long period of time to cause significant disruption.

This has happened in the past. Each generation exerts its own force on the market place. Millennials were largely responsible for the response to using social media and growing our digital connectedness online. The new Generation Z are more tuned into health and fitness than ever before. According to Forbes:

“Gen Z knows a lot (or think they do), and they think a lot about being ‘balanced.’ More so than any other generation, Gen Z looks to exercise as a way to treat or prevent illness, and it is particularly relevant for emotional and stress-related issues.”

Each emerging demographic is going to change the world in their own way. The impact on industry could be major or subtle, depending on how a certain lifestyle movement develops and ingrains itself in the popular psyche. It’s not all destructive for industry either. The rise of the fitness and wellbeing lifestyle has been a boon to the bicycle manufacturers with more of us getting out on our bikes. Health food shops are getting better business and supermarkets now offer a more diverse range of products than they did just 30 years ago.

Could a lifestyle movement impact your industry? Certainly, especially if you fail to adapt and the change becomes more popular. In general, the number of individuals who adopt a new lifestyle is not disruptive enough to fatally damage a whole industry, there are just too many of us with diverse views of the world – that doesn’t mean, however, that it couldn’t happen in the future.

For most businesses, energy savings and eco-friendly processes are not only vital for reducing your carbon footprint but can be ways of saving money at the same time. It doesn’t matter whether you are a large corporation or a small business, sustainability is the name of the game and it’s becoming increasingly important.

Fortunately, there are numerous ways for you to act right now and significantly lower your carbon footprint.

1. Switch to LED

One option that many businesses are going for is the switch to LED lighting. While these new bulbs and fluorescents cost more than filament or CFL varieties, they last up to five times longer and use far less electricity. An average 12W CFL bulb is the equivalent of a 6W LED bulb. On top of that LED reduces CO2 emissions and they can dramatically improve the light quality in your office.

2. Get Better Insulation

If you have an office in an old building, then it may be that you are losing heat through poor, ineffective insulation. This not only adds to the cost of your fuel bills but greatly increases your carbon footprint. Reviewing your office space and improving the insulation can mean you provide a healthier environment for your employees whilst cutting the amount you pay out to utility companies.

3. Overhaul Your Heating

Many businesses also have old or inefficient heating systems that can mean great cost savings if replaced. The current Government is committed to decarbonising the UK’s heating over the next couple of decades and there are subsidies for businesses through the Renewable Heat Incentive to introduce certain types of technology. These include biomass boilers and heat pumps which are considered low carbon solutions. The return on investment on these heating systems more than offsets the initial cost of changing your system and will also lower your carbon footprint by moving you away from heating that uses fossil fuels.

4. Develop Carbon Friendly Practices

Much can be achieved by small changes to the way your business operates and many of them are low cost solutions that simply require a change of viewpoint.

• Switching off the lights: If your business is leaving on lights or devices and draining power when no one is there, you’re not only boosting your carbon footprint but adding to your utility bills.
• Introduce smart meters and devices: Having a better idea of when and how you use your power means you can then do something about it. The latest smart meters can do just that and allow you to have a deeper level of control. If you have the budget, you can also introduce smart devices that switch off lights when offices are not in use.
• Use less paper: Switching to digital practices also means you end up printing out much less. Does a client really need a hard copy of a document or can you send it directly to his or her mobile device? The latest multi-function printers not only use less power, they can enable you to switch to more efficient ways of disseminating information.
• Associate with Green Suppliers: It’s not just your business that adds to your carbon footprint. Your suppliers and even your consumers can have an impact. If you depend on certain suppliers it might be a good time to check their own green credentials and make sure these align with your own.
• Skype don’t drive: We have more technology at our fingertips than ever before. Do you or your employees have to drive to that meeting or can it be conducted using video conferencing platforms? These are far more reliable nowadays and will save you money on fuel and lower your carbon emissions even further.

5. Recycling for Businesses

In the UK, businesses have a responsibility to recycle all their waste. Most do this but many aren’t aware of the waste management hierarchy. This encourages making the most of your waste, repurposing and reusing first before sending to recycling. This is important and taking a regular look at how much waste you produce and the processes you can introduce to reduce it is also vital in reducing your carbon footprint.

6. Swapping to Solar

If you have the money, as well as the space, you can switch to a different and sustainable energy source: Solar. A number of high profile businesses, including IKEA, have installed solar panels on their outlets in recent years. The return on investment for solar is still reasonably good despite the reduction in the Feed in Tariff last year. The research and development now being carried out on storage mechanisms for solar may also mean that businesses in the future can become fully self-sufficient when it comes to electricity production.

