Scott Asai

How To End A High Employee Turnover

09/14/2018 Scott Asai2 Comments

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Are you constantly hiring new employees only for them to leave after a couple months? A high employee turnover can be very stressful to manage as an employee and it could be starting to damage your business in terms of reputation and productivity. Fortunately, there is a way to restore loyalty and get employees staying. Here are just a few ways to stop employees leaving.

Make your hiring process more thorough

You may find that you’re already dedicating huge amounts of time to recruitment, however it’s possibly that you may still not be doing a thorough enough job. Part of the reason that new employees keep leaving is simply because you’re hiring the wrong people. You could be rushing the process and hiring the first person that you think fits the bill. Instead, you should be trying to find as many good employee matches and then interviewing them all in order to narrow down your choice. You could also consider casting your net wider in order to get more applications – instead of just posting an advert on a job board, consider using social media and pinning up flyers and even hiring the help of a recruitment agency.

Get organized

Next, you need to confront the reason as to why employees are leaving. One big motive could be that employees find your company disorganized to work for. By bringing order to your business, you could give employees a greater sense of security. Start using software to help with building rotas and paying staff – this could help you avoid business errors that anger staff such as scheduling conflicts or accidentally underpaying staff (or worse still, forgetting to pay them). Try to give people clear roles and find an organized way of distributing tasks and overseeing them. You don’t need structure everything, but you should try to have some of the basics organized.

Offer more employee incentives

Employee incentives are things that motivate people to stay at your company. There are so many ways to add incentives. You could aim to improve people’s quality of life by giving them employee discounts to certain services, a generous wage, the ability to work from home or even a company car. Alternatively, you could add little luxuries within the workplace to make it a happier place such as paying for employees’ meals, investing in a good quality coffee machine, buying comfortable furniture or simply letting employees joke around and have fun. Make sure that employees also feel their work is rewarding – make your employees feel that their work is making a difference to people’s lives and don’t just focus on the financial gain.

Create harmony between old staff and new staff

It’s important that your older employees and newer employees have a mutual respect for one another. Make an effort of introducing new staff members to the team and dedicate some time to training them so that they feel welcome – even if they have experience in the role, they may be unfamiliar with the way in which your company runs things. When it comes to older staff, try not to burden them with training the newbie, especially if they’ve already got a lot of work on their plate. By doing this, you could make older employees resent the responsibility of newer employees. You can use your employees to help with some training, but don’t over-rely on them. You want harmony in the workplace – not everyone has to be best buddies, but there shouldn’t be camps. If your workforce is divided into small groups you may find that when one person goes from that group, others follow, because that person no longer has anyone that they feel they can associate with.

Reward your employees’ efforts

One of the most basic things you can do to prevent employees leaving is to make them feel as if their work is appreciated. These could be big rewards for meeting big goals such as a monetary bonus or a gift. Alternatively, you may be able to simply thank people and show your appreciation through words when it comes to the small things. On top of rewarding objectives that you set, try to reward intuition and creativity – if somebody thinks outside of the box and their inventiveness pays off, show them that you appreciate this.

Rev Up Your Revenues

09/14/2018 Scott Asai1 Comment

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All businesses will go through short periods of a decline in their sales. This can be down to a multitude of reasons. For instance, a lot of companies slow down over the Christmas period as many people take time off during the holidays and their services or products might not be in such huge demand. Thankfully, though, these periods of slow sales don’t last too long and, before you know it, you should notice that your sales and revenues start to increase again.

However, if your revenues slump for quite a while and you can’t seem to revive them, you might benefit from using some of the following tips to rev up your revenues!

Branch Out Into New Geographical Markets

Your sales and revenues might be suffering because your home market is pretty saturated with other businesses like yours. The competition could be too strong, which could be affecting your sales. If you think this is the cause of your woes, then it’s worth branching out to a new geographical market. Moving into an international market or sector isn’t as hard as you might think, especially since English is the universal language of business.

