Author: Nibletz Staff

There is every chance there’s a whole world of information out there that you’re not currently making the most of. In an age where there’s more data available than ever before, in details and quantities that in the pre-internet age would be unthinkable, every company should be using the data available to them to determine where they’re going and how they’re going to get there. It’s simply a smart way to use your time.

Finding the Right People

You don’t want everyone to come to your business. If you had a store and the whole town paid you a visit then that’d be great, but wouldn’t it be better if your employees were interacting with people who might actually give you business. With the right data, you can establish where you should be focusing your energies. If you were in the hospitality business, then timeshare owner leads would give you a concentrated collection of people who might use your service. Similarly, a home contractor would benefit from a list of new homeowners. Don’t go after everybody; go after the worthwhile ones.

Honing In

Data has a whole bunch of purposes, from finding new leads to reaffirming your relationships with your existing customers. It tells you how how they spend their money, how much they’re earning, their typical goals, and so on. It’s not just enough to have the data, however: you need to also analyse what you have and determine how it applies to your business. By doing that, you’ll naturally find a path you should be taking. It can also help you determine how much you should be charging and what kind of promotions you should be having – and when you should be having them.

And for the Employees

Data doesn’t just have the potential to boost your revenue – it can also boost your productivity. You can bring big data to your workplace to monitor how effectively your employees are working, where they’re falling short and the areas they’re doing well in. As a company looking to move forward, knowing exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are will enable you to make better use of your time. You might also find that you’re spending too much time having meetings, or not enough time discussing plans for the future. Whatever it is, it’ll all help, though only if you pay attention to what the data says!

Other Factors

You should be monitoring just about everything to do with your business. For instance, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be keeping tabs on your website – how it’s used, how many people visit, where they click, and so forth. This will help you to develop your website as you move forward, getting rid of certain pages and adding other features. You can also establish from where on the internet your internet visitors come from. How many come through search engines, and how many through your newsletters and so forth? Find this out and you’ll know which areas of your marketing tactics need more work.

Something that we all have to do in life is learn how to deal with rejection. Whether it’s on a personal or professional level, getting rejected isn’t much fun. Of course, it’s how you handle that rejection that helps to strengthen your personality.

When you run a new business, it’s likely that your startup will face such negativity from day one. You might get rejected for a loan, for example. Or, you might find that some of your target audience aren’t interested in what you have to offer. If your startup is struggling with rejection, it’s time to step back and find out where you are going wrong!

In today’s post, I will share with you some proven strategies for dealing with rejection. They are actually quite simple things to follow, and you’ll wonder why you never thought of them in the first place!

Find out why you’ve been rejected

When it comes to selling stuff, startups will need to learn how to deal with a “no” response on a regular basis. But, did you know that it’s possible to turn around such replies so that you get a better conclusion?

Prospective customers will tell you they aren’t interested in what you’re selling for a variety of reasons. Usually, they fall into one of these categories:

• They can’t afford what you are selling right now;
• They don’t understand your products or services;
• They aren’t convinced your offerings can solve their problems.

It’s crucial that you can interpret the reason why they said no. And don’t forget that you CAN just ask your customers for the reason why! For a start, you’ll get a clearer reason for their rejection (and you can turn it around). And, second, you’ll gain some valuable feedback.

Learning the reasons for rejection will help you improve your sales closing techniques. If you don’t master such a fundamental sales skill, your startup could be at risk of failing.

Analyze your sales pitch

You might have something amazing to offer your target audience, and you’re sure what your startup offers will sell at a rapid pace. What happens if, in reality, you have little take-up of your products and services?

To find out the answer, you should take a look at your sales pitch. In other words, scrutinize how you sell your products. Is your communication not strong enough or clear? Do your prospects feel intimidated by your pitch?

They say that “practice makes perfect,” and nothing could be truer with your startup’s sales pitch! Find some willing test subjects and pitch what you’re selling to them. You’ll gain an insight into the good (and bad) points of your pitch so that you can refine how you sell.

Make sure you are selling via the right channels

It’s no secret that most companies use a variety of channels to promote their products and services. Still, that doesn’t mean your startup should use just one (or ALL of them)! For instance, if you sell digital services, selling online is the best channel. If you offer something to a niche audience, a more direct approach might be needed.

Thanks for reading; I hope it’s given you some food for thought!

If you’re a startup that’s serious about succeeding, you’ve probably done hours and hours of research. With hours and hours of research, you’ve probably stumbled across the term SEO. Search engine optimization is absolutely imperative for making sure you offer the best experience to customers, and the search engines are able to index your site and present it to people who are looking for what you offer. Make sure you never forget these things about SEO if you want to be successful!

