We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.
• A business entity is an organization that uses economic resources or inputs to provide goods or services to customers in exchange for money or other goods and services. Business organizations come in different types and different forms of ownership. • There are three major types of businesses: 1. Service Business. A service type of business provides intangible products (products with no physical form). Service type firms offer professional skills, expertise, advice, and other similar products. Examples of service businesses are: salons, repair shops, schools, banks, accounting firms, and law firms. 2. Merchandising Business. This type of business buys products at wholesale price and sells the same at retail price. They are known as "buy and sell" businesses. They make profit by selling the products at prices higher than their purchase costs. A merchandising business sells a product without changing its form. Examples are: grocery stores, convenience stores, distributors, and other resellers 3. Manufacturing Business. Unlike a merchandising business, a manufacturing business buys products with the intention of using them as materials in making a new product. Thus, there is a transformation of the products purchased. A manufacturing business combines raw materials, labor, and factory overhead in its production process. The manufactured goods will then be sold to customers. • Hybrid Business. Hybrid businesses are companies that may be classified in more than one type of business. A restaurant, for example, combines ingredients in making a fine meal (manufacturing), sells a cold bottle of wine (merchandising), and fills customer orders (service). • Nonetheless, these companies may be classified according to their major business interest. In that case, restaurants are more of the service type.

We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.
• These are the basic forms of business ownership: 1. Sole Proprietorship. A sole proprietorship is a business owned by only one person. It is easy to set-up and is the least costly among all forms of ownership. The owner faces unlimited liability; meaning, the creditors of the business may go after the personal assets of the owner if the business cannot pay them. The sole proprietorship form is usually adopted by small business entities. 2. Partnership. A partnership is a business owned by two or more persons who contribute resources into the entity. The partners divide the profits of the business among themselves. In general partnerships, all partners have unlimited liability. In limited partnerships, creditors cannot go after the personal assets of the limited partners. 3. Corporation. A corporation is a business organization that has a separate legal personality from its owners. Ownership in a stock corporation is represented by shares of stock. The owners (stockholders) enjoy limited liability but have limited involvement in the company's operations. The board of directors, an elected group from the stockholders, controls the activities of the corporation. • In addition to those basic forms of business ownership, these are some other types of organizations that are common today: 4. Limited Liability Company. Limited liability companies, are hybrid forms of business that have characteristics of both a corporation and a partnership. An LLC is not incorporated; hence, it is not considered a corporation. Nonetheless, the owners enjoy limited liability like in a corporation. An LLC may elect to be taxed as a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation. 5. Cooperative. A cooperative is a business organization owned by a group of individuals and is operated for their mutual benefit. The persons making up the group are called members. Cooperatives may be incorporated or unincorporated. Some examples of cooperatives are: water and electricity (utility) cooperatives, cooperative banking, credit unions, and housing cooperatives.

We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.
• Being an entrepreneur implies great advantages such as those listed below, and at the same time it is important to analyse the personal implications that a person, or group of people may have, to develop a business project, as well as the inconveniences that comparatively with other professional dedications can introduce oneself. • Among the advantages that we can highlight are the following: 1. Enjoy the satisfaction of being one your own boss, with the power to do things the way you want. 2. Work is created for others, in favour of the improvement of the locality and region, which produces satisfaction on a personal and professional level. 3. At present, the figure of the entrepreneur is gaining prestige, respect and social admiration in an increasing manner, which also rewards from a social point of view. 4. As an entrepreneur you can collaborate in events with the community, which produces personal satisfaction. 5. A personal initiative is shaped and personal challenge is stimulated. 6. It is an alternative to employment, and at the same time it works for oneself. 7. You can make your dream, project or idea come true. 8. Learning and daily knowledge in "the jungle of the market". 9. Increase the circle of relationships and new friendships in the business environment. 10. Long-term rewards can be obtained, contributing to securing the future itself, establishing a retirement savings fund or selling the business at the appropriate time when capital gains are obtained. • On the other hand, in any company creation project there are problems, which we must learn to face and assume with responsibility. Among them, we list some of the most significant for the good progress of the business: 1. Total dedication to the business and customers. 2. The scope of operations is limited by the resources available or has been captured and, sometimes, this causes frustration. 3. It works many hours and intensely. 4. You will never have the level of security of a salaried employee, as well as a limited degree of stress as a worker can have comparatively. 5. Especially the uncertainty about the progress of the business created and the derivative economic-financial risk is supported. • AUTONOMOUS ADVANTAGES: • The choice of this legal form may be justified for fiscal reasons and simplicity in the constitution and formal obligations, the control of the company, possibility of obtaining public aid for the start of the activity. • AUTONOMOUS DISADVANTAGES: • Unlimited liability, loneliness of management, difficulty finding financial resources, tax disadvantage if taxed above 25%. • LIMITED SOCIETY ADVANTAGES: • Limited liability of the partners, simple management bodies, recommended for small companies with little investment. • LIMITED SOCIETY DISADVANTAGES: • Total outlay of the initial capital, complex transmission of the participations of the partners, few possibilities of attracting foreign capital. • COOPERATIVE SOCIETY ADVANTAGES • Limited liability to the capital contributed, free entry and exit of the partners, equal rights of the partners, its purpose is the common good of the partners, not the economic benefit, tax bonuses. IS: 20% • COOPERATIVE SOCIETY DISADVANTAGES: • Certain complexity in its development, and mandatory provision of reserve funds. Carrying social books, limitation on hiring workers (30%), obligation to deposit the annual accounts.

We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.
• Starting your own business is both exciting and challenging. After doing your research, writing a business plan or roadmap, and deciding on a business structure, you’ll want to consider the other legal requirements involved so your business operates with all of the required licenses and permits. Here are two important legal requirements to review and understand before launching your small business. 1. Business Name Registration. To register your business name you’ll likely register a “Doing Business As” (DBA) or “Fictitious Business Name” (FBN). This process lets your state or local government know the name you are operating your business under. This registration doesn’t provide trademark protection, but it does allow you to create and use the name you want for branding purposes without having to incorporate. 2. Check which licenses, permits, and registrations your business needs. Depending on your type of business and where it’s located, you might need specific business licenses and permits from your country, state, county, or city. Licenses, permits, and registrations come in many variations. Examples include local business licenses, building permits, health safety-related permits, permits for home-based businesses, fire permits, industry-related permits (like running a legal practice, hospitality, construction, or manufacturing business), liquor licenses, and more. • The possibilities are many, so make sure to do thorough research—perhaps with the help of your counsel—on what you need to be compliant with the law in your area. Your city or county’s business licensing agency is also a good place to start. • In the following link you can find all the procedures depending on the EU country https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/services/services-directive/in-practice/contact_es

We analyze clearly and briefly the steps to follow for the launch of a company and the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur.
• Although it is difficult to draw parallels between the different regimes, because the coverage differs greatly, we briefly summarize the situation of the self-employed in Europe. • Spain: The normal fee for freelancers in 2019 is € 283.3 / month covering Temporary Disability in case of common illness, accident or occupational disease, cessation of activity and training. The coverage of contingencies of occupational accident (AT) and occupational diseases (EP) ceases to be voluntary in 2019 and becomes included in the self-employed contribution of 0.7% that will be part of that 30% of the total applicable rate. These contingencies are added to the common ones that were already obligatory for the self-employed and that now quote at the 28.30% rate. In 2019, the fee for freelancers who meet the requirements for the Flat Rate (a small group) goes from € 50 to € 60 for new registrations as freelancers as the first of January. The minimum contribution base of the corporate self-employed as of 2019 also experiences increases, since January 1, the corporate self-employed person quoting for the minimum base assumes a monthly fee of € 364.22 / month. • United Kingdom: The minimum rate in the United Kingdom is € 14 per month if the monthly income does not exceed approximately € 600, since the British system establishes the cost of the autonomous quota based on the income received. However, we must contextualize the information because in the UK the system is progressive, the quota is increasing and, in our country and with those gains they would not be obliged to register in the RETA unless it is usual in the activity, since it found below the SMI. If the worker himself considers that his income will be greater than € 6000, they can pay at most a total fee of € 58 monthly. However, the coverages included are only the basic state pension, the death benefit and the maternity leave. • Holland: There only 50 € are paid annually for being autonomous. By clarifying the figure, there is no Social Security fee, so that each self-employed person has to pay a monthly medical insurance (approx. € 100 / month), in addition to whether he wants pension and death and disability insurance. There is also no entitlement for IT. • Ireland: There is no monthly or annual registration fee. The amount to be paid will be 4% of income for tax purposes, in other words, gross income less expenses or € 500 (whichever is greater). They have health care, contributory state pension, maternity benefit, adoption benefit and widow's pension but no unemployment benefit. • Germany: The self-employed quota is € 140 in the event that more than € 1700 is entered per month. If it is not exceeded, it is not paid. Differences in benefits play an important role, and that is the same as in the Netherlands, self-employed workers must pay private medical insurance (€ 150-250 per month). They are not included in their Social Security system, therefore, they bear the health expenses, the pension plan is private and, if they wish to take out additional insurance, they must also take charge. • Portugal: In Portugal there is no fee, but it is paid depending on income, specifically 24.5% of them per year. There is an extended scheme that can reach 32%. • Denmark: The self-employed pay between 25% and 50% of taxes at the end of the year at the end of the year, including Social Security and benefits such as unemployment, maternity or illness. • Italy: There is no fee, the Treasury is paid based on earnings, not income, about 20-30%. A self-employed person must register with the country's Social Security system, which covers retirement, illness, disability, unemployment benefits and health care. • France: In the French country the first year is not paid. From that moment, there is a tax rate that depends on income and profession, which varies between approximately 12 and 21.3%. In terms of coverage and benefits, health care, temporary disability, widow's and disability pensions and retirement are included. As far as health is concerned, the autonomous runs the expenses, although he will then receive a refund from the State of between 65% and 100%.

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

• The Balance is an accounting statement that reflects the situation of the company at a given time, it is what we call "Balance Sheet". This situation is summarized in four large groups: 1- Assets: what the company has in "property". Ex: Premises, machinery, licenses, money, etc. 2- Rights: what they owe the company. Ex: Accounts of clients pending collection. 3- Obligations: the debts of the company. Ex: loans ... 4- Equity: The capital (funds invested in the company by the partners), the reserves, the benefits not yet "distributed" ... less the losses (if any), is what we call Net Equity. • The balance sheet reflects the status of these 4 groups at a date determined and ordered in two "parts": (1) The ASSETS reflects what the company HAS (assets and rights). (2) The LIABILITIES (Net Equity) reflects what the company MUST (obligations). • The Net Equity reflects the "wealth" (capitalization) of the company through its capitals and its results or, what is the same, the difference between what He has (the asset) and what he owes (the liability). In short, the Balance Sheet: 1- Express the situation of the company on a specific date, assets and rights in the Asset, debts in the Liabilities, capital, reserves and results in Net Equity. 2- It is always expressed in monetary units. 3- The total of the Assets will always be equal to the Liabilities plus the Net Equity. • The Asset is usually subdivided into: 1. NON-CURRENT ASSETS, also known as: REAL ESTATE or FIXED ASSETS. Assets and rights that will remain in the company in the long term (more than 1 year). 2. CURRENT ASSETS best known by CIRCULANTE: Goods and rights (which will become short-term money) and money. For the purpose of a better analysis, the currency is classified according to its degree of availability (ease of converting it into cash) into three groups: 2.1 Stocks 2.2 Realizable: rights (pending payments), their greater or lesser availability depends on the due date and the unpaid. 2.3 Available: money (and "liquid" assets), are the only really available assets. • The second part of the Balance is subdivided into: 1 / NET EQUITY, also called: OWN RESOURCES, OWN FUNDS or NON-DEMANDABLE LIABILITIES. It mainly includes: Capital, reserves and results. 2 / LIABILITIES, also referred to as FOREIGN RESOURCES OR DEMANDABLE LIABILITIES. • In turn and based on its expiration (enforceability) it is ordered as: 2.1 Non-current liabilities also referred to as Long-term Demanding. They are debts for more than one year. 2.2 Current or Required short-term liabilities. They are debts less than a year. The CURRENT ASSETS is the one that allows us to face the payment of the DEBT (Required). It is important to compare the working capital with the Required in the short term and always try to maintain a reasonable margin (more circulating than required in the short term). • The MANIOBRA FUND is what allows us to deal with "guarantees" to the payment of the debt. The easiest way to calculate it is: Current - Required short term. The Maneuver Fund: • It must always be positive (more circulating than required in the short term). • It must be higher or lower depending on the availability of the working capital. • It must be balanced in relation to the Required. • The "margin" between Circulante and Exigible CP is the F.M. • Basic principles to recommend: .- The external resources should not exceed 70% of the total financing needed. .- The remaining percentage should be supplied with own resources. .- Subsidies should not be trusted as the main means of financing a new project. .- An unforeseen amount should be reserved

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

- Objective of financing decisions.

- Interrelation between investment decisions and financing decisions.

- Main financial decisions
• It is presented as a list of the expected expenses and income for a given period of time. - An exhaustive list of the FIXED EXPENSES of the business must be developed, which are independent of the volume of activity (rent, fixed part of supplies, social security fees, salaries ...) - Next, the VARIABLE EXPENSES are determined, closely linked to the activity (Example: manufacturing materials of the product, in which the quantity will be greater the greater the production, in service companies the cost of the hour of the personnel). - It is advisable that a young company be charged as little as possible with fixed expenses and opt for a structure of variable costs depending on the volume of the business. - None of the items of foreseeable operating expenses should be forgotten -The provisions for depreciation of fixed assets should be included (provided that they are amortizable). - The financial charges derived from external financing must be calculated (in case it should be used)

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

- Objective of financing decisions.

- Interrelation between investment decisions and financing decisions.

- Main financial decisions
• It is very useful as an aid to determine cash inflows and outflows and to plan liquidity (in a few cases, liquidity deficiencies, due to insufficient forecasting, determine the short-term failure of some business projects). • It is necessary to influence the difference between income and collection and between expenditure and payment. • The income is generated when the sale takes place and the collection when the liquidity derived from that sale is received. • The expense occurs when the obligation is generated (with a supplier ...). Payment is generated when cash out. • Collection periods must be adjusted with payments to suppliers to avoid Treasury mismatches. • The knowledge of these data will allow to know the treasury needs and the moment in which these may be manifested, thus being able to anticipate in advance the search for cash financing when liquidity is scarce or, in the opposite direction, when liquidity is high, study the placement of generated funds

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

- Objective of financing decisions.

- Interrelation between investment decisions and financing decisions.

- Main financial decisions
• The sources of financing are the liquid resources or means of payment of the company to meet its monetary needs. • The sources of financing involve the acquisition of capital, both fixed and circulating. Depending on whether the Sources of Financing belong to the company or belong to third parties outside the company (and therefore required), there are two types: • OWN FINANCING SOURCES: these include the share capital, the repayment fund, the reserves and the self-financing. • SOURCES OF FINANCING AJENA: those that the company has for a certain time, after which it has the obligation to pay interest and return the amount obtained. In broad strokes the following modalities are distinguished: • Long and medium term credit, that is, with a term of more than one year. • Short-term credit, whose maturity is less than one year and is intended to finance the operation of the company. • Companies are like living beings in continuous movement. Financing is your food and as such should be balanced: • When we finance the investment of a machine with a useful life of 8 or 10 years, do not do it with a short-term loan, because we would financially suffocate the company, forcing it to accelerate the investment quickly. The ideal: • EQUAL DURATION OF THE FINANCING WITH THE USEFUL LIFE OF THE FINANCED (Example: It would be a mistake to finance computer equipment for more than two years, because the speed with which they become obsolete is truly amazing) • PERSONAL LOAN. It is a loan contract constituted with a personal guarantee, to assess this guarantee the creditworthiness of the client is considered and with it the ability to repay the loan. It presents a very weak guarantee so the financial institution will authorize its concession based on the amount and the term. • OBJECT: Finance the acquisition of low-value equipment, finance the acquisition of goods and services for consumption • MORTGAGE LOAN: The fundamental difference with personal loans lies in the importance of operations. The loans, having a guarantee that confers greater security to the financial institution, allows operations to be carried out not only for a larger amount but also for a longer term. • OBJECT: Finance the acquisition of homes, land, premises, warehouses, finance business investments, refinance previous operations, financed with personal loans, thus achieving greater financial balance • LEASING. Also called Financial Leasing. It is an operation whose purpose is the transfer of the use of movable or immovable property in exchange for the payment of a fee and that, necessarily, includes a purchase option at its end in favor of the user. The assets have to be affected by a business activity. Widely used in SMEs, where you don't have to face any initial input. It has the advantage, at the end of the contract, of being able to acquire ownership of the property. • RENTING. Rent of an asset in exchange for a periodic fee. It differs from leasing in: There is no purchase option at the end of the contract, hhey are shorter term contracts, the amount of the fee is usually determined by the degree or intensity of use of the good, the contract can be terminated unilaterally before the end of the stipulated period, the conservation of the good corresponds to the lessor. It is mainly used for means of transport and mobile machinery of large works (cranes, excavators, etc.) and for computer equipment. It does not appear on your balance sheet as indebtedness • CREDIT POLICY. It is a source of short-term financing, used by companies to cover treasury mismatches that may occasionally concur. Extraordinarily it is used to temporarily finance investments on which a subsidy has been resolved, it is called “bridge financing”. Unlike the loan, which implies an instantaneous availability of capital, the policy implies having a limit that is used according to the needs of the company. • COMMERCIAL DISCOUNTS. It consists of the advance, by the financial entity, of the amount of a credit on customers of the company, supported by bills of exchange or promissory notes. The purpose of this financing is to provide the company with greater liquidity, in return the financial entity receives interest and commissions, which directly deducts the anticipated value. It can be done sporadically or under the formula of the discount line. • REAL GUARANTEES. This denomination includes those guarantees that fall on operations with a repayment term of more than 10 years. In this case the guarantee is the property on which the loan falls. This means that, if you stop paying, the lender will have the power to seize the property as a form of payment. However, the embargo does not always cover the entire loan. It is important to know that, the seizure of the property only closes the debtor position if the value of the property exceeds the loan. Otherwise, the borrower and his guarantors will respond to the debt, as indicated by current legislation: "With all its assets present and future." • PERSONAL GUARANTEES. This type of guarantee includes loans that do not fall directly on real estate. We therefore talk about consumer loans or personal loans, which are granted based on our credit history, demonstrable solvency, etc. While it is true that in this type of guarantees there is no asset linked to the loan, when the time comes to default, the banking entity may execute the personal guarantee through the seizure of some real property of our property (both present and future) . • PIGNORATIVE GUARANTEES. We are facing a guarantee modality through which, the loan is granted after depositing in the bank an amount equal to the loan plus the interest applied. While the loan remains in force, the balances deposited will be pledged, that is, they cannot be used. During the duration of the balance of balances, these will be remunerated. • AVALISTAS. On this occasion the guarantee is not financial or real estate. This involves the involvement of third parties who will respond in the same way as the holder against the debt incurred and generally in solidarity.

- Contextualization of financing decisions within the financial decisions of a company.

- Objective of financing decisions.

- Interrelation between investment decisions and financing decisions.

- Main financial decisions
• If you want to sell, you will have to create your own formula. It seems that the goal of all companies is to sell more, however, most companies do not spend time defining the sales strategy. There is a question we should all answer, do you want to sell more or better? • Observe: Analyze market changes, Adapt to new trends, Understand new customers • Create: Search our differential element, Tune up our ingenuity and our creativity, Define our formula for sale, Combine traditional marketing tools and unconventional tools • To sell: Reach the customer differently • Listening to the market and customers, observing and not asking, and although the temptation is to sell everything, it is good to concentrate the sales force on what is of most interest to us. • Companies are worried because their sales have fallen, entrepreneurs are afraid to launch and not sell, but few people have cold blood to stop and observe. Observing is the first step to sell. Before throwing yourself crazy to try different formulas to sell more, take some time to observe: • Analyze market changes • Value new trends. • Understand new customers. • To sell more, you will have to do other things: • Look at the new trends that succeed and how they affect your business, or how you could adapt to them or just what ideas you can think of when you see them. • Study companies doing well and think about what they do differently. • Analyze three types of companies: • Companies in your sector that are direct competition, come on, those that can take you out a customer. • Companies in your sector that are referents. • Companies that you like even if they are not from your sector. • Detect the changes that your customers are suffering and think about them in the most segmented way possible, trying to analyze the different groups you work with. • We are living in times of change, but the most striking thing is that the speed of change is vertigo. If you stand still, you will disappear sooner or later, so watch and then make decisions. And there comes the part that costs my clients the most, to see how to adapt their company or their business project to the changes detected. • Before going out to sell we have to create our formula to sell and this demands method and time. This formula to sell, works independently of the sector and the company, but we will have to adapt it for each case, taking into account the situation of the company, its experience in the market, the range of products, its personnel and its resources. • Our proposal can be based on: • Price (low-medium-high) • Differentiation • Service • Specific approach • Combination of the above • And we will have to work the 4P of marketing (Product, Price, Positioning and Promotion) and the 4 C (Customer, Cost, Comfort and Communication). • "The better we know our customers and their reasons for purchase, the easier it will be to define the sales process" • All this we have to be able to define in a phrase that engages our client and summarizes our business philosophy. • "Create your hook phrase" • But in addition, to sell you have to build trust and for that, the simplest thing is to start by defining what we are good at and think about how we are going to transmit it. • “You have to know how you are going to introduce yourself” • It is essential to be aware that we are not alone, so to sell you have to build and maintain a support network. And this is where my clients resist the most, because we have been educated so as not to have to ask for favors; This is the mentality that needs to be changed, we do not ask for favors, we collaborate and create a support network with which we all win. • "Create your network!" • Who do you know Who could you collaborate with? What can you do for your network? What could your network do for you? And we also have to do our homework and work hard analyzing customer problems and looking for solutions. • "Selling is meeting the needs of your customers" • We have to think from the customer's point of view, it is the fundamental secret to create the formula to sell. Put yourself in the place of your client. • The formula to sell does not work alone, you have to start it and for that, you have to go out and sell. I know clients capable of not going out to sell with the excuse of improving the product or the formula to sell. You have to leave and there is no other! • Key elements for selling: Planning, Coordination, Organization, Tracing • I have to define where my clients are and how I will reach them. Plan that commercial action and start ... Not all customers want the same, or at all times you can offer the same, so I have to know what adaptations I am willing to make in my product and / or service before going to sell. And here begins the fundamental element of the sale: learn. Learn from products, customers, our competitors, suppliers, the market ... and share that knowledge with the rest of the company and implement changes. • Knowledge per se does not work: knowledge has to lead to modifications and changes in our sales process. • If you want new customers, you will have to sell to sites other than the ones you are going to now. But the fundamental trick is to look for the complicity of your clients, so that they talk about you and prescribe you • How could you turn your customers into your sellers? Do not forget to analyze the critical factors, those elements in which you cannot fail. You have to have them very well controlled. There are two elements that were not so important at the time of selling and that are now fundamental: COLLABORATE and SURPRISE • You always have to listen to the market and customers to detect opportunities, to adapt your product, to create your speech, to look for allies, to find new markets ... It is clear that the sale is not born from the benefits of the product but from the needs of the client , so listening to our customers has to be our number one priority if we want to sell. • And listening to the client does not mean asking him, because as you know those who know me, I always say that the clients lie, surely in an unintended way, but we do. So you don't have to ask and if you listen, an active and non-judgmental listening that will allow us to really know the problems, the expectations and the situation in which our clients move. • But the big mistake of the small companies I work with is dispersion and I never tire of saying that you can't be everything, sell everything, reach everyone and please everyone. It would be nice but not possible, so you have to focus and, for that, you have to choose. • The fear of choosing is paralyzing and companies are stuck at this point: you have to focus on what is of most interest and what the company feels most comfortable with. • Choosing means stop doing some things and stop selling certain products and services ... and focus on those that give us more value today or we think they will give us tomorrow.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

• The GDPR applies to: • A company or entity which processes personal data as part of the activities of one of its branches established in the EU, regardless of where the data is processed; or • A company established outside the EU and is offering goods/services (paid or for free) or is monitoring the behaviour of individuals in the EU. • If your company is a small and medium-sized enterprise ('SME') that processes personal data as described above you have to comply with the GDPR. However, if processing personal data isn’t a core part of your business and your activity doesn't create risks for individuals, then some obligations of the GDPR will not apply to you (for example the appointment of a Data Protection Officer ('DPO')). Note that ‘core activities’ should include activities where the processing of data forms an inextricable part of the controller’s or processor’s activities. • When the regulation applies, when does not apply • YES. Your company is a small, tertiary education company operating online with an establishment based outside the EU. It targets mainly Spanish and Portuguese language universities in the EU. It offers free advice on a number of university courses and students require a username and a password to access your online material. Your company provides the said username and password once the students fill out an enrolment form. • NO. Your company is service provider based outside the EU. It provides services to customers outside the EU. Its clients can use its services when they travel to other countries, including within the EU. Provided your company doesn't specifically target its services at individuals in the EU, it is not subject to the rules of the GDPR. • The application of the data protection regulation depends not on the size of your company/organisation but on the nature of your activities. Activities that present high risks for the individuals’ rights and freedoms, whether they are carried out by an SME or by a large corporation, trigger the application of more stringent rules. However, some of the obligations of the GDPR may not apply to all SMEs. • For instance, companies with fewer than 250 employees don’t need to keep records of their processing activities unless processing of personal data is a regular activity, poses a threat to individuals’ rights and freedoms, or concerns sensitive data or criminal records. • Similarly, SMEs will only have to appoint a Data Protection Officer if processing is their main business and it poses specific threats to the individuals’ rights and freedoms (such as monitoring of individuals or processing of sensitive data or criminal records) in particular because it’s done on a large scale. • The rules only apply to personal data about individuals, they don’t govern data about companies or any other legal entities. However, information in relation to one-person companies may constitute personal data where it allows the identification of a natural person. The rules also apply to all personal data relating to natural persons in the course of a professional activity, such as the employees of a company/organisation, business email addresses like ‘forename.surname@company.eu’ or employees’ business telephone numbers.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

• What data can we process and under which conditions? • The type and amount of personal data a company/organisation may process depends on the reason for processing it (legal reason used) and the intended use. The company/organisation must respect several key rules, including: • personal data must be processed in a lawful and transparent manner, ensuring fairness towards the individuals whose personal data is being processed (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’); • there must be specific purposes for processing the data and the company/organisation must indicate those purposes to individuals when collecting their personal data. A company/organisation can’t simply collect personal data for undefined purposes (‘purpose limitation’); • the company/organisation must collect and process only the personal data that is necessary to fulfil that purpose (‘data minimisation’); • the company/organisation must ensure the personal data is accurate and up-to-date, having regard to the purposes for which it is processed, and correct it if not (‘accuracy’); • the company /organisation can’t further use the personal data for other purposes that aren’t compatible with the original purpose; • the company/organisation must ensure that personal data is stored for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected (‘storage limitation’); • the company/organisation must install appropriate technical and organisational safeguards that ensure the security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technology (‘integrity and confidentiality’). • Can data be processed for any purpose? • No. The purpose for processing of personal data must be known and the individuals whose data you’re processing must be informed. It is not possible to simply indicate that personal data will be collected and processed. This is known as the ‘purpose limitation’ principle. Can we use data for another purpose? • Yes, but only in some cases. If your company/organisation has collected data on the basis of legitimate interest, a contract or vital interests it can be used for another purpose but only after checking that the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose. • The following points should be considered: • the link between the original purpose and the new/upcoming purpose; • the context in which the data was collected (what is the relationship between your company/organisation and the individual?); • the type and nature of the data (is it sensitive?); • the possible consequences of the intended further processing (how will it impact the individual?); • the existence of appropriate safeguards (such as encryption or pseudonymisation). • If your company/organisation wants to use the data for statistics or for scientific research it is not necessary to run the compatibility test. • If your company/organisation has collected the data on the basis of consent or following a legal requirement, no further processing beyond what is covered by the original consent or the provisions of the law is possible. Further processing would require obtaining new consent or a new legal basis. • How much data can be collected? Personal data should only be processed where it isn’t reasonably feasible to carry out the processing in another manner. Where possible, it is preferable to use anonymous data. Where personal data is needed, it should be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the purpose (‘data minimisation’). It’s your company/organisation's responsibility as controller to assess how much data is needed and ensure that irrelevant data isn’t collected. • For how long can data be kept and is it necessary to update it? Data must be stored for the shortest time possible. That period should take into account the reasons why your company/organisation needs to process the data, as well as any legal obligations to keep the data for a fixed period of time (for example national labour, tax or anti-fraud laws requiring you to keep personal data about your employees for a defined period, product warranty duration, etc.). Your company/organisation should establish time limits to erase or review the data stored. • By way of an exception, personal data may be kept for a longer period for archiving purposes in the public interest or for reasons of scientific or historical research, provided that appropriate technical and organisational measures are put in place (such as anonymisation, encryption, etc.). Your company/organisation must also ensure that the data held is accurate and kept up-to-date. • What information must be given to individuals whose data is collected? At the time of collecting their data, people must be informed clearly about at least: • who your company/organisation is (your contact details, and those of your DPO if any); • why your company/organisation will be using their personal data (purposes); • the categories of personal data concerned; • the legal justification for processing their data; • for how long the data will be kept; • who else might receive it; • whether their personal data will be transferred to a recipient outside the EU; • that they have a right to a copy of the data (right to access personal data) and other basic rights in the field of data protection (see complete list of rights); • their right to lodge a complaint with a Data Protection Authority (DPA); • their right to withdraw consent at any time; • where applicable, the existence of automated decision-making and the logic involved, including the consequences thereof. • The information may be provided in writing, orally at the request of the individual when identity of that person is proven by other means, or by electronic means where appropriate. Your company/organisation must do that in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible way, in clear and plain language and free of charge. • When data is obtained from another company/organisation, your company/organisation should provide the information listed above to the person concerned at the latest within 1 month after your company obtained the personal data; or, in case your company/organisation communicate with the individual, when the data is used to communicate with them; or, if a disclosure to another company is envisaged, when the personal data was first disclosed. • Your company/organisation is also required to inform the individual of the categories of data and the source from which it was obtained including if it was obtained from publicly accessible sources. Under specific circumstances listed in Articles 13(4) and 14(5) of the GDPR your company/organisation may be exempted from the obligation to inform the individual. Please check whether that exemption applies to your company/organisation. • What data can we process and under which conditions? The type and amount of personal data a company/organisation may process depends on the reason for processing it (legal reason used) and the intended use. The company/organisation must respect several key rules, including: • personal data must be processed in a lawful and transparent manner, ensuring fairness towards the individuals whose personal data is being processed (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’); • there must be specific purposes for processing the data and the company/organisation must indicate those purposes to individuals when collecting their personal data. A company/organisation can’t simply collect personal data for undefined purposes (‘purpose limitation’); • the company/organisation must collect and process only the personal data that is necessary to fulfil that purpose (‘data minimisation’); • the company/organisation must ensure the personal data is accurate and up-to-date, having regard to the purposes for which it is processed, and correct it if not (‘accuracy’); • the company /organisation can’t further use the personal data for other purposes that aren’t compatible with the original purpose; • the company/organisation must ensure that personal data is stored for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected (‘storage limitation’); • the company/organisation must install appropriate technical and organisational safeguards that ensure the security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technology (‘integrity and confidentiality’). • What rules apply if my organisation transfers data outside the EU? In today’s globalised world, there are large amounts of cross-border transfers of personal data, which are sometimes stored on servers in different countries. The protection offered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) travels with the data, meaning that the rules protecting personal data continue to apply regardless of where the data lands. This also applies when data is transferred to a country which is not a member of the EU (hereinafter referred to as 'third country'). • The GDPR provides different tools to frame data transfers from the EU to a third country: • sometimes, a third country may be declared as offering an adequate level of protection through a European Commission decision (‘Adequacy Decision’), meaning that data can be transferred with another company in that third country without the data exporter being required to provide further safeguards or being subject to additional conditions. In other words, the transfers to an ‘adequate’ third country will be comparable to a transmission of data within the EU. • in the absence of an Adequacy Decision, a transfer can take place through the provision of appropriate safeguards and on condition that enforceable rights and effective legal remedies are available for individuals. Such appropriate safeguards include: • in the case of a group of undertakings, or groups of companies engaged in a joint economic activity, companies can transfer personal data based on so-called binding corporate rules; • contractual arrangements with the recipient of the personal data, using, for example, the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission; • adherence to a code of conduct or certification mechanism together with obtaining binding and enforceable commitments from the recipient to apply the appropriate safeguards to protect the transferred data. • finally, if a transfer of personal data is envisaged to a third country that isn’t the subject of an Adequacy Decision and if appropriate safeguards are absent, a transfer can be made based on a number of derogations for specific situations for example, where an individual has explicitly consented to the proposed transfer after having been provided with all necessary information about the risks associated with the transfer.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