Take Advice From The Experts

If you can’t figure out what is up with your sales and revenues, it could be worth chatting to some sales consultancy experts. There are lots of sales professionals out there who could take a look at your business for you and offer you some tailor-made advice. They will also be able to give you some really useful general tips about generating more sales and, in the process, boosting your revenues.

Raise Your Prices

If you can’t seem to generate any extra sales there is always one other strategy that can help you increase your revenues – you just need to increase your prices. Many entrepreneurs worry about doing so because they think that it will turn customers away but, in actual fact, that is very rarely the case. Even just a very slight increase can help better your revenues and put you back on track for a yearly profit.

Offer Products Together As A Bundle

If you bundle some of your products together, you could sell them all for a price that is slightly lower than when bought individually. In this case, the customer might think they are getting a really good deal. However, you will be selling some items in a way that actually increases their profit margins. So, as you can tell, bundling products is something very worth thinking about!

Accept New Forms Of Payment

Maybe your current forms of payment are putting people off? For instance, not all businesses accept credit card payments. If you do, then lots of people who have a credit card might be tempted to start using your company. Ideally, you should be open to accepting all kinds of bank cards as well as online transaction platforms, such as PayPal and Stripe.

Good luck with maximizing your revenues – these tips will definitely make a big difference!

Put Yourself at the Front of Your New Career Direction

09/14/2018 Scott AsaiLeave a comment

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When you choose to take your career in a new direction, it is very important to think about the role you play in this personally. It is so easy for people to get carried away thinking about the career path they are going to take, or what they are going to do to help their business evolve. But, the important thing to remember is the fact that, more often than not, you are the one who determines the way the business is moving.

In fact, you must never overlook yourself as the most crucial component in your career change. The best thing you can do is to put yourself front and center, and make sure are at the head of your career advancement. This is really important and can do a lot to improve the success and prospects you might have to deal with in the future. These are some of the techniques you can use to help put yourself at the front of your new career direction.

Improve Your Management Skills

Improve and increase your management skills so that you can get better at dealing with people and running a business. This is why leadership training is so important because it will make you wholly aware of what you need to do to boost your management skills. Think about the best way of improving things moving forward, as well as what you can do that will make you a little more dedicated to improving the way you manage and run a business.

Increase Your Knowledge

It is also really important that you look at how can increase your knowledge and skill set in the business world. There are a lot of things that have to play a role in this, and getting educated or taking some courses so you can learn about new areas of the business. If you can increase your knowledge and abilities, you will be able to do more in a business sense, and this is going to go a long way toward helping you improve and boost the business.

Make Time for Yourself

It is actually really important that you make time for yourself as well. There is a lot you can do when it comes to improving the way you manage and run your company, but one of the best things to keep in mind is the fact that you have to have time to relax. Finding time for fun is so important and a wonderful way of ensuring that you get that ever elusive work-life balance.

Never Be Afraid of Your Dreams

Never be afraid of your dreams – to have them, to follow them, to believe in them. Dreams and ambitions are important, and they are an essential part of what makes you a great entrepreneur. So, make sure you have a clear dream and always make decisions that will help you to work toward having that dream and being the best you can possibly be.

The bottom line is that you need to make sure you are as dedicated as possible because this can make a big difference. There are things that you have to consider when you want to think about taking your career forward and making yourself the focal point is one of the most effective.

This Is How You’re Going To Organize Your Way To Success

09/14/2018 Scott Asai1 Comment

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Getting overwhelmed with work is normal. Yet when it happens to us, we freak out. We feel like a failure or a fraud, and find it hard to get ourselves back on track. And, in all honesty, it just sucks! In a world where possibilities are endless, and we really can pave our own way if we want, why should we let the pressure bring us down? Instead, we need to take action. One of the best ways to do that, is to make sure that you’re organized. When you know where you are with your work, it can make you more productive, more confident in your abilities, and help you to actually work on your success. So if you’re lacking motivation or a sense of direction, try these tips for getting back on track.

Create A Career Plan

First of all, you’re going to want to come up with a career plan. Because we all know that planning really is a crucial part of bring your success into fruition. If you have no idea what you want to achieve, how can you possibly achieve it? Whether you work for yourself or you’re climbing the career ladder, sit down and really think about where you’d like to be in five or ten years time. Then, you can work backwards and consider what you will need to do to get there.

