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

What’s Stopping You From Growing Your Business?

May 11, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Is your business stuck? — Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

When you first go into business for yourself, you can be full of passion. Because there’s nothing quite like the excitement of following your dreams. You’ll be okay with the late nights, and you’ll barely feel like you’re working at all. As you build your business up, you can feel incredibly excited about what you’re doing, but after awhile, the momentum can start to slow up. Sometimes, you just hit a blank wall and you won’t always know what causes it. But when you want to be able to grow your customer base, generate more sales, and increase your profits, you have to be able to push forward. So it’s important for you to be able to break down the reasons for why you might be stuck. Here are five options that could be the case.

Confidence

First of all, you may find that you just don’t have enough confidence in your business. And this isn’t something that you should feel guilty about, or even let hold you back. Because sometimes, we just find that it’s hard to put you all into pushing something, just in case you fail. Even if you feel like you won’t fail, it is often easy to feel held back by your own fears. But if you want to be able to get somewhere and do incredible things, you really do have to believe in yourself.

Knowledge

Maybe it’s something as simple as just not having the knowledge to grow. When you don’t feel like you’re an expert enough in a particular area, then you may unintentionally hold yourself back. But if you’re worried that you just don’t enough, you have two options. You can either hire someone with that knowledge, or you can go out and research so that you learn it yourself. Either option will allow you to move forward.

Connections

Sometimes, you just don’t have the power to grow. But others might. If you don’t know anybody in your industry, or you’ve never connected with anybody in the past, then you may be missing out on some interesting opportunities to grow your business. So put yourself out there. Network and make some great connections in your industry and otherwise for the benefit of your businesses’ future.

Resources

A very viable setback can be a lack of resources. But you will then need to figure out what tools or services you need to grow, and then acquire them. Whether you need better IT consulting services to get the equipment you need, or a new business premises, you need to take action. Unless you want your growth to holt, you need to do the research and acquire the resources you need to grow.

Innovation

And finally, you may also be lacking in innovation, but that’s okay. You don’t have to feel like this is something that holds you back. Instead, you should look to train your brain to be more innovative. When you can start to think differently and push forward for the future, your business will largely benefit.

Dealing with Temporary Spikes in Demand

May 11, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Most businesses will, from time to time, experience a temporary spike in demand. For some, these spikes happen completely out of the blue, whereas for others it will be expected at certain times of the year such as Christmas, and although this is a welcome issue for pretty much every business to have, it is something that can be difficult to deal with, especially if you aren’t prepared for it.

If you are now or feel like you will in the future be faced with a spike in demand for your products/services, here are some tips that should help you cope impeccably and offer the same excellent standard your customers are used to:

Rent Temporary Space

If the spike in demand is going to be such that you won’t have enough space at your usual premises to store your stock, pick and pack your products or simply accommodate the extra staff you will need, then you’re going to want to organize some temporary space. The easiest thing to do is rent a construction tent if you’re in the construction or warehouse industry. If you’re more office-based you could ask a local business with space to spare whether they’d be willing to sub-let to you until your busy period is over or you may even be able to make use of co-working spaces or remote workers depending on the nature of your business. The sooner you sort out extra space, the easier it will be for you to meet demand.

Hire Agency Staff or Freelancers

Agency staff or freelancers are your best bet when it comes to the additional manpower you will need to keep things going, Agency workers are ideal for factory/warehouse based work and running the office, whereas freelancers are ideal for manning the phones, running website, answering emails and things like that, but always make sure that you choose agencies/freelancers with a good reputation if you want to get by unscathed and offer the same high level of service you are known for.

Offer Generous Overtime

If you don’t have the time/budget to hire additional staff, the offering your existing employees as generous overtime packages as you can afford to entice them into working longer hours is an excellent alternative that you should absolutely consider. Offer it to your top performers first because you know they are most efficient, before opening it up to everyone else.

Notify Your Suppliers immediately

If you know that your business is likely to experience a spike in demand, then you should order extra stock at least a couple of months in advance, if you don’t realize it’s going to be an issue and you experience a sudden spike, it’s imperative that you notify your suppliers ASAP and request a speedy delivery. It is likely you will have to pay more for air freight delivery, but you will just have to suck this up because ensuring that you have the stock your customers want should be a priority. Although if you can find a local supplier who will deliver what you need, it may be worth doing a quick deal with them to save time and money instead.

I hope this helps you to handle those spikes with ease and make some record profits!

Teach Yourself About The True Cost Of Outside Training

May 11, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Training. We’re all agreed it’s crucial for business, right? Whether you focus on teamwork or company values, it’s essential you get on top here. As well as ensuring your company runs the way you want, efforts here will make a significant difference to employee morale. In fact, a tempting course could be all it takes to bag the best in the business.

So, it isn’t unusual for entrepreneurs to look to external courses which do the job for them. You may even be in the habit of sending new employees away for a week of training before they start. All the better for ensuring they’re up to standard.

The only problem is, you have no way of knowing what that external course involves. It’s not tailored to your business, and so it might not teach the values you want. What’s more, sending staff away can get expensive, especially if you do the same for every employee. Instead, it might be best to take over training onsite. If you aren’t convinced this is the route for you, let’s look at some of the expense it could save you.

