Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of the most important considerations for your business is its location. In choosing the space, there some important aspects to consider. The following contributed post is entitled, Choosing The Perfect Premises For Your Business.
When you have an idea for a business, the lightbulb moment can send your heart racing as you begin to branch out more and more ideas in your mind. You have the chance to create something and take this project to heights that perhaps you couldn’t have dreamed of before. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility for something like this to take off – those at the very top are just regular people like you, remember.
There are a bunch of aspects in the business world that you must look into and research before committing. It sounds like a difficult thing to approach, but it’s not a terribly challenging task. One of the things to consider is simply where your business is going to operate. Different premises are needed for different types of work, so it’s something that shouldn’t be brushed past too lightly. If you’re currently in a position where you’re looking to get an idea up and running, or you’d just like to be made aware of what’s out there, let’s have a little chat about just some of the avenues you can head down.
Office Spaces
If your business is primarily a sit-down job with lots of administration, then you’ll probably need to check out any offices that are available to rent. You could be a digital marketing company, a law firm or an accountant. Office spaces are typically built with enough space to house a group looking to sit at a bunch of desks all day. Working in a fresh and pretty-looking office also helps with professionalism – it beats working in the back of a store, above a nightclub or something else less fancy.
Factory
Fabricating stuff is a gritty process that can get dirty a lot of the time, so a pretty environment isn’t necessary. Groups, like WES engineering solutions, that are looking to manufacture products and provide similar services will often need factories that will house the appropriate machinery or apparatus. Whatever you’re looking to make, there needs to be clear and safe premises for it to take place.
Warehouse
A warehouse is traditionally a place for companies to store their products or raw materials so that they can distribute them or work on them. Whilst they’re necessary for this kind of work, warehouses are fairly flexible and can be used for multiple ventures. For example, if you want to open up a gym or something similar, then you need a large space to keep the equipment. A warehouse is a perfect place to run one.
Home!
Finally, if you’re someone looking to bootstrap a business and creating something fairly low-key, then there’s no reason why you can’t use your own home as a place of work. Sure, if you’re looking to bring in employees to help you on your journey, then your home office or living room won’t cut it. If you’re a writer or hoping to start a little marketing venture, then creating a professional setting in the comfort of your own home could work wonders.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical component of business these days as it impacts how easily your business can be found on the internet. As such it’s important to have a concrete strategy for your website’s SEO. The following contributed post is entitled, SEOh-No: Mistakes That Could See Your Business Lose Ground To Competitors.
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Starting your own business is the ultimate form of self-expression and self-assertion in a consumer driven capitalist economy. Think of it! An opportunity to untether yourself from a rat race that seems to sap all of your time and energy yet affords you just a few crumbs from the corporate table as remuneration. If you feel underappreciated, undervalued understimulated and quite simply underwhelmed by your day job, you’re not alone. This Gallup Poll a couple of years ago revealed that as many as 85% of Americans hated their jobs. When you’ve worked hard to gain the education, skills and experience that make you such a valuable commodity to any business, it can be enormously frustration when that business only utilizes a fraction of your potential.
If you’ve chosen to eschew the 9 to 5 and start your own business, you are one of the few who got off the starting block. The rest are still trying to overcome their fear and trepidation. They cling to their job because it offers them the illusion of security. Of course, that’s not to say that the path of the entrepreneur is risk free. Far from it. New startups have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads from day one. They know that they have a 50% chance of going under within 5 years. But they also know that they can succeed or fail on their own terms.
SEO and the competitive edge
Competition is understandably intimidating to nascent entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, competition should be embraced and relished. Competition provides a framework for operational excellence. It allows you to be the best that you can be. It lights a fire under you to be better and try harder than your nearest competitor. Competitor analysis allows you to take a detailed look at your competitor’s operations and identify opportunities to do better. It also allows you to see what they’re doing well and how you can up your game to match them in those areas and bring greater value to your clientele.