Stick To A Daily Schedule

The next thing to do is to have a daily schedule that you can rely on. When you are self-employed, you can often take that idea of freedom too far. But if you’re going to find success, you have to hold yourself accountable and get the work done. Organization really helps with this. Some draft a daily schedule that will work for you and help you to stay on track.

Use Software, Apps & Equipment

Another thing that can be really handy is the equipment that you’re using. If your work is a mess, it’s hard for you to get anything done. So look into the benefits of USB 3.0 flash drives and cloud storage so that you can keep your files organized. Then, take a look at the apps and software packages that help you to boost productivity or manage your projects better too.

Bring In Help

If you’re really stressed out about time, then hire someone. Don’t try to do everything yourself and struggle as a result. This is going to make you feel anything but organized. Instead, when you have someone to lighten the workload, you can keep your stuff more organized, get it done, and sail your way to success.

Set Goals & Reassess Regularly

Now, one final thing that will help you to really stay on track with what you’re doing, and feel more organized, is to have goals. You can set these as part as your overall career plan, or you can set smaller goals monthly or weekly that can keep your workload and schedule organized on a micro level. Either way, you’ll want to make sure that you’re assessing them regularly. You need to check in with yourself to make sure on track, and this helps that overwhelming feeling to stay at bay.

Time, Treats and Talking: How to Invest More into Your Employees

09/13/2018 Scott AsaiLeave a comment

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You admit that running your business wouldn’t be possible without your amazing employees; they make your workload feel like a piece of cake, so you always want to give them the best. Becoming an entrepreneur at such a young age makes you feel very lucky, but it also puts a lot of pressure onto you straight away. Making your business more friendly and up to date, is what you are striving to achieve at the moment, whether you’re investing in mobile marketing or updating your scheduling tools. Treating your employees with respect and honesty is what every business should be aiming to achieve nowadays, so now it’s your turn to tick a few boxes. You need to make sure that you are running a well-oiled machine, as well as keeping your hard-working team happy. There are many ways in which you can approach this, but investing more into your employees will serve your business well for sure. You always want to make sure your employees feel valued and motivated, but how do you make a start? The following ideas that are going to be discussed will not only set your business off on the right foot, but it will also make your staff members appreciate the company they are working for. Whether you need to up your game with scheduling techniques or improve your communication overall with your members of staff, you can start to recognise and appreciate the hard work of your employees right now and forever more.

Savvy Scheduling

When you are looking to invest more into your employees you need to think carefully about their work schedule. As a business owner you are probably in charge of every single person’s rota and working pattern, which can be a hugely time consuming job. You might want to use a professional online scheduling system, or simply log the rosters into an excel spreadsheet. Choose the method that is going to be most convenient for your employees and yourself. For more information on the features your work schedule should include, check out some online guides. As long as you find a way to streamline the process and make the most of your employee’s time at work you will have mastered the art. Think carefully about their turnaround times in between shifts especially if they are working an overnight pattern. Consult the working time directive for more legal information about this; you will find it a very useful tool when building a rota from scratch.

Time in Lieu and Leave

When your employees join your workforce they will be entitled to a proportionate amount of leave depending on their contracted hours and length of time with you. For full time members of staff you should usually allow around two hundred hours of annual leave per year, which equates to approximately four weeks off work. Every single business will find their own way of approving and logging leave, but you might find some of these ideas useful. Create a leave request form that your employees can access anytime; leave could be granted on a first come first served basis but you should treat peak times such as summer holidays and Christmas as separate entities. Make sure everybody has their fair share of time off and allow them to choose the dates that suit their own lifestyle. For example, an employee with a young family will probably want to maximize their time off work during school holidays. Other members of staff might not prioritize this, so you will be able to find a balance. Another thing to note is the idea of time in lieu, which occurs when someone works over their contracted hours. Your employees could earn back a day of leave if they work extra shifts or stay late to complete deadlines. Find your own way of logging this and make sure people aren’t over exerting themselves too much!

