We get it, we really do! You’ve bootstrapped your business from nothing and you’re now reaping the rewards. Where once there was a germ of an idea scribbled on the back of a notepad, now there is a fully functioning entreprise. It’s your business, and it’s your baby and you have a very specific vision of how you want it to run. This is commendable and fundamental to building the identity of your brand, but there’s just one problem… You’re trying to do everything yourself and that benefits nobody. The lot of an entrepreneur is challenging enough as it is, with long hours, stressful conditions and the ever present nagging feeling that the whole enterprise may well fall down all around you. While it’s understandable that you feel the need to do everything yourself (after all, who else knows your business and its needs like you do?), it may be to the detriment of your business, not to mention your health.

The burnout is real

Dashing around, micromanaging every department in your business is likely to lead to entrepreneur burnout. This means that you will feel constantly fatigued while still never being able to sleep, constantly stressed and like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. This will inevitably lead to short term memory problems, making mistakes, losing your temper with your friends, family and employees and basically failing to become the kind of entrepreneur you want to be.

Not only is this not sustainable (you’re only human, after all), it will have a profoundly detrimental effect on your quality of life.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

You’re a skilled and multi talented person who’s full of get up and go. These are the exact qualities that make you a great entrepreneur. But like anyone else, you have areas in which you’re well versed and talented and areas in which you need development. Even the most multi talented people need to acknowledge that they should leave some of their operations to the experts. While investing in outsourced IT consulting and support services, digital marketing and Human Resources may represent yet more overheads, they will massively improve the operation of your business as well as your quality of life. Your success depends on selling and delivering your products to the right customers, at the right time. For warehousing and shipping solutions, you can visit this page. Sure, you may be able to do all of these things yourself, but this may lead you to spread yourself too thin making you unable to steer the ship from a managerial perspective. If you’re looking for the best non UK licensed casino, visit nonukcasinos.uk.

The key to consistency is training

Though it’s understandable that you have a specific vision for how you want customers to be managed and procedures to be followed, the key to this is not in doing everything yourself. The key lies in a robust and ongoing program of training to ensure that your every employee is properly indoctrinated in the ideals and values that make your business stand out from your competitors and know how to embody those qualities in every aspect of their working day. Thus, you will be able to relax every now and then with the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your employees respond to the everyday challenges presented to your business in the same way that you would.

Starting a successful business doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen by accident. You need to make sure you’re setting yourself up to own a successful business right from the start – the way your business starts will often dictate how it turns out a year, two years, or even five years down the line. If you want to make sure your business is successful, make sure you follow the below steps to starting a successful business:

Come Up With A Viable Idea

First of all, you need to make sure your idea is viable. How do you do this? Start off by brainstorming a list of ideas, and don’t censor them yet. Once you have your list, you can begin to think about them more thoroughly. For example, some would probably make great home businesses, while others wouldn’t. Think about where you want to start your business and how you want it to turn out. Home businesses will often turn out very differently to enterprises you start in an office building. You can then figure out if the idea if viable. How much work will you have to put in to make money? How much money could you stand to make? Will you need employees? Thinking about each idea and thoroughly immersing yourself in the possibility of owning the business will help you to get a feel for whether it’s a viable idea or not.

Research Your Market

You need to do as much research on the market as possible so you know what you should be doing with your business. What do they like? What don’t they like? What do they wish businesses in the industry did/didn’t do? What are your competitors doing? What could you do better? Doing as much research as possible will get you off to the best start.

Know Your Numbers

Knowing your numbers can be tough when you’re just starting out, but a rough idea can help you. For example, you’ll likely need working capital to get started, so you’ll want to look at details about business loans and have an idea of the amount of money you’ll need to start your business. You may consult a hard money lender for this. Make sure as well to consider how much do you think you’ll need for supplies, your premises, your staff, to keep you going if things get quiet? How much do you think you’ll make? All great entrepreneurs know their numbers like the back of their hand. If you need help reviewing and managing your finances, you may seek professional wealth management planning services.

Create A Business Plan

Creating a business plan is something that might seem boring, but it can help you to keep going even during the tough times. It can keep you focused, and help you to take a new direction if necessary. You can outline exit strategies, plan A and plan B, how you’ll get funding, what you’ll do with it, and everything else you need to know. A business plan is for you, to help you get a feel for whether this business is truly going to work or not, and for an investor to look at if you want to get more capital. It always helps to have one.

When running a business that sells from an online, mobile, or on-the-phone customer experience, securing sales might be your greatest concern. But it’s not the digital storefront or the marketing and conversion process that’s most likely to cause you to lose customers. The number one reason for poor customer retention is a delivery system that simply isn’t working. Here, we’re going to look at how to ensure your deliveries are convenient, efficient, and reliable not just for your customers but for you and your bottom line, too.

