Business Strategy | Mike McRitchie | Resume and LinkedIn Profile Writer | Telecom Marketing Content Writer

The Best Methods To Save Money In Your Business

June 18, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Whatever kind of a business you run, you can be sure that one of the best things you can do for it is to save as much money as possible. Fortunately, it is pretty easy to save money in any business so long as you know what you are doing, and in fact there are a number of methods to consider if you want to do so. In this article, we are going to take a look at a few of the best methods you can use in order to ensure that your business saves as much money as possible. As long as you follow these ideas, your business will be in a much better financial position in the long term, making for greater success in the future with your venture.

Strip Back Processes

Your business likely has a huge range of processes that you need to take care of, and it is important to make sure that you are doing whatever you can to keep those processes simple. As long as you do that, your business i’ll spend much less in the long run, and it can be surprising just how easy this is to actually do. By stripping back just a few processes of this kind, you will be able to save a considerable amount of money in a very short time. You might want to use a lift off process in the warehouse or to change even larger processes -whatever it is, simplifying it is always going to lead to a significant improvement in finances for the business. Any processes you have can be simplified in whatever way you want to save money.

Hire Sensibly

The people you hire are always going to be hugely important to your business on the whole, and this is something to always pay close attention to, especially if you want to save money. First of all, hiring those who are likely to actually work long and hard will mean that you re getting more for your money, thereby saving you financially in the long run. But you should also think about doing whatever you can to stop yourself form over-hiring, or hiring too many people. If you hire too many people in your business, it will only mean that you end up overspending without much return, and clearly that is not a situation that anyone wants to be in. Hire sensibly, and you should find that it makes a considerable difference to your business financially.

Plan & Plan Again

In general, you should try to always plan as well as you can for the future of your business. If you do this, it will benefit you and your company in many great ways, including, of course, by saving a considerable amount of money. Plan for the future of your business in as many ways as you can, and you will find that it really does make a huge difference. Your business finances will be in trouble less often and more likely to be in the state that you need them to be in.

Growing A Private Practice: Tips For Doctors

June 14, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Like in every area of business, when you run a medical practice naturally you are excited to grow that practice and build a stronger and more successful business. Of course, when it comes to healthcare business success, there’s a lot that needs to be considered. However, just because there’s plenty to think about, that doesn’t have to mean that you can’t grow your private healthcare facility to the next level, it’s just a case of knowing the right steps to take.

To help you take the leap and grow your private practice, below we have put together a guide to ways that doctors can grow their private practices more easily.

Growing a Private Doctor Practice

Bring investors on board

It’s impossible to expand a private practice without a budget to work with, which is why you may find it beneficial to bring investors on board. You may not want to have to share your business with others but on the other hand, if you are serious about growing your venture then you need to be willing to take funds from where you can get them. Having investors doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing, just be mindful of the terms you set out for your investors, such as what the details of making an investment allow them to do.

Increase public awareness of health conditions

The general public are always looking for more information regarding health conditions and the best ways to treat them, so why not take advantage of this? As part of your marketing campaigns, dedicate a small amount of your budget to increasing awareness of health problems and treatments. Share mini broadcasts about common health problems and the best methods of treating them. What you want to do is build trust, so that people in the community trust and respect what you say, because by doing this you can quickly increase your customer base.

Ensure your practice has all of the newest and most innovative facilities

Why do people choose to pay for the best healthcare? It’s simple really: to ensure that they receive the best and most innovative treatment. If you want to guarentee that your private healthcare facility is a soaring success, then you need to make sure that you are offering a medical service that is second-to-none. This means taking every aspect of furnishing your facility seriously, from finding the right medical cart to selecting the most comfortable chairs for the waiting room. It’s also crucial that the doctors and nurses you employ adhere to high standards of customer service and care because this is what people will pay for.

Know your customers

It’s no secret that in every industry, the key to success is knowing your customers, and yet so few business owners actually know their customer base properly. Read your customer research files, send out surveys, ask for feedback from your customers – get to know them and what they want.

Want to grow your private practice? The tips above should help you to do that more easily and effectively.

Are You Focusing On Your Customers As Much As You Should Be?

June 13, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

When it comes to business, it can be easy to believe that you need to be focusing on what you think is best. After all, you own the business, you came up with the idea to start your company, so why shouldn’t you be the one that decides how you operate? Well, while it’s important to know what approach to take when it comes to running your business, you have to think differently when it comes to the business idea itself. It’s tempting to do things that you like, launch products you like, or provide a service you like. But you’re not your customer. So you have to make sure that you’re thinking about who your customer is.

Essentially, if you’re going to be successful in business, you need to know your market. You need to know who you’re targeting, and what they want. No buts! You really do need to ensure that you’re aware of what your customers need, and that you’re working to provide them with value. This is the only thing that matters in business. Not what you want. Not what your competitors are doing. But what your customers want! When you can master this, you will find that you’re successful. You just will be. Because you’ll be doing things right! So let’s’ see what you need to do to focus more on your customers.