• Intellectual property is the set of rights that correspond to the authors and other owners (artists, producers, broadcasters ...) regarding the works and benefits resulting from their creation. A work is fully protected by law at the same time of its creation and without the need for any formal requirements. • IS IT NECESSARY TO REGISTER A WORK TO PROTECT IT? NO, however, it is convenient to indicate the reservation of rights and the symbol NO, however, it is convenient to indicate the reservation of rights and the symbol ©, in the case of a work. • Registration is a protection of intellectual property rights, as it constitutes a qualified proof of the existence of registered rights. • Intellectual property protects original literary, artistic or scientific creations, choreographies, audiovisual works, sculptures, pictorial works, plans, models, maps, photographs, computer programs and databases. It also protects artistic performances, phonograms, audiovisual recordings and broadcasting broadcasts. • INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS • Moral and economic rights. They include two specific aspects: the right to recognition of authorship and the right of an author to preserve the integrity of the work, that is, to refuse to carry out modifications or derivative works. • The recognition of moral rights points to the author's reputation and the inalienable right of the latter to dispose of his work in terms of recognition as well as its integrity. The most common violation of moral rights is plagiarism. • HERITAGE OR EXPLOITATION RIGHTS. We must distinguish between: a) Rights related to the exploitation of the protected work, which in turn are subdivided into: Exclusive rights are those that allow the owner to authorize or prohibit acts of exploitation of his work or benefit protected by the user, and to demand compensation in return for it. The remuneration rights do not entitle the owner to authorize or prohibit the acts of exploitation of the work, although they do require the latter to pay a monetary amount for the acts of exploitation that he performs, an amount that is determined by law by the Rates of management entities. b) Compensatory rights, such as the right to private copy that compensates for intellectual property rights no longer received due to reproductions of works or benefits protected for exclusively private use.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

• Register: Registration is not mandatory, but voluntary. • In Anglo-Saxon law, the notion of copyright is used, which generally includes the patrimonial part of copyright (economic rights). • The exploitation or economic rights last the lifetime of the authors and up to 70 years after the death of the author (European Law). • The Law regulating intellectual property is reflected in the Recast text, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, of April 12. • WHAT IS WHAT "NO" IS PROTECTED ... • The ideas. • The procedures. • The legal or regulatory provisions, their corresponding projects, the decisions of the jurisdictional bodies. • The acts of public bodies, as well as translations of these texts. • The titles of the works. • HOW IS A WORK RECORDED? • An application is filed in the register of the intellectual property, together with the fee of a fee. (€ 13.46). • Management Entities, goals, manage exploitation rights, guarantee the exploitation, protection and control of works both in Spain and abroad. • To be constituted they need the authorization of the Ministry of Culture. - From authors: SGAE (General Society of Authors and Publishers) CEDRO (Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights) VEGAP (Visual Entity for the Management of Plastic Artists) DAMA (Copyright of audiovisual media) - From Performers: AIE (Performers, management company of Spain) AISGE (Performers, management company) • COPYLEFT. Is Copyleft really a license? Copyleft is not a license in itself, but some guidelines on how the license or contract of the work (exploitation, copying, distribution, etc.) should be managed. • When I choose the license that best suits my work, I will have to indicate as clearly as possible under what features it is governed. • Which Copyleft license is best suited to my work? • GNU - http://www.fsf.org/licensing. The GNU, according to the copyleft manual, was created in the mid-1980s and has its origin in the world of free software and is, in turn, the main responsible for the entire movement for free culture and Copyleft . • It is based on the 4 freedoms proposed by Stallman and the FSF: of use, study and modification, copy, for improvement and distribution of content • Which Copyleft license is best suited to my work? • CREATIVE COMMONS - http://creativecommons.org. “Many authors have realized over time that the right to absolute copy does not help them when it comes to getting the wide exposure or distribution that Creative Commons [...] wants tries to help people express this preference for sharing by offering everyone a set of licenses on the web, at no cost ” • The conditions offered by CC are 6, as a combination of 4 essentials: • Recognition. You must properly recognize the authorship, provide a link to the license and indicate whether changes have been made. You can do it in any reasonable way, but not in a way that suggests that you have the support of the licensor or receive it for the use you make. • Without No derivative works. If you remix, transform or create from the material, you cannot spread the modified material. • No comercial. You may not use the material for a commercial purpose. • Share the same. Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format • FREE ART - http://www.artlibre.org. She was one of the pioneers in transferring the idea of free software to the art world. Like many other Copyleft licenses, it promotes free access to culture as opposed to other restrictive models, in the case of Copyright. • The Manualcopyleft.net explains how the artist who uses this license guarantees that the user can: • Make copies for personal or third party use. • Distribute the work freely by any means, for free or not. • Freely modify the work. • Copyleft = Free? NO • The idea that Copyleft means free is widespread. The confusions reside: • On the principles that this license is less restrictive. • The automatic authorization of the work obtained in the license itself. • In some Copyleft licenses, the artist may specify that his work may be copied, distributed, reproduced or modified as long as it is not for commercial uses. • Can my Copyleft work be plagiarized? A Copyleft work has a license like any other creation. If the author proves that his work has been plagiarized, legal acts can be undertaken.

The new European Data Protection Regulation entered into force on May 25, 2018 in all countries of the European Union. This new regulation affects all companies as soon as they have personal data of clients, workers and third parties, enhancing an active commitment in the safeguarding of fundamental rights, in particular those related to privacy in all areas, but especially on the internet

• Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO). How to register the corporate image. The logotype. • Once you have chosen your name and created the logo, which includes your unique value proposition, it is time to register the brand to protect it from competition and that it cannot be used by others. • Registration is done at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) whose website is http://www.oepm.es. • The first thing you have to do is check if the brand you are going to register has not been registered in the following link: http://sitadex.oepm.es/localizador/buscardenominacion.jsp • Write the name of the brand or part in the first section and click on locate. • What do you need to have prepared before starting the process? Brand name, image in case of being graphic or both in case of being mixed. • If the brand has an image because it is graphic or mixed, you must have the image prepared in the following format: “Jpg or tif, maximum 8 cm wide x 12 cm high (945 x 1417 pixels), 300 dpi” Holder of the brand. • Data of the person or company that will be the owner of the brand. • Classes in which you will register it • Trademarks are registered according to the products or services for which they are intended. The SPTO is based on the international classification of brand products and services (Nice classification 10th edition, 2012). • You can register your brand in as many classes as you wish taking into account that you have to pay for each class. Your brand will be protected for the services and products that are included in the classes in which you have registered it. • Remember!: You only protect the classes in which you register your brand • In the following link you can see the classes available for you to choose the most suitable one / s International classification of brand products and services (CLINMAR) (Nice classification 10th edition, 2012) • Brand registration cost. Yes, registering a brand has a cost, now. If you do it on your own as we explain here the savings will see that it is considerable with respect to making it a registrar. The rates for 2018 are as follows: • Face-to-face registration: First class: € 147.49, Second and following classes: € 95.55 • Registration through the electronic headquarters: First class: € 125.36, Second and following classes: € 81.21 • How will I know when I have the trademark registration? The brand will be published approximately in one day and from this moment it will be public two months in case any third party wants to oppose its registration. If there is no opposition, within two months, you will receive the brand title and ... It will be yours! • You can check the status of the trademark registration in the following link by writing the name of the brand or part in the first section and clicking on “locate” http://sitadex.oepm.es/localizador/buscardenominacion.jsp • CRAFTS REGISTRATION. Procedure that aims at the voluntary registration of those artisan subjects whose trade or trades are included in the Directory of Crafts Trades of Andalusia. The result of the first registration in the Registry is the official issuance of the Artisan Letter, in order to publicly identify the artisan subjects

This training fiche is focused on how you can define your product. Pricing and packaging your products and services correctly for your target market is one of the most powerful branding activities that you can do. If your target group has changed, you need to review your business model to be sure that you can still offer what they need.  When you are defining your product it is important that you think of what the product has to offer, the so called the Unique Selling Point (USP).   

In a way, this is “bragging” about your product or service in such a way as to attract customers. It is therefore an inescapable step in setting up your business projects’ marketing process.

• Define your target group, before you can start defining the product it is important that you think of who your target group is. Your target group is a big part of the success that your product will have. When you have your focus on the wrong target group, it will become harder to sell your product, so you will have less success. • Define the solution that your product offers, before you start promoting your business it is important that your focus is on understanding your target group and that promoting is not your first priority. Offering a product or service is one thing. However, you still need to sell the product and that is harder than you think. Before you can start selling, you need to define the benefits that your product has to offer. You need to make sure that it is presented in such a way that it shows as “the” solution to your customers. The objective is that you try to provide an overview of the added value that your product has to offer. • Talking about your Unique Selling Points (USP) means that you need to list all the advantages that your product has to offer, in comparison to any similar products that are offered by your competitors. • Your product’s accessories and other complementary elements, after you have made a list with the benefits, features and the Unique Selling Points of your product, it is time to start describing its range. Along with the main solution that your product has to offer, you can think about what other needs can meet. It is important that you distinguish the product itself from its accessories and extra features. It is also important that you start describing the various options, advantages or partnerships that add benefits to your product or can be a complement to the product. • Paint a picture of the customer, start to list all the different types of customers that suffer from the problems you solve. Once you have done it, you can start building up a picture of these customers. Group them by location - for example, high net worth individuals tend to live in certain postcodes. Group them by market sector - are they manufacturers, recruitment agents, and so on. • Think about your market, today we live in the world of niche. For example, we are no longer prisoners of television schedules. We can watch what we want at our convenience from almost anywhere in the world; meaning every person can enjoy a unique viewing experience. The web is fantastic at delivering personalized products and services, cutting out many of the distribution challenges that previously existed. • Use product definition questionnaires, it can help you with making that list is asking yourself these questions: 1. Who is your target group? 2. What is the problem that your products tries to solve? 3. What solutions has the product to offer? 4. What are the most important benefits that your product has? 5. What are the main alternatives/ who is your biggest competitor? 6. Why is your product better than the alternatives? 7. What makes your product unique 8. Why should consumers choose your product and not the one that is offered by the competitors? 9. What are the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats of your product? Once you are done you can put it all together to get your product definition: For___, who need____, our products provides____. Our product is better than other solutions such as____ and___ because____ Advertising companies often have to convey a USP as succinctly as possible through words and pictures. Therefore, try looking at a variety of adverts in your business sector and indeed across sectors for comparison. How well do other companies convey their USPs? Can they potentially do this more effectively? Developing an effective USP can take time, but if you get it right, it can be a very powerful tool.

• Target Group, consider who are (or will be) your most important customers. Will it be the elderly or young? Wealthy, or rather do not earn too much money? Educated, knowing foreign languages? Your company name should be linked with your customers. If at this stage you do not clearly communicate the personality of your venture, then it will only get worse. • Associations and synonyms, once you specify the attributes of your target group, search for associations and synonyms that are linked with your business. The more you find, the better it is. Even if you do not use them in building the company, one of them can become a fantastic claim (slogan). What is a claim (slogan)? You can say a few words, which are glued to the logo and explain the essence of the company. For example. So good for KFC Just Do It, which is signed by Nike. • Follow surroundings, another way to look for names is to observe the environment. Perhaps you will see an inspiring inscription on a shirt, sticker on the car or inscription in a shop? You should observe what is happening. Sometimes one word opens a new path of associations around which you can build an interesting story. • Functionality / availability, once you have a wide list of associations that you can use to create your project, focus on the best ones and reject the worst. Check whether the name can be at www. On each page, which sells domain you can see if your brand name is available. • Opinions from friends, when you have a few favorites it is worth to ask the opinion of your friends or get feedbacks from people who have experience in creating brands. For what? Because it may be that to others, that name does not associate positively. Or that is totally meaningless. Or it can even be offensive in another language. • Your opinion, when you listen to the voices of the environment it should suggest about what others are saying, and if all advise you to reject that name, then you should avoid choosing it, even if you like it! Once you have picked the right name, you can take to create the logo.

This training fiche is focused on how to design your corporate image. A corporate image is the way in which a corporation, firm or business present themselves to the public, such as customers and investors as well as employees.  A corporate image is important to present organization, regardless of size, mission or purpose. The corporate image will define you as a company to your customers, partners and the public. Your corporate also sets you apart from your competitors. When your corporate image is effective, it will make you easy recognizable through your designs, actions and communications.  

• Review the history, mission and methods: Before you create a corporate image for the public, it is important that you have a clear idea of what your company stands for. Examine your business plan, mission statement, values statement, strategic plan and other corporate documents that can define why your company exists and what makes you different. • Find out what others think of your company: This is something that you can do via a surveys, ask questions, set up interviews and have a group panel, to gain understanding of how all your stakeholders view your company. After you understand how your stakeholders look at your company, if you feel like you are sending the wrong message, you can start deciding how to change their perception. • Do research about you competitors: Check out the websites, read testimonials from their customers and visit their social media. By looking at those internet sites you can start deciding and figuring out, what you like and what you don’t like, and how easy or difficult it is to grasp their corporate identities. • Create your vision for the future: Your corporate image should embrace the goals that you have for the future as well for now. You can include your employees, leaders and partners. • Design a logo: Put together a team of designers and writers, or hire a consultant if you do not have that kind of creative talent on staff. Get everybody in a room and start thinking about a logo for your corporation. The logo should be designed so it can be immediately recognized. The logo should be clean and simple. Because your logo will only be one piece of your corporate design, a good one will not always have a lot of meaning until it is paired with other design aspects. • Choose a captivating font: When you create a website, advertisements, or a product's packaging, you need to have a typography that is immediately recognizable and that conveys a certain feeling to people. Choose an appropriate font that is readable and unique. -A typeface should reflect your corporation's image and beliefs. If your company tends to be conservative, use something like Times New Roman. • Consider different color combinations: The colors you choose will make a bold statement about your organization and how you run your business. Make sure they convey your corporate philosophy and strategy. -For example, if you are a corporation tasked with creating environmentally sustainable packaging for products, consider using green as one of your primary colors. Green is synonymous with the environmental movement and also conveys images of the outdoors. • Portray quality in your design: A company that offers quality products and services has the best chance to bring back clients and repeat business. Quality should be reflected throughout your corporate identity, which includes your design. Think about how consumers will react to the way your website or packaging will look. • Bring a community together:The overall design of your company should work to bring a specific community together. If you can create a community for your services or products, they will be more likely to come back to your company. - Handle customer issues in a fair and honest manner. - Deliver high quality products. - Ensure your products meet safety standards. • Forming a communication style: Each company has a different way of communicating to their customers. It is important that you think of how you want to communicate with your customer. You can do this by hiring talented communications specialists, or start creating it by yourself. You only need to keep in mind that how you communicate to your customers, can make your company succeed or fail. Because it does not mean anything if no one knows about it. • Test your corporate image: Once you have created something that you believe in and thinks it is something solid, you can start testing it in the market. Talk with customers and use focus groups, to find out what they think of the image, you can ask them how they feel about your logo and color scheme, do they want to buy the product? Ask for specific feedback, so is easier for you to analyze the feedback.

• Identify your target audience:Find out the job titles of the people who make or influence decisions about purchasing the type of products you supply. Review the media information packs of magazines and newspapers that claim to reach your target audience. Draw up a shortlist of publications you could use for advertising or editorial coverage. Ask the sales team if they meet the key decision makers face-to-face. If they do, you can use the sales force to communicate information. Consider how you could use your website to communicate with the audience. Companies use the Internet to gather preliminary information when they are considering a purchase. • Analyze the message you want to communicate:Use channels such as advertisements, email or short messages on social media such as Twitter to communicate a simple message, such as a price change or new product announcement. Select a channel that allows you to treat a topic in more depth if you want to explain the benefits of a new product or a strategic change in your company. Consider feature articles in magazines read by your target audience, detailed technical papers available from your website or speaking opportunities at industry conferences attended by your target audience. • Calculate the cost of communicating through the channels you have identified:Obtain advertising rates from media publishers, ask designers and printers for quotes on producing printed documents such as technical papers and calculate the cost of direct sales calls on key decision-makers. • Choose interactive channels:Set up a forum or product review page on your website to encourage visitors to share their views. Monitor social media for material that relates to your company. Respond to comments to build dialogue and protect your reputation. • Work with communications professionals to develop and implement your communication strategy:Appoint a public relations consultant to handle relations with the media – ensuring that press releases appear in the right publications and gaining editorial coverage in influential media.

Branding and communication is a big part of every company, because with the right branding and communication, you can create a positive image to the customer and …customers that are positive are willing to buy more.
Branding is all about the impression you make. If you want to succeed, that impression should do two jobs, it should say what is special about your business and it should show your brand in a positive light. It is always important that you have in mind, what impression you want to leave behind. 

Just because you are using social media does not mean you are using it correctly. Seventy-four percent of shoppers use social media to help them make their purchases. In order to get your slice of this pie, you have to know how to — and how not to — speak a customer’s language online. Here are some of the do’s and don’ts of the road, so you don’t commit a social media faux pas.

• Do: Understand your brand’s power: Branding is a way of defining your identity which expresses the values of your business. The first step that you need to take is defining your brand. There are benefits of a defined brand, it encourages customers to emotionally connect to the same values, leading to customer loyalty. • Do: Establish brand guidelines: An essential value for a small business brand is that it is familiar. Without defined guidelines for different aspects of brand branding, your brand will lack consistency and direction. Guidelines that are carefully crafted can help to reinforce and maintain your branding characteristics as you roll them across your company marketing materials. • Do: Design to impress and engage: When brands have a unique style and designs that could raise emotions, they are instantly recognizable. A graphic designer with good qualities is something that you should have in your marketing materials; the design should exude professionalism and trigger feelings of reassurance to reinforce the value of the brand. • Do: Create a thorough and brand- friendly profile: Just like your own website, your social media pages should describe the services and products that you offer in detail. It is important that you fill in all the information fields on the pages of your profile, this so that visitors know what you do and what they can expect from your business. When you are creating a profile, you should add the link of your own website to the information, so it makes is easier for them to find your website. • Do: Think outside the box: Nowadays it is not enough to have a cleverly crafted content that tells people about your products. Many companies have created a loyalty program, to keep the customer from going to the competitor. You can think of ways to use your social media pages as an extension of your loyalty program if you created one. • Don’t: Create a vague brand or over- complicate it: The first impression sets the standard of every interaction with your brand. The efficiency of your brand communication can have an impact on your success and that of the product. It is important that you avoid vague statements, your brand should be an enthusiastic reflection of what it stands for. • Don’t: Forget to monitor your brand’s usage: After you have defined your brand guidelines, you need to be proactive in monitoring how your branded elements are being used. Keep in mind that every time you drift away from your brand guidelines, you weaken the power and association with a more unified branding campaign. With consistency, you give your company the opportunity to become sustainable, build trust and grow profits. • Don’t: Try to mimic the look of chains or big brands: As a small business, you should slice out your own identity and leverage. Your independent status could be something that attracts future customers that are looking for more original offerings, which are authentic and align with how they feel about themselves. • Don’t: Sign up for every social media site: With so many social media platforms out there, it would be a waste of your time and resources if you are trying to learn and participate in all of them. You should choose the one that your target audience uses the most, this information is easily to find, if you do a market research. • Don’t: Go overboard: Advertising your loyalty program on social media, can be resourceful but don’t clutter your customers’ feeds with an overwhelming amount of information. Be mindful of the content that you want to share and when you want to share it.

In this part of the course you will learn, about how you can choose your communication channels and the do’s and don’ts of branding and communication for Small and Medium Enterprise. These two thing are very crucial for a good marketing plan, because with the right communication channels and the knowledge of the do’s and don’ts, your marketing plan will be more successful.  First we will start with how to choose your communication channels, after that you can find an overview with the do’s and don’ts of branding and communication for SME.  

In this part of the course you will learn, about how you can design your corporate image, what the best way is to choose your brand name and how you can define your product. These three topics are a big part of how you market yourself. Learning how to brand yourself will make your marketing plan more successful. First we will start with how to design your corporate image, after you have learned how to design your corporate image, you will start with how to choose your brand name, and after that you will learn what the best way is to define your product. 

Currently, there is a growing debate about the convenience of a suitable business model and business plan when creating or expanding your business. Do you need both? Should there be linkages between both business tools? In such a changing business environment, do we need them?

This training fiche aims at shedding a light on these issues. While it is important to learn to identify the most useful business model to fulfil your business goals, it might be also relevant to explore what components, if any, should be part of your business plan, be it before starting your activity or in a later stage.

Someone said that there is no good wind for those that do not know where they want to sail to. The business plan and business model you pick might serve as a compass to guide your initiative.

Business plan has traditionally been considered an essential tool to create and develop your business, not only because it is useful to write down your ideas, but also because it is a key document when searching for funding or applying for any public aid. Nevertheless, current trends show that, though necessary it might be, the business plan, as such, is not enough for the success of your initiative. In many authors and entrepreneurs’ views, it is in many cases a rigid document and it does not adapt to a changing and globalised business environment as we said earlier. However, from our point of view, it might be a good idea to have a clear and well-crafted business model in which you can show your business opportunities and demonstrate your product added value, the solutions you offer to your customers. Let’s get into more detail: Your business model. There are certainly a number of tools to be used to develop and validate your business model, always depending on the degree of maturity of your initiative. We provide some general information on some of the tools below. Their use again depends on your sector, the activity you perform, your needs, etc. Ultimately, you will need to do some trials to validate which tool is more appropriate. Canvas Model -> It’s a business model tool developed by Alexander Osterwalder that are summarized in the following steps: • Customer segment or to whom are you addressing your product. The customer is at the core of this model, therefore you need to develop a deep knowledge on them. • Value proposition, or what are you going to offer. Closely linked to the first step, this second one suggests a seamless and profound reflection on what difference your product makes. • Distribution channels, or how are you going to reach your customers, how are you going to deliver your products. • Customer relationships, or what sort of bonds are you going to create with your customers. It is about the service you are going to provide to them. • Revenues or incomes, or how is your product or your service valued by your customers, how much they are willing to pay for them. It is also relevant to estimate how the business is getting the income, regularity, etc. • Key resources, in terms of what is needed to provide value to customers, such as, machinery, human resources, etc. • Key activities, in relation to all what it takes to provide value to the customer. • Key partners, sometimes they are not given the relevance they deserve. They are critical on the medium and long term. We talk about funding organisations, investors, suppliers and those stakeholders that have an impact on your business. • Cost structure, what it needs to be paid and when. Lean startup model -> Originally conceived for technology start-ups, this model based on the Eric Ries book, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business, has these main features: • Its main objective is to reduce as much as possible the inner risk when launching a new product. • It is about ongoing learning always bearing in mind the reactions of the market where the product is launched. That’s why it is important to keep communication channels with the customers wide opened to get their feedback about how they perceive the new product or service. • Launching the MVP or Minimum Viable Product, as soon as possible, with the lowest cost involved so as to get market feedback the sooner the better. In this way you either validate or improve your product, reducing production costs. Once you have verified your business model using one of the tools summarized above, or any other, you can translate that model into your business plan. Business Plan. It is commonly considered as the traditional tool when creating a business. Still, it is a suitable way to know, improve and develop your business idea. On top, as we said earlier, it represents your business card for potential investors, public administration, funding entities and stakeholders. Having said that, you have to be honest, as you can write anything on the paper. Bear in mind that you are dealing with your time and money and, may be, with others’ time and money. The elements that should be part of your business plan are: • Promoters. If you are a sole trader, this section can be substituted with a personal reflection on whether you are ready for such an experience and if you have the skills and the knowledge needed. On the other hand, if you have partners on board, you must prove that your business initiative needs them by showing skill and functional complementarity. • Business opportunity and sector analysis. Any business stems from the detection of an opportunity. In your business plan, you must state clearly the customer problems or needs and how you are going to meet them. In addition to this, you must specify the economic value of the opportunity you are willing to put in practice. Some questions you need to resolve at this stage are: o What do customers do in an inefficient way? o What needs could be met in a better way? o What is the economic value of my solution? At the same time, in order to define the sector and its growing potential, you should accurately describe the market where you are going to compete, entry barriers and any aspect you might consider relevant. • Product and Production Plan. In this section you will have to explain in detail what makes your business different, what sort of innovations you add, your product / service advantages and whether or not there are already the same type of products or services in the market. In relation to the production plan, it is critical, among other factors, to identify the resources you need to produce your goods and your production capacity limits. • Market, customer and competition analysis You will have to make references to you real and potential market, if you need to develop market segmentations and what are the consequences. Competitors identification is yet again crucial. At this stage, you need to undertake a thorough study on their products / services, how they reach their customers and why their customers purchase their goods. • Marketing and communication plan This section is as important as the others. It focuses on the tools you are going to employ to market your product or service. In relation to Marketing Plan, we advise you to have a look to the training fiche in the platform. • Economic and Financial Plan Figures and figures, estimates and forecasts. Once we have reached this stage, it is imperative you figure out initial investment in as much detail as possible and how you are going to fund it. We agree that estimates are estimates, but nevertheless, the closer to reality you get, the better. It is a good idea to get comfortable with terms such as assets and liabilities (balance), profit and loss statements, cash flow plan and break-even point, or the point where you start to make profits.

In another training fiche, the one related to internationalisation, we already talked about the European Single Market, in place since 1992 and based in four principle freedoms: Goods, Capital, Services and People. The creation of a common market has catered for many opportunities for businesses and people.

With the rise of Internet and the use of information and communication technologies, further opportunities are within reach for companies to seize and prosper, including crafts, creative and cultural industries SMEs and micro SMEs. People and enterprises are buying and selling more and more through the net. In terms of ecommerce, studies suggest that only 4% of online services are EU cross-border operations between EU countries. Therefore, there is a long way to go to get the most of the Digital Single Market at European level.

In this training fiche, we intend to offer you an interesting reading menu for your business. It consists of two main courses: The first one with information on the EU Digital Strategy and how you can harness its potential and the second course related to ecommerce and data protection and what you can make out of the new EU Regulations in this sense. We hope you enjoy it. Bon appétit! 

• Digital Single Market. Digital Single Market means that businesses and people can access online to goods and services regardless of their nationality and the country they lived in Europe. For businesses in general and craft and cultural industries in particular, ICT and digital technologies are increasingly becoming part of the business itself, either in the production processes of the business, or in the marketing side of the operations. It is estimated that 75% of the added value by the Digital Economy comes from traditional industries, rather than ICT producers, but the integration of digital technology by businesses is the weakest element. Only 1.7% of EU enterprises make full use of advanced digital technologies, while 41% do not use them at all. This can be said in many aspects about traditional small craft industries where the production processes are still as they used to be long ago and no integration of digital economy has taken place at all. The common online market is seen as a huge opportunity for businesses and employment generation, and according to estimations, it could contribute €415 billion to the European economy. As a result, it will be a genuine source for market expansion, fostering the provision of higher quality services at affordable price, thus increasing competition and business development. But at present, the situation is that markets are quite domestic in terms of online services. Data from the EU shows that only 7% of EU SMEs businesses sell cross-border. As those studies suggest barriers that do not exist in the physical single market are holding the EU back. Even so, 57 % of companies admit that they would sell online to other EU members is there were not such a myriad of different rules applying in each member state. In this sense, for instance, it is paramount for crafts SMEs and Creative and Cultural Industries copyright harmonisation throughout Europe to remove the obstacles that are already hampering the sector development. In this way, transmission and consumption of cultural and creative content will be allowed with the positive impact for businesses and consumers. We have already described Intellectual Property features within the IP training fiche. Please, pay it a visit should you wish to know further about the different ways to protect your work. The same could be said about VAT regulation for businesses selling in other member states. As part of the Single Digital Strategy the Commission has proposed VAT to be collected through a single and simplified electronic registration and payment mechanism. Again take a look to the training fiche on basic legal requirements to know more about this topic. Finally, it is important to highlight the ICT skills improvement needed in all sectors in general and in the craft industries in particular. The Digital Strategy aims to address this skill mismatch and shortage of high qualified workers as part of the strategy. The study of Identification of Skill Needs in micro and craft enterprises up to 2020 states that the anticipation of future skill needs is particularly important for this type of enterprises as they are more generally affected by skill shortages, recruiting problems and external factors such as changing technologies. • Data protection and privacy policies A sound Digital Single Market able to boost future economy as we said earlier must strike a balance between business freedom to operate and consumers’ rights. Trust is key in this relationship as it is the right to privacy and personal data protection, especially in the digital economy where new trends include data analysis as one of the main elements of business development. As stated in a 2015 Eurobarometer survey, eight out of 10 people feel that they do not have complete control of their personal data while two-thirds on their personal data online. The absence of trust in consumers means the loss of income for businesses. And ecommerce and online shopping is about consumer trust that when you entered your personal data and credit card number, that data will treated according to the established rules. And those set or rules have become a barrier for businesses and do not defend consumers’ rights effectively to face the new threats posed by the rapid digital and technological changes. For instance, different regulations are applied in each different country. Therefore, when a business wish to undertake cross-border online operations it has to comply with the national legislation of the place where is selling online. These current legislation at European level is about to change. And this will have an economic impact for businesses online services, including those of micro craft enterprises and culture and creative industries which are harnessing in many respects the digital economy opportunities. The data protection reform package includes the General Data Protection Regulation that shall entry into force in 2018 in all member states. Businesses need to get ready to the new regulation to gain competitive advantages. The Commission believes that It will help realise the potentialities of the Single Digital Market for businesses we talked above by: ? Providing a single European law for data protection, replacing 28 different regulations. In this way companies will deal with one law. The benefits are estimated at €2.3 billion per year. ? One-stop-shop for businesses: companies will only have to deal with one single supervisory authority making it simpler and cheaper for companies to do business in the EU. ? The same rules for all companies – regardless of where they are established. With the new package reform companies based outside of Europe will have to apply the same rules when they offer goods or services on the EU market. On top, the new regulation has specific advantages for SMEs in relation to the obligations of data controllers and processors imposed to companies. Obligations such as hiring a data protection officer, keeping records of processing activities or reporting breaches to individuals, will be reduced or eliminated for SMEs, which should be good news for craft enterprises and creative and culture industries. Still, you have two year to put all the systems in place for the new regulations. • E-commerce and data protection Electronic commerce and online shopping are here to stay and be further developed. If we assume that reality our businesses will be able to take full advantage of the global market that is out there waiting for our products. These new ways of doing things for traditional crafts micro enterprises are not easy. Practical difficulties like new payment methods, proper delivery of the goods that are bought, fraud and criminality, risk of disputes...) make things more difficult, but the benefits outgrow the difficulties. According to a recent communication from the Commission about a coherent framework for building trust in the digital single market for e-commerce and online services, SMEs will benefit by accessing new markets and cloud computing, thus, enhancing their productivity. The Electronic Commerce Directive, adopted in 2000, sets up an Internal Market framework for electronic commerce, which provides legal certainty for business and consumers. It establishes harmonised rules on issues such as the transparency and information requirements for online service providers, commercial communications, electronic contracts and limitations of liability of intermediary service providers. In any event, when you think of selling online you must be clear about your private policies and data protection and make them clear as well to your customers. Terms and conditions should be highlighted in your site and specify that buyers are entering into a contract to when they buy goods or service from your website. Policies about delivery, shipping, refunds and payments, and whenever possible, exclusions of liability should be made clear to your buyers. In this way you build trust and confidence which is key for your success.

In many occasions what makes the difference for the success of your business or the possibility of having a competitive advantage is the protection of your product or project to prevent others copying it.

