Keith Coppersmith | Mike McRitchie | Resume and LinkedIn Profile Writer | Telecom Marketing Content Writer

Don’t Let Technology Hurt Your Productivity

December 29, 2019 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Whether you’re a business owner working with a dozen employees or you’re a solopreneur working from home, we all rely on technology every single day in an effort to be more productive. We use different digital tools to automate certain business processes, we communicate via digital channels with our clients as well as our colleagues, and we strive to use a range of project management software solutions to make sure we’re on top of all of our tasks and deadlines. In the rush to find the latest tech product that promises to boost productivity, many businesses fail to notice that some of these decisions can actually hinder their performance.

It all depends on how you implement these solutions, and how you train yourself as well as your employees to use them. While every business and every person has unique needs and preferences, there are certain tech-based commonalities that can jeopardize our productivity. Here are a few to keep in mind, alongside solutions that will help you solve and prevent productivity issues in the future.

Digital distractions

As soon as your phone alerts you of a new text message or an email, your brain responds even if you choose to ignore the notification. Alas, it’s too late for your brain, since the distraction has already prevented your mind from seamlessly directing its attention towards the task at hand. To be more precise, it can take as much as 23 minutes to restore your focus after a digital distraction.

Although communication depends on digital tools, reducing your number of active notifications and alerts can make a tremendous impact on your productivity. Screen your calls, mute your social media, and schedule communication slots such as email correspondence so that you can truly focus on the task at hand.

Equipment malfunctions

One of the main perks of using tech in the workplace is to save time on menial tasks, automate a range of different processes, and simplify communication to reduce delays. All in all, it’s all about greater efficacy. Businesses also rely on tech to create and provide entire services, from customer support, web development, to content creation and graphic design. If your key people end up with a computer that’s on a rampage or a security threat, you have to deal with the issue immediately to save time and reduce your losses.

One of the simplest ways to stay on top of your tech needs is to allow an experienced IT provider such as Computer Emergency to keep an eye on your systems, spot any issues and resolve them in time, and protect your data with advanced security measures. Letting someone who’s an expert in the field handle your equipment can prevent unwanted emergency situations and protect your productivity every day.

Security risks

A business can only be productive when work is done in a safe and secure environment, including its digital realm. Most, if not all businesses today rely on their internet connection to communicate during the day, to complete projects, and to answer customer queries. Remove the internet connection, and you suddenly have an office in chaos. However, that very same internet connection provides an opportunity for hackers to penetrate your network and wreak havoc on your systems and steal your data.

Such security breaches are more than enough to rob you of hours of productive work since you need to work on mitigating the problem immediately. Smart devices are only as smart as the people who use them, so make sure that your employees are well-versed in the latest cybersecurity preventative measures that will help them make smarter decisions when using the internet and their tech. This is a pivotal issue for any business today, and it will not only save your reputation, but also your day-to-day business efficacy.

The oversaturation of tech at work

Sitting at your office desk means that you’re surrounded by various seemingly helpful items such as your laptop, your tablet, your smartphone, and perhaps a slew of other gadgets that promise streamlined work. Alas, research has shown that even the presence of your smartphone can decrease your cognitive capacity, since the object’s vicinity is enough to cause you to be distracted, anticipate notifications, calls, messages, and regularly glance at it from your workstation. Although it’s not productive to ban phones altogether, either, you can start by reducing the number of tech tools you have at your disposal.

Perhaps it’s time to put away your phone into your jacket or your drawer. Maybe your tablet won’t be necessary until it’s time for a pitch or a presentation, so you can stick to your laptop only. This will help you avoid that brain-drain and sustain your focus in order to be productive during your work hours.

Yes, the emergence of different digital and tech-based solutions has enabled us to grow new business ideas and develop our careers immeasurably. However, there are certain pitfalls of technology that too many driven professionals fail to notice in time, and it can cost them their productivity and their reputation down the line. Use these pointers to keep an eye on your own behaviors with technology, so that you can build a more beneficial relationship with all of your tools and preserve your productivity in the process.

5 Ways to Reinvest Your Profits and Fuel Business Growth

November 23, 2019 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Business has been booming lately? Got a surplus of cash? Dare to think you’ve got too much cash on your hands and your cash flow is going to waste? Great, now’s the time to reinvest into your own company to fuel business growth. By far the best investment you can make is to allocate resources towards crucial growth-oriented process in your company that will help you build and maintain your competitive advantage, build long-term and stable revenue streams, and keep the top talent in your company at your side.

But this doesn’t mean that you should just throw money at your employees (but do raise their paychecks, that’s always a good incentive), or that you should invest in innovation without proper and diligent research – instead, you need to know exactly where this excess money is going and how it’ll benefit your company in the long run. Here’s how to spend that cash in the best possible way.