Run a ship-shape warehouse

All deliveries begin in the warehouse. It’s not just a place to store the goods before you deliver them, keeping it organised is integral to ensuring deliveries can begin as promptly as possible. Systematic organisation of stock, monitoring inventory levels, and keeping the warehouse well-lit and clean makes it a lot easier to find the goods you need when you need them. Efficient storage solutions with the proper racks and transportation equipment are also key in avoiding causing any damage to your stock. A high portion of faulty goods returns happen because goods were damaged not in transit, but in the warehouse before the delivery process even began. Along with the right equipment comes the need for ongoing training and retraining for staff. Appointing a warehouse safety officer can help you better spot potential risks to ensure relevant training to those who encounter or cause them.

Keep it connected

The warehouse is only one part of the overall supply and delivery chain, however. It only works effectively if it is working in tandem with all the other moving pieces. The packing room, the cargo loading equipment like some cargo van load board and hand trucks, the order completion system in your storefront, and the fleet management system should all be connected to it. Inventory management software is making it easier to connect these systems together, so that the warehouse team knows an order has begun as soon as it has processed just as your ecommerce storefront can update automatically with changes in stock, avoiding you from taking any orders for items that you don’t have. Your business activities will no doubt involve you in making visits to the bank from time to time. If you need to make regular visits, particularly for the purpose of depositing or withdrawing cash, consider the security implications, not only for the money but for yourself or your personnel. There are cash delivery companies that offer secure ways of transporting cash to and from the bank.

Keep it electronic

The more you can avoid cluttering the warehouse and the delivery system, the better. The fewer resources you waste, the better. Many warehouses and businesses are starting to go completely paperless, relying instead on fully electronic processes. Using handheld devices like barcode readers to measure stock levels instead of noting on paper and using workflow tools for processing instead of transferring documents physically can save a lot of time. It also saves space that might otherwise be used to contain cabinet upon cabinet of files.

DIY or let someone else?

What about the transportation and fulfillment process itself? Many new businesses will sign up with a courier or delivery service that can help quickly get the business rolling. Saving you from the costs of purchasing and maintaining your own vehicles, many shippers will even provide free shipping materials such as shipping boxes or corrugated boxes. However, as the business grows, the lack of control over your own delivery system can limit you. The more deliveries the manage, the less cost-effective it is to outsource, as well. When a business grows to a certain size, it has to look at the trucks in stock from their local suppliers and start building their own fleet. A business should also look forward to hiring truck drivers and offering CDL Truck Driving Positions. This also means creating safe driving policies, hiring drivers, and ensuring effective maintenance of vehicles. It takes more work, but in the end, it can make the process much more efficient, especially with the help of some of the tools we’re going to look at now. If you need help from a third-party platform, visit sites like https://shippingtree.co/services/third-party-logistics/.

Know the way

One of the reasons you want more control over your own deliveries is to better understand the delivery process. In particular, effective route creation and management can help customers receive deliveries much sooner as well as saving you money. Using fleet GPS technology, you can gain insight on the paths your drivers take. You can look at areas where they slow down due to traffic, for instance, and help them alternate roads that help them avoid them. What’s more, by planning more stops per route, you can ensure that every time a vehicle leaves the warehouse, it is fulfilling as many orders as possible before returning. Many fulfilment service providers include GPS tracking as a way to keep you informed of where your goods are at any given time, but you won’t be able to use those insights to customise routes and improve driving habits unless you are in full control of your fleet.

Keep the customer informed

The information gathered from your GPS delivery tracking won’t just help you, it will help the customer, too. Knowing where their package is through a parcel tracking feature can keep customers from becoming agitated or restless, offering them some peace of mind that their goods are, in fact, on the way. When they’re selecting their delivery options, for instance, ensure your system can provide estimated delivery dates for them. Connecting your GPS tracking to your customer experience can help provide real-time updates that stop them from clogging up your customer service channels with requests as to where their package is and when they can expect it.

Customer service is key

Of course, regardless of how automated, efficient, and easy-to-use your ordering and delivery services are, your customers are still going to have questions. Many ecommerce platforms still have trouble with customer support and it’s often down to two issues. The first is a lack of information. If your customer support team doesn’t have easy access to information on orders, stock levels, delivery location, and more, the customer will end up having to wait much longer for the answers they want. The second issue is a lack of the proper channels. Customer service should be accessible and highly visible. If a customer can’t see an easy way to connect with an online representative or a phone number to call, they are just as likely to cancel the order than to keep searching.

