Category: business coach

Never Let Your Business’s Security Fall By The Wayside

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As a business owner, there are a lot of responsibilities on your shoulders. You need to be sure that you’re taking care of your employees, that your products are as high quality as possible, that you’re marketing your business effectively, as well as dozens of other things. However, there’s one thing that is incredibly important, and yet it still tends to get ignored by far too many businesses. That thing is security. Of course, in a perfect world, security wouldn’t be something that you needed to think about all that often but that’s simply not the world that we live in. With that in mind, here are some ways to make sure that your business is just a little bit more secure.

Physical security

The office is usually the central hub of any business, and because of that, it’s crucial that you take as many security precautions as possible. Fortunately, advances in technology have made it so that it’s far easier to make your office impenetrable than ever before. From high quality, affordable alarms to motion activated security cameras the methods by which you can deter intruders from your premises are more advanced than ever before. Of course, sometimes there really is nothing better than a big heavy lock on the front door!

Digital security

Despite how important the office is to any business, there’s no denying that most business is conducted online these days. This means that many of the attacks that are made against businesses are made online. You need to be sure that the firewall and anti-malware systems on your business’s computers are all as up to date as possible. Cybercriminals work hard every day to break through those kinds of defenses so if they’re not fully up to date, that leaves an open door for them to climb through and do some real damage to your business.

A security culture

Of course, it won’t matter how many systems, both physical and digital, if they’re not being put into practice. You need to be sure that you’re creating a culture of security in your business and that all of your employees are as aware of the way that they should be behaving as possible. This means everything from setting secure passwords to locking their computers when they’re left unattended to not discussing any sensitive information outside of work. Of course, creating this kind of culture in the workplace isn’t easy, but the best way to do it is to focus on leading by example. Security is everyone’s responsibility, even yours.

One of the most common reasons why this is something that people forget about a lot is that it’s not something that you’ll need all that often unless you’re incredibly unfortunate. Because of that, it’s easy to fall into a habit of feeling as though your security measures aren’t really necessary. Of course, the moment that you fall into that way of thinking is the moment that your business becomes truly vulnerable.

Why You Should Bring People Into Your Home Business

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If you have a home business, congratulations! The modern era is the time for people to start taking their careers into their own hands and making the moves they’ve always wanted, and it’s good you’re on this kind of path. But at the same time, it’s one of the hardest for you to walk down, especially if you’re doing so alone.

Even if all you have is a blog and you feel like you should put the reins on any expansion whilst you settle into the business reins, it’d be a good idea to bring someone else onboard to help you out. After all, you’re a beginner, and we could always use an experienced employee to both appreciate and help smooth the way into success! If that’s not enough to make you consider the investment, here’s a couple more reasons for you.

Having an employee to start early with you is going to make the morning drudge a whole lot smoother!

You’ll Be Able to Make More Important Connections

The people you bring into your business are going to have their own lives outside of you and your business, and you should put that to good use whilst you’re in your small stage. If you’ve hired someone on, explore the connections they have; they’ll be happy to be the middleman if it means your business succeeds and you’ll both make more money in the long run!

At the same time, bringing someone with connections into your home business is going to weave your company into bigger circles, often ones with people who had the same origins you do. Sticking together in a local business economy is key for making sure an area thrives after all, and that’s what everyone wants.

After All, Talent is What You Need

Talent is something everyone has, but finding someone with skills and talent relevant to your needs can be hard. When you’re a small business posting on local job boards and thinking there’s no other way for you to get a hiring process started, you’re probably not going to get the responses you want.

So it’s time to take to the wider world. The internet exists to be helpful by connecting people, so put it to good use here. Check out technology available on it such as Rolepoint, which will help you comb through referrals that are relevant to your business, and are more likely to have all the buzzwords that you’ve been scanning for on resumes for months now!

Hiring on other people to help you out is absolutely a good move for you, as long as you know you can afford someone on the payroll. Don’t worry, a lot of home businesses doubt their ability here, but building confidence for your product or service is the name of the game! Now’s the time to boost your business to the next level; it’s your time to get your home business on the map and watch it thrive with someone experienced by your side!

Ways For Influencers To Grow Their Brand and Reward Their Followers

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Blogging and social media influencing mean big business right now. And really, it is a bit of a game of give and take. As you wouldn’t be anywhere without your followers and the fact that they are interested in what you are doing or what you have to say. When you are able to get some real meaningful conversation back and forth with your following, it can be what makes it all worth it. But to get to do the things that you do, your followers are all part of it. So being able to give something back to them could be a good way to keep them engaged and to keep them following what you are doing.

