3 Realities All Store Owners Need To Know About Exclusivity

 

For the owners of retail stores, there is nothing that can get their blood pumping quite like the prospect of exclusivity.

It doesn’t take a retail genius to see why this is the case. Exclusivity — when a product manufacturer or inventor agrees that only one store will sell their product, often for a limited period — is a surefire way of giving a store a unique selling point. As a retailer, if you can offer something that literally no other store can, then you’ve got an immediate advantage that you can use to further your business.

The only problem is… exclusivity can be a messy, difficult aspect of retailing to manage. If you’re a retail store owner and you’re tempted to offer a supplier a deal for exclusivity, here are a few things you need to know before you sign on the dotted line…

 

#1 – Suppliers don’t always embrace exclusivity

As appealing as exclusivity is for you as a retailer, you have to be aware that suppliers don’t see the idea the same way. Where you see exclusivity as genuinely beneficial and wonderful, suppliers see it as an uncomfortable restriction, even when they are fairly compensated for the deal. It’s only natural that suppliers want to see their product in as many stores as possible, after all.

As a result of this supplier dislike, it’s worth considering exclusivity carefully. If the product they are selling is genuinely great, you have to be sure that the supplier is happy with an exclusive deal. If they aren’t, you run the risk of souring your future relationship and potentially limiting your access to a great product as a result.

How can you be sure that a supplier is happy with an exclusive deal? Simple: wait for a supplier to offer such a deal, rather than you outright asking for it.

 

#2 – You have to be prepared for higher costs

 

If you are going to purchase the exclusive rights to sell a product, you’re already going to be spending more than you usually would— that’s one of the downsides of exclusivity deals. However, you have to factor in the fact that an exclusive deal also requires additional investment on top of the higher purchase price.

Why? To spread the word, of course. There’s little point in having an exclusive line if you don’t market to tell your customers (and potential customers) about it; no particular advantage to that line if you don’t invest in a POS display to showcase the product you’ve worked hard to be the sole seller of. It’s therefore imperative you’re happy with the enhanced costs of exclusivity, and have budgeted to ensure that you’re still going to be able to generate a decent profit from the deal.

 

#3 – You might be wrong

It’s not a pleasant notion, but it’s one you have to consider. Retailers usually seek exclusivity because they are sure a product is going to be a hit… but what if you’re wrong? It’s impossible to predict the future of a product correctly every single time (as many retailers and manufacturers have discovered to their cost), so you need to be cautious with exclusivity deals, and only ever issue them when you’re absolutely certain the product you’re being offered is an absolute must-have.

 

In conclusion

With the above in mind, you can be confident your exclusivity deal will be nothing but beneficial to your store. Good luck!

Category: Business | No Comments »

How to Measure Productivity at Your Office

Unless you work in a factory where output is a definable quantity, then measuring how productive you — or your fellow employees — are is a difficult task. That’s because so much of what we do doesn’t have a definite quantity. If you’re in an office and you work in customer service, you can’t just measure how many calls someone might take. A customer service rep might handle fewer calls, but the problems might be more difficult, the solutions might be more thoughtful, and the end result might be customers that start unhappy and leave satisfied. So how then, do you think about productivity in a twenty-first century way?

For starters, you do have to have a baseline, and that baseline might be something akin to an industry average. But that baseline probably shouldn’t be tied to days. What else matters for a modern productivity measurement? This graphic explains it.

Establish a baseline

Measuring productivity is a process of comparison: You compare how much an employee or a team produces, in relationship to how little would be produced if team members didn’t inhabit their respective roles. Sometimes you compare a given employee’s productivity directly against the productivity of an employee in a similar role. Other times, you compare your team’s results to industry averages. In order to make these comparisons, you first need to establish a baseline of whatever it is you’re comparing to.

For example, if you run a sales team or call center, you could divide the average number of daily sales or customer calls by the number of employees to determine how many calls each of your employees averages each day. You can then use this as a baseline to determine who is fielding more or less than the average. (Of course, the baseline shouldn’t be the end-all, be-all to determine a team member’s productivity—after all, quantity rarely beats quality.)

This process can get trickier if you work in a more administrative setting where each employee has a different role and their tasks are less quantifiable. In these cases, it’s still important to establish a baseline. For example, you may consider breaking projects into assigned tasks so you can track how well employees stay on top of their work (more on that in the next tip).