Know The Market

First of all, you’re going to want to ensure that you really get to know your market. Of course, you should know your industry and how to do your job, but you will also want to get to know what the market is like too. Can you take a look at how consumers tend to react to the industry? To your competitors? To different product variations? While you won’t want to go too in-depth here, it’s imperative that you’re able to really get to know the market that you’re operating in and how your customers behave in it.

Research Your Customers

Then, you’re going to want to get to know your customers. It’s important that you know what part of the market you’re going to target. This is crucial to actually seeing success in your business. Because if you don’t know who you’re targeting and what they need from you, how can you effectively sell to them? You’ll want to spend some time researching your target audience to work out exactly who you’re marketing and selling to.

Create A Profile

When you’ve done that, you need to then pull together detailed buying personas. Some people will feel like this is a lot of work that you don’t need to do, but it matters. You need to pull together profiles on the customers that you’re targeting, so you know who they are, what they do, what they like, and why they’re engaging with your audience. It’s this profile, or a few of them, that will allow you to make sure that you’re always making the right decisions with your marketing, your product ideas, and your sales tactics.

Use Your Analytics

From here, you’re then going to want to turn to your analytics. When you get to see how your customers move around your site, or engage with your social media, you can really uncover what they want. You’ll see what content interests them the most, as well as the kind of products or services that they’re interested in. This will then help you to focus more on improving your offering.

Get Feedback

Next, you’ll want to aim to get some feedback from them. When it comes to really uncovering what they want and ensuring that you are meeting their needs, using surveys, such as SimpleSat, will help you to do that. You get information directly from your customers that you can then use to improve your service or product offering.

Use Buying Behavior

Then, you’ll want to think about harnessing the customer purchase behavior you witness. Make sure that you’re tracking what your customers buy, and what they look at. You’ll then start to see what each customer is interested in. You can then utilize customer relationship management (CRM) software to market to them more effectively.

Watch Consumer Trends

But that’s not all. You’ll want to keep a look at consumer trends overall. By keeping an eye of what’s popular in the consumer (or B2B) marketplace right now, and what’s in demand, you can stay relevant. Even if you’re not in that industry, you can use the trends to come up with a new product or service to tie into that similar need.

Watch Tech Trends

At the same time, you’ll want to ensure that you’re taking in trends in technology right now. Even if you’re not in the tech industry, or you don’t like technology yourself, it’s important for you to be able to know what’s trending and what’s emerging. No matter what you do, you can utilize tech to improve your business. From improving access to your products or services, or improving them in general, knowing what’s happening in the tech space gives you that advantage to get ahead.

Listen To Your Customers

But above all else, you have to really ensure that you’re listening to your customers. It’s just not enough to think you know what they want. Or worse – assume. You have to really know it. Surveys are great, but you can also use social media to listen to your customers in their natural environment. Yes, you’ll get feedback directly on social media, but you can follow conversations to get to know your customers better too.

Meet Your Customers

Finally, you may also want to think about the ways in which you can actually meet your customers. Now, if you’re providing B2B services and you have clients, rather than customers, then you may already have a lot of content with your customers. And you’ll know how important this is. But if you’re an online company, this may be something that you don’t even think about doing. So consider how you can run some events or host meetups and really get to know your customers.

The Important Characteristics All Good Salespeople Need

June 13, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Did you know that one of the hardest departments for any entrepreneur to hire for is sales? There are lots of company owners out there who struggle to bring on highly experienced and knowledgeable salespeople into their sales team, no matter how attractive the salaries and perks of the job are. Unfortunately, as working in sales is such a fast-moving role and they need to be hitting their targets from day one, you can’t really afford to bring on any weak team members. So, what should you do when you are bringing the wrong type of people on board? Well, maybe you need to change the boxes you are trying to tick.

Rather than looking for people who have heaps of experience and lots of qualifications behind them, perhaps you should start looking for some sales employees who have certain characteristics and personality traits. Some recent studies have shown that the best sales experts all share certain characteristics, all of which you will benefit from when you bring them into your sales team. Here are the ones you need to look out for.

Politeness

The traditional stereotype of a salesperson that I’m sure most of us think about is a very brash individual who won’t stop at anything until they’ve sealed the deal. This stereotype might have been reinforced into our minds through the portrayal of salespeople on TV shows and in movies, but is that really the case in real life? Well, in actual fact, it is thought that being polite and following certain etiquette can help you sell a lot more rather than pushing for a hard sell. You can look here for more information about what etiquette works best when trying to sell. So, next time you are recruiting new employees for your sales department, it’s a good idea to try and assess their politeness at the interview stage.

