Author: Nibletz Staff

Streamline Your Processes

If you want to save time at work, you need to figure out where exactly you can get that time. Often, refining processes that are already going on in your office can help you get a few minutes back. For example, try holding meetings where you’re all standing up – it’s been proven that they don’t last as long. You could also think about how many people have to approve each thing that more junior employees do. Consider changing the hierarchy and giving them more of your trust and therefore more responsibilities so fewer people have to sign off on their work.

Trust Your Staff

A lot of people advise that if you want to save time at work, you should ask your staff to fill in timesheets so you can see where exactly they’re using their time and what they’re doing almost every minute of the day. However, timesheets are not something that many trusting bosses would ask their staff to fill in – on the contrary, make sure that you give your employees regular breaks so that they feel refreshed and enthusiastic about coming to work. Lethargy and monotony are much worse for productivity in the workplace than a few breaks. Trying to monitor your staff too closely will ruin your relationships with them and their loyalty to your company in the end.

Update Your Technology

It’s important to remember that technology keeps changing all the time and a lot of the new technology that’s produced can help you to save time. If you’re not completely sure about what you need, it’s a good idea to talk to an IT services company that can help you decide what exactly is right for your business.

Close Your Emails

When you’re doing a task that you really want to focus on, have you ever considered closing down Outlook for an hour or so and fully focusing on the task at hand instead? It’s so easy to get distracted by other tasks if you can constantly see new emails pinging into your inbox in the corner of your screen and in the end you might just find that each task takes you longer than it needs to. Make sure that someone else monitors the company’s social media in that time.

Go Paperless

If you really want to shave some extra time off your work day, why not consider going paperless? It’ll dramatically reduce the time that you and everyone else you work with spends standing at the printer wondering why it won’t work – and it’ll also be a whole lot easier to find documents you need. It’s a lot quicker to search through documents on your computer than a huge filing cabinet full of paper, after all.

Prioritize Your Work

Most of all, it’s important to assign each piece of work that you have to do a different priority level – do you need to do it immediately? Make sure that you focus on the critically important and immediate tasks first before moving onto the other ones.

Productivity is essential in any workplace. Unfortunately, there could be some common mistakes holding your company back. You must therefore take steps to identify the issues so your business can move forward, and here are some informative tips to help you do just that.

Failing to Prepare for the Worst

The saying prevention is better than cure remains accurate. Any successful business wanting to survive in a fast-paced industry will quickly realise that they must not only have a plan, but a backup plan, too.

If you fail to prepare for the worst, your business may fail to reach its potential. The thought of a problem arising within the company probably makes your stomach churn, but they can happen, so you must be prepared for the worst, whether it is a marketing mishap or a clogged drain in the staff toilets. So, create a company policy, find the best plumbers and flood cleanup crews in your area, and ensure you always have a plan B. It will make working life so much easier.

Retaining the Wrong Employee

There will come a time when you hire the wrong person for your company. They may not have the right attitude, are unable to fill the brief or are simply insubordinate. You will, however, be required to decide on their future with the business.

While it is important to sometimes provide your staff with a little leeway, this should never come at the cost of your company’s operations. Continuing to employ a poor performing member of staff will not only slow your company down, but it could set a precedence for other members of staff, who believe it’s okay for them to turn up late, procrastinate or come into work with a negative attitude.

Not Preserving Talent

While it is important to cut poor performing team members, you should also strive to preserve your talent. If you have a standout team player who produces great work on time to a high standard, you must reward their hard work and efforts through career progression, pay rises or a more flexible working life. If someone is helping your company to grow, give them an opportunity to grow with you – or they will go elsewhere.

Creating a Dull Environment

Boring beige walls, too many rules and little interaction will only create a dull and stifled working environment. To provide a productive, creative and enjoyable place to work, you should aim to offer a more welcoming workplace, which could include changing the office layout, painting the walls in bold colours and featuring a hangout space for people to take a break from their desk to relax and destress.

Going Off Brand

The worst thing your company can do is lose its tone of voice, because this can make or break your business. You must strive to maintain the same personality and image your customers or clients have come to expect from you; otherwise, you will appear unprofessional and customers will turn to your competitors.