Yet, the sad truth is that it doesn’t matter how much better you are than your nearest competitor if the target market you share have no idea who you are. Operational quality is certainly not an area in which businesses should cut corners, but it needs to be supplemented with savvy digital marketing which positions you ahead of your competitors in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). The process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a rich and multifaceted discipline and needs to be applied to every aspect of your online presence. SEO is arguably the key to success in business, whether that business takes place in the online realm or in a physical space. The more you do to bolster your SEO, the greater your potential competitive edge.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding SEO which can lead well-meaning businesses to make poor decisions. And too many of these decisions could see you lose ground to your competitors.
Here we’ll take a look at common SEO and digital marketing mistakes which could damage your visibility and the online reputation of your brand…
You don’t know your needs
When it comes to your SEO and all other aspects of your digital marketing, small business owners are faced with a fundamental choice. Do they build their own in-house team to handle all of their marketing and SEO or do they use an external agency? As you’ll see if you check out this article, one option is not inherently better than the other. However, it behoves you to know your needs before you choose one or the other.
Do you need quick access to the best digital marketing talent or can you afford to wait? Do you have the budget to assemble your own team or would it work out cheaper to go through an agency? Do you know what to look for when recruiting your own team? Is there an agency out there that would fit in for the unique culture with which you want your brand to be associated? Or can you only get this by building your own team from scratch?
This is an important decision which should not be made arbitrarily. It could see you lose your edge to competitors or bury you in overhead costs without due consideration.
You’re doing content marketing… But your focus is all wrong
Many entrepreneurs are aware of the inherent value in content marketing. They know that it can be a great way of both building their brand and climbing up the rankings in SERPs. It can showcase your skills, knowledge and expertise and build value in your brand. Search engine crawlers love big websites which are regularly updated and filled with high quality content. However, to assume that more content = success in SEO can be a gross oversimplification.
Many a well-meaning entrepreneur has unwittingly sacrificed quality for quantity to the detriment of their SEO and their business’ image.
Don’t fall into the trap of writing for algorithms rather than actual readers. Yes, keywords are important but they are by no means the only metric by which your pages are judged by search engines. Crawlers value measures of quality engagement like hit counts, time on page, scroll depth and navigation to other internal links within your site. And this only happens when you create content that users actually want to click on.
Always approach content creation (whether you outsource it or do it yourself) with a customer-first perspective. Create content that is of value to them. If it helps them to overcome a problem they regularly encounter or makes their lives easier they are much more likely to engage with it, leave a comment or share it on social platforms. And those are all big ticks for your SEO.
In a world of text, don’t neglect your images
The quality and uniqueness of your text is vitally important for SEO but that doesn’t mean that you should neglect your images. Images are another useful way to drive traffic towards your pages. However, if you neglect to add alt-text to your image it will be invisible to Google and therefore won’t show up on any image search pages.
We now live in an era where the majority of users will access your website and its constituent pages through a mobile advice rather than a desktop computer. And if you have yet to make your website responsive (optimized for mobile consumption) this could cause your online presence to be overlooked by Google. As of July 1st 2019, the search engine giant will use Mobile First Indexing. This means that competitors with more responsive websites could gain a leading edge over you if you let them.
If you aren’t sure how mobile-friendly your website is, these checks can give you a pretty reliable overview;
• Does it change shape when you resize your browser window?
• Does the source code contain the word “responsive” or “@media”?
• What does Google say? Using Chrome’s developer tools can help you to identify whether or not your site is mobile-ready.
Your web design is slowing your site down
In the mobile age, your target audience has less time and attention to spare you than ever before. They’ll be accessing your site from a mobile device and consuming your content on the go in small, bite-sized chunks. Speed is of the essence and if you can’t offer them a website that is readily accessible and responds promptly to commands on a mobile device, they won’t stick around to wait for it.
Page load times has always been a factor in bounce rates, but today’s consumers are less forgiving than ever. In fact, a page load time of just 5 seconds can increase your bounce rate by almost 40%. Since search engines value time on page and scroll depth, a slow website could prove a real impediment for your SEO.
Fortunately, a few changes at the back and the front end can help to make your page faster and less sluggish to navigate on a mobile device;
• Optimize your code. Minify scripts and get rid of unnecessary characters.
• Optimize your images. Make sure they’re not too big or unwieldy. Use an efficient format like PNG for graphics and keep them at 16 colors or less. It’s also a good idea to use CSS sprites rather than PNG graphics for icons, buttons etc.