Empathy

Having plenty of empathy is also useful in the world of sales as it means that your employees will be able to relate to the customers and clients they speak to and will know exactly how they are feeling. They can then use their best judgement to figure out how to go about selling the product or service to this individual. Not only that though, but people with a lot of empathy can make customers feel at ease and well respected. To ensure that someone has enough empathy, look out for their listening skills. Emphatic people are great listeners and can quickly establish a good rapport with a customer by making them feel at ease.

Responsibility

Everyone in your sales team needs to be extremely responsible as well. Those who are will always take the blame for any difficult situations that they cause – they won’t try to pass the book just to get out of something. Not only that, though, but they will also be responsible for their own work so will endeavor to get their tasks done to the highest standard. So, as you can see, responsible salespeople will always give 100% in any situation and will do everything that they can to make a sale, but using methods that won’t negatively affect the customer or client.

Focus

No matter what a salesperson is doing, whether they are on a long sales call or need to take part in a lengthy meeting, it is always necessary that they stay on the ball and completely focused on the task in hand. This ability to self-motivate can help improve their performance when talking to customers and clients, but it also means that they are able to organize themselves and figure out exactly what needs to be done next. Plus, they will be a lot more likely to try and figure out solutions on their own rather than always coming to you or their manager for the answers that they need.

A Positive Outlook

Things don’t always go to plan in the world of sales. Leads can often be very difficult to follow up, and you might find that some sales fall through at the very last minute. It can be all too easy to end up frustrated and stressed about it all! For this reason, it is important that everyone in your sales team is very positive and has a good outlook on their work.They should be able to keep hold of their positivity, even when the going gets tough, so that a negative mood isn’t passed around the whole team. You will find that people who tend to be more optimistic than pessimistic will be a lot more driven to achieve all of their goals and targets as well.

Goal Driven

Salespeople will work a lot better if they love working towards goals and targets. Everyone who you hire should be persistent in their work and always trying to push themselves in the right direction. A competitive streak will also help as well, as they will love to see just how better than their co-workers they can be! In fact, lots of sales teams often find that setting themselves mini competitions can help to keep everyone highly motivated. However, make sure that you hire people who always put the team before themselves. All of these goals should be beneficial for the company as a whole, and any personal ego should be left at the office door.

Modesty

I’ve already mentioned that the team should be put before any individuals, and this is why modesty should be a main personality trait of all of your sales employees as well. You will find that any salespeople who have little modesty will be very ostentatious and full of bravado. As a result, they could alienate all of the customers and clients who they talk to, which could make it incredibly difficult to make a sale.

So, now you know all the various characteristics that your salespeople need, it should be a lot easier to hire for your sales department. Once you fill the team with these kinds of people, your sales should steadily increase!

Tips for Better Professional Communication

June 13, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

One of the most underrated aspects of modern business is the importance of communication. When you’re a professional and you want to connect with people and have your ideas listened to, you have to be able to communicate well. Otherwise, people won’t even listen to what you’re saying or the message won’t be delivered to them effectively in the first place. Here are some tips that’ll help you get better at this very important aspect of business professionalism.

Keep Moving With the Times

Like all forms of workplace technology, communication tech is always updating and improving, and you need to make sure that your business always moves with the times in that respect. If you’re left using technology that belongs in a bygone era, you’re only going to make the task of your employees and yourself more complicated than it needs to be in the arena of communication. That’s never how it should be.

Encourage Feedback

Getting feedback is really important in the world of business. Whether it’s young employees asking for feedback so that they can improve and get better at their jobs all the time or customers offering feedback after buying from your company. It’s something that should always be encouraged across the board, and don’t forget that. It’s an important form of professional communication.

Communication — **Know Your Audience and Communicate Accordingly**

Different companies can have wildly different audiences, and that’s why there’s no one single way to communicate with customers. Your audience will be quite specific to your company, so it will be up to you find out how they want to be communicated with. This might ultimately come down to trial and error, and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. But it’s your job to find out what the right kind of communication looks like for your audience.

Secure Your Emails

Communicating with people is something that you have to do carefully and securely these days. There are people who might want to intercept your emails in order to access sensitive information or personal data. You can use fax servers that offer this security if you want to. But whatever you do, don’t ignore the issue of security altogether because you’ll probably live to regret that.

Listen as Much as You Talk

Talking is very easy, but what’s a little more difficult is listening carefully and taking on board what you hear. If you don’t listen to what your colleagues and customers are saying to you, things are going to go badly wrong for you. You should always be open to listening to other perspectives and experiences so that you can do the best for the company going forward.

It’s always positive to be thinking about how you communicate with customers and colleagues in a professional context, especially if you run a business. You want to make sure that people get the right message and feel connected to your business in the right kind of way. It’s the only way to assure enduring success.