So how can you reward your social followers? Here are some ideas to help inspire you. Give back to them, and it will pay off, for sure.

Discounts or Coupons

Being able to send replies or following some followers back a platform like Twitter can be one thing. But being able to give them some discounts or coupons can be something even greater (never underestimate the power that money, or perhaps money off, has). If you are a fashion influencer, for example, then being able to give them some discounts for the sites that you shop at can be a good way to give back. It will reward your followers, as well as work well for the brands and stores that you are promoting.

Personalized Items

If you were ever on social media around the time of ‘Pretty Little Liars’, then you’ll know that the cast often joined together to have t-shirts made up for their characters. They were partnered with Omaze to raise money for charity too. So you could look at doing a t-shirt mock up of something personalized, perhaps something you always say or a gym tee if you’re a fitness influencer, for example. They get the exclusive item, and you could even make a charity donation too, so they are you are giving back by getting the t-shirt. Winners all around.

Special Event Invitations

Influencers are fast becoming the new brand of celebrities, and people are just as interested to see their favorite Instagram star or YouTuber in person as they are about their favorite movie star. So don’t underestimate how much value arranging a meet up or another special event could be. It could be for a new product launch, a fundraising event, or just a general meetup. But when they get the chance to meet you, it can mean that you have loyal followers for longer, as well as demonstrates to brands just how much of an influence you can have. So it can be beneficial for you both, in a number of ways.

As a blogger or social influencer, you do have influence. So you need to use it wisely, and make a positive impact on those around you. It can not only help your followers, but help you and your brand along the way too.

4 Things Your Business Can do to Reach More Customers

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You have to try to make sure your business reaches as many customers as possible. The goal of any business should be to increase client-base and make sure you try to reach as many customers as you can. This is something that can really have an impact on the future of the company as well as any success you might have in the future.

Make sure your company is focused on bringing in as much business as possible, and try to understand that there are a lot of ways to achieve this. You need to make sure you are targeting as many customers as you possibly can because this is going to help you with more repeat custom. These are four great things your company can do to ensure you reach more customers.

Improve Your Presence Abroad

Eventually, you are going to want to make sure you increase your business presence abroad. Taking your brand international is so important, and you need to make a name for yourself as best you can. This will be a slow process, and it might need you to rebrand the company in order to achieve this. However, it is definitely possible, and there are a lot of things that you can do to achieve this.

Take Your Products Nationwide

You also need to make sure that you are spreading your shipping and delivery means across the country. You want your products to get to as many people as possible because this is going to enhance your success in the future. By joining up with trucking companies, you will be well-placed to take your products all across the country, bringing newer areas to your company, and introducing more people to your business.

Use Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways of reaching as many new customers as you possibly can. There are a lot of different marketing techniques you can use to market your business, and affiliate marketing is one of the best. This is where you get bloggers and freelancers to promote your products and services in exchange for compensation. They can use their audience to push your products and improve your presence in areas you may not have had access to before.

Giveaways

If you are serious about selling more to the right people you need to get nibbles first! The best way to do this is to make sure you utilize free stuff and giveaways. People love to get freebies, and this is one of the best ways of driving people to your brand and generating some buzz for the business. Giveaways should be used cleverly, but they are a great way of making sure you reach more customers.

These are 4 excellent things you can do to help your business reach more customers and improve as a company. You need to make sure you keep the customer in the front of your mind, and the more you can do to focus on this, the better you set yourself up for the possibility of success in the future.

Keeping Your Employees Safe & Sound

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No matter what kind of business you run, you need to make sure that you are doing everything in your power to keep them as safe as possible while in the workplace. This is important for a number of reasons. Of course, in one respect it is important because you need to make sure that you are keeping your business legally and morally above board. But It goes far beyond that. Any good employer should care about the wellbeing of their staff genuinely, and as long as you do you can be sure that you will be respected all the more as well. You should also think about the fact that it will make for a much better workplace on the whole, and a more cohesive team unit. In this article, we are going to look at some of the essentials to keeping your employees safe and sound in the workplace, whatever that workplace might be.

Adhering To The Law

There are always going to be specific laws for your industry, line of business, and more general laws which you need to abide by. Adhering to these rules is essential for a number of reasons, and the most important is that they are designed to keep people as safe as possible while at work. Even if there are a couple of these laws which you feel are not entirely sensible or you find to be ridiculous, it’s important to make sure that you are adhering to them ,if only to stop you form getting into trouble. You should be doing everything you can to keep people safe, and that includes abiding by all rules which apply – and then going above and beyond as well.

