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It seems like we’ve been using our smartphones to connect to the internet for centuries, but it was only just longer than a decade ago that our mobile phones were pretty useless when it came to business. Now, business owners would be foolish to leave their homes without their phones because it means they can stay connected to their business and customers at all times. Take a look at how mobile technology could improve your business.

Product Demonstrations

We all know that customers respond well to images and videos. Some of the newest Samsung phones allow you to take 360-degree videos to give your customers a sneak peek into your products, services and what happens behind the scenes. Pair that with the inevitable integration of virtual reality headsets to phone packages, and your customers have an experience that has never been available to them before. Get ready for the future of advertising!

Mobile Websites

If your business website isn’t mobile friendly, it’s time to upgrade with the help of managed IT services. Studies show that busy people often use train journeys, bus rides or work breaks to purchase items online. They may be shopping for a last-minute birthday gift or sending flowers to an ill friend. The point is, what do these people use to do their shopping? Their phones! If your website isn’t mobile friendly or doesn’t allow quick and easy payment options, you’re probably missing out on a lot of sales. Think convenience!

Communication

Never before has it been easier to communicate with employees and customers via your phone. Sites like Slack are a fantastic way of keeping communication lines open. So, if you’re on the go or out of the office when an important message comes through, the sender doesn’t have to wait a significant amount of time for a reply. There’s nothing that holds up work longer than waiting for instruction. And, it saves your clients receiving those terrible ‘out of office until November 2025’ emails.

Flexibility

Nine to five working hour jobs are dying out. Employees want more flexibility when it comes to their careers and it often suits customers too. Flexibility means that employees can focus on their work when they aren’t distracted by something else. Using mobile technology means that you can allow your employees to be more flexible without sacrificing the quality of the work produced. It also often means that employees will remain loyal to the businesses that they work for.

Save Time

There’s a mobile app for everything. If you need to scan a document and send it to a client, there’s no need to wait until you get into the office and then join the queue of co-workers waiting to do the same thing. Just download a scanning app on your phone and do it from wherever you are. Business owners can also deal with expenses via mobile phones and even pay invoices or send invoices. Using your mobile will also ensure your business doesn’t have mass paper use, which is as environmentally friendly as it gets for business.

Advertising has changed a lot over the decades. From the adverts of the 50s that leaned heavily on clichés and stereotypes through to the high-octane TV ads of the 90s, there’s no doubt that it’s an ever-evolving genre of promoting your business.

While the change is constant, advertising your business has changed more in the past five years than – arguably – than the rest of advertising history put together. No longer is advertising the realm of a strict number of agencies lead by charismatic Don-Draper-personalities writ large. Now, advertising is both more subtle and more overt at the same time – largely because of one element that has changed the game forever: brand ambassadors.

What Is A Brand Ambassador?

A brand ambassador is a person of note, be it through individual celebrity or having achieved a recognizable level of social media success, who promotes your business. Bloggers are frequently brand ambassadors, especially in the fashion and beauty industries.

The ambassador will, alongside their usual content on their blog/social media, promote your company. It will often be done in quite a clever way, incorporating their usual style so often the advert is indistinguishable from the rest of their content.

As well as elevating your online presence, a brand ambassador will often be involved with your company in person. They will attend trade shows and speak on your behalf, or feature as part of your corporate website.

What’s In It For The Business?

This kind of advertising is incredibly subtle. Rather than hitting people over the head with a TV ad they’re more likely than not to fast forward past, it’s a much simpler way of integrating your product or business into an existing content platform.

It’s also a perfect way of connecting with your core demographic, especially if much of your staff aren’t actually in that demographic. For example, if your board is predominantly males in their 40s and you are selling products aimed at women aged 18-30, then a brand ambassador could give you valuable insight.

Not only that, but this individual becomes a recognizable face to go along with your company. If the partnership is especially successful, then your brand ambassador might become known as the “your company girl”, such as the GoDaddy girls that have been so successful. This is permanent advertising, attaching your company to a single individual even when you may not be actively promoting something.

What’s In It For The Brand Ambassador?

Quite simply, it’s a financial transaction for the brand ambassador.

A lot of people are surprised by this. Given this is such a new form of advertising, a lot of companies make the mistake of thinking social media stars, bloggers, and celebrities will just do it for the “free stuff”. That sounds like a bargain to you as a company owner; a huge amount of evergreen publicity in exchange for a few products? Perfect!

There is a serious backlash against this attitude, however. If you’re considering hiring someone for this kind of role, then you need to be aware of the dos and don’ts you have to avoid falling foul of. While some people may be willing to create content and share your company with their demographic, the vast majority won’t. Arguably the ones that are really worth having as ambassadors definitely won’t.

A brand ambassador role is work; it might be unconventional or unusual, but it’s still work, and that means that the person in question deserves to be compensated for their time. With the industry maturing, many brand ambassadors are now partnering with the likes of https://tsmagency.com to handle the financial and legal side of the arrangement.

If you want to know more about the backlash against working for free, then there are some great primers on http://bigthink.com and even Twitter accounts dedicated to railing against the practice. You’ll find http://twitter.com/dontwork4free a great resource.

What Can A Brand Ambassador Do That Traditional Advertising Can’t?

• Offer a public face to associate with your company.
• Help you target a particular demographic.
• Elevate your company’s social media, which in turn makes a huge contribution to your online presence. If you want to learn more about the importance of your company having an online presence, then http://smallbusiness.chron.com has a great overview.
• A more organic form of advertising, which if done well is not overtly obvious that it is even an advert.
• A face for your company, which can help create cohesion when featured across your company website, social media, and even in person. This helps your brand become more recognizable as a whole, as customers are more likely to recognize a face than a basic logo.

What Are The Downsides Of Brand Ambassadors?