No matter how you determine a baseline, try to avoid using the number of hours worked, the number of sick days taken, or the number of vacation days used. These metrics don’t necessarily have any relation to the quality or effectiveness of a given employee’s work.

Define tasks

A simple way to measure productivity is to clearly define tasks and then track whether, and with what expediency, those tasks are completed.

This is a great way to make sure you don’t fall into the micromanaging trap because it focuses more on outcomes than it does on the minutiae of daily responsibilities. It also allows you to measure employees’ ability to meet deadlines, which can be a useful performance metric. Just make sure you don’t simply assign tasks for the tasks’ sake. Tasks should offer real value to the company for them to have significance as a performance indicator.

One other caveat: Using tasks to track productivity requires that those tasks be assigned effectively in the first place. Make sure managers communicate exactly what deliverables are expected for a certain assignment and when those deliverables are due, as well as any other information relevant to completing the task effectively and efficiently. Only when this information has been provided is it reasonable to expect a team member to follow through on the assignment.

Identify benchmarks

Once you establish a baseline set of metrics and tasks to measure productivity, it’s time to figure out how you’ll track these metrics over time. Presumably, your goal is for employees to meet or exceed the baseline on a regular basis—so you need to determine benchmarks that help you identify what qualifies as “exceeding” the baseline and help you notice if your employees stagnate in their roles.

Just as when you established your baseline metrics, it’s important to take a multidimensional approach to setting benchmarks. For example, you may establish a benchmark for X number of sales successfully closed, X number of professional presentations delivered, X number of software functions coded, etc. Then, throw in some subjective outcomes to get a better sense of the whole picture. That may include things such as feedback from customer satisfaction or peer surveys, or the team member’s ability to collaborate, think creatively, problem solve, and so on.

The important thing is to develop as broad a picture as you can and then use this information in a constructive way—not a punitive one. If an employee appears to be stagnating, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unproductive. It may mean their manager fails to communicate assignments clearly, another employee’s bad work habits inhibit their productivity, they’re a better fit for a slightly different role or something else entirely. Benchmarks provide a valuable data set, but it’s important to look beyond them to really understand why an employee does or does not maintain their productivity.

No matter what benchmarks you decide to move forward with, it’s helpful to assign a time period by which certain benchmarks should be met. Different benchmarks require different time periods ranging from daily to weekly, monthly, quarterly, and even annually. Establishing these timelines is essential because it allows team members to know how they’re being assessed and encourages managers to set realistic expectations for their teams.

Encourage employee participation

If you want your office’s productivity metrics to be valuable, it’s essential to involve your team members when crafting baseline metrics, defining tasks, and identifying reasonable benchmarks. After all, these team members have the most accurate sense of what it takes to accomplish a given task, what is a reasonable amount of work to complete in a given time in their individual roles, and so on. This helps explain why one study found that employees who participate in crafting their productivity metrics are most likely to demonstrate increased productivity over time.

Engaging your employees in this process also gives them a chance to identify the resources they need to thrive in their respective roles. The key is to listen when employees tell you what resources would enable them to do their jobs better and then invest in fulfilling those needs. For example, if an employee tells you they’d be more productive working from home two days each week or that a certain part of their job could be automated, give them a chance to prove themselves right.

By treating your team members as autonomous individuals who know a lot about their jobs, you’ll simultaneously improve morale (which has been linked to heightened productivity in its own right) and empower your team members to take their productivity into their own hands. In addition, you may also consider implementing performance management solutions to measure your employees’ productivity.

Regularly reevaluate how you measure productivity

Identifying and tracking productivity benchmarks isn’t a one-time thing. Instead, the way you measure productivity should constantly evolve depending on whether the baselines change, certain benchmarks have been achieved, key team members leave or new team members are hired, industry norms or standards shift, and so on. Because there are so many moving parts involved in productivity, it’s essential to continually redefine all these parts to make sure you accurately perceive and evaluate the bigger picture.

Attempts to track productivity shouldn’t feel like a draconian way to police employees’ every move. Instead, each of these steps should be taken with buy-in and feedback from your team members so everyone can understand their priorities individually and collectively. By creating a company culture that emphasizes respectful collaboration, assigns job duties to the individual performing them, and creates and executes effective processes, you’ll give morale a boost and empower your employees to be their most productive.

Thank you to Zerocater for this graphic.