Your staff are going to be one of the most important assets your company has at its disposal, so obviously you want to make sure you’re hiring the best talent available. These are the people who will make every little task at your business happen, and have a considerable influence on your company culture. Here’s some of our best advice for hitting that first recruitment drive on the head…

Make them Want the Job

The first thing you need to do is give prime prospective employees a good reason to apply for the job you’re advertising. Seen as you’ve only just started your business, you’re probably going to be strained in terms of the finances you can throw around. However, the real assets will have a pretty clear idea of what they’re worth, and probably won’t want to work for the kind of salary you’re able to offer them. With this in mind, you need to put a unique spin on the openings you’re advertising, and make your company somehow more attractive than the industry giants you’re up against. Recruitment consultancies that specialise in a particular industry, such as Portfolio Credit Control, may be able to offer some great insights here. Whatever resources you use, you’re going to need to have something up your sleeve to attract the top talent.

Don’t Settle

Of course, no matter how attractive you’re able to make your brand, you’re probably not going to get the kind of experts you’d ideally want right of the bat. However, that doesn’t mean that you should settle for substandard talent! If you wind up hiring a whole workforce full of mediocre or even incompetent workers, then it will cripple your business’s efficiency and start to drain your valuable resources. This, in turn, can lead to a strenuous and expensive round of layoffs. From sorting through those initial applications all the way to the final interview, you need to have some firm, non-negotiable criteria that you’re going to use for each individual position. It’s only when you’re truly desperate for employees that you should sacrifice the kind of standards you’re setting for your recruitment drive. It’s better to have a company staffed by poor-quality workers than no company at all!

Look in the Right Places

Directing your job postings at people is a tentative balancing act. You need to make sure that it’s far-reaching enough for you to get a decent selection, but small enough for you to separate the wheat from the chaff quickly. If you put an ad on Gumtree or a site that’s equally universal, then you’ll get a massive influx of applications. This may sound pretty good on the surface, but it will mean that there’s a lot more work involved in sorting through those candidates and finding the real diamonds in the rough. Use more targeted platforms in order to dangle your postings on a smaller pool of candidates. LinkedIn has proven to be great for this, but there are a range of other job boards focused on specific industries and niches.

If you are a creative person then there is quite a good chance that in any form of you work you have done or do, then you have been able to – or advised to – utilise your skills in order to benefit the company or the job you are doing. For example, if you are a talented illustrator and work within the hospitality trade, then you could be asked to design artwork for advertisements to promote the business or might be asked to doodle some quirky designs on a promotions board. If you are a talented writer, and work within the care sector, then you could be asked to write copy which outlines what the business does in a unique and promotional way.

However, if you feel your creativity is not being used to its full potential in whatever job you are doing, and feel that now is the time to really push your creativity, then starting up your own creative business may be a viable outlet for you. When thinking about starting up your creative business, though, there are plenty of things to think about and it is not as simple as registering your company, renting office space and earning money immediately from clients. You will really need to think about whether your business is an option for you – in financial situations, relationships and time commitments. Owning your own business can take up a lot of your time and you will be required to work a lot of hours – but if it is something you really want to do, then working extra hours will be a pleasure.

When setting up a business, you need to think about different ways in which you can utilise your skills and save money. For example, a graphic designer will not need to hire a freelance designer to create logos and page layouts as they can do it themselves. This will mean saved money and complete freedom in the design work, rather than going backwards and forwards to a designer’s ideas. There will be necessary additions to add to your business, which you will not be able to do yourself such as, when launching a website you may need to acquire the help of managed IT services and network support, you may need to hire financial professionals such as accountants and if you are setting up an office you will definitely need to think about enlisting the help of an estate agent or a letting agent to enable you to get the most for your money.

Creative businesses can be a fun place to work and can often experience a lot of diverse clients meaning varied work and an appealing portfolio for your business. All businesses start small and then grow bigger, but all businesses need a lot of hard work put into them. Even though hard work can be exhausting and can mean you will not have much spare time to yourself, running a business and allowing it to grow can be a lucrative way of living.