• Make sure that your server isn’t bottlenecking your time to first byte.
• Reduce redirects and use a link reclamation service to ensure that your links are healthy and working.
There’s a lack of housekeeping
Finally, simple poor housekeeping can result in issues which are anathema to SEO. Broken links are the most obvious which spring to mind. These imply to search engines that the website is poorly maintained and they will penalize you accordingly. Duplicate content is also a no-no and could land your business with a serious black eye if you are caught plagiarizing content. Keep your content up-to-date and ensure that your links are working and free of redirects.
And don’t be antisocial! Sharing your content on social channels whenever you’ve updated it or posted something new and fresh is a great way to drive traffic.
Avoid these mistakes and you can ensure that your SEO is on top form and that you remain one step ahead of your competo=itors.
Two of the focuses of my blogs are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Management of yours and your employee’s workload is critical in growing your business. Having the proper workload in your business will encourage that you and your staff will continue to happily produce. The following contributed post is entitled, Lighten The Load For Your Employees – And Yourself.
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make life a little easier for yourself and your employees, and this is something that most business owners will be keen to do from time to time. The truth is that once you start to look into it, there are many ways in which you can hope to lighten the load in the workplace. That can have many enormously positive effects, from generating more time to reducing stress in the workplace and improving the health and safety aspects of working in your workplace. So clearly, it is beneficial to be able to lighten the load from time to time – but how can you actually make sure that you do this? In this post, we will discuss a number of the things you might consider in order to ensure that you are making life a little easier for your employees, and for yourself.
Most businesses today engage in a little outsourcing here and there, and it’s easy to appreciate why that might be. After all, you can’t be in charge of absolutely everything, and if yours is a small business with limited resources then you will simply need some help for certain tasks that need doing from time to time. There are a few things which tend to lend themselves particularly well to outsourcing, such as marketing and financial analysis, and even your answering service and email replies too. Outsourcing such tasks will mean that your employees have much more time to do their own work, and that the feeling in the office is just generally much less stressed on the whole. That is clearly hugely beneficial, and it will mean that everyone enjoys and appreciates their job so much more because of it. Outsourcing is very often the way to go when you want to make things better for your own employees in a number of ways.
You should also make a point of determining with each individual in your business what it is that they are capable of doing, and what they might find a little more difficult or challenging to be able to do. That doesn’t mean that you should never push them to their limits and a little beyond – of course you should, as that is how everyone does their best work. But you might want to make a point of trying your best not to overburden them with too much work which they find too stressful. In many cases, that basically means leaving the harder work for those who have been at it longer and can do it much more easily. However you approach it, it’s important to appreciate that each employee has their own limits, and that to a certain degree those limits need to be respected. That will ensure that you are going to get the most out of them that you can, without causing burnout along the way.
Grow It Slow
Although it is often tempting to grow a business as fast as you possibly can, you don’t have to approach things this way. If you prefer, you can instead think about trying to grow your business in a much slower and steadier manner, with a view towards ensuring that you are not going to cause yourself too much stress in the process. This is something that more and more entrepreneurs are turning to as they realize that the old idea of constant ongoing progress doesn’t have to be quite so gung ho. You can, instead, simply ensure that you are always moving forward in a steady, easier manner. That will mean you still advance as you wish to, but you are making life so much easier for yourself and your employees by not expecting too much in a short frame of time. You will find that that makes things so much easier for everyone, so it is absolutely the way to go. It could be all you need to do in order to make sure that you are lightening the load for everyone.
There are many processes in your business, and you should ideally be aiming to make them as simple as possible. The simpler you are able to make your processes, the more likely it is that you will be able to keep your employees happy and that they won’t feel overworked. It will mean that what they do is more efficient, which makes it clearer how much progress is being made – and that in turn means that they will feel much happier about the work, and more able to put their all into it. Making processes simpler will absolutely add up to make a huge difference overall.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital age, it’s not enough simply to have a website for your business. You have to make sure that it’s a smooth-running website and that compliments your overall strategy and is friendly for your customers. The following contributed post is entitled, Why Simply Having A Website No Longer Cuts It.