Category: Business | No Comments »

Giving Great Customer Care In An Online Space 100%

There’s no better time than now to get into e-commerce and grab yourself a space online to run a successful business. It’s a digital age, and more and more customers are choosing to head online through their computer or handheld device, to shop, invest, and seek services from the plethora of companies available. However, with the constant expansion of the internet and all it holds; it can be a challenge to keep up with major corporations and all those potential competitors that are trying to overshadow the rest. Therefore, small businesses need to turn their focus towards their customer’s happiness and ensure that they always have positive experiences with them so that they don’t think twice about returning.

One of the obvious differences between a physical and virtual retail environment is that you can’t have face-to-face contact with the service you receive on the internet. Therefore, an e-commerce company needs to make up for this by keeping their visitors onside and ensuring they leave their website feeling satisfied and ready to return. The following are some ideas and inspiration for small online businesses who are ready to go the extra mile for their customers so that they can benefit from long-term growth and success.

Invest In Behind The Scenes

Your customer care and satisfaction levels will be impacted directly by what’s going on behind the screen. Therefore, it’s crucial to invest in your business so that your efficiency and productivity can shine through when your customers click on to your site. It’s worth looking at methods and training from companies like The Lean Six Sigma Company who can provide your business with the methods and tools to iron out all the creases and give your brand a much-needed boost. The results will have a direct effect on those who choose to shop with you, as each part of their experience will be one that you’ve worked hard to make it straightforward, positive, and as smooth as possible.

Spend Time In Their Shoes

Once you’ve created a successful company behind the scenes; it’s time to look at your business as your customers would. Go through your website and the process of purchasing items as if you’ve never seen it before. You can also utilize the assistance of online mystery shoppers, and ensure that you take their feedback onboard. Don’t be fearful of making significant changes, and look to your competitors to see where they exceed your customer service, and think about how to improve on yours.

It’s Time For Tech

Part of the online shopping experience is using technology to make a sale a quick and as simple as possible. Therefore, when it comes to communicating with your customers and ensuring they’re happy; it’s essential to look into the latest tech available for your e-commerce space, it’s also important to know that customers will love a good discount, just look at how exciting it is to find a sam’s club promo code.

Pop-up customer care boxes are a great place to start, and it’s a way to show visitors that there’s a friendly, human face behind your online store. The key to consumer satisfaction is to make sure that they’re your priority, so keep them in the forefront of your mind in everything you do.

Category: Business | No Comments »

Get That B2B Sale Deal

What’s the heart that is beating to maintain business growth? What is essential at the core of your business expansion?

The answer is clients. If you haven’t figured this one out by yourself, it’s time to give up your career as an entrepreneur and consider a non-client facing job. But if you have congratulations. Now is the one million dollar question, namely, how do you manage to get a new deal with a new client? Client acquisition, especially in the B2B sector, can be extremely challenging. Indeed, there’s a little more to do than creating a handy click-to-buy app. In a B2B environment, client deals still run in a traditional face-to-face approach.

Are you ready to seduce your clients?

 

Do your research

So how do make sure that you can appeal to the right prospects? Ultimately; there is no way around it. You need to define your target audience, from which industry sector they’re more likely to be to basics demographics. The better you understand you market, the easier you’ll find to create tailored and relevant messages. Admittedly, while you can’t cold call every individual in your target audience, you can identify the companies that are the most likely to need your services/products. As a general rule of the thumb, if you want to get to know them, it’s easier to use either a common contact or to offer a free trial that is ideally timed with their agenda.

 

Find a hook they can’t resist

The free trial is by far the best hook you can offer to new clients. It doesn’t matter what people say, ultimately if something is free and of potential interest to their business, they’re likely to want to benefit from the offer. So what can you offer that is relevant to the current market? Let’s say GDPR is a priority today. For marketing service providers, you can suggest a free audit on GDPR regulations, for instance. If you’re an IT provider, you can target GDPR with a data removal offer. Insurance brokers can discuss GDPR protection, and so on!

 

Plan an introduction meeting

Once you’ve hooked your client, make sure to plan a meeting they won’t forget. You can even use a contract catering company for the occasion so that you can put your potential client at ease with a delicious buffet. Additionally, you need to make sure the meeting room is fully prepared to all IT requirements. There’s nothing worse than making your prospect wait because you can’t figure out how to project your presentation.

 

Book the best conference room

 

Last but not least: You need to deliver

Finally, you’ve convinced your leads, and they’ve signed with you. Bear in mind that if you’re not able to deliver, your client will probably look elsewhere for a provider – without mentioning the negative reputation you might receive in the process. So make sure that everything is ready, whether it’s a matter of warehouse management for good, or electronic process to keep track of your progress. A disappointed client is not the kind of publicity you want.

