Business Tips 17
Tips for developing a marketing plan for business
A good marketing strategy is a key towards the success of any business. It needs to be planned in a proper way or the inc0ming revenue might come to a stand-still and will limit the success of the business. One thing people need to be aware of the fact that it is easy to be carried away by the new trends that promise success. But such trends could not support the business entirely. Here we will be discussing about a few tips that will help you to build a promising marketing strategy.
1. Gather the basics – marketing cannot be just started off in a jiffy. It needs a proper plan just like to you need to gather the ingredients for cooking a recipe. One ingredient missing and your dish could be incomplete and tasteless. This means that you need to make sure that all the elements of your business is in sync or all the money that you spend on it might be of no use.
2. Reach out to people who have done this before – ask for advice from a person, who could be a senior or a role model, who has done this before and might have some experience.
3. Evaluate your plan constantly – Make sure that you revisit your plan on a regular basis and introduce improvements. You need to be prepared for every change in the trend.
4. Know your brand – Make sure that your customers are satisfied by the product that you are offering. If they are not satisfied, then you might consider bringing out some improvement in the product as per their needs. Understanding your brand will help the customers to find you.
5. Remain agile – You might have the perfect marketing plan, but you also need to be versatile to be open towards changes in the plans. This where the importance of being agile comes out and shines as your potential to adapt to different environments might be healthy for your product.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
6 Things you need to know before you begin a business
Starting a business and being an entrepreneur is not easy and no university level education or college will be able to prepare you for it. Majority of the lessons are learnt while the business is actually happening. If you are one of those who is thinking about starting a business, here are a few lessons that you could keep in mind.
1. Select the right business – Make sure that you select the right business for you. The first step is to have ample knowledge about the nature of what you are about to do. It is not wise to step in to a business that you do not know anything about.
2. Focus on the needs of people – Once you have determined the nature, you need to understand the needs of people and understand what compensates them completely. Usually this comes with experience but a little research can also help.
3. Make sure that you maintain a balance between work and personal life – People who own businesses are usually seen spending 12 to 13 hours a day working. But this eventually makes them unproductive. If you spend appropriate hours in work, then you will be able to streamline the operations and bring some discipline.
4. Begin to save early – It is always wise to start saving early. The savings could be utilized to invest in your business.
5. Make sure that you learn to manage debt – If you are planning to manage a debt for your business, then make sure that you are dealing with it wisely. It could turn in to something really bad if things are not managed properly. If you are not confident, then it is better to make use of your savings.
6. Find a mentor – A mentor works like a guiding star. Make sure that you have a wise person who has a good track record and also a person who believes in your idea. They should be able to give you an honest feedback.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
Reliable business tricks from experienced people
When you actually get down to run your own business, the picture becomes clear and the experiences become real time. At every step, you will be able learn about different aspects and no matter how old your business becomes, the learning process does not stop. Each time you learn a new lesson and make changes in your operations accordingly. Here we will be discussing about the techniques that you need to learn as a successful entrepreneur.
1. Give chance to partnerships – In order to expand your operations you need to venture with different people in partnerships. Identify like-minded people and do not hesitate to share about your ideas. It could result in a new partnership and a successful future.
2. Be smart and learn a lesson – Make sure that you learn from your lessons and not repeat your mistakes. For instance, if you had a good experience with partnership you can give it a second try. If you don’t have any experience then follow your gut and trust your instincts.
3. Have corpus – Make sure that you save money and have excess funds. No matter how good the business is, what matters is the hard cash. You can bring your ideas to life and keep the game rolling. There could be times when you could end up at a dead end and this would be the time the corpus would come to use.
4. Introduce improvements – The customers are the crux. Introduce constant improvements to your product so that your customers remain loyal. Have an ear for the needs of your customers. Make sure the improvements are creative, realistic and practical.
5. Keep experimenting – never stop learning, and never stop experimenting. Experiments will help you to learn what works the best and what the best strategy is. Be careful with the experiments as they need to be realistic and safe. Do not over do with your experiments and end up falling in a pit.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
6 Simple steps to make your business grow faster
A number of businessmen often search for ways to grow their business. That is the only factor that maintains the interest of the entrepreneur and keeps them motivated. Growth can be slow and requires hard work, patience and dedication. Although there are no secrets to grow your business, but there are indeed a few hacks and proven ways that can help you to reach your milestones. Here are a few ways you can adopt to accelerate the growth of your business.
1. Hire the right people – This is an important process. Make sure that you hire the right people who are not just dedicated and hardworking but also ready to keep their inputs ready when needed. They should also be given the field where they would be allowed to perform and cultivate to their best.
2. Concentrate on the exiting revenue source – Focusing on the new clients could be time consuming. But the existing clients are easy to approach and never disappoint. You can also improve their experience by introducing a customer loyalty program based on their earlier purchases.
