Business

Do you at times wish your business was moving along at a better clip?

If the answer is yes, how can you improve your company’s outlook as you move ahead?

From better finances to more consumers aware of you, there are things you can do for an improved outlook.

So, is it time to get going?

Where Can You Improve Things?

In your efforts to feel better about where your business is heading, keep these keys in mind:

1. Finances – The obvious area of focus for most is when it comes to their financial health. That said are you at a point now where your company’s finances could be much better? You may be in a financial pickle due to reasons outside of your control. For example, a slowing economy can make some consumers hesitant to buy. This does not mean they do not like your brand. It boils down to them being more conservative with their money. With this in mind; look to see why your revenue may have slowed down. Another area of focus with your finances is if you have too much debt hanging over your head. This can be problematic in that you will feel as if you can never get out from under it. It may boil down to where you need to go online and try a small business line of credit. Once online, you can search credit providers for small businesses such as yours. Find the one with the best deal and customer service to help your business. Finally, review the contracts you have with vendors supplying you with items. If you are paying too much for one or more items, it may be time to move along and find new vendors to work with.

2. Marketing – The amount of time and effort you put into marketing your business is key too. With this being the case, you want to be sure you are doing all you can to promote your brand. From email marketing to social media and more, make sure consumers know about you. If your marketing efforts are falling on deaf ears, how can you expect many to do business with you? It would also be wise if you have not up to now to consider letting some customers do testimonials for you. Many consumers can be swayed towards a brand if they see people like them using and benefiting from it. In return for testimonials, provide those folks with discounts on future purchases.

3. Employees – Finally, as you look to improve your business, you want to never lose focus on employees. Unless you are a one-person operation, you depend on others to help you keep your business going. As such, it is important to be sure you have the right people in the right places. That said you want to do annual reviews on your employees and the positions they are in. If you need to tweak things or even make some wholesale changes, do it. Your employees are the face of your company. With that in mind, make sure you have the best and brightest helping you improve your outlook.

When you need an improved business outlook, where will you begin?

Choosing to hire resume writers or write resumes alone is a highly subjective decision. You have to make it only after you fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of the choices you have. While there is so much that can be said about the subject, the bottom line is that it is generally a very good idea to hire resume writers whenever the following situations apply.

You Do Not Trust Your Writing Abilities

There are people that are talented and are really good at creating resumes. Simply put, many have flair and creativity so they have no problems in writing a very good CV. However, this is not something that applies to everyone. Most people do not have the necessary writing abilities and would benefit greatly from hiring professional resume writers.

You Cannot Be Objective With You

Do you have problems and cannot identify the strengths you have? If this is the case, you want to seriously consider working with the professional resume writer. He/she would have an objective look at everything and can easily pinpoint what should and what should not be included in the resume.

You Have More Time Available To Work With The Writer For The Best Result

You most likely think differently but when you hire the professional resume writer, you do not simply give him some information and he does the entire work for you. The process is actually a collaboration. You offer information and the writer does everything he can to understand motivations, your background, achievements and strengths. Something like this takes a lot of time and you need to spare that time. If you do not have enough time available to work with the professional resume writer, you have to seriously consider writing the resume alone.

You Can Afford To Pay The Resume Writer

As expected, getting a resume written by a professional writer can only be possible if you have the funds for it. We all know that job-hunting is costly as you have to do different important things, like buying clothes and new shoes. You then have to travel to interviews. All these cost money. When you do not have a budget that allows you to pay for professional essay writing services, it is obvious that you cannot afford it.

Lack Of Time To Write A Resume

There are countless moments when this applies. For instance, you might already have a job but are hunting for a new one. Different personal circumstances can apply that lead to not having enough time to actually write your resume. If time is really important and you cannot lose it, the best thing you can do is hire a professional resume writer.

Lack Of Callbacks

Last but not least, if you already wrote your own resumes and you did not get callbacks, professional help is an extremely good idea. You can always take the resume you wrote and give it to the resume writer. He/she will take a look and talk with you in order to figure out what you did wrong.

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You have the best product or service in your market, you’re innovative, great value for money, your creative agency has done a sterling job of your logo and packaging…should you really have to worry about Reputation Management?

How does Reputation Management Fit into your Business Strategy?

There’s a lot being said about Reputation Management, because now more than ever, everything that happens can be recorded. People love to write about their experiences at restaurants and hotels. They record a quick video for their Instagram or Facebook followers to show off their new car or vacuum cleaner. When customers buy they often read reviews first. So yes, your prospective customer’s perception of you is being built by what they read and see online.