Commute and accommodation costs

When employees travel for training, you’re obligated to cover their costs. What’s more, you’d need to pay for accommodation. Even if you send your team in groups, that’s going to get pricey. What’s more, if you do this before working with new employees, there’s every chance it’ll become wasted money. You have no way of knowing whether they’ll take the training straight to another role. But, if you keep training in the office, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You won’t have to pay anyone to commute to the workplace, and your meeting room will be all the accommodation you need.

The training itself

You’ll also need to pay for the course itself, and that can be most expensive of all. Even standard training is pricey. After all, the company in question have to cover costs of the training space and the person teaching. And, you can bet that’ll leave you out of pocket, too. But, if you took over training, you could that cost altogether. You could use a spoken presentation or simple activities to get your point across. Or, you might want to spend a little on professional training videos. You can check out companies like Lifetime Media for more information on how much that would cost. But, you can bet it’d be less than you would pay otherwise. What’s more, you can use those same videos for every employee and save yourself a fortune.

The cost of lost labor

Sending staff away would also cost you in lost labor. You may have to take on temporary staff to cover or pay overtime. On top of everything, that’s a cost you could do without. And, by training onsite, you could do just that. In fact, by designating small groups for training each time, you can ensure your efforts here don’t impact production at all.

Are You Struggling To Keep Up? Here’s What To Do

May 10, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Running a Business Takes Work — Photo by Mubariz Mehdizadeh on Unsplash

It’s no secret that running a business takes a lot of work. And at first, you can often be okay with the long hours that you’re putting in. Your passion can push you, and when you know where you want to go, it’s often easy to stay on track. However, before long, it’s also just as easy to lose your way. And when you feel lost, you’ll know you need help, but you won’t always know where to turn. But the best thing to realize now is that, even if you are struggling to keep up right now, you can turn things around. In fact, a lot of the time, it’s actually easy to work out what it is that you need to do. So let’s break it down and help you to get back on track.

1) Get Back To Basics

When you feel like you can’t cope with the pressure, or you’re losing a sense of what you’re doing this for, you need to strip everything back. Maybe you’ve overcomplicating everything for yourself? If that’s the case, then don’t worry, because you’ll easily feel back on track. One of the best things you can do here is just to go back to basics and redo your business plan. Step back and look at everything with fresh eyes. Then consider what you need to do to move forward. You’ll soon find your fire again to turn things around.

2) Hire Some Help

Next, you’re going to want to work out whether or not you need some help. Because this could be the reason that you’re struggling. When you’re trying to do everything yourself, you will find it hard to stay ahead. So, make sure that you seek out a contractor to take on some of the workload or even hire your first employee.

3) Work With Experts

From here, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re working with experts. And this is vital. Because if you aren’t getting the traction you need, you’ll want to ensure that you turn things around. To do that, working with experts like IntelligIS is what you need to do. Because when you have the right specialist support in place, from IT to marketing, your business will be able to push forward.

4) Make The Customer Your Focus

If you’re not focusing on your customer with everything that you do, then this is going to be your problem. Remember, without your customers, you won’t have a business. So instead of worrying out the competition or doing what you think your business needs to do, go to the customer and cater to their needs instead and you will see a difference.

5) Shake Up Your Branding

Finally, you may also need to go in a different direction with your branding. Maybe what you have now just doesn’t work for your target audience? When that’s the case, you may find that having a bit of a refresh helps you to get in a better frame of mind with what you need to do and gets your customers attention too.

Are You Taking Care Of Your Employees?

May 10, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Your employees are the heart of your business. Without them, your business would be the success it is today. Today’s working culture means employees are far less likely to stay at a company for life, unlike in the past when people would stay with the company they loved until they retire.

Being able to show that you value and care for your employees is an important part of running a business. When employees feel respected and looked after, they’ll feel motivated to work harder, while also being more likely to stick around.

How can you take better care of your employees? Read about some of the best practices for bosses below.

Taking Care of Employees

Offer them support

Aside from work-related issues, your employees can suffer from different problems that can affect their performance at work. Whether they’re suffering from family and relationship issues to health and financial problems, as an employer, you should provide help and support to your staff. Access to counseling is a wonderful service that employers can offer, providing a support network in the workplace and proving yourself to be a caring and considerate employer.

Provide them with benefits

Benefits are important to employees. Today’s job market is competitive, affecting salaries – which means that the competition for jobs is fierce. When choosing somewhere to work, employees want to know that they will receive useful benefits instead of additional salary. You can ensure that you offer the best health insurance plans through Donn & Co, while also providing additional perks like gym memberships, staff nights out and others. Benefits should come as part of the welcome package these days, so it’s worth assessing your budgets to see what benefits you can afford to offer.

Be flexible

Flexible working is fast-becoming a popular policy in modern workplaces to help employees manage their personal lives around work. Providing an opportunity to manage childcare, commuting times and even health and fitness, flexible working is great for workers. However, flexible working offers benefits to employers too, helping to combat stress and feeling overworked, as well as motivating your workers to do their best work during the hours spent in the office.

Be generous

As the boss, you might not always have time to talk to your employees about their work and their lives – especially if you have to travel a lot or sit in meetings. However, you can make sure that the time you do spend with them is meaningful and that you’re generous with it. Treat your employees to lunch, some after work drinks or arrange company events now and then. Little things can make a big difference, so be generous with your time when you can to show your employees how much you value them.

Creating a supportive and nurturing workplace is important. From creating a healthy office environment to showing compassion and respect, a good employer knows how to take care of its employees. What steps could you take to create a better workplace for your staff? Make them a priority and enjoy the benefits of a healthy, happy team.