Archives for November 2020

Vacation Rentals: Is There Still a Market for Them?

November 25, 2020 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Photo by Jeda Villa Bali on Foter.com / CC BY

The vacation rental sector has been rapidly growing in the last couple of years, making it a very profitable industry, thanks to integrated apps and software – and people taking advantage of its convenience. In fact, the sector is so popular that it has a revenue of over $7 billion and more than 440 million vacation rental users worldwide.

Vacation time, whether going to a different country or visiting the conservatory or music connection centers to explore your musical hobbies more, can improve your mental and physical well-being. In short, the vacation sector will never crumble. So, if you’re thinking of starting a vacation rental business, it’s a worthy market to explore.

Here are the latest trends in the market to help you get off a good start and ensure long-term success and growth.

Sustainable Traveling

As global warming and other environmental issues become widespread, more travelers are starting to prefer eco-friendly accommodations. Plus, those renting out their properties are now enjoying the benefits of reduced energy bills and a greener space. Making small changes towards sustainability can go a long way in making your listing stand out while helping the environment at the same time.

Vacationing with Pets

Since vacation rentals provide more space than stuffy hotel rooms, it makes them more desirable for pet owners. This simple factor can significantly make some clients happier, improving satisfaction ratings and feedback. It makes your property appealing to pet owners, generating more bookings in the future.

Millennials Taking Over the Market

More young adults are now embracing the idea of using vacation rental properties rather than expensive hotels as their home for trips with their families or friends. That’s because rentals offer more privacy and intimacy than typical hotels and at a much better price, allowing travelers to live like a local, making trips more authentic. Focusing your marketing towards this trend of millennial group travels can go a long way in boosting bookings.

Wellness Travel

Recently, more people are getting into fitness and wellness more, giving a massive opportunity for vacation rental owners to dip into this trend and increase their bookings. Marketing your property to these individuals, especially if your area has easy access to nature, hiking spots, and other outdoor activities, can profoundly boost your bookings.

Using Third-Party Services

A growing sector translates to facing more competition within the market. To stay on top, most hosts are now investing in professional services, including marketing and property management companies, to expand their reach while overseeing every area of their listing, maximizing revenue. If you don’t have a team of your own, consider outsourcing.

Connecting to More Online Platforms

In today’s digitalized world, being connected to online channels has never been more critical. These help you get more booking for your vacation rental as it streamlines the whole process for your potential guests. The most popular to consider are AirBNB, Booking, Agoda, and TripAdvisor. Adding your properties to these prominent online channels can expand your reach further and get more bookings.

As more vacation rental platforms push listings worldwide, the market for vacation rentals is bigger than ever. But with millions of competitors, it can be challenging to establish a startup or keep your business running. Fortunately, keeping up with trends like those mentioned can help you adjust operations and maintain success long-term.

How To Accelerate Your Business’ Growth

November 25, 2020 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

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Growing your business is a very tough task, particularly in the first five years of its existence. The first years of your business are spent constantly evaluating minor successes against the seemingly impossible task of staying in the black. Studies show that 60% of businesses fail within the first three years, because they are unable to generate the income that would balance out the expensive outgoings of setting up a new business.

If you are looking to accelerate your business’ growth, there is no quick fix. There are, however, smart changes you can make to cut costs and make sure your business grows as the years go by. Here are two ways to accelerate your business’ growth!

Speed up your manufacturing process

The manufacturing process of your goods will take up a large chunk of your outgoings. Speeding up this process will allow you to deliver more products at a faster rate, thereby helping you to increase your profit margins and grow your business more quickly. Some ways you could speed up your manufacturing process are:

Switch to automated processes rather than manmade. This would require partnering with a manufacturer that can provide you with such services and potentially increasing your outgoings; however, the benefits of this manufacturing process far outweigh the downsides. Automated manufacturing allows for round-the-clock product creation while also eliminating human error.
Invest in rapid tooling. Rapid tooling, offered by companies such as Rapid PSI, offer 3D printing services that decrease the manufacturing time of their services by around four times, meaning that you could manufacture your products at only 25% of the usual time. This amazing technology can revolutionize your business’ manufacturing processes and grow your business exponentially.

Use automation software

Using automation software has been an increasingly popular choice for small businesses that are looking to grow fast. Automation software, for example accounting software, has the following benefits:

Reducing the number of staff you need to hire. Although having a big team has its perks, people are highly expensive for small businesses that are just getting on their feet. Automated software like back office software costs a monthly fee, but this is miniscule in comparison to hiring an accounting assistant full time.
No human error. Automated software services eliminate human mistakes, making your operations smoother, more accurate and more timely.

By reducing these costs and speeding up your accounting and organizing processes, your business has more room to grow and thrive in other areas.

Outsource your marketing

Marketing is crucial if you want your business to expand. Fact. Unless you are a marketing expert yourself, you likely don’t have the expertise required to maximize your marketing ROI. By outsourcing your marketing to a firm, you will be putting your business’ marketing in the hands of those who know how to find your niche, grow your customer base and attract your target audience. Don’t leave it up to chance; leave it up to the pros instead.

Overall, accelerating your business’ growth is a hard task – but with this guide to help you, your business will be thriving in no time at all.

Important Steps Your Company Can Take Towards Success

November 25, 2020 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Running a business is all about making the right decisions at the right times to try to ensure success. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but the more you can do now, the better placed you will be to achieve success in the future. Make sure you think about the different steps you can take to improve your company and make the right decisions for the future right now.

You have to consider the different ideas and elements that will play a role in this, and it is vital that you consider how your company is influenced. Try to come up with ideas that will help with this, and make sure you make the most of this right now. Here are some of the key steps you need to be taking to help you when it comes to achieving success.