Using Tech

One of the great ways to keep your employees much safer in the workplace is to make use of whatever tech might be available to do so. You might be surprised at how much there is to consider here, and one of the most important is the use of special software to ensure that you are doing whatever you can to keep people safe. This safety management software will help you to keep above board in terms of health and safety, and it will also mean that you are able to keep records of whether or not you’re doing what you should be doing by law. It is important to make use of this whenever you feel it is necessary, as it can make all the difference in the world.

Championing

By having one person to champion health and safety in the workplace you actually do much to increase its apparent importance in the workplace. You might be surprised at what a difference this can make. It’s definitely worth considering, but do try to make usr that you actually choose the right people – in other words someone who is going to take it seriously and who is passionate about it as well. Get that choice right and it could make a huge difference.

High Profits And Low Overheads: Here’s How To Achieve Them (And Why They Matter)

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Why do high profits and low overheads matter so much when you are running a business? Well, it because all your money comes from the same pot. That means if you can reduce the outgoing costs while raising what is coming in, you are bound for business success. Luckily, you can get some smart tips on how to do this in the post below. Read on to find out more.

Raise profits – effective marketing

One way in which you can raise the profits of your business is to improve your marketing strategy. After all, no one can buy your product if they don’t know what you are offering. Luckily, this is something that is pretty simple to do, especially online.

For example, it may be worth your while to create an app that customers can download for free, that allows them to make purchases, and check stock easily. Alternatively, you may choose to spend your marketing budget on a bespoke website that cleverly funnels customers to the right level of engagement when they visit.

Lastly, don’t forget the value of entertainment in today’s digital world and that it can help get your brand name out there. In particular, don’t be afraid to use videos and even gamification of certain aspects of your marketing campaign to engage your clients.

Lower overheads – tax

Next, to get a hold on those overheads that you are paying out be sure to deal with your tax effectively. Firstly, it’s worth knowing that by getting your company formation correct and setting yourself up as a limited business, you can shift the tax responsibility from your own personal account to that of the organization, something that means there will be less of a financial strain on you.

Also, by making an effort to accurately fill in your expenses that can be written off the total taxable amount you can save money,  as well as ensure that you are not picked for an audit.

Raise profits – sell online

Another way to boost profits in your business is to take advantage of all the online selling opportunities that are out there. Many companies do this by having their online shop setup, although it is also possible to use others ecommerce platforms as well.

There are even ways to embed products and links to your store directly into social media, so don’t be afraid to play around with different options to see which matches you target demographic the best.

Lower overheads – rent don’t buy

Lastly, a fantastic way of lowering those overheads is to rent items that you need for your business instead of buying them outright. Luckily, this is something that can be done pretty easily with companies out there offering everything from IT to office furniture, to vehicles for rent.

Of course, by leasing equipment rather than buying it you are freed from the financial burden of having to find the entire cost of the items outright. You also get the added advantage of being able to upgrade and so retain your competitive edge, while still ensuring your overheads as low as possible.

How Call Tracking Can Help Improve Your Long Term Profits

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How Call Tracking Can Help Improve Your Long Term Profits

Business come up with all sorts of new technologies and innovation in order to meet customer demands and introduce new improvements in their respective industries. If your brand is invested in lasting long in your niche, you’re most likely going to seek ways to improve your long term profits. In this regard, chances are high you’ve most likely heard of call tracking – but given how it can be a new concept for your business, this can confuse you for the first time. How can call tracking make an impact to your earnings? Fret not, however, as this article elaborates on how call tracking can help improve your long term profits.

In fact, companies have begun to rely on call tracking more perhaps due to how calls still make a huge impact in the sales process. For instance, 60-percent of buyers also want to discuss pricing as early as the first call, and even 50-percent of prospects want to see how a company’s product works. Applying call tracking strategies as early as this stage can greatly help improve connectivity with customers. Here are other ways call tracking can enhance your long term profits:

Determine Your Numbers Better

Perhaps one of the best ways call tracking can help improve your long term profits is how implementing call tracking can actually give you better ways to determine various essential “numbers.” In the world of business, it’s not always about profit – but rather, it’s how you use data in order to improve your profits. Call tracking systems give you such an opportunity:

  • Track your returns much better: Call tracking is capable of gathering various kinds of information to help you determine what returns you’re getting from various campaigns. The unique numbers assigned to each campaign channel, for instance, helps you determine what ads produce the most profit by assessing various aspects of your calls.
  • Get more specific data: Call tracking allows you to determine more than just plain call numbers and sources alone. For instance, call tracking allows you to record just exactly when calls to your business are made. This means you can potentially pinpoint exactly what time of day and what day of the week do you get your most calls, which can help you schedule better hours for your staff.
  • Assess marketing channels: Aside from sales themselves, you can actually determine the efficiency of various marketing channels such as internet marketing, and even your SEO through call tracking services such as Fone Dynamics. You can collect information regarding your keywords and pay-per-click marketing efforts to see just how they resonate with your customers.