That is the reason why you should be able to differentiate between different concepts. You also should know the different steps in the process of protecting your product or your trademark, and the documentation needed.

Let’s face it. Regarding Intellectual Protection, we must admit the existence of a large regulatory dispersion in Europe, as in each member state the situation is different. Nevertheless, steps are being taken to reach harmonisation in IP and trademarks. In fact, there is a European Union Trademark with overall effects in all member states and a project for a unitary patent.

Likewise, there is a European Intellectual Property Office, EUIPO whose main goals are to inform, promote and support European trade mark value for businesses. Please, do not hesitate to ask, they are there to help you.

• Intellectual Property. Intellectual property is the exclusive rights over intellectual creations. It is broken down into two parts: industrial property, including inventions (patents), trade marks, drawings and industrial designs and geographical indications; and copyrights that involve literary and artistic creations. The European Union has carried out an active policy to harmonise legislation on this topic in all member states. TheTreaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which entered in force in 2009, provides explicit competence to the European Union over Intellectual Property rights. • Intellectual Property rights are still protected mainly by national legislation. However, if you need to protect them in each of the member states can be complex and expensive, and therefore in order to save time and money you can use intellectual protection at European level. • If you are thinking of doing business with more than an EU country, the European Union trade mark, drawing or community model provide protection in 28 member states with only one registration. You can register your trade mark, drawing or design in any of the 23 European Union languages by submitting only one application to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). • Intellectual Property can be protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) established by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The protection of these rights depends on the type of Intellectual Property we are dealing with. Let’s take a glance to the alternatives: • Patents prevent third parties to manufacture, use or sell anybody’s invention during a certain period of time, depending on the type of invention. In the framework of the European Patents Convention, patents are awarded to those inventions that are new and can be industrially applied. To this end, it is a requirement that these inventions were not known before and that they can be manufactured or use in industrial processes. For national patents you can apply to your national patent office, whereas the European Patent must be processed by the European Patent Office (EPO). However, European Patents must be validated in each country where you are seeking protection. Depending on national legislation, you as business promoter might be obliged to provide with translations and / or paying fees in specific countries. Currently, efforts are being made to implementing a unitary patent protection European wide. This will enable inventors to protect their inventions in the European Union by submitting a single patent application, thus, there will be no need to validate that patent in each individual member state. • Trade marks protect product names as they prevent other businesses from selling products with the same name. Trade marks are signs used in trade to identify products. In relation to Intellectual Property, trade marks are a small element but very useful. Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the European Union trade mark offers the following definition for a trade mark: An EU trade mark may consist of any signs, in particular words, including personal names, or designs, letters, numerals, colours, the shape of goods or of the packaging of goods, or sounds, provided that such signs are capable of: o distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings; and o being represented on the Register of European Union trade marks in a manner which enables the competent authorities and the public to determine the clear and precise subject matter of the protection afforded to its proprietor. • In practice, it means your trade mark is the symbol your customers use to pick you out. It is also convenient to differentiate you from your competitors. In some countries, you can also get protection even if your trade mark is not registered, as long as it is used. However, you are well advised to register it in order to obtain the best protection. The only condition imposed on a registered trade mark is that it must be clearly defined; otherwise neither you nor your competitors will be certain of what it covers. • Copyright informs others that you (as the author) intend to control the production, distribution, display or performance of your work. Copyright is granted automatically, with no need for formal registration. You can start using the copyright symbol immediately. Nevertheless, in most countries there is a register system and optional deposit for your works. These systems in place facilitate, for instance, clarifications on controversies related to ownership, creation, financial transactions, selling and right transfers. • In legal terms, Copyright, or author’s right, describes the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture, and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings. • Exhaustive lists of works covered by copyright are usually not to be found in legislation. Nonetheless, broadly speaking, works commonly protected by copyright throughout the world include: o literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspaper articles; o computer programs, databases; o films, musical compositions, and choreography; o artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture; o architecture; and o advertisements, maps, and technical drawings Copyright protection extends only to expressions, and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such. Copyright may or may not be available for a number of objects such as titles, slogans, or logos, depending on whether they contain sufficient authorship. Currently, as part of the Single Digital Market, the European Union aims to improve the framework for European Copyright, boosting therefore, the provision of digital content. This is paramount for creative and cultural industries as they will have an easier access to cross-border internal markets within the EU. Please, have a look to the training fiche on Single Digital Market and ecommerce. • Design. In business, design is crucial for success. Great design focuses on the user, combines aesthetic, economic and practical values and is the way your customers identify innovative brilliance. In Europe, there is a recognised need to encourage European designers and European businesses to develop their design strategies. A design is a practical way to define and protect your innovation. It is indeed, a company asset that can be traded or used as collateral, that rewards your creative effort, that acts as your IP signature. • Designs are well defined in the European Union: «The appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation » (Article 3 of the Design Regulation). Almost any industrial or handicraft item can be eligible for design protection (except for computer programs). (https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/guest/design-definition) • Geographical indication is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. (Art. 22.1 from TRIPS) Traditionally, Geographical Indication is being used for agricultural products. However, in 2014, a public consultation by the EU was launched to extend this type of protection to non-agricultural products, such as handcrafts. There has already been a report on this issue by the European Parliament in 2015 and its endorsement is expected shortly.

Did you know that many small and medium enterprises have survived through this crisis because they have gone international? Some of them, when they found difficulties in their own domestic markets, they looked beyond their national borders to sell their products and services. Don’t forget we live in a global village.

However, selling abroad is certainly not a bed of roses. There are a number of challenges micro companies must face when looking abroad. For instance, the type of skills needed in your business, in your employees, or yourself, the resources, distribution channels, and so on.

Nevertheless, the European Commission in its Communication on Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe, invite member states “to bring together all business support services, including mentoring, facilitation and advice on access to conventional and non-conventional finance, access to incubators and business accelerators and support for early internationalisation of young enterprises”. Single European Market is out there to favour your international development.

In this training fiche, we intend to show what it takes to sell abroad. Starting with a self-reflection that an enterprise must endure whether your business is ready to internationalise or not. Some tips will be shown and we will provide the leads in case you need, and you probably will, further information, support and expert assistance. We will acknowledge the advantages and pitfalls that the Single European Market offers and how some European Programmes might lend you a hand before jumping ahead.

Read on to discover your next market destination: Europe and the world.

• Single European Market. Though you might think you are exporting your goods and services if you sell them in one of the member states, that is not technically correct. The Single European Market works as a country itself. The principle of free movement of goods, allowing goods to be transported and sold anywhere in the EU, is a cornerstone of the EU market. To a certain extent, complex and varied national laws have been replaced by a single set of European rules, cutting down on costs and inconvenience for businesses wanting to trade in other EU countries. The EU is a customs union - its 28 member countries form a single territory for customs purposes. This means that: ? If you want to sell your goods or services, no customs duties are paid on them moving between EU countries. ? All member states apply a common customs tariff for goods imported from outside the EU. ? Goods that have been legally imported can circulate throughout the EU with no further customs checks. This is quite relevant if you are importing products from any country outside the EU and you want to sell them in any EU country or third countries. Currently, the European Union is leading a plan to unlock the full potential of the Single Market. With this end, the European Commission has decided to give the Single Market a boost by improving mobility for service providers, ensuring that innovative business models can flourish, making it easier for retailers to do business across borders, and enhancing access to goods and services throughout the EU. So, for instance, if you have a registered business providing services as an artist or tourist guide, in the country where you live, you can offer those services in another EU country without setting up a company or branch there. So that makes things easier for the development of your business. • Aspects to take into account before exporting your goods and services. Think and live international. It must be admitted that looking abroad just for the sake that domestic market is not working properly might not be such a good idea. If not done properly it can double your problems. First, you need to understand that things will certainly take longer abroad. If you want to build a long-lasting business relationship abroad, you need to be patient. Secondly, do you remember that in the training fiche on business model and business plan we talked about how you see your business development? If you intend to sell abroad, this has to be part of both plans. At the end of the day, it means that you must take it very seriously because it will draw resources and energy and you may not expect immediate results. It might be a good idea to draft an internationalisation plan that should match your business model and can be integrated in your business plan. Think strategically. • An internationalisation plan should address at least the following topics: Market selection, you must be clear about why you have picked one market and not other. Do not spread your market selection as it will be resources, time and staff consuming. Just focus on one at the beginning and work with it as a pilot project to check how it works. Competitors analysis. This part of the plan needs an in-depth research on the selected market and the companies that are already operating in that market. Get in touch with agencies and institutions, such as Chambers of Commerce that can provide that sort of analysis, contacts and expertise in the field. Distribution methods. At this point, you need to outline how you will get your product or service to the end customers in your target market. We will deal with this subject later. Your product or service. Do they need any changes to be made if you are exporting them? These potential changes may include packaging design or size, design changes, branding, labelling, etc. Bear in mind that you need to adapt your product or service to your target market and its regulations. It is also relevant to think of your production capacity to ensure you can deliver properly and in time. Pricing strategy. Again, this is a critical point of your internationalisation plan. The price in your domestic market is not likely to be the same in the target one. Many different circumstances apply such as foreign currency fluctuations, competitor price in the target market, extra costs due to changes in your product, distribution, transport costs, etc. Market entry. At this stage, you should have clearly established how you are going to access the target market. There are different options: selling to wholesale or retail, use a partner such as agent or distributor, set up an office, enter into a joint venture. You need to work out which one is the most convenient at the beginning. Promotional Strategy. Start thinking ahead about how you plan to support your customers and partners (eg agents, distributors). This could include providing training for in market partners, promotional materials, advertising in the target market, etc. Now you have thoroughly thought about why and how you are going to sell your product or service. You have developed your contacts there, and searched for customers. The following issue is distribution and logistics. • Some administrative procedures. Now that you are ready to export you should be aware that there is a (large) number of administrative procedures you need to take into account. For instance, you might need to submit an export declaration for your products and may need an export license. You might also have to pay custom duties and taxes in the destination country. Export regulations vary, depending on the country you’re exporting to and the goods or services you are selling. The European Union offers a wide range of services to inform you of all you need when exporting from the EU. At the same time, member states have their national agencies to assist you if you wish to import / export. They provide a wealth of information and tips that are very handy when you do not know your target market. In many occasions they might have offices or local associates to help your business in the area. One of the administrative requirements for selling abroad is the EORI number. EORI stands for Economic Operators Registration and Identification number. Any economic operator established in the EU needs to have one. Even an individual or sole trader needs to have a valid registration number, used by one of the Member States. The application should be sent to the customs authorities of the Member States in which the economic operator is established. Another important issue you must take into account is Value Added Tax (VAT) isn't charged on exports to countries outside the EU. In this case the VAT is paid in the country of import. You will need to provide evidence that the goods were exported to a country outside the EU. • International distribution and logistics. When we talk about distribution we believe it would be quite helpful to go through these questions: o Which channels of distribution should your company use to market its products abroad? o What types of representatives, brokers, wholesalers, and distributors should you use? o What are the characteristics and capabilities of the available intermediaries? International distribution is also about processes within your company. You need to have good systems in place that create transparency and trust between you and your retailers. Having the correct distribution agreements, general terms of business and a general grasp of your legal requirements is important. Start small in your target market. Like anything in growing a business, starting with small tests is the best way to find the right formula. Making use of international distributors and agents will give you quick access to a large number of retailers, but of course you will end up paying for this with margins. You’ll also need to count on shipping costs, taxes and other logistic fees which can be a nightmare if you are new to international distribution. Search for options and talk to others who are already shipping internationally. Again, do not forget the assistance you can get from institutions and official agencies that organise trade shows and events in different countries to market your products and introduce you to potential partners. It might be a good idea to take part in European programmes such as Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs that can serve to foster close relationships with entrepreneurs from different member states and in a later stage you can develop cooperation ties with them and serve as partners or distributors of your products and services in their countries. • International transport. Choosing the right mode of transport is essential to ensure your import or export operation is efficient and cost-effective. You can use either road, rail, air and sea, although you may need to use more than one type of transport. When making your choices, you will also need to decide whether to handle logistics by yourself, or outsource the work to a freight forwarder. Factors that will influence your decision on which type of transport to use include your business’ requirements, the destination country, and the type of goods you are importing or exporting. At this point, it is relevant to speak about the International Commercial Terms (‘Incoterms’). They are internationally recognised standard trade terms used in sales contracts. They’re used to make sure buyer and seller know who is responsible for the cost of transporting the goods, including insurance, taxes and duties, where the goods should be picked up from and transported to who is responsible for the goods at each step during transportation. • Methods of payment in international trade. This last part of the fiche explains the four main payment methods used in export trade. Bear in mind that exporters want to receive payment as soon as possible, preferably as soon as an order is placed or before the goods are sent to the importer, while importers want to receive the goods as soon as possible but to delay payment as long as possible, preferably until after the goods are resold to generate enough income to pay the exporter. Cash-in-advance, is the most preferred option for exporters as they received the payment before they send the goods. The use of this method generally means you do not trust your buyer and in the long term might imply the lost of sales. Letters of credit. Letters of credit (LCs) are one of the most secure instruments available to international traders. An LC is a commitment by a bank on behalf of the buyer that payment will be made to the exporter, provided that the terms and conditions stated in the LC have been met, as verified through the presentation of all required documents. Documentary collections. A documentary collection (D/C) is a transaction whereby the exporter entrusts the collection of a payment to the remitting bank (exporter’s bank), which sends documents to a collecting bank (importer’s bank), along with instructions for payment. Funds are received from the importer and remitted to the exporter through the banks involved in the collection in exchange for those documents. Open Account. An open account transaction is a sale where the goods are shipped and delivered before payment is due, which is usually in 30 to 90 days. Obviously, this option is the most advantageous option to the importer in terms of cash flow and cost, but it is consequently the highest risk option for an exporter

The European Union is aware of the difficulties across all member states when entrepreneurs wish to create their companies. Recent Commission Communications and strategies have unveiled all these mismatches such as regulatory burdens that entrepreneurs must face from the beginning of their project, red tape that affect directly to microenterprises in their daily operations and so on. Member states have been invited amid other actions to “reduce time for licensing and other authorisations necessary to start a business to one month”. Progress has been made in some countries, but more efforts need to be put in place to achieve this goal.

As important as fulfilling all legal requirements is the strategic decision on how your idea is going to see the light in the market, this is, is going to be legally constituted. Several alternatives are at your disposal, from Limited Company to sole trader alongside social economy. We will deal with the factors you might take into consideration when selecting your option.

One of this option is, at European Level, the European Company, introduced in 2004 that aims to unleash the potential of the Single Market for companies with activity in more than one EU country. We will review its main tenets so that you get acquainted with this type of company.

Finally, please be aware that in most of the issues concerning legal requirements for the creation of a company and therefore in this training fiche, rules do not apply to all member states. In fact, current regulation related to this topic is not harmonised. Thus, you will have to search at national contact points to check out for specific national legislation.

• Legal requirements for the creation of a company. Generally speaking the main legal requirements to create your company will depend upon the business structure you consider for your business idea. Some of the factors that might have an impact on that decision can be the following: - The extent of your obligations or liabilities within your company operations. - The number of promoters of your business initiative. Some legal forms might require a certain number of partners taking part in order to reach legal registration minimum. - Tax regime and fiscal obligations might also become a relevant factor when making the choice. It is not certainly the same situation at the start of your company, where the turnover is low and hopefully starting to grow than when you run a consolidated company reaching certain income thresholds. - Type of activity might also influence your decision. In the sector we are addressing with this training fiche, crafts and CCIs, sole traders and limited companies are quite used though social enterprises are also being employed to operate in this sector. You can find bellow a chart with the maincompanies’ types you can encounter and some of its main characteristics. LEGAL FORM BUSINESS LIABILITY SOLE TRADER You take your own decisions. Your run your business. Generally speaking, they are easier to set up as they require less formalities. You have personal responsibility for your business debts and obligations. LIMITED COMPANY They are formed by the directors of the company. In some cases, it might be only one director. They are more complex to set up than the former. As a Director your liability for debt will be limited to the capital you have invested in the business. SOCIAL ENTERPRISES (COOPERATIVES) It is required a number of partners and the elaboration of the statues of the company. Each member of the cooperative has a vote. Generally, the liability is also limited to the capital invested at the start of the company. Please, bear in mind that a wider range of types may apply depending on the country you wish to set up your business. For that purposes, we advise you to get in touch with national agencies that will provide assistance in these matters. Alternatively, you can have a look at Your Europe portal, where links to national support agencies for businesses are supplied and very useful. http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/start-grow/start-ups/index_en.htm# Taking into account the differences in legal requirements that may arise depending on the legal form you have picked and the country you wish to set up your business, here are some formalities you may need to fulfil if you are thinking of starting your business: Register for the appropriate Social Security System. In some cases, national authorities have in place specific Social Security Schemes for individuals to register to, either as sole traders or as directors of limited companies. In some other cases, these directors are classified as mere employees and therefore they need to be registered as such. Some member states apply turnover thresholds over which there is an obligation of registration. Again, you should contact national authorities to check out for the best formula. Taxes and annual accounts. You need to register your company at your national tax office. Understanding your taxes obligations is key to ensure you run your operations smoothly and without any problems with tax public administration. Do not underestimate them. It is important to keep accurate records of all your operations, expenses and profits, as you will have to pay accordingly. At this point, professional advice from an accountant might be worthwhile as we do not have to be experts in all matters, and this is a complicated one. Not in vain, the Commission suggests that reducing tax compliance costs would improve the business environment for small firms and in its 2020 Entrepreneurship Action Plan, makes an invitation to member states to “…make the national tax administration environment more favourable to early stagebusiness. Reduce the cost of tax compliance by simplifying tax filing and taxpayment…” Application for licenses. There is considerable variation in the number and type of licences required across the different member states. It also depends on the type of activity you are undertaking. The licenses may also stem from different administrative level, local to regional and national. However, you should take them into consideration as the lack of them may result in delays for the start of your operations. Register for VAT. As you probably know by now, VAT stands for Value Added Tax, which is charged upon sales throughout the European Union. VAT is what you “extra” charge to your customers (output tax) and it is also what you “extra” paid to your suppliers (input tax). The difference is what you get – VAT refunds- or have to pay to your national tax administration. The standard rate for VAT depends on each country national authority, though the European VAT Directives set the minimum standard VAT rate. In 2016 is at 15%. The 28 member states are otherwise free to set their standard VAT rates from that amount on. There are goods with a lower rate or even exempt items. The EU also permits a maximum of two reduced rates.You should check what rate applies to the goods you produce or the services you deliver. In some member states, for instance, cultural services have a lower VAT rate as it is an indirect way of promoting this sector. You can register to get your VAT number from your national tax office. Normally, if you are registered for VAT and you make sales to other businesses, you must issue a VAT invoice — either in paper or electronic form. VAT is normally added to the price of the goods or services on your invoice. Your VAT identification number must be shown on all invoices you give to customers, as well as the amount of VAT being charged and other standard items. Though this rule has exceptions. For cross border – VAT, when you buy or sell products or services within other EU countries, different rules apply. New legislation is currently in force for this type of VAT that aims to tackle fraud in cross border transactions. A distinction needs to be made whether we are dealing with goods or services. You do not charge VAT If you are selling products to other businesses with valid VAT number. If they do not have it, then you must charge it. They must provide that information beforehand or, alternatively, the EU has a database where you can verify businesses VAT number existence (VIES). If you are selling your product to end users, you need to register in the country you are selling your product and charge the VAT in force in that country. You do not have to do so if the total amounts of sales in that country do not reach a limit set by each country that can be either 35.000 € or 100.000 €. For instance, in the countries where OER Craft project partners come from, the limit is, in all of them, of 35.000 €. Any sales over this amount will imply for your company to register for VAT in the country and apply the national rate, with the implications you might foresee. On the other hand, if your company provide services, which is the case for many cultural and creative industries, you do not charge VAT but your business customer will have to pay it with their national applicable rate (reverse charge procedure). In any case, you can still deduct the VAT you had to pay in order to provide the services for that customer. Again, if it is an end-consumer the one you are providing your service for, you can charge VAT at your country rate, except for telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services where the rule is to apply the consumer tax law. All these rules have many exceptions. As you can see it might be worthwhile to look for professional assistance and expertise to help you through with these administrative issues • The European Company. The European Company, or Societas Europaea, consists of a public, limited-liability company regulated under EU law. It is a good idea for companies that have different activities in different EU countries. It also allows you to change your head offices to different countries without the need to dissolve it and start over again in another one and therefore reducing the costs. Another interesting feature of this type of European company is that their employees must get involved in its management. However, to set a European Company up might be a bit expensive as one of its legal requirements is a minimum capital of 120.000 €, which is not very easy for the type of entrepreneurs and sectors we are dealing with in this training fiches. Nevertheless, it is worth noting because it represents a first attempt of setting a legal form beyond national legislation and that should be the trend for the rest of company’s types.

MODULE 1 –BUSINESS MODEL UNIT 1 –HOW TO GENERATE A FEASIBLE BUSINESS MODEL As we stated in the training fiche related to business models and planning, there are certainly a number of tools that can be used to develop and validate your business idea. In this unit, we intend to provide general information on some of the tools used. Ultimately, you will need to do some trials to validate which tool is more appropriate for your characteristics, idea, sector, product or service… SECTION 1: CANVAS MODEL Ted Greenwald in the Forbes newsletter provides a good example of how using a new business model can make a great difference between failure and success. He explains the case of Xerox 914, that in 1959, “... the first dry-process, plain-paper copier was a potential game-changer — but it cost six times the price of alternatives. Potential partners wouldn’t touch it. So, the company developed a new business model. Rather than selling the machine, they leased it for $95 a month and charged a few cents per copy for copies in excess of 2000 a month. Thanks to the 914?s speed and convenience, customers soon were making tens of thousands of copies in the same period, and the copier that couldn’t be sold suddenly became a huge revenue generator.” So the focus was changed on the customer. It is what is called a customer centred approach that we can summarized in the following steps: • Customer segment or to whom are you addressing your product. The customer is at the core of this model, therefore you need to develop a deep knowledge on them. ? Which classes are you creating values for? ? Who is your most important customer? • Value proposition, or what are you going to offer. Closely linked to the first step, this second one suggests a seamless and profound reflection on what difference your product makes. ? What core value do you deliver to the customer? ? Which customer needs are you satisfying? • Distribution channels, or how are you going to reach your customers, how are you going to deliver your products. ? Through which channels that your customers want to be reached? ? Which channels work best? How much do they cost? How can they be integrated into your and your customers’ routines? • Customer relationships, or what sort of bonds are you going to create with your customers. It is about the service you are going to provide to them. ? What relationship that the target customer expects you to establish? ? How can you integrate that into your business in terms of cost and format? • Revenues or incomes, or how is your product or your service valued by your customers, how much they are willing to pay for them. It is also relevant to estimate how the business is getting the income, regularity, etc. ? For what value are your customers willing to pay? ? What and how do they recently pay? How would they prefer to pay? ? How much does every revenue stream contribute to the overall revenues? • Key resources, in terms of what is needed to provide value to customers, such as, machinery, human resources, etc. ? What key resources does your value proposition require? ? What resources are important the most in distribution channels, customer relationships, revenue stream…? • Key activities, in relation to all what it takes to provide value to the customer. ? What key activities does your value proposition require? ? What activities are important the most in distribution channels, customer relationships, revenue stream…? • Key partners, sometimes they are not given the relevance they deserve. They are critical on the medium and long term. We talk about funding organisations, investors, suppliers and those stakeholders that have an impact on your business. ? Who are your key partners/suppliers? ? What are the motivations for the partnerships? • Cost structure, what it needs to be paid and when. ? What are the most cost in your business? ? Which key resources/ activities are most expensive? SECTION 2: LEAN START UP MODEL This new model is based on validating learning or how to get customer input as soon as possible so that you do not waste your resources into a product or service that might not be worthy to your potential customers. One of their main objectives is to eliminate uncertainty in the product development process. Instead of building in isolation from users, start-ups regularly expose the product to customers throughout the development cycle. In doing so, teams produce a product development methodology able to make more informed decisions about what to build, from core product functions to what colour a button should be. Originally conceived for technology start-ups, this model based on the Eric Ries book, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business, has these main features: • Its main objective is to reduce as much as possible the inner risk when launching a new product. • It is about ongoing learning always bearing in mind the reactions of the market where the product is launched. That’s why it is important to keep communication channels with the customers wide opened to get their feedback about how they perceive the new product or service. • Launching the MVP or Minimum Viable Product, as soon as possible, with the lowest cost involved so as to get market feedback the sooner the better. In this way, you either validate or improve your product, reducing production costs. It’s about “think big, start small, scale fast” SECTION 3: VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS Another tool employed in business management is the analysis of the value chain within the activities of the company. It is based on a model figured out by Michael Porter in his book “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance”. It therefore involves a through and in-depth knowledge of the main activities and processes in the company so that you can have an overview on your main strengths and weaknesses. In a way, it implies a SWOT analysis about your company activities so that you can gain a competitive edge. The company activities within this model are broken down into two different categories: ? Primary activities, that are those that gives value to the product directly, such as inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales and service. ? Support activities, which provide value in an indirect way are for instance human resource management, procurement, technology or the infrastructure. Source: http://research-methodology.net/theory/strategy/value-chain-analysis-2/ According to Porter’s model, companies create value in two different ways. • Cost advantage, by decreasing costs of activities, mainly primary ones so that they can reduce prices without reducing profits • Differentiation, which mainly involve support activities where businesses can focus on their competitive advantage. Investing in activities adapted as sources of competitive advantage allows the business to increase the quality of their products and services and sell them for higher prices. ? UNIT 2 –BUSINESS PLAN SECTION 1: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Though some might consider it as a step previous to setting up a company, the business plan can also guide you through your business development and consolidation. As we explained in its training fiche the business plan is commonly considered as the traditional tool when creating a business. Still, it is a suitable way to know, improve and develop your business idea. On top, as we said earlier, it represents your business card for potential investors, public administration, funding entities and stakeholders. There are a number of elements that should be part of your business plan, depending on the authors. As we have already mentioned, it should be a reflection process for yourself as to whether you have or not the necessary resources for the enterprise and where to pick them up. SECTION 2: MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE BUSINESS PLAN The elements that should be part of your business plan are: • Promoters. If you are a sole trader, this section can be substituted with a personal reflection on whether you are ready for such an experience and if you have the skills and the knowledge needed. On the other hand, if you have partners on board, you must prove that your business initiative needs them by showing skill and functional complementarity. • Business opportunity and sector analysis. Any business stems from the detection of an opportunity. In your business plan, you must state clearly the customer problems or needs and how you are going to meet them. In addition to this, you must specify the economic value of the opportunity you are willing to put in practice. Some questions you need to resolve at this stage are: o What do customers do in an inefficient way? o What needs could be met in a better way? o What is the economic value of my solution? At the same time, in order to define the sector and its growing potential, you should accurately describe the market where you are going to compete, entry barriers and any aspect you might consider relevant. • Product and Production Plan. In this section, you will have to explain in detail what makes your business different, what sort of innovations you add, your product / service advantages and whether or not there are already the same type of products or services in the market. In relation to the production plan, it is critical, among other factors, to identify the resources you need to produce your goods and your production capacity limits. • Market, customer and competition analysis You will have to make references to you real and potential market, if you need to develop market segmentations and what are the consequences. Competitors identification is yet again crucial. At this stage, you need to undertake a thorough study on their products / services, how they reach their customers and why their customers purchase their goods. • Marketing and communication plan This section is as important as the others. It focuses on the tools you are going to employ to market your product or service. In relation to Marketing Plan, we advise you to have a look to the training fiche in the platform. • Economic and Financial Plan Figures and figures, estimates and forecasts. Once we have reached this stage, it is imperative you figure out initial investment in as much detail as possible and how you are going to fund it. We agree that estimates are estimates, but nevertheless, the closer to reality you get, the better. It is a good idea to get comfortable with terms such as assets and liabilities (balance), profit and loss statements, cash flow plan and break-even point, or the point where you start to make profits. ? UNIT 3 –LEGAL REQUIREMENTS TO SETTING UP A BUSINESS SECTION 1: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON LEGAL REQUIREMENTS The European Union is aware of the difficulties across all member states when entrepreneurs wish to create their companies. Recent Commission Communications and strategies have unveiled all these mismatches such as: • Regulatory burdens that entrepreneurs must face from the beginning of their project, • Red tape that affects directly to microenterprises in their daily operations • Excessive difficulties in tax management and payment processes. Member states have been invited amid other actions to “reduce time for licensing and other authorisations necessary to start a business to one month”. Progress has been made in some countries, but more efforts need to be put in place to achieve this goal. Generally speaking the main legal requirements to create your company will depend upon the business structure you consider for your business idea. Some of the factors that might have an impact on that decision can be the following: ? The extent of your obligations or liabilities within your company operations. ? The number of promoters of your business initiative. Some legal forms might require a certain number of partners taking part in order to reach legal registration minimum. ? Tax regime and fiscal obligations might also become a relevant factor when making the choice. It is not certainly the same situation at the start of your company, where the turnover is low and hopefully starting to grow than when you run a consolidated company reaching certain income thresholds. ? Type of activity might also influence your decision. In the sector we are addressing with this training fiche, crafts and CCIs, sole traders and limited companies are quite used though social enterprises are also being employed to operate in this sector. SECTION 2: LEGAL FORMS As we said earlier the legal form you pick for your business ideas has direct consequences in many different aspects on the life of your project, from liability to tax regime. This is an area where there is a wide range of forms to choose depending on the country you want to set up your business. For the sake of summarising, you can find bellow a chart with the main companies’ types you can encounter and some of its main characteristics. LEGAL FORM BUSINESS LIABILITY SOLE TRADER You take your own decisions. Your run your business. Generally speaking, they are easier to set up as they require less formalities. You have personal responsibility for your business debts and obligations. LIMITED COMPANY They are formed by the directors of the company. In some cases, it might be only one director. They are more complex to set up than the former. As a Director, your liability for debt will be limited to the capital you have invested in the business. SOCIAL ENTERPRISES (COOPERATIVES) It is required a number of partners and the elaboration of the statues of the company. Each member of the cooperative has a vote. Generally, the liability is also limited to the capital invested at the start of the company. Please, bear in mind that, as we said earlier, a wider range of types may apply depending on the country you wish to set up your business. For that purposes, we advise you to get in touch with national agencies that will provide assistance in these matters. Alternatively, you can have a look at Your Europe portal, where links to national support agencies for businesses are supplied and very useful. http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/start-grow/start-ups/index_en.htm# SECTION 3: TAXATION Taxes and annual accounts. You need to register your company at your national tax office. Understanding your taxes obligations is key to ensure you run your operations smoothly and without any problems with tax public administration. Do not underestimate them. It is important to keep accurate records of all your operations, expenses and profits, as you will have to pay accordingly. At this point, professional advice from an accountant might be worthwhile as we do not have to be experts in all matters, and this is a complicated one. Not in vain, the Commission suggests that reducing tax compliance costs would improve the business environment for small firms and in its 2020 Entrepreneurship Action Plan, makes an invitation to member states to “…make the national tax administration environment more favourable to early stagebusiness. Reduce the cost of tax compliance by simplifying tax filing and taxpayment…” Register for VAT. As you probably know by now, VAT stands for Value Added Tax, which is charged upon sales throughout the European Union. VAT is what you “extra” charge to your customers (output tax) and it is also what you “extra” paid to your suppliers (input tax). The difference is what you get – VAT refunds- or have to pay to your national tax administration. The standard rate for VAT depends on each country national authority, though the European VAT Directives set the minimum standard VAT rate. In 2016 is at 15%. The 28 member states are otherwise free to set their standard VAT rates from that amount on. There are goods with a lower rate or even exempt items. The EU also permits a maximum of two reduced rates.You should check what rate applies to the goods you produce or the services you deliver. In some member states, for instance, cultural services have a lower VAT rate as it is an indirect way of promoting this sector. You can register to get your VAT number from your national tax office. Normally, if you are registered for VAT and you make sales to other businesses, you must issue a VAT invoice — either in paper or electronic form. VAT is normally added to the price of the goods or services on your invoice. Your VAT identification number must be shown on all invoices you give to customers, as well as the amount of VAT being charged and other standard items. Though this rule has exceptions. For cross border – VAT, when you buy or sell products or services within other EU countries, different rules apply. New legislation is currently in force for this type of VAT that aims to tackle fraud in cross border transactions. A distinction needs to be made whether we are dealing with goods or services. You do not charge VAT If you are selling products to other businesses with valid VAT number. If they do not have it, then you must charge it. They must provide that information beforehand or, alternatively, the EU has a database where you can verify businesses VAT number existence (VIES). If you are selling your product to end users, you need to register in the country you are selling your product and charge the VAT in force in that country. You do not have to do so if the total amounts of sales in that country do not reach a limit set by each country that can be either 35.000 € or 100.000 €. For instance, in the countries where OER Craft project partners come from, the limit is, in all of them, of 35.000 €. Any sales over this amount will imply for your company to register for VAT in the country and apply the national rate, with the implications you might foresee. On the other hand, if your company provide services, which is the case for many cultural and creative industries, you do not charge VAT but your business customer will have to pay it with their national applicable rate (reverse charge procedure). In any case, you can still deduct the VAT you had to pay in order to provide the services for that customer. Again, if it is an end-consumer the one you are providing your service for, you can charge VAT at your country rate, except for telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services where the rule is to apply the consumer tax law. All these rules have many exceptions. As you can see it might be worthwhile to look for professional assistance and expertise to help you through with these administrative issues SECTION 4: OTHER LEGAL REQUIREMENTS Register for the appropriate Social Security System. In some cases, national authorities have in place specific Social Security Schemes for individuals to register to, either as sole traders or as directors of limited companies. In some other cases, these directors are classified as mere employees and therefore they need to be registered as such. Some member states apply turnover thresholds over which there is an obligation of registration. Again, you should contact national authorities to check out for the best formula. Application for licenses. There is considerable variation in the number and type of licences required across the different member states. It also depends on the type of activity you are undertaking. The licenses may also stem from different administrative level, local to regional and national. However, you should take them into consideration as the lack of them may result in delays for the start of your operations. Member states and the European Union have acknowledged the need to reduce and facilitate the legal requirements for starting a business. They are aware of the critical role that SMEs play in the economic growth and employment generation all throughout Europe. The Commission together with member states are monitoring start up time costs at national level. As a summary for the OER Craft partners’ countries this is the information on these two questions from a study on compliance by Member States on the time needed to get licences and permits to take up and perform the specific activity of an enterprise (2014):

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.