3. Do not take many risks – Although risk is an essential part of the business, but do not cross your lines. Take one step at a time when you are looking for an expansion. This will allow you some peace of mind and ample capital.
4. Improve customer experience – Deliver an experience that no other vendor would give them. Quality experiences always count. Cater to their needs exclusively make your communications strong.
5. Improve customer service – After the products are delivered, your job as a business does not finish. Giving the client timely service maintains their loyalty. You can also offer a discount or free-shipping. Small things always count.
6. Give importance to social media – Social media is a great way to spread the word and make sure that you keep updating. Consumers are more approachable on social media and it also makes them feel more connected.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
Importance of social media for businesses during pandemic
A number of businesses have been affected severely due to the coronavirus pandemic. A number of people switched from their main businesses to the ones that became popular or in demand during the pandemic. Repeated lockdowns affected the revenue flow but there is one platform that helped a number of people to remain active and devoted to the customers. Social media is indeed a powerful tool for the small businesses as it helps to reach the appropriate audience. It helps the company to build a brand value. Here are a few effective strategies that can be used to build social media presence.
1. Select the right network – The first step is to select the right kind of network by identifying the right audience for the business. For instance, people who are interested in art, fashion, lifestyle or travel then social networks like Instagram, Facebook Pinterest are the right platforms. While LinkedIn is good for business networking. Twitter can be used to share information that is time sensitive.
2. Engage with the audience – The audience needs to feel the energy and that would be possible only if the company engages itself in interactions. Being active on posts and participating in conversations makes the audience feel that they are being valued and they get an idea about the kind of service you could provide.
3. Limit promotional content – Make sure that you limit the promotional content as you don’t want to irritate the audience with constant promotions which are of no use to them. Create content that is valuable and addresses the needs of the audience. For instance, a person can inform about people, who needs food delivered to an isolated person.
4. Go personal – People wish to know about a brand on a more personal level instead of facing a corporation that does not have any personality. It is great to share office activities during festivals and even testimonies from the happy customers. It helps the company to build trust.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
How customer surveys help a business grow
Any business is all about generation of the maximum revenue without reporting any loss. For that the entrepreneur needs to get to the crux of the business and study about it inside out. Collection of data with the help of surveys from the customers helps to reveal about the preferences of the customers but only if they are analysed in the proper way. Here are a few ways how the customer surveys can help to improve the business.
1. Helps to recognize the target audience – Customer satisfaction is all that makes a business successful. These surveys help every size of business to know what the public and the existing customers think about the business. This helps the company to make the prospective clients become regular customers. Surveys help to pinpoint about what exactly the customer wants and what the company is lacking.
2. Shows benchmark measurements – Benchmarking helps to know in which areas the company can improve and what are the weaknesses. They also help on how to maintain the strengths. If the company comes to know where to begin then it will allow to track the success of the strategic planning.
3. New ideas – Data from the customers will help to reveal the latest trends that will help to understand the needs of the customers. If the company knows what the customer needs, it can come up and develop new and innovative ideas. When you recognize the demand for a particular product, a survey will help the company know how much the customer is ready to pay for it.
4. Develop customer relationships – Customer are able to share about their feelings through the survey and gives them to be a part of an improvement in the business. Incentives lures customers and a survey assures them that the company are taking care of their needs. The customer feels that their opinion actually matters.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
Tips to maintain a successful family business
There is a vast difference between a family business and a business that has been newly established. However, it is not a common scenario to see a family business to be passed on to the second ad the third generation. The percentage to pass on the family business is very low. Those who do manage to take the family business to generations do have certain driving factors. Here we will be discussing the points that help towards the success of a family business.
1. Communication – This is the key and different families have different ways of communication. Make sure that it is open and regularity of it is essential. If you sense any kind of communication problems, make sure that you confront it and bring out a solution immediately.
2. Change with times – When the family business has gone through many generations, the times have also changed. It is essential to take the business to the new generation as well and adopt new and modern ways to cater the latest era. There could be risks but there are always adoptive issues that get solved ultimately.
3. Keep family problems out of business – Indeed the family is involved, but when it comes to decision making and other factors related to the business, make sure that the family issues are out of the boardroom.
4. Never recruit family members – when it comes to staff and leadership positions, make sure that you recruit people from outside and not family members. There is a pool of talent out there that could be more helpful to you and the people who be more dedicated.
5. Maintain supremacy – A successful family business is due to the trade secret that might be maintaining certain quality. Make sure that you maintain that quality without any compromise and watch your clients be loyal to you forever, despite the competition in the market.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
4 Reasons why the client is always right
There is a very old phrase that says that the client is always right. It is the customer or the client who helps the business to be successful. Here are a few very valid reasons why the client is always right.
1. The customers make the business – Entrepreneurs who go by the rule or believe that the client is always right, actually know the importance of their clients. A business cannot stand without clients. There is nothing better than a good feedback from the client it makes the entrepreneur feel welcomed and appreciated. There are also a number of businesses who forget this phrase once they become successful. The success of the business depends on the service that has been provided to the customers. There is nothing better for the customer than personal attention and appreciation.