Improve Your Overall Operations

Call tracking is built to be integrated with the rest of your operations, as it’s primarily used to help augment various aspects of your work processes. As such, call tracking can actually help optimize various aspects of the workplace when used correctly:

  • Make better decisions: Call tracking software allows you to receive reports with all kinds of information regarding your callers, including number of calls, call lengths, and even sources. Most services allow you to access these kinds of information in real time.
  • Forward calls more efficiently: It can be get frustrating if you find yourself calling a business and then finding out you’re speaking to the wrong person. Call tracking can specifically be fine-tuned to lead directly to where callers want to call, because they’re most likely going to call a number based on a specific assigned pairing.
  • Manage staff better: If you’re using a lot of staff to handle calls, such as in a call center, call tracking can greatly help you manage them better as you have options to record calls and additional information. This can be used for training purposes and assisting them in terms of closing more deals.

The Bottomline: Call Tracking For Long Term Improvement, Profits

If there’s anything to take from the above, it’s that call tracking has a lot of potential to rake in huge returns of revenue provided you know how to best integrate your call tracking service into your work systems. Like any other work tool, call tracking will not bring profits by itself, but rather coordinate with other strategies in order to help you make smarter assessments towards your niche and your market. If you want to start using call tracking in your business, the tips above would hopefully help you have a bird’s eye view of the things to expect from call tracking and how it can help improve your long term profits.

John Taylor

John is a long-time professional with over two decades of experience in analytics and communications technology. He works as the Senior Data Analyst at Fone Dynamics, a leader in call tracking, voice, and SMS communication. When John steps out of the office, he loves to spend time with his family and bike riding.

3 Reasons Sales Have Dropped On Your Ecommerce Site

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Whatever business you’re in, your sales are always going to go up and down a little bit, but if you suddenly experience a big drop in sales, it can land you in some trouble. This is a particular problem with ecommerce, mainly because customers have so many other choices and so even the smallest problem will cause a dip in sales. It’s incredibly frustrating when things have been going great for a long while and all of a sudden, sales drop off and you can’t get things going again. Often, there is a reason why sales are falling and understanding what the root cause of it is is the best way to make sure that it’s only a temporary drop and you start making money again. These are the reasons that your ecommerce sales have dipped and what you can do about it.

Seasonal Changes

One thing that people don’t often consider are seasonal changes. The impact of seasonal changes depends on the type of products you sell and some businesses are fairly immune to it. But if you’re selling products that are seasonal, you have to be prepared for a drop in sales during certain months. For example, if your business sells sunglasses, you’re going to see a dip in sales during the winter months. You’ve got a couple of options here; firstly, you can broaden the scope of your products and start offering something that there is a need for all year around. Secondly, you need to be prepared for that drop in revenue. During the busier months, you need to be careful with your spending and make sure that you’ve got plenty of cash set aside so when sales to tail off, you can still cover all of your running costs until things pick up again.

A Bad Checkout Process

Cart abandonment is the biggest challenges that ecommerce companies face; in some industries, around 70 percent of people will leave a site without completing checkout. Often, this is because the checkout process is bad. If customers have to go through loads of pages, filling out extensive forms with all of their information, they can quickly get bored and decide to just leave it. That’s why it’s so important that you make it as simple as possible for the customer. If you’re struggling, find a company that offers ecommerce technology solutions to help you streamline your checkout page and convert more of those visitors into sales.

Slow Loading Times

This is a big problem for a lot of companies. Consumers are impatient and if they have to wait for ages for a page to load, they won’t bother and they’ll go elsewhere. This often happens because, when you start out, you’ve got the capacity to handle the amount of visitors you’re getting. But once you start to get more people coming to the site, things start to run a lot slower. You need to make sure you’re updating your servers regularly so customers aren’t dealing with a slow loading website.

These are the 3 most common reasons that you might see a drop in sales, but the good news is, they’re all easily solved.