Budget doesn’t need to be a bar on lowering your carbon footprint. Simple changes to your operating practices can have a significant impact on your emissions. These are also a great marketing tool as many consumers are now looking to deal with and buy from businesses that have sustainability at their heart. It might just be time to review your processes and implement some changes that make a big difference.

Despite a controversial presentation at Cannes back in 2014 that questioned the need for briefs in the marketing world, they are still very much an integral part to design and development. They allow for a structured and strategic approach to a project at hand, effectively identifying problems and processes that need to be taken to complete a project in an efficient manner. Below, we lay out how to set an effective design brief.

What is a design brief?

A design brief is essentially a project management tool that allows you to identify key factors of an upcoming project, such as its scope, scale, and core. If undertaken properly, the design brief can become an important tool in keeping a project on track and achieving the best results possible. Think of it as a business plan, but for a piece of design.

A design brief is meant for your business and for the designer that you will be working with, and it’s important to include said designer in the design brief formulation process. Chances are they know more about design than you do, so it’s crucial to get their feedback, clarify any objectives or goals, and to set measurable timelines.

Other benefits of using a design brief are that they give all the necessary insights and vision into how you want the design to look, succinctly lay out your expectations to the designer, and keeps workers focused and on track.

What should be in a design brief?

While a design brief will vary from business to business, all will contain similar core sections.

A company profile

Your design brief should include a detailed background on your company so that the designer is able to get an appropriate feel for the ethos and culture of your brand. Such things to include are:

• Details of your company, such as name and products
• Your unique selling point (USP)
• What your brand’s mission and values are
• The key points of contact within your business
• List of any competitors, both direct or indirect
• Who your target audience are

A project overview

While the first bit helps to set background to the company, the project overview section will be the part that defines the context and aims of the project itself. You want to make this section as clear and detailed as possible so that the designer does not need to continuously contact you with more questions.

You can formulate this section by answering key questions such as “what are we doing with the project?” and “why are we doing it?”. It is useful to tackle these questions with the designer, as it is likely that they will prod and poke to gain answers to other questions you hadn’t even thought about.

The goals and overview of a project

While the project overview sets the context for the design project at hand, the goals and overview will clearly define what it is that you hope to achieve through this project. Keep these clear, succinct, and easily measurable.

You want to make sure that you keep your designer accountable, and if your goals are confusing or complex, then it could lead to issues further down the line. By clearly laying out exactly what it is that you hope to achieve from your project, your designer will know exactly how to work.

Design requirements and your budget

Finally, you’ll need to provide the design requirements, such as any resolutions and file formats, as well as the budget and schedule that you had in mind. You may need to be flexible when it comes to the latter two, but as with the above point, keeping these things clearly defined will mean there is no room for misunderstanding when your designer receives their brief.

Setting a good design brief

The most important thing when it comes to setting a good design brief is to keep it clear and detailed. You don’t want your designer to have to keep coming back to you with more questions; the more you include in the design brief then the better a feel they can get of your brand and exactly what you want. This, in turn, will lead to a well-developed design project.

It can be a daunting process when beginning to plan for the year ahead, especially when surrounded by all kinds of taxes, laws, outgoings, incomings, employee satisfaction, and everything else that goes into running a successful business.

As with any problem or situation in life, it helps to break down your year ahead into chunks, each treated as its own separate entity that works towards the larger goal. Below we explore how to plan in quarters.

Why should you plan in quarters?

The objective of planning in quarters helps to break down your year ahead and make it much more achievable. How many of us have set New Year’s resolutions only to give up when we think of how daunting a process it seems for the year ahead?

The aim is to plan quarterly objectives which will all work towards your annual goal. This, in turn, can then be used to plan ahead and work towards your three, five, ten (or another number) year goal based around your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).

To start planning your quarterly goals, you must first start with the big picture. Decide what it is that you ultimately want to achieve with your business, and then you can begin to break this down into five years, yearly and quarterly plans. It’s important that whatever you decide to include in a quarterly goal works towards your larger aims.

How should you plan quarterly?

To help with deciding on your quarterly plans, below we have listed out five tips to get you creating a robust structure for the year ahead:

1. Give yourself enough time for business planning

It’s important that you don’t leave your quarterly planning until the last minute and just quickly whip together some things that you’d like to achieve for the year. The amount of time that you need to leave to planning will depend on the size of your business, but be sure to leave yourself enough time to put a solid quarterly plan in place.