An Open Door Policy

You want your employees to feel completely comfortable in their working environment. In order to create a soothing and reassuring atmosphere for them, you should always have an open door policy. Make sure everybody knows that they are welcome to come and talk to you at anytime, no matter what their issue is. They might be struggling with a domestic problem or maybe they are finding their shift pattern difficult. Always listen to their qualms and try to come up with workable solutions that will make them feel more comfortable. Maintain and positive and approachable attitude at all times so that they feel comfortable talking to you about anything.

Rewards and Respect

Every hard worker wants to gain some sort of recognition for their efforts, even if it is a small and simple gesture. You should never overlook the hard working nature of your employees, especially when they do so much for your company. Have some rewards in mind for those who consistently go above and beyond for your team. It might be an extra day off for the year or a new opportunity in a different area. As long as you are showing everybody a solid level of respect they will continue to work hard for you every single day.

Perfect Prospects

There is nothing more debilitating than heading into work everyday, knowing that you have no prospects. Being stuck in a dead end job is extremely demotivating for anyone and it’s certainly something you don’t want your employees to be going through. Hold regular catch ups with each member of your team and assess their goals as often as you can. The more you can track their progress the more motivated they will feel about climbing the ladder in the near future.

Innovative Meetings

Nobody likes an early morning Monday meeting; it’s so depressing and demotivating. Why not change things up a little bit? Hold more informal meetings over lunch or meet for a morning coffee before work. You will find that these types of meetings are much more productive because your workers feel more at ease with the setting.

Equality is Everything

Make sure you treat every single one of your employees with complete equality. Written into your work’s mission statement should be how you strive to be equal across your entire workforce. Never discriminate against anybody’s ethnicity, gender or religion, especially when it comes to hiring new members of staff. Opening up your door to everyone will bring a rainbow of amazing people into your workforce so embrace every single one of them.

Not every business has mastered the art of looking after their hard working members of staff. If you can take on board all of the following ideas and make your workplace a happy and enjoyable environment for your excelling employees, you will have a much more successful business. Take note of all of these ideas expressed above and never leave any stone unturned. When it comes to your workers’ happiness, you need to put this at the very top of your priority list. You simply can’t have a successful business without enthusiastic employees, so make their working life enjoyable. Look back to when you were an employee for a company; how well did your boss treat you? If you can go one step further and make them really appreciate their job, you are more likely to retain them as a member of staff. Hold onto those hard workers as they truly are an asset to your company. Make everybody who walks through the office doors feel like they truly have a special place in their workplace.

Three Things That Make Remote Work An Exceptional Choice

09/13/2018 Scott Asai1 Comment

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We are living in a time where the traditional working methods are consistently being challenged. For some people, they challenge this by changing the times that their working day begins and ends in their company. Others choose to adopt a four-day week policy, with paid long weekends. Companies are finally clicking that the way their staff work is going to define how well they do. It’s a simple solution: happy staff equals high levels of productivity which equals more profit. If all a company have to do is make their employees happy, you’d think that more people would be working on doing this. Barriers between managers and underlings (well, staff!) are being broken down and people are working better when they are treated like equals in the workplace. Trust is what makes companies successful, and one of the ways that many are requesting to work nowadays is from home. With the right amount of trust between manager and employee, there can be magic made.

People want freedom from the suit-wearing nine-to-five model of work and they’re getting it. As more companies realise that the attracting of top talent means relaxing with the working day, more is getting done and said talent is being retained. There are obvious advantages for the company, too, because you no longer have an office to pay for and very little in the way of overheads compared to needing to have an office for over twenty people working for you. Long commutes get ditched and this makes everyone happier, less stressed. Parents who are trying to find a balance between family time and work are more relaxed and taking less time off work, which then leads to higher productivity and more families staying together. Do you really need any more benefits listed for you? At this point, I hope not!