It would be unwise to think signing up a brand ambassador is the end of your focus on marketing your company – it should just be part of your overall strategy. At the end of the day, these people are playing to a relatively select audience.

It might also not be a great fit for the type of business you run. If you don’t particularly have a target demographic or your demographic is broad, then hacking into a specific section of potential customers is of relatively little use to you. However, it can still be helpful to have someone to feature in your promotional literature who can be a familiar face throughout your entire presentation.

How Do I Find A Brand Ambassador?

You have a variety of options.

• Look for popular social media users, bloggers, and influencers that already exist within your niche. You can then reach out to them and see if they would be receptive to partnering with one another.
• Contact an agency and ask for recommendations, based on what you are looking to achieve from such a partnership. This can be particularly useful if your niche is not particularly suited to an existing online presence you can make the most of. For example, if you’re selling a beauty product then you’ll have no shortage of options if you glance through a popular Instagram hashtag like #beauty. However, if you run a communications company then it’s going to be trickier, and a specialist talent company can help make a match that will work for you.
• Ask for them. Sometimes, the easiest way might be the most effective. Post online that you’re seeking brand ambassadors and see who applies and how it might work for you. This can be a good strategy as you’re likely to find someone who is already engaged with your company, as they were clearly paying attention to your social media and site as to see the notice.

How Much Does A Brand Ambassador Cost?

There’s no obvious answer to this. It depends entirely on a number of factors:

• What you want them to do. Do you just want them to post on social media? That won’t be too expensive. However, if you’d like them to attend trade shows or appear in adverts, then you’d expect to be paying more for this kind of representation.
• How big your company is. The larger your company, the more you should have available in terms of budget for advertising and marketing.
• Who you want to be your brand ambassador. If you’re looking for someone who is famous throughout the country, then you’re going to pay more than for an influencer who just has a social media presence. You can limit some of this cost by opting for normal, regular users who are otherwise a fan of your product and will still have something to offer your business.

Ultimately, you should treat the cost of a brand ambassador as another part of your marketing and advertising budget. As discussed, don’t expect people to work for a pittance even if you see the work as relatively inexpensive. You’re paying for people’s time and their influence; they deserve to be compensated for it.

Should A Brand Ambassador Always Be A Celebrity?

Absolutely not. Some celebrities and brands have partnered together for years to great success, but you don’t need a household name for this relationship to work. It all depends on your niche and who you are looking to target.

If, for example, you run a digital marketing company, then there would be relatively little benefit to you if you partnered with a Kardashian. They might be a big, recognizable name, but they’re not really useful for your niche. The crossover from Kardashian fans to people who own their own company and are in need of marketing is, in all likelihood, relatively small.

A good brand ambassador can be a relative unknown, provided they have something to offer your company. In fact, if you have a small company, then spending a fortune on a high profile celebrity is undoubtedly going to be a waste of funds – you’d be far better finding someone specific to your niche, and building your profile as a partnership.

Ultimately, this type of advertising is new, but you would be remiss to overlook the difference it can make to your business.

In business, you often find that you have a lot of responsibilities to cover off. Not only do you need to make sure that your day to day operations are running well and that your customers are happy, but you’re also responsible for turning a profit year after year. Sometimes, that can feel like enough to be dealing with however it very rarely is. There are always things that you need to be thinking of and covering off and making sure that you take care of. They can often be in your businesses best interest as well as the interest of your customers, target audience, and even your stakeholders.

One of these things that you should always be thinking of is your Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. No matter how big or small your company is, or how long you’ve been established, making sure that your business doesn’t impact its immediate environment and your local community in a bad way, but adds to it instead, is the right thing to do.

Fundraising for charity is a great way for your business to be able to do that, it’s also important too. When you raise money for charity, your business is doing its bit, but you’re also helping to raise awareness of your business and boost your employee engagement. So if you want to start raising more money for charity in fun and interesting ways, here are a few ideas.

Bake Sale

During the fundraising process, you’re going to want to make sure that your employees can get involved. Not only is it going to be fun for them to be included, but it can also mean that you get a lot more manpower too. One of the ways this works is with a bake sale. Your employees can all make their favorite baked goods and bring them into work to sell. Or, you could open a stall at an event or outside of your business if you have the footfall and sell the baked goods to the public.

Charity Auction

Then there’s always the classic idea of hosting a charity auction. Now, you could do this in two ways. Firstly, you may want to host some kind of raffle at work, where your employees can win prizes. Or, you may want to hold a gala event to do the auction at. If so, you’re going to want to make sure you get some incredible items to encourage higher bids and donations.

Waxing

Sometimes, it can be fun to raise money for charity by doing something outrageous. Waxing is definitely one of the ideas that fall into that category. You as a business owner could offer to have your legs or arms or even eyebrows waxed for charity, and get other staff members involved too.

Brick Fundraising

Raising money is often successful when people get to purchase something or have a memento of their donation. That is certainly the case when it comes to brick fundraising. You could look into brick for profit ideas so that you not only have a healthy sum to donate but have a memory too. Building a new wall or part of the building or even your reception area could be a great way to raise money as your donors buy their engraved bricks.

Games Night

Then there’s always games nights. Hosting a gaming night can be a lot of fun for the entire business, and great for staff morale. To raise money, you could charge per game played or even for tickets to the evening if you’re going to make it into a formal affair. Whether you do board games or a Vegas night, it will be a fun fundraising effort for sure.

Spin-A-Thon

Spin-a-thon’s can be a lot of fun for everyone involved. Yes, they can be tough when you have to go fast or ride for a long period, but that’s part of the fun. You’re going to get a lot more sponsorship money and donations if people know you’ve got a tough gig coming up. You could bring spin bikes into the office or all head to a gym to do it too.