2. Review your results from the previous quarter

Businesses work on figures, facts, and insights, and how better to plan your next quarter than by looking at how things went the previous quarter? Perhaps you set goals that were unrealistic or maybe you exceeded expectations? Adapt your upcoming quarter based on results previously achieved.

3. Refine your quarterly plan

Building on your previous quarter’s results, use this to adapt your plan moving forward. Think about what parts of the business are working well, where you can look to improve productivity, and how you can achieve the most successful quarter possible.

4. Identify both your personal and business goals

Don’t forget to factor in your own personal goals when planning your next business quarter. This is vital in maintaining a good work-life balance and ensuring that you can give your quarterly business goals the focus and attention that they need.

5. Make your goals accountable and measurable

It’s no good setting large goals that are open for interpretation. Your goals need to be realistic and measurable based in a certain time frame. For this, we recommend setting SMART goals for your business quarter:

Specific – goals that are clear and defined
Measurable – goals that can be easily measured through a certain result
Achievable – are your goals realistically achievable?
Relevant – are you quarterly goals relevant to your business and annual aims?
Time-measured – ensure that your goals have set time stamps to them to allow them to be more measurable

Planning your business’ quarters

Each and every business is different, and it’s important that you take the time to properly think about and plan quarters that will have the most beneficial impact on your business. Setting unachievable aims for goals that aren’t specific enough will lead to poor quarters, poor years, and then, ultimately, a poor business.

However, keeping your year structured into four separate, robust quarters will help to break down what can seem like daunting business aims, helping you to achieve the business results that you are after.

The biggest risk you can take is not taking any. This is a motto that should be emblazoned across every entrepreneur’s heart. Your business needs you to take risks because success won’t just fall in your lap.

In 2005 Hamdi Ulukaya took a risk, he went against his lawyer’s wishes and purchased a small derelict factory in upstate New York in order to start producing his own brand of Yoghurt. This brand is now known as Chobani and is netting more than £1 billion in annual sales.

So what benefits do I get from taking risks? How does it help me and my business become a groundbreaking company? Here are just a few reasons why risk is every business person’s friend.

A risk taker gets a first mover advantage

The first mover is a phenomenon often studied in contemporary economics. In short, this idea argues that if you are the first to move into a specific market or industry, you will gain a competitive advantage. Being the first mover allows you to acquire a significant majority of the market as well as generate superior brand recognition and customer loyalty. Even when competitors try to capitalise on your company’s success, the advantage of the first mover is enough to remain on top.

Examples of first movers are littered through all industries and sectors. Just take eBay, the first company to take auctions online. Due to its risk taking to become the first mover, eBay has dominated the online auctioning process and now earns annual revenue of well over £6 billion.

Due to economic, cultural and technological changes, there will always be new markets. So if you spot a new trend or gap in the market then pounce, take a risk and be the first mover. Playing it safe and thus refusing to be a market leader, will never allow you to become a groundbreaking company.

Risky marketing techniques can pay off big

When businesses play safe in marketing it often leads to little real gain. However, when risks are taken the outcomes can be astonishing.

For example, HelloFlo launched in 2013, is a subscription service that sends packages to women each month filled with sanitary products and other helpful items. Business started slow. The traditional marketing techniques generated little growth and sales.

Because of this, HelloFlo decided to take a risk and produce an ad in the form of a short Youtube clip. This was not the traditional, boring and safe ad often produced by sanitary product companies. Instead HelloFlo took a risk to create a short, honest and hilarious ad that took on the often taboo subject. Their ad below named ‘Camp Gyno’ has now been watched over 11 million times and has been a viral success boosting sales along with it.

You only can get this kind of success by taking a risk.

Risk to combat stagnation and decline

A significant proportion of entrepreneurs that are afraid of taking risks allow their business to fall into stagnation and decline. It’s easy to get stuck in the same habits in your comfort zone. But ignoring dynamic risk based growth will always damage your business. Top performing entrepreneurs are always adding a little risk, whether that’s by experimenting with products, prices, rebranding or re-inventing their companies.

Risk and loss can make you stronger

Beyond the financial opportunities posed by taking risks, there is also the possibility for internal growth and development.

But don’t take it from me, Heather Rabbatts, the first female non-executive director of The Football Association says this:

“I think I’ve always felt that there was something quite exciting about taking risks. And there’s a great saying, actually, that you only learn when you are at risk and I’m fascinated by both risk and learning, so that has led me to take jobs that people would think ‘you can’t do that, that’s just impossible.’ No it won’t be.”

