Archives for June 2021

Reasons Your Business Is Not profitable

June 23, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

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The survival of your small business is directly related to your profitability rate. Whenever profitability decreases, your business will face several challenges. At this point, entrepreneurs will ask themselves why their business is not profitable and how they can reverse such a scenario.

As a startup, especially in a competitive market, anticipate negative profitability in the first year. However, losses do not happen at all at once; they start as hidden leaks. Over time, your business could go bankrupt due to insufficient profits to keep it afloat.

Therefore, you must be very careful about your profit generation in the preliminary stages of business operations.

There are several ways to optimize your margin. At the very least, you should reconsider some of the causes of low profits. These causes include the following:

Very Low Prices Despite High Costs

Your competitors may surpass you in income generation because of your poor pricing strategy; it is the most fundamental logic in entrepreneurship. You always have to keep your costs low and sell your products at a higher price than the cost.

For example, if you encounter $50 to make a sweater, selling it at &80 increases your chances of profitability in the long run. In this case, your profit margin is 60%. If you’re wondering what to do to increase your profit margin, try benchmarking your competitors.

At the same time, build a strong relationship with your customers to increase the value of your product.

Setting Unachievable Margins

Although you should set goals for your profit margins, they ought to be within the reality of the market and that of your competitors. Pricing is not an exclusive strategy; it relies on the environment and the market niche.

Excessive Spending on Unnecessary Things

Remember, profitability extensively correlates with low production costs. As an entrepreneur, you have pressure to copy your competitors instead of focusing on the technology you already have or can improve.

For example, you may have a perfectly functioning laptop for your e-commerce business. Still, you decide to buy a Mac, and it would be a poor strategy for optimizing your profit margin in the long run.

Sometimes, seeking new technology or employing more people does not equal quality production.

You Are Not innovative

Innovation is the backbone of any profitable enterprise. Therefore, it is your responsibility to develop ways to improve your product and beat your competitors as a result. Even if you are in a very competitive market, innovation is your only solution and strategy to increase your profit margin.

Furthermore, innovation increases the market value of your product and justifies any price increase.

Poor Marketing Strategies

Your consumers will first make contact with you through your marketing platforms. Therefore ensure that whichever marketing strategy you choose guarantees a wide range as well as direct revenue generation.

So, if any of your marketing strategies do not reach more people and increase sales, it is highly likely that you need to reevaluate. Getting stuck with a marketing strategy because it’s working for your competitors is not prudent for your business profitability rate.

Final Thoughts

As you’re aware, business is unpredictable and a risk. However, if you experience massive losses, all at once or over a long period, it is only fair that you go back to the drawing book.

The Huge Cost of Bad Hires — And How to Stop It

June 23, 2021 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

There’s one word that makes C-level executives, human resources departments, operations personnel, sales teams and financial staffs shake with fear:

Turnover.

When a new hire doesn’t work out, stress ripples throughout the organization. When it happens more than once or repeatedly, the effects quickly become a tidal wave of profit loss, decreased employee engagement and revenue growth. Turnover affects almost every aspect of a business. And yet these tangible costs, substantial as they may be, really only represent the tip of the iceberg. Hiring mishaps can hurt morale, productivity, brand image and customer relationships. If your company acquires the reputation of having heavy turnover, it will be challenging to attract good applicants, hurting your future.

The infographic below, What Are Bad Hires Really Costing Your Business?, provides a high-level overview of the costs of bad hires, why it happens and how to fix it. The infographic serves as an excellent reminder and useful in-house training tool. Read on to learn more.

What Are Bad Hires Really Costing Your Business? from Torch Group

Local SEO Secrets Every B2B Company Should Know

June 22, 2021 by Lauren Wiseman Leave a Comment

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Generating qualified leads and closing sales can be challenging for B2B companies. To improve your online presence and maximize your digital marketing ROI, you need to build a solid local SEO strategy.

Let’s discover a few proven SEO techniques for B2B companies.

Claim Google My Business Listings

Google My Business enables you to manage your Business Profile on Google. It can significantly increase your online exposure in the local SERPs.

