When trading CFDs, there are certain advantages over physical shares:

Lower entry price

CFDs do not require significant initial capital investments to get going. While it might be nice to purchase 100 shares for $20 each, this means that your investment sits at $2,000 before any gains have been had from those investments. With CFD trading, you can start trading with a much lower amount of capital.

Leverage

It allows you to double the gains and the losses made from your investment. In other words, if you have an investment of $5,000 and decide to trade with a leverage ratio of 1:10, then you will be able to make investments up to $50,000 for every dollar that you spend on margin. You could lose more than this or gain more than this, but it does allow a broader range of opportunities when investing money.

Less currency risk

There is no currency risk in the initial purchase price when using CFDs, unlike traditional stock investments where the currency risks are very prevalent (primarily when investing in foreign stocks).

Short selling is possible

Short selling is a technique where you can sell a stock that you don’t have – but instead, borrow it from someone else – and then repurchase it later when the price has dropped. While this isn’t always possible with all companies, some allow for short selling techniques. It allows you to profit from a drop in stock prices as well as profit from rising ones

Spreads are fixed

Unless your broker offers otherwise, spreads on CFDs will be fixed. What you see is what you get. When trading stocks, spreads aren’t fixed and may vary between brokers, which means it could potentially lead to losses if you’re not careful about which broker you’re using.

Margin call is less of an issue

Margin calls are mostly only an issue when trading stocks (especially if margins aren’t paid or maintained). When trading CFDs with a leverage ratio, you don’t need to worry about the broker calling in your investments immediately because of margin call

Transparency and market depth

CFD market spreads can be different from other markets, so seeing current prices and history information allows you to have a good idea of where prices might move. It allows for better speculative investment opportunities because you’ll know what could happen beforehand. Financial news websites generally provide great insight into this, allowing you to get a better idea of what’s going on in terms of market movements.

No ructions on prices

Unlike some other markets, such as Forex (foreign exchange), CFDs don’t have any ructions within the market. It means that you will not experience significant fluctuations in your investments, and any gains or losses made will be primarily down to yourself and what happens with the market.

You Can Trade 24/7

If you can access an internet connection, then you can trade CFDs anywhere and at any time of the day. Unlike traditional investment markets, they may only open during specific periods (such as stock markets generally open from 9:30 am – 4 pm). With CFD trading, there are no opening hours, making it very easy to make investments whenever you want.

Demo account

If your broker offers a demo account, you can use it to practice trading CFDs with the same tools and functionality as a real account. It allows you to learn better how to trade CFDs and gain some invaluable experience before making any risky investments for real money.

The post 10 Reasons To Trade CFDs Instead Of Stocks appeared first on Techscopy.

A sales pipeline is a term that has been bandied around, and everyone is expected to know what it means. But if you don’t, this guide will tell you everything you need to know. 

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a step-by-step visual representation of a lead’s different stages before becoming a buyer or customer. It is a simple tool that helps businesses get organized, maximize their profits and prevent any leads from falling through the gaps. Since salespersons juggle various deals simultaneously, they need to create a sales pipeline. You can use templates for creating a quick sales pipeline example so that your sales team can get an overview of all their leads. It’ll help them take concrete actions to close deals and bring value to your business. 

Each sales pipeline is unique because sales processes differ from business to business. However, regardless of your business niche, a sales pipeline will:

• Offer accurate business forecasts and enhance your sales process.
• Provide automatic and accurate sales reporting, along with insights into the success of various sales strategies
• Enable you to allocate resources efficiently where required and provide a more personalized, accurate outreach 
• Help your sales team get on top of all the deals, align outreach and message between different teams, and prevent leads from through the gaps.

Difference between a sales pipeline and sales funnel

Often, sales funnel, and sales pipeline are used interchangeably. However, they’re not the same. A sales pipeline represents the stages a prospect goes through to become a customer. On the other hand, a sales funnel represents the number of prospective customers who make it through those stages. 

A sales pipeline looks at the various sales process steps, from gaining a lead to closing the sale. It is brand-oriented as it looks internally at all the stages that your marketing and sales teams need to move a prospective customer through to make them a customer and retain them. While a sales funnel looks at the entire customer journey, from becoming aware of the brand to make a purchase. 

The sales funnel focuses on the customer and looks at all the stages a customer has to go through to purchase. 