This module is meant to help you develop a new mind set so you can boost your inner creator and equip you with a set of basic hands on tools to start with and build on. The first module provides information on the key aspects that influence success in creatively using ICT tools. The second part presents a few tools that you can use to transform your ideas into reality. Finally, the third section provides insights on the most important aspects of online marketing for internationalization.

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.
• When it comes to digital communication we find many different forms we can communicate through. One of those is, for instance, social networks. They all let you publish information about yourself, but also communicate through messages or chats with other contacts. • If we apply the concept ‘communication’ to our business implies the use of communication to address to our potential clients. The very first way to let our clients know us is through our web page. Nowadays it is essential to have a portal on the internet where we present ourselves and our product or service. • We give you some tips about how your web page should be: - The content and structure must be based on three basic criteria: usability, user-friendliness and accessibility. - Your website must reflect your brand image, and should use good and appealing photos and videos of your daily life activities. - You need to define clearly your services/products, messages and targets. - Contact details (email, phone numbers/whatsapp, fax, address, skype, facebook, youtube, etc.) and navigating menus, must be easily accessible. - Make sure that your website is constantly updated and lively; otherwise people will think that you are not really “active”. - Content is fundamental for any website and for its position. All the information you include in your site must be coherent with your mission and values as a brand.

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.
• As we have mentioned social networks have become really important for current communication. They offer updated, fast, free information and allow us to connect to millions of people without moving from our own place. As necessary to have different profiles on these networks it’s also to be active on them. Our customers must see that we are giving updated information and that we are always improving our business. Nowadays there is a wide variety of them with different functionalities but we recommend you to have a profile on the main ones: o Facebook: it is the oldest social network internet has had. It is essential to have an account for our company so we can publish on our walls new products with their descriptions. We can also join groups devoted to arts and crafts or artisans and get to know people and share experiences/advices. o Instagram: this social network is an app for smartphone and it has thousands of users. It works in a similar way as Facebook, at least with regard to what we need from it. If we add hash tags to the description, people will be able to find our products through them. o Twitter: it allows you to publish short messages (280 characters) with a picture/video so we can also use it to show our products. o Pinterest: allows users to share, and discover new things by posting (known as 'pinning' in this social network) images or videos to their own or others' boards (i.e. a collection of 'pins,' usually with a common theme) and browsing what other users have pinned.

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.
• Apart from social networks there are other formats to engage our potential clients: • Advertisements: through adverts on the web you can let people know what you have to offer. This is called ‘digital advertising’. The most popular forms of display ads are banners, landing pages and popups. Google offers the option of paying for their banners so you can advert yourself in these spaces. Landing pages are those pages where visitors “land” when they click on a Google AdWords advert or similar. It is a type of online paid advertising, but it is worthy if we want to give a boost to our business. • Newsletters: is a digital informative publication delivered frequently through email. We can invite our clients to subscribe to our newsletter in order to send them information about our products or any news. It is important that we are active and maybe establish a day to send the newsletter every week/month. There is a platform which provides email delivery service. Through it we can send email campaigns from our site and lets users view a history of emails they have been sent from Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com/).

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.
• We consider that ‘collaboration’ should be one of the bases for any business nowadays as we can make our companies advance if we have many contacts. It is important then to find other professionals of our sector so we can work along with them. • Groups Subscription: a good way to get to know people who belong to our sector is by subscribing to a professional group where other artisans share their opinions or other issues that might be more people’s interest. It can also be a good idea in terms of being up-to-date about new trends of our speciality. • Blogs: if we decide to create our own blog we can write our products or anything related to our business and share it with other users. Moreover people can post comments to our publications so we can receive feedback or even advice. • Forum: this is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. If you access to forums about craft or artisan jobs, you can chat with other professionals of your sector and share your views.

Nowadays it is essential to have good channels of communication and collaboration if we want that our business reach our target group. Everybody looks for new products/services online so we need to be among their findings. The first step is to have an appealing web site followed by a profile in the different social networks. Collaborating is as well important and the net offers us a wide range of options.
• Crowdfunding has become a popular tendency to get funding for a new project or startup business. This way you can offer the possibility to other people to take part in your business. There are many crowdfunding platforms but each one has a different purpose. • We present here below some of the most popular ones: o Kickstarter. It is the most popular crowdfunding site on the Internet, devoted to funding inventions and creative works. Moreover you don't have the commitment of returning the money if the goal is not reached. o Indiegogo. Although it is not as well known as Kickstarter it presents some advantages that the first one doesn’t have. Indiegogo has flexible funding that lets you keep the funds you've raised, even when you haven't been able to reach your goal. It also lets you buy funded products in the platform's marketplace, so successful projects have another potential source of income. o Patreon. Another popular crowdfunding platform is Patreon which works through subscriptions. It doesn’t work for straight-up campaigns, but for providing on-going financial support for a creative artist. There's also the option to provide content exclusive to patrons who are subscribed to your Patreon through the site itself. o GoFundMe. This one is more popular for individuals who need money right away. It’s common to see people here asking for crowdfunding for short-term projects or medical emergencies. There are different options and we highly recommend you to check them in case you need financial support. Bear in mind that through these platforms you are receiving money from people who will not benefit from your business, they are doing it for supporting your cause.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.
• Our information’s security can be based on two main points. The first one is to protect our personal data. We are going to give you some tips about them that may help you keep your information safely: • Use access passwords for all your devices so you will make it more difficult for strangers to access to your information related to you or to the products you sell. • These passwords should be complicated, that is, try to avoid using your birthday or the name of your pet as password and try to mix capital letters and lower case, some numbers and any of the ‘strange’ characters like $ or #. • If you need some kind of raw material for your activity, when you use e-commerce, for example, always access to safe web sites (https) and never make a payment through other pages. • Also avoid making payments in hotels, bars or restaurants where the Wi-Fi may not be completely trustworthy. Only do it when you know in advance that it is completely safe. • Please never give any personal information that you are asked for in an email or through a phone call. If you suspect that the call could be authentic, call to the company yourself and ask them if they are doing any kind of telephone campaign asking for this information to users. • Another option is to encrypt the information we send through email. There has been lately much advance in this sense and there are several programmes that allow us by means of mathematical algorithms to encrypt and decrypt messages to avoid your information being accessed by strangers. • It is also important to back up your information in your personal devices. This way you will avoid losing your contacts list, high-quality photos of our own products or any relevant information about you or your business. • We also recommend you save your files in the cloud. The advantage here is that you are not saving the information in your mobile phone or in your computer. In the case your device’s information was in the risk of being stolen, you would have your data externally saved and would have easy and quick access to it. • Do not store your security passwords in your devices. If someone accessed to your data through your computer, it would be the same as giving them your house keys.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.
• Our information’s security can be based on two main points. The first one is to protect our privacy. We are going to give you some tips about them that may help you keep your information safely: • Use access passwords for all your devices so you will make it more difficult for strangers to access to your information related to you or to the products you sell. • Please never give any personal information that you are asked for in an email or through a phone call. If you suspect that the call could be authentic, call to the company yourself and ask them if they are doing any kind of telephone campaign asking for this information to users. • In the social networks, personalize the information you share with the rest of users. Do not make certain information public like where you live, your birthdate or where you work. It is as well important to watch your online reputation. • Verify your privacy settings frequently as they usually change in social networks and you will need to adjust them to new clauses. • Do not accept unknown people in your social networks. It may sound good to say you have many friends, but you do not really know them and least their intentions. If you want to have many ‘friends’ you can create different groups of friends to distinguish your real friends, with whom you will share your experiences, from the other ‘friends’. Other solution would be to have different profiles and give them different purposes to avoid problems.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.
• We are going to give you some tips for personal safety and also safety for your mobiles that help you avoid certain problems: • Be careful when it comes to open attached files to WhatsApp messages, above all when they come from unknown sources. It is easy that your device is infected with some malware through this kind of files. • When you change your device, make sure you do not leave any sensitive personal information in your old device. You can either degauss it, shred it or use any programme designed to delete the existing information. Another option is to return it to its default configuration so no one will have access to the information you had saved there. • Once we stop using our mobiles it is advisable to turn it off and avoid unauthorised access. • Activate the remote location. In case of loss or theft, you will be able to know the exact location of your device through another of your devices, as long as the lost one is on. • Disable the bluetooth. Even though it offers many advantages it also makes your device more vulnerable to lose efficiency. It is not enough with ‘invisible mode’ to be safe, we should have it completely off. • You should block your devices after some time without using them. Most of tablets and mobile phones have this option. This helps us in case we lose the device so no one will have access to our personal data. • Be very careful with the apps you install. Not only can they slow down the device, but also they can access to your personal information in the background or even share your location through GPS from your mobile phone or tablet. • If any of the owner company of our social networks’ profiles suffers any attack, the first thing you have to do is to change your access password. Then verify if you could have been affected or if your data may have been accessed. If we had some sensitive information like bank account details, we’d better make contact with our bank and in case it is necessary, cancel our cards and get a new one. This way those accounts will automatically stop being active and won’t be used fraudulently.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.
• We are going to give you some tips for personal safety and also safety for your computers that help you avoid certain problems: • Update your programmes to avoid being a hackers’ target. Normally the programmes we have installed in the computer offer updates to improve the shortcomings the programmes’ authors find out. As long as you can, update your programmes and if you can, you should automate them so you do not have to keep an eye on this issue. • Always use an antivirus programme and a firewall so that you avoid people getting to your system and filter virus or install spy programmes. • Be careful when it comes to open attached files to emails, above all when they come from unknown sources. It is easy that your device is infected with some malware through this kind of files. • It is also very important to have installed anti malware programmes that detect malicious programmes, not detected by normal antivirus programmes. For example, Malware bytes Anti-Malware can be found on the link https://www.malwarebytes.com/. It has a free and a paid version. • When you change your device, make sure you do not leave any sensitive personal information in the hard disk of your old device. You can either degauss it, shred it or use any programme designed to delete the existing information in your hard disk. Another option is to return it to its default configuration so no one will have access to the information you had saved there. • Once we stop using our devices it is advisable to turn it off and avoid unauthorised access. • Activate the remote location. In case of loss or theft, you will be able to know the exact location of your device through another of your devices, as long as the lost one is on. • If any of the owner company of our social networks’ profiles suffers any attack, the first thing you have to do is to change your access password. Then verify if you could have been affected or if your data may have been accessed. If we had some sensitive information like bank account details, we’d better make contact with our bank and in case it is necessary, cancel our cards and get a new one. This way those accounts will automatically stop being active and won’t be used fraudulently.

Nowadays it is essential to protect our personal data in our devices if we want to buy and sell on the internet. Privacy is the first step we have to take into account. On the other hand, in order to commercialize our craft goods on the internet, we must also take care of other things like, for instance, what kind of platform we are going to use and what kind of technical problems we may face when we want to address the highest amount of potential clients.
• When it comes to commercialize our craft goods or services, it is easy that we face technological problems. We are going to skip basic problems and we are going to list another series of problems we can find and how to solve them. • The first decision we have to make is how to sell or commercialize our products on the internet. We have to choose among CMS platforms like WordPress or Joomla, or an online shop or a tailored products catalog. If we’d like it to be easy to use and have a personal style, then it should be customized programming. If we look for speed and saving then we should choose a software application to create and manage web sites (and its contents). • Currently the 31.7 % of web sites are designed with WordPress. Joomla, the following system in the list, is far from it with a 3.1 %. • However choosing a system like WordPress, is not the panacea as it needs someone who has some experience and knowledge to be able to manage the settings panel, although when we have those skills it could be ourselves. • Another problem that WordPress presents with regard E-commerce is that it works with templates and once we pick one we may find out that it can’t do certain things or show our products as we’d like or even we have to buy it to do such things. Templates are not expensive though, but it would be an increase of our inversion. • A sensitive issue is hacking. It is not the same to hack a tailored web page than a WordPress page. If there is a security breach within WordPress, which are frequently found, every web page designed with WordPress will be vulnerable to that breach. That is why it is important that we always have our version updated and have a backup copy of the web and its content. Imagine how easy is to hack a web page that there are already tutorials on the net teaching how to hack a WordPress web site. • Plugins updates or WordPress updates are also another issue. The most serious problem we can have working with CMS is the called WSoD (White Screen of Death). • That our web page becomes a white screen is the worst case we could face. Good news is that it can be solved. This can be due to any of these reasons: the installed theme, a plugin or lack of memory (exhausted memory). • If the problem lies in any of the plugins we can do any of these two things: disable last plugin installed in case we know which one was and check if everything gets back to normal. If it is not the case then we have to take more drastic measures and disable all plugins at once and activate them again one by one until we find which one is causing the error. • If the problem lies in the theme because it may have updated or have an error, the easiest solution is to change the name of the folder where the theme is saved. WordPress will think then that you have uninstalled the theme so it will put a new one by default. Other option would be to install again the theme from the beginning. • When it is not due to any of these things, then it means we have a problem with memory. It is also easy to solve, we only need a text editor, open the file wp-config.php and inside the tab php we have to add the following to increase the memory up to 64Mb: • If we have not been able to delete the white screen though, we still have a chance to find our error: activate DEBUG mode of our php. We get back to our wp-config.php page and look for the following line: define ('WP_DEGUG', false); • When we find it we add // at the beginning of the line // • Then we add the following two lines: define ('WP_DEGUG', true); y define ('WP_DEGUG_LOG', true); • With this, we’ll see on the screen the errors of php code that we have on our web site and prevent our site from being seen. • When we create our own web site we tend to think that only with that we are going to sell and be visible for millions of people. That is not true at all as what we need is to position our web site and make it visible for our target customers. We can only achieve it through an expert of web positioning.

In this course you will learn some tips on Browsing, searching and filtering data on the net. Moreover, you will discover about search engines and their functionalities.
• Artisans can gain new perspectives on digital content creation to do business and advertise their products or services online. Positioning strategies and search strategies are particular important when a new craftsman enters into the e-market. • Browsing consists of looking through a set of data with or without a defined purpose. As concerns internet, it usually involves the world wide web. • Browsing relates to search strategies, such as applying advanced options in a search engine. • Before starting to use the Internet it is important to make sure that you have an anti-virus software installed on your computer. See intermediate course on Safety and problem shooting of your devices to better expand your knowledge about it. • Billions are the websites across the whole World Wide Web that offer a load of information. However, it can be quite stressful to find what you were exactly looking for. This is when a search engine comes in help. If you type ‘keywords’ into a search engine, it will look for pages across the Web that contain those words and thereby it will display the results depending on their importance, using algorithms. • It is highly important for craftsmen turning their research questions into a research strategy. Implementing strong quality search strategies is always going to be beneficial: it makes you understand marketing characteristics and market potential but also customer requirements. In addition, strategic keyword rankings won’t make you waste your time with long and unfruitful researches anymore. • Searching. A web search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of web pages, images, and other types of files. Search engines also maintain real-time information by running an algorithm on a web crawler. • What Is the best search engine?. Besides Google and Bing, that are the most know search engines, there are other search engines such as: Yahoo, Ask.com, AOL.com, Baidu (most popular search engine in China), Wolframalpha, DuckDuckGo. There is no one search engine that works better than all the others. Searching on Google is easy and often if someone asks how to do something or what something is, another person will suggest to ‘google it’. Let’s try to search, for example, the word ‘crafts’ on Google. It gives us 901,000,000 results in 0.50 seconds (when this unit is written). If we press F5 to repeat the search, different quantities may appear, both for the number of results and for the time used to display them. • But what if the search does not return what we were looking for? Filtering data on the net To sort out through websites and filter our searches we can use different searching strategies such as: • Using specific keywords: When you search for specific online contents you should use relevant and unique words otherwise you will come across a lot of unnecessary data. Be as specific as you can in wording. • Not to use common words and punctuation: Terms like ‘a’ and ‘the’ are called ‘stop words’ and are often overlooked as well as the punctuation. Outside from special occasions and exceptions, punctuations are not taken into account when finding results. • Capitalization: Most of the search engines do not make a distinction between uppercase and lowercase, even within quotation marks. • Filetype: You can use filetype: .XXX, for example filetype: pdf if you want to search for a file type in a certain web. • Excluding searches: • Operator (-). Searching for any word and then include with a minus sign (-) before those words that you wish to exclude. For example, let's imagine that in your search for ‘pottery’ you are not looking for definitions. Let’s try to search the word ‘pottery’ on Google without operators. It gives us 438.000.000 results in 0.55 seconds. But we have lots of results but not what we were looking for. Now do it again with «pottery -definition -definitions» in Google. If you are asking why we are expliciting the operator-word ‘definition’ both in singular and in plural that’s because excluding research works only with the word you insert. Now we have that all results including the words ‘definition’ and ‘definitions’ will be omitted. Once this is done, the results returned by the search are slightly different from the previous ones, and probably will suit better to what we wanted to find. • Operator (+). By adding a plus (+) just before a search you are telling Google to show you exactly that term excluding synonyms, acronyms and so on. • Operator (*). The asterisk works like a wildcard. When you put it in front of a word and within a sentence you are telling Google to look for the exact phrase that you are asking but that you can exchange the word of the asterisk for another.

Creating a website is pointless if nobody sees it. You should implement a SEO (search engine optimization) program;

• The term Digital Communication refers to any (communication or marketing) action that is oriented to promote products and/or services via social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram etc. but also via entrepreneurs’ websites. • Digital content creation is fundamental for any digital strategy. Every piece of content you create should be carefully created and designed to coherently represent your mission and values as a brand. After you have identified your target audience, there are several steps that can help to improve the quality and impact of the digital content creation process: • the content and structure of your website should follow three basic criteria: usability, user-friendliness and accessibility; don’t forget that there are different types of public for your enterprise: beneficiaries, sponsors, institutional audiences and general public, and your website will have to address all different kind of public, attracting their attention; • use photos and multimedia: supplement your written contents with photos, infographic and video. You should use good photos and videos of your daily life activities instead of stock photos in order to convey a more reliable message; • contact details (email, phone numbers/Whatsapp, fax, address, skype, Facebook, Youtube, etc.) and navigating menus, must be easily accessible and don’t forget that you will loose your user if it takes him/her more that 3 clicks to get to the information; • Colours, typeface, logo and website of your craft enterprise say who you are and what you stand for; • Write often: make sure that your website is constantly updated and lively, otherwise people will think that you are not really “active”; • Creating a website is pointless if nobody sees it. Implement a SEO (search engine optimization) program. • Metatags: Metatags are located in the HTML source code of a web page and they are used to provide general positioning information about our website. Such information is used by search engines, portals, directories to list your website. • Image metadata: Make sure you make the most of any positioning opportunity by using < alt > or < title > tags to include/reinforce keywords. • Internal Linking: To ensure that your website gets fully indexed make sure that the spiders have an easy path through your website. Text links are the best choice as the anchor text (the actual words used to link to a specific page). You can also create a sitemap to internal pages and link it from your homepage to increase indexing. • Site Structure: As we said, it is extremely important to define website structure properly according to our target needs, but we also have to take into consideration search engines need. You must "think like a search engine spider". Spider or Bots read your web page like you would read a book using text links and digital contents. Therefore, it is extremely important that your site is spider adapted and that no broken links or flash are used for relevant digital contents. • Appropriate Keywords: It is one of the most important step of the process as if you don’t do it properly it will give you traffic that is not relevant for you. Keyword density or frequency should be around 2-6% of total text, but if you just keep your texts natural and readable you will be ok. Make sure your keywords are not too technical and they include those terms that your target user would use to find your services. • There are a lot of programs (such as Artisteer, Dreamweaver) and platforms (such as Wordpress, Wix, Sitebuilder.com) that you can use to create your own website and there is a wide range of free templates available online. Here is a short guide to install Wordpress: • 1: Download WordPress: Download and unzip the WordPress package from http://wordpress.org/download/. 2: Upload WordPress to Hosting Account via FTP. 3: Run the Installation: Open a new browser window and go to the installation page to run the installation script. Depending on where you installed the script, you will find it at either of the following URLs: http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php http://yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php You should now see a welcome page of WordPress installation process. 4:Create WP tables in your Database by entering the database name, user, name, password, database hosts, tables_prefix (you can leave wp_) and click Submit. 5: Complete the Installation: Fill in the fields in the installation page: Site Name Username Password (needs to be entered twice) Email address (use a valid email as login information will be sent to this email address) • Select that you want to have the search engines indexing the site. Click on Install Now, and you should be taken to the final screen, showing the following message: Success! WordPress has been installed. And your website is ready for you to customize it. Enjoy!

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Skype etc., are used extensively for the purpose of communication;  Facebook offers a wide variety of options to be used as a marketing tool:
For businesses, more important than the image itself is the link: every pin links back to the original source, so Pinterest can be a great source of referral traffic;  For each social networks you should create a business profile

- In the current social media globalization, it is more than obvious that social media like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Skype etc., are used extensively for the purpose of communication. One of the most important advantages of the use of social media is the online sharing of knowledge and information among different groups of people. Indeed, they reach the most diverse public in terms of age, gender, social characteristics and occupations. Sharing different content on each of your social media networks to expand your brand’s reach and add scale to campaigns. The content you share on each site should be unique to give your followers a reason to follow you on more than one network. It is also important to select the most appropriate social networks for your company’s visibility. - Here a list with the most famous social networks and their functionality: - When it comes to build your online branding, Facebook could be one of the valuable tools at your disposal for potential buyers. Remember that 94% of FB’s users access this social network with the mobile app, so it is useful to optimize your content for mobile users. Facebook offers a wide variety of options to be used as a marketing tool: - Sharing resources: users can share text, image or videos, making them automatically visible to all their contacts; - Interaction: it is also possible for users to interact with the information that others have published through comments or predetermined reactions; - Create groups: groups allow interaction between users with a specific intention. They can be open, closed or secret; - Events: They are virtual spaces aimed at sharing specific information about events. They can be open, closed or secret. - Gmail is Google's email service and it keeps you updated with real-time message notifications and stores your important emails and data. Sending an email from an account in Gmail is very simple, the platform saves the contacts, creating a book easily accessible from the inbox. Its security protocols defend us from junk or malicious emails. - To create a Gmail account you just need to go to the Google Account creation page and sign up for Gmail to create a Google Account. You can use the username and password to sign in to Gmail and other Google products like YouTube, Google Play, and Google Drive. - Twitter is an online social network that allows users to send and read short messages of 140 characters called ‘tweets’. If you are a small business owner, Twitter could be an excellent platform for your business with its 300 million active users. One reason that encourages small businesses to promote their product or service on Twitter is that it costs very little to promote a product on this platform. - YouTube is a free service to share videos on the internet. The use of YouTube is very simple, you just have to sign up in YouTube or use your Gmail account and upload your video from your own computer. You can also create your YouTube channel which is a fantastic resource to communicate online via digital contents. Active users can write comments to videos they like and do not like. It is extremely important to give visibility to your crafts products. You can either publish videos of creation processes or of final products developed. - WhatsApp is an application that allows you to send and receive text and multimedia messages to your contacts at very low prices or for free. Messages are sent over the Internet, either using our data plan or the Wi-Fi connection. The only limit is that the contacts to whom we send messages must also have WhatsApp installed. For medium and large business, Whatsapp powers your communication with customers all over the world. In addition to sending and receiving text messages, some interesting functions that could interest you as an entrepreneur are: - Create a business account, chat with customers, reply to questions and advertise your creations real-time. - Create chat groups with your customers to promote new creations, sales, offers etc. - Send photos, videos, voice messages - Use your image status to publicize your brand image and write an impressive and clear message - INSTAGRAM. Instagram is a social networking app for sharing photos and videos from a smartphone. Users share images with people who are connected via a 'followers' list. Instagram is a social networking app for sharing photos and videos from a smartphone. Users share images with people who are connected via a 'followers' list. Instagram is all about encouraging creative originality, so for craft artisans, can be a very interesting tool to disseminate their creations. - PINTEREST. A Pin (therefore the name ‘Pinterest’) is simply any image or video that someone chooses to save to Pinterest. For businesses, more important than the image itself is the link: every pin links back to the original source, so Pinterest can be a great source of referral traffic. If you plan to use Pinterest to market your business, you should create a Pinterest business account, rather than a personal account. If you already have a personal Pinterest account, you can convert it to a business account. You’ll just need to fill in some additional information about your business and accept the business-specific terms of service. Pinterest is perhaps best known for its “inspo boards” where users turn to, well, get inspired. From decor ideas to motivational quotes, providing pinners with a visual dose of inspiration is always a safe bet. - ETSY. Etsy is an e-commerce website specialised in selling handmade or vintage items (jewellery, clothing, home dé décor, furniture etc). Creating a shop on Etsy is free, however, each listing that is posted in the shop costs $0.20. Each listing will remain on the shop's page for a maximum of 4 months, or until someone buys the product. The prices of products are set by the shop owner, but Etsy claims 5% of the final sale price of each listing

Nowadays it is important the involvement of artisans into the e-commerce market, setting up a solid international project in mind is the first step to start importing/exporting.
To start off you don’t have to think to the farthest market, think simple and near. Remember that there are some elements to be taken into account before internalize your company.

• E-commerce is rapidly involving business owners. Craft artisans have been looking for their place in international markets due to surplus of production, local competitors and specialization on a product. If you would like to focus on trading and exporting your products and services worldwide, you need to have a solid international project in mind. • Marketplaces are real virtual squares that tend to control an increasingly important share of online demand. You can open a space on a global marketplace like Amazon which allows immediate access to all the main European markets or you can turn to specialized operators in no-European countries such as Tmall of the Alibaba Group, one of the main showcase for Chinese consumers. • When you are about to start importing/exporting you don’t have to think to the farthest market possible because there might be any sort of issues, cultural issues as well. There are some elements you should be aware of before internationalize your enterprise: - Conditions of sales, import restrictions or duties that could prevent competitiveness - Payment systems - Logistics - Customer care and pre and post sales assistance services • International online marketing strategies vary across business models, but the basics remain the same. • From search engine optimization to content marketing, accessing a global audience requires solid methods to guarantee that you are making the most of your efforts. Here are three best practices to keep in mind when you are marketing to international consumers over the web. 1. Use Analytics to Find Your Audience 2. Know and Respect Regional Laws and Regulations 3. Internationalize Your Website 4. Ecommerce solutions for internationalization • It is necessary to choose a valid platform for the management of content and business procedures. Here is a selection of the best products to launch your business online: • WebMatrix, Flashvortex • Among the main E-commerce Open Source store-management software programmes we have: • Prestashop, Magento, Oscommerce, Shopify, 3eTrade • Nowadays sharing on the net is vital and eventually your data is going to end up in the cloud at some point, so you better know how it works to collaborate more efficiently with colleagues, improve your security, discover new opportunities and ensure that you stay competitive. You can share link to folders with photos, videos, documents, etc. You can use it as a common workplace for a group of people giving them access to create and edit files within a designated folder. Cloud storage is a data storage service in which the digital data are virtually stored in logical pools. • Here is a list of valuable cloud solutions that you can use in your daily life activities: • Google Drive, Dropbox, WeTransfer, OneDrive, MEGA, Mediafire • Other cloud base solutions are Zippyshare (https://www.zippyshare.com/) and reep.io (https://reep.io/) from which you can share online temporarily

In this course we will learn how to use Analytics to Find Your Audience,  Know and Respect Regional Laws and Regulations, Internationalize Your Website, use Ecommerce solutions for internationalization and how to store data to be used anywhere
- International online marketing strategies vary across business models, but the basics remain the same. From search engine optimization to content marketing, accessing a global audience requires solid methods to guarantee that you are making the most of your efforts. Here are three best practices to keep in mind when you are marketing to international consumers over the web. - 1. Use Analytics to Find Your Audience. Google Analytics is one of the most used web analytics service that tracks real time traffic of your website. It could be a very useful tool to target your customers -local and international- and where they live in order to tailor and determine which country to focus on. - 2.Know and Respect Regional Laws and Regulations. Before launching your website, you must make sure that it meets all the requirements of e-commerce legislation. If your website is already active on the internet, it is important to review the page. Beware of product laws that pertain to your business, any online tax laws that may affect you, and restrictions on promotional offers and contests. For example, crafts to be imported or exported have to be out of banned goods list in importing country and have to be out of banned goods in exporting country as well. - 3. Internationalize Your Website. In an online world, your website is your home base especially in international online marketing. Translating your website into English is the most common approach for small and mid-sized companies looking to enhance their possibilities. But having an English website is not the same as global developing: only 26.8% of internet users speak English as first language. The majority of potential customers are not native English speakers. If you are thinking about how to manage foreign audience, website multilanguage localization is a long-term instrument in your business. - Ecommerce solutions for internationalization. It is necessary to choose a valid platform for the management of content and business procedures. Here is a selection of the best products to launch your business online: - WebMatrix. This tool created by the giant Microsoft allows anyone to create their website easily and completely personalized, even without computer skills. A complete tool that also includes, among other features, a database publisher, web server management, optimization for search engines (SEO). - Among the main E-commerce Open Source store-management software programmes we have: - Prestashop. It is the most popular open source e-commerce solution - Magento. It is the favourite of big businesses thanks to its flexibility and scalability to suit businesses of all sizes. A very complete tool for creating multistores. - Oscommerce. Another favourite program among open source solutions, although it has been losing clients compared to the previous two, due to its design limitations. - Shopify. A good e-commerce tool under the SaaS formula, with free and premium versions, with comprehensive management of your orders. - How to store data to be used anywhere?. Nowadays sharing on the net is vital and eventually your data is going to end up in the cloud at some point, so you better know how it works to collaborate more efficiently with colleagues, improve your security, discover new opportunities and ensure that you stay competitive. You can share link to folders with photos, videos, documents, etc. You can use it as a common workplace for a group of people giving them access to create and edit files within a designated folder. Cloud storage is a data storage service in which the digital data are virtually stored in logical pools. - Here is a list of valuable cloud solutions that you can use in your daily life activities: - Google Drive. Google Drive is a simple and intuitive file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. It is directly connected to Google Docs to create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentation and much more. In Google Drive you have 15 GB of free space. https://drive.google.com - Apart from Google Drive there are other cloud-based services such as: - Dropbox. Dropbox is a multiplatform file hosting service in the cloud, operated by the Dropbox company. It allows users to store and synchronize files online and between computers and share files and folders with other users and tablets or smartphones. https://www.dropbox.com/ - WeTransfer. It is a cloud-based service that allows transferring files simply indicating the recipient's email address. You don’t have to create and account, that is why it is one of the easiest way to share file using cloud services. It offers unlimited uploads as well as the possibility of sharing files of up to 2 GB in size. Don’t forget that files are kept on the server for up to 7 days and then they are removed automatically. No encryption or password is used. https://wetransfer.com/ - OneDrive. OneDrive is a Microsoft service that lets you easily backup, store and share photos, videos, documents, and more – anywhere, on any device. All You need is a Microsoft account and license to use safely this service. https://account.microsoft.com/ACCOUNT/ONEDRIVE - MEGA. MEGA is a cloud storage and file hosting service offered primarily through web-based apps. Mega mobile apps are also available for Windows Phone, Android and iOS.https://mega.nz - Other cloud base solutions are Mediafire (https://www.mediafire.com/) and Zippyshare (https://www.zippyshare.com/) or reep.io (https://reep.io/) from which you can share online temporarily.