Car Wash

And you always have that high schooler classic way to raise money for charity of hosting a car wash. It could also be a great way to get your customers involved in the fundraising process too. By turning your parking lot into a car wash, your staff can both get involved and donate, and your customers or passers-by will be able to do their bit for a good cause too.

Miniature Golf Tournament

Then there’s always the sporty ways to raise money. Sporting events can be a lot of fun and a great way to get a lot of people involved in the fundraising process. A fun way to do both would be to host a miniature golf tournament. Not only can everyone get dressed up and get crazy, but you can raise money in a range of different ways, like charging an entry way or even getting other businesses to sponsor the uniforms.

Charity Run

Or maybe you’d all like to do a charity run? These can be a lot of fun. Whether you decide to do an obstacle course, a color run, or even a crazy mud run, it can be a great day out for all of your staff, friends, family, and anyone involved. You can raise money through sponsorship and entry, and even serving refreshments on the day to spectators. You may also find that you can use something like this in your marketing, and show off the fun you had to your customers.

Sports Match

Finally, you may also want to think about the kinds of charity sports matches you can fund raise with. A soccer, basketball or baseball match with your staff or even roping in local celebrities or public figures could be a really fun way to raise money. You may also get a lot of the general public involved too, which is another great way to raise sponsorship and donations.

Setting up a new business is both exciting and challenging. It is also very costly. Whether you’ve secured funding or not, you’ll need to be on top of your game. It’s likely as an employee that the company’s finances weren’t anything to do with you, and even if you managed a budget, you might not have known all of the running costs associated with your business. To help make sure you don’t get  off on the wrong foot, here’s how to ensure you cover everything when working out your startup’s finances.

Make a list of everything you can think of

Right down a list of all of your potential outgoings, including staffing costs, electricity bills, equipment hire and everything else. Use a list of startup costs compiled by experts to help you. When you’re done, put the list to one side. Pick it up again in a day or two, and see if there’s anything new you’ve remembered that should be on there.

Give the list to someone else

After you’re satisfied that you’ve thought of everything to your knowledge, give the list to someone else. It could be your business partners, a friend, a fellow business owner or a startup advisor. Choose someone that has experience in running a business who will be able to use their own experience to give you advice and help you work out any costs that might be missing.

Image Source: Pexels

Think twice about the obvious

If you think you’ve got all your costs worked out, take some time to think if there’s anything obvious missing from your estimated costs. It sounds really basic, but say for example you’ve set up a construction company and will be working with sand or salt a lot, have you factored in the cost of salt storage or protective equipment? These things might seem obvious, but when you’re focused on other costs such as marketing or materials, the seemingly obvious things can be forgotten.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst

When it comes to working out startup’s finances, you should always take the ‘worst case scenario’ approach. How would you cope if you failed to turn a profit for longer than expected or how long could you survive without investment? Hopefully, it’ll never come to it but if you run into problems, at least you will have prepared for it in advance.

Know who to turn to for help

When setting up a new business, there is a lot you won’t know about all sorts of elements, but there is plenty of startup advice for newbies that will make the process much less painful. A financial adviser or a business coach could also help you to work out everything you need and a good relationship with your bank will be vital should you encounter any problems.

Managing your startup finances will be one element of establishing yourself as a successful startup leader and will be a good indicator of how you perform going forward. If finances aren’t your strong point, make sure you hire someone either as an employee or a freelancer to look after this element for you.

We all know that happy employees lead to better productivity. The way your employees feel about the workplace can directly affect how well your business operates. However, you have no control over what goes on in your employees lives, so your only option is to make the workplace as comfortable as possible. So, what do you need to do to create a positive environment for your workforce?

Praise

When an employee doesn’t know how much they’re appreciated, work becomes harder. Imagine working your hardest and not getting any recognition or thanks for it. As an employer, it’s important to always recognise how hard your employees are working. Pinpoint specific work that they’ve done and tell them what you liked about it. Bring in a box of cupcakes to share around during a coffee break as a thank you. Whatever you decide to do, make sure they know they are valued.

Make it Convenient

People are beginning to leave the nine to five lifestyle behind. Flexibility is the new must have for young and upcoming employees and businesses are working to make that happen. For example, with enterprise workforce management you can allow your employees to clock in and out via their tablets with facial recognition. It’s much more convenient for your employees and you won’t have to worry about monitoring each and every worker either. If employees know they won’t be reprimanded for having to leave an hour early to pick the kids up or dashing out to pick up a prescription for an ill parent, they’re more likely to work harder when present.

Lead by Example

Employees aren’t likely to do their best for an employer who spends all day on the golf course. If you want to get the best out of your employees, you need to set the tone. It’s also important that you don’t shut yourself away in your office all day. Walk around and say hello to people, smile and create relationships with the people working for you. If your employees see how hard you’re working and how approachable you are, it will make them much more comfortable.

Encourage Positive Attitudes

The best way to achieve productivity is by attempting to make your employees think they’re capable of achieving it. You can encourage employees by pointing out their skills or giving them tips for reaching their goals. It can also help to have a mission statement present in the office and inspirational quotes posted in break rooms or copy rooms and even toilets. It’s surprising how reading just a sentence can influence the way you think.

Have Fun

If you’ve got a good joke, share it around the office. If you want to give something back to the community, allow your employees to do a fancy dress. There are lots of ways of creating humor in an office and it can dramatically lift spirits. However, your employees are there to work, so make sure work is actually getting done when it needs to be.

As far as a business idea is concerned, the option of a healthcare startup is one of the more lucrative choices you can make as an entrepreneur. It is a very booming choice of business right now because people need great healthcare, and, of course, there is a big demand for it wherever you go. But when it comes to making your healthcare startup survive up against the many others, is there anything you can do to keep ahead of the pack?