The cost conundrum

Every business running a delivery service is going to have to take a closer look at how, exactly, they price those deliveries. How much do you charge customers for deliveries? Some businesses, if they are able to cover their costs in their overall profits, will offer free delivery but that’s not an option every business can rely on. Others price on cost, keeping the charges for delivery transparent so customers know they’re not paying more than they should. What you should avoid, however, is attempting to use the delivery cost as an opportunity to profit further. Many customers will be savvy about the costs that other companies charge and will know when they’re being nickeled and dimed.

Reckoning with returns

Every business is legally required to have a returns policy that deals with faulty goods. But there is some wiggle room to be found in the creation of your own returns and refunds process. Ensure you educate yourself fully on your customer’s rights, avoiding the chance that a customer might opt to take legal action. It’s a good idea to see the status quo of returns policies within your industry by taking a closer look at those provided by competitors. You don’t necessarily have to guarantee returns for goods bought by mistake or ones that the customer later changed their mind on. By having a more open returns policy, however, you could boost customer satisfaction and retention rate.

Incentivise better deliveries

As effective as your systems may be and as much as you may automate different parts of it, you’re going to be relying on humans who are prone to error. Safety and efficiency in the warehouse, cost-effective driving, better organisation and handling of goods, these all depend on the different members of your team. The best way to make sure your people are as efficient as your systems is to incentivise it. Create a rewards system that takes into account different key performance indicators, offering something in return for those who keep the system running on time while withholding from those who fail to meet their targets.

Follow up with the customer

You want to know how effective the changes you make to your delivery system are. Following the metrics of employee performance, inventory levels, warehouse management and so on can give you some insights but the customer experience can be harder to measure.

One thing you should consider is to value feedback from your customers. If they are providing feedback about the products’ design or quality, it may be time to ask a Dimensional Inspection Lab to thoroughly examine your products. Ensure that you seek customer feedback on your delivery system, leaving it open for recommendations and reports of substandard service. Not every customer will take advantage of the chance to leave feedback. You can encourage feedback, however, by working to improve a sense of a positive customer/company relationship. A thank you letter or email and even a little bonus in the delivery, such as a pack of sweets, can help increase the emotional impact of receiving their goods, which can encourage them to engage more positively with the company.

From the customer experience to the warehouse organisation to the transportation of the packages, your delivery system needs to be connected from top to bottom. You can reduce your own costs as well as ensuring customers are better informed and satisfied.

Although it’s something that we’d all like to avoid, you may find that you experience a dip in traffic at some point. As much as this might frustrate you or even worry you, it is something that can happen. It can be a seasonal trend and not overly anything to worry about. If you know that you’re working with the right channels and you’ve not experienced any changes lately, then you should start to see an improvement soon. It may just be a natural dip that bounces back to your normal traffic levels soon. However, if you are experiencing a loss in traffic that keeps on dropping, you’re going to want to look into the issue and fast. So let’s take a look at five different things that it could be.

1. A Change In Strategy

One huge reason for why you may have seen a drop in traffic is if you’ve recently changed your marketing strategy. When you’ve been working with set tactics for a period of time, you will tend to see a regular stream of traffic as a result of that. Sometimes, we decide to change things up to try and boost traffic, sales, or whatever your marketing objective may be related to. But they won’t always give you the results you expect. Use this result to help you turn things around and keep testing to find out what will get you the results you were looking for.

2. SEO Issues

Next, you’re going to want to look at your SEO. Maybe you’ve lost some links or your competitors have knocked you off the top spot? You may even want to discover more by working with an agency to help you. When you consult with an expert seo company, they can really analyze what has gone wrong and then propose a strategy for making a change. And, they’re going to take care of it for you, so it’s a win-win.

3. Demand

Earlier, we briefly mentioned that sometimes seasonal trends mean that your traffic will be down. And that’s only natural. But, you may also find that demand is down too. And this could be more of a long-term problem. So, you’re going to want to come up with a strategy to help you create that demand again, and increase your traffic while you’re at it.

4. A Lack Of Content

Have you been working on your content recently? Maybe you need to update your website to fix the issue. When you have a lack of fresh content, it may be affecting how you rank in searches or how many clicks you get from social. Even repurposing old stuff can be a great way to overcome this.

5. A Server Issue

Finally, if you think you’ve nailed all of the above and it can’t be any of them, maybe you’re having an issue with your server. This is something that you may need to take up with your hosting company, so you’re going to want to go directly to them and see if there is an issue that needs sorting on their end.

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, it’s critical for any business to establish and maintain a strong online presence. Digital channels present new markets and new opportunities for businesses. But, there are many businesses, whether small or large, that have not realized the power of digital channels, while some of those who do still fail to harness its full potential in reaching their business goals.