The bottom line is that allowing for remote work can be revolutionary for your business. Hopping on board with this idea is going to transform the way in which you do business. Remote working is more than just employee satisfaction, though. There has to be trust between employers and their staff and as with any model of working, remote work has its challenges. Here are some of them:

Technology

We have unrivalled access to technology now compared to thirty years ago, but when you’re having staff working from home, you need to be ensuring that your company software can manage the workload remotely from multiple computers in multiple locations. Agile testing metrics can help here, as you can catch bugs and issues with your software before your remote workers are affected. You also need to have security software of the best quality. Everything being remote makes the technical side of things harder, as people aren’t in house to see what the issues are. Internet outages and technology hiccups are common, but they are annoying! Always ensure your staff have a back-up laptop or plan to keep working, especially if there are deadlines to be met.

Communication

You may not have an office, but Skype training on the ways to communicate while working remotely is so important. Many companies have online platforms like Trello to work with so that project work and information can be shared. There are also community chats like Google Hangouts and work sharing programmes that can be used so that teams can stay teams – even when they’re not elbow to elbow. Remote work requires extra communication and you shouldn’t discount the need for a friendly emoji when things feel tense.

Lack Of Interaction

Being able to interpret how people will feel working remotely is difficult. Without the social camaraderie of the office, people can get pretty lonely! You can help your staff to nip cabin fever in the bud by making suggestions to work from cafes, the park – as long as they have an internet connection, they can work from anywhere. You could also put together socials for local staff so that they’re not alone. Weekly video meetings so you can use a voice and not type a message can also help.

Remote working is the future of most modern businesses now. It’s becoming more and more popular, and people are requesting the flexibility that remotely working can bring them. Do thorough research for your business before you agree to it, though, because you want to ensure that you’ve made the right choices for your staff, not the wrong ones. Do your homework and roll it out gently; you’ll see the positive difference it could make.

Things To Test When Building a Website

09/13/2018 Scott Asai1 Comment

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Website design is much more than arranging the visual elements on a page so that they look pretty, or are structured in a coherent way that leads to people being able to find what they are looking for.

There’s lots of aspects that are behind the scenes that must be tested when building a website, before making it live. To some people, this might sound boring and perhaps even unnecessary, but if you want your website to perform well then it’s good to look into the concept of automated web testing in order to ensure your website performs at the required standard.

For non-techy people, this might seem a little overwhelming, however, so let’s break down some of the things you need to test when building a website.

LOAD SPEED

The speed at which your website loads is of critical importance to success, as if it loads any slower than three seconds, it’s likely that many users will click off the page before they’ve even had chance to look at the content on your site. It’s sad but true, and whilst we like to think our content is so valuable that people will stick around and wait for it to be unveiled – the truth is, people are impatient, particularly online, and they’ll simply click off and probably not come back.

Load speed really does matter, and there are tools such as Pingdom that can help you test your load speed and diagnose what’s causing the site to perform slower than you would like it to.

DOES IT WORK ON ALL BROWSERS?

It’s important you test your site on all browsers, rather than just the one that you tend to use – people use a variety of browsers including Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox. There are many others, but as these are the main ones, it’s especially important to ensure your website loads as it should on these four.

SCREEN SIZES

A lot of people are going to access your website on their mobile device, so it’s important you make sure your website looks good on different screen sizes. In an ideal world, you want to check what it looks like on a huge screen such as an Apple TV, along with a variety of laptops, desktops (bearing in mind some are square and some are widescreen), tablets and phones.

The point being that not everyone is going to see exactly what you see on your screen, when designing your website, so you need to ensure it looks good on all devices and screen sizes. The paradigm today is that we should be designing for “mobile first” meaning, design for mobile users first and desktop users second, in part due to the massive risk in mobile marketing and usage of such devices.

EASE OF USE

The importance of user testing cannot be overstated. You want to see how people interact with your website, in terms of the clicks they make and the paths they take to reach a particular end goal. In doing this, you can assess whether your intuitive design is indeed intuitive or whether it confuses people which leads to them clicking off your site.