Embrace Technology

With every business, not just healthcare, the importance of being ahead of the technological curve is vital to a company’s survival. You can make the most of the online doctor services or video chats or simple messenger programs. And these services will be the reason waiting lists and queues are cut down, meaning you can serve more people which will benefit them better as well as your business. Technology is vital to the development of any business right now, so it’s important for you to keep abreast of information and implement it as soon as possible to give yourself a fair advantage over the competition.

Look After Your Staff

Medical professionals are prone to stress, naturally, and there can be a high turnover of staff because of this very reason. So when it comes to working a leader of a company that is effective, you need to make sure that their mental health is being catered for either by having regular counselling sessions or by allowing for catch ups with them so they can tell you exactly how they are feeling to better care for patients. This requires being a sensitive and thoughtful leader as well as being a people person, which is a hard balance to strike!

Keep Your Staff Trained Up

With so many different rules and regulations popping up, it’s important to keep your staff up to date with the relevant information and if you can help them in any way. It’s important when people are applying for jobs in any profession to allow progression to occur. There are plenty of online programs for healthcare professionals such as the RN to BSN Online Program, which is catered for people who are looking to progress up to management positions. Healthcare professionals need to have the relevant people skills, the same as managers do because it benefits their own practice.

Be In It For The Long Haul

As with any startup venture, the fact of the matter is that it can take some time to develop a business that people will trust. This is vital when it comes to looking after the best interests of your patients’ health. People may not trust you over their existing healthcare provider right now, but you can build up a name for yourself by having reliable staff and reliable services. Running a healthcare startup can be lucrative, but it’s important to stick to your guns and remain honest in how you do business. Healthcare that is genuine is a fundamental right for people, and so it’s important for you to provide that.

In business, whether you’re a seasoned pro or a complete novice, it’s important to never underestimate the power of leadership. Through all walks of life and across different areas, we all come into contact with leaders. From your parents and your teachers to your company bosses and community patrons, leaders are all around us. So, even before you get into the business world, you know a little something about what it’s like to be lead, in both good ways and bad. Using your own experiences of leadership, you’ll know just how important it is for making and breaking any kind of situation.

And this couldn’t be truer when it comes to the business world. A great leader has the power to do so much. Not only can they pave the way to success, but they can inspire others and make a difference to a range of lives – even in business. So, when you start your own business, you need to make sure that you’re nailing the leadership. Whether you’re looking to grow your business or be sure that it’s a success from the start, you need to make sure that you have your leadership down in all areas of business.

Your Product Or Service

Every aspect of business has its own importance in different ways. However, arguably, the most important of all is the product you create or the service you provide. Because without that, there would be no business. So, it’s vital that you can lead your business in terms of its operations and execution of the product or service you offer in the most effective way.

Product Design

If it’s a product that your business creates, then you’re going to want to make sure that you’re leading your product development and any team members that you have in the most effective way. If you want your design to be the best, you have to portray that and share the importance of that with your staff too. Having a passion for your product can often be infectious, and you’re going to want to make sure your team is just as passionate if you want to create the very best products.

Service Quality

Or maybe you provide a service. When it comes to your service, you’re going to want to make sure that your quality is second to none. Providing a quality service shouldn’t be difficult. You started your service to solve a problem that your customer has, so stick to that. Be sure that your leadership skills are able to communicate that importance with your service staff too.

Research & Development

In business, having a product or service just isn’t enough. If you want to do well and you want to grow, you need to be able to continuously improve on your offering. So, you’re going to want to make sure you inspire your staff to research and develop in everything that they do. By pushing and promoting R&D, you’ll be encouraging a stronger future for your product or service.

Customer Services

Your customer services are absolutely integral to the success of your business. You need to be able to look after your customers in the best ways possible. To make that happen, not only do you need to lead your team well, but you also need to have effective practices in place too.

Empowering Your Team

Customer services can be a hard role to master. But, a way to ensure that your staff is both confident and competent at their job, is through empowerment. If you’re able to motivate your team and lead by example, you’re more likely to get better results. You want your staff to care about your customers as much as you do, so be sure to let them know that they’re contributing in a great way.

Championing Your Customers

You know how important it is to champion your customers, but you also need to make your staff see that. One way that your leadership skills can support this is through reinforcing your goals and having set standards to follow. If your staff know that they’re making a difference to a customer’s life, they’ll be more inclined to do their jobs well.

Nailing Your Training

Any form of staff training is essential, but customer service training can trump them all. You want to make sure that your staff can handle their role and that they’re happy. Use your leadership to set the right practices and provide regular training; then you make monitor both factors. Boosting skills and encouraging empathy is important, but you should aim to make it fun for them too.

Marketing

If you want your marketing efforts to be as efficient as they can be, you’re going to want to make sure that you can get your leadership right in this area. Not only do you need to set and reinforce your strategy, but you’re going to want to make sure that your staff has the right tools and access to do their jobs.

Be Inclusive

Marketing is one of the most creative areas of business that you will have. So, it’s likely that you’ve hired creative people. If you want to get the most out of that, you need to include them in your strategy and processes. Take ideas from everyone and allow your team to have some form of input, rather than just being the executors of everything. Also be sure to praise good ideas and results, it will go a long way.

Provide Support

You will also find that you need to support your marketing team in a range of different ways. If you want the best results, you may need to give out the best resources. Whether you need to hire a specialist agency like Rankology for search, or invest in the right tools like Radian6 for social, do it. You need to make sure that your staff is supported to get the most out of them.

Be On The Same Level

Remember, there are no small roles in business – every person contributes in their own special way, and be sure to share that with your marketing team. Get down to their level and make sure that you value each input. You’ll encourage the best ideas and creativity that way.