SEO Is Always Changing

SEO is constantly updating to offer a better user experience to those looking for products and services. A search engine has something called an ‘algorithm’ which is basically the ‘rules’ it is using to help rank and sort through different sites. These algorithms are always being tweaked to offer a better, more authentic experience.

You might remember a time when SEO was more about tricking the search engines into ranking sites in the top few spots, even if the site was spammy and unhelpful. As the algorithms have improved to make sure these sites aren’t able to manipulate them, people have been forced to improve their sites and SEO strategies. This is why taking the time to get genuine, long-term results is so much better than trying to rush results by being spammy and doing shady things.

There are always updates and posts about algorithm changes, and they all have funny names too – e.g. Panda and Penguin. By understanding the basics and staying up to date with these changes, you can make sure your strategy keeps up too.

SEO Is An Investment

SEO is truly an investment, so make sure you look at it that way. No, it isn’t compulsory. There’s no business legislation out there that says you have to have it. However, you should see it as compulsory. It’s an investment because you won’t see results right away. You just have to trust that they are coming.

Sure, you could spend hours and hours researching, and attempting to come up with a strategy yourself. However, you have to keep on top of it and continue to spend time on it. This means you have less time to do what you set out to do in business. You have less time to work on growing your business. That’s why you should look into a professional to help you. Make sure you’re not only considering how much you have to dedicate to SEO, but what this person offers too. They should be transparent – some SEO professionals may try to confuse you with fancy lingo. They should also be able to give you examples of what they’ve done for other people. Reading reviews and testimonials from others is a bonus too. Make sure you choose who you will invest in wisely!

SEO Is Mostly About The Visitor Experience

As mentioned before, SEO used to be about manipulating the search engines, but this doesn’t fly in this day and age. SEO is now about the visitor experience. You need to make sure that your site is easy to navigate, has all of the relevant information on it, and looks great. You must consider your visitor in everything you do. This is what will eventually drive them to buy and come back at a later time. Here you can find 4 Tips for Learning How To Optimize Images For SEO to make sure you get that right. Posts with images get 94% more views than those without, and search engines can use your images to help rank your page. Make sure you’re using images not only for the visitor, but for the search engines too.

SEO Goes Hand In Hand With Social Media

You probably know just how important social media is too. SEO goes hand in hand with social media. Search engines tend to rank social media profiles based on how important they think they are, and ensuring you are consistent with your social media campaigns you can get incredible results. It’s great for local SEO too. Review sites like Yelp are super helpful to people who are thinking of working with you, and you can also ask for reviews on Facebook. Just remember; it’s never worth paying somebody to get hundreds of fake reviews for you. You can see right through these, and you may have to start all over again eventually. Instead, offer an amazing product/service and the positive reviews should roll in by themselves.

Don’t forget these things about SEO and your startup should get off to a flying start!

It can be easy to get into relaxation mode once you’ve gotten out of the startup phase of your business. You’ve tasted success now. And, it feels as though it will be smooth sailing from here. But, this is rarely the case. In fact, you’ve probably got more work to do now than ever. And, this time can be extremely important to a young business. Growth is very important. But, you need to be growing in the right way. Otherwise, you could face some issues. To help you out, this post will be going through some of the important things to consider at this time.

Once a business has had some success, it’s important for it to grow. Growth enables a company to reach out and serve more customers; ultimately, enabling them to make more money. Of course, it can be hard to know what you need to do during this stage. One of the most important things you need for your growth will be employees. They will make it easier for your business to handle more work. To get the ball rolling, have a look at a new hire checklist. And, make sure that you’re ready to handle the job. You have more to think about, as well. So, you need to be doing plenty of research. You also need to consider the time that you begin your growth very carefully.

A lot of companies hold off on their growth because it feels too early to be doing it. But, this can make your life very hard. By the time that you get round to raising your capacity, you’ll probably already be experiencing issues completing all of the work that you have. In this case, you’ll be losing money, because you’ll have to be turning down customers. By the time you grow, those customers probably won’t be looking for your services anymore. So, you won’t be able to get them back. In the long run, this can mean that you don’t manage to grow much further at all. Or, it may mean that you end up having stop business altogether.

Growing too early can be just as bad as starting the process too late. In this case, hiring staff or getting more space before you’re ready will mean that you can’t afford to do the work. This sort of thing can occur with a business when they have a sudden uptake of customers. They get excited about the new business and assume it’s enough to make some changes. But, the uptake may not last long. So, in the future, you might not be able to afford the growth of your business. In this case, it will be hard for you to shrink back down. Instead, most businesses in this position end up having to shut down their operations.