Above all, it is a significant ranking factor. According to Bright Local, Google My Business has grown from 25% of local pack ranking factors in 2018 to 33% in 2020. It pulls customer reviews from its platform and other business directories. That is how it builds trust with both users and search engines.

To optimize your GMB listing, add your B2B company’s data, such as its name, location, phone number, and email address. Add photos of your company, maps, pricing, and other attributes that make your organization unique.

Next, include the right keywords to tell search engines what searches you are ranking for.

Produce Authoritative Local Content

Google priorities quality content that is relevant to its users. For content creators, that is an opportunity to write for users, not search engines.

As a B2B company, your goal is to attract local users interested in your products and services. That is why you should write about local news and trends rather than covering general topics.

The content you create should go beyond your B2B products and services. It should deliver value to your potential clients. For example, write about local industry gatherings, trends, and news. Provide industry-specific whitepapers, infographics, eBooks, and customer success stories.

By producing educational, data-backed, and user-friendly content, you will build trust with your prospects. They will perceive you as a credible information source and, therefore, be more likely to do business with you.

Content creation for B2B companies goes hand in hand with effective keyword research and promotion. Use high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta descriptions, and article body. Implement your search phrases organically and ensure each content element is informative, user-friendly, and written for customers, not Google bots.

If you have no content R&D experience, consider hiring professionals to help you. One such example is Crucial.com.au that has a strong presence in the local search. They hired a local Sydney SEO agency to perform content research, development, optimization, and distribution. They reached the first page of Google in a few months and doubled the number of inbound links in the first quarter.

Register on Relevant Business Directories

NAP citations are places where your name, address, and phone number are listed out. These data aggregators are an essential local ranking signal.

That is why you need to add NAP citations to relevant business directories and local listings sites. Some of them are Yelp, Bing, Foursquare, Angie’s List, Factual, and BBB. Choose websites and platforms that are relevant to your B2B company’s niche.

Perform regular audits to verify that all citations are accurate, up-to-date, and consistent. Misspellings, inaccuracies, duplicate listings, or abbreviations may harm your rankings. If Google cannot determine which information is correct, it may not show your company in local search results.

Build High-Quality Backlinks

Local link-building practices are similar to non-local ones. The tactics that work for global B2B corporations and international agencies also work for local call answering agencies, office security companies, and business lawyers.

Moreover, local businesses have a tie to a specific city, area, or state. As such, they have a lot of unique link-building opportunities non-local sites cannot use.

Here are some of them:

Team up with other relevant businesses in your area. Start building links from companies you already know, such as your suppliers, contractors, wholesalers, and distributors.
Build backlinks on your local chamber of commerce. Those are high-authority links that may supercharge your local rankings. Even if your chamber of commerce requires you to pay an annual fee, it is worth the investment.
Give back to your local community. Have a volunteer day, sponsor a local event or partner with a nonprofit on a campaign. That way, you will get a backlink from your partners’ websites. Additionally, that is an opportunity to earn positive press and increase brand awareness.
Create fresh content for local news sites, blogs, and magazines to obtain a backlink.

Ready to Build a B2B SEO Strategy?

Local SEO is the pillar of your B2B company’s online presence.

For starters, build a solid SEO strategy and implement it strategically. If you have no local SEO experience, seek help.

The tactics mentioned above help you boost brand authority, supercharge rankings in the local SERPs, and generate qualified leads.

Should You Invest in Startups Through Venture Capital?

June 22, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

These days, more and more people are looking to place their money somewhere other than a savings account. While it’s safe to keep your money with a bank, it’s ultimately not the most profitable location to leave your money and there are many different options available to you nowadays. One of those big options is venture capital.

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What is venture capital?

Venture capital is a form of private equity. It’s a way for people to provide startups with investments and they are usually handled by companies that work directly with businesses that show promise in long-term growth potential. Venture capital usually comes from investors and investment banks, but it can also come in the form of expertise.

When it comes to choosing between saving or investing your money, people have started leaning more in favour of investing their money because there are many different low-risk investments to pick from now. Venture capital is one of the more popular options because there is potential for very high returns.