There are many risks that come with running a business that spends too much money. But you can say the same about businesses that cut costs too drastically and too soon. If you want your business to spend less money, the cuts you make have to be implemented in the areas and in the correct kind of way. Get it wrong, and it could cost your business big. Here are some useful tips to help you do it properly and sustainably.

Limit Your Premises Costs

The premises from which your business operates will need to have money spent on it. That’s why it’s important to take steps to reduce the costs associated with this. So, it’s a good idea to assess the size of your office and compare it to the needs of your business. If you can save some money by moving to a smaller office, this is something that you should definitely try to do. As long as your business is still able to operate in a smaller office space, this could be a very positive move. You could even consider an office sharing arrangement to cut costs.

Aim to Reduce Waste

Reducing waste is a great way to help you cut costs. When you waste less, you spend less. That could only be a good thing for your cost cutting aims. Have a close look at how your business manages and uses up its resources. You might find that there are things happening that you didn’t even realise. Good inventory management software can help you ensure you never order too much or not enough of the things you need. There are lots of ways to reduce waste. It all depends on what kind of company you run.

Manage Your Online Shop by Using Paypal

Managing and dealing with sales can be pretty expensive for your business. Good POS systems can help you to manage your in-store sales in a way that’s sustainable and easy. This can help you financially in the long-term because it speeds up processes and helps you deal with customers quicker. However, if you want to save money from an ecommerce point of view, you should think about using Paypal. It’s very secure to use, and it’s a cheap option too. Many businesses now rely on Paypal when it comes to managing online sales.

Use a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants are people who work remotely and can be hired to carry out tasks as and when they need completing. The great benefit of this for businesses is that they only have to be paid for when their help is required. This can help you to keep costs down while still getting the things that need to be done completed on time. You should definitely have a think about whether virtual assistants can help you to cut costs and save time. You could give it a try and see if it works out for you. It won’t suit every business, but it will definitely benefit some.

Starting a business is epic. Surviving the first two years is incredible. Growing it beyond your wildest dreams is the best thing ever. However, it is also difficult. What’s more, all of the rules and survival tips you picked up when starting your business and then surviving are now useless, and that is because a whole lot of new skills is now required to take your company forward. But don’t despair. That is what we are here to help with. Sure, there is no recipe that will guarantee success, and certainly not overnight success, but that doesn’t mean the following advice is invaluable. So read on, take notes and start getting bigger.

Focus On The Existing

Of course there is value in building up your client base and bringing in new customers, but you should concentrate on your existing customers, your core customers. Why? Well, they are your existing revenue source. They are the people who have got you to where you are. The best way to do this is to show you value them. Establish a little referral program of sorts, or give them loyalty points. So many companies offer rewards to new customers. But it is the loyal ones that deserve these perks. Reward long standing relationships, not new ones that have done little to deserve it. You will see repeat business, and you will see new business come in to get those loyalty rewards.

Adapt And Survive

One of the greatest assets you can hold is your ability to adapt to any sudden changes in the market. This means being able to adapt your product, and your environment. As such, you will want to have the relationships in place to ensure this. Make sure your suppliers can meet any sudden needs you may have, whether that is producing more or less. The same goes for your staff. Become close to a staffing agency, they could become your best ally. In business, we go through peaks and troughs, so being able to upscale your workforce to meet the highs will be beneficial, as will your ability to scale back on outsourced staff when things get tough.

Care About Your Customers

People like raving about good customer experiences, and they will write home about any negative experiences. That is how huge entities like TripAdvisor have excelled in recent years. It is people’s chance to sing and condemn. It gives them power, and the chance to make or break a company. As such, you need to ensure you are focussed on your customer service and that it goes above and beyond. A great way to know where to improve is to make an order or a complaint yourself, and see how your staff deal with it, how they treat you. That will give you a first person view at the whole process from start to finish. If you aren’t happy with something, address it and address it fast. If you are more than pleased then your customers will be too.

You can assemble the greatest band of employees that the world has ever seen, but if you don’t give them the platform in which to succeed and bring out the qualities that you hired them for, then it’ll all be for nothing. As a leader, you need to do everything you can to facilitate their success, because ultimately the success of your company depends on it. If you’ve hired the best, then take the advice we’ve outlined below and you’ll be on your way to ensuring they deliver the kind of results you know they’re capable of delivering.