Difference between sales pipeline and sale forecast

Sales forecasts and sales pipelines are often confused by people. A sales pipeline includes all the opportunities a salesperson is handling, including newly identified opportunities and those that are ready to close. On the other hand, a sales forecast estimates the opportunities that are likely to close within a specific period. It shows sales managers and salespeople how closely they are trending toward their objectives and helps them prepare for what will come. 

If the sales forecast anticipates that you will miss your quota, you need to double down on selling activities. If the forecast shows you are on track to make 150% of your quota, you would want to scale back your efforts and lay the groundwork for the next month. 

Stages of sales pipeline 

Prospecting 

The first stage in a sales pipeline is prospecting, and it means identifying the people who might have an interest in your offerings. Then, you have to work to ensure your products are visible to them. 

When it comes to prospecting, there are different approaches like:

• Cold prospecting: Cold prospecting is when your team reaches out to prospective clients through different avenues, such as social selling and cold calling. The goal is to reach out to people who haven’t yet engaged with your enterprise and make them a part of your sales pipeline. 
• Warm prospecting: Warm prospecting is focused on making a connection with prospects who have shown interest in your offerings. They have signaled an interest in your service or product and agreed to share their personal information. 

Qualifying 

Once you’ve identified the prospect, the next step is to determine their level of interest to move them through the pipeline. If they’re serious, they will be upgraded to a lead. 

Consideration 

After you have determined a lead fits your criteria, it is time to continue personalized and targeted outreach to them through marketing automation, content distribution, and other channels. 

During this stage, your leads will review your products or services to ensure they fit their budget and business needs. At the same time, they might also review similar products from your competitors. 

When your leads are in the consideration stage, it would be best to provide targeted information to help make informed decisions. 

Purchase or decision 

The purchase step may seem like an easy one to negotiate, but it is not. Since your prospects have stayed loyal to you throughout the preceding steps, you may think it’ll be easy to get them to purchase your product or sign a document. Unfortunately, you cannot breathe a sigh of relief just yet. 

At this stage, your prospect needs to make a decision. Whatever the decision, ensure to keep calm. Even if the decision doesn’t go your way, you must not show your frustration. It is all about maintaining long-lasting relationships so that you can come back to the prospect when your company launches a new product or service. 

Delivery 

You’ll probably get an approved deal if you have moved along your prospect through all the steps mentioned above. But your task isn’t finished after you’ve delivered the product or service to your new client. 

In the delivery stage, it is crucial to make good on any promises you might have made. You can create a seamless transition for the client, moving them from the sales team to working with your customer service professionals. After that, your customer support team works with them to ensure their needs are looked after, and grievances are addressed.

To sum up, a sales pipeline is at the core of achieving sales success. Improve the efforts made by your sales team by refining and creating a sales pipeline that fits your organization.

The post What Is a Sales Pipeline? Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Techscopy.

Instead of going with the full development of the new product, what product entrepreneurs can do is take smaller steps and go with MVP development. This has been a proven approach for startup unicorns like Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, and many others in becoming the success story they are today. 

A minimum viable product lets the entrepreneurs start small and sell the main offering without investing and risking all the resources in one go. They can excel at each version of the product by eliminating all the other unnecessary features and offering just the core proposition – solving the problem the product aims to solve. 

Let’s read further to know the various other reasons why you should start with MVPs as a product entrepreneur. 

MVPs Help Identify Core Value Proposition

Most businesses have different ideas revolving around their product until they meet a team of MVO experts who help them identify the core value proposition. When any entrepreneur undertakes the MVP development process, one of the first steps is to define the user flow and then prioritize the features accordingly. 

While eliminating the added features that would just be nice-to-haves, an entrepreneur can find what their product’s main offering is. As MVP is about offering the simplest version of the product first, the development team’s first step, after complete market and customer research, is to identify the main feature or offering of the product. 

MVPs Mitigate Risks

There are many risks involved in new product development, especially for entrepreneurs who put in all their funds, resources, and efforts into launching one. 

What if people don’t like the product idea or there is no high market demand to get actual returns on the investment?

Moreover, adding too many features in the first go might confuse the target users, and they may end up overwhelmed, not using the product. 

Let’s also count the risks involved if a full product fails – loss of funds, wastage of too much effort and years spent on development, increase in rework required, and much more. 

With MVP development, you start small, so the risks are smaller. The money invested is less, work done is less, time spent on development is just a few months. So, even if there’s a chance that your MVP might fail, it won’t cause such a huge loss. 