 

Client acquisition is the business equivalent to the ancient art of seduction. You need to know your target, gain their trust, cajole them into buying your services, and finally give them the satisfaction they need.

 

Category: Business | No Comments »

3 Factors To Help With Your Social Media Presence

Whatever it is that you are hoping to achieve with your social media presence, you will find that it is best to approach it in a certain way. As it happens, this can be quite hard to get right, but as long as you know some of the things which are likely to help you, you should be able to bring about the changes you want. In this article, we are going to be looking at some of the factors which you will want to pay attention to if you really want your social media presence to succeed. As long as you are utilizing the following, you can be sure that your social media campaign is going to benefit your business greatly.

Data

The more data you collect, and the more you analyze it, the easier it becomes to determine whether or not you are on the right track, and whether anything needs to be changed. There are certain kinds of data which are likely to prove especially useful here, such as the kinds of people who tend to follow and interact with you socially, and how much they seem to do so. With this kind of data on your side, you will be able to know what you might be doing wrong, so that you can ensure your social media campaign is always kept up to date. You might even want to think about hiring the help of someone like this company, who specialise in analyzing data, so that you can be confident in what you are really looking at and what it might really mean for your business.

Branding

If you don’t have a strong brand for your business, then it is highly unlikely that you will be able to see much success online with your social media presence. It is in fact generally advisable to work on your brand first, so that you have a strong position to be in when it comes to working on your social media management. If you are struggling to know what a good brand looks like, you might find that this is one of those areas where it is useful to have a little professional help on board. As long as you have a marketing team on your side, you will be able to ensure that your brand is serving you – and that it is truly social-ready. How can you ensure that your signage reflects your brand’s character and identity? Working with expert fleet graphics designers and following your band guidelines is imperative.

Engagement

It’s all about engagement, that’s the final word in social media management in business. It doesn’t really matter how many followers you have if you are not getting the necessary engagement, so it’s a good idea to make sure that you focus on this most of all. If you want to improve your engagement, you should be sure to learn the ways of raising the interest in your profile and your updates. The more you do that, the more the social media side of things will help your business grow. That is ultimately what you are going for, so you should make sure that you are always geared towards achieving that.

Category: Business | No Comments »

Managing Your Online Presence

 

In this day and age your online presence is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy and the day to day running of your business. Not only is the internet everyone’s first point of call when it comes to finding a new business or product, but it’s also where people do their research into said businesses and the reputation linked to it. Which is why having a strong and positive online presence is so important. To start with you need to ensure that the equipment you’re using isn’t going 5o hinder you by being broken or outdated, so have it looked at by an IT specialist company like https://littlecomputerpeople.com.au/pc-mac-repairs/, next, look into building a professional but accessible website and matching social media profiles, either DIY them or hire someone to do it for you.

 

Set time aside for updating and posting

Organise a set time each day to post something on social media, and once a week for a blog. But don’t just write anything – missing a week is much better than posting rubbish content. Being organised will help you to make sure you’re staying up to date online, and it also helps to gain and retain followers.

 

Bulk write to give yourself time off

To stop filler or bad posts, write up some posts in advance. You can schedule these to post automatically each week which is perfect if you’re going on holiday know you’re going to be too busy to do it. If you’re not big on writing, then look into outsourcing work to a freelancer through freelancer.com where you can request blogs or social media posts in bulk.

 

Consider hiring

Alternatively, you can hire a full time or part time employee to manage your social media and website for you – this enables you to dedicate that time to other aspects of the job, while also ensuring that the content and relevancy of your blogs and posts are at a high level.

 

Social media is your best friend

Social media will always be the best tool at your disposal, it’s quick and easy to use and it can be a great way for you to interact with your customers. There are so many successful interaction examples littered throughout the internet where companies have used social media to diffuse a situation, reply to a comment and even slyly promote themselves through other company’s channels.

 

Keep your personal and business lives separate

You are not your business and your opinions are not your business’ opinions. You might feel strongly about a certain pollution, but that might alienate part of your audience if you were to promote that opinion as your company’s. Have values and have morals and stick to them – like against animal testing and for eco-friendly practices, but don’t get involved in debates that could lose you a huge chunk of your client base.

