Archives for June 2018

Global Greatness: Does Your Company Have What It Takes to Sell Worldwide?

June 2, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Your company might be doing well and turning a profit, but that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels. Business is cut- throat, and to survive and thrive you constantly need to be thinking of how you can improve and expand. One way to take that next step would be to start selling globally, that way you can tap into foreign markets and it’s just another way you can get ahead of your competitors. Here’s how you can go about it.

Global Business

A Wonderful Workforce

In order to succeed, you absolutely need to have the right people on board. Your employees need to be hardworking, driven and experienced in their role to ensure all work is done to the highest of standards and no silly mistakes are being made. If your business is already running well then chances are you have the right people in your team, but to go global you might need to expand. Extra departments and extra jobs will need to be filled if you want to get your brand message and your products or services out there across the globe. Choose carefully, the recruiting, interviewing and training process should all be done in the right way to select the best candidates. When you’re expanding your business and making big changes, the last thing you want is to be worrying about employees not pulling their weight or making mistakes.

Use Efficient Software

As well as having the right people working in your company, you also need to ensure you’re providing them with everything they need to do their job efficiently. Customer relationship management, HR, legal, accounting and presentation software can be useful in any business. But if you’re going global, you might want to consider softwares that can be utilised during the shipping process. Air cargo software for example allows carriers to streamline freight management and improve their operational efficiencies. When you have the right programs and software, you will be more efficient and will usually need to hire less staff members too. This is because software can easily tackle jobs in seconds, which might take a human worker a number of hours to do. You’ll never be able to fully automate using just computers (not at this point in time, anyway!) but the right computer programs can make things faster and save you time, hassle and money.

Consider Packing and Shipping

If you sell products, one of the biggest considerations when going global is physically getting your products to their destination. You will need to ensure that you’re not using any materials or ingredients that are banned in the country you’re sending to. You will need to look into packaging methods to make sure things arrive in one piece. If you outsource your packaging to a third party company, they will have the experience and equipment needed for this. Will you send by air or boat? There are lots of things to think about.

Going global is a huge step for your business, and the increased workload will be significant. However it can be a massive improvement to your business so something to think about if things are going well.

Should You Go It Alone In Business?

June 1, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

There are a lot of businesses out there in the world. Some of these are run by partners, friends and even former colleagues who collaborate together to do something good in the world. We are, by nature, sociable humans. We like to have company when we are going through big phases in life, and when we enter the working world, we get to know people, build contacts and eventually decide whether we want to strike out on our own and start our own businesses. The question is whether or not you choose to go it solo or whether you want to join forces with someone else.

Should you have a business partner?

Whether it’s a good idea to go solo is really going to depend on whether or not you have the right drive for it. You also should decide what you would need to outsource, considering you are only one person and can’t do it all. Hiring someone else to do certain tasks that you’re unable to do is a smart move for your business should you choose to run it on your own. There are pros and cons to going solo, of course. You’d need to be able to be okay with working alone because it can be dreadfully lonely, which can be enough to push you into partnership! You’d have to look into your options with places like umbrellacompany.net to know that your company finances are well-managed. Going solo has some benefits to it, and we’ve listed these for you below:

Pros:

Going it alone has the simplest structure for an organisation.
You get to make all the decisions without butting heads with anyone else about them.
Every failure and success are down to you and the choices that you make.
The profit and growth of a company is solely your success.

Cons:

It’s a lonely venture.
You don’t have anyone close to bounce ideas off; sometimes two heads are better than one.
You have to shut down every time you want a break.

As with going solo, partnering up with a like-minded individual, friend or former colleague also has its merits. It’s important to understand the pros and cons of partnering up as much as it is important to understand the pros and cons of going it alone.

Pros:

Your success can be double with someone else by your side helping you to make the decisions.
The extra help with the start up cash can be a weight off your shoulders as you’re not financing it alone.
Extra people on board means more talent that you won’t have to pay out for.

Cons:

Conflicted opinions can raise issues that you weren’t sure were even there.
You need to decide how you will structure yourselves as a partnership.
It could be far more complicated to have an exit strategy if you want to be able to get out of the contract you draw up early.

No matter what you do, make this decision carefully. There’s no use in bringing on a partner if it would be detrimental to your business.

Free Your Employees To Be More Productive

June 1, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Are you getting the best out of your employees? If not, why not? Many business owners might be quick to blame the individual, but the truth is that if it’s a widespread problem, it’s more likely the processes within the business that are the problem. Here are a few changes you can implement from the top level to make everyone more productive and more engaged all the way down the chain of command.

Streamline communication

Miscommunication is going to lead to wires getting crossed, mistakes being made, and people lacking the information and resources they need when it’s most critical. You can free up a lot of time by streamlining communication within the team. Create a document culture that gives people the organizational storage space to save and share files. Know their communication habits and help them find the tools to better fit them. For instance, project management software can be great for those employees who are prone to leaving messages or emails since it can always keep messages visible if its related to a certain project.

Offer them better tools

Sometimes, the team simply doesn’t have the right tool for the job. If your project manager is trying to track lots of different moving tasks on a spreadsheet, for instance, instead of project management software, they will waste a lot of time trying to get the tool to fit the job. IT support can help you reverse the process. By finding the tools to fit the job, instead, you’re likely to have employees waste a lot less time in completing their tasks. Just make sure that you have everyone on board before integration. It can take time to get used to the way new software works and a little heads-up can encourage them to do their own research on how these tools work.