Suddenly you see the point right? Your reputation while built partly through the experience you give your customers, and how you nice you make things look, is greatly affected by the reputation that is built up online by what other people say about your brand. That means, that no matter what your sales projects are, how good your R&D department is, how well priced your product is, and how effective your sales team is, your whole business strategy can be undermined by your online reputation. That’s rather scary, but that’s where we are.

But surely there’s not much you can do about what other people post or write? You’re right there’s not! However, you can change what your prospective customers read. This is where Reputation Management comes in.

Why your Company Needs a Reputation Management Strategy

You can change your online reputation. How you ask? Have a Reputation Management Strategy. What might that involve? First thing you need to do is consult an expert, as you would hire a Creative Agency to look after your graphics work, there are plenty of great Reputation Management Agencies out there who will be able to assess your current online reputation and then work strategically to turn your online reputation around so that you are best in industry.

A second strategy is to embed Reputation Management into your Customer Service team. Assess the optimum point in delivery of your product and service to ask your customer, directly or indirectly, to share their positive experience of your brand with their friends and the rest of the world. How do you get them to do that? Send them a link to a review site or ask them to use a hashtag on social media with a photo of them and your product. Run competitions to get the best photo or video of someone using your product.

The third point is to make your customer-facing employees aware of your current reputation and make it their mission to improve on that. Tie bonuses to the rating of your product or service on the most relevant review website. If your employees are concerned about your reputation, that will directly affect how they treat their customers.

It really is time to care about Reputation Management, because the companies who adopt it will reap the benefits while their competitors continue to take hits to their reputation.

To be able to survive, the men and women in business may have to be smart and agile, or they wouldn’t be able to progress in the business world of today. Each step in handling the activities of the business requires creativity that separates you from the rest, even when it comes to applying for funds or upgrading your services.

It is essential to know what kind of business you are running and what type of loan you will need for it so that you do not end up being bankrupt. Before you delve into getting your business a suitable credit, you might want to look into some vital stats to get yourself the idea of the whole game of business loans.

Since business loans are not depending on everyday mathematics, you need smart ways to calculate your business loans. Thanks to this rapidly growing technological world of today, you, as a businessman or woman, have now smart-calculators to help you. These calculators are programmed to help you with different kinds of business loans, and you can opt for a specific calculator for the type of loan your business needs. These calculators help you with estimating the amount of loan your business needs along with the interest and the minute details about payment of it.

• SBA Loan Calculators

To start, you will need SBA Loan Calculators if you are opting specifically for an emerging business since it has always been difficult for new companies to get loans smoothly from traditional banks. The SBA loans range from 5000 USD to 5 million USD with various schedule options for repayment. The only thing to worry about these loans is the lengthy and strict application process, but it is all worth it.

• Invoice Financing Calculator

The invoice financing calculator helps you with getting the math down for invoice financing or factoring Loan. This loan lets you sell the outstanding invoices for an advance which can be between 60 pc to 90 pc. Through this, you connect the company which is giving you the loan to your client. Once your client provides the amount on the invoice to the company, the company earns the percentage of the amount decided. The greatest thing about these loans is that they are easy to get and keep the cash flowing.

• Merchant Cash Advance Calculator

Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) calculator is to help you keep your daily and weekly loans in check. The great thing about these loans is that the companies who provide it give you the whole amount altogether. Also, these loans only take a couple of days to get approved. Your credit card transactions may have a certain percentage – all you need to do is to provide the company with that percentage. However, with these loans, it is required of you to repay the amount with interest in no more than eighteen months which can be hard to pay. Also, the interest rate of MCA Loans is very high.

• Equipment Loan Calculator

Through the Equipment Loan Calculator, you can calculate the amount of your equipment investment and your interest you need to pay every month or year. Equipment financing allows you to get the gear you need for your business. Even though you can use your SBA or other business loans to get the required equipment, but this loan lets you pay off the debt quickly. Also, you don’t have to wait a lot for funding to come in; it only takes a few days. Another great thing about Equipment financing is that it has lower interest rates.

• Business Line of Credit Calculator

Charges that come with the business line of credit are understood and checked through these calculators. Through this kind of loan, you can borrow as much as you need at a particular moment, repay it later, and borrow more. The most exciting thing is you only need to pay the interest in the amount of money that you have borrowed instead of spending it all together. This fund acts to cover up any emergencies your business might face, so this fund gets approved fast and easy. The only thing you need to worry about are the deadlines of the payment because if you miss them, the penalties are pretty high.

• Business Term Loan Calculator

Business Term Loan Calculators help you know how much loan can you afford to get and calculate the interest and the time you might take to repay considering your financial health. These are conventional as they give you significant amounts of money altogether with lower interest rates, and with no collaterals if you have a secure credit history. Also, the repayment system is lenient, which gives you from 1 to 5 years to pay your debt. One other great thing to note about Business Term Loan is they take less time to get approved. So, if you don’t qualify for more stringent loans such as SBA, you can always opt for Business Term Loan.