Using social media for marketing can enable small business looking to widen their reach to more customers. Your customers are interacting with brands through social media, therefore, having a strong social media marketing plan and presence on the web is the key to tap into their interest. If implemented correctly, marketing with social media can bring remarkable success to your business. Once you have defined the starting points you can proceed and implement the following: • Planning – Building a social media marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. • Start with a clear strategy: Why do you want to increase your contacts? Is it to find new customers or drive traffic to your site? Different channels require different approaches. For example, increasing your contacts on Facebook will have different benefits then when your recommendations on LinkedIn are growing. You need to ask yourself these questions; What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing? Who is your target audience? Which social media website is your target audience using? How would they use social media? What message do you want to send to your audience with the online marketing campaign? • Get blogging - Use a blog platform such as Wordpress to update clients and suppliers with news from your business. Comment on other people’s blogs or start a discussion thread in an online networking forum. • Follow the one- in- seven rule: This is a rule that you can use with promotional posts on your social networks. The rule is, that one in the seven posts can be a promotion that advertising your company. The remaining six should be focused on sharing valuable content, including posts from the community. • Provide value: While including posts that are fun, it is important that you make sure that your posts reflect your personality. It is also important that your campaigns have a content that fit your target audience. • Share news about your company: Social network marketing keeps your customers informed about what is going on in your office, for example , share the news about a launch of new products. • Connect with your customers - You may already have a Facebook or Twitter profile for your personal use; create a social networking profile for your business to connect directly with your customers. • Sign up for accounts at social networking communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook: Choose social networking communities that best reflect your target group demographics. For example, LinkedIn is focused on building business connections, while Facebook is a fun way for people of all ages and backgrounds to share news about their lives, preferences of products and activities. • Sign up existing customers: Take advantage of your clients and their potential followings. When people visit your website or online store, ask them to join your mailing list and social network, request their social media accounts and email addresses to send them an exclusive promotional incentives as a thank you, along with the request to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ your company. Include action buttons (for example, “Like this page” and “learn more”) in your posts to gain more interest, clicks and views to your page. Provide a link to a sign up page on your website to make it easier for them. • Encourage feedback - Encouraging and acting on feedback allows you to tailor your product or service to your customers’ needs. Use www.twtpoll.com to create a poll for your Twitter followers, or ask friends, followers and customers to offer feedback on your product or service. • Links - While using social media for marketing relies primarily on your business sharing its own unique, original content to gain followers, fans, and devotees, it’s also great to link to outside articles as well. If other sources provide great, valuable information you think your target audience will enjoy, don’t be shy about linking to them. Linking to outside sources improves trust and reliability, and you may even get some links in return. • Note what your customers want - If similar queries come up regularly, look at how they can be avoided by changing your processes. If this is not possible, add an FAQ section to your website to answer regular queries. • Watch what customers are saying about your products, campaigns and other activity: By measuring the activities of your customers on your post, you can get a clear overview about what they think of the campaign or product. • Consistent Brand Image - Using social media for marketing enables your business to project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms. While each platform has its own unique environment and voice, your business’ core identity should stay consistent. • Measure Success with Analytics -You can’t determine the success of your social media marketing strategies without tracking data. Google Analytics can be used as a great social media marketing tool that will help you measure your triumphant social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned. Attach tracking tags to your social media marketing campaigns so that you can properly monitor them. More in detail: Facebook -> With online campaigns you can increase your brand awareness with a bigger target group. • Strengthen your Facebook network. If you find that you aren't getting the response you are from your company's Facebook page, create some groups to spark more connections and conversations around your product and brand. Your customers can also choose to get updates from you this way. • Build a community on Facebook. This is where your existing fans and customers meet, so you should engage differently. However, it is a good place to start word-of-mouth campaigns to attract more people, maybe their friends, to become fans. Your pages’ main message should be that this is a place for social contacts, not just your brand or business. Twitter -> Updates about what the company is doing and other relevant information. You reach another target group then with Facebook. • Make your tweets stand out. If you don't want your posts to get lost in the Twitter stream, make sure to include an image, related link or even an emoji to separate your missives from the torrent of other tweets. • Express yourself with longer posts. If you feel limited by Twitter's 140 character count, feel free to expand on a point with posts on platforms like Tumblr, Google+ and LinkedIn. • Let them tweet. Many of your existing offline contacts will probably already be on Twitter, so start by sending them an email asking them to follow you and follow them back. But most importantly, ensure your tweets are relevant, interesting and friendly. Don’t concentrate on sales messages or product pushes, but vary tweets with broader topics and updates from your sector. LinkedIn ->You can expand and increase your relationship with your network with key contacts. • Boost connections on LinkedIn. Increase the contacts in your network by browsing your contacts’ connections. LinkedIn will calculate your ‘degrees of separation’ and you can use common connections as a starting point for making new contacts. New contacts expose you to an even wider range of people through their friends and business partners. Pinterest -> You can share pictures that are connected to your website. • Create a Pinterest board. Make sure the board has eye-catching visuals and run a contest through it that will inspire and reward customers for their participation. Be sure to encourage them to re-pin and create their own boards that reflect the initial contest for additional social amplification of your campaign.

In this part of the course you will learn, how to setup you website by using WordPress and how to build an online shop and how to sell online. These days it is important that you exists on the internet. The internet is becoming more important every day in our daily lives. If you do not exist on the internet you will be harder to find, and for you it will become harder to find new customers. 

This training fiche is about how to build your own website with WordPress. First, we need to explain what is a WordPress. WordPress is a content managing system (CMS) designed mainly for blogging. Due to its great functionality, a large number of plugins or extensions are available perfectly suitable also as websites, business cards or even portals. WordPress action based on PHP / MySQL and is extremely easy to install and configure. This makes it one of the most popular CMS systems in the world. WordPress was used by more than 26.4% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2016. WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Web, used in more than 60 million websites.
At the moment 80% of the websites in the USA that are launched with CMS use WordPress.  Every website is built with a HTML- code, a CMS offers user to maintain and adjust their website without the knowledge of programming, the system writes the code for you, and so you can focus on the content. 

The use WordPress requires a web server with PHP and MySQL! How to set up your website using WordPress in few steps. • Domain Name: The first step that you have to take, before you start creating a website, is choosing a domain name that is relevant to your business. • Hosting: Choose a hosting package, including at least 1 database and enough space to host a WordPress. With wrong hosting packages your website will suffer. A host should empower you, never limit you. • Download WordPress: Once you have activated the hosting, you can download the application on your computer, so that you can have an easy access. Follow installations instruction or use this video as a guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3UB54eA2S4. • After installing the software there are a few steps that you need to do before you can start. 1. You need to set the title, tagline and time zone. The title and tagline will be automatically shown on your page. 2. Personalization: Delete the standard messages and pages from the website. 3. Appearance: Delete the standard themes that are installed. After installing WordPress there are three standard themes installed. You can use one theme at the time, so by deleting the other two you create more space on the hosting package. You can pick new themes here: https://es.wordpress.org/themes/. One important tip is to choose a responsive template, with colors and layout that can be easily adapted to your corporative image, and with all the widgets and functionalities that you need to have in order to carry out your business activity. It is better to spend some time picking the perfect template, than have to start from 0 a billion time because you have not thought that you needed a calendar, a gallery or any other section. 4. Plugins: Delete the Plugins, and install new ones according to needs. Careful, some plugins work better than other and sometimes they are non-compatible with your WordPress version. You will probably have to install a number of them before getting to your favorite one. There are plugins for almost everything: weather, set optimization, newsletters subscriptions, forms, etc. 5. Security: Install a safety plugin, the safety of your website is very important. A plugin that is good to have is Limit Login Attempts, it makes sure that with too many login attempts it (temporally) blocks your account. 6. Positioning and internationalization: Install SEO- plugin, SEO- plugin helps you to position your website on the internet, whereas in terms of internationalization there are a lot of plugins to translate your website automatically or manually. 7. Backup: Installing automatically backups, make sure that you do a regular backup of your WordPress website. This is important because when your website is broken for some reason, it is easier for you to restore it by pushing a button. The weakest point of WordPress is definitively security that is why we strongly recommend keeping a backup copy. • Website layout: After downloading the software and going through the steps mentioned above, it is important to start thinking about the layout of your website. Your layout is the first thing that the visitor of your website sees, therefore it is important that there is a good and easy to use structure. • Contents: After you have decided how your layout is going to look, it is important that you think about the content. The content is also an important part of what the customer thinks when the content is not focused on the right target audience; they can decide to go somewhere else. Actually, the easiest way to implement a WordPress is to have all the structures planned before creating menus and categories so it gets easier to insert contents and you do not have to struggle against the application. • Data: Some publishing platforms lock you in with proprietary data formats. Not here. WordPress relies on open standards to allow you to take your data with you, and even comes with tools to import from many popular sources. It’s your data, and you should be able to do what you want with it. We currently have importers for Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger, and b2. Work on importers for Nucleus and pMachine is under way. • Software: WordPress is designed to be installed on your own web server, in the cloud, or in a shared hosting account. You have complete control. Unlike commercial software or third-party hosted services, you can be sure of being able to access and modify everything related to your site. You can even install WordPress on your personal computer, or on a corporate intranet. • Dynamic page generation: No rebuilding of all your pages each time you update your site, or any aspect of it. All pages are generated using the database and the templates each time a page from your site is requested by a viewer. This means that updating your site, or its design is as fast as possible, and required server storage space usage is minimal. • Allowed html tags: Not everyone is evil, but keep those who are in check by limiting which html tags are kosher on your site. The default html tags allowed by WordPress are a sane choice to let people use html in their comments, without compromising the safety of your data or server.

How to set up an online store: If you are reading this fiche then you probably asked yourself the last question, " how to set up an online store?" Due to the fact that online stores are becoming an increasingly popular way to reach customers, and the establishment of an online store is associated with low barriers to entry new markets, this topic is becoming a must.

With free tools and cheap web hosting, there's really no reason you can't have your own catalog and shopping cart on the web if you've got something worth selling. Whether you're looking for a side project or a real source of income, here's a starting-from-scratch guide to setting up shop on the web.

• Idea: If you think about how to set up your own online store than you probably already have some idea of business, product range and potential customers of your online store. The case seems simple and obvious, but it is worth to stop for a moment on this point before we get to the proper setting up of an online store. Think about exactly what kind of products and prices you will include in your shop. Is it worth it to open a specialized online store or perhaps your business should rather be offline? • Software, hosting, domain: The elements necessary to set up an online store are software online store, hosting and domain. The most difficult part is choosing which software to use our online shop. There are several possibilities, from free to expensive tailor made software. "All in the package" software’s offer maintenance, installation, but sometimes the problem with pre-configured online stores is that technically it is the users who have to adapt their business to the software and not vice versa. In case of only shops it might be worth, in terms of ROI, to spend a little bit more and have an ad hoc platform. • Be unique, unless you are actually producing your own products: There is a good chance that you are using product feeds, including photographs and descriptions supplied by the manufacturer. This is a bad idea because the content is going to be the same as hundreds of other online shops that purchase from the same supplier. • Consider general e-commerce services: Companies like Shopify and Yahoo! Stores will allow you to set up professional-looking online storefronts when you ship your own inventory. Hosted e-commerce solutions go further to provide storefront design, secure payment, hosting, mailing lists, selling statistics, customers support. This is attractive for those who don't want to do their own programming. • Look into reselling products for a profit: Affiliate store services such as Amazon eStores LLC allow you to resell products carried by Buy.com and other merchants by writing reviews of products and focusing on a theme that makes consumers' lives easier. Amazon eStores stores allow you to get running quickly, but don't allow you to carry your own physical inventory. • Take eBay to the next level: If you've already sold some stuff on eBay, and you're confident that most of your customer base will find you there, then you can "graduate" to an eBay store to save money on listing fees. • Sell crafts on Etsy: Etsy is a popular choice for people who make what they sell. There's a 20 cents charge for every item listed, and Etsy keeps 3.5% of your sale price if the item is sold. You get paid directly and are responsible for shipping the item. You're charged fees (depending on what sold) on a monthly basis. • Payment methods: Make sure you offer you customers different payment methods in order to widen your target. Possibilities are: bank transfer, PayPal, Credit Cards, Google Checkout, Cash on delivery, etc. And if you don’t’ want to run your own online shop, you still have the possibility to sell online through external market places. • Best Online Marketplaces To Sell Your Art & Crafts (And Buy Affordable Art) 1. Etsy Etsy is one of the most popular sites for buying and selling art and crafts. Etsy sellers offer everything from handmade furniture to vintage purses to one of a kind artwork. Often, this artwork is priced to sell, so buyers not only have a lot of selection, but also access to some pretty good prices as well. Etsy has apps for iPhone and Android for those of you looking to buy and sell on the go. 2. Society6 Society6 is another popular website. Vendors can sell their artwork as prints, pillows, iPhone and Android cases, and t-shirts. For buyers, this site is a great way to get framed or unframed prints at a low price. Moreover, if you find an artist you like, you can get their artwork in a variety of forms! 3. Zatista Zatista is a great place to find original paintings, photographs, and mixed media artwork. This site allows you to refine your search by price, size, and type of artwork to ensure that you find just the piece you are looking for. 4. IndieMade IndieMade helps artists create professional looking websites in order to sell better their artwork. The site helps you set up your site and helps you attract potential customers, and since it is designed specifically for artists, the websites are all tailored to be as navigable and attractive as possible. 5. CollegeArtOnline CollegeArtOnline is a place for students to sell their artwork. Because of this, the prices are often lower than they would be at a gallery, and each purchase goes towards supporting a budding artist. The site also allows student artists to sell their artwork.

This training fiche is focused on how to make the most of CRM software’s. Customer Relationship Management - CRM is a management concept, in which the main emphasis is on building long-term relationships with customers and gaining their loyalty. CRM implies that it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one, in addition not every client is "profitable" for the company, so you need to focus primarily on the most profitable customers. The concept of Customer Relationship Management is to identify the key client organizations, the application to them of relevant strategies to maintain, effective cooperation and influencing the growth of customer satisfaction.

Taking care of customer relationships requires an individual approach to each of them. This process is very time-consuming and challenging and to make this process easier, you can use specialized software.

CRM Software is the technology supporting Customer Relationship Management. It is a place where to store all the information about customers, partners, suppliers and all those who in any way are connected with the company. With this solution, you can easily check the history of the customer, manage correspondence, prepare and send a tender to select the most cost-effective customers, organize the work of traders, manage marketing campaign and sales flow. In the market, you can find a lot of CRM systems - both stand-alone and integrated within larger software packages (e.g. ERP). Among them are commercial solutions, as well as a completely free (open source) software, offering no fewer opportunities. The most popular is a Salesforce, Zoho, Insightly, SAP, Act! Action CRM systems is to automate and supporting processes related to recruiting and retaining (service) customer by the company. CRM systems support the work of the following departments of the undertaking: 1. Marketing (including advertising easier by allowing sending mass mailings, telemarketing management or service company accounts on social networks) 2. Sales (allowing e.g. to estimate the probability of sales, creating and analyzing sales funnels, management agreed with the budget, planning phone calls and business meetings) 3. Customer service (e.g. enable the management of contracts and customer information, monitor customer satisfaction, undertaking activities aimed at strengthening the cooperation with the client company) 4. Board (allowing managers to monitor actions and effects work of traders, track individual projects, schedule tasks, generate sales reports). • Get people to use it: The most important way to get the most out of your CRM system is getting users to use the system, this is something that sounds obvious but it is still can be a challenge. It can be difficult to adjust to a new system; some systems are easy to learn how to deal with. The idea is that CRM software will make your business more profitable and employees’ life easier and this is the reason to use it. However, if those 2 main goals are not achieved than you either do not need a CRM or you are using the wrong tool. • Train your users : When you are planning to start using a new program it is important that you train the users on how to use it efficiently...and be patient! • Keep it simple: By keeping your CRM system simple and efficient you can get a better overview of the status of your customers. If a client is not yet a customer it is important to give attention to him/her, because hopefully and eventually it will become a customer. • Realize which customers produce the most profit: By analyzing the buying behavior and other data from your customers, your business can gain a better understanding of who are your best customers and in whom you need to invest more time. With a good CRM system, you can also see who brings you the highest profit and who has the highest margins. • Analyze buying patterns: When you get a better understanding of the buying patterns of your customers you can change your selling strategy for that customer. With a better understanding of your customer, you can maximize the profit per customer. • Use your data for marketing campaigns: The customer information that your CRM system gathers can be a good starting point for a marketing campaign. It is wise to use the information to your advantage. There are CRM systems that will offer you the possibility to create a marketing campaign and emailing straight out of the system, this means that there is no need for a third party software to run your marketing campaign. • Possibility to manage your business online: with a good CRM software you will be able to manage your business from A to Z everywhere and anytime, being all the information available online. • Possibility to have Centralized data: A CRM system keeps all the information about customers and deals in one place, so that you as a sales representative never have to dig through your inbox to reconstruct the history of the customer. • Possibility to use Standardized record- keeping: Every sales representative has a different way of tracking prospect information. A CRM system removes this variation and creates possibilities to evaluate your entire sales organization’s health at once. • Capacity to scale: When you are a small company it is easy to manually track every customer, but when your company grows, it will become harder to manually track every customer. It will also take a lot of time for the sales representative to manually track all customers. • Pipeline view: A pipeline view is an overview of how your business is performing and how it will likely perform in the future. A pipeline shows the progress of your target and it shows and allows you to see and track every opportunity that you have. Furthermore, there are a few features that you need to look for in a CRM system. - Quote contact information - Note-taking inside CRM - Automated email tracking - Automated call logging - Pipeline view - Accounting system

Internationalization is a key trend in e-commerce to help boost online businesses. According to Royal Mail, 68% of small and medium sized retailers in the UK are looking to target new overseas markets. However, to be successful moving into other markets requires a lot of work.

Internationalization, unfortunately, does not only mean translating the shop and adapting the shipping costs. In rapidly growing international markets, you are facing tough competition. Therefore, it is essential to understand the market and adjust your marketing and sales efforts to the expectations of international customers. The following seven tools will help you to achieve this goal.

• Global market finder: This is a tool that is designed by google and it allows you to assess the competition level in your target market by showing AdWords statistics. For every keyword that you use, you can analyze the click- through- rate and the cost- per- click. This provides insight as to whether the market is growing, saturated, declining or non-existent. It also shows you the costs of an AdWords campaign. • Consumer barometer: Each consumer has a unique profile, when you compare different type of consumers from different countries this will even become clearer. Therefore, it is important that you know your current and potential customers and their shopping behavior, so you can adjust your offer. • Google trends: This is also a tool that is designed by google and it helps you to analyze the amount of search inquiries for a certain keyword or a given country. This tool gives you a clear idea of which words and sentences you need to include for your search engine optimization. This is a tool that is very easy to use, you just need to enter a keyword and a curve will show you the amount of search inquires over a time span. • Zeitgeist: this means in German “spirit of the time”, it highlights what has attracted the attention of internet users worldwide during a year. Google has been tracking the behavior of the users for twelve years now, the research can be viewed by day, month or year worldwide or for a specific country. As with the Global Market finder, knowing what attracts the attention puts you in a great position. • PayPal passport: Every country has its habits, whether they are cultural, social or regarding distribution and consumption. The PayPal passport helps you to expand your international sales by providing you information about the cultural habits, laws and national holidays. Such as: • Seasonal sales peaks, including holidays and events • Shipping and distribution logistics • Cultural customs, taboos and trends • Custom procedures and taxes • Currency exchange and fees The platform also gives you access to case studies and best practices, there is no better way of learning from people that succeeded in internationalization of their business. • Digital life: This is a tool that is based on advanced technology and the expertise of a market leader, this tool combines a survey of current behaviors with unique way of mapping consumer needs in order to understand what consumers are doing and why. It offers you a digital world and the frameworks that are required to make global strategies or local tactics. • Our Mobile Planet: If you want to know more about the use of the smartphone in a specific country this is a great tool. This tool allows you to learn more about smartphone adoption and usage across 48 countries. It gives you an in depth understanding of the mobile customer in order for you to prepare your mobile strategy.

While microbusinesses usually know their local market and customers quite well, sometimes even personally, expanding the scope of the business to foreign markets is a completely different story. Decision on whether and how to enter any foreign market should be based on understanding the industry and target market, competitors and regulations. You can obtain such information through market analysis. Of course, the scope and complexity of market analysis in microbusinesses will differ from larger companies, but even arts & crafts microbusinesses

should utilize the main principles of market analysis when planning to enter a foreign market. Even though current e-commerce trends enable easy entering and experimenting foreign markets through online marketplaces, any such attempt should be backed by as many information as possible (and, of course, feasible). Thus, this training fiche will provide an introduction into the basics of market analysis and its benefits, simplified to-do list for performing own market analysis, as well as instructions where to find help and support for foreign market analysis on European single market. What is market analysis? • Market analysis, in simple words, studies the attractiveness and the dynamics of a special market within a special industry. Understanding how the potential foreign market works and what customers want is very important. Findings from the market analysis should help you identify where to focus your efforts and how to maintain a competitive edge. Your market analysis should include an overview of your industry, a look at your target market, an analysis of your competition, and any regulations you’ll need to comply with. Market research will help you understand your customers, familiarise yourself with the competition and get to know what people are prepared to pay for your product or service. • Analysing potential foreign market can be generally divided into points to five key steps: 1. deciding the questions you need answers to, 2. deciding what information you need to collect in order to answer those questions, 3. deciding how you're going to collect the information, 4. how you're going to analyse it, and 5. what you're going to do with the results. • Market analysis should provide understanding about the following issues: A) Industry description and outlook – What is the current state of the arts & crafts sector in the target country overall and where it’s headed? What is the market size? What are the current trends? In which life cycle stage the market is, and what is the projected growth? B) Target market - While the scope of the previous section of your market analysis was rather general, the next step has to be specific. You need to establish a clear idea of your target market before you decide whether to enter or not. Lot of businesses think that everyone is their potential market, but, in fact, they are definitely not. By narrowing in on your real customers, you will be able to direct your market entry efforts and limited resources and capacity more efficiently. The target market section of your market analysis should include the following: o Customer persona and characteristics: You will want to include demographics such as age, income, and location here. Moreover, you will also need to think of your customers’ psychographics as well. This means understanding their interests and buying habits, as well as being able to explain why you are able to meet their needs. o Market size: Try to estimate how much your customers on your target foreign market spend annually on your product category. This will tell you the size of the potential market for your products. Make sure you want to get real here. To do so, you also need to find out who and where your competitors are. C) Competitive analysis – Deep understanding of your competitors is important for a couple of reasons. Obviously, you would like to know who are you going to compete with, but it also helps you to unveil competition’s weaknesses. Are there customers on your target market that are underserved? What can you offer that similar arts & crafts makers are not offering? The competitive analysis part of your market analysis should contain the following components: o Market: Who are your main competitors? Are there also any secondary competitors who could impact your business? o Competitor strengths and weaknesses: What is your competition good at? Where are their weaknesses? Try to look for opportunities to outperform competitors in areas where they are falling short. o Barriers to entry: What are the potential pitfalls of entering your target foreign market? What are the cost of entry? Can anyone enter the market? o Window of opportunity: Is the entry into your target market time-sensitive? Are there particularly favourable times in the year to enter? Is there an opportunity to get in early to take advantage of an emerging market? D) Regulations - Are there any specific regulations or restrictions on your target foreign market? If so, what are they and how you are going to comply with them? What is the cost of compliance? What are the benefits/information provided by market analysis? • Market analysis is an important step when considering to enter a new market, especially if this is a market in a foreign country. By conducting a market analysis, you will be able to gather valuable data that will help you get to know your customers, determine appropriate pricing, and figure out your competitors’ vulnerabilities. Determining the characteristics your potential target market and analysing this information will help you make decisions whether and how to enter. • Please be aware that nothing is black or white. Always assess the value of information that could be potentially obtained through market analysis for your business, and act accordingly. If extensive own market analysis is too time- and cost-consuming compared with your sales prospects or ambition, you may look for other solutions. • Market analysis will help you to find the answers to the following most frequent questions asked by arts & crafts makers when considering entering foreign markets: • Where can I find information on the target foreign market? • How am I different from competitors on that market? What are my advantages and disadvantages? What are my unique features? • Is there anyone offering the similar product? • Can I succeed against my competitors? What is an entry strategy? What are the main strategies? You can enter foreign market in different ways that are generally called entry strategies. The most suitable entry strategies for arts & crafts microbusinesses to enter the foreign market are: • Direct export means selling your products on foreign markets without intermediaries. You either sell directly to your customers (consumers or retailers), or you find a local distributor who will purchase your products and resell them to local wholesalers or retailers. • Indirect export means selling your products through domestically based export intermediaries. You can approach an intermediary who collects products and takes further care on their export. In some countries, organizations that pool traditional folk arts & crafts makers may work in this way. • Using online channels is a way of export where country boarders or physical distance play very little role. You can either use your e-shop or social media profile to communicate with customers in any country you are able to ship to, or you may use online marketplaces and platforms (universal or specifically focused on arts & crafts products). Marketplaces and platforms work internationally (or even globally) as well as locally. In the second case, make sure platforms accept sellers from foreign countries. How to perform market analysis? • There is no single best way how to perform the market analysis. Everything depends on many factors, such as available resources, skills and experience, aspirations on the foreign market, nature of the foreign market, and actual value of the required information for your business. After you consider these factors, you have three basic options: 1) Performing own market analysis 2) Relying on partners or trade intermediaries 3) Using available support services in European Single Market A) Performing own market analysis Basic steps of market analysis 1) Trends and lifecycle of your industry • Try to identify the main trends related to your potential market for arts & crafts products in the foreign country. Here are some questions you may want to answer: Is the online sales increasing, or do customers stick to traditional channels, such as local shops or traditional makers fairs? Which products are selling well? Are customers open to buying foreign products, or do they prefer local producers? Are the products offered on the market based more on traditional folk arts & crafts, or more fancy and universal? What fashion trends are now rising? 2) Estimate market size • Estimating market numbers is probably not the most enjoyable part of the market analysis. However, it truly helps to you to get a basic understanding of how big the potential foreign market is, and whether it is big enough to start a profitable business there. Usually, it is more art than science, but there are two basic rules to follow: 1) always look for numbers from reliable sources (e.g. statistics from government or private sources, objective figures from online marketplaces etc.); and 2) stay conservative. • Try to estimate the following numbers: o Total market: How many customers want/need the product or product category you plan to offer? How large is the market in terms of sold units or sales? Of course, getting to a reliable number you can be tricky. The general common sense approach is to find a basic number (e.g. total number of customers who do shop online, if we speak about online marketplaces) and then step-by-step break the basic number down using your customer groups attributes. o Serviceable market: How many customers can I reach with the sales channels I am considering to use (e.g. online marketplaces, partners etc.)? This number is for you, in fact, an actual number of customers in the respective market. o Target market: How many customers do I actually want to sell my products to within the first year on the foreign market? This is a proportion of the market you want and can reach with your products. • Also, try to estimate what is the growth rate of your total and serviceable markets. Put simple, is the number of customers growing? Is spending on arts & crafts products in general, or specifically on your product category increasing? 3) Understand your customers • To understand your customers, you need to clearly identify what type of customer you are targeting, and what are their trends. Be sure to include figures and predictions for future. • There are two primary aspects to any customer analysis, a demographic profile and a behavioural analysis. Demographic profiles break down customers into age, income, geographic and other easily identifiable categories. A behavioural analysis in its simplest form identifies the reasons customers choose to buy a product instead of the other alternatives, their interests and buying habits. • Generally, there are three main ways to understand your customers better. One is to put yourself in their shoes and try and look at your business from their point of view. The second way is to collect and analyse secondary data to define your customers and their buying behaviour. The third way, suitable for already established businesses, is simply to ask your customers what they think. • After you understand basic demographic and behavioural attributes of your customers, you can better target your marketing plans and be sure that your products meet the needs of your intended audience. 4) Look at your competitors • The aim of this part of your market analysis is to understand who you are competing against. Here, you want to explain your competitors' positioning and analyse their strengths and weaknesses. • Be careful about statement like “there is no competition”. It is really uncommon to be in a market without competitors. If you really believe there are no competitors, ask someone to search for you. If you still don't find any competitors, there might be logical explanation - maybe you are targeting a market that is not feasible for such products. • Don't be afraid of competition. Even if there are a many competitors and you the market is fragmented, it can be a good news for you: you are probably offering a product that is really wanted by your potential customers. Here, you need to consider whether you can find your competitive advantage in such market or if it is too crowded or too late to enter. • Be aware that in addition to direct competitors you also need to consider your indirect competition. E.g. if you are producing handmade artistic glass cups, you may also look at plastic designer glasses of ceramic cups as your competition. • To systematically analyse your competitors, follow these basic steps: 1) find at least 5 competitive products/arts & crafts makers and explore their websites/offerings, 2) write down important aspects of their offers, 3) if you come across any indicator of their customer base or number, write it down as well. 5) Consider barriers to entry • In this step you would like to learn whether there are any barriers that may prevent you from entering the market. Typical barriers to entry foreign markets usually include: a) Physical (i.e. geographical) distance - Do I have capacity to serve the market from my home country? Am I able to ship to the selected market? b) Psychological distance - culture, language- Is my product culturally acceptable? Isn’t it specific for my home country only? Can I speak the local language? Do enough of my potential customers speak any international language that I can use? c) Economic barriers - Do I have access to distribution channels? Can I offer competitive price (including shipping costs)? d) Legal issues - European Single Market should put no limitations to free movement of goods. However, some local legal requirements or rules (e.g. terms of service of online marketplace) that you need to comply with may occur. • Consider the above mentioned barriers. Are they relevant for your potential foreign market? If so, how would you try to overcome them? 6) Look at regulations • In this step you need to make sure you understand the main regulations related to trading on the foreign market. If you plan to use an online marketplace, make sure you are familiar with its terms of service, as these are important regulations for you as well. • More information on regulations will come in the training fiches dedicated to basic legal and regulatory implications to tap into the EU Single Market. 7) Useful tips and tools for conducting a market analysis • Does the market analysis seem too complicated? Don’t worry and remember that good access to information and common sense to analyse them is usually all you need. Here you can find two tips for your market analysis: o Try to look for experience and references among your peers (arts & crafts makers) on your home market - check discussion forums on relevant websites or platforms (e.g. makers sometimes share their experience with exporting their products, or look for advices that you might be interested in). o Use free but powerful online tools and techniques to get useful information on market size, trends, customers or competitors (More information and instructions will come in the training fiche dedicated to using online tools for market analysis). B) Relying on partners or intermediaries • One of the best methods to enter a foreign market is to partner with someone in that country. Such partners usually know the country, culture and attributes of a local market, and can facilitate transactions while keeping you current on local market conditions. • There are some characteristics of a good partner that you should look for. A good partner helps you to achieve your goals on the foreign market, such as market access or cost sharing. A good partner is also unlikely to try to exploit the partnership for his own benefit. • Selecting a good partner is not easy, but there are some basic steps that should help you. Start with collecting as much information as possible on the industry and potential partners on the foreign market. You can use official sources of information, other arts & crafts makers doing business in that country, or even customers of the potential partner (e.g. through references). After identifying potential partners, approach them and discuss the idea and details of partnership several times before any commitment is made. • Besides partnering with a foreign partner, you might also establish partnership with domestic export intermediary, who will take care of exporting your product and related market analysis. • More information and instructions will come in the training fiche dedicated to looking for partners on foreign markets. C) Using available support services • Regardless of the craftsmen’s language skills there are freely accessible basic information on the European Single Market and the possibilities of establishing themselves in their native language. These are usually provided either by the European Commission directly or its representations in the respective countries. The European Commission has developed a number of easy to use on-line tools to help European citizens find the required information and the responsible institutions that may provide further assistance. • One of such tools is called the “YourEurope“ portal http://europa.eu/youreurope/. This portal amongst information about life and travel in the European Union has also a detailed section dedicated to doing business in the EU. It is mostly suited to gain a basic picture on the targeted countries, the legal steps required to establish oneself on a given market and last but not least a list of contact details to several support networks of the European Commission. The portal is structured so that it provides all the basic information on starting a business or its expansion on other EU markets and is divided to several topics, including selling abroad, VAT & customs etc. • Other such on-line tool is the portal of Points of Single Contact http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/eu-go/, accessible also in all languages, which helps you to explore new business opportunities or to expand your business in another EU country. Or if you are planning to set-up a new business at home. • You may also find support for your market analysis in Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). Its experts provide advice on market opportunities to help small businesses (craftsmen included) expand internationally. The network thanks to its local insight and various associated partners can cut through the complexities of international expansion by providing practical advice, targeted market intelligence and personalised support. These information are provided either through educational events and workshops or on an individual basis based on an assessment of the clients needs via individual consultations. Advisory services include: o Practical advice on doing business in another country o Targeted market intelligence o Information on EU laws and standards o Advice on intellectual property • If you are interested to make use of the advisory services provided by EEN you can do so in your native language by contacting your local Network office. List of all EEN members can be found under: http://een.ec.europa.eu/. • And what is the best, all EEN services are provided free of charge.