Focusing on the Task

What is the job description of the person who is working under you? And how often is it that how they occupy their time at work. At any company, especially start up companies, employees can be drafted into helping with a whole host of areas – some of them they know a lot about, some that they don’t. Whatever it is, they won’t be doing the task you hired them for. If people are being pulled this way and that, and stretched too thin, then the random tasks you assign them won’t be to the standard you deserve – and thus nobody benefits. Let them focus on the job they’re trained to do and consider hiring another member of staff for the other tasks.

Support Behind Them

Your staff will already have everything they need to do their job well, only it’s contained almost entirely in their heads. You need to give them the tools to actually make the magic happen. That means using a service such as Spectrumwise so your IT services are always up, running, and ready for the task. It could mean providing computers, mobile telephones, company cars, and other materials they need to do their job to the highest standard possible. Essentially, it’s about being behind them with all the support you can offer to ensure there’s no reason why they can’t deliver results.

Freedom to Work

Everybody works differently. Some people thrive off working in a small group, some people need to be kept alone to deliver their best work. Whatever your colleague needs most, you should be willing to accommodate their needs into your working life. There are no rules to say you have to act in any one way, so don’t be afraid to think outside the box. A popular tactic in Silicon Valley is sending an employee away (or offering unlimited vacation time) in order for them to work on a problem. If a person’s sense of freedom and autonomy delivers results, why wouldn’t you consider it?

Be Approachable

This is perhaps the most important point when it comes to allowing your team to succeed. They need to feel like you’re approachable, that they can come with you ideas – and most importantly, any mistakes they’ve made – and that you’ll be willing to listen. Everybody works better when they’ve got a good boss above them, and in any case being a leader doesn’t mean “acting like people are beneath me”!

Would you like to create an automated startup that makes money while you sleep? Then following in the footsteps of online marketplaces like Etsy is a wise move. You just need to select your niche and set the wheels in motion. With a business like that, you earn income from fees charged to sellers for every item they ship. So, it’s possible to make a fortune without working too hard if you’re smart. You just have to make sure your site becomes as popular was possible. With that in mind, let’s take a look at this step-by-step guide to making it happen.

Build a functional and straightforward website

When it comes to building websites, most people don’t know where to start. That’s understandable if you don’t have a background in design or development. However, help is at hand, and you just need to use specialist services. Check out multi-vendor marketplace solutions from experts online. Using something of that nature could mean you have your site up and running in a matter of days. Just ensure you create a plan before you start so that you don’t overlook anything important. You’re going to need an area where sellers can list their items and another one for buyers who want to make purchases.

Advertise your domain using online services

Next, you need to promote your new website to your target market. If you opted for arts and crafts, you just need to contact people who create those products. You can do that using advertising tools available on most social networks. Facebook Ads is the most popular at the current time, but you should also consider Twitter too. Google Adwords is still the best promotional platform outside of social networks. So, it’s wise to learn the ins and outs and try your luck. So long as you get the targeting options right, you could drive lots of traffic in your direction. Just make sure you use stunning advertising graphics that catch the eyes of internet users.

Provide multiple secure payment methods

People who spend money online like to use many different payment solutions. So, it makes sense to incorporate them all into your website. At the very least, you need to accept debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal. However, many sites also use BitCoin these days too. If you use multiple payment methods, you should never miss out on a sale. You can probably build your checkout process with the same tool you used for your website. That means it won’t take a long time to get things sorted.

If you managed to follow all that advice, you should be in a position to sit back and watch the cash roll into your accounts. While you will have to deal with issues from time to time, you’ve already done most of the hard work. So, you can shift your focus to something else and find alternative ways to earn automatic income. Once you do that a few times, you should be set for life. It’s a nice feeling when you keep receiving payments without having to work for the money.

Marketing has changed markedly over the last few years, with new technologies and media resulting in an industry that is barely recognisable when compared to just a decade or so ago. This places a great deal of pressure on companies to keep up with marketing developments, many of which continue to enter uncharted territory today.