These calculators work magic for your business loans. They not only simplify the repayment plans for you but also give you the right which means up-to-date information about the interest rates for different kinds of fundings and the bonus is that they are easily accessible through your smartphones. One thing you need to be very sure of before applying for a particular plan is that it fits your business needs compared to other kinds of loans because you do not want to wind up with a confused head with too much credit on it.

Using the right social media platforms in a carefully crafted social media marketing strategy can bring great success to any business. Social media platforms are widely varied in style and content, and knowing the differences is crucial. Some will favor a more conversational approach. Others are best for video or photography. Additionally, email and newsletter campaigns work with some better than others.

Influencers, integral components of social media marketing, are people who drive discussion and interest to a brand and know which platforms work best for specific content. They improve brand position by sharing links and videos and by achieving likes, comments, and shares. Some social media platforms are better suited for the particular personas of some influencers. For example, Instagram may be a better platform for an influencer using videos and photos to promote a dance school, as opposed to LinkedIn, which is designed for users to make professional connections.

There are many social media platforms, each offering advantages and disadvantages for potential social media marketing. Here are some of the most popular ones.

Twitter

With up to 330 million users, Twitter is among the top ten platforms in the United States. A wide demographic uses it, and it continues to grow in popularity. Using short 140 character “tweets,” messages have to be brief and to the point, making the platform ideal for notifications and news about brands.

Instagram

Another top platform is Instagram with nearly a billion users, comprised of individuals and businesses alike. This particular platform is ideal for social media marketing that uses videos, photos, and any other graphics. Demographics show that this platform trends more towards female and urban users.

Facebook

Considered by many to be the grandfather of social media, Facebook is still very relevant, being the most popular worldwide platform with the most diverse audience. In the United States, Facebook’s demographic is skewed towards adults, with the majority of users being older than 18. Given the sheer number of users, it remains a good choice for social media marketing.

LinkedIn

Having a more professional, business-like feel, LinkedIn is a favorite platform for employers and job seekers to connect. It is also frequented by advertising and marketing agencies. Employment candidates often mention their LinkedIn profile on applications. LinkedIn is useful for business-to-business marketing and is a great platform to reach professionals and decision makers.

YouTube

One of the best platforms for video marketing is YouTube. It reaches more users than any cable network and has over two-billion users, making it an excellent choice for social media marketing that is more visual. The demographics show that it focuses more on users who are over 18 and male.

Pinterest

If your social media marketing uses pictures, graphics, and images, Pinterest is a great platform. The demographics show that Pinterest reaches a largely female audience. Women use the platform for DIY tips, recipes, fashion, and a range of other topics.

Determining the right platforms for social media marketing means knowing the demographics of your target audience. Research and planning are key to building a good plan that works.

You’re having second thoughts about the idea of using digital signs for advertising. You want to spend money on this advertising campaign, but you worry that it’s going to waste money. You think that everyone is using online advertising to promote their brand, and it doesn’t make sense to use digital signs.

Before you abandon the idea, you need to understand that you can have a wide variety of marketing campaigns. If your online strategies are doing well, you can keep using them. It doesn’t mean digital signs aren’t useful. They could also work in your favour depending on how you decide to use them.

Attract local audiences

One of the benefits of using a digital sign is that you’re going to attract local people. They will notice the signs when they walk by an area. With online marketing, you’re going to entice many people. The problem is that the campaign doesn’t directly attract specific people. When local audiences see these signs, they will consider buying your products right away.

Some people are mindful

Some people don’t care about what they see on the streets. They keep walking until they reach their destinations. Others try to be more mindful. They stop by some interesting things they see while walking. If you have a digital kiosk display that deserves attention, some people might think about stopping to read the details. You have a few moments to capture attention, so you need to make the most of it.

It’s hard to ignore these signs

When these signs look attractive, and they’re worth viewing, many people will find them irresistible. Therefore, it’s crucial that you come up with exciting signs that most people will love to see.

You can advertise upcoming promotions

You can also capture attention by telling people about upcoming promotions and discounts. They would love to know how they can save money during these trying times. If you give them an option where they won’t have to spend a lot of money, it’s easy for you to capture their attention. Make it an urgent action by limiting the promotions only up to a specific date.

They’re useful even at night

The problem with regular banners and posters is that they don’t serve their purpose at night. With digital signs, the lights keep them visible. People will notice the signs and even stop because they got attracted by the lights. It means that advertising doesn’t end even when you’re sleeping.