Online tools and resources • Market research is a key component to any business’ growth and success. Without it, you may easily waste time, energy, and resources hoping that your product and message is reaching the right people in the right way at the right time. Nowadays, online technologies play a crucial part in the foreign market analysis for microbusinesses, not just because it is the only way to truly collect and analyse required data, but also because many consumers are using the internet and social media to search, purchase, and review arts & crafts products and makers. • You can use the following main categories of online tools and resources to obtain some insights on potential foreign markets: o Online marketplaces - online marketplaces are traditional places where people offer and buy arts & crafts product. They can be grouped into several categories. First, in each country you can find local marketplaces specialized on arts & crafts items, as well as local generic marketplaces where all sorts of products are traded. Second, there are plenty of international online marketplaces specialized on handmade and arts & crafts items (such as Etsy or Dawanda). See some of the resources from bibliography below, or Google “arts and crafts online marketplaces” to look for most relevant marketplaces for you. Third, handmade or handcrafted items are also traded on world’s largest online marketplaces like Amazon or eBay. o Online tools analysing online consumer behaviour - you may also use some of tools or websites that offer various online consumer behaviour analyses for free. There you will discover what, how or when are different segments searching for and buying online in different countries or regions, what devices they use, what are the hot topics on social media or Google search. Some examples of such tools are: o The Customer Journey to Online Purchase provided by Google (https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-online-purchase.html) o Google Trends - analysis of interests in topics using Google search data (https://www.google.com/trends/) o Consumer Barometer provided by Google - a tool showing how people worldwide use internet (https://www.consumerbarometer.com/) o Connected Life by TNS - sample results from global consumer behaviour study (http://www.tnsglobal.com/get-connected/connected-life) o Social Mention - a real time social media search and analysis tool (http://www.socialmention.com/) o Internet search - you can do internet searches to find different types of information. For example, you can look for information about any state or local regulations or licenses you may need to sell on particular markets. Be aware that there is a lot of stuff out there, so make sure you are depending on reliable sources. Also, you can search for online marketplaces, for potential partners or local distributors, or for various events for arts & crafts makers. Try to make your search as relevant as possible. For example, Google enables you to filter results according to country of origin, language or newness in its search tools. o Statistical databases - you may use websites of statistical offices - Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat) or national statistical offices to obtain various demographic data and economic indicators. For example, census data gives you fantastic information about the area, about age groups and occupations. To get information about the local population you may approach local authority websites. Executing market analysis using online tools and resources Following the basic steps of market analysis, you can take the following steps when analysing your potential foreign market using the online tools and techniques: 1) Identify trends, lifecycle and market size • Trends on the arts & crafts market can be analysed using Google Trends - an online tool providing analysis of interests in topics using Google search data. Put simple, it shows you how often a particular search-term is entered. If the trend of interest in your product is constantly declining on the explored foreign market, it is a warning signal. In addition to long-term trend, you can also look at the annual cycles. For example, search for „handmade“ shows a gradually increasing trend, and it peaks every year in November and December. Moreover, this tool enables you to define country you are interested in, time period, category, type of search (web, picture etc.), so you can get pretty relevant results for your target country. • You should be also interested whether a product you are planning to sell on the foreign market is selling well. There are several options to find it out. First, go to online marketplace and search for the product through product categories directory or fulltext search. Look at the results and try to find an information (if available) on volume of sales (e.g. seller ranking, number of items sold by the seller). If such information is not available, you can get some estimates from number of reviews provided by customers. If there is enough hype around the product, it might be a good chance for you. • Of course, you should be interested in the price level for your product on the foreign market. Here you need to review online marketplaces (both local and international) to discover the actual price level. • Another insights can be extracted from the content of customer reviews. Go through the reviews to find out what are customers happy with regarding the product, shipping and packaging, communication with sellers etc. • Finally, information on trends and development in arts & crafts sector or particular product category can be obtained from articles on specialized websites or on online marketplaces, as well as from other resources found through internet search. • Information on market size can be obtained mainly from statistical data available on Eurostat or national statistical offices. To find out your total market, in the first round, use this data to estimate the size of your target group according to demographic criteria that you define (age, income, rural/urban etc.) after understanding your customers (see step 2 below). In the second step, try to narrow this set down using information from other resources (e.g. Consumer Barometer to discover online behaviour and habits) or found through internet search. • To find out your serviceable market, try to find out visits statistics for online marketplaces that you plan to use as your channels on the foreign market. If possible, confront this with demographic and behavioural profile of your customer. 2) Understand your customers • Even if you will be happy to serve anyone interested in your product, not everyone is your typical customer. Each product especially attracts one or several customer segments. To better adjust your offer to these in order to boost your sales, use online tools and resources to understand demographic and behavioural attributes of your segment. • First, look at your typical customer from demographic perspective. Who usually buys products that you plan to sell? Consider gender, age, income category. Try to find these information from customer reviews on similar products (you will identify them in your competition analysis) at online marketplaces, social media (using e.g. Social Mention - a real time social media search and analysis tool) or from discussion forums or internet search results. • Second, behavioural analysis aims to discover reasons why customers choose to buy a product instead of the other alternatives, their interests and buying habits. To discover these, try to use “Customer Journey to Online Purchase“ and “Consumer Barometer“ provided by Google. Also, look into customer review and try to look for common patterns in customers‘ behaviour. Finally, try the internet search to look for articles on buying habits on your taget market. Look at resources coming from the target foreign country, but also from your home country, as some of arts & crafts makers might have shared their experience on discussion forums. 3) Look at your competitors • Before you decide to enter the foreign market, you should take some effort to map your competition. Start with looking at the same channels that you plan to use (e.g. particular online marketplace) as these are the places where you will face your competition in front of your customers. However, also try to review other online marketplaces (e.g. local marketplaces that do not allow selling from abroad) to obtain a comprehensive picture. • You can identify your competitors using product category search or keyword search. You should use several most relevant keywords. Try to put yourself into your customer’s shoes - what keywords may he/she use when looking for your product? Also, try the search with keywords translated to local language (if you don’t speak it, use Google Translate). Executing a comprehensive analysis of search results is usually not necessary - looking at first or second page should be enough. However, look at sorting of search results, as you may rather want most popular instead of most recent results. • Do not forget that in addition to direct competitors you also have indirect competitors. Do not forget to look at them during your mapping. Look at similar product categories or search results for products similar but not same as yours. • The next step after you identify your competitors is to analyse their offer. What products do they sell? What are their attributes in terms of style, design, quality, materials and techniques used etc. Also. Look at the online presentation of their products. Do they use quality pictures? Is the headline catchy? Are the products described in an attractive way? If the offers of competitors on the first pages are poorly presented, it is a good chance for you. Also, have a look at customer references. Are there many feedbacks? What proportion of them is positive/negative? 4) Consider barriers to entry • Look at official EU websites (e.g. http://europa.eu/youreurope/) and websites of national/local governments, ministries or trade agencies to discover whether there are any legal barriers. • If you consider using an online marketplace as your channel, check the requirements and rules related to eligibility for selling, payments, shipment etc. for legal entry barriers. • Analyse the level of language barrier. Do local online marketplaces have English language mutation, or are they available in local language only? To what extent do people in the foreign country speak English or any international language? • Find out what are the shipping options and costs. Use internet search to look for companies that can deliver your product to target country (mail service, specialized shipping companies, etc.) After including these, can you still offer a competitive price for your product? • Finally, try to find whether customers on the online marketplaces you aim to use accept foreign sellers. Try to find foreign sellers (ideally coming from your country) on that marketplace and look at their sales figures and received reviews. 5) Look at regulations • There are several ways you can find useful information on regulations related to entering the particular foreign market: o Official EU websites (e.g. http://europa.eu/youreurope/) and websites of national/local governments, ministries or trade agencies provide official and updated information on regulations related with doing business in particular country. EU resources are usually available in all EU languages, while national resources usually provide information in local language and in English. o Google search - internet search can direct you, besides above mentioned official websites, to other resources that may provide comprehensive information in user friendly form. As always with internet resources, make sure you are referring to up-to-date information. o Online marketplace regulations - besides legal regulations, online marketplaces also have their regulations that you need to comply. You can usually find them in Terms of service or FAQs sections. o Experience in coping with the regulations when selling abroad is sometimes shared among arts & crafts makers themselves. Make sure to review discussion groups / forums by your peers on local websites or international online marketplaces. Technical tips and hints: • Lot of market data analysis can be done reading product reviews on online marketplaces. Try to go through some of the review on similar products or your competitors (arts & crafts makers selling same product category) to find out what is important for your customers, what they liked and disliked on your competitor (i.e. what are his/her strengths and weaknesses). • Generally, online tools and techniques require some knowledge of English, as most of international websites are available in English language. So, either try to practice or improve your language skills, or try to ask someone for help. Also, there exist many local websites (such as marketplaces) in different countries, but they are usually available in local language only. Here you might find useful some of the online translators or dictionaries, that are available to you free of charge. A good universal example of such tool is the Google Translate (translate.google.com), but there probably exist other local-based services in your home countries as well. While Google Translate enables translation to/from practically all European languages, local services usually provide translation to/from main international languages only. • When conducting a Google search, instead of using your country mutation or general Google.com version, you can also use the language mutation for the foreign country you want to analyse. Here, you can filter search results to websites coming from that particular country. Moreover, if you translate the search terms into the local language (e.g. using Google Translate), you usually get relevant and helpful results. • Specialized online marketplaces usually offer seller support content, such as FAQs or “seller handbooks”, where you can find useful tips, training materials and other contents that you may find helpful when executing market analysis, but mainly when selling your products online. • You can find information on tools and resources for market analysis on several websites or in online articles. One of great websites is Open Strategy (http://openstrate.gy/) - a great market research resource that compiles up-to-date tools and reports on consumer research, market data, case studies and much more.

Adjusting your product to local market (i.e. localization) is always an issue when considering the foreign market entry strategy. There are good news and bad news for arts & crafts makers related to localization. Good news is that as your products are hand-made and each individual product is usually unique, you are generally easily able to adjust them without high investment needs. Bad news, however, is that you may sometimes find out your product as such not suitable for the foreign market, particularly due to cultural reasons. This training fiche will help you to understand the levels and options of localization, provide you with list of advices how to approach localization of your product, and give you insights how to handle strengths and limitations set by country brand name.

What is localization? • Localization is the customization of all components of a product for a particular target market. These components include: o product itself, o customer service, o any printed or online documentation related to the product, o online presentation and websites, o advertising campaigns, and o any other marketing communication materials for the product. Levels of localization • The actual extent to which you localize your product may vary. • There are three main alternative approaches for competing internationally: 1) A multidomestic strategy, i.e. a think-local, act-local approach to set the international strategy for entering foreign markets. This approach is appropriate for cases that require varying product offerings and competitive approaches from country to country. 2) A global or international strategy, i.e. a think-global, act-global approach. This approach characterizes a strategy that works best when there are benefits to be gained from taking a standardized and globally integrated approach and there is little or no need for responding any specific local customer preferences. 3) A combination think-global, act-local approach, also known as a transnational strategy. This approach is required when there is a high need for local responsiveness as well as substantial benefits from taking a globally integrated approach. Localization options • Localization has a lot to do with language issues, as in multilingual Europe your potential foreign market customers will probably speak different language than is your mother tongue. • Depending on the scope of the localization, you have a few options how to cope with language issues: o Dealing with localization internally - besides your comprehensive knowledge of your products and possibly also about your potential target foreign market, your everyday tasks and responsibilities would slow down the localization process. To handle the localization yourself, you not only need to be proficient in the specific language but you must also have an understanding of the cultural nuances. Also, you may not have the skill for translation as does a professional, native translator. o Hiring an external translator - a general translator or translation firm may provide a quality translation but it may not have the technical expertise necessary to produce successful localization. o Single language vendor - this type of vendor may have expertise in a specific language or market but managing the cooperation may be difficult. If you aim to enter more markers, you will be duplicating your efforts in terms of communicating with more than one vendor. If you become more successful and your market grows, you will probably need to expand to other languages to serve customers in more countries. o Multilingual vendor - this type of vendor is considered a full-service localization vendor who will provide linguistic and technical expertise as well as international project management experience for as many languages as you need. Since they are the only vendor that will manage the project, this vendor must be chosen very carefully. Dos and don’ts of localization • Here are some recommendations you should follow when planning and implementing your localization project: o Do plan your localization project to keep the balance of time, cost and quality. o Do research your local competitors in each target foreign market. o Do demonstrate understanding of the customer. o Do show your customers how to use your product if they are not familiar with it. • On contrary, make sure to avoid following “Don’ts” of localization: o Don’t use translations without understanding cultural significance. o Don’t use automated translation (e.g. Google Translate) without having the text checked. o Don’t use your or your product’s brand name without verifying its cultural or language connotation in foreign language. Where to find information whether and how to localize? • Do research online - check local and relevant international online marketplaces, specialized websites, as well as websites of arts & crafts shops. • Find a partner abroad - approach a local retailer or arts & crafts shop owner with experience. • Participate on a fair or market - visit the target foreign country to present and sell your products on an arts & crafts fair. Talk with people attending your stall and get as much information and feedback as possible. Country brand as a part of localization • Some arts & crafts items are particularly typical and traditional for their country of origin, while some can be considered rather universal, without attachment to any specific country. One of the questions you can consider is the country brand name. In particular, you might either use the power of your country’s brand name, or, on the other side, to completely ignore or even hide the country of origin. • When customers see a specific country name, they have certain associations in their minds. • For illustration on the power of countries’ brand names FutureBrand regularly prepares the Country Brand Index. In its 2014-2015 edition, following European countries have been classified in TOP 10 according to strength of their brand name: Switzerland (1st in Europe, 2nd worldwide); Germany (2nd in Europe, 3rd worldwide); Sweden (3th in Europe, 4th worldwide); Norway (4th in Europe, 6th worldwide); Denmark (5th in Europe, 9th worldwide); Austria (6th in Europe, 10th worldwide) • Here are several issues you should consider when thinking of whether to emphasize your country of origin when attempting to attract the customers on a foreign market: o How do customers in the target foreign country perceive your home country and its brands? o How do customers in the target foreign country perceive their own country and its brands? o How would entering a new country change your personal seller’s image?

One of the barriers that arts & crafts microbusinesses, as well as any other businesses, face when entering a foreign market is lack of trust and related worries of local customers. Fortunately, there are some good practices that can help you to overcome such barriers to certain extent. These include advices to obtain references and reviews from customers, and establish a credible and trustworthy image on the market. Also, standing out from the crowd and being a visible seller on online marketplace can help you in this effort. This training fiche will provide you tips and hints to build customers trust and earn references among your future customers on your target foreign markets when exporting your products. Most of these advices, except the technical tips and tricks, also work well in offline world. Contents in bullet points: • A good way how to establish yourself and successfully sell on online marketplaces is to build trust with your customers and develop credible, outstanding seller profile. Here are three main things you should consider with this respect: 1) Get references and customer testimonials - reviews from your customers help to increase your trustworthiness and catalyse word-of-mouth marketing (e.g. customers spread the word about yourself and your products). 2) Improve your credibility - establishing a credible profile among the community of your customers based on providing credentials, engaging in forums and sharing experience, and presenting personal background information will help to build trust with your customers and boost your sales. 3) Stand out from the crowd - following tips and hints to stand out from thousands of other sellers on online marketplaces will let your customers notice and recognize yourself, leading to increased sales of your products. A) References and customer testimonials • Reviews from your customers will refer to two main attributes: A) your product(s), and B) your customers service (i.e. the way you treat your customers before, during and after the process of handling their orders). Both of these attributes are equally important and crucial prerequisites to obtain positive customer feedback. • Your hard work to provide great products and customer service, can, in turn, lead to positive reviews. Seeing that others had a positive experience helps new customers feel comfortable making a purchase, especially if they have never purchased from you before. • Also, how you handle unhappy customers can result in positive feedback as well. In any case, you should be confident that your products are good and your descriptions are realistic. Even though, however, some of your customers may be unhappy. In this case, make sure that you handle such situations professionally, as customers might in turn leave positive feedback about your great customer service. • An experienced seller from an online marketplace for arts & crafts identified the following five ways to get great reviews: o „Treat every buyer like they’re your first. Your shop’s success is dependent on the people that purchase from it, each and every one of them. I never let an order pass through my shop without reaching out to thank the customer personally. This means going beyond the automatic email that’s sent out when an order is placed and sending a direct Conversation message, written by me, expressing my gratitude. Not only is a timely thank-you note a great way to convey how much you value their support, but customers will often take the direct connection as an opportunity to ask last-minute questions that might be important to address before you produce or ship their order.“ o „Keep your shop honest. When you’re focused on capturing beautiful product photos and writing snazzy copy for your item listings, it can be easy to overlook the obvious question: Will your buyers actually know what they’ll receive after looking at your listing? Your photos and item description should set clear expectations for your buyers: Do your photos showcase each item’s size and what will be included with their purchase? Do your item descriptions answer any possible questions buyers might have?“ o „Deal with mistakes right away. Mistakes happen, no matter how hard we try to prevent them. Customer service snafus can be a total nightmare, and no matter who is in the right, ask yourself, is it worth arguing with a customer? What solution would you want if the situation was reversed? For me, this is the most painful aspect of running a shop on online marketplace, although the best solution is often a no-brainer: Give the buyer what they’re looking for, and come up with ways to prevent the same issue from happening in the future. While this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, I can say from experience that what may initially feel like a loss can result in a worthwhile gain down the line.“ o „Ask yourself, “Is there anything else I can do?” Think about what else you can you do for your buyer to ensure an exceptional experience. For me, this often manifests in how I package an order; I’ll include a little print as a wedding gift or include a handwritten note congratulating the couple on their upcoming wedding. After all, who doesn’t love to receive a thoughtful bonus with their order?“ o „Always follow up. Strategically following up with buyers after an order is processed is great for a number of reasons. First, you enable your buyer to alert you if they had any issues with their order so you can resolve the problem before they leave a negative review. You can also inquire about ways to improve, and proactively make changes to your shop policies and workflow to prevent similar issues from happening again. Your final correspondence is also a great opportunity to encourage buyers to leave feedback for your shop. The messaging and timing of your follow-up message is key, since you don’t want to seem spammy or too aggressive. I normally reach out around the time the item is expected to arrive to ask the buyer if they’ve received everything safely and as expected. I’ll also give them instructions for leaving feedback if they’re so inclined - that way I’m making the process as simple as possible.“ • However, as a new seller you usually have one disadvantage – no one knows you, your brand or your product. So, how to persuade potential customers to buy your product then? You can try highlighting your offer (a paid option), but customers will probably not trust your products, as they look for “social proof” from reviews and testimonials. There are several options to get your first reviews: o Ask your customers for review. Remember, ask for a “review”, not for a “good review”. Also, ask them only after the purchase process has been completed. o Instead of asking directly, you can motivate your customers to provide a review by putting links on review site to your e-mail signature, or add the request to a message about another topic (e.g. newsletter, follow-up distribution of relevant information etc.). o Add a small gift and a small flyer (e.g. business card format) requesting customer to provide a review about how he/she was happy with the product and customer service. o Look for active reviewers, offer them significant discount or free sample and ask them to leave their feedback. o Ask couple of your friends to purchase your product through the particular online marketplace and place their reviews. Remember, they have to be honest and natural. o Finally, do not worry. After getting to know your customers well, you will be able to find and utilize the most appropriate way to receive reviews. To boost this, try to understand your customers using a market analysis. • How should good reviews look like? Helpful and trustworthy reviews that will help you to build trust among your customers should have the following parameters: o Include the "why": The best reviews include not only whether your customer liked or disliked a product, but also why. Encourage customers to make comparisons with related products or services they have experienced. o Specific: A review should be relevant to the product the customer is reviewing and focus on specific features or his/her experience. For video and image reviews, writing a brief introduction is recommended. o Not too short, not too long: Written reviews should be at least 20 words, and the ideal length is around 75 to 500 words. For video reviews, 2 to 5 minutes length is recommended to keep the audience engaged. o Sincere: Reviews should not be artificial, but they should provide customer’s honest opinion about the product. • In addition to reviews, sometimes you also can include customer testimonials in your seller profile or shop at the online marketplace. These should be excerpts from genuine e-mails or messages from customers expressing how they enjoyed your products or buying process. This last point is important - customer testimonial that states how your product benefited them is much more effective than one that just says something like "Your product is great!". B) Improve your credibility – credentials, experience, background information Here are some useful tips and advices how to build improve your credibility on arts & crafts online marketplace: Providing credentials and personal information • You can enhance your credibility by adding a section to your copy that outlines your credentials, experience and any background information that makes you qualified to make great products. Your aim should be to effectively convince potential customers that you are the right person to offer them what they look for. • As online businesses have no face-to-face contact with customers, they have to find other ways to convey the fact that they are trustworthy. You should try to get as many accreditations as possible, including association and trade body membership. Join local guilds or groups to show you are part of the local community. Include endorsements, testimonials and case studies from customers on your online profile. • Try to personalise your online profile as much as possible. When there's no face-to-face contact, it's good to have a human element on any ecommerce website. Engaging in forums and sharing experience • Online discussion forums are great places to give out tips and advice, answer questions, and acquire a customer or two. • Use the forums located on the online marketplace you are using as your sales channel, but also try to Google search out some active forums that may directly relate to your product. When you post, ensure you aren’t breaking any forum rules when you promote your brand or products. Get to know the limits and restrictions of the forum, and stick to them. Using your forum avatar, signature, and profile page to promote your brand are usually well within the rules. • You may feel the temptation to post and promote wildly, but keep it professional. No forum will tolerate constant promotion or posts full of links to your website. Bedsides, acting in such a way online will damage your brand in the eyes of other forum users. So, keep it simple by posting just enough for people to notice your activity, but not enough to constitute spam. Also, avoid coming screaming in, telling everyone what you have for sale. This will generally get you banned from the forum faster than you can say spam. • Instead of trying wildly to promote yourself, always try to follow a customer-centric or "you-centric" approach rather than a "me-centric" approach. Try to provide value and genially help customers or peers with their problems. • Finally, be patient and follow gradual steps to establish your trustworthy position in the forum. First, sign up, fill out your bio and “about me” sections, upload a real photo of yourself, but refrain from putting up links to your ecommerce website. Second, read and listen. The main point is to learn as much as you can from your audience. Remember, these are your future customers. Third, help. After you feel comfortable with your new community, feel free to help people. Helping people by responding to their questions and providing information to them will make you highly respected in any forum. Fourth, only now you should promote your products, but make sure you do it the right way. Start by going back to your bio and link to your website. When you feel really comfortable and if the forum allows it, create a signature that links back to your website. C) Stand out from the crowd to let your customers notice yourself • An important aspect of building your customers’ trust and earning references is to build an outstanding and consistent online profile on the online marketplace. This will let your customers notice and recognize yourself, leading to increased sales of your products. • Try to grab the attention of "scanners" by changing the formatting and appearance of your advertisement, profile or shop. Very few visitors will read every word of your sales copy from start to finish. Most will "scan" your copy as they scroll down the page, reading only certain words and phrases that jump out at them or catch their eye. That's why you need to highlight your key benefits to grab the attention of people who scan rather than read online. These include: o Using bold, italics and highlighting (sparingly) to emphasize the most important attributes or benefits of your offer o Varying the length of your paragraphs so the page doesn't just look like a block of uniformly formatted text o Adding sub-headlines that emphasize your key messages and compel your visitors to read the paragraphs that follow o Leaving the right-hand side of your text ragged (as that's easier to read than "justified" text that uses the whole width of the page) o Centering important--but short--chunks of text or sub-headlines to further draw them out of the main body of text o Using bullet lists (like this one) to emphasize key points • Before you finalize your online profile or shop on the online marketplace, make sure to go through this checklist to ensure it will stand out due its quality: o Is your shop organized into categories? o Is there too much clutter in the listings? o Is there a shop banner and a shop window (if this is enabled by the particular online marketplace)? o Do you have a profile photo and profile information? o Do you have high quality, supportive product images? o Are product descriptions clear and detailed? o Have you clearly stated the services you will offer and other terms of sales? • To build an outstanding profile on the online marketplace it is not enough to just setup a shop/profile and list items. You need to put clear and focused effort to ensure that these listings reach the right customers and are marketed correctly. Here are some tips from experienced online marketplace sellers: o Create a strong shop: The first step is to find the right name and outlook for the store. An interesting name and shop description goes a long way in bringing in customers. o Add a personal touch: Customers can relate better to a more personal welcome than a generic storefront. If they see a photo or you and a brief story of how you got there, they will feel more involved in the store and your products. o Use quality photographs: Since the nature of online shopping takes away some of the buyer’s experience that is touch and feel of a product, it is important to offset this by using clear and high quality photographs. The better the photograph the more the chances of a buyer actually making the purchase. Photos should have good lightening, be aesthetically taken, show as many features as possible and be from different angles. o Use detailed but crisp descriptions: Items listed in a store should be clearly and concisely described to help the buyer get a good idea of the product before they decide to buy. Any specific features and benefits should be clearly listed together with essential information such as sizes, dimensions, colours and materials. Additional information can include care instructions. o Keywords: Make sure you understand and use search engine optimization techniques to help find and place the right keywords in your product listings and descriptions. o Clearly state terms of sale or refund policies: If you want to set criteria for sales or potential refunds, make sure that they are mentioned clearly as part of your store information. This helps avoid unplanned situations and a potentially unhappy customer. o Be a part of the community: Most of the online marketplaces’ (like DaWanda and Etsy) business model allows users to benefit from a close knit community. Forums help sellers get in touch with each other and offer tips and tricks as well as practical information and advice. This is a good way of building up your network and getting off to the right start. o Use social networks: Social networks are a great way to direct buyers into your store. Use instagram, pinterest, facebook, twitter or tumblr to find the right audience for your products and leverage these for the sale of your products. o Create a blog: Blogs further the personal element of a store and can help you continue to reach out to potential buyers and your community through updates and a personal journey behind your products. • As product photos are an important attribute of creating an outstanding online marketplace identity, here are some tips related to them. Product photos are a must for arts & crafts online sellers. There are two main requirements: 1) provide a product photo, and 2) provided photo must be a good quality professional-like. • Adding images will boost your product's desirability. Images of your products make them seem more tangible and "real" to visitors and are a powerful sales tool. They show buyers what they are actually purchasing but more importantly, good pictures make the buyer want to own the product in the first place. • Quality and professional pictures of your products can help you to attract customers on the online marketplace and stand out from the crowd. A good product picture is as important as the product itself. There are two good news with this respect. First, you really don’t need expensive photo equipment to take great photos. Second, there are many do’s and don’ts guidelines to make good images available on the internet. • Here is the summary of the main recommendations that can help you to take great product photos (adapted from dawanda.com): o Background. Make sure that your product is easy to recognize by presenting it in a simple, neutral and full-coloured background. A patterned, grainy or poorly constructed background distracts from your product and has a negative effect on the general look and feel of the image. A good idea to put your product on a large sheet of paper so you have a clean background. White, Off-white or light grey are the most commonly used background colours, but you can also opt for something that matches your product. If you feel simple background is too boring for your products then feel free to experiment by adding extra elements. Just remember that the background should be favourable to your product and not distract from it. Also make sure that there is clear contrast between the background and your product so that your product doesn’t get lost in it. Make sure you use a similar background for all your products. This makes your shop page easier to view and enhances the shopping experience of visitors. o Lighting. Whenever there is unfavourable lighting the camera’s automatic colour settings adapt to it and seldom show good results. Thus, try to adjust its settings manually. Also, don’t spend too much time experimenting with your camera’s flash when photographing indoors. The bright and direct light coming from your on-camera flash usually introduces harsh shadows and bright reflections and so, taking good photos with flash takes a lot of practice. Instead, try lighting the product with a lamp. A simple desk lamp can be used at a distance to illuminate your product from a different direction while emphasizing the shape of the object. If you have two lamps at your disposal then you could even try lighting your subject from two sides to fill-in any dark areas. Play around with it, practice makes perfect! o Perspective. Perspective is key and choosing the right one can make all the difference in how your products are viewed. Some people choose to photograph their products from the front. Although a photo like this is fine, make sure you also provide other views of your creation. Experiment so that you find the perspective that makes your product appear the most authentic. A light angle of 45° works very well in most cases. Always ensure your main product image shows the entire product and not a cropped section of it. Fashion items look a lot better when displayed on people instead of dangling from a clothes hanger. A nice picture increases the chance that it will sell. We find that relatives, friends and acquaintances can be easily persuaded into a photoshoot. In an emergency you could use a mannequin, but in no case should you just photograph your clothes lying on the ground or hanging on a coat rack. This makes it difficult for buyers to visualise how the item would fit, or how it might look on them. o To illustrate the importance of quality product pictures, dawanda.com tested how much a product photo influences customers by offering the same chain twice - once with a good photo, once with a bad photo. Both photos were taken with the item lying flat. The result was surprisingly clear. The listing with the good photo received 51% more clicks and 61% more visitors compared to the listing with the bad photo. This shows how worthwhile it is to invest some time and effort into creating great photos! era’s automatic colour settings adapt to it and seldom show good results. Thus, try to adjust its settings manually. Also, don’t spend too much time experimenting with your camera’s flash when photographing indoors. The bright and direct light coming from your on-camera flash usually introduces harsh shadows and bright reflections and so, taking good photos with flash takes a lot of practice. Instead, try lighting the product with a lamp. A simple desk lamp can be used at a distance to illuminate your product from a different direction while emphasizing the shape of the object. If you have two lamps at your disposal then you could even try lighting your subject from two sides to fill-in any dark areas. Play around with it, practice makes perfect! o Perspective. Perspective is key and choosing the right one can make all the difference in how your products are viewed. Some people choose to photograph their products from the front. Although a photo like this is fine, make sure you also provide other views of your creation. Experiment so that you find the perspective that makes your product appear the most authentic. A light angle of 45° works very well in most cases. Always ensure your main product image shows the entire product and not a cropped section of it. Fashion items look a lot better when displayed on people instead of dangling from a clothes hanger. A nice picture increases the chance that it will sell. We find that relatives, friends and acquaintances can be easily persuaded into a photoshoot. In an emergency you could use a mannequin, but in no case should you just photograph your clothes lying on the ground or hanging on a coat rack. This makes it difficult for buyers to visualise how the item would fit, or how it might look on them. o To illustrate the importance of quality product pictures, dawanda.com tested how much a product photo influences customers by offering the same chain twice - once with a good photo, once with a bad photo. Both photos were taken with the item lying flat. The result was surprisingly clear. The listing with the good photo received 51% more clicks and 61% more visitors compared to the listing with the bad photo. This shows how worthwhile it is to invest some time and effort into creating great photos!