We learn from risks and we learn from loss. These lessons lead us on new paths and make us stronger.

Risk taking doesn’t have to be dangerous

Risk taking isn’t synonymous with recklessness. With every risk comes the responsibility to minimise their threats and maximise their potential.

Always identify what and how things can and might go wrong. Devise contingency plans from this and place strategies to deal with it.

As we move into the second quarter of 2016 it is a good time to take stock of your piles of papers, documents and statements and assess what can be shredded, what should be kept and what can be saved online. This guide will help you to decide what to do with all of your paperwork and prevent it from piling up around you.

Things that should always be saved

There are some types of documents that will never be replaced by online copies – you will always need originals of certain important papers. It is a good idea to invest in a safety deposit box or a fireproof safe to ensure that these items never get damaged, stolen or lost.

Remember – safety deposit box can be useful, but they are only accessible during banking hours. Some of these documents could require immediate access.

Always Save Physical Copies Of the Following:

• Birth certificates for all family members
• Marriage licenses and/ or divorce decrees
• National Insurance Card (if you have one)
• Pension plan documents
• Copies of your investment portfolio
• Military records and discharge papers
• A copy of your will, living will, health care proxies, powers of attorney and trusts (remember, your attorney and executor should also have copies of this)
• An inventory of your safety deposit box
• Life insurance policies
• House insurance policies

Paperwork that you can shred

• Bank statements – Many people suggest that you keep at least one year’s worth of bank statements (and some even recommend five), but in today’s day and age these are available on your online banking website and easy to access when you need them. In fact, many banks are going paperless and only offering online statements. If you are still receiving paper statements and you want to be extra cautious, you can always scan them and save them to the cloud, but otherwise – go ahead and shred.
• Credit card bills – The same goes for credit card bills – it is very rare that a bank will not have these stored online, ready to be accessed if you need to dispute a charge or balance your accounts. These can safely be shredded, but again – you might want to store a scanned copy to the cloud.
• Tax returns and all supporting documents older than 7 years – If you have been lugging around bulky cabinets of old tax return information for your small business, now is the time to assess and shred. If seven years have passed you can no longer be audited and so you no longer need these papers. If you want to keep them for your own use, scan them and store them online.
• Pay stubs and statements – Keep these for one year, and ensure that they match your end of year statement. Once a year has passed, you can happily shred these. You may want to keep a copy on the cloud for your own records.
• Investment monthly statements – Keep all confirmations and statements until you can see them detailed on your monthly report, and then feel confident in shredding them.
• Utility bills and phone bills: Don’t shred these space wasters until you’ve paid them, unless they contain any tax-deductible expenses. Look into whether you can have your bills switched from paper to electronic versions.

Paperwork to keep (only for long as you own the object):

• Appliance manuals and warranties – This information should be kept handy, just in case something happens to the item and you need to fix it, cash in the warranty or contact the company.
• Loan documents and vehicle titles – Keep these in a safe place that is also easily accessible, as having them on hand will save you a lot of time and effort should something go wrong.
• Your home and mortgage documents – This can include the deed to your home, any records of your purchase, all improvement and inspection record and all of your mortgage agreements.

What to store on the cloud

The options of what information you can store on the cloud are endless – any document, picture, file or music can be uploaded, making it accessible from anywhere on the planet, as long as you are connected to the internet. Cloud storage has many benefits as well, namely that it is cheap. Storing tons of digital data in a data storage system can be costly, while cloud storage provides an alternative at a fraction of the cost.

Of course, after many high profile security leaks, many people are rightfully concerned about the security of cloud storage. Is it really a secure method? The answer is yes – as long as you select a well reviewed cloud company that has a proven track record of excellence. Here are some tips on how to choose a good cloud storage provider.

Here are just a few things that you might want to store on the cloud:

• Manuals and protocols – If you own a small business, it can be costly and time consuming to print out employee manuals for new hires. Instead, direct them to a shared folder on DropBox or similar where they can find all of the information that they will need. This can save you reams of paper and a lot of clutter.
• Lists and old emails – If you are planning to save any online correspondence, lists or writing for sentimental values or business purposes, resist printing them out and instead store them to the cloud.
• Photos – The cloud is the perfect place to store photos, music and other files that take up room on your hard drive – and on your physical desk!
• Music – This one is more about keeping a clutter free computer (rather than your physical space), but storing your music online is the best way to save space on your hard drive.

As you can see, there are plenty of choices for how you can store your documents while keeping them safe, clutter free and well organised.