Invest in employee development

It should go without saying that your employees are your most important assets, and in the famous words of the business magnate Richard Branson: “Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business. Simple as that.” This means that, aside from being a good leader and an even better boss, you should invest in the professional development of your team members – not only for the sake of their satisfaction, but the long-term success of your business as well.

The truth is that the modern business world is constantly changing and evolving with the trends, and that means that your employees need to stay on top of the latest developments and acquire the knowledge necessary to push your brand forward as a whole. This is something they can achieve only through proper funding and guidance, both of which you should provide with the right investments. Take your team members to conferences, pay for their specializations, and provide them with the latest tools that will make their jobs easier and their time in the office more productive.

Bring in professional advisors and strategic partners

Now that you have a surplus of cash coming in on a regular basis, it’s time to take some of the pressure off of your own shoulders, as well as the shoulders of your employees. Nowadays, the majority of tasks, processes, and services can be outsourced to third-party providers and professionals, which presents a wonderful opportunity for you to bring in skilled and experienced help. And what better way to ensure better efficiency and efficacy of a certain process than to allow professionals to handle it for you?

This is a common problem aspiring business leaders have to deal with when the money is tight or while the company is still in its infancy, oftentimes taking on more tasks and responsibilities than they can handle. Worse yet, money problems often require business leaders to take on responsibilities outside of their core competencies, which invariably reduces productivity and might even put the company in danger.

Expand and diversify into other asset pools

It’s important to invest your surplus into your own business, but it’s also important to invest in other assets in order to spread your wealth, minimize risk of financial downfalls, and open up other revenue streams that will allow you to build your company and even kick-start complementary businesses down the road. The key here is to make your investment work for you, so you need a stable commodity such as real estate or currencies.

Growth-oriented business leaders are particularly interested nowadays in the financial sector, as broker firms the likes of Ever Forex are making it easy for aspiring investors to get in the game with minimal capital while receiving all of the guidance and support they need to produce a positive ROI. Whether you’re reinvesting the cash in currency exchange, or physical assets such as real estate, it’s important that you find a stable first investment, and then diversify into numerous other asset groups over time.

Fund research and innovation to build your USP

If your goal is to grow and expand your business in the years to come, preferably with minimal risk and in an efficient way, then there is no denying that you need a distinct competitive advantage and a strong USP. Naturally, the best way to build a competitive edge is to fund research and development, invest in technological solutions, and create truly unique experiences for your customers. Innovation is the name of the game here, so go ahead and allocate resources towards product development, or innovate your services and expand your offering to appeal to a wider audience.

Invest heavily in branding and marketing

And finally, always remember that marketing makes the modern business world go ‘round. There’s never a bad time to fund your marketing efforts, so why not research the most effective marketing tactics and allocate your resources towards building you brand’s reputation, reach, and authority in the competitive industry? Start with the most promising tactics that don’t require a lot of financial investment, and then proceed to invest in paid advertising to put your brand on the online map quickly.

Wrapping up

When business is booming, the last thing you should be thinking about is buying that boat you always wanted. Your priority should be to reinvest financial resources into your business, and fund the key areas that have the highest potential of driving your company forward as a whole.

5 Cost-Effective Tips for Breaking into New Markets

October 16, 2019 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Not every business leader dreams of expanding their brand into new markets, but that doesn’t mean that national and international expansion isn’t one of the most sought-after goals in the modern business world. After all, the global marketplace is becoming more accessible with each passing year, making it quite feasible for growth-oriented companies to expand overseas, and establish a foothold in an exciting new market with plenty of potential for long-term success.

But this doesn’t mean that expanding your business is an easy task, nor is it a guarantee that you’ll actually be able to generate a positive ROI in the months and years to follow. In reality, you need to execute a strong expansion strategy in order to prevent common pitfalls and financial hurdles, and solidify your position in a new market before the established competitors start pushing back. With all of that in mind, here are the best tips you need to implement into your strategy.

It all starts with meticulous research

As a go-getter business leader, you might want nothing more than to simply venture into a new marketplace and take the local demographic by storm, and that’s great, but you can’t hope to be successful without first tending to some diligent research. Knowledge is power in business, and obtaining valuable industry insights is especially important when you’re trying to maximize your new investment, reduce risk as much as possible, and get your foot into the proverbial door.

For these and many other important reasons, you need to research the new market, the new customer demographic, and your new competitors. The best way to do this in a way that’s manageable, clear, and concise, is to conduct a detailed SWOT analysis for each. This will allow you to discover the unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats regarding your company, the markets you plan to enter, the local demographic, and your top competitors so that you can develop your own competitive edge, drive innovation, and tailor the message to appeal to your new audience from the start.