Looking for partners is an integrated phase of the whole process of market analysis and market entry strategy. It significantly contributes to your business competitiveness. There are numerous resources available to help you to identify partners in target markets. However, to know the basics about process of identification and finding partners helps you to avoid pifalls and mistakes which could hurt your business. When you have defined your strategy of penetration into target market you can follow the following steps of the process for looking for partners in abroad: 1. Choose one from the following four approaches, or their combination, that can be used in process of identification of partners for your penetration into foreing markets: a/ to find domestic buyers who then export your product. In this case partners are domestic one and your selling approach to them is like you would sell somebody in local market. You will filling orders from domestic buyer and he/she then will export it even you don´t know whether it will be successfully exported. This your partner has decided that your product meets foreign demand. He/she takes all the risk and handels all exporting activities. Advantage of this approach is that it doesn´t ask any your knowledge about doing business in abroad and due to that is simple for you. However, disadvantage is that you, as original seller and producer, are not aware what is going on with your product. Usually, if original seller (yourself) learns about his/her product success in selling abroad starts to think about the other approach to find partners for selling in abroad that would alow him to be better recognized and participate more on sharing export margin. b/ to find domestic buyers who represent foreign end users or customers. There are trading companies, local or foreing corporations, general contractors, foreign distributors and retailers etc. that purchase for export. In this case you may know your product is being exported even it is still the buyer who takes risk and handles all details of exporting. c/ to use intermediaries who provide special services to identify foreign partners for your products (indirect approach). You as exporter can gain access to well-established expertise and trade contacts. And above all you can still retain considerable control over the process and realizte som of the other benefits of exporting such as learning more about foreign competitors, new trends in your business and other market opportunities. Typical intermediares are: export management companies; foreign agents; piggy back exporting partners.Export management companies (EMCs) functions as an "off-site" export sales department, representing your product along with various other non-competitive manufacturers. The EMC searches for business for your company and in area of looking for partners usually provides locating new, and utilizing existing foreign distributors or sales representatives to put your product into the foreign market. Functions as an overseas distribution channel or wholesaler. Takes ownership of the goods and operates on a commission basis. Foreign agents (FAs) are hired by companies for representation in overseas markets as the agent has knowledge of business practices, language, laws, and culture. There are different types of agents who perform a number of functions. The one you choose to hire is based upon how much you want the agent to do for you and how much you are willing to pay. • Exporters use commissioned agents most often. It is the simplest way of doing things: The agent is paid a percentage of a sale only when the sale is made. This provides an incentive for the agent to work on your behalf. • Retainer agents are paid a fixed amount to do certain work for a company over a specified period of time. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to monitor how hard they are working and they get paid whether they do anything or not. • Retainer/Commissioned agents are placed on a retainer but also receive a percentage from each sale. The retainer provides them with funds to help run their business while the commission gives them additional incentive to work harder on your behalf. Piggyback exporting partners: when a company, which already has an export distribution system in place, is allowed to sell another company's product in addition to its own. A good advantage is that the requisite logistics associated with selling abroad are borne by the exporting company. d/ to do directly own research in your target market to identify partners or end users as part of your direct exporting strategy. This approach is most ambitious and difficult. You have to be aware of significant committment of your time and effort if you want to find a good partners. On one side it is more risky and costly approach (as far as your own time and effort is) but may also be the best way to achieve high profit and long-term growth if it is properly executed with appropriate guidance from different state (national) and international institutions, international banks etc. that focus on exporting services. Partners for direct channels of your product may be: sales representatives, distributors/agents, end users. • Sales Representatives/Paid by seller: foreign-based representatives who work on a salary/retainer plus incentive basis to locate buyers for a company’s products. • Distributors/Agents: purchase merchandise directly from the home-country firm to re-sell at a profit. • Direct Sales to End-User: Your product line will determine whether direct sales to the end-user are a viable options. Major end-user include foreign goverments, schools, businesses and individual consumers. Approaches a/ and b/ are quite extensively used by small and medium size companies. However, they don´t require any special knowledge as far as foreign partners finding is. You can apply the same methods as for finding of local partners. If your export strategy, developed on your own goals and resources, is in favor of indirect approach (c/) it means you are new to exporting or you don´t have staff and resources that you could devote to more complex export activities then this approach is the most appropriate to you. There is a key to find suitable intermediares. However, applying this approach (c) still allow you to go directly to some well known markets for you (neighbouring country) and to apply indirect approach for finding partners in less known markets. Later, when you are more experienced in foreign market activities, then you can choose to gradually increase direct approach to find partners as part of direct exporting strategy. 2. Select ways (techniques, strategies) how to find partners and make contacts with them. There are different ways how to find partners and make contacts for arts and crafts. You can consider some of them listed below either as single one or in combination: • Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) – the world´s largest support network for small and medium sized business (SME) with international ambitions. Network was established by European Commision with aim to provide support through local experts. It has 3000 experts across 600 member organsations in more than 60 countries. Member organisations include chambers of commerce and industry, technology centres and research institutes. EEN provides international business expertise with local knowledge across a range of targeted services: • Partnership • Advisory The Network also offers specialised industry expertise across 17 sectors. Partnership services The Network manages Europe’s largest database of business opportunities. With the profiles in the database, Network experts can help businesses forge international partnerships with excellent growth potential. The database is updated every day, offers thousands of company profiles. After preparing and submitting your own profile, you can join the database and receive regular updates about companies interested in working with you. The network can then connect you with selected parties and help you to broker a partnership. The Network organizes 70,000 international business meetings every year and hosts matchmaking events throughout Europe, where you can meet potential business partners, on a confidential one-to-one basis if required. Many of these events take place at international fairs which means you can keep travel and accommodation costs down. These events can be divided into two separate formats with different purposes: • Matchmaking and brokerage events where SMEs can meet potential business partners o Fast and effective matchmaking event at international conferences and trade fairs • Company missions for targeted international meetings with strong business prospects o Tailor-made trade missions lead to successful partnerships thanks to thorough preparation. Local knowledge and expert guidance ? Advisory services Network experts provide advice on market opportunities to help small businesses (craftsmen included) expand internationally. The network thanks to its local insight and various associated partners can cut through the complexities of international expansion by providing practical advice, targeted market intelligence and personalised support. These information are provided either through educational events and workshops or on an individual basis based on an assessment of the clients needs via individual consultations. Advisory services include: • Practical advice on doing business in another country • Targeted market intelligence • Information on EU laws and standards • Advice on intellectual property How to use these services: in order you are interested to make use of the partnership or advisory services provided by Enterprise Europe Network you can do so in your native language by contacting your local Network office. List of all Enterprise Europe Network members can be found under: http://een.ec.europa.eu/. Important notice: all Enterprise Europe Network services are provided free of charge • State and local government assistance. States provide an array of services to help to find partners both through agencies supporting small business (e.g. Slovak business agency in Slovakia), and commercial sections of ambassies of the ministries of foreign affairs. These sections can be contacted through ministries of foreign affairs. • Assistance from national chambers of commerce, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), World Chambers Federation (WCF) and arts and crafts national and international organizations. National chambers of commerce used to have their units or projects that are involved into active support to find international partners for SME. As local business support agencies, chambers of commerce connect ICC to small- and medium-sized companies and promote the important role they play in the global economy. WCF recognizes the valuable contribution of SMEs and helps them to face the challenges and opportunities of globalization. Arts and crafts national and international organizations used to present itself at webpages and inform about projects that support international business. • Advertisement in periodicals , webpages; participation in catalog and video/catalog exhibitions, at trade fairs focused on arts and crafts etc. These means of product presentations can belonged to the cheapest ways of spreading message on your product if they are supported by government or governmental that have mission to support internationalisation of arts and crafts. • Pursue Trade Leads. Trade leads are very important in identifying potential customers in abroad. They are most often accessed via Internet and offer an inexpensive way to establish vital links with buyers in target markets. There are a few portals that are a good source of information on leads around the world. 3. Qualify potential partners by reputation and financial position with aim to check them before entering into any agreements. Once you locate a potential foreign partner the next step is to qualify them by reputation and financial position. • First, obtain as much information as possible from partner itself. If you are O.K. with background information both from reputational and business points of view than you should try to get some credit information to check financial position of the company. • There are different sources of information that could support you in decision making process. As far as financial position of your partner is you should go either through public credit information, social security or health insurance public data on past due clients in countries you are familiar from language point of view. You can also go to your bank and ask for banking information on your partners through correspondent banking contacts. For countries you are less familiar with you can obtain reports on due dilligence of foreign companies. • To be sure that you don´t miss any important piece of information you should use some publicly available check list/questionnaire that you can adjust to sector specifics of your product and further needs.

•Market research is a key component to any business’ growth and success. Without it, you may easily waste time, energy, and resources hoping that your product and message is reaching the right people in the right way at the right time. Nowadays, online technologies play a crucial part in the foreign market analysis for microbusinesses, not just because it is the only way to truly collect and analyse required data, but also because many consumers are using the internet and social media to search, purchase, and review arts & crafts products and makers.

•It’s good to start this training fiche with explaining what localization actually means. Localization is the customization of all components of a product for a particular target market. These components include: 

•A good way how to establish yourself and successfully sell on online marketplaces is to build trust with your customers and develop credible, outstanding seller profile. Here are three main things you should consider with this respect:

• Job analysis is one of the first steps in the recruitment and selection process. It is aimed at analysing current and future needs in field of employment, identifying of requirements for the openings. The key products of job analysis are: [1] job description, which identifies the tasks, duties and responsibilities in jobs and [2] job specifications, which lists the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) needed to perform a job satisfactorily. • Job analysis has several behavioral implications that managers should consider: employee’s fears of the process and resistance to change, management’s tendency to overemphasize the current job holder’s qualifications, and the danger that job descriptions will limit managerial flexibility. • There are few job analysis methods: observation (work sampling, employee/diary log), interviewing and questionnaires. • Identify jobs and review existing documentation - Explain process to Managers and Employees - Conduct Job Analysis using Interviews, Questionnaires, or Observations - Prepare job descriptions and specifications - Maintain and update job descriptions and specifications. • The nature of jobs and work is changing. The nature of some jobs is shifting to reflect the competitive demands faced by the organization. Competence is the ability to perform certain actions, a set of features necessary to perform the job. Each of the elements of competence profile refers to a specific dimension of the work. For an assignment and examples of competency descriptions please see the attached slides.

• The recruitment and selection unit of the module HR Management is dedicated to the basics in employing new staff from outside or inside the organization. The course presents following topics: the importance of employer branding for hiring right candidates, steps of recruitment and selection process, recruitments and selection methods, including application screening, structured interview and assessment centre. • The recruitment and selection process consists of several steps: identification of requirements, attracting applicants, creating a shortlist, applying selection process and preparing an offer. • Employer branding - In order to attract applicants firms create their employer brands. Employer brand is a set of attributes and qualities – often intangible – that makes an organization distinctive, promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will thrive and perform to their best in its culture. (CIPD, 2007). • Recruitment methods - Organizations can adopt different recruitment methods. Organization may offer the job at the internal or external labour market. Also social networking sites grown rapidly in popularity and there are an array of sites competing for members from more formal sites encouraging business networking such as Linkedln to more informal sites such as Twitter or Facebook. • Assessing the suitability of applicants at each stage of selection, starting from reviewing application forms or CVs, to evaluating psychometric test result and rating performance in interviews, is central to the process not only of hiring, but of hiring the right kind of people. Selection process involves the use of techniques and tools that are designed to discriminate between shortlisted applicants, using legal, relevant and predictive criteria. • Assessment centre – a collection of activities designed to assess the suitability of a number of candidates for a job. The assessment typically involves several assessors evaluating the performance of a number of candidates in a series of exercises and tests. Candidates are presented with individual or group-based exercises and tests. • Competence – the combination of skills, knowledge and experience that result in a person’s ability to carry our specific tasks and procedures to a required standard. • Validity - it is important that any test or assessment used in the selection has a high degree of validity. If scores obtained by a sample group of job holders in a test correlate highly with job performance the test has a high degree of validity and can be regarded as effective in predicting job performance.

• Training is provided in a firm to help employers to develop employees. Training should be systematic and need to respond to real training needs of the firm to fill the competency gap. Simplified training cycle, which is presented below, can be easily adopted in art and craft firm. a) Analysis of training needs: Assess what your employees need to know in order to successfully do their jobs. You can ask questions: what knowledge, skills and attitudes are needed in your firm? Who needs the training? What would be the most efficient way to learn these? b) Design: Determine what your on-the-job training program will look like. c) Delivery: Decide who/when/how you will implement your training program. d) Evaluation: Get feedback so you can know if your training met you and your employees’ needs. • Employee development techniques can be divided into those taking place in the workplace – on the job - and outside the workplace – off the job trainings. On the job trainings are often less expensive and very practical. In turn, off the job trainings give the opportunity to obtain new competencies, to encounter new trends and it does not disrupt the normal operation. However, they are usually more expensive, it is not directly in the context of the job, it is often formal and may not be based on experience. • In business the blended learning approach is gaining more popularity as it means using more than one training method to train on one subject. New forms of training such as e-learning, open and distant learning or the support of external coaches have helped many SMEs to face new challenges. • The evaluation of the training program is important as it helps to assess if the goals of the trainings were achieved and what in fact is the value of the training. For the employer evaluation of training and development means assessment of the impact of training on trainee’s performance and behavior. Desired employee behavior and better performance will result in higher quality of product or service and finally in profits. However, it is important to assess the value of the program not only to the employer but also to the employees. This can be assessed by satisfaction of the employees.

• Performance management is a framework in which performance by individuals can be directed, monitored, motivated and improved (Mabey, 1998). • Performance management plays strategic role in a firm management as it: - enhances employee motivation and productivity of individuals, teams and the whole firm. - helps in strategic planning and change by detecting problems and employee performance evaluation. - is also useful in analysing the competence gap and employee development. • Performance evaluation supposed to be ongoing process that will help the firm in the process of continuous improvement. • Performance appraisal is usually a part of performance management. Performance appraisal is interpreted as evaluating performance of each employee, measured against the performance standards or objectives established for his or her job. • Choosing valid performance criteria is one of the most important aspect of effective performance assessment. • In most performance systems the assessment criteria are divided into following groups: objective results, behaviors, personal traits, multiple criteria. • Assessment 360 degrees is a process through which feedback from an employee's subordinates, colleagues, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves is gathered. Such feedback can also include feedback from external stakeholders who interact with the employee, such as customers and suppliers.

• Reward system consists of the rewards strategy, rewarding procedures and the proper tools of the systems. The main goals of rewards system must be a consequence of the main strategy of the firm and must support the achievement of firm’s strategic goals. In small firms rewards systems are simplified. • The main goals of the rewards: - To attract employees – by competitive pay and attractive benefits - To keep best and talented employees in a firm (to build their loyalty through the development opportunities) - To motivate employees (to take new challenges, to achieve their goals and to improve their performance) - To develop employees’ skills that are important for the future firm’s development. • The internal structure of compensation usually consists of direct and indirect compensation. Base pay and variable pay are the most common forms of direct compensation. Indirect compensation consists of employee benefits that are also simplified and limited in a small business. • When designing a reward system, employers may consider a broader perspective regarding total rewards. It is divided on two main areas: transaction rewards (transactional - tangible rewards) and non-financial rewards (relational - non-financial / intrinsic rewards). • Evaluation of the effectiveness of rewards is supposed to be provided systematically to ensure that the rewards help to achieve business goals. Employee satisfaction with reward system – is one of the most important measure of effective rewards. • The growing use of work teams in firms has implications for rewards. When distributing the team rewards there are two main ways: - Same-size reward for each team member - Different-size reward for each team member (which can vary depending on: contribution to the team results, current pay, years of experience, skill levels.

• Leadership is defined by Griffin R.W. (2004) as a process of "shaping the goals of the group or organization, motivating behaviors conducive to achieving these goals and easier defining the culture of the group or organization." Leadership is also understood as a set of attributes of a leader. Thus, Leadership first of all mean setting the direction of changes, creating strategies and inspire people to follow that direction. • This inspiration is also understood as influencing thanks to motivational techniques to complete them. These include team building methods and active instillation of understanding of vision and strategy. • Leader or Manager? Understanding the difference between leader and manager. It is important for managers in craft enterprises to be more leaders creating a new direction in the organization's development and inspiring their teams rather than managers achieving specific goals. Only in this way will it be possible to develop the organization and the human potential of this organization. • Leaders are people who do the right things. Leaders are people oriented. Leadership involves creating a compelling vision of the future, communicating that vision, and helping people understand and commit to it. • Managers are people who do things right. Managers are more task oriented. Managers are responsible for ensuring that the vision is implemented efficiently and successfully • As Bass showed, there are six leaders' characteristics that distinguish them from non-leaders. Among them were: drive, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability) and knowledge of the business [Bass, Bass, 2008] • Emotional Intelligence (EI) – is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and then use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. It plays important role in effective leadership.

• The first approach to leadership was the Traits Approach. The main assumption of this approach was that - leaders are born, not made and that leadership consists of certain inherited personality traits or qualities. • The second important approach toward leadership was the behavioral approach. According to this approach leadership can be learned and developed. Behavioral approach focuses on the behavior of people in leadership positions, the importance of leadership style and how it influences group performance. • This is the oldest from the situational models. Kurt Lewin identified three Behavioral styles among leaders. - Authoritarian - Autocratic style. Leaders spell out the goals, deadlines and methods while making decisions on their own with little consultations with others. - Participative - Democratic style. Leader expresses his or her priorities and values in setting goals and making decisions, but also takes part in the group’s work and accepts advice and suggestions from colleagues. However, the leader makes the final decision. - Delegative - Laissez-Faire style. Leader hands over responsibility for results to the group. He or she lets them set goals, decide on work methods, define individuals’ roles and set their own pace of work. • Leaders can change their behavior to meet differing circumstances, when in practice many find it hard to do so even after training because of unconscious fixed beliefs, fears or ingrained habits. For this reason, leaders need to work on their underlying psychology if they are to attain the flexibility to apply these theories. • According to the situational approach, the most important determinants of effective leadership style are: - the leader (his or her character, values, professional and personal experience, attitudes etc.) - their followers in the team (their her character, values, professional and personal experience, attitudes, etc.) - the situation which might be understood as the task (its complexity) and the organizational variables such as the organizational culture, management patterns, etc. • Transformational approach to leadership is understood as the one that cause changes to social and individual systems as it creates valuable and positive changes in the followers with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Transformational leaders specialize in working to change the system and solving challenges by finding experiences that show that old patterns do not fit or work.

• Communication is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or more individuals. • The process of communication • Thought: First, information exists in the mind of the sender. This can be a concept, idea, information, or feelings. • Encoding: Next, a message is sent to a receiver in words or other symbols. • Decoding: Lastly, the receiver translates the words or symbols into a concept or information that a person can understand. • Communication plays extremely important role in leadership and team management. • There are various forms of communications. Most often there are mentioned two categories of communication: verbal (when we use words) and non-verbal (that is often identified with body language). However, we can also separate the written communication, that is important in formal relations within small organizations. • An effective team leader or firm owner, need to be fluent in all three forms of communication to efficiently convey the necessary information. • Verbal communication consists of delivering information by the use of spoken words. • Non-verbal communication includes the use of body language and facial expressions. • Written communication is simply the conveyance of information or instruction by utilizing the written word. • Nonverbal communication is the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless cues between people. Nonverbal communication encompasses much more that only body language, such as use of voice (paralanguage), touch, distance, and physical environments/appearance. Remember that Communication starts before we open our mouth. Body language is a powerful tool to success! • Feedback is about giving information in a way that encourages the recipient to accept it, reflect on it, learn from it, and hopefully make changes for the better. Being able to give feedback is a skill that is useful in our personal and professional live. Giving positive or negative feedback is key in the team management process.. • Characteristic of effective feedback • Clear - try to be clear about what the feedback is that you want to give. • Owned - The feedback you give is your own perception and not an ultimate truth , e.g.“I found that …” rather than “It’s obvious that…” • Regular - If the feedback is given regularly it is more likely to be useful. Try to give the feedback as close to the event as possible and early enough for the person to do something about it • Balanced - It is good to balance negative and positive feedback . Negative feedback must always be accompanied by something positive but rather a balance should be created over time. • Specific - Generalised feedback is hard to learn from. Phrases like, “You talk too much” can only lead to hurt and anger. “You talk too much to the client while you are administering an assessment” gives the receiver some information which he or she can choose to use or ignore. • Feedback should meet some rules to be a vehicle to higher personal and professional effectiveness. • Effective feedback is focused on behaviour, not on perceived attitudes; is focused on behaviour which can be changed; is based on observation, is objective, is given in good time, is about what the individual did well and what they could do better and finally is given in private.

• Team is a social group linked by formal and informal relationships that performs specific tasks to achieve a common goal. Organizations form teams to accomplish tasks that are too large or complex for an individual to complete. Teams are also effective for work that requires different types of skills and expertise. • The characteristic of a team: • A common goal - integrating all members, ensuring efficient cooperation, important for team members; • Action plan - a vision that ensures the continuation of operations even after achieving current goals; • Set rules - a set of binding rules, • Clear division of roles - each member knows his role well in the team, and the members themselves are selected in such a way as to complement each other's qualifications; • Communication code - containing elements unknown to bystanders; • To start to build your team: • Specify goals • Define criteria for success • Plan • Determine a strategy for action • Determine the roles and tasks and delegate permissions • Team development model was Identified by Bruce Tuckman and offers a foundational definition of the stages teams go through during their lifecycle. Those stages are: • Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing • Each team needs access to each of the nine Team Role behaviours to become a high performing team. According to Belbin, the most successful teams require different type of team roles. In every team there supposed to be members that are: - People oriented - Action oriented - Thinking oriented.

• Employee motivation has been broadly defined as the psychological forces that determine the direction of a person's behavior in a team or an organization. It is also defined as the methods for motivating employees as well as an intrinsic and internal drive to put forth the necessary effort and action towards work-related activities (Wikipedia). • Why is it so important? Because motivated employees are essential to the success of an organization as they are generally more productive at the work place. • There are two kinds of motivation theories: The content theories and the cognitive theories. Content theories includes Abram Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Frederick Herzberg two -factor theory. • Cognitive theories define motivation in terms of how people think about situations. Cognitive theories of motivation include goal-setting theory and expectancy theory that are important in managing individuals and teams. • One common goal setting methodology incorporates the SMARTER criteria, in which goals are: specific, measurable, attainable/achievable, relevant, and time-bound, ethical and recorded. • Setting SMARTER Goals • Specific – be specific what is that you want to achieve? • Measurable - you must be able to track progress and measure the result of your goal. • Agreed - your goal must be agreed with your team or clients (generally stakeholders) • Realistic – do not set not realistic goals – this is demotivating • Timed • Ethical – in the time of corporate social responsibility this is an important issue. Employees, particularly younger generation are very sensitive in this matter • Recorded – write down your goals. • Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. As a leader you need to get know everybody. It's your responsibility to develop all of your people. Your skills in this aspect of management will define your long-term success as a leader. If you can help team members to become better at • The top priority for team leaders is delegation. The more information about the work - the greater the motivation to work. The most effective way of developing your people is to ensure that you give regular feedback to members of your team.

•    Individuals at all levels and in all areas of organizations make decisions. This it, they make choices from two or more alternatives.

• Individuals at all levels and in all areas of organizations make decisions. This it, they make choices from two or more alternatives. Decisions are made in the best interest of the organization. For that matter, decisions made by the organization are to lighten the way forward. Every organization needs to make decisions at one point or another as a part of managerial process. • What is Decision-making? As it was said in previous section, decision-making is an integral part of modern management. Essentially, rational or sound decision-making is taken as the primary function of management. Decisions play important roles as they determine both organizational and managerial activities. A decision can be defined as a course of action purposely chosen from a set of alternatives to achieve organizational or managerial objectives or goals. • According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary the term decision making means - the process of deciding about something important, especially in a group of people or in an organization. • Decision making has many features, some of which are considered below: • Decision-making implies choice - decision making is choosing from among two or more alternative courses of action. Thus, it is the process of selection of one solution out of many available. The alternative selected may be correct or incorrect. This will however be decided in the future when the results manifests. • Continuous activity/process - decision-making is a continuous and dynamic process. It pervades all organizational activity. Managers have to take decisions on various policy and administrative matters. It is a never-ending activity in management. • Mental/intellectual activity - Decision-making is a mental as well as intellectual activity or process and requires knowledge, skills, experience and maturity on the part of the decision-maker. • Based on reliable information/feedback - good decisions are always based on reliable information. The quality of decision-making at all levels of an organization can be improved with the support of an effective and efficient management information system. • Goal oriented process - decision-making aims at providing a solution to a given problem or difficulty faced by an organization. • Means and not the end - decision-making is a means for solving a problem or for achieving a target or objective and not the end in itself. • Relates to specific problem - decision-making is not identical with problem solving but it has its roots in a problem itself. • Time-consuming activity - decision-making is a time-consuming activity as various aspects need careful consideration before taking final decision. For decision makers, various steps are required to be completed. This makes decision-making a time consuming activity. • Needs effective communication - taken decisions need to be communicated to all concerned parties for suitable follow-up actions. Such decisions will remain only on the paper if they are not communicated to concerned persons. Follow-up actions will not be possible in the absence of effective communication. • Pervasive process - decision-making process is all pervasive. This means managers working at all levels have to take decisions on matters within their jurisdiction. • Responsible job - decision making is a responsible job as wrong decisions prove to be too costly to the organization. Decision makers should be mature, experienced, knowledgeable and rational in their approach. Decision-making needs not be treated as routine and casual activity. It is a delicate and responsible job (Ogueri 2019).

•    Decision makers using directive style have low tolerance for ambiguity and are rational in their way of thinking.
•    There are 5 main decision-making styles from the level of participation perspective

• Peoples’ decision-making styles differ along two main dimensions. The first is an individual’s way of thinking. Some of us are more rational and logical in the way we process information. A rational type looks at information and makes sure that it’s logical and consistent before making a decision. Others tend to be intuitive and creative. Intuitive types don’t process information in a certain order but are comfortable looking at it as whole. • The other dimension describes an individual’s tolerance to ambiguity. Again, some of us have a low tolerance for ambiguity. These types need consistency and order in the way they structure information so that ambiguity is minimized. On the other hand, some of us can tolerate high levels of ambiguity and are able to process many thoughts at the same time. When we diagram these two dimensions, four decision-making styles are evident: directive, analytic, conceptual, and behavioural. Although these four decision-making styles are distinct, most of people have characteristics of more than one style. It’s probably more realistic to think of one’s dominant style and his or her alternative styles. Let’s look closely at each style: • Directive style. Decision makers using directive style have low tolerance for ambiguity and are rational in their way of thinking. They’re efficient and logical. Directive types make fast decisions and focus on the short run. Their efficiency and speed in making decisions often result in their making decisions with minimal information and assessing few alternatives. • Analytic style. Decision-makers with an analytic style have much greater tolerance for ambiguity than directive style. They want more information before making a decision and consider more alternatives than directive style decision-maker does. Analytic decision makers are characterized as careful decision makers with the ability to adopt or cope with unique situations. • Conceptual style. Individuals with a conceptual style tend to be very broad in their outlook and look at many alternatives. They focus on the long run and are very good at finding creative solutions to problems. • Behavioural style. Decision makers with a behavioural style work well with others. They’re concerned about the achievements of those around them and are receptive to suggestions from others. They often use meetings to communicate, although they try to avoid conflict. Acceptance by others is important to this decision-making style. • Decision-making styles from the level of participation perspective • Leader makes the decision alone & announces to the group members. This style takes little time and no involvement. It is used especially in emergencies where immediate action is critical. Input is not helpful, quick action and immediate compliance is what counts. Unfortunately, some leaders use this level when there is no emergency and more time could be taken to involve others and to use another decision-making style. • Leader gathers input from the group members as individuals and decides. The leader seeks input, usually to cover blind spots and enhance their depth of understanding around the issue to be decided. Key individuals hold important information and not consulting them would be foolish. • Leader gathers input from the group and decides. Leader holds a group meeting and solicits input from them; he listens to the groups’ ideas and then takes that information and decides. • Group decision-making by consensus building. At this level the leader is part of the group and he/she is just one vote/voice among many. The group processes all the information involved, compromises positions until everyone agrees. Consensus is reached when everyone feels comfortable with the decision, feels like their thoughts and opinions have been heard and everyone agrees to stand behind the decision. • Leader delegates the decision-making with criteria/constraints to the group. Leader fully delegates the decision to the group and is not a part of the decision-making discussions. This level requires the leader to be very clear with the group as to what are the criteria/constraints that must be met for their decision to be able to move forward. Failure to meet those criteria could result in the group being sent back to the drawing board or the leader choosing a fall back option and utilize another level for moving the decision forward. The responsible leader should retain the authority of the final approval of the outsourced decision to the group.

•    Making decisions is a part of everyday life.

• Making decisions is a part of everyday life. Some consider it an art, others a proficiency. Decisions may be personal or professional, but, in each case, the choices will often have lasting consequences. • Decision-making is a comprehensive process, not just a simple act of choosing among alternatives. Depending on the source and certain concepts, decision-making is described as a process that consists of 6 to 11 steps. In this unit we’ll present the concept that identifies an 8 step process of making decision. • Eight steps of decision making process • The decision-making process begins with the existence of a problem or, more specifically, a discrepancy between an existing and a desired state of affairs. Effective problem definitions isn’t simple or trivial. In order to identify a problem, you should recognize and understand the three characteristics of problem: • You must be aware of the problem. Be sure to identify the actual problem rather than a symptom of the problem. • You must be under pressure to act. A true problem puts pressure on decision maker to act; a problem without pressure to act is a problem that can be postponed. • You must have the authority or resources to act. When one recognizes a problem and is under pressure to take action but does not have necessary resources, he or she usually feels that unrealistic demands are being put upon him/her. • Once you have identified a problem, the decision criteria important to resolve the problem must be identified. That is, you must determine what’s relevant in making decision. Whether explicitly stated or not, every decision maker has criteria that guide his or her decision. These might include criteria such as: • Costs that will be incurred (investments required) • Risks likely to be encountered (chance of failure) • Outcomes that are desired (growth of the firm) • If the criteria identified in step 2 aren’t equally important, the decision-maker must weigh them in order to give them the correct priority in the decision. A simple approach to weight criteria is to give the most important criterion a weight of 10 and then assign weights to the rest compared with this standard. Thus, a criterion with a weight of 10 would be twice as important as one given a 5. Of course, you could use any other scale or any number as the highest weight. The idea is to prioritize the criteria you identified in step 2 by assigning a weight to each of them. • The fourth step in the decision-making process requires the decision maker to list viable alternatives that could resolve the problem. In this step, a decision maker needs to be quite creative. • Once the alternatives have been identified, a decision maker must critically analyse each one by appraising it against the criteria established in steps 2 and 3. From this comparison, the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative become evident. • The sixth step is choosing the best alternative from among these considered. Once all the pertinent criteria in the decision have been weighted and viable alternatives analysed, we choose the alternative that generated the highest total in step 5. • Step 7 is concerned with putting decision into action. This involves conveying the decision on those affected by it and getting their commitment to it. If the people who need to carry out a decision participate in the decision-making process, they’re more likely to enthusiastically support the outcome than if you just tell them what they have to do. • The last step in the decision-making process involves evaluating the outcome of the decision to see if the problem had been resolved. If the evaluation shows that the problem still exists, then the decision maker needs to assess what went wrong. • Was the problem incorrectly defined? • Were errors made when evaluating alternatives? • Was the right alternative selected but poorly implemented? • These answers might lead you to re-do an earlier step or might even require starting the whole process over.