Taking The Next Step Into Management: Industries And Tips To Thrive

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Sometimes it can be hard to think about developing your career and you can be guilty of getting stuck in a rut. You can be become comfortable with your chosen job, perhaps happy and content with the wages that you earn or even the lifestyle you can afford, but these shouldn’t be the reasons why you wouldn’t want to progress. There is so much more that you could have and management could help you afford that lifestyle like extra holidays or luxuries in life. So I thought I would share with you some of the industries where you can step into management roles and how best to make that happen.

The engineering industry

Maybe you are currently working in the engineering industry. Perhaps out on construction sites, in factories or on the shop floor. There tends to be a direct route when it comes to the career path and management can often be the ideal next step to take. It does, however, mean that you need to think about things like taking a masters in engineering management online to help you learn the necessary skills to progress in this way. It could certainly give you the edge against other potential candidates and it could help you secure the job easier.

The sales environment

Working in sales can give you a real buzz, and so it’s understandable that if you have begun to thrive in your sales environment that you may be looking for the next step. A chance to further increase your earning potential while progressing with your career and management can be a great way to do that. However, to progress into management you do need to have a consistent track record in sales. You need to be able to perform so that you have the respect to lead others in the same way.

The office environment

Perhaps you are currently working in an office. Maybe you work in administration or accounts, and you are looking for the next step. Ideally there will be some form of office manager in place. This could be your next move. Shadowing this manager and taking on any extra courses to learn new skills could help. This alongside taking on additional responsibility could show that you are ready for the next move.

Working for yourself

Finally, could working for yourself be the answer? So many people have the dream of being their own boss and yet many of them don’t have the tenacity to make it happen. You could make it happen. It might be that you already have a hobby that could be turned into a business. You may have had an idea that just won’t go away. Or you might just have skills that could be easily freelanced to help you kick start your own business. Whatever it it, it could be the key to your own success and becoming the manager of your own destiny when it comes to your career.

I hope that this has motivated you to consider the next step you could take with your career.

Employee Mistakes: Reaction Dos & Don’ts

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No matter how hard you try to prevent it, your employees will make mistakes. Even in the most constructive and supportive environments, employees will get something wrong, make a miscalculation, lose something, or otherwise cause an issue— it’s inevitable.

Given this inevitability, it’s important that you, as a business owner, learn how to react when these mistakes occur. Below, you will find a list of essential “dos” and “don’ts” to keep in mind when responding to a genuinely accidental error committed by a member of your team. Keep these in mind, and you should be able to respond appropriately to every employee-related glitch that your business experiences…

DO: Focus on damage limitation

The first thing you need to do when informed of a mistake is ask for information. There are four primary questions you need to either ask of your staff, or get them to ask of themselves.

  • What happened?
  • Why did it happen?

You then need to find the answers to the following; either through working the solutions yourself, or instructing employees to do it on your behalf.

  • What are the consequences of the mistake?
  • How can these consequences be handled?

Going through these questions should be the first thing you do, even before you speak with the employee who made the mistake. It’s vital you fix the issue, and then you can move on to dealing with the existence of the issue in the first place.

DON’T: Lose your temper

Of course, this is easier said than done. If an employee has accidentally offended a customer, lost a vital document, or misunderstood a task they were asked to complete, you’re going to feel a surge of stress as you try to cope with their error. When stressed, it’s more likely that your temper will flare.

This, however, is incredibly counterproductive. When it comes to speaking to your employee, do all that you can to keep you temper in check. There’s a few strategies to help you achieve this here.

DO: Look into how such an error can be prevented in the future

It’s always worth asking the employee in question how they think the problem could have been avoided. The answers will vary depending on the issue. If a customer has been offended accidentally, then sensitivity training might be beneficial; the loss of a vital file could be prevented with document automation software; and a misunderstood task could be briefed better in future. Walk through what happened with the employee, then strategize as to what kind of fix might be most appropriate.

DON’T: Punish someone for a genuine accident

It’s important to try and keep a sense of perspective. If the mistake has been made through a genuine accident rather than neglect or incompetence, then don’t be too hard on the employee. Mistakes are, as discussed, inevitable, so bear this in mind if you’re tempted to issue harsh disciplinary issues.

DO:  Discipline for serious errors

If the mistake has been made through a lack of judgement, neglect, or other direct fault, then discipline as you see fit. You don’t have to just accept a poor work attitude from an employee, so use this error as a teachable moment that should ultimately encourage them to mend their ways.

In conclusion

If you keep the above in mind, you can be sure that you will be able to effectively cope with all employee mistakes.