Tailor the branding and messaging to the audience

You might have an amazing brand that your current local audience knows and loves, but out there, you’re starting from scratch, and people might not be as receptive. Not that there’s anything wrong with your current brand identity, messaging, visuals, or narrative, it’s just that different communities and cultures respond differently to these stimuli, especially if you’re an outsider they’ve never seen before. People love the brands they’re familiar with, so the moment you enter a new market, you’re at a disadvantage.

So, you need to make a big impact, and you need to make one fast. Leverage the insights you’ve gathered to refine your brand and optimize it for the new customer base, making sure that the narrative speaks to their hearts and minds, that your visuals stand out and evoke positive emotions, and that your messages carry weight while embodying values that truly matter. It’s not an easy task, but it’s nonetheless imperative if you are to capture their attention, inspire them to visit your site or your store, and develop a meaningful relationship with your brand.

Make sure the law is on your side

One of the most important elements of successful international business expansion is making sure that the law is on your side. Sometimes, the local legislature will prevent you from expanding into the local market on your own, and you might have to acquire a strategic partner. For example, real estate agencies and independent agents that want to obtain properties in other countries are often finding that the local laws prohibit them from owning land as foreigners, but that doesn’t mean that expansion is impossible.

In Indonesia, as a prime example, there are dedicated investment firms the likes of Invest Islands that specialize in giving foreign investors that are expanding overseas access to property procurement in the country, but they also simplify the process with experience and professional guidance. Following the same mindset, be sure to consider acquiring such strategic partners yourself when you’re expanding your company, in order to always stay on the right side of the law.

Strive to maintain and improve your level of service

When companies expand, the first thing that tends to go down is the quality of their service. Yes, the workload has quadrupled, and yes, you have to spread your resources across multiple fronts now, but unfortunately that is no excuse to lower your standards – because everyone will notice, especially the clients back home. Be sure to allocate enough resources to expand without jeopardizing your relationship with your existing clientele, and make sure that you have enough money and a sizable workforce to deliver and overdeliver in the new marketplace.

Build long-term relationships

And finally, always remember that long-term success in a new market depends on your ability to build long-lasting relationships. Regardless of your industry or niche, you need to build relationships with all strategic partners and relevant parties in order to elevate your brand’s reputation, get better deals and discounts with suppliers, and get the local customer demographic to trust you. Trust is the keyword you’re looking for here, and you can only achieve it by nurturing existing contacts, and networking to obtain new ones.

Final thoughts

Venturing into a new market can be exciting and exhilarating, but it can also feel quite daunting at times, simply because of the sheer number of obstacles standing between you and long-term success. Using these tips, though, you should have no problem executing a strong expansion strategy and generating a positive ROI in the first couple of years.

4 Technological Investments That Small Businesses Should Consider

August 19, 2019 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Technology has become the life-line in almost all areas of modern life, including business. We rely on it as a source of information, as an aid to communication and a useful tool for work. All in all, technology and business are so intertwined that if the power was out and the laptop and mobile batteries were low, the businesses would be lost for a while.

Inevitably, a business owner needs to think in terms of different technological advances so as not to lose an opportunity to expand and grow. Since there is a multitude of software and hardware solutions which appear daily on the market, it is sometimes difficult to assess what would be useful and what is a waste of money. So, here is a short list of investments that you might find applicable in your everyday work.

Revising payment methods

All people who regularly shop online have found themselves in a pickle at one point because of the payment methods the website supports. It often happens that people look at the picture of the product and then go straight to see the payment options so as not to waste time reading the description and checking the price if they don’t have the means to pay through the offered channels.

This is especially important if you are planning to expand your small business globally or if you are already on your way to extend your reach – countries offer different cards to their citizens so sometimes a customer would need to ask a friend from a different country to buy something for them. So, to facilitate their shopping experience, besides a Visa and Mastercard, think in terms of PayPal for global purposes, and UnionPay for China.

Improving overall data security

There is no need to discuss how paramount data and cybersecurity is and how important it is to make sure your customers’ and your business information are kept safe. It is advisable to introduce a password manager software that will keep track of everything, as well as to enable two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to crucial apps.

In order not to worry about your employees potentially opening phishing emails, you should install anti-malware software and also, it is vital that you educate your employees about the possible dangers and all protection tools you are currently using. Also, it is highly recommended you update all software regularly and back up all data. Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to delete unused accounts so that attackers cannot get their hands on the old credentials.

Supplementing customer service tools

What every wise small business owner knows is that without proper support and communication with customers, the chances for a business to grow are slimmer. So, you need to go the extra mile to keep your customer satisfied and to aid the communication between them and your customer support team. For instance, if you offer phone support, your small business phone system needs to include VoIP connectivity as well as accounting calls with the aid of different recording and screening systems.

