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1. Easy To Find?

Your first test may sound like an obvious one, but does the legal training provider make it easy for you to find them? If you go onto the internet and do a search on core search terms such as “legal training” and “legal training courses”, are you able to find a selection of providers of courses? This is where everyone starts their search now and any company that is not only up to date with its subject matter should also be keeping up to date with the latest trends in how prospective clients will find their business.

So step one is to start your search on the internet.

2. A Variety Of Courses?

Do they have a variety of different types of legal training courses, or do they only offer one or two specialist courses that they run again and again? If you are looking for a training provider that you can use again and again (if they run the right quality of training course) you want to make sure that you can use them for a variety of training courses so if they have more than one course on offer and you try it and like it, you can return for many different courses without having to go through the search and selection process each time.

Do they have a variety of courses on offer?

3. Do They Offer A Free Newsletter/Training Updates?

Your time as a solicitor, personnel manager or partner is best spent working on the main aspects of your job rather than hunting around on the internet for new courses. Therefore, if the website you find offers a free newsletter in which they announce their new course dates and locations, this can save you a considerable amount of time.

Finding a supplier of legal training with a newsletter update service is the next step.

4. Do They Offer Training In A Variety Of Locations?

Can you attend the training courses in more than one location, or do they tend to only offer training in once location close to their premises? Whilst it may be easier for the training company to use their own premises, you need a provider that can serve your local legal training needs, so finding a trainer with courses in different locations could be important to save you time.

5. Do They Seem Approachable?

When you are choosing a provider, you want to make sure that you are dealing with someone that makes it as easy as possible for you to approach them with any questions about current or upcoming courses. Does their website make it easy for you to contact them? Is there a telephone number clearly displayed, an email address easy to find and a booking or general inquiry form? These are items you would expect to find as a bare minimum.

In addition, once you make contact, do they respond quickly to your inquiry, and when you contact them do they sound grateful for your inquiry (not desperate but happy to talk with you) and do they follow up as they say that they will do?

You are looking for someone with the complete package and being easy to approach is important to make your job in finding courses as easy as possible.

6. Is There Good Feedback From Previous Course Attendees?

The next step is a very important one; is there excellent feedback from other people that have already attended their legal training courses? If you are looking for a long term training partner, you want to ensure that they consistently deliver excellent courses. If you have not yet attended one, the only way you can have any feel for this is by looking at the feedback from other solicitors that have already attended.

Good feedback is vital

7. Do They Specialize?

Moving on the nature of the training itself, one thing that you might want to find is a provider that specialises in the same area of law that you do. If you specialize in banking or finance, a course provider that only provides legal training for this sector is likely to go into far more depth and offer a larger variety of training courses because it is their “specialist subject”. Likewise, if you specialize in personal injury law, a personal injury course provider should offer you far more variety than a general legal training provider.

Specialism in one subject area is likely to give you more bespoke training in your chosen area of law.

8. What Type Of Training Do They Provide?

Legal training is legal training, or is it? Whereas it used to be quite acceptable for a barrister to stand at the front of a lecture style theater and recite his case notes and thoughts on statute, that style of training has been proven to be least effective. After 15 minutes of the same person speaking, whoever they are and however good they are, people begin to lose interest.

Practical, interactive courses with case studies where you are made to apply what you have just learned are the most effective way of learning. Does your prospective new legal training provider carry out their training in this way or the old, traditional lecture style which is less effective.

Practical and interactive with case studies should ensure you obtain the best results.

9. Do They Have Their Own Qualification?

If your legal training provider specializes in one area you might expect them to have their own qualification. This will show they have real expertise in their area of law and have been providing this type of training for sometime. Even if the qualification is too junior for you, or too senior, the fact that they have their own bespoke qualification shows a commitment to improve the standards in their field of law and shows a long term approach to their business.

You are looking for a committed provider that will be around to provide your legal training for many years to come, and having their own qualification is a good indication that you have found the right provider.

10. Do They Belong To Or Are They Associated With A Trade Body?

If a training provider is connected to, or associated with a well respected professional body this provides you with certainty as regards their long term future. However, perhaps more importantly it also means that they will be actively involved in new legislation and discussions with the government, the results of which they can pass on to you through their training courses. This will put you in the position of being ahead of many of your competitors.

Summary

From the ease of use to find a training provider, through ease of contact, specialism and type of training, all of these points should help you to find the legal training provider that can meet and exceed your legal training needs.

One of the biggest decisions a small business has to make is investing in the right software solutions. Technology is a key asset for any-sized business; day-to-day operations are dependent on it. In today’s competitive business landscape, it has become essential for small businesses to leverage technology – software solutions in particular – to maximize productivity and keep operational expenses low. Before start-ups can leverage technology, they must first purchase or acquire the right software solutions to meet the demands of their business. This task is not doubt an intensive one requiring time and effort. But it doesn’t have to drive you up the wall.

Fix your budget

As a small business, it’s natural that budget would be your first concern. You will need to decide what part of your total budget can be committed towards purchase of software. Will you be able to afford a large up-front payment or do you prefer to make monthly payments? Once you set your budget, you can explore sources of funding as well as payment arrangements.

Determine your needs

The solution to any business problem starts with identifying needs. What value will the certain software solution deliver to your business? What software is good-to-have but not entirely necessary for your line of work? These are some decisions you need to make. The software needs of a small freight trucking business may be different from that of a content marketing start-up. By understanding your priorities and examining the processes you currently have in place and expect to include in the future, you can chalk out a list of key requirements. As part of this process, you will also be identifying the key areas within your business where software solutions can be deployed.