 

Category: Business, Social Media | No Comments »

Make Money By Sitting at Home Through Digital Marketing

The digital marketing is defined worldwide as the promotion of the new/ existing brand using digital technology. It is done via the mobile phones, desktop screens, digital signage, and other digital devices. This professional domain requires two things, one is the digital device and the other is a perfect internet connection, look into scope of audit. The fact that all the work is done through the internet allows the employees to have flexible workplaces and working hours. The internet is accessible at any place at any time. Thus, digital marketing is the ideal professional that facilitates working from home as a full-time worker, part-time worker or a freelancer, however, learning about it is the difficult part, but your company can consult with a company like redwigwam to give you the best tips and advice.

Many studies are conducted debating the benefits of flexible working hours and workplace. One of them conducted by Alfred P. Sloan foundation states, “Employees working in an environment viewed as more family-supportive experienced lower levels of work-family conflict. The reduced work-family conflict was in turn related to greater job and family satisfaction, followed by greater overall life satisfaction.” Nonetheless, it helps the companies save their health insurance costs and witness a positive work environment too.

Here are the different digital marketing job options that you can avail by staying and working at home:

  1. Marketing analyst

Become a marketing analyst! This is how the branding agency Dubai found its highly skilled marketing analyst. While in search of a creative yet talented analyst, the team came across a freelancing worker and assigned him a few tasks.

The regular submission of quality work impressed the team and they hired the employee for a permanent job. You can try your luck too only if you’ll be able to learn sales copywriting from Stefan Georgi!

The job nature of a marketing analyst is to study the data given by the company, analyze it and come up with a strong, challenging and an impressive marketing strategy. This requires a peaceful environment, detailed study, and an organized yet quiet workplace. Your home or your study room is the perfect place for this job. Look for different opportunities and work as an analyst.

  1. Content manager and strategist

Generating good content requires time, determination, good research, creative mind and know-how of the latest trending styles. The job of content management for a brand requires studying the brand and discussing the type of content they want you to generate. Once this conversation is done, you can easily work through your home and submit content on regular basis via emails to the company you are working for.

The job here varies as you can be the content strategy developer (working on the disciplines that must be added in the content marketing campaign), a content generating team manager or simply a writer.

How to manage your content generating team through the home?

The technologies like webcam and applications like Skype that offer conference calling and video chat has made it easy for you to work from any place you find comfortable. Add the use of OneDrive or the Google Drive and you’ll be able to delegate the tasks to your workers quite easily. By staying at home, you can update the documents, edit the submitted work and approve any other piece of content sending it to the main client. Just learn the use of latest technology and you’ll be able to work from home.

Blogging and guest posting:

Blogging is another creative way to earn through digital marketing. Many brands all around the world run their blog along with their official website. The blogs offer the viewers the type of content that they want to read like answers to different queries, latest news and reviews on the newly launched products and so on. The blogs help keep the viewer in the loop and make them feel valuable. Thus, you can write a blog for a company who is establishing its brand. Blogging is one of the best ways to earn money through digital marketing. Also, there is the job of guest posting. It allows you to contribute articles and content posts to different websites sharing your ideas on the desired topic.

Sell photos/ videos online:

The advertising companies in Dubai often buy photos and visual content videos that they find new and interesting. If you are good at photography or video making, you can sell the photos and short videos to digital marketing companies as well.

  1. Strengthen your hold on social media

The versatile and never-ending branches of digital marketing call upon workers to contribute in any way possible. Like content marketing mentioned above, the social media marketing is one of the best ways to earn money through digital marketing. The multiple jobs that you can do from home in this domain include:

  • Create fillup forms to generate leads
  • Generate advertisement layouts and campaigns on LinkedIn, Twitter and FaceBook
  • Post, re-post and share content post links on different social media
  • Increase the page likes/ followers
  • Comment on different posts
  • Offer prompt customer care service via social media platforms
  • Manage the social pages and post regular updates
  • Try to reach the maximum amount of targeted audience

Other than these options, you can make videos for YouTube, run your own channels there and earn money from it. The whole procedure is a bit lengthy and requires consistency but it is one of the easiest ways to make money by staying at home.

  1. Work on an e-book

While working on an e-book, the digital marketing expertise that is required include impressive content generation and advertisement of the e-book. Choose a nice, trending topic and then focus on the pattern that the majority of the users find easy to read and understand. Come up with new, fresh content and use all your creative skills to make this book a great read, check out the site here for extra info.