MVPs Help Launch Faster

Market demand is a key factor differentiating a successful product from a failed one. And the longer one takes to launch a product; the greater are the chances of getting outcompeted. However, complete product development can take several months, even years, if the ideas and technologies are too complex. 

Product entrepreneurs can launch faster and offer something to their early adopters within weeks by going for MVP development. Building a minimum viable product takes a few weeks, depending on the type of idea and feature complexity. Most companies can build an MVP in two to six months. So, you have a product that can entice the users with the initial idea and even be developed further based on their feedback. 

MVPs Reduce Development Costs

The second most common reason why so many startups fail is that they run out of money during the development process. Over 29% of startups ran out of cash, leading to startup failure, as per CBInsight research. 

By taking smaller steps through an MVP, you can start getting revenues from your product within a year of development. You not just launch faster but also get the opportunity to test your monetization strategy. An MVP development saves costs in terms of the development process, faster release, initial input, mitigating risk, and much more.

Moreover, many startups run out of cash as they are unable to secure funding. An MVP helps you back up your startup pitch to investors and show them a working model of your idea to secure better funding faster. 

MVPs Help Yield Better Insights

An MVP is built on the lean approach of build, measure, learn. And that’s what makes it so effective in product success. You are not just building the product in one go. You build a smaller apportion or the main feature of the product first. You get insights on how the product prototype is working with the customer, and you iterate or pivot.

There are several metrics that the product entrepreneurs can keep track of to measure the success of the MVP. It could be direct feedback, engagement rate, sign-ups, churn rate, net promoter score, average revenue per user, active users, etc. These insights can help you track the customer behavior and incorporate what you analyze into the next versions. 

MVPs Help Build Iteratively

A tried and tested way to fail at startup products is to ignore the customer insights. Many entrepreneurs put their all into launching the full and final product. However, they do not realize that this is a risk that may take their business places or sink. Not only are the risks higher in launching a new product but also there is a lot at stake in case the complete product fails. 

MVP helps you take the iterative approach in product development. This means that you build your product based on the feedback received from the customers. You build a smaller, simpler version of the product, learn from the feedback and keep building in an incremental manner to get the best product out there. 

MVPs Help Test Market Demand

42% of startup products fail to make a mark in the market because there was no market need for it. Their product failed to solve any essential market problem or the problem wasn’t large enough to build a succeeding customer base. Despite including the best technology, expertise, and hiring developers from across the world, their products fail to deliver results. 

Starting with MVPs allows product entrepreneurs to test the market demand with a smaller product before investing their all in it. The MVP is tested on beta testers like friends and family and even early adopters first before expanding. If it receives a positive response, entrepreneurs can go on to scale their product; if not, they can pivot. 

MVPs Help Pivot In Case Of Failure

The coronavirus pandemic showed that businesses need to be agile and swift in pivoting the offering or the business model to meet the evolving customer demand. However, pivoting the complete product, in case it fails, can be draining, not just on the resources but also on the funds, developers, and time. 

By taking an MVP approach, you have the ability to pivot the product’s core competencies based on the feedback received from the customers or their changing needs. It is easier to pivot a business when it is small rather than after you have invested all the funds, time, and developers’ efforts in the same. 

You can easily introduce new features or functionalities, or technologies in the product in the next sprint or version release of the MVP to pivot in case the first version fails. 

MVPs Help Strengthen Pitches

Most startups need funding from investors to build their startup app idea from the ideation phase to the fully-working product. However, approaching investors with nothing but an idea minimizes the chances of impressing them. An MVP can help you strengthen your pitch. 

Approaching an investor with the product prototype can be an important element in your investor pitch. You can show the early outcomes of the prototype and showcase its demand in the market via the feedback and insights received. 

MVPs Help Create Monetization Strategy

Pricing the product right isn’t an easy task. One needs to know if the way they are planning to monetize would work or not before launching the product. This is where an MVP helps. It helps you find the right monetization strategy without investing everything in one go. 

You can know if the audience is willing to pay the price you are expecting for the product or not. It is imperative for product entrepreneurs to know if what the customers are willing to pay covers the cost of development and yields profits or not. 

Moreover, MVP can help you experiment with different monetization strategies like – in-app purchases, premium plans, freemium versions, paid subscriptions, and much more. You can see on the different target audiences with different versions of the product to know if they can pay for the same or not. 

Further, you can put a lower price on the MVP product in the beginning and increase it as you add more features or ask to upgrade plans to unlock more features. MVP offers product entrepreneurs a plethora of opportunities to check how to monetize their product and even price it right based on the response they receive. 