Here is a look at some of the common areas of business where the use of software for daily operations becomes necessary:

Accounting: Accounting and book-keeping are rather mundane tasks that you’d rather have a software product to help you with! On a serious note, it is imperative that your small business tracks finances efficiently and without any errors. If you need a centralized accounting and bookkeeping system from which you can pull tax or expenses data quickly, a well-rated accounting software is the way to go.

Desktop accounting software for small businesses

1. AccountEdge Pro 2012

Pros: Fully-featured, easy to use, a good choice for multi-user support

Cons: Importing data from other programs is not easy

2. Intuit QuickBooks 2012

Pros: A good choice for accounting newbies, easy set-up, a convenient calendar view, allows sharing of custom report templates

Cons: A lack of inventory features, limited user support

Some online and SaaS (software as a service) accounting options

1. Freshbooks

Pros: Helps in document and project management, offers several add-ons

Cons: Little online help, can get expensive for multiple users (starts out free and goes up to $149 per month)

2. Outright

Pros: Available for free, easy interface

Cons: Does not support electronic tax payments or state tax tracking

3. Kashoo

Pros: Available free (allows a maximum of 20 transactions a month), excellent interface

Cons: Does not offer item-tracking or US payroll

Inventory management: If timely and efficient order fulfillment is the difference between gaining and losing customers, you will need assistance from a top-notch inventory management software. It will help you track and control inventory and handle orders, sales, purchases and deliveries.

Free inventory management software:

1. Pos Maid

Pros: Simple to build inventory database, automatic stock report generation, good customer service

Cons: none as far as small businesses go

2. inFlow Inventory

Pros: Easy to use, excellent linking of inventory with sales and purchase

Cons: Creation of custom documents is not as easy as it can be

Ecommerce software: If you are a B2B or B2C ecommerce business, you may want to invest in software applications that allow you to sell your offerings and conduct business online. The simplest shopping cart software, for instance, will serve as a real-world order form that allows convenient sale-purchase over the internet. There are different kinds of shopping cart software you can choose from, so you may want to consider the pros and cons of each before zeroing in on one. You have the option to buy or lease software; you can also choose open-source applications that have a strong developer community.

Popular open source ecommerce platforms:

1. Magento

Pros: Market leader, highly scalable, built-in SEO, free

Cons: Needs efficient and careful management (especially as your online store grows)

2. osCommerce

Pros: Easy to install and use, free, top-notch front-end features, simplified product management

Cons: Not easily customizable, frustrating back-end

3. Zen Cart

Pros: Free, excellent product/service management, several free and paid templates

Cons: Reporting is too basic, add-on integration is not easy

Social media management software: If your social media presence is an important sales driver and you don’t have the time or the resources to offer real-time responses, investing in social conversation software like Hootsuite and Sprout Social makes sense. On the other hand, if you want to be an active social media player by understanding the interests and spheres of influence of social media participants, social influencer software like Klout could be useful. For creating customized Facebook applications and promotions on YouTube and other social media channels, opt for social marketing software.

1. HootSuite

Pros: Easy to set up columns and search by list, hashtag, handle, etc; provides basic Facebook and Twitter analytics, easy to schedule tweets

Cons: Nothing to speak of, very handy for small businesses

2. VerticalResponse

Pros: Integrates email and social media very well, ideal for less tech-savvy business owners

Cons: More tech-savvy business owners may prefer something less basic

3. Sprout Social

Pros: Easy user interface, useful feedback

Cons: Small business plan is available for $39 per month and supports 20 profiles

Logistics software: If you need to handle multiple shipping partners for your online import-export business, you can add a good logistics software to the list. Do a bit of research to identify the best paid and open source logistics software in the market.

Data analysis software: If your work involves extracting, analyzing and manipulating data on a regular basis, a data analysis software can help. The software is also useful to handle massive amounts of data – you can accumulate and organize it easily, efficiently and quickly. Some of the big data pools you may need to handle in a well-organized manner include employee information, product information and customer information. The right CRM or HR software can help you accomplish this and stay on top of your business.

Project management software: Managing multiple projects takes more than just a highly-competent project manager; it requires clearly defined objectives and steps of action from planning to implementation. Project management software can provide a roadmap, help manage risks and define goals/work for every member of the project team.

Project management software can help with milestones, calendars, scheduling and tasks. It can also provide chat and forum support by enabling online communication between teams, vendors and freelancers.

Tips on choosing project management software:

It must fit your business and allow business systems to integrate
Must be flexible and scalable, supporting growth and multiple users
Must streamline operations and reduce costs
Buy a subscription to web-based project management software – you can pay by the month or year as opposed to an outright purchase.
Opt for business project management software packages that offer free 15-day or one month trials. This can help you make an informed decision
Is there a solution for your needs?

Depending on the niche you operate in, you will have to research to determine if there actually exists a software solution for your specific need(s). Even if there isn’t one that completely addresses your niche-specific requirement, can it be modified by the provider or even at your end? Do you have the means to get a custom software system/application designed from scratch? These are some of the questions that need answering.

Making an informed decision

The decision-making process must involve participation from not just you – the business owner – but also employees who will be using the product. A product rating system based on appropriate criteria can help you arrive at an informed choice. Some helpful tips in this regard are:

Opting for product demonstrations without identifying your requirements
Starting without a shortlist of products and adopting a “let’s see how we go” attitude
Testing the software product without a scenario
Getting swayed by any extra or added functionality that is not really a critical requirement
It goes without saying that you should give due attention to product ratings (from customer reviews), product support and vendor reputation before committing your small business dollars and time.