2. Backlash from the customer can be unhealthy for the business – A backlash from the customer would mean that there has been something wrong with the service or the product. Once wrong move or a little leniency would lead to a dissatisfied client. This mostly happens with some of the established business who are no longer interested in serving their customers better. Lack of service have the ability to sink the business as it affects the reputation. Stop before it becomes an epidemic.
3. It marks good business ethics – Giving the client a priority is good business ethics, which is a group of actions which are morally correct that includes treating the customers as well as the associated well.
4. It is a standard – Customer service should be a whole department in a business firm. Special team assigned to just manage the clients leads to the success. A number of businesses suffer due to customer loyalty and customer loss that happens mostly due to lack of service and attention towards the clients. It is also wise to allow the client to be right even amidst a dispute.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
Strategies to protect your dwindling business during pandemic
The year 2020 proved to be fateful for a number of small and big businesses due to the coronavirus pandemic. There are a number of business that have already shut down or are struggling to keep up in the current scenario. While some have changed their directions towards other businesses, some are still finding ways to float. The good news is that you need not to shut, but apply a few strategies to firewall your business.
1. Cut on unnecessary expenses – This is a time when you need to cut down on the unwanted expenses where ever possible. This will help to get lean and will also help you to be confident to have some extra saving in your balance sheet. There could be a few things like magazines subscriptions and other things that do not make any sense anymore.
2. Innovate – You need to introduce innovation in every aspect of your business to make it work and survive. Make your clients realize why you stand out in front of your competition. They need to realize why you are unique and why your services are different. This is where innovation starts working.
3. Digital marketing – While the pandemic time might not be encouraging everyone to travel and give personal visits, digital marketing is the best way to reach your target audience. There are courses that could be done and watch how your company becomes popular overnight with the help of digital marketing.
4. Restructure – Make a new system completely by starting new. You can appoint limited yet new staff members to be explored to new ideas and new energy levels. Fresh ideas help entities to adopt new strategies with the help of influences.
5. Take Minimum risk – While the second name of business is risk, this pandemic, you need to take minimum or no risks. Working capital is what should be your preference and that could be limited. Give it a priority.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
DOES STARTING BUSINESS FROM HOME WORK?
So, you may have made the decision to start your business from the comfort of your own home. This is actually a great idea, but nonetheless, we take a look into the pros and cons of doing so…
PROS
– You get to save on commercial space. You obviously won’t be setting up shop in a godforsaken town because the rent is cheap! You would look for a space that is near a busy district, maybe in the most populated area of a suburb or city. By working from home, you save on the rent that you can put back into your business.
– As a start-up, you may be strapped for funds. Yes, maybe you saved your school lunch money or got a large inheritance from your grandma or maybe you’re just rich! Either way, when you are just getting started on your business, you need all the possible funding you can get your hands on to help with initially getting your business on its feet. By working from home, there are a lot of unnecessary additional expenses that you would save on.
– Working from home means that you can get on that important task at any time of the day or night. Your work hours are as per your leisure and you don’t need to bother about commuting back and forth that would be precious time wasted and energy spent.
– You get to take on personal responsibilities. In case you are a person who has additional home work like bringing up children or taking care of an old family member, by starting your business from home you will be able to take care of personal and professional needs within one location.
– Working from home is more laidback. If you are someone who likes a chilled work environment like Richard Branson and his beloved Neckar Island, then building a business in a bathrobe will be your cup of tea. You don’t need to sit up straight all day and wear “official” clothes – you can put up your legs and still be able to delegate tasks to off-site colleagues.
CONS
– You might not be able to divide time between personal and professional. One of the worst parts about working from home is that even though at first you tell yourself that you will spare only a certain amount of time for home and the remaining concentrating on your business, you might not succeed at this as slowly the divisive line will be wiped out.
– You will need to attend to unwanted guests. Maybe you have a neighbor who loves to drop in occasionally for a “chat” that will go on for a long time, without you being able to put a stop to it. In case you have children and relatives, then their friends might come over as well and create a disturbance you cannot afford to have when building a serious business.
– Clients may not like the whole home vibe. Unless you are selling furniture or curios meant for a house, your prospective clients are not going to necessarily like the home environment as people are associated to thinking of business meetings in a more professional set up. Unless you have understanding clients or it is you who makes the travel to your client’s home, you might not benefit from working from the confines of your personal space.
– Your local council may not support a home business. You need to check with the local municipality or government in your area to let you know if its ok to bring commercial work into the neighborhood.
– You might be tempted to take too many breaks. Another disadvantage of working from home is that you may take too many breaks than necessary. One off day when you need to rest may result in you convincing yourself that a little “me time” is what you need to rejuvenate and then soon laziness is what you become.
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