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Years ago, the race was on for businesses to get online and creating a website was a big achievement for your brand or company. Flash forward to today and it’s not only a given that your business would have a website, but that it should be able to offer an amazing experience to the visitor.
Elements like design, accessibility, and features are important, and you’ll need to make sure that you stand out from your competition. Not only that, but being able to find your website easily needs to be a big consideration, given simply how much stuff there is out there online.
If you want to impress with your website, you need to get things right from the beginning. Take a look at some of the following tips for making sure your website makes the cut and impresses and visitors who come your way.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see flaws in something until you take a step back and give things an honest review. When was the last time you analyzed your website? Believe it or not, not all businesses do this. It’s easy to see why – small businesses don’t always have the capacity for analysis, while others can take for granted that their website is performing well.
Analyzing your website traffic is important to tell you how many people are visiting and give you further insights into who they are, how long they’re staying for, etc. This will help you to understand more about your website’s performance, and help you identify some areas for improvement.
Give simplicity a try
Your website doesn’t have to have bells and whistles to make an impression on visitors. Some of the world’s most successful websites like Google and Apple thrive on a minimal design that helps give the visitor what they need. The benefit of having a simpler website layout is that it loads quickly, which is great for keeping people on your website. Check out some minimalist web designs to give you some inspiration for stripping back and enjoying making the most of the basics.
Focus on the UX
People have a short online attention span, that’s something that many people have come to learn over the years. So in order to hold someone’s attention on your website, you need to make it worth their while, and that’s where the User Experience (UX) comes in. Using a UX testing platform can help you make more informed decisions about your content and how your website is used to help you offer the best experience for your visitors. It’s worth checking out what similar businesses offer on their web pages to help give you an idea of what visitors want and to make some key changes.
Is your website mobile-friendly?
Using a computer is no longer the only option for browsing the internet. In fact, more than half of website visits last year came from mobile phones. People can now browse the internet on the move and carry out most of the functions that used to only be possible from a computer. Therefore, your business needs to be able to provide the same offering by phone that is does through a desktop or laptop.
The good news is that it can be easy to make your website more mobile-friendly. A responsive layout that uses a variety of image sizes, loads quickly and integrates with applications like Google Maps, etc. can all help make your business’ website shine on a phone, tablet or other types of device.
Be clever with your use of media
Images are a powerful website tool. They help to draw the eye, which makes them good for holding a web user’s attention, but they can also help break up your layout to make it appear cleaner and less wordy. Using a single hero image on your front page is a popular trend at the moment, as well as using ‘real’ imagery, shot of real people and places in natural situations (no stock footage!) to sell your business well. Video also does well on websites because it grabs people’s attention. Audit your website’s current media library and work out what types of media you can use to boost your website.
Stay up to date with your SEO strategy
If you want people to find your website, then you’re going to need to work on your SEO. SEO helps to get your page to the top of the search engine rankings – it doesn’t just happen on its own. Whether your business has a lot of competition or you’ve got a niche brand, it’s still important that you use SEO to help people find you. SEO is largely about keywords, so if you can work out the keywords that people would associate with your business and use to search for you, you can start working them through your content. You should review your SEO strategy regularly to help make sure you’re staying up to date with the latest search terms.
Protect your visitors
Security has become one of the most important elements of business websites. Data protection is not only important for protecting your users’ data, but also your own. Keeping your website secure involves adding secure protocols and features, as well as making sure that you stay up to date on the latest online security issues. Many security and data breaches can happen as a result of human error, so it’s also important that all of your employees receive training in protecting data online to prevent mistakes that could cost your business money.
With the right website, your company can attract new business and help you on the path to success. When used to your advantage, the internet can give your business a competitive edge and ensure your business’ longevity. The sooner you get started with making website upgrades and changing your online strategy, the sooner you’ll be able to experience the benefits. Think about your websites and how you can make those much-needed improvements in 2019.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many would argue that your business’s marketing strategy is its most important component. The following contributed post is entitled, Marketing Tips For Your Small Business.
If you’re running a small business already, or are even thinking of starting one, then you know that marketing is going to play a large role in the success of the business, but you may also be finding that you don’t really know where to start with it.