Ensuring Your Customer Support Stands Head And Shoulders Above The Rest

09/13/2018 Scott AsaiLeave a comment

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Your customer support department may have been established. You may have the staff dutifully answering each call. You may be present. You may have a script for your staff to follow. But none of that means you’re actually providing GOOD service, and it’s certainly not a given you have a customer support team with an excellent track record. Ensuring your customer support stands head and shoulders above the rest should be your ultimate goal. It’s amazing what customer care can do for a business. One excellent response can create a customer for life, or until they have their impressions proven wrong.

It’s not simply enough to have a customer service department. You must make it great. You can make it great. But how? Luckily for you, the advice is here:

Sorting Calls

First of all, you’ll need to ensure your company has a support management system in place. Simply opening up your landline telephone number to the public can be quite an overwhelming burden if you’re slowly growing in size. You will need a method of sorting phone calls, ideally from the use of virtual headquarters. A little tinkering, and you’ll not only be able to manage calls and place them on hold professionally, but help them find the department they need. This means you can then train your specialist staff for each department, perhaps even one or two staff attending phone calls per department in the early days. Sorting calls not only allows for a more appropriate reaching of your staff, but can be utilized as an FAQ for staff members.

Consider how banks do it. When calling a bank, after passing security you will often be greeted with many options. Before putting you through to an advisor, the automated system will often remind you of your bank balance, perhaps any outstanding issues on your accounts, or will direct you to further resources that could help them before an agent is brought into play. Utilized in your business, you may find that sorting calls allows you to reduce that flow of intense support request, which allows your staff to give longer, more personalized calls for those who truly need the help.

Multiple Options

Ensuring customers are afforded multiple means of contact can also help them find someone to talk to more appropriately, should they need it. A live chat agent could be utilized by someone who needs a response, but has a problem with less immediacy than a phone call often deals with. Email options allows a no-pressure return of aid on a timeline less expectant of you. And of course, your phone options could be for the problems that truly cannot wait. Offering all three of these options for support queries can help you sort issues raised by a matter of immediacy, helping you develop a more capable prioritization of your duties in the customer care field.

Staff Authority

Allowing your staff leeway to develop a more creative solution to an issue can help the most amount of problems become solved. It’s often incredibly infuriating for a customer to be sent from support department to support department, trying to explain their issue again and again, almost without end. This can happen in some businesses, especially if the support specialist isn’t given the tools to see the issue in the first place. This is why indexed and history-generating customer accounts can be a great boon, not only for security but to help you support specialist absorb the full scope of an issue before enacting a solution.

While allowing your staff complete free reign over the issue can mean wild conjecture and a customer being told separate things by separate people, if reigned in with a guideline and set of protocols to follow, a staff member should feel able to apply multiple methods at their discretion. For example, if an issue cannot be resolved, refunding, opening a new customer account and perhaps applying a promotion for them can help you retain a customer instead of hitting a dead wall, and sometimes that’s the most salvageable option for the business.

Relationships & Off-Script

Just like giving staff the authority to make decisions, also allowing them to form a mini-relationship with each phone call via the use of appropriate joking (if led by the caller,) and to add a little levity and caring to the conversation through staff training could help the customer experience vastly improve. No one enjoys time spent calling businesses for a support issue. With this allowance, the artificial exchange becomes a little more tolerable on both sides.

With these simple tips, your customer service support is sure to be head and shoulders above the rest in your industry.

Video Marketing Matters, But You Don’t Have To Reach Hollywood Quality Just Yet

09/12/2018 Scott Asai1 Comment

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It seems that the issue of getting your brand noticed online becomes more intricate every single day. As little as five years ago, business success on the internet was about little more than developing a decent website. Around two years ago, it became essential for every business to have pretty strong social media incentives. Most recently, we’re seeing more visual mediums coming to the fore. Instagram is forever gaining in business potential at the moment, and YouTube is entering the playing field, too.

And, it’s this latest newcomer we’ll be focusing on today. The fact is that this video streaming platform has got a lot of business owners stumped right now. While it’s changing the way we reach our audiences, it’s also draining many a profit margin. Why? Because making videos isn’t as simple as writing a status update, or even paying for a domain name. Instead, it takes both time and equipment to get right. And, given it’s a reasonably untested domain as it stands, that can cause real issues. Indeed, business owners who are spending big on their efforts here are fast finding that they don’t see any return on their investment. Thus, video marketing = lost profits for them.