Once it is finished, you can advertise it on the online e-stores like Amazon or any other online store, sell it there and earn money through it.

  1. Join different freelancing platforms

The dozens of freelancing platforms are available on the internet. From freelancer to Upwork, Fiverr and many others; you can get digital marketing related projects from clients throughout the world. These portals are the most renowned freelancing hubs where you can get jobs according to your talents.

The nature of online marketing jobs is different. You can upload your gigs or make a statement of what kind of work you can handle. Bidding on work project also helps in increasing the chances of getting a job in digital marketing at home. If you want to make money at home with social media, then here are some mistakes to avoid on TikTok.

  1. Product marketing manager

The product marketing manager at dash-digital.co.uk has to mainly establish an active on-site performance, keep himself up to date with the latest product release and master internal communication. All of these can be done by staying at home. All you need is a working internet connection, understanding of the software and information of the web-based products. RightScale, a Santa Barbara-based cloud computing firm is one such example of the startup offering the work-from-home position to the product marketing manager. You can find more on the internet.

  1. Profit by selling products on an e-store

The online stores are extending their roots into every possible professional domain. From the educational sector to the medicinal, fashion to technology; you’ll find e-stores selling products/ services from a variety of categories. You can make use of this digital marketing branch. Design products like online educational courses, video tutorials, hand-made products or clothes and sell them on platforms like Udemy, YouTube, Etsy, and others. It is one easy way to earn money via online marketing!

Satisfied much?

The seven different ways that we have listed above cover most of the job possibilities in the digital marketing domain. The catch is to find something that you are good at. The above-mentioned seven branches allow you to discover more work positions within them. Browse through your options and find more opportunities to make money through the home.

Contributor

Junaid Ali Qureshi

is a digital marketing specialist who has helped several businesses gain traffic, outperform competition and generate profitable leads. His current ventures include Elephantation, eLabelz, Smart Leads.ae, Progos Tech and eCig.

Category: Business, Marketing | No Comments »

A Little Specialist Knowledge Can Significantly Boost Your Earnings

Nowadays, people tend to make out that anybody can start a business, regardless of whether they have existing knowledge about the area they intend to trade in or whether they have any previous business experience or not. It’s easy to see why people would say this. There are so many companies out there that offer to help you set up your business page and manufacture your products that you can quite literally have a business up and running online within a matter of days or even hours. But just because your company is there, doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a success. After all, if you don’t know what you’re doing, how are you meant to help your business flourish? How are you going to stand out from your competitors on the market? How can you expect people to hand over their own hard earned money to you? This is perhaps the reason that the majority of businesses fall flat within their first year of operation. But not to worry. This isn’t to say that you can’t make a success of your company. It just means that you might have to invest a little more time and effort into expanding your understanding of your business and how it should operate! Here are a few pieces of specialist knowledge that really can help to increase your turnover and boost your earnings!

Stocks and Shares

For some reason, people tend to completely differentiate stocks and shares from business practice. It’s seen as a completely separate field of interest. But have you ever considered what stocks and shares deal in? When you purchase a “share”, you are investing in a share of a business. So, as a business owner you might not necessarily consider investing in shares (though this is a viable way to make a little extra cash), but at some point or another, you could really benefit from selling shares of your own company, some people may be interested to buy fractional shares from you. The intimidating part of stocks and shares tends to be the jargon that surrounds it. You’ll find yourself questioning what are cfds, what is EPS, and what is a make-up? But if you do a little research and study, you’ll quickly familiarise yourself with the terms! You can click here now to know more about business banking.

Market Research

Market research is your best friend when it comes to making a success of your products and wares. It’s what determines whether your product will sell (before you invest cash in its development and production) and how you should present it to the consumer market (once you’ve developed it and it’s ready to go). It’s a business step that is commonly missed out by first-time business owners but is absolutely essential when it comes to keeping your business afloat. Now, you don’t necessarily have to learn all about market research yourself. You don’t even have to conduct it yourself. This can all be outsourced to specialist market research agencies. However, ensuring that it is completed in some way or another is what’s important!

These are just two areas of specialist knowledge that you should familiarise yourself with as a small business owner. There are plenty more out there. At the end of the day, the more you know in the field, the better your chances of success will be. So never be complacent and always be open to learning something new!