If you want to keep up with your competitors, entice customers to your brand, and grow your business, then effective marketing is crucial. To ensure that your business is adopting the latest techniques, the following advice could prove useful.

Data and analytics

Data is everywhere. It is being produced by our bank cards, our smartphones and practically every mouse click we make online. This data has many practical uses for businesses and marketing is no exception. Companies now have access to huge quantities of data about existing and potential customers, which makes targeting them with marketing materials much more straightforward.

What’s more, analytics programs are becoming more advanced than ever, enabling marketers to generate more detailed insights. Marketing analytics can tell businesses what consumers are searching for, the latest sales trends and the conversion rate of your marketing efforts. The latter, in particularly, is a great way of evaluating return on investment, or ROI, that you are getting from your marketing campaigns.

In addition, a new strand of analytics is emerging that threatens to further shake up the marketing world. Predictive analytics attempts to understand what is going to happen next, rather than just analysing what has already taken place. For businesses, this is hugely significant. If they can understand shopping patterns in advance, they can create bespoke campaigns that are backed up by data. As analytics software gets increasingly advanced, this predictive approach will be adopted by more and more companies.

Ads that are truly targeted

Online advertising may have taken something of a hit due to the rise of ad blocking software, but it remains a vital strand of digital marketing. In the past, businesses would simply have been happy to place an advert on any site that had lots of viewers, or one that is in some way related to their business. Today, however, there are more targeted methods that can be employed.

Real-Time Bidding, or RTB, is the modern approach taken to online ad placements. So, if your marketing manager looks puzzled and asks, “what is RTB?” at your next meeting, you know that it’s time to update your methods.

RTB involves brands purchasing targeted ad space based on data known about the internet user and the website where the ad is being hosted. The truly amazing feat is that this bidding occurs in a fraction of a second while the website is loading. Marketing is a lot faster than it used to be.

Product placement

Product placement may have been around for a while, but digital technologies have adapted it for the present day. Enquire with YouTube content creators to see if you can include your company’s products in some of their videos.

As with many of the other approaches listed here, modern marketing is not about abandoning the tried and trusted methods of the past, but simply making sure they keep pace with changing social trends.

Business owners have a lot of things to weigh up and balance, but the focus of all of these comes back to one single goal; increased productivity. That’s how you increase revenue. But increasing the productivity of your workforce can also put them at risk of burning out, and that would have the absolute opposite of what you are trying to achieve. There was a time when a business owner would simply demand more output, but thankfully those times are gone and modern workforces don’t respond to such methods.

So how do you increase the productivity of your employees while also ensuring you boost their morale and retention levels? Well, a lot of the time is a misunderstanding. That is why it is so important that you learn what it is the modern worker wants to gain from their job, and then ensure you deliver on those things.

Bureaucracy

Employees want to be trusted to do the job they were hired to do and to do the job they are qualified to complete. Yet so often in business, employers don’t grant them these simple freedoms. Instead, the employee has to ask for permission to do something over and over again. A great example of this is BYG Systems, where there is a high staff turnover because the managing director insisted on signing off everything. Yes, it is important that you reserve the right to protect the business from errors, but holding onto absolute power encourages a negative feeling. You are simply acting as an extra obstacle between employee and job done, which simply means you are slowing up productivity.

Training

People don’t want to be stuck in a rut, doing the same jobs over and over again. They want to to be bettering themselves, they want to be learning, they want to be gaining the qualifications that will let them progress, that will ensure they follow the rules and excel. So offer this to them. The better equipped they are to do their job the more productive they will be. So if you work within manufacturing, why not ensure your employees have access to specialized training or seminars, like those offered online at paulsonplasticsacademy.com. Or if you have a large workforce that is spread out over numerous sites, and possibly countries, why not go down the digital learning route. This will maximize efficiency, produce an audit trail, reduce costs and boost their retention.

Reviews

Even the very best of your employees will start to stress out about performance reviews, and that is because you have no way of knowing all the facts, or indeed offering review better than the review they give themselves. So get rid of them, or seriously amend what you aim to achieve from them, and then make sure they are referenced every so often and not just filed. To us, they are antiquated and harmful. So why not go about reviews in a different way, a more proactive way, and that is build working relationships with your employees. It is a much healthier means of seeing how well they are performing, trust us.