With several digital marketing channels available, you need to choose the tools worth focusing on to get you a step closer to your goals. There are a variety of digital channels you can leverage for your business such as email, SMS, SEO, social media, content, or digital ads. For your email marketing campaign, see and Get additional info here on how an email validation tool can help you.

Today search engines are making it increasingly more difficult over time to acquire top Google Rankings. If you need a digital marketing company with a perfected SEO strategy, you can reach out to a reputable services like Up Digital for great help! It’s just a matter of choosing the channel where you can put your marketing dollars.

Make sure to maximize your marketing budget and get more bang for your buck. You may read these Move Ahead Media Customer Reviews to find out how this agency can tailor a conversion-focused strategy to maximize your ROI in digital marketing.

Here’s a guide to choosing the best digital channel for your business.

Credit : ConnextDigital

Not only are the best and the brightest of British talent beginning to expect to work in fantastic and funky offices, but there have also been numerous studies that have shown that they can actually increase productivity. When people work in an engaging and exciting space that both makes them feel valued and allows them to work in a more collaborative and creative manner, they are more likely to not only worker harder but also stay at the company long term. You may work with an expert on commercial renovations to revamp your office and you can draw inspiration from the examples we have in this article.

So what are some of the companies that have got this right and have some of the coolest offices in the UK in 2018? In no particular order….

Zoopla

The property listing’s company’s offices in London have been designed to feel like a house (albeit a very posh one!), with themed areas such as a library, living room, wine cellar, treehouse and even a meeting room that looks a like a swimming pool. Onsite perks include a coffee bar, gym with a fresh towel service, free breakfast and snacks, and the now ubiquitous games room.

Innocent Drinks

In their aptly named ‘Fruit Towers’ London HQ, Innocent have designed their offices to look and feel like a quintessentially English village fair; complete with astroturf floors, picnic style benches and miles and miles of bunting.

Money.co.uk

Set in a 10,000 sq. ft. Victorian castle in Cirencester, the comparison site’s HQ includes features such as a Star Wars themed cinema, meeting rooms modelled on ice caves and ski lodges, a library with a hidden door and an onsite gym.

Missguided

This funky fashion brand has followed its own trend with its playful and creative offices in Manchester. Think eons of pink, a plethora of unicorns, swing seats, a selfie tunnel and a series of captions across the walls – my favourite being ‘don’t worry be yonće’!

Splunk

This big data firm based in London is promoting the fact that data most certainly isn’t boring through both its brand name and fantastic offices. Meeting rooms are designed to ‘transport your mind’ with one being based on the Tardis and another set out as a retro train carriage.

AO

The online white goods and electronics retail giant AO, aims to recruit and retain the very best staff into their Bolton offices with onsite perks such as a subsidised onsite salon, restaurant (the Park) and Starbucks, along with free drinks and snacks, the obligatory games tables and loads of fun company events for employees. Meeting rooms are filled with Lego or football themed.

Superdrug

The healthcare and beauty chain’s huge 6 floor, 55,000 sq. ft. head offices in Croydon embody many of the brand’s features, especially with the onsite brow and nail bar and the wellbeing clinic.

AutoTrader

With office bases in both London and Manchester, AutoTrader gives you no doubt as to what the company does with its car themed everything. The London office has spaces decorated with actual vintage Minis suspended at crazy angles along curved walls, whereas the Manchester office sports an old school van that serves as a coffee bar.

TalkTalk

Based in the iconic old Soapworks factory in Salford Quays, the communications company’s HQ is filled with artwork depicting Manchester’s history along with a rooftop garden, pizza bar, deli and coffee station.

Red Bull

The first office on our list to feature a slide from one floor to the next (it had to happen sooner or later), Red Bull’s Soho office also features a rooftop terrace with amazing views over the London skyline.

Virgin Money, Edinburgh

The stand out feature of these lovely offices is the LED light installation that forms a ‘sky ceiling’ above the main atrium of the building. Thankfully it isn’t designed to mimic the often dreary sky outside, but to remain bright and to recreate the passage of the sun over the sky.

Google

We couldn’t omit the company that really kicked the cool office trend off. Google’s London offices feature £17,000 sofas, a running track and gym where you can check your emails whilst you work out, a full suite of complimentary restaurant standard food and even sleep pods for those well-deserved power naps.

Written by John Baird from Scotland Debt Solutions. Scotland Debt Solutions specialise in helping Scottish residents overcome their debts problems through taking the time to fully understand your situation before advising on and administering a range of personal debt and insolvency solutions.