Know the way to work

There is also the issue of what happens when an employee approaches a new tool or task for the first time. You can assume that because you have picked the best tools that it’s going to be evident how to use it. But that’s wrong. By systematizing your processes, you can have easy instructions at the ready that can help new employees or people trying new tasks for the first time.

Teach them time management

Sometimes, your team will have as much on their hands as you have on theirs. If they have more work than they can get done in a day, they need to know how to prioritize different tasks. Using time management tools, you can teach them how to prepare the working day before it begins. That way, they worry less about what they won’t be able to do today and will be more focused on the task they have already committed their time to.

If you offer your employees every tool and method to help them free up their time and become more productive, but you still have issues, then it might be an individual problem. Look at what you can fix in the business before you try and fix the people, however.

Getting Your Business The Kind Of Customer It Deserves

June 1, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Though it might seem like you’re constantly striving to win customers and keep them happy, you have to remember that it’s a reciprocal relationship. They have to be of value to you, too. For that reason, we need to look at how you cut out the difficult clients, the time-wasters, and focus on those who really have the most to offer in return.

Know your market

First of all, you have to know who you want to reach in the first place. If you started off on the right foot, you should have market research from which to build your ideal client profile. By narrowing down your ideal to specific demographics, you can better craft marketing messages to meet their expectations and anticipate their wants. As time goes on, use customer relationship management tools to continue capturing data and insight that lets you refine that knowledge even further.

Find the right people

If you’re active in trying to capture sales and clients, how do you know who to start off with? Networking can be a great resource to start building personal connections that can be professionally rewarding, but it’s slow. If you’re using telemarketing, you need to make sure you’re spending time on qualified leads, not just anyone. You can acquire resources like timeshare owner leads that can give you a little more financial information on potential customers and clients. That way, you can tell whether or not they are likely to be able to afford the service to begin with. Setting up referral partnerships with other business owners can help drive more customers towards you without the time and money spend on finding them, too.

Know how to nurture

Finding leads is one thing, but how do you get them to convert? Lead nurturing can take time, and you can make it much more efficient by identifying the methods that work best. Your CRM or other data collecting tools can be used to measure the effectiveness of methods like: targeted content, time follow-ups after meetings, personalized mail and email, and much more. There are a lot of different ways to “nudge” your potential customers in the right direction. Which of them work best can depend on your market, your services, and your message. Take the data-driven approach to find out which it is.

Reward generously

This is where many startups fail. You have to be generous in how you reward those who convert after the nurturing process. This doesn’t just mean offering great services or products. Show they’re valued by following up and thanking them. Welcome and ask for feedback. Continue to offer deals and promotions specifically for returning customers (and let them know how exclusive they are.) Too many businesses think that a deal is done once it’s done, and miss out on the returning revenue as well as the goodwill from loyal customers that can lead to word-of-mouth and a sterling reputation.

As your business grows and you get the time and resources to grow your customer or client base, you might become less picky. However, sticking to the tips above will always ensure you’re efficient in working with the best leads and getting the best chances of converting them.

Advice For Increasing Online Sales

June 1, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Online Sales All new entrepreneurs should know that the internet is the best place to target their efforts when it comes to boosting sales and increasing profits. Still, those just starting out in their industries are sure to make mistakes and overlook the best strategies. With that in mind, there is some advice on this page that should help you to make the right decisions this summer. While this is not a complete guide, the ideas below can be used alongside your broader promotional strategy to ensure you achieve the best outcomes.

Invest in online banner ads

Firstly, you need to make sure you drive as much traffic to your website as possible. However, there is no need to ditch your offline marketing plans. Google Adwords is the most popular banner advertising tool in the world at the moment, and thousands of businesses use it to gain attention online. You’ll have to employ the services of a freelance designer or someone with the right skills to ensure your banner ads look attractive and catch the eye of people who see them. Hopefully, those folks will click the ad, visit your site, and make a purchase. Make sure you conduct lots of market research because that is the info you will use to target your adverts.

Provide a straightforward online payment system

Secondly, it is imperative that you don’t lose out on any sales because your website doesn’t enable the customer to buy using the payment method they wish to use. For that reason, you need a reliable online payment gateway like BlueSnap or something similar to ensure that your customers can always spend their money and complete the payment process. There are hundreds of different solutions out there today, and you just need to read some reviews and perform some comparisons to ensure you can sort the wheat from the chaff.

Offer live chat customer service

Lastly, customer service is the backbone of any sales or e-commerce business according to LiveChat Inc and their competitors. You have to ensure your customers can get in touch with your team and resolve their issues in a manner that creates the least hassle possible. Live chat is perfect because it allows individuals to speak with your employees while they’re still on your web page. That should help you to sort any issues and ensure the person does not click over to a competing website and spend their money elsewhere. You should also enable people to get in touch by writing letters and using the telephone. So, ensure you publish a “contact us” page with all the right information.

Now you know the basics of increasing online sales and boosting your profits this year’ it’s time to put some of the advice into action. Hopefully, you can use the tips from this post to improve your strategy and guarantee you never miss out on any potential sales. If you want to go a step further, why not create a questionnaire for your customers to answer about their experience? You can use the results to identify problems and refine your approach as much as possible. Good luck!