First impressions count. We’re told that continually throughout our lives. They are important to help you get the job or your dreams or that prized place on a prestigious college course. And they also help us make lifelong friends. But it’s not just individuals who give off first impressions; so do companies! And, just like with people, a company’s first impressions count.

Lots of studies show that if companies give off a good first impression, they are a lot more likely to strike the best deals for them. They will also find that they don’t have to do quite as much hustle as some companies, as potential clients and customers will come straight to them. There won’t be any need to try and pitch for work and contracts!

So, as you can see, your company’s first impressions are incredibly important. Get them right, and it could lead to lots of success and a very profitable future. Get them wrong; your company could end up in the red a lot quicker than you had hoped! Not too sure if your company is giving off the right first impressions? Here are some ways you might be able to improve.

Train Your Staff

Every company knows that their customer service staff need to be friendly and cordial towards their customers and clients. If customers have a good experience dealing with your staff, then they will be much more likely to return and use your business again. The same goes for your clients. So, it is safe to say that all customer service staff need to be highly trained in dealing with customers, both over the phone and face to face. You should also train them in how to conduct a professional chat using online chats, which are quickly becoming a trendy customer service tool. However, did you realize that it is also necessary to ensure that all of your employees are well-trained in dealing with customers, even those who don’t come into contact with them on a day to day basis? You never know when someone will need to speak to a customer, so it is best to ensure you have covered all your basis and trained everyone to deal with the public in a professional and genial manner.

Improve The Parking Area

If some of your customers and clients will be meeting you at your office or headquarters, it is important that you do not neglect your car park or parking area. Ideally, it needs to be well-maintained and well lit. This will help the car park come across as safe and secure, so customers will be happier leaving their car in it. If it is fairly sizable, it is a good idea to reserve the closest spaces to your building. If customers see that you are careful enough to reserve convenient spaces for them, they will instantly think that you respect them.

Hire A Receptionist

When customers and clients arrive at your office or HQ, they will expect a warm and friendly welcome. If you and all your dedicated staff are very busy. Then it could be difficult to even find five minutes to nip through to your reception area to greet the customer or client before you are due to meet with them. This is where a receptionist comes in. Hiring a receptionist who can welcome visitors is a great way to improve your company’s first impressions. They can take care of the visitor while they wait for their meeting and can offer them a coffee or glass of water. Make sure there are some magazines or newspapers in your reception area so that guests can read while they wait for you.

Create A Modern Brand

Of course, there will be some customers and clients who don’t meet you and your company in the flesh. They will find you online, and their first impressions will come from looking at your website. These days, lots of people expect websites to be slick and very easy to navigate. But you also need a fresh and modern brand design that will stand out to visitors and attract traffic to your site. One of the key parts of your brand’s overall look is your company logo. If you need to get help with your logo and want to find a designer to create a new, make sure that they design something that feels completely unique and individual. You don’t want your logo to blend into all the thousands that are out there already!

Get A Good Front Door

Once you have developed a fabulous brand and excellent logo, you should get some signs made to hang on your office front door. These will help visitors find your offices, and will also help to create a great first impression before they have stepped into your workspace. Once you have hung your sign, make sure you regularly check it to ensure it stays clean and visible. It will also be useful to place a light above the front door to make it even more visible and easier to find.

Improve Social Media Communication

Another place in which customers and clients could create their first impression of your company is online on social media. Every company should have social media profiles these days as there are thousands and thousands of clients and potential customers online. Adding yourself to social media helps to get your company’s name out there. But you should ensure that all of your Facebook statuses and tweets are always highly professional and don’t give the wrong impression. Otherwise, everyone who sees them might get the wrong idea. So make sure that all of your employees who work on your company’s social media all know what is expected of them. Ideally, they should tweet all of your company’s news and updates in an approachable and cordial manner. You should also stress to them that no matter what others are sending to them, they should never post anything that is angry or aggressive.

Hopefully, you can now improve your company’s first impressions!