Hopefully, this won’t scare you out of the idea of business. Sometimes, it’s best to be realistic about these things. With the correct help and guidance, you’ll be able to complete the journey without a hitch. But, you also need to do plenty of research yourself.

Employees can be one of the greatest strengths of the business. However, they can also be a big vulnerability. In most cases, you’re going to be able to solve the little problems they bring with them by helping them better tackle their workload and ensuring their needs, such as the need for a safe environment, are met. But when problem employees come along, it can be a touch more difficult.

Give them a chance to mend their ways

Even if you are completely justified, getting rid of someone can sometimes impact the rest of the business in a negative way. That’s why, in most cases, you should give employees a chance to grow from their mistakes, recognize where they’ve gone wrong and focus on positively reinforcing the right behaviour. Of course, in instances where they are harmful to the work environment, such as being involved in harassment or bullying, team morale is better boosted by protecting the rest of the team from that presence.

Have a policy

A good HR policy is going to be able to shut down a lot of the trouble that a problem employee can bring to the business. It’s a good idea to get HR specialists on board to make sure you’re finding the most compliant and sensitive means to allow employees to formally lodge complaints, as well as the best process for addressing the issue with said problem employee. One of the most crucial aspects of an HR policy is that anyone dealing with complaints, disciplinary measures, termination and the like need to diligently document every part of the process.

Protecting the business

That documentation is going to serve as proof that you’ve done everything you could have to make any action against an employee fair. That’s necessary, because legal action from disgruntled employees, trying to prove unfair dismissal or other legal infringements on your end, aren’t too uncommon. That’s why it’s always a good idea to keep a legal team like Pearce Webster Dugdales in your contact book. The right legal team won’t only protect you in the courtroom, but often they can communicate with the complainant in much clearer terms that can often lead to cases being settled on if not dropped entirely. But it’s a good idea to have that aforementioned documentation ready as your legal team’s greatest weapon.

Keep them happy

When you have to let employees go, it doesn’t always have to be a huge bust-up, of course. Many companies go out of their way to help those employees transition in a way that keeps both sides pacified, if not happy. For one, you can offer them a temporary contracting position that allows them to get paid to take care of their duties while you look for a replacement and they look for a new job. You can offer office space as part of an outplacement deal to help them find employment, not to mention access to good recruitment agencies.

A disgruntled employee making a big exit can be damaging to team morale, so you need to make sure you’re looking after the rest of team even better for a while. While prevention is the best cure, you have to be ready for some fallout.

Getting finance for your startup can be a daunting task, especially if you know that you’ve got a significant need for capital. But many startups, even those financed by vast amounts of venture capital, can run into problems if their burn rate is too high and they’re not making any significant money.

If you want a startup that lasts, you need to get to grips with your finances. Here are some words of wisdom to avoid debt from crushing your startup before it’s even gotten off the ground.

Source Minimally

Many small business owners operate under the assumption that the need the best of everything when they start up. For instance, they need the best office furniture and the best computers to make their business run how they want it to. But it turns out that this strategy usually ends in disaster. A lot of the equipment you though you’d need just winds up going unused, sitting in the back room, not doing much at all. A much better strategy – and one that will reduce your burn rate – is to only buy office equipment as and when you need it.

Get Flexible Finance

Another way that startups get crushed by debt is when their credit lines are non-negotiable. Often, startups will be making money, but they’ll be “cash poor” meaning that they aren’t getting money in fast enough to cover their loans. In some cases, even though the business is viable, it can end up going under, simply because it isn’t able to make payments in the short term because of its loan repayment schedule.

Suppose, for instance, your company had been promised a million dollars worth of business by another firm, but that money would only arrive in dribs and drabs over the following year. Now imagine that same startup has very little cash on hand to remain in operation. Rigid lenders could send that company out of business if they demand payment today and prevent the company paying its staff or suppliers.

This is why Colbeck Capital, an investment firm, recommends that startups choose loans with in-built flexibility. Flexible loans provide relief when it is most needed, allowing startups to restore their cash flow and continue in business.

Look For Bartering Opportunities

When cash is tight, it really matters. So it’s a good idea, where possible, to look for opportunities to barter and skip out cash entirely. For instance, perhaps you could trade internet access with a neighboring firm to use their car parking space or storage facilities.

Buy Used Equipment

According to estimates from Epic Launch, second-hand office equipment can be up to 75 percent cheaper than buying it brand new. Sometimes these items of furniture will be a bit beaten up, but that doesn’t matter, so long as only employees of your firm see them.

If you’re worried about what clients think, don’t go to the expense of making your office look super swanky. Instead, hire out meeting rooms in a separate office at a much lower cost.