Category: Business | No Comments »

Updating Your Company’s Internal And External Business Approach

It’s important that a business looks good on the outside and the inside. There’s no point in creating a flashy advert that promises your brand can deliver incredible things if the truth is very different behind closed doors. You need to deliver on your promises if you want interested consumers to actually part with their money. People need to see that a company can actually follow through on its word if they’re going to purchase its goods or services. If you want to ensure that your entrepreneurial venture is successful then it might be time to update your company’s internal and external business approach. Here’s some advice to help you with that.

 

Tighten up your financial plan.

Let’s start by talking about money. That’s what keeps every business going, after all. It’s the only thing that’s relevant to every business in every industry, in fact. But so many entrepreneurs are so fixated on making sales that they fail to see the bigger picture. Sales are crucial, of course, but there’s more to financial success than that. Your company might already have a solid client base, but that doesn’t mean you have a solid financial situation. Making money is important, but being a smart entrepreneur requires you to spend that money wisely. You might want to take another look at your financial plan and think about ways in which you’re wasting money. Perhaps you could save money on the electricity bill by getting thicker glazing for office windows or buying energy-efficient appliances from unclutterer. And ask yourself whether you still need to waste money on paper (and hurt the environment) in the digital age. Reduce unnecessary overhead costs so that you can increase your profit margin.

 

Of course, saving money is only the beginning. If you want to ensure financial security then you need to be brave. Don’t hoard your earnings. You need to be courageous and spend money on improvements to your company. That’s the only way you can grow to meet the new needs of the market. Every industry evolves, so you need to evolve with yours. Making investments might be a risk, but it’s a necessary risk. Perhaps you need to hire some new employees to deliver a more extensive service and grow your customer base. Perhaps you need to buy higher-end technology and other resources. You need to make internal investments so that you can deliver a better service to the external market. Your customers will just flock to the competition if you don’t grow as a company. Rival businesses are always making improvements – don’t get left behind.

 

 

Look after your workers.

One of the main ways in which you should update your company’s internal business approach is by focusing on your workforce. You might already feel as if you provide great opportunities for your employees, and that may well be true, but you can always do more when it comes to looking after your workers. And, in turn, this will benefit the company immensely. Happy and healthy workers are bound to be far more productive, which means that your business is putting its money to better use; you’ll be paying the same salaries, but your employees will be delivering more. Additionally, internal improvements always improve your external image; clients will be far more impressed if the customer service they receive is professional and enthusiastic. In order to create such a workplace, you need to incentivize your employees. You need to respect them and recognize their hard work. You could award bonuses, free lunches, and other perks to the best workers in the office every week. This will give members of staff the motivation to work hard in order to receive rewards and appreciation for their input. You can massively boost the mood and morale of the workplace by taking the time to express your gratitude to employees. That’s how you look after your workers.

 

Still, it’s not just about promising a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s only so far you can push your employees before you realize that productivity can really be increased by improvements to the company’s actual operations. Most importantly, it’s important that you utilize business development solutions like setting up used automatic bill counters and using point-of-sale systems. For example, you could automate processes such as generating invoices, customizing Scan data report for Altria, and other time-consuming administrative tasks. That way, your members of staff will be able to dedicate the work day to more technical tasks that actually further the company; the more they can deliver to customers, the larger your potential client base could be. Additionally, you need to think about improving the workplace itself in order to look after your employees. Safe working conditions are a must. Your workers are people; you need to keep them healthy both mentally and physically. You should make sure everybody is trained when it comes to using heavy equipment in the warehouse. But you should also make sure that the equipment itself is well-maintained because human error is only one potential safety risk. You should look into a good filtration system for your dust collector on the warehouse floor so as to ensure that your employees don’t inhale any dust. You might want to learn more about that. At the end of the day, looking after your workers will improve your business’ internal operations. This won’t just increase productivity, but it’ll ensure that you create the professional work environment expected of you by the target market.

 

 

Use the internet to go national (or international).

Finally, you need to think bigger if you want to update your company’s internal and external business approach. As we’ve discussed in this article, growth is integral to the success of any business. You need to invest in yourself so that you can expand and remain relevant in a changing market. If you really want to increase your sales then you need to aim to reach the national market rather than simply the local market. Perhaps you don’t have the money or resources to make that happen if you’re still a small business, but you don’t need money in order to grow in the modern age – the internet can help you. Reaching the external market in 2018 is so much easier if you focus on your company’s online brand. Improve your website’s content so that you show up higher in search engines; that way, you’ll drive more traffic to your website. Plus, you’ll see a better conversion of traffic to sales if your site is well-designed. Consumers are impatient in a fast-paced modern age; they don’t have time for websites with amateur designs and confusing content. Make things as simple as possible. Digital marketing is an integral part of any modern business strategy.