Start With MVP To Succeed

No wonder so many successful startups have started with an MVP. Not only can they start with lesser investment but also launch the product faster to entice the customer early on. It ensures that the product entrepreneurs can launch the product idea into the market without any risks of getting outcompeted. Make sure to build the right team of developers, designers, and QA engineers to launch a quality prototype that is able to connect with the audience and offer them value. It lets you have an actual working product within months that can provide value to people and get insights from them. 

The post Starting with MVPs: Product Entrepreneurs Should Focus On Excelling appeared first on Techscopy.

This is an essential part of marketing. Promoting your business is no doubt a tedious task however, with the advent of social media things have become easier and more budget-friendly especially for new startups. Here is how social media can help promote your business.

Your Business Profile

Your business profile is the very first thing a potential customer or investor will look at. Your business profile should be unique and at the same time should make the purpose of your business crystal clear to your audience. This can be done easily with social media.

Facebook has a good option of building a profile right in the beginning which catches your audience’s eye as soon as they land on your page. Make sure you give complete information which includes the link to your online store, or website, and proper contact info which includes your email address and phone number.

Use Hashtags

Instagram has been working on hashtags for a long time now. You can use hashtags to promote and advertise your business in your captions and in your bio too. While all of us know that it is important to post regularly to keep our followers interested in our business and the product and services it has to offer we often forget that the right and meaningful hashtags below our pictures can have a good impact as it allows people to search for our product more often.

Cross Promotions Are Amazing

Cross promotions are something that most people shy away from. However, it is an effective tactic to increase your traffic and consequently potential customers. Cross promotions mean that you ask your existing followers on one social media platform to follow your other social media accounts too. It is a great way to advertise your business.

However, make sure that the content you post any social media platform should be relevant meaningful and appropriate to your audience. Use your social media space wisely. For example, you can use the initial bio section on Facebook and Instagram to mention your other social media links. This way you can use one platform to promote all other social media profiles you have.

Access to Your Website

Gone are the days when people use to go and type out your website on google chrome. These days everyone wants to see your online store or website with one click. You may already have an idea of the importance of a website in this digital era of technology. Just like it is advisable to have a website it is also imperative to make it accessible to your potential customers too.

This is where social media comes in. You can easily promote your website while posting content and of course in your bio too. So use these spaces to promote and increase traffic on your website. While there may be other methods to do increase traffic like PPC marketing, and SEO marketing social media may be one of the least expensive options to market your business.

Make Ads

Gone are the days when television used to be the primary source of advertisements for a business. Now in the day and age of social media, you can be as creative as you want with your ads, target a very specific audience, and also avoid the hassle of going through the tedious process of getting your advertisements run like in the era of television. Social media allows you to filter the people you want to make your advertisement available. This may be based on age, gender, and even hobbies.

Tagging Products

This is fairly a new addition to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram but extremely helpful for business owners. Facebook and Instagram have introduced tags that look like shopping bags which you can use with your posts. Clicking these tags will redirect the customer to a page that will give more details and a brief description of the product. Make this description as interesting as possible to keep the interest of your customer.

Social Media Discounts

Discounts are something that every customer loves. These make the customer happy and also ensure sales and revenue for your business. Make your social media page a platform for getting discount codes in posts, stories, and pictures. You can even have giveaways which are a very good way to increase your sales. When you offer discount codes people will visit your page often and while searching for a discount they may also stumble on some new products or services you have launched.

Final Thoughts

Social media is one of the most convenient and easiest ways to market your business. All you need is a computer and a working internet connection with an affordable package which you can find easily at FirstEnergy Com. You need to strategize and wisely use the space that your social media platform provides you to reap the maximum benefits for your business. If your business allows you, you may also hire a social media strategist for your business.

The post How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Business appeared first on Techscopy.

An excellent choice is a professional multi touch table. Due to its autonomy and dimensions, an interactive table can be placed anywhere: at the entrance to the sales area, at the reception, inside a showroom and so on. The multi touch surface, a built-in computer and special multitouch software guarantee a wide range of functions.

A new age of digital furniture for businesses

Modern furniture has become not only functional, but also accessible by touch – it comes with the ability to interact with the user. With Covid-19, it is a great option for companies to get these interactive tables for in house sales meetings and other business activities.

The multi touch table technology is rapidly gaining popularity. Having an electronic filling inside, such a device allows you to perform pitches and all kind of presentations several times faster and more impressive for the audience. 