But, that doesn’t mean you can cut the world of YouTube from your marketing efforts altogether. While it’s easy to spend more than you see back here, any platform is worth making the most of. All you need to do is make sure that you aren’t spending the Earth on productions fit for Hollywood. In truth, staying simple here is the key to seeing a return. And, we’ve got a few pointers to help you do just that.

Turn to an outside company

If you’re a video novice, you may find turning to an outside company like Flood Social is your best bet for success. That way, you’ll only need to worry about paying one flat fee for all your marketing needs. Thus, video needn’t cost you anything extra at all. Such companies are also skilled in finding marketing ROI. As such, they’ll continually track your returns from each platform to ensure you aren’t paying more than you get back. Even if you only use this as a short-term option, it’s a fantastic way to build an audience here without spending a fortune. A stint with an outside company can also be an excellent way to determine whether video marketing would be worth your while in the long-term. Don’t hesitate, then, to do your research and start contacting potential companies as soon as possible. The faster you jump on this growing medium, the more chance you have of being at the front of the wave.

Use what you have

Whether you use an outside company or not, there may come a time when you want to embark on video making alone. That’s fantastic news as long as you remember one essential thing; you don’t need high-end cameras to make this work. Too many companies make the mistake of thinking they’ll see high returns on efforts here. As such, they jump the guns and stock up on cameras which cost thousands. Unsurprisingly, they then have to put years into this pursuit to see any real profits from it. The thing to remember is that, while important, video marketing is a lot like a social media presence. It can create leads, but it’s only a sideline to your business. It’s a marketing effort which you should spend as little on as you can. All the better for seeing decent returns. With that in mind, then, focusing on filming what you have. iPhones are most worth a mention here. Most of us have one of these in our pockets, and they have fantastic filming capabilities. Without needing to spend a penny, then, you’ll find that you can create high-quality videos as soon as you fancy. Equally, asking around your team may reveal that you already have access to plenty of YouTube-worth cameras. Remember that you don’t need movie-quality soft focus or zoom capabilities. All you need is a decent quality picture and a reasonable sound. And, they don’t have to cost anywhere near what you would expect.

Trust basic editing equipment

There’s also a temptation to turn to complicated and expensive editing equipment to get a good finish. Again, though, this is rarely worth your time. For one, it’s another waste of good money. High-end editing equipment easily ranges into the hundreds. What’s more, complex programs can take a lot of work to understand and get right. So, you’ll increase those costs even more by having to dedicate a lot of time to editing even simple videos. Consider, instead, that there are plenty of good-value editing software programs to choose from. iMovie, for instance, comes free on the majority of Apple products. This is ideal if you’re filming on your phone, as it’ll enable you to edit on there as well. You can even use this if you’re uploading from other cameras. The easy to use interface of programs like these ensures you can edit top-quality videos in no time. You’ll undoubtedly find you and your team get the hang of something like this faster than those complex programs you were going to pay a fortune for.

Create your backdrops

Sadly, the potential expenses here don’t end there. Do you see now why so many companies overspend on this venture? An excellent looking backdrop is about as essential on a YouTube video as a hashtag is on Twitter. As such, many business owners make the mistake of spending money on video-specific studios or expensive white screens. In truth, though, you can create a perfectly good DIY backdrop for no money at all. The only thing you need is a plain white wall, and perhaps a print of your company logo. You may also want to make use of pretty office chairs, or a plant for appearance sake. But, a little thought should reveal that you have everything you need around the office already. Whatever you do, then, don’t go out spending unnecessary money on this.