Sales

Sales can be a crucial cog in your business model. If you want to sell your products or services and gain a profit, you need to make sure that your sales process works. To do that, you need to lead with the right kind of motivation, expertise, and support, especially in these areas;

Incentivizing Your Staff

If you want to get the best results from your sales staff, incentivize them. Managing a sales team can be tough, but you need to make sure that both you and your team are results driven. Then, you should also make sure they know what is expected of them. By giving the right incentives that are personal to your team, you should start to see the results you all want.

Providing The Right Training

Next, you’re also going to want to make sure that you’re providing the right training. Even the most experienced salesperson will need a boost every now and again. To keep motivation high and to allow your staff to think outside of the box, be sure to hold regular training sessions with different inspiring people. But make them no-pressure zones. You want to inspire, not frighten.

Encouraging Communication

When it comes to your sales team, they often need to be all knowing in order to make that sale. So, you’re going to want to encourage them to communicate. Get them to break down the interdepartmental barriers and speak to others. Make them learn about the product or service and how finance operate. That way, they’ll have a holistic view of what they’re selling.

Finance

It’s easy to believe that your finance department will run itself. But, that’s often the reactive approach to take. If you want your business finances to be as efficient as they can be, you have to lead well and ensure that your teams are as supported as they need to be.

Share Your Goals

It’s often found that when managers and staff have common goals, they get better results. If you want to drive your finance department and make it the best it can be, you should share your goals with your staff. Make sure they know what you’re aiming for. That way, you can not only motivate them, but they will know their own roles and know how to contribute too.

Provide The Necessary Tools

Your finance team will also need the right tools if they’re going to make their jobs as efficient as possible. There are so many pieces of software that can make your financial operations better. From accounts and payroll to budgeting and cash flow, get your team to tell you what they want and let them trial new things to see what works best.

Always Allow Input

Finally, you should let your finance team have some input into operations. After all, you hired experts in their field, so they may know a thing or two about business finances. Let them share their thoughts and offer suggestions. You may find that they come up with business-boosting ideas better than you can.

The first year of business is the hardest for many different reasons. However, the staffing situation is undoubtedly at the top of that pile. Not only do you not have a limited insight into the employees, but they also have a limited insight into you.

 Teething problems are natural in any startup, especially in recruitment and employee engagement. If you can overcome those hurdles, though, your hopes of successfully navigating your way to year two and beyond greatly increase. To achieve it, you must learn from the pros with these tried and tested methods.

 Build A Winning Brand Image

 Staff members don’t simply need to get behind you as a person. It’s equally important that they can take pride in the company name. Frankly, this is just one of many reasons to make successful branding one of the top priorities.   

 A strong company image makes it easier for employees to relate. It also provides guidance throughout their ongoing activities. Whether it’s knowing the tone to use for marketing or customer care doesn’t matter. An employee who feels strongly about the brand itself will naturally want to work harder. And that will make your management tasks far simpler.

 Keep Employees Safe

 Business matters are important, but they don’t even come close to your human responsibilities. Safety should always come first without even considering the commercial aspects. However, the fact is that greater protection enables employees to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Moreover, it shows your appreciation.

 The use of advanced alarm software can send notifications straight to employees when a situation arises. This ensures that safety is restored in the quickest time possible, which is great on a business and emotional level. Combine this with strong data protection and modern CCTV cameras. Staff members will soon gain those feelings that encourage positive outcomes.

Invest In Them

Even if the business is in its infancy, it’s never too early to show a long-term commitment to your employees. By investing in them with the latest advanced courses, they can instantly see that their futures are with the company.  

Ultimately, every employee’s greatest motivator is individual success. Showing that pathway to promotion and greater responsibility should work as a killer incentive. If it doesn’t, those workers are the ones best left to junior roles. Either way, you’ll get more from the team while gaining a deeper insight into individuals within the group. Perfect.

 Make Business Exciting

 Becoming trapped in a monotonous cycle can sap the enthusiasm from any worker. Of course, some jobs are naturally more exciting than others. Nonetheless, keeping things fresh and exciting for everyone involved should be on the agenda. It will bolster employee engagement, which will lead to far greater productivity.

 Even simple ideas like dress down Fridays and other staff perks can improve matters. A positive company culture will also filter through to encourage great customer experiences. If that doesn’t boost your chances of sustained success fueled by a great team, nothing will.

Understanding your customer is a vital step in improving your sales. If you don’t know who your customers are or what they want from you, you can’t make sure you’re targeting the right people. Sometimes, your target market turns out to be exactly who you thought it was. But on other occasions, you could find your main customer base is actually a completely different demographic. Make sure you familiarize yourself with your customers, so you know how to treat them, the best ways to get them stick around, and how to bring in new customers. The following methods are useful to help you improve your understanding.

Spend Time on Buyer Personas

Not everyone loves buyer personas, but they can be a valuable marketing tactic. The idea is to come up with fictional personas who represent different sections of your customer base. It helps you to visualize your customers as individuals and not just statistics and demographics. It’s useful if you want to write content that addresses your customers or make decisions with their wants and needs in mind. Don’t only stick to basic statistics when it comes to buyer personas. Dig deeper and flesh out some more complicated characters who have preferences and different wants and needs.

Find Out About Anonymous Website Visitors

You can find out a lot about the people who visit your website, as well as your social media pages. However, it’s not always possible to know any personal information. This can mean it’s harder to understand your customers because you have very little to go on. If you find you struggle with this, a service such as the Visual Visitor lead generator can make it easier to discover who these site visitors are. You can identify the people who appear anonymously on your site and don’t offer any information about themselves by filling in a form, which is the majority of them. You can get information about them while they’re still on your site.

Use Customer Analytics

There are other analytical tools you can use to work out what your website visitors are doing. Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools for seeing the journey that people take through your site. You can use tools like these to see what took a customer through to make a sale or get in touch with you. Or you’ll be able to use them to see why someone ultimately didn’t become a customer and decided to leave your site.