It’s up to your level of creativity

When coming up with sign designs, you need to ensure that you think about the details first. There are lots of other signs on the streets next to yours. Therefore, you need to find a way for your digital sign to stand out.

You also need to evaluate if the digital signs you used were effective. If you don’t think they were, you might have to consider having a new sign or focus on other marketing strategies. People will always look at digital signs if they’re interesting.

Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/ukzHlkoz1IE

Starting a business is undoubtedly a challenging feat, with plenty of requirements. However, keeping the business intact during its first few years is another story entirely. There are plenty of scenarios where businesses end up failing during the earlier years due to a few beginner’s traps. For an inexperienced business owner, one of the most common tends to be the neglect of employees.

Workplace stress is an issue that is not often tackled right away, especially since maintaining a start-up business can be rough enough without having to worry about the employees. However, if a business does not take care of their workers as early as possible, minor issues can develop and quickly escalate. Here are a few ways to avoid stress in the workplace.

Investing in business software is never a bad idea

Without a doubt, business software is essential for any company that prioritises productivity and efficiency. It might seem like business software is put to better use by larger companies, but start-ups can benefit just as much – if not more so. Having a quality POS system in a restaurant will help keep things smooth and alleviate the stress of your workers. The same thing goes with other types of business software available. It is all about convenience for you and those who work under you.

Start-ups benefit a great deal from company events

While it is understandable to want to focus on more critical aspects of running a start-up business, it would be unwise to completely neglect the possibility of hosting a company event. Not only will it expose your business to the rest of the industry, but it will also show potential clients and investors that you are willing to do what it takes.

At the same time, hosting a company event is a great way to alleviate the stress of your employees. The main issue with some businesses is that they often feel the need to save every bit of money and only use it when it is absolutely necessary. You would be surprised at how much your company can benefit from events with the help of services such as https://www.wearetricycle.co.uk.

If you can spare the expense, incentives are essential

Far too many inexperienced business owners think that incentivising the hard work of their employees is something that is better applied further down the road. However, if you intend to guarantee the success of your start-up, give your workers a reason to trust your company. Incentivise and acknowledge their hard work whenever you can. Not only will it foster trust and loyalty, but it will also help reduce overall stress.

Whether you work toward incentivising your employees as early as possible, or you decide to host a company event, any of the methods above will help reduce stress in the workplace. The best part is that you will be simultaneously helping your company weather the storm in a competitive business landscape.

Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/busy-office-ol-answer-the-phone-880800/

Throughout his professional career, Agam Berry has turned into an expert in digital marketing. Currently the co-founder of Quantified Commerce, he has helped the business reach new heights every single year.

With so much knowledge about Internet marketing, we were fortunate to talk to him and to get some insight directly from the source.

What attracted you to the internet marketing industry?

I have always been interested in technology, and that probably stems from growing up with a lot of access to computers. I actually studied mechanical engineering in college, but I’ve always had a thirst for learning about Internet marketing since I was a kid.

Once Quantified Commerce really started to take off, I fully immersed myself in the industry. It has worked out pretty well so far, but there are always new things to learn.

Would you describe yourself as an entrepreneur?

I guess by definition I am an entrepreneur, although I don’t think I’ve ever actually called myself that. It just seems a little bit weird for me to go around saying I am.

I will say that I took a lot of risk going all in with Quantified Commerce. I felt like there was really something special brewing, and I wanted to see where it would go. In a way, I guess you could say that I became a true entrepreneur after getting a taste for it early on.

If you had the chance to travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

I’ve been pretty fortunate to go to different parts of the world already in my life, but there are still a lot of regions I would love to get to. I’ve spent a little time in Spain, but I would love to do a full trip to that region. Maybe see a few of the major cities in Spain, and then perhaps take a weekend trip to Portugal. I would love to go to that part of the world when the weather is nice to be outside.

Do you read for pleasure? What’s your favorite business book?

Unfortunately, I definitely don’t read as much as I would like to. It can be hard to read for pleasure with so much going on. With that said, the last book I read that really stood out for me was Good to Great by Jim Collins. As someone running a company, it gave me a lot of insight on what makes a great company and what holds others back. Hopefully, I am starting to apply some of what I read to Quantified Commerce.

Which business leaders do you admire the most?

I was a huge fan of Steve Jobs growing up, and I still admire him for everything that he did for Apple. He really set the standard for this age.

I also have to give credit to one of his biggest rivals, if you will, in Bill Gates. It might seem crazy to name those guys together, but they both brought great business ideas to their companies. They might not lead the exact same way, but they did so very effectively. There is a lot to learn from both of those guys, no matter what type of computer a person prefers to use on a daily basis.

The beat way to keep up with me is follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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