Only put in what you get out

So far, we’ve focused on saving money when you start making videos. If you want to, you can keep costs down for the duration of your YouTube journey. If you see real success here, you may want to up your game by buying some of the expensive equipment we advised against. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with doing this, especially if you see decent returns. The thing to remember is that you don’t want to be in debt to your marketing campaign. It that happens, you won’t benefit from the interest you gain. To make sure that doesn’t happen, then, take time to understand how much revenue your videos bring. You can then set about only spending your profits from this field on expanding your efforts here. That way, you only spend money your work has already earnt. Doing this also ensures that your company doesn’t ultimately end up out of pocket.

A final word

No one can deny that video is the next big thing for companies. With the introduction of Instagram TV earlier this year, that only looks set to become even more the case. As with anything, though, you need to keep profits at the forefront of your mind here. Don’t spend, and keep your focus on saving. Get that right, and you’re sure to see decent success here in no time. Hollywood, here you come!

Here’s How an MBA Can Help With Personal Development

09/11/2018 Scott AsaiLeave a comment

An MBA is a great way to develop hard business and finance skills, but technical skills aren’t all you’ll learn in an MBA program. Soft skills like communication, public speaking, stage presence, writing, etiquette and confidence are just as important for success in the business world, and most MBA programs focus on helping students develop them. As you advance in your MBA studies, you’ll find that these skills become key components of your personality as you grow into a more effective leader.

You’ll Gain Credibility

Is credibility really a skill that can be cultivated? It sure is. As you attend MBA classes and learn more about the world of business and finance, you’ll gain confidence, charisma and a persuasive influence that will give you credibility in the eyes of colleagues and employers.

Just having the MBA credential will increase your credibility, because recruiters know how much work it takes to complete one of these difficult degree programs. Just the fact that you chose to do an MBA at all speaks to your work ethic, drive and ambition. You’ll come across as someone who sets, and achieves, goals for his or her career. You’ll develop your work ethic and sense of corporate responsibility, too, both of which will make you seem more credible.

You’ll Learn More About Business Etiquette

If you’ve been in the work force for a while, you likely already have some sense of proper business etiquette. You may already know how to dress, how to listen actively, how to behave at business lunches and professional meetings and how to prepare for presentations and conferences.

However, attending business school will help you hone and develop your business etiquette. For example, many online MBA programs in California and around the country offer their students study-abroad opportunities, where they’re able to travel to major cities around the world, network with business professionals from different cultures and pick up some cross-cultural understanding of business etiquette. That’s an opportunity you may not have already gotten in your professional life. You’ll also have the chance to develop your interview skills, learn how to ask the right questions in a conversation and improve your business email etiquette.

You’ll Become a Better Communicator

Communication skills are so important in business, whether you’re giving a presentation, writing an email or congratulating Tom from accounting on the birth of his new baby. MBA programs are excellent at helping students grow their communication skills, especially since they expect students to carry themselves as managers and leaders from day one.

In your MBA program, you’ll learn stage presence and public speaking skills from classroom presentations and, later, from giving presentations during corporate consulting projects. You’ll learn how to modulate your voice and practice your gestures to become a more effective presenter. You’ll also attend writing workshops that will help you develop your written communication skills – and taking classes online will help with this, too, as writing will most likely be your primary method of communicating with classmates and professors.

Of course, you’ll also learn collaboration and negotiation skills. Even online MBAs place a lot of emphasis on learning to work well with others, and you’ll become extremely familiar with communications technology if you go the online route. You’ll also develop the ability to present strong arguments in negotiations with employers, vendors and clients.

You’ll Cultivate Excellent Time Management Skills

Just about any graduate school program will teach you time management skills, because almost all of them are extremely rigorous. In an MBA program, you’ll be on a tight schedule to prepare, present, and submit assignments, and deadlines will be non-negotiable. By the time you’ve finished with your program, you’ll have great self-discipline and rock-solid time management skills. You’ll also learn the fine art of prioritizing, whether it’s to decide which assignment to work on first, or which events and electives to participate in versus which to leave out of your busy schedule.

Earning an MBA is a great path to a higher salary and a better career, but it’s also a means of deep and meaningful personal development. You won’t be the same person on graduation day that you were on the first day of class – and that’s a good thing because the person you’ll become will be a better, smarter, more confident and knowledgeable you.