Understand Your Customer’s Journey

Taking a look at things from the customer’s perspective can be hard when you’re on the other side of things. Following their path or buyer’s journey helps you to be in their shoes and understand what they’re thinking. Customer journey mapping is one method that you might find effective. It involves creating a representation of your customer’s journey in graphic form, showing key points in the process.

You can use a range of techniques to understand your customers better. A better understanding can lead to improved marketing and sales.

The restaurant business is a competitive industry. To stand out, you need to make sure you’re bringing something new to the table. Otherwise, customers will choose to dine with your competition. After all, no sooner have you opened your restaurant you might find that another opens its doors across to the street. How can you make sure that customers keep coming back to dine on your delicious menu? Well, there are a few things you can try.

Get A USP

One possibility might be to consider setting up your restaurant with a USP. Give them something a little different compared with your typical restaurant. There are plenty of examples of this. For instance, you could base your restaurant on a buffet system. Rather than serving customers the food, they can serve themselves. If you want to add a little spice to the menu, how about an all you can eat system. This is possible with Leader Refrigeration equipment like a salad buffet bar. That way, customers can fill their plates without your help. A lot of restaurants have already jumped on this idea, but it’s still quite a fresh option, and customers seem to love it.

Or, how about giving your customers some entertainment with their meal. There are plenty of businesses that absolutely own this idea from the cinema restaurant in Disney Springs to Planet Hollywood at various locations across the country and around the globe. Some restaurants offer their clients live entertainment which is another popular idea.

Want a final USP? How about giving your restaurant a theme. Again, this idea does already exist on the market, but if you think of a theme that’s unique enough, you might still have great success with this idea.

Enter The Tech Age

It’s always good to be ahead of the curve when you’re running a company, and the restaurant business is no different. One of the ways you can do this is by giving your customers a tech-friendly way to order and book a restaurant. Rather than calling up, customers should be able to book a table on your app and get their preferred table at the right time. Once they get to the restaurant, they might even be able to order their food from their phones, rather than speaking to a waiter. These cool ideas are just some of the things that you should be considering when you’re running a restaurant, and the tech is already available right now. So, what are you waiting for?

Changing The Game

Finally, you might want to incorporate customer opinion into your business model. Restaurant owners should think about getting feedback from their customers. What foods do they love, which dishes do they hate and what would they like to see more of. Most restaurants don’t bother to check in with their customer base but you should. If you do, you might be surprised by the effects of the changes they suggest. A few differences to your restaurant could be the difference between empty tables and a completely booked up schedule.

Marketing. It’s a mind-boggling word. It covers so much, yet we still know relatively little about it unless we have taken a specific route of education to learn all we need to know. Even those who have marketing degrees are constantly finding out new strategies that they can implement in this ever-changing world, and what you may know one day could completely change overnight in its effectiveness. So how can we be sure that we are taking on board the right things; what are the tried and tested methods that will get us to where we need to be?

Traditional Marketing Methods – Do They Still Work?

Traditional methods of marketing are failing, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t be used. You just need to know how, when and why to use them. Newspapers, magazines, flyers and banners are all still in circulation but not as much as they were before the internet boom. This means that the cost of an advert in a glossy may have risen but for little return on what you have invested; it’s just not profitable anymore if you are running a small business. There needs to be more hype surrounding your brand, which these platforms just can’t support or provide. However, that’s not to say that they don’t work entirely. Magazines and newspapers alike are now teaming up with certain brands and doing drives, meaning that their product is getting more and more circulation. Customers have to spend a certain amount in order to qualify for free literature, which means that your advert will be seen by a lot more people, which wasn’t the case during the past couple of years. So, in conclusion, yes, traditional marketing methods do still work, but perhaps not as well as they did do in the past, regardless of the efforts of publications to make it so.

What Can Social Media Offer My Business?

The leader of the marketing world is currently in the hands of the social media empire. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are taking the world by storm, with nearly 2 billion individuals reported to be using Facebook’s services and having their own profile; that’s a lot of people that you have the potential to reach with your advertising. The more important thing that you need to focus on with this method of advertising is that it is completely free to a certain point, so you are able to make a stable base for yourself initially. The more interaction that you get, the more you will be showing up in other people’s feeds who are surrounding your customer. There are options to pay to get your message out to more people; the great thing about Facebook is that you can pick and choose the interests, age, location and so much more of the people that you want to target. Using this as the base to your demographic is one of the best things that has ever come out of social media in relation to marketing – Facebook have definitely hit an extremely clever niche by doing so, and you won’t find a successful company that doesn’t have a Facebook page linked to it in order to promote to more and more customers. There are five main social media platforms for you to make use of, and there are certain methods of making them work which don’t apply to any others; you need to take into consideration how much you are posting, how long your posts are, which hashtags you are using and how you are interacting with potential customers. You only need to focus on the words – Social and Media – to realize the connection that you yourself need to get connected with. If you don’t know much about what to do on these sites, there are simple tutorials online; but if your budget allows, you can employ a social media manager to take it on for you. It’s important to remember that these are revenue-generating jobs but ones that take up quite a lot of time over the day, even if you are pre-planning your posts. The content needs to be exact and specific to your brand’s message, and customer engagement is of top priority. We are living in a fast-paced world with notification flicking up all the time – you don’t want to be missed or become yesterday’s priority. People are too busy nowadays for that, and are fickle to boot. They won’t wait around for you.

Is Search Engine Optimization Still A Thing?