Market the Business Better

You have to make sure you do as much as you can to come up with ideas that are going to help you when it comes to making the business more successful, and marketing is one of the key parts of this process. You have to make sure you take steps to achieve this as much as you can, and there are a lot of marketing strategies you can use to make the best choices here. Try to do as much as possible to focus on coming up with ideas that will help you factor this in, and web design experts like RSM marketing would be a great choice for helping you to make sure you have a strong marketing plan moving forward.

Get an Edge on Your Rivals

Getting an edge on your rivals is also really important, and you have to make sure you do what you can to come up with ways of improving this opportunity. Look at what rival companies do well and what they do badly, and try to come up with ideas that will allow you to get an edge on your rivals. You might even consider teaming up with other companies as a way of helping you improve your business and what you can offer to customers, and this is a great way of being able to get an edge on your rivals.

Offer Customers That Little Bit More

Offering customers something extra is definitely one of the best ways of being able to improve your company and help you achieve greater levels of success. There are a lot of things that help with this, and it is vital that you enjoy the right ways of being able to do this. Make sure you come up with ideas that are going to help you when it comes to making the most of this right now. Since coronavirus hit, people are thinking more carefully about what they spend their money on, and this means companies need to look at how they can provide a greater experience to their customers as much as possible.

Try to come up with ideas and factors that will play a role in helping you to improve this process moving forward. There are a lot of things that you have to make the most of right now, and this is something that plays a part in helping take steps to achieve this. Make sure you understand what the process entails when it comes to looking after your business right now.

How To Deliver Great Customer Service

November 25, 2020 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

It won’t matter how great your products are or what help you can offer people through your services; if your customer service is lacking in any way, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be successful. People like to be treated well, and because there is so much competition in business, if you don’t do it, someone else – your competitors – will. This means lost revenue, lower profits, and potentially a poor reputation, which is always difficult to pull yourself back from.

Therefore, customer service must always be a priority no matter what sector you are working in or how much competition you have. Here are some ways to ensure you deliver great customer service every time.

Image from Pixabay

Know Your Product

Excellent customer service isn’t just about being nice to people and asking how they are (although there is, of course, an element of this). Great customer service is also about ensuring you can help your customers and potential customers when they need you to. This means you have to know your product.

When you know your product inside and out, you can be there to answer any questions people might have about it. You can sell it better too since you’ll know exactly what it can do. Plus, you’ll be the perfect troubleshooter, and your customers won’t have to go elsewhere for their information. If you can learn everything possible about your product, prospects are going to trust you more, and they’ll want to buy from you rather than someone else.

Respond Quickly

Time is a precious commodity, and we all seem to have much less of it these days. If you leave a customer waiting too long for an answer, or even any service at all, they are sure to leave your store (physical or online), and you will lose the sale.

Therefore, you must respond quickly to any queries, orders, or even complaints. This is especially true when there are many different ways you can be contacted – ignoring one entire set of people because you don’t have time to respond to Facebook comments or questions left on your blog is bad for business.

To respond quickly, you may need to implement some additional measures. These could include extra phone lines from Lingo Communications, a part-time (or full time if you are very busy) social media assistant, or someone to take over your website’s maintenance.

Help Customers Help Themselves

Although getting in touch with the business you want to buy from is something that a lot of people do, and they will all expect a prompt response as mentioned above, there are a good number of potential customers who would prefer not to do this and would like to be able to make their purchasing decisions by themselves. If they are out there and they might spend their money with you, helping them to make those decisions and help themselves is crucial for any business that’s serious about its customer service.

If possible, implement a ‘self-service’ system in your business. The customer is then put right at the heart of your operation as you will be ensuring that everything you do is right for them. Although you won’t be involved in a hands-on way (because that’s the point), this is still seen as excellent customer service.

Why Partnering With Other Companies Is Key To Succeeding In Business

November 24, 2020 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

You’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘it’s not what you know, its who you know’, plenty of times before. However, the reason that we hear it repeated so often is due to the simple fact that it is true.

Whether you are stuck in a dead and job looking for a way out or wanting to advance within your current company, contacts are key to your success. Therefore, you should always pay particular attention to the way you cultivate workplace relationships – be considerate, cooperative and enthusiastic. Help others when you have the opportunity to do so, as they will help you in return.

However, you need to build relationships with other companies and businesses too – as this will allow your business to grow considerably. Here are just three reasons why!

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

1: Increase your earning potential and your audience

You should not view other businesses in your local area as your competition – especially if you have things to offer each other. For example, a potential collaboration could help you both earn more money, and also bring in new customers to your store/business. One way in which you can do this is by hosting competitions together. For example, customers can enter a competition to win a hamper containing a mixture of products from local businesses. The more people that enter, the more people will find out about your products and may be convinced to make a purchase. If they don’t make a purchase right away, you have still gained exposure.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

2: Gain access to new materials

If you’re just starting out in business, you may find it harder to gain access to the materials and products you need in order to thrive. For example, if you work within metrology, it can be difficult to source equipment – especially if you are trying to find the best price for the product you buy. However, by working with a company such as Metrology parts, you will gain easy access to the most affordable metrology equipment and will benefit greatly from their expert advice.

3: Learn from each other

You can always learn from those around you – even other businesses, so don’t be afraid to reach out for professional help and support. Although you should not try to ‘copy’ the work that another business has completed, you can ask them for advice on how you can grow and develop – for example, can they recommend any courses you should take part in? What technology should you invest in? You should also remind them that you are happy to return the favour should they have any questions for you.

Another way in which you can learn from other companies is by collaborating on a project. Once you have begun to build a relationship and know that they can be trusted, you can also recommend their services to clients who may be looking for something they offer. For example, if you own a construction company, you can cultivate relationships with furniture manufactures and recommend each other to your clients.