•    Group decision-making is a type of participatory process in which multiple individuals select from among the alternatives a solution or solutions.

• Group decision-making is a type of participatory process in which multiple individuals act collectively, analyse problems or situations, consider and evaluate alternative courses of action, and select a solution or solutions from the alternatives. It has certain pros and cons, few of which are mentioned below: • Pros of group decision making • Group decision-making, ideally, takes advantage of the diverse strengths and expertise of its members. By tapping the unique qualities of group members, it is possible that the group can generate a greater number of alternatives that are of higher quality than the individual can. If a greater number of higher quality alternatives is generated, then it is likely that the group will eventually reach a superior problem solution than the individual. • Group decision-making may also lead to a greater collective understanding of the eventual course of action chosen, since it is possible that many affected by the decision implementation actually had input into the decision. This may promote a sense of "ownership" of the decision, which is likely to contribute to a greater acceptance of the course of action selected and greater commitment on the part of the affected individuals to make the course of action successful. • Cons of group decision making • Groups are generally slower to arrive to decisions than individuals, so sometimes it is difficult to utilize them in situations where decisions must be made very quickly. • One of the most often cited problems is groupthink. Groupthink occurs when individuals in a group feel pressure to conform to what seems to be the dominant view in the group. Dissenting views of the majority opinion are suppressed and alternative courses of action are not fully explored. • Group polarization is another potential disadvantage of group decision-making. This is the tendency of the group to converge on more extreme solutions to a problem. The "risky shift" phenomenon is an example of polarization; it occurs when the group decision is a riskier one than any of the group members would have made individually. This may result because individuals in a group sometimes do not feel as much responsibility and accountability for the actions of the group as they would if they were making the decision alone. • Pros and cons of individual decision making • Individuals have a tendency to think and question before performing. This is fruitful in analysis and forecasting of individual’s behaviour. Individual decision making has certain pros and cons, few of which are mentioned below: • Pros of Individual Decision Making - An individual generally makes prompt decisions. While a group is dominated by various people, decision-making is quite time consuming. Moreover assembling group members consumes also a lot of time. - Individuals do not escape responsibilities. They are accountable for their acts and performance. While in a group, it is not easy to hold any one person accountable for a wrong decision. - Individual decision-making saves time, money and energy as individuals generally make prompt and logical decisions. On the other hand, group decision-making consumes a lot of time, money and energy. - Individual decisions are more focused and rational as compared to group decisions. • Cons of Individual Decision Making - A group has potential to collect more information compared to an individual while making the decision. - An individual while making any decision uses his own views and intuition . While a group has many members, so more views and approaches are taken into account and hence it might result in better decision. - A group discovers hidden talent and core competency of employees of an organization. - An individual will not take into consideration interests of each every member, while a group might take into account interest of all members of an organization.

•    Ethical decision is concerned with a judgement about right and wrong.

• Ethical decision is concerned with a judgement about what is right or wrong. An ethical decision is one where one chooses how to respond to a given situation based on values of good and bad, as opposed to only expediency or efficiency. This means, it deals with moral issues. There are a number of factors that indicate the moral status: a) The decision is likely to have significant effect on others – it is concerned with harms and benefits, consideration of social good, i.e. considerations of others beyond the self. b) The decision is likely to be characterized by choice, in that alternative courses of action are open. Moral decision requires that the deciders have a choice. c) One or more parties perceive the decision as ethically relevant. Regardless of whether the decision-maker sees a decision as having ethical content, if others do, than the decision immediately incurs some degree of ethicality. • The ability to assess whether something is right or wrong requires basic knowledge about the way how can we assess it (ethical reasoning) and reflection of criteria we use to provide the assessment. There are two major ethics theories that attempt to specify and justify moral rules and principles: utilitarianism (also called consequentialism) and deontological ethics. Utilitarianism is a theory which states that only one thing—utility—is relevant to ethical decisions. The option that produces the greatest utility is the only ethical option. Deontologists believe that duties override everything else. A duty is a responsibility, an obligation, a binding commitment. • The ethical decision making models seek to represent two things: [1] The different stages in decision-making people go through in responding to an ethics problem in a business context; [2] the different influences on that process. I. Recognize a moral issue; II. Make some kind of moral judgement about that issue; III. Establish an intention to act upon that judgement; IV. Act according to the intentions. • Moral judgements can be made according to consideration of rights, duty, consequences, etc. (different ethical theories). However most research indicate that managers tend to rely primary on consequentialist thinking. See in attached slides the example of consequentialists ethics. • These are unique characteristics of the individual actually making the relevant decision. These include factors which are given by birth (e.g. age, gender) and those acquired by experience and socialization (e.g. education, attitudes). • These particular features of the context influence whether the individual will make an ethical or an unethical decision. These include factors associated with the work context (e.g. reward systems, job roles, organizational culture) and those associated with the issue itself (such as the intensity of the moral issue, or the ethical framing of the issue). • Rationalizations tactics are mental strategies that allow individuals to view their corrupt acts as justified. It is a part of process of moral framing that justifies unmoral actions. Under such strategies, we can identify: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victim, social weighting, appeal to higher loyalties, metaphor of the ledger (e.g. individuals argue that they are entitled to indulge in deviant behaviors because of their accrued credits). See attached slides examples or explanation, etc.

Branding and communication in a company is of the most importance, since the achievement of economic benefits depends on them directly and indirectly. So much for a company that has just been born as a company consolidated in the market they have to take care of these aspects.
The goal of every company is the achievement of economic capital, but to achieve this, it is important to invest in capital imagevision. Communication and marketing are essential for any ART-microenterprise, to a greater or lesser extent. Before embarking on investing in advertising, commercial communication or public relations, we must know what they are for and how they can help us to become more competitive companies.

Thanks to these elements we can position the Art&Craft mircroenterprises in an attractive place for our current or potential clients. With the use of these four elements we can greatly improve the economic benefits in the short, medium and long term. When we dedicate a budget of Art&Craft mircroenterprises in commercial management, advertising, marketing or public relations we are not making an expense; we are investing in improving the image of the company to get more benefits.

Today, any company can address international issues and a good distribution strategy helps create value for the company and gain a competitive advantage.
The internationalization strategy is not without risks, because it implies an outward exit into a new environment with great uncertainty. From a general point of view, the main stimuli for internationalization are:
- Exploiting trade opportunities in other countries as well as own resources and capacities in different countries
- Taking advantage of location advantages for productive activities and in terms of seeking resources Reducing costs including transaction
- Find a minimum size efficient to compete in a globalized world
- Follow the customer, acting as international suppliers 
- Being able to continue to compete in an industry that has become globalised
2. A renaissance in the arts
3. The emergence of free-market socialism
4. Global lifestyles and cultural nationalism
5. The privatization of the welfare state
6. The rise of the Pacific Rim
7. The decade of women in leadership
8. The age of biology
9. The religious revival of the new millennium
10. The triumph of the individual

In order to develop an ART&CRAFT business, it is essential to be clear about the value offer that is made to the market and the way in which that value is going to be created and driven to customers.
To make these processes clearer, the business model canvas methodology is very useful, because it displays the value offer, the commercial perspective (how that value proposition is brought to the market and to whom it is addressed), the productive perspective (how the value is generated and what are the key factors, resources and allied partners to achieve it) and the financial perspective, which summarizes the balance between the activities that generate income (the commercial ones) and those that generate expenses (the productive ones).

• All successful business is based on a key idea, that is the offer of value made to the market, a product or a service that could satisfy a need, that is, something that solves a problem for the customer and so that this will be willing to pay. • The business model expresses the value proposition that a company makes to the market, and it describes the way in which that value is created, distributed and retained. • It is important to make a deep reflection on what is our specific value proposition and what kind of customer needs and expectancies are we trying to satisfy • For Art&Craft microenterprises, the value proposition must turn around the artistic, artisanal or traditional attributes of the product, such as originality, creativity, heritage value, natural or original materials, ancestral knowledge used for its elaboration, etc., that could set their differential against industrial products. • In a global market, the consumption needs are practically endless, and it is possible to find a niche or a market segment for any type of product. This gives great opportunities for the commercialization of handmade and original products • Therefore, the most important thing is to know which target audience we aim for and address them through the appropriate channels • For this purpose, the canvas business model is a great tool, that could help to identify the target market, the means for reach the audience and the key activities for developing the operations successfully

The business model canvas methodology displays the value offer, the commercial perspective (how that value proposition is brought to the market and to whom it is addressed), the productive perspective (how the value is generated and what are the key factors, resources and allied partners to achieve it) and the financial perspective, which summarizes the balance between the activities that generate income (the commercial ones) and those that generate expenses (the productive ones).

• The business model canvas is represented as a chart formed by three blocks that are placed around the value proposition, which is in the centre of the board. • The first block shows the commercial / market perspective, where 3 elements are located: • The segments or groups of target customers to whom we will direct our value proposition, whose needs we must have investigated • The relationships with customers, which are the ways in which we will publicize our value proposition to the market and convince customers to acquire it • The distribution channels, which are the means by which we will deliver the product or service to customers who purchase it • The second block represents the productive structure that allows the offer to materialize, with 3 elements: • Key activities such as design, production and all necessary tasks to obtain the product / service. In the case of Art&Crafts firms, design and handcraft manufacturing are key activities. • Key resources that are those critical inputs that make our product unique and appreciated, such as original and high-quality materials • Network of cooperation alliances with other agents that contribute or complement our business, such as suppliers, logistics agents or distributors, or any agent that contributes to publicize and appreciate our product • The third block represents the financial perspective and summarizes in monetary terms the activities of the previous blocks: • Commercial activities generate a revenue stream through sales and also through other complementary activities • The productive activities generate expenses and the structure of expenses must be designed so that they are compensated by the incomes • The difference between the flow of income and expenses expresses the benefit of the business.

Strategic planning is the highest level for it establish the long-term goals and the main course of action to achieve them. Strategic planning includes the strategic internal and external analysis (SWOT matrix) as well as the selection of the best strategy to achieve the goals. The strategic plans must be developed in functional and operational plans, which describe the activities to be carried out, the responsible staff for their development, the incomes and expenses related to them and the schedule for being completed.

• Planning is necessary to ensure that an ART&Crafts microenterprise follows a certain course and is heading towards its objectives, without being swept away by circumstances. Planning bridges the current situation and a better future situation and involves making decisions in advance, analyzing alternatives, pros and cons and choosing the best options. When planning we consider the conditions of the business and those of the environment, trying to achieve the best fit between the two and that helps us to be prepared to act. • The highest planning is strategic planning, through which it is decided in which businesses and markets the ART&Crafts microenterprise will operate and long-term objectives are set taking into account that we are in a competitive environment where success does not only depend on our decisions but also on those of the other competitors. Strategic planning involves several phases: • 1. Strategic analysis: internal (ART&Crafts microenterprise strengths and weaknesses, resources and potential) and external (threats and opportunities of the environment, uncertainty of the environment, characteristics of competition and the market) • 2. Set strategic, commercial (in terms of market presence) and financial (return on investment) objectives • 3. Analyze possible strategies or paths to achieve the objectives considering the results of the strategic analysis • 4. Selection of the best possible strategy according to your expected results and feasibility • 5. Development of functional and operational plans to implement the strategy and control its effectiveness • In order to execute the strategic plan, productive, commercial, procurement and investment, financing, human resources management, etc. activities must be developed, so the planning of these functional and operational activities must be carried out, following the cycle following: • 1. Commercial and sales plans, based on demand forecasts, we can forecast sales and revenues • 2. Production plans, once sales are planned, is possible to set what, how much, how and when to produce • 3. Procurement and investment plans, since to produce we will need materials, tools and equipment • 4. Personnel plans, which contemplate what personnel we will need and with what qualification to develop our operations • 5. Financing plans, since all the previous plans involve expenses and we must have the necessary financial resources to be able to carry them out. • All these plans must also set the dates on which the activities will be carried out (temporary programming) and the revenue and expenditure streams that they will entail (budgeting).

The first step is to identify all the activities that must be carried out (procurement, design, manufacturing, distribution, etc.) and distribute them to the people who must make them. But additionally, these activities must be coordinated for ensuring that they can begin start and end finish on time, counting on the necessary inputs and other factors just in time.

• Every business has tomust carry out three basic activities to create value: development, production and marketing. They are called functional activities. • Referred to the artisanal sector, the functional basic activities will be the artistic / artisanal design, the manufacture of the products in the artisan workshop and their placing on the market by whatever means. • In addition to these basic activities, there are others that are necessary to support the former: procurement / acquisition of materials, financial management, billing and accounting, maintenance, after-sales services, personnel management, etc. • In handicrafts, some complementary activities can be decisive for the success of the business, such as obtaining special materials or the training of personnel in the trade • The basic activities are normally carried out by the master craftsman or artist, since they reflect the experience and know-how, the expertise of the trade. • Other activities that are more transversal to any business should be delegated or outsourced: financial and accounting management, billing or website management for marketing, including the sale itself through association with commercial networks or distributors. • Coordination between these activities is essential and a good initial planning is basic, but then it must be ensured that the key activities do communicate with each other to combine their efforts for the common purpose. For example, purchases should be coordinated with production to ensure that the necessary materials are available when needed, maintenance should be coordinated with production so as not to interfere with programs, etc. • In microenterprises, coordination is basically obtained from communication, which must be constant and fluid among the people responsible for the key activities, and from the authority that supervises the whole. • The design of the organization consists in establishing the tasks to be performed, the relations between them and the hierarchy that will supervise and ensure the coordination of the whole. • The organizational structure is represented in the organizational chart, which reflects the organs (positions, areas, sections or departments) and the relationship between them (authority relations and labor relations) • Work and authority relationships must be clear: everyone should know who is accountable and what tasks is they should perform, as well as with whom they should interact in their work to receive inputs or deliver their outputs.

The direction usually falls to the master craftsman who must combine his technical wisdom with common sense and economic logic that ensure the continuity of his business. Management includes several activities: planning, organizing, directing people and controlling to ensure that everything is done as desired.

• In every human organization, management is necessary to ensure coordination and the achievement of the objectives. • The direction in microenterprises usually covers all the managerial activities that correspond to the master craftsman, since there is usually no hierarchy with several levels nor specialized managers in each of the functional areas. • Management consists in planning, organising, directing people’s performance and controlling, so that: • plans are established (objectives, strategies, activities) • resources are available (work areas, people, tasks, responsibilities) • people’s performance is stimulated and enhanced (leading, communicating, motivating) and • the results are checked to see if they correspond to what was planned (control and correction of deviations from the objectives). • Control is the managerial function that ensures that the business progresses towards its objectives according to plan. • It also involves several activities, such as: • verify, as the results are observed, • compare, as they compare with the planned objectives, • evaluate, because it is assessed if there is deviation and if this is important, and finally • correct, since decisions are made to correct what is not working properly. • The control is based on indicators (KPI – key performance indicator), which are measures taken from variables that are important for a good business progress: sales figures, treasury ratios, indebtedness, product turnover, average sales time, production costs, staff hourly cost, etc. • Knowing how to establish the most appropriate indicators for our craft business is essential and requires a good knowledge of our work processes and a good understanding of what makes it succeed or fail in it, that is, what are the critical factors for business success.

In this part, we will focus on knowing the commercial communication, from different essential elements for the enhancement of our product. Business management is a tool aimed at sales and distribution. It serves to bring the product to our customers.
• Commercial communication is one of the factors that determine success in companies. To do this, we must know what the instruments are to be able to develop it effectively. From the commercial management aimed at sales, to advertising, public relations or marketing. • With all these ingredients we can create the most appropriate combination to give visibility and notoriety to our company in a competitive environment. • According to Theodor Lewitt, the requirements for the competitive success of the company are the creation and loyalty of customers, the company must provide the goods and services that the market wants, the revenue must be greater than the costs, the company must define its objectives and strategies, and there must be a control system to monitor the fulfillment of the objectives and, where appropriate, rectify the decisions. • In the marketing process there are, on the one hand, the demands of consumers, reflected in a market, and on the other hand, the products or services that companies make available to this market, either directly or through intermediaries. • There is confusion between the commercial director and the sales director. Although they generally work in close communication and must collaborate in the development of growth strategies, there are some differences between a commercial director and a sales director. • The sales director is responsible for meeting the sales objectives of a company and directing the sellers. • As aThe commercial director, on the other hand, is you are more concerned with developing ways for the company to grow and finding new opportunities for the sales department. The commercial director works on the marketing strategies of the companies. • The commercial address is in certain problems as they are, because the system contains a large number of variables. In addition, sometimes, there is a difficulty in determining the demand response, competing effects, multiple territories and multiple products, many objectives, etc. Marketing is the link between both sides of the trade system's exchange relationship, matching supply (goods or services) with demand (needs of consumers or users). • Marketing allows to carry out this marketing process, identifying needs and trying to meet them. • To analyze these needs, a Commercial Investigation is necessary. • There are controllable and non-controllable variables in business management. The controllable are: Product, Price, Distribution and Promotion. The non-controllable are: market, competition and environment.

In this part, we will focus on knowing communication tools such as public relations. Public relations serve to improve the image of brands, so that they have a favourable opinion of our products. There are many ways to apply public relations in the company, but the most common is the organization of business events. • Public Relations is a communication tool, whose objective is the modification of attitudes towards a brand, product or idea. Public relations is difficult to evaluate, since many variables come into account, unlike advertising where there are more reliable mechanisms for controlling results. • One of the ways that can be done is through the organization of events, where the brand wants its audience to improve the imageimage, they have of it, without paying an advertising fee. • Public knowledge is very important for public relations. Stakeholders refer to organizations or people who take part in the decisions of a company and who are affected by its activities. They could be considered by the interest groups surrounding the company. • The organization of the event aims to improve the image or simply the presence of the company or brand in the market. The media will publish the news of the event on television, radio, magazines, internet, etc. In this news, the company or brand is the protagonist. This is called Publicity. That is, the free dissemination of news about the company or brand, which end up giving visibility and notoriety of it. • The difference between advertising and publicity is that advertising has a fee and the company pays for a controlled message to be disseminated; while publicity is free and the media publish news related to the product or the company, but not controlled by the company. A good public relations campaign, together with other communication or marketing actions can be very beneficial for the company. • It´s necessary an adequate strategic planning so that all the elements are well studied to be carried out in a timely manner.

The main function of advertising is to give visibility to the product, creating needs for our potential customers. Through advertising, the products are visible in the market for their potential customers.
Advertising highlights a benefit of the product with respect to the rest. This makes our product differ from the competition. We can choose different media and advertising media within our dissemination plan.

• Advertising is the impersonal controlled communication process, which uses mass media to publicize products, services, ideas or institutions. It is the transmission of information, impersonal and remunerated, carried out through the mass media through paid advertisements, whose message is controlled by the advertiser, with a specific purpose that, immediately or not, tries to stimulate the demand for a product or to changing the opinion or behavior of the consumer. • Advertising is a communication tool that values and makes visible products and services, differentiating them from the competition. • The most important elements of advertising are the sender (advertiser or advertising agency), message (advertisement), receiver (customers, buyers) and the channel (the means of communication through the advertising message is transmitted). • Advertising is constantly evolving and you have to reinvent the messages to reach the receiver and convince him for the purchase action. In advertising it is important to choose well what the benefit is, since in campaigns you try to reach the unique selling proposal (USSP). • Other primary factor is the choice of media for the advertising campaign. We can distinguish between medium and support. Advertising media are the channels used for mass communication. The main ones are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, outdoor advertising (the so-called above the line advertising); while direct marketing, advertising instead of sale, Internet, etc. are the means below the line. • When we talk about support, we mean the different options that an advertiser has to advertise in each of the media that exist. That is, we can say that the medium is television and support is the spot; While the radio would be the medium, the advertising wedge would be the support.

In this part, we will focus on knowing the commercial communication, from different essential elements for the enhancement of our product. Knowing tools such as business management, advertising, public relations or marketing is very important.

Business management is a tool aimed at sales and distribution. It serves to bring the product closer to our customers. The main function of advertising is to give visibility to the product, creating needs for our potential customers.

Public relations serve to improve the image of brands, so that they have a favorable opinion of our products. Finally, marketing is decisive in the direction of a company. It contains the elements of price, point of sale, promotion and product.

• Marketing is the process of getting potential customers or customers interested in the products and / or services of a company. Marketing involves researching, promoting, selling and distributing your products or services. It focuses on the study of market and consumer behavior and analyzes the commercial management of companies to attract, acquire and retain customers by satisfying their wishes and needs. • The marketing bases are established in called 4 P's (product, point of sale, promotion and price). The product and distribution are long-term strategic instruments, since they cannot be modified immediately, and their use must be conveniently planned. • Price and promotion are tactical instruments, since they can be modified easily and quickly. The product can be tangible and intangible; that is, the product can be manufactured to be used. They are physical products, they would be tangible. The seconds would be intangible that is related to services. • The point of sale is the channels through which products are sold to the public in the business market. • The price is the amount of money charged for a product or service, or the sum of the values that consumers give in exchange for the benefits of having or using the good or service. The price is the only one of the marketing elements that produces profits, the rest produces expenses. • We can define the promotion as the communication between the company and the client. Without communication the client will not know the product and will not be able to acquire it. The promotion includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, etc.

According to Robert Leduc: “The brand is the name, term, symbol or design, or a combination of them, assigned to a product or service, for which it is its direct responsible. This is who should make it known, identify and differentiate from the competition; it must guarantee its quality and ensure its constant improvement. ”

To be able to differentiate our company from the rest of the competitors we have to carry out a good brand management.

The logo is the materialization of the brand in an image, but the brand is not just the logo. It´s much more. The concepts of image, identity and reputation are very important for the company; since a good or bad management of it can cause us many benefits or many losses, depending on its adequate use.

• Brand management gives notoriety, through advertising and other external communications, guarantee security, relies on quality. An unknown brand has no value. The brands help identify the product, also allows comparison with others and helps the choice. • The brands are constantly evolving. The logo is the graphic representation, and as such we have to take into account the typography, the corporate colorus and the shape of the logo. Being effective a logo has to have a number of features, such as: brevity, easy to read,that is pleasant to pronounce, rememberable, among others. • Part of the logo, we can differentiate between Isototype, which is the symbolic part (without text) of the brand, and Imagotype, which is the iconic-textual set in which text and symbol are clearly differentiated (they can work separately). And finally, Isologo, which is the combination, text and image that are fused in the same block. • Image, identity and reputation are three essential elements in that constitute the value of the brand. Sometimes, they are concepts that are popularly confused. • For them, we will define each of them, and then we will differentiate from each other. 1. Image is the common conception from which audiences will judge the company. 2. Identity consists in projecting, through an internal and external communications program, the set of systems, structures and values that predominate in the company. 3. Reputation is “the perceptual representation of the company's past actions and future expectations that describe the firm's general appeal to its key interest groups when compared to its main rivals” (Forbrum, 1997) • What differentiates the identity image is that the image is a plot of the public, that is, what customers think of our brand; while identity is what the brand wants to convey, getting it or not. • As for reputation, it is a long-term concept that is related to audiences and the expectations that are generated around the brand. • Fombrum and Van Riel associate reputation with 5 business attributes: Visibility, Differentiation, Authenticity, Transparency and Strength.

SMEs are still relatively under represented in the global economy. During the past decade there have been steady technological and structural changes which have made it easier for SMEs to participate in the international economy. Advances in ICTs, and in particular, the Internet, have been a major factor in facilitating information flows and expanding the market potential of smaller firms.
Before starting any selection process, the company must decide on the optimum number of markets it will go to. This is a strategic decision that presents two extreme alternatives. concentration or diversification - between which there are different intermediate options. Concentration, in this strategy, the firm focuses its resources on a limited number of markets, so that it can obtain a continuous and increasing sales volume in each of them. Its has numerous advantages for microentreprises: greater knowledge of the chosen markets, possibility to offer a differentiated and adapted product, reduction of logistics and administration costs. Diversification, on the contrary, this growth strategy is based on selling on a larger number of markets, even if it is to the detriment of achieving a significant share in some of them. The rationale for this alternative is based, on the following reasons: comparative information on world markets, reduced dependence on a small number of markets, exploitation of short-term competitive advantages, take advantage of economic opportunities in prices. The main barriers for small businesses: Limitations of financial resources. The limitations of financial resources can affect various aspects of the company's activity. More directly related to its international activity, the Art&Craft firm needs to have resources to finance its commercial and marketing activities (visit markets, participate in trade fairs and missions, prepare promotional material, etc.). Lack of prepared managerial staff. The lack of prepared human resources sometimes manifests as many microenterprises do not have staff who speak languages. Today you cannot operate in international markets without having a website in English. It is also necessary to have a minimum knowledge of foreign trade techniques. Internationalization needs to have managers prepared for it, with minimal knowledge of how international markets work. Difficulty in identifying potential clients or partners and business opportunities in other countries. A lot of information can be obtained through the Internet, but it is necessary to have the ability to study and debug it properly. The lack of preparation of human resources arises again. Difficulty in obtaining information about foreign markets. On market studies, specific regulations, the Internet has been a great advance in this area. In any case, it remains an area whose importance is often sparsely considered.

The recent time of global industrial restructuring, combined with technological advances (especially in ICTs) have been the major driving force for the rapid development of cross-border strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions and inter-firm networking. Opportunities have emerged for microenterprise to become: partners in international strategic alliances; participants or targets in cross-border mergers and acquisitions; specialised suppliers to multinational enterprises;  members of globalised informal networks; and/or participants in electronic networks.
The size of the company is a key condition for internationalization, perhaps the most important. There is a clear interrelationship between the size of the company and exporting activity, so artisans can use forms of entry adapted to the company profile. When companies that do not reach that minimum size alone can compensate for it with other mechanisms: cooperation or association with other companies, use of foreign trade consultants or support in official intitutions. There are numerous mechanisms that allow them to access support services for their international work that they could not have individually. The way chosen by the company to make its exit to foreign markets is a very relevant issue in the internationalization of the company. The international dimension of the company is manifested in three modalities: 1) exports: direct and indirect 2) contractual cooperation agreements (licenses, concessions or agents and franchises 3) shareholder cooperation agreements through direct investment abroad, which can be carried out in two ways, through its own subsidiaries, whether commercial and / or productive, and through joint-venture. The different forms of entry are characterized by certain interrelated variables: degree of control, commitment of resources, cost of exit, potential to gain knowledge, etc. Small companies have some outputs to compensate for their small size. For example, through business cooperation formulas. That is, by associating, in one way or another, with other companies: through export consortia, establishment of business clusters, agreements to share services. Through these associations, SMEs can share expenses to have services that they individually could not have. The creation of export consortia is an interesting posibility for the Art&Crafts microenterprise. According to the Chambers of Commerce, a consortium "consists of the constitution of a unit of action in the form of a company with a legal status differentiated from its partners, in which they hold ownership of the company's shares." The consortiums admit different modalities and characteristics but at its base is the association of a group of companies that decide to “share” a unit that manages their export activities. An added advantage of consortia is that they often receive support from public administrations. Another possible form of association is business clusters. It is a group of companies and institutions that are geographically close, that work in a certain field and are united by common and complementary elements.

One of the great challenges of companies is to find the ideal sales channel for their products. The choice of an efficient channel has a total influence on the success of the sale, as it is the means by which the customer will interact with your business. To identify the best option, it is necessary to have a well-defined marketing strategy and to know in depth the target audience of the business. It is also necessary to know well the particularities of each channel and how they work.
Most producers do not sell their goods directly to the final users. Between them stands a set of intermediaries that perform a variety of functions. These intermediaries constitute a distribution channel. Art&Craft microenterprise could delegate some of the selling job to intermediaries. Although this delegation means a loss of some control over how and to whom the products are sold, producers gain several advantages by using channel intermediaries: Many producers lack the financial resources to carry out direct marketing. Direct marketing simply is not feasible for some products. Producers who do establish their own channels can often earn a greater return by increasing their investment in their main business. Intermediaries normally achieve superior efficiency in making goods widely available and accessible to target markets. Through their contacts, experience, specialization, and scale of operation, these specialists usually offer the firm more than it can achieve on its own. Once it has been chosen the markets, it is time to decide about the channels of distribution. They can be divided into the direct channel and the indirect channels. Indirect channels can further be divided into one-level, two-level, and three-level channels based on the number of intermediaries between manufacturers and customers. Direct Channel Zero-level Channel (Manufacturer to Customer) Direct selling doesn’t involve the inclusion of an intermediary and the manufacturer gets in direct contact with the customer at the point of sale. Direct channels could be used by manufacturers whose target audience is geographically concentrated. Indirect Channels (Selling Through Intermediaries). When a manufacturer involves a middleman/intermediary to sell its product to the end customer, it is said to be using an indirect channel. Indirect channels can be classified into three types: - One-level Channel (Manufacturer to Retailer to Customer): Retailers buy the product from the manufacturer and then sell it to the customers. - Two-Level Channel (Manufacturer to Wholesaler to Retailer to Customer): Wholesalers buy the bulk from the manufacturers, breaks it down into small packages and sells them to retailers who eventually sell it to the end customers.. - Three-Level Channel (Manufacturer to Agent to Wholesaler to Retailer to Customer): Three level channel of distribution involves an agent besides the wholesaler and retailer who assists in selling goods.

Marketing channels are sets of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption. The efficient organization and planning of distribution activities allows companies to optimize processes and reduce costs.
The means to deliver the product the Art&Craft firms have to decide between four options: Extensive distribution, this kind of distribution tries to cover the maximum number of possible sales points, without making any sort of selection or previous filtration. Intensive distribution In the case of intensive distribution, the distribution of the product is sought at points of sale related to the same commercial branch, handicraft companies only. Selective distribution, you can make selection based on geographical, demographic or practical criteria (for example, with easy access and close to your production point). Recommended for products that seek that point of differentiation from the competition. Exclusive distribution Very exclusive and limited points of sale are chosen, in order to enhance the prestige of your brand. Exclusive distribution is a great option to have greater control of your products and have greater profit margin. We are going to give you the main functions and activities in which distribution can help our business. - Better customer service, the sales department can manage products and services based on customer needs. In addition, response times will be reduced and will be of higher quality. A good organization allows to lighten any process. - Design and plan more adequate and optimal transport routes, as well as the way and means to be used to distribute the products to customers. - Inventory management. The storage of materials will be based on the company's sales systems, the products most demanded by customers, or the most perishable. There are many elements that must be considered: type of product, size, space and place of storage, etc. In short, keep an exhaustive control of the stock. - Order processing. The good management and planning of the stock, allows to process the orders of very fast way, satisfying the demand of the clients of effective form. - Data management, knowing better our own product and storage system. We can obtain a large amount of information, regarding orders, detection of errors and incidents, etc.

Two aspects are important in the economic and business world today. Globalization, which involves the internationalization taken to the extreme and technological change, which involves the substantial shortening of the life cycle of products. In this context logistics has become, and it will be even more in the future, a basic tool for solving complex global competitive pressures and to promote strategic and comprehensive development of enterprises in continuous technological change.

The key aspect of logistics is that it helps us place the right products, in the right place, at the right time and in the desired conditions, in order to contribute, as much as possible, with the profitability of a company. The logistics function is key to satisfying the consumer, which implies: timely delivery, large inventories, wide assortment, return policies. • A competitive advantage can be achieved if good logistics is carried out, better services are provided at lower prices. There are cost savings for both companies and customers, since about 15% of the product price corresponds to transportation. Improvements in information technologies have created opportunities that help logistics through computer programs for the supply chain management process, bar codes, satellite tracking of transport, electronic order transfer and payments, among others. The implementation of integral logistics implies the provision of better customer service and the reduction of distribution costs. For this, teamwork is required both within the company and among all organizations in the distribution channel. Teamwork within the company strengthen relationships between departments. Its objective is to transform traditional supply chains into integrated value chains. Creation of logistics partners in order to provide greater value to the customer, strong relationships are developed with suppliers, transport companies, warehouses and service providers. External logistics providers help customers strengthen slow and overflowed supply chains and deliver customers quickly and reliably.