Well, luckily, we’re going to share with you some practical tips that you can use when it comes to marketing your business, so check them out below.
Blogging:
When it comes to running a business that has any kind of online presence, then content really still is king, and it’s important that you understand the value good content can have in your business in the long term.
Setting up a blog also isn’t as difficult as many people would have you believe, and the good thing about it is that it can be mostly automated once you actually have your content plan set up, so this means that you’re not having to worry about running out of content ideas or not having posts go out on a consistent basis.
Social media:
Everyone who runs a business nowadays will likely have heard at some point how powerful and important social media is in their business, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use it properly, because although it’s not overly complicated once you have a plan, you do have to understand some things before getting started with it, such as understanding your ideal clients and really having a solid marketing strategy and plan in place before you start posting on social media.
Live events:
Although live events may take some work to get set up, they can truly be one of the best ways to market your business to both a new and existing audience, and in fact they can be so lucrative that some business owners will rely on them for most of their marketing because they just bring in so much new customers.
Getting things set up of course will require a bit of advanced planning, and you can look at places like a Mesquite Sign Store for ideas on what kinds of things you could have at your event in terms of promotional material.
Networking:
There are often a lot of people who claim that in-person networking is no longer useful for business owners, but this simply isn’t true and it’s not so much about what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it, so if you’re looking to get away from things like social media and prefer a more direct in-person approach, then networking could definitely be something to consider.
Even if you’re using online marketing techniques, offline marketing such as networking is something you should be doing alongside.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. While it’s an integral part of everything today, technology can be both good and bad for your business. It’s important to think about which effect it’s having. The following contributed post is entitled, How Technology Is Both Good And Bad For Business.
Well, the answer isn’t a simple one. While we are in no way saying we should go back to the paper and pen age, or rely on calculators for our accounts and fax machines for communication, there are pros and cons to technology that business owners need to understand.
On the plus side…
Technology can reduce risk. Across a range of industries, today’s technologies are a lifesaver for many businesses. Engineers and designers have 3D mapping and forming software at their disposal to evaluate the viability of their products before the production process is started in full. IT systems can be secured with anti-virus software that blocks out potential hacking attempts. And businesses can use data automation software that eliminates the capacity for human error. In such instances, the technology used provides a safety net for the business owner, and the chances of a disaster can be averted.
Technology increases efficiency. In a time not too far away, business owners were stuck with time-consuming processes that had a negative effect on productivity. But times have changed for the better, so thanks to the latest advances in technology, the business owner actually has the opportunity to achieve a work-life balance that doesn’t necessitate overtime. Chatbots can manage customer queries, collaboration tools can speed up interactions between teams, and teleconferencing software negates the need to travel to business meetings.
Technology is good for marketing. Thanks to the advantages afforded by the internet, the business owner can extend his marketing reach. Through a well-designed website, and social media and email marketing, word can get out quickly and cheaply. To make life even easier, the business owner can also use marketing automation software to improve efficiency and generate more leads.
In such instances, technology is clearly good for business. For any business owner looking to alleviate risk, increase efficiency, and grow their operations, investing in technology is a no-brainer.
However, as we alluded to earlier, there is a downside to using technology, and while we aren’t suggesting the business owner rules out the use of technology altogether, it is important to consider the negatives.
On the minus side…
Businesses can become too dependant on technology. The continued use of software for everyday business processes can make life almost too easy for the business owner. Everything is fine when these things are working as they should, but when the computer goes on the blink, the business owner can become stuck. If he has become reliant on accounting software, for example, he might then struggle to manage his invoicing and budgeting. Those in business need to be mindful then, investing in training for management and employees, so they have the necessary skills to handle the tasks that software usually manages.
Businesses can put customer relations at risk. Chatbots are great, but they a little impersonal. Live chat software is useful for speeding up customer communications, but again, the use of text can come across as a little cold. While we advocate both technologies, it is important to understand that some customers would prefer the opportunity to speak over the phone with a representative when trying to get help for their queries. It’s about offering the personal touch, as this can encourage friendly human conversation and improve customer relationships.