Category: Business | No Comments »

Building Relationships, Expanding Your Business

If you want to expand your business, one of the most effective things you can do is to build even better relationships with your existing network, as well as bringing new people into your network. As your business grows, you will also require more staff. The good news is that you can hire the assistance of a professional recruiting agency, and they will take care of finding the right candidates for the positions you need to fill.

When building relationships as a business however, a more hands-on approach is required. Obviously, you need to do more planning and research to build better brand relationships with your audience than you would if you were just looking to make friends, but you’ll still need the same skills of communication and interpersonal relations that you use to build relationships in private, which means that it isn’t as hard as many entrepreneurs think.

If you’re looking to build relationships to expand your business, here’s a brief guide to what you’ll need to do:

Look at Your Business as a Mirror

If you treat your business as if it was a mirror of your target audience, then it will be easy for you to build strong relationships via your existing networks and any new ones you choose to exploit. What do I mean by this? Your business should reflect your audience; it should look the way they like things to look, offer the services they prefer to buy and send out the kind of messages that they can get onboard with. If you cannot get your business to do that, even if it means changing your brand a bit, then you will struggle to build better relationships now and in the future, which you should always have one eye on.

Think Individual

Building better relationships with the people in your social networks is a lot easier when you know what they like as an individual. Luckily, there are lots of customer insight tools that make it easier than ever for you to work out exactly what any given customer is interested in and then to offer them more of that. By offering them stuff they want, it is easy for them to get familiar and comfortable with your business, which will strengthen your relationship and (hopefully) lead to more sales. Alternatively, a company that offers SaaS Sales Job Recruiting Services can help you hire the best salespeople for your business, which can help you expand your business.

Get Offline

Much of our branding and relationship building might be done online at our websites or using platforms such as Facebook and Instagram in the 21st Century, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still room for good old-fashioned face-to-face networking.

Social media marketing is really effective, but if you want to deepen relationships with customers and get new people interested in your company, then buying or renting an event display and attending expos. Conferences and other events where you will actually get to speak to them one-on-one in person is a great way of building trust and showing them more of what you’re about. Being visible in the real world is important, not least because it will put your company’s name on the lips of people who might not do much shopping online, which will open up new streams of revenue to you if you’re able to impress them.

Not only that, but you’ll meet other entrepreneurs in related niches – people who you could potentially team up with to cross-promote each others’ stuff and potentially expand your network.

Take Corporate Responsibility Seriously

Even if you’re only a small startup, it pays to look at your company and think of ways that you could show your responsibility. This could include using only recycled packaging or having you and your staff attend a charity event and do some work in the community. How does this work? By making you more visible in a very positive way. It will make your audience believe that you are a good honest company that they can trust, and they are more likely to visit your website or start following you on social media as a result. Then, it is up to you to ensure that you keep doing good, do what you can to get them interested, and ultimately convert them into customers.

Reply to Comments

This one is really simple, but if you take the time to carefully craft posts for your social media pages or website, and your followers take the time to comment, don’t just leave them hanging, Sure, you might not be able to reply to everyone, and not everyone will need a reply, but if you can be seen to be present, answering questions and engaging with your audience, it will solidify your relationships and improve your chances of making more sales and eventually expanding your business. If you don’t have the time, hire a social media manager to handle comments for you. The worst thing you can do is ignore your followers once you’ve managed to get them onboard.

Raise Awareness

If you want your followers to really be engaged with you, raise awareness of causes that you know they are interested in, It will give you some common ground upon which you can build solid business relationships and make more money while doing something worthwhile. Just make sure that your business ethics align with the causes you are promoting, or you could be seen as being inauthentic, which brings us to…

Be Authentic

Perhaps, the most important thing you can do if you want to build better relationships and expand your business is to be authentic. There are so many companies who put out any old spiel in a bid to reel the customers in, and they almost always fail in the long-term because the average person can see right through them and they don’t like being manipulated into parting with their hard-earned money.

The Bottom Line

When planning for the best network management strategy, it takes work to build up a network and have your network start trusting you to the point that they feel comfortable buying from you time and time again, but if you can do all of the above, and you keep reviewing your practices/data periodically, you will succeed, and your business will thrive now and in the long-term – just you wait and see.

Category: Business | No Comments »