Venture capital has great potential for high returns

One of the biggest reasons to invest in venture capital is for the very high returns that it is capable of. Since you’re investing in businesses that have a very high chance to become successful companies, you’ll be taking a slice of their profits and that can lead to some very high returns. Investors are more willing to take risks on businesses that they personally believe in. This can ultimately result in very high gains, but there are still plenty of ways to minimise risk and ensure that you’re not gambling your money away.

Investing in startups can pay off with huge returns, especially if there is an exit strategy such as the sale of a company. Some investors have seen up to 300% return on their initial investment, making it an extremely lucrative investment if you find the right startup to back.

Venture capital brings you close to the business

Unless you’re starting your own company, venture capital investments can bring you closer to the businesses that you invest in. Investing in consumer brands venture capital is a great way to learn more about a business, it’ll show you exactly what they need to succeed, and you’ll also actively be contributing to their success. This essentially means that you’ll be rooting for the business and their profits will mean bigger returns for you.

You’ll be able to find out more about the business, see what their future plans are like, and also explore different kinds of industries so you know exactly where to expect future growth to occur.

As with any investment, it’s important to understand exactly where your money is going and you should always seek impartial and professional advice. It can take a while to explore all of your options and it may be difficult to get your foot in the door with all of the unique financial terms and concepts, but it’s a great way to invest your money if you’re looking to move away from a savings account.

3 Tips for Modernising Your Office

June 21, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

When was the last time that you decorated your office? Are things looking a bit tired and dated? Here are some top tips that you should be thinking about if you want to modernise your office and bring it up to date.

Start with Furniture

Ideally, you want to choose classic pieces of furniture that are going to last you beyond this refurbishment. These are going to be some of the most important parts of the new office design, so you want to get them right. Not only do they have to fit your planned aesthetics for the space, but they also have to be functional for your staff.

Why not have a search for “2nd hand office furniture near me”? This could be a fantastic way for you to get a feel for some of the options out there, and it can help you to start to create a room. The beauty of searching for “2nd hand office furniture near me” means that you also might be able to pick up pieces from buy and swap groups and plenty of other sources. As long as it is good quality, who cares where it comes from?

Ditch the Beige

If you last decorated your office in the mid-2000s, there is a chance that everything still might be a little beige and uninteresting. The 2020s are going to be filled with colour, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to get a head start!

The 2010s were dominated by shades of grey. If this is a colour scheme that you are still interested in, you should definitely include it in your design. However, a little bit of colour can help things to get a bit more interesting and exciting. Take a look at some of the best interior design colours of the moment, and consider basing your office around them.

Don’t Forget the Computers!

When trying to modernise your office, you might end up sticking to just the furniture by mistake. Instead, you need to make sure that you also consider your computer systems. When did you last update them?

They might be considered to be incredibly outdated by modern standards. It could therefore be a much better idea to scrap what you currently have and bring something new onboard. It might be a long and time-consuming process to transfer your data and files, but it can definitely be worth it if you get a faster computer out of the mix.

If you are thinking about changing up your office, now is the perfect time to do so. Make sure you bring in plenty of fresh and clean concepts so that you are able to create a space that is going to last you for several years to come. Modernising your office can help to make it into a fun and collaborative space that your employees are happy to work in. Tackle the three areas listed above, and turn this into a great office.

Go green

The interior of your office gets a lot of love during a makeover, but don’t neglect the exterior. There’s one particular area that can receive a big upgrade to make your office more modern – as well as more eco-efficient. Take a look at your roof and see if it’s possible to install some solar panels on top of it. You may need a brief consultation with a commercial roofing company to see if solar panels are viable and if they are they are worth the investment. Not only will your office look modern from the outside, but you get green energy fuelling your electronics and lowering the carbon footprint of your business.

Realistically, there’s nothing more modern than an eco-friendly business. Adapting your company and making it greener is a growing trend, so now is the perfect time to jump on it by upgrading your roof and harnessing the free power of the sun.