Finally
Technology is good for business, and to stay within consumer and industry trends, the business owner shouldn’t neglect the tools that are available to him. However, there are downsides, and these shouldn’t be overlooked either. We haven’t listed every pro and con here, but should you be in business, commit to further research to give you the right perspective on how to use technology responsibly.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Athletics/Sports, Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If run correctly, gym businesses can be very lucrative. There are keys to a great gym business. The following contributed post is entitled, 4 Things That Make Your Gym Business Great.
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There are almost 40,000 gyms, health clubs and fitness centers in the U.S. While the fitness industry remains a profitable sector, it is also clear that as a new gym owner, you will have to face a lot of competition to attract and keep your customers. Price plays a significant role in their decision; however, customers are willing to pay more if they find the right gym. The quality justifies the cost of membership. A handy rule of thumb, for new gym owners, is to consider what local fitness enthusiasts expect. Giving your gym business a competitive edge is all about finding the additions that make it go the extra mile for your audience.
#1. Your clients expect great equipment at all times
If you’ve joined a gym in the past, you’ve probably identified the first complaint of every fitness enthusiast; the equipment. The main reason why people choose to work out at the gym and not at home is that they want to train on specialist machines. A gym club that can only provide standard equipment such as treadmills or dumbbell sets fails to keep customers entertained. Offering a variety of choice to support all training routines and adding even custom made accessories to help people with disabilities to use the machine – if you are wondering how to adjust your equipment, you can view more here about accessories. You also need a partner to order parts when your equipment breaks.
#2. A friendly personal coach can make all the difference in the world
Personal trainers make a great deal of difference for new gym goers. However, you want PTs who can sympathize with the different health and self-confidence issues of their clients. Someone who is struggling with weight doesn’t want to feel judged by their trainer. Indeed, not everyone is a fitness junkie, and working with a coach such as Drew Manning here who shows understanding and patience can help them to work out confidently and focus on improving their health.
When was the last time you stepped in a gym studio and admired the interior decor? If you can’t remember, it’s probably because most gyms lack personalization. They feel like a giant sweating box, which is never appealing to customers. Think of your gym as something that could feel as comfortable and welcoming as a home for your audience. Add art prints, colorful accessories – yes, your gym needs a rest area with cushions – and personal touches.
#4. A place where everyone can feel safe
Everyone is different, but everyone deserves to feel safe and respected. Make it your mission to create a friendly environment for people of different generations, genders, religion, nationality, sexuality, and fitness levels. Depending on their faith, some people might feel more comfortable in a same-gender class, for instance. Others might feel self-aware practicing in an open space. Understanding and addressing those differences can create a place of tolerance and respect for all – because the last thing somebody wants when they work out is to feel threatened by other gym goers.
Running a profitable gym business is a delicate art. Your offering needs to match your audience’s expectations, both in terms of equipment, services, but also emotional value. A welcoming and respectful gym is a strong pillar of a united community
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Businesses develop reputations after a while. If you want to continue to generate profit, it’s in your best interests to build a positive reputation. The following contributed post is entitled, Making Sure Your Business Is Reputable For All The Right Reasons.
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Businesses need to grow in order to be successful in a competitive marketplace, and entrepreneurs always focus on making a name for their brands in order to achieve their goals of expansion. Of course, there are good and bad ways to make a name for yourself. You want to be famous rather than infamous, in other words. People might say that all publicity is good publicity, but that isn’t necessarily the case in the world of business. Don’t cut corners; focus on building a good reputation because even a handful of bad reviews can massively damage your company’s image in the eyes of potential new customers. You need to keep every single client happy so that you make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons. Let’s talk about how to achieve that objective.
Understand your target market. You need to understand your target market if you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons. The best way to become known as a professional and caring company is to make sure you know exactly what your customers want. Don’t play the guessing game. And don’t just copy your competitors. Do your research. Ask people what they want. Find out what problems your customers or potential customers want to see solved. And we’re not just talking about what your business might be doing wrong; we’re talking about what the entire industry might be doing wrong. If you can find a unique solution then you’ll differentiate your company from its rivals. That’s how you’ll build a reputation.