SEO is still very much on the rise in the marketing world, especially as there are more rules and regulations to adhere to that have been set by Google. Companies who are utilizing SEO strategies in order to market themselves should be taking note of what they have to do and how they have to do it in order to rise of the ranks on said search engines. If you aren’t quite sure how this works, there is a strategy article on davidcarralon.com which will be able to give you a clear example of everything that you need to do in order to make your SEO game thrive. Whether this is hiring a professional or learning a bit more about it yourself, it is always a good idea to get on top of it as it is one of the top marketing methods that you can use presently. Companies all over the world are investing hundreds of thousands into their SEO strategy, realizing the importance of what it offers. The great thing about SEO is that now that there is protocol to follow, the content that is offered to users who are seeing your page has to be of a certain standard. If it’s not, then you risk being fined by Google or a higher source – in fact, Google itself were receptors of their own fine for favoring their own content rather than ones that had invested in SEO in order to appear where they had placed their own ads. It just goes to show that, when dealing with market power, you need to follow the rules down to a tee – even if you’re the one setting them.

Alternative Marketing Methods – What Should I Use?

There are a lot of alternative marketing methods that don’t really fit in the rackets of being traditional or internet-based. One that is currently taking the world by storm is user experience – companies such as Hot Pickle have fully immersed themselves into this creative strategy, making brands such as Walls Ice Cream and Marmite really leap out to customers and bring them into the world that the company wants them to be in, if only for a moment. Huge props are made to fit perfectly with what the brand are trying to promote, and it helps to create a lasting relationship with your target demographic – what more could you ask for from your advertising? Now that we have moved through all of the methods of advertising that we have experienced throughout our life, people are looking for excitement in what they see. They want something that shocks them, that invests their feelings into what they are doing at that time, and that captures their imagination if only for a little while. That’s where immersive marketing truly takes the limelight and brings itself into center stage in order to get its point across. Unless you have seen it, you won’t know just how powerful it is.

How Much Should I Invest To Expect A Return?

Different strategies cost different amounts. It all depends on your budget and how much you are willing to part with in order to get your business to where it needs to be. The more user-immersive experiences could set you back a pretty penny, especially if you have products which are to be given away in order to create a relationship between business and consumer. With social media, as aforementioned, you are getting a free service, but one that definitely needs to be invested in in order to generate more of a return from potential customers who may be living just outside of the radius that is granted to you. Generally speaking, you should set apart 20% of your profit towards marketing, if not a bit more, in order to gain the interest that you need. If you are not putting the funds into really pushing your brand, you can’t expect to get much interest. It’s sort of like locking your business in a dark box in the middle of nowhere, buried beneath the ground, and asking people to find it without a map. They’re going to give up after a while, and that’s if they even start the search for you. If your company isn’t popping up in search results, doing all it can to interact with your target demographic and those just outside of it, or engaging on all the mediums that are presented to you (often for free, remember!) then there is no use following a strategy at all.

With the ecommerce industry booming so is the demand for well organised, reliable and competent warehouses. So today we are sharing our top seven tips on how to keep your warehouse a well oiled logistical machine to ensure you keep your clients happy and loyal to your business.

Organization

An efficient warehouse all comes to down to proper organisation and an ordered structure of how things are done. Inventory is the bread and butter of any warehouse and it need constant monitoring to ensure that only the most important items are stored and anything unnecessary is cleaned out so as to not cause an obstruction to your warehouse.

Ensuring that your warehouse is always free is clutter is the first step in keeping your warehouse floor organised. From there you will need to make sure that the inventory that you are left with is properly organised so that your staff knows where everything is, at all times, and can find items quickly. Proper organisation of inventory will save you time and money so it is well worth creating a proper system when it comes to effectively storing inventory.

Cleaning

A well oiled warehouse is also a clean warehouse. So you need to make sure that you are keeping your warehouse really clean and that you are giving it a deep clean on a regular basis. A deep clean means cleaning shelves, machinery, tools and the floor. Keeping your warehouse spick and span will reduce the amount of accidents that can happen, and keeping it dust free will reduce illnesses in your staff. If you are unsure of how to organise a deep warehouse clean check out cisco-eagle.com for top warehouse cleaning tips.

Staff Focused Equipment

Investing in the best equipment that will make the lives of your staff easier is really important to ensure that things are running smoothly. Investing in ergonomic equipment that is safe for your staff by providing optimum comfort and reduced levels of stress and injury is essential.

You will need to ensure that all the details are in place too and properly organised. Everything from proper weighing machine like, 1800scales.com, to crates, pallets, shipping packaging all the way through to the heavier machinery such as fork lift trucks, needs to be properly organised to optimize the productivity in your warehouse.  

High Standards

Make sure that you set high standards for the maintenance, organisation and logistics for your warehouse. You will want to impart your high standards onto your staff to make sure that they are working to the level that you require. Make sure that all the hard work that you put into maintaining your warehouse is sustained by your workforce and that your staff are working hard on the constant upkeep and organisation of your warehouse.

Recycle

Being responsible with the enormous amount of material being disposed of is imperative. This is where ‘The Three R’s’ come into play: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. This method is super important in any warehouse environment so make sure that you are training and encouraging all staff on how to adhere to this structure to ensure the corporate responsibility of your business and better all-round organisation.

For most entrepreneurs, the success of a business relies on the strength and effectiveness of the business strategy, whether it is marketing, sales or even investment. While it is indeed essential to have a healthy market strategy, there is a lot more to the business life than defining a plan for financial growth. Indeed, ore and more successful companies define themselves not regarding monetary worth, but regarding customer satisfaction, employee happiness, and the level of integration and interaction with their communities. In the business world, the community can mean a variety of things. Indeed, it could refer to the users who follow your social media accounts and interact with your company on these platforms. For others, the community is part of the local environment a company belongs to, the town and its inhabitant, the region, and per extensions the economic, social and environmental health in this specific area. So which community does count more in the business world and why is that so?

What Is A Community?