The surface of the touch board is equipped with a capacitive touch screen that can be operated with your fingers. Thanks to new technologies, the user, while working at the table, can simultaneously work with several active applications or with other users.

Variations of touch tables are quite rich. There are models from 32 to 65 inches. The price for a touch table depends precisely on its quality and technical parameters.

Where can touch tables be used?

Due to their versatility, such devices can be found in lots of companies all around the world. Most often they are installed:

• In museums, historical and cultural centres so that residents and guests of the city can get interesting additional and useful information for them.
• During various promotions and advertising campaigns, exhibitions, and events for advertising information.
• In corporate showrooms to inform and entertain guests like investors, clients, and employees.
• At trade fairs to present innovations, products, and services in a playful way.

Why have multi touch tables become so popular?

Touch tables allow to establish feedback with the user and improve the quality of informing or serving visitors and customers. Due to the mass of advantages, such interactive devices are in great demand all over the world. Let us highlight the main ones:

• The presence of virtually every size and shape, which allows them to be installed in any corporate environment.
• Reliable and easy to maintain, equipped with a rugged sensor (it is noteworthy that some models of touch tables are equipped with tempered glass, which makes them particularly durable and can be installed in public places with a large crowd of people).
• The range of settings is quite wide, thanks to which the panel can be configured for contact with fingers and for capacitive objects/markers.
• The ability to get information is very easy and intuitive for the user.
• Allows several users to work at the same time (multi-user).
• Any media can be connected to the device, as well as interact with other touch devices and AV-equipment.

The only drawback of the multi touch table is its rather high cost. However, such a device pays for itself quickly if the company makes use of it regularly.

Can the multi touch table replace other devices and equipment?

Answering this question, we can say yes! The wide functionality of the device allows you to use it for a variety of business purposes and save money. What can you use such equipment as?

• As equipment for impressive multimedia presentations in showrooms.
• As negotiation table with all necessary information at your fingers.
• As a multi-functional terminal for customer service.
• As an info point containing touch maps and information about location and objects.
• As equipment for conducting training sessions in educational organizations.

Final Words

When deciding to buy a multi touch table for an organization, you should first decide for what business purpose it will be used. A professional vendor will customize the multitouch hardware and software in response.

The post How Multi Touch Tables Add Value to Your Business? appeared first on Techscopy.

Prioritize Flexibility

Small businesses vary widely in terms of employee, inventory and transaction requirements. A retail storefront or service-based business may have very different needs. Clover Network makes several types of hardware and two system software packages. This is to deliver the perfect POS solution for any operation. Choose from the Clover Go, Flex, Mini or Station hardware and Register Lite or full-featured Register software.

However, If flexibility in terms of the ability to accept all common types of payment at almost any location is a priority, business owners may want to consider the Clover Flex. This handheld, all-in-one system is capable of taking orders and accepting most forms of payment. This system has a camera for scanning inventory. A touch-screen display for easy input and taking customer signatures. And a built-in receipt printer.

Promote Visibility

If you want to direct customers toward a counter for more comprehensive service, consider setting up a Clover Station POS system. The Station is the fastest and largest hardware that Clover makes. The Station 2.0 features a larger primary display to facilitate a wide range of operational and transactional functions. A Station with Register software provides business owners with features such as employee fingerprint scanning and the ability to handle gift cards and rewards programs.

The Clover Station has the most options in terms of back- and front-facing visibility. In addition to the primary screen used by an employee, businesses have the option to install customer-facing displays or printers. The software on these systems is designed to provide all parties with a simple, streamlined user experience. Clover displays and peripherals can make the ordering and payment systems at any location more interactive and increase customer satisfaction.

Process Payments

Every Clover system from the Go, Flex and Mini up to the Station can process a full range of payment methods. Clover hardware comes ready to accept cards with magnetic stripes, EMV chips and a variety of contactless payment methods. The rates for processing card present and keyed-in transactions may vary based on your choice of a system software plan. Business owners and operators can also get a cash drawer to add on to the Clover Mini or Station for added functionality.

Similarly, It is important to consider the primary purpose of a POS system at a business and factor in the potential of an advanced system. If an operation can benefit from rolling out a portable system for taking orders and processing payments, a business owner may be satisfied with the Clover Flex. Enterprises with more advanced inventory needs may want to use the Clover Station or an integrated solution combining Station and Flex hardware. Now that you have read it all, it will be easier for you to choose between Clover flex vs Clover Station.

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