Create a genuine brand. If you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons then you also need to create a genuine brand. This all starts with complete transparency. Obviously, we’re not talking about uploading your business’ sensitive data on social media; we’re talking about being honest with your audience. Making mistakes can be frustrating, but misleading your customers turns a bad situation into an unsalvageable situation. If you’re upfront with your customers and make amends when you do something wrong then you’ll be able to maintain a good reputation. In fact, this will help your reputation; it’ll show customers that your business is comprised of human beings who make errors. It’ll also show that you’re willing to go the extra mile to make things right for your customers when mistakes happen.
You should also think about your brand statement if you want your business to come across as genuine and relatable. The market wants to buy high-quality goods and services from you, of course, but that isn’t a very interesting identity. Your company needs to stand for more than that if it’s going to distinguish itself from the competition. Think about the things that you and your team value. Do your interests and passions come across in your business’ branding? You need to make your company appear human. Perhaps you all care about the environment; you could make your business more sustainable to demonstrate this to the marketplace. It’d show that your company cares about more than making money. Being socially responsible is a great way to build your reputation.
Be a strong and trustworthy leader. A boss is more than a figurehead. You need to be a strong and trustworthy leader for your team. If you can inspire them then they’ll share your enthusiasm about the company. In turn, they’ll deliver a higher standard of service to your customers. That’s how you’ll get a reputation as a friendly and caring business. But it all starts at the top. Delegating is important, but that doesn’t mean you should just put your feet up and step back from the company. You need to be an inspiring leader for your team.
Of course, some entrepreneurs are innovators but they struggle when it comes to leading or managing a team. What’s the way forwards? Well, you have to keep learning. Read plenty of books and do research so that you can gain the business skills necessary to be a better leader. Keep working on yourself in terms of your confidence too. If you experience self-doubt then you’re certainly not the first entrepreneur to feel that way. You might want to do some reading on imposter syndrome. That might help to enlighten you and give you some advice to start moving forwards. Being an assured leader will help you to create an assured brand for your business. In turn, you’ll make the right impression on the market and build a powerful reputation for your company.
Make sure your employees are satisfied. Treat your employees as you want them to treat your customers. We started to discuss this in the previous point, but being a great leader is only one aspect of motivating your employees. You have to think about their individual wants and needs too. Job satisfaction isn’t some unattainable goal, so strive to make a change if you’re worried that your workers are unhappy. You can achieve this by taking care of them. Obviously, you can start by ensuring that your team members have good benefits and they work in a safe workplace. But you should go further than this. Give them office perks; a ping-pong table in the breakroom could offer a fun way to unwind during lunch breaks. You should also reward employees for hard work. This will encourage your entire to work hard in the hope that their efforts will be noticed.
If you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons then the key is to deliver an exceptional service consistently. As mentioned in the corner, you shouldn’t try to cut corners. Making a profit is important, but you should never aim to do so at the expense of your brand image. Otherwise, you’ll be ruining your ability to make a profit in the future. Focus on impressing your customers and delivering a service which gains 5-star reviews. That’s how you’ll make a name for your brand and get the attention of the market. That’s how your business will keep growing.
Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. In any business, clear communication with your customer base is critical. Ensuring this clear communication could be the difference between your business thriving or dying off. The following contributed post is entitled, Are You Confusing Your Customers?
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Everything about business can be confusing. One minute you think you know it all, then all of the sudden you realise that someone is doing something totally better than you, and that the systems you have in place haven’t been the most effective. But that’s simply because businesses are developing at such a rapid rate, that the demand for new software and systems to facilitate that is always growing, meaning it’s to keep up with the technological race that’s fueling business. But the demand on new technology production is not the only thing that seems to be increasing as the years go on, customer demand seems to only be getting worse. The world’s population is expanding at such a rapid rate, meaning more and more people are now waiting to be pleased, and more and more are there to shake up your business. Customers literally control everything you do, and manipulate your business perhaps without you even realising. So considering they’re so precious to the progression of your business, we think it’s about time that we introduced the problem that so many businesses are having, and that’s customer confusion. Confusing your customers through the processes you use is so easy to do. It’s hard to simplify your business, so much so that’s perfection to your customers. But this is what we’re going to try and help you with, because the simpler it is to use your business, the more people that will come flocking. So take some time to have a read of the tips below, and see if we can help your business!