And if you offer support via chat, chatbots are a useful addition: as your business is expanding, you will get more customers, which means more work. However, not many prospective customers actually take the time to read the FAQ section or go through your website, so a chatbot can serve as a gatekeeper for those who ask questions that are already plainly answered in the FAQ. This ultimately saves time to live agents and allows them to be more efficient.

Introducing HR software

A good HR software is necessary to record everything related to an employee: hiring, performance, payroll and benefits and in that way, protect both your rights and your employees’. When choosing the right software, you should consider the number of employees and how easy the software is to use since a complex system will not help but complicate matters.

What you should also be looking at is the payroll processing segment so that the payroll system could benefit from the data related to an employee which are stored there, such as the name, hours worked and the pay rate. Reliable software should be able to also keep track of time off and leave so as to be able to manage the number of active employees at all times.

Conclusion

For a business to prosper, it needs to have a flexible structure and to accept the fact that the strategy needs to be dynamic in order to keep up with all the changes related to materials, products, interests and many other segments. Most of the time this task isn’t easy and you need a team of enthusiasts around you who will be open to new opportunities but who will know how to assess what is a good move and what is just an impulsive call.

This applies to technology as well since you never know when a revolutionary improvement may appear and if you are one of the first to hop on board, you can gain a significant advantage over your competition. Always be on the lookout for practical solutions that can aid your business and allow both you and your employees to be as efficient as possible.

3 Worst Cash-Flow Mistakes Businesses Make

June 24, 2019 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

One of the most important parts of running a business is making sure you have a positive cash-flow which will allow your business to run and operate smoothly. However, many business owners still have difficulties when trying to handle this integral task. Whether your troubles with cash-flow happen because of poor management or the cyclical nature of the field your business operates is, the ultimate results will be the same, your business will begin to struggle and may ultimately fail. In fact, cash-flow is the number one reason businesses fail with as many as 82% of businesses failing because of cash-flow related issues. With that in mind, it should be apparent that you have to do everything within your power to maintain positive cash- flow. To help you out, today we are going to take a look at three worst cash-flow mistakes businesses make and how to fix them.

1. Being passive about your past-due receivables

Let’s start off simple. Your cash-flow will ultimately depend on the money you receive from your customers, so if they aren’t paying you on time, you can start really struggling to keep things under control. A common mistake most businesses make is just letting their past-due receivables slide unnoticed as they don’t want to make a hassle or jeopardize their relationships with the customer. While this can be sensible in certain cases, if people start noticing that you don’t have any particular penalties for them paying you late, they will most likely start abusing your generosity. Because of this, you should make sure that you provide them with adequate incentives for paying you early, such as small but meaningful discounts. However, you should also put penalties in place that will increase the price if they don’t pay on time.

While these two tools put together will definitely better your situation, sometimes they just won’t be enough. Luckily there are a few alternative options you can use to aid you. Most notably, you can look for outside help through different financing options, which will help you get the money you are owed immediately. For example, invoice finance can allow you to get a quick loan secured against your outstanding invoices and receive up to 95% of the money you are owed within a 24 hour period, with the rest becoming available when the invoice is finally fully paid. This and other similar methods are a great way to ensure your business doesn’t struggle with cash-flow while at the same time not endangering the relationships with your customers.

2. Not planning ahead with realistic expectations

Another big mistakes businesses tend to make is not planning their finances ahead of time with realistic expectations, or for that matter, not planning at all. While trying to plan out your finances can be really challenging because of the many unpredictable factors that can impact your business it’s still a crucial process you have to take care of if you want to keep a healthy cash-flow. First of all, it will allow you to predict what your expenses will be with reasonable accuracy, which will allow you to locate them and minimise them or completely eliminate the unneeded ones, freeing up additional capital which will have a positive impact on your cash-flow. With that being said, it’s also very important to keep an objective look at your predictions, especially when it comes to predicted sales. It’s always better to undervalue your future income as it will give you time to find ways to deal with the problem, instead of putting you in a bad situation unprepared.

3. Ignoring the importance of an emergency fund

Even if you do everything that’s within your power to maintain a healthy cash-flow, sometimes it just won’t be enough, and sadly that’s the reality of the business world. Because of this, you should always aim to have an emergency fund which will help you get through those difficult times. While this can seem somewhat self-evident, a lot of businesses, especially new ones, tend to ignore the importance of an emergency fund and choose to put all of their money into the business in order to encourage growth, which more often than not ends up costing them everything. There are just too many unpredictable factors that can impact cash-flow and even if things look great today, the tides can drastically shift in a matter of days. It’s highly recommended that you keep an emergency account balance equivalent to at least two months of operating expenses, which should be enough to help you get through the rough patch.

Conclusion

While the mistakes listed here are only a few of many that businesses tend to make, correcting them will definitely put you on the right path towards a healthy cash-flow which will allow you to establish a solid foundation from which you can further grow and expand your business.