First of all, before defining whether your business community should exist in the digital sphere or the local area, it is essential to take the time to define what a community is. You can find an accurate definition at BusinessDictionary.com/definition/community but if you’d rather get the summarized version, a community refers to a network of individuals who share common interests and who use the exchange of information, ideas and any other resources as a form of collaboration. From a business’s perspective, the community needs to be part of your overall philosophy which means it needs to be a natural process. A tactical and strategic approach is not the way to build a community feeling, as it will unmistakably appear too commercial and salesy. Communities may not provide a direct and measurable financial return on investment in the short term, but that’s because it’s not what they are about. Communities are about sharing common ideas and inspiring each other. Building a strong community is, however, part of creating additional value for those who engage with your business. Used as a differentiating factor, communities deliver a powerful branding message for a company.

Building Your Digital Community With Interactions

The majority of companies perceive communities are being primarily a digital network of people. This is especially true for startups and remote companies that may not have the necessary funds to set a local office. As a result, they begin the creation of a digital community to anchor the company into the reality of the market. Tapping into the advantages of a digital community can be a determining factor of success. But how do they do it?

As a rule of the thumb, when you approach digital communities – whether you choose to build your own such as Crowdfunder or you choose to rely on social media platforms – it is important to share meaningful information. You’ve guessed it: ‘read more here’ and another message in the same vein will not get you any attention. Without meaning, your interactions can be perceived as spammy, and that is the last thing that you want. Building a genuine exchange is indeed the key to the survival of a digital community. Additionally, it’s important to remember that more and more community users expect the possibility to establish a real connection with your company. In other words, you need to remove the clinical automated process that is often deployed to respond to tweets or emails. Your community thrives on contact, and that’s where personalization pays off.

Why Do You Need A Digital Community?

It may seem strange for large companies to maintain a strong digital community, even though they have a multiple of office locations. Shouldn’t they instead be focusing on their local communities? In reality, the creation of a strong digital community is essential for companies of all size. Indeed, social media is the main driver for engagement and relationship for 53% of brands. It’s so important that customers prefer to interact on social media with their favorite brand to checking their website. The reason why online communities are so vibrant is that users find that the Internet has made it easier for them to join and support a cause from the comfort of their home, or anywhere they go with their smartphone. It’s easy to stay connected and integrated nowadays. As a result, decision makers rely on their social media communities, whether it is to launch a new product – it’s an easy way to test people’s reactions – or to improve their brand reputation. Additionally, there is no other communication platform that allows companies to communicate so directly with their target audience and to monitor so clearly how their followers react

Building Your Local Community With Local Values

But there is naturally another form a community, which is the local community. In other words, it is the community of the area where your company is based. Unfortunately, most companies don’t immediately see the advantage of creating a solid local community feeling. They tend to consider it as an additional PR campaign strategy. In truth, the ability to build a local community with strong values impacts on a company’s reputation and brand perception. What’s the best way to do?

First of all, before considering interacting with your community, it is important to ensure that your office building promotes the right messaging. For instance, the building needs to be clean, and the roof fully maintained for the safety of your employees as well as the appearance of your company – if you are unsure how to deal with commercial building maintenance, you can find more at WildwoodRoof.com/commercial-roof-repair. Your next step then is to ensure that your company can promote local opportunities, from the construction of new infrastructure that can benefit from employees and customers to partnerships with local charities and shops. For example, a great way of promoting your local community is to build local products for the office kitchen whenever possible.

Why Do You Need A Local Community?

It may seem like an odd tactic, especially when your company can benefit so much from digital communities, but local communities matter too. Working with the local community means that your company participates in the improvement of the local economy by buying local and hiring local too whenever you can. As you support the local economy, you can be assured that the local economy also supports your company in return. It’s a win-win situation!

As an employer, you have a lot of responsibility to your staff. Of course, they will have to deal with their personal finances and normal life. But, while they’re at work, they are under your supervision. And, this means that they have to be treated correctly. A lot of businesses make mistakes when it comes to having employees. And, this is a shame, because the impact is usually felt by those underneath you. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead, you can start looking for ways to improve life for your employees, without damaging your business in the process. To help you with this, this post will be going through three of the most important areas of hiring employees. And, the ways to can handle them.

To start, there really is no question about an employee contract. Of course, in most places, the law won’t force you to give people a contract when they’re working for you. But, ignoring this important document could see you struggling long into the future. Without a contract, your employees will be able to leave as they please. They won’t have any reason to work for you if they don’t want to. And, they won’t have to give you any notice. Along with this, in the future, they could claim that you haven’t paid enough. Without a contract, you’d have to rely on your defense in court to win this sort of battle. With options like Contract Management Software, though, you can take all of this out of your hands. Services like this can help you to manage all of the contracts within your business, without leaving you to do it manually.

Next, it’s time to think about insurance. But, this insurance isn’t there to directly cover your employees. Instead, it’s there to protect you. Legal insurance can be a great tool to have behind you as an employer. If you ever find yourself in court over a dispute, you’d have the cover and protection you’d need to get through it as best as you can. But, without it, you’d have to defend yourself. Along with helping in court, this sort of insurance could also help you in the event that you have to pay compensation. You can use comparison sites, just like you do for your personal insurance, to find cover for your business. So, there’s no excuse to leave yourself without it.

No one should ever have to feel unsafe while they’re working. And, likewise, no one should have to suffer an injury at work. As an employer, you’re responsible for the welfare of your employees while they work. And, so, it’s wise to put action into place to work on it. Having regular safety inspections from an outside body will cover much of this for you. But, alongside it, you also have to make sure your employees are happy. A lot of big companies have made the move into caring about their staff. You don’t have to do much to do this. But, it’s very much worth it.

Hopefully, this post will give you a good idea of the work involved with hiring employees. It’s vital that you tick all of the boxes when doing something like this. Failing to can mean more than just court. So, it’s essential that you put the right amount of work in.