The end sale is the most important part. Just because someone is so close to clicking pay, it doesn’t mean that if your end process is clunky and hard, then people won’t just click that little x button in the corner. So you really have to think about the ways that you can simplify your sales process, so that your customers can move from one section to the next, seamlessly. So the first thing you need to do, is think about your connectivity, and what terminal you connect to, to allow your customers to pay. Some of you will be connected to the slowest vendors, meaning your customers experience delay after delay, and you experience more hassle. Some vendors mean you have to download software that could so easily malfunction at any point, meaning potential customers will definitely turn away. What you need to look into, is methods such as the InovioPay virtual terminal. Virtual meaning you don’t have to download any dodgy software packages and hope that you find them easy to use, and an outsourced terminal will handle all of the transaction for you. Having something like this to facilitate payments and make the whole thing easier is exactly what you need, especially if you’re finding that people are never actually completing a sale, only getting close to the end!
Filling Them With Jargon
Filling Them with jargon is the worst thing that you can do, but most likely the thing that you are doing right now. Customers might not always want to hear the technical side of things, they want to know what it does, and how it’s going to benefit them. Yet so many businesses fill their website with all these technical terms, facts and figures, and we don’t understand why! So have a scroll through your website at the minute, and see if you can change the way you’re describing your company and the products you sell. You might find you can dumb it down a little, and make the whole website a little more attractive, so that you can retain more customers!
Terrible Add Ons
One that we want to finish with, because we know how damaging this can be to a business. So many of you will be selling products, but selling a lie. It’s a trap we’ve all fell into as customers, and it’s so frustrating. This is when you buy one product, and then get told you need to buy add ons to make it work. This is so infuriating for someone who thinks they’ve bought all they need, only to find out they need to buy more in order to get it fully functioning. So if you’re selling anything where you could possibly do this, change your sales technique. It might seem like a good idea in terms of money, but it’s really going to damage your reputation as a business. Focus on honest products, with honest reviews!
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you start your business, there are myriad of things that can go wrong. As such it’s critical to understand how to safeguard your business enterprise. The following contributed post is entitled, Different Ways You Need To Protect Your Business.
When you run a business, even if it’s an online business, you should be focusing on protecting it just like you’d take measures to protect your house from break-ins when you’re on vacation, or indeed any other time.
However, what does that actually look like? We can talk about protecting your business all day, but without sharing examples of what we mean, then it’s not really going to make much of a difference at all.
The great thing about technology is that it’s growing at such a rapid pace that there are always new things being brought to the market that can help you protect your business, but just as quickly as they’re being brought out, there’s a new hacker creating something else to destroy it, so you really need to be constantly staying ahead of the game when it comes to keeping your business safe, and so below we’re sharing with you some of the ways you can do that.
Technology:
Since we touched on technology above, it seemed wise to start with this. The other reason is that technology is always going to play a crucial role in how your business is being protected, so it really made sense to start with this.
When it comes to technology for keeping your business safe, this can take many different forms. You can get things like malware, secure payment systems, and you can always read more here about the different solutions available for keeping things like data secure so that you don’t lose it in case of a cyber attack.
Privacy:
Privacy is becoming more and more of an issue for business owners these days, and if we look at companies like Facebook who are forever in the news because of their privacy issues and how they’re handling customer data, it’s really so important that people trust you with theirs and that you understand the consequences of abusing this.
Having clear policies in place such as privacy policies and terms and conditions on your site is really a good step to take because it keeps you in the right and also ensures that people know how their data is being used.
Legal:
Although we do understand that having a lawyer for your business is maybe not something you can afford right now, you certainly don’t need to have one on retainer in order to have some protection.
You can easily seek the advice of a lawyer at the start of your business and anytime you need something like a contract drafted up so that at least you know you’re doing things the right way.
Another way you can protect your business is by having things like business and liability insurance in place in case you need to fight a case and don’t want to be held responsible for the costs of lawyers or going to court.
This list is certainly not extensive, but should help you when it comes to understanding the different ways in which you can protect your business from facing any potential issues that you may see down the line.
