Business 26
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
5 Business ideas that can work the best in 2021
The year 2020 and 2021 has tuned lives of people across the globe upside down. The coronavirus pandemic induced lockdowns in different countries that forced a number of businesses to suffer losses. A number of them were forced to shut down. Once the business goes down, the individual’s interest remains at picking up a new business that would work the best in the current scenario. Here are a few business ideas that can work the best in 2021.
1. Online reseller – Online business is on a boom and people continue to be passionate about clothing and other household items. There are a number of online reselling platforms that provide opportunity to people to sell the items against a commission. It does not even take much efforts but just a little time as the logistics and stock management are all pre-planned.
2. Online teaching – With the schools and colleges shut down the demand for education is high online. People who have a skill or have a knowledge about a particular subject can offer their teachings online and earn regardless of your location.
3. Professional Organizer – Marie Kondo is one of the best examples of a professional organizer. These are people who help to declutter and minimize things in the house to make it look clean and organized. It does not require a special training but just some patience.
4. Freelance copywriter – People who enjoy writing and find it fun to write in any genre can establish themselves as a freelance copywriter. There is a high demand of web content and a number of companies can pay for the services like writing press releases and other documents.
5. Digital Marketing – Digital marketing was popular even during the pre-pandemic times. Its importance has grown as it has become harder for businesses to survive. Digital marketing helps the businesses to reach more number of people and also helps the brand to have an exposure.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
Things to keep in mind while hiring employees for your business
Hiring the right employee for your business is indeed a big responsibility. You are hiring a person who would be responsible for some important tasks to be done on an everyday basis. One wrong decision could affect your business of revenue and even lead to loss. Here we will be discussing about a few basics that an employer needs to know what he is about to hire an employee for a business.
1. Define the job first – The first step is to define the job by determining what responsibilities the person needs to have and what skills you are looking for. You will also have to look in to what environment the employee needs to work in which will help the employer to have a vision of their requirements.
2. Have a checklist – A checklist will allow you to be sure of what you want from the candidate. It can have the qualification, skills, communication network or the system that you need to place the person in.
3. Review candidates – It is essential to do a review of the candidates before you settle to hire them. Make sure that you have gone through all the details included in the resume and it is also advisable to do a background check for conduct.
4. Ask the relevant questions – You do not want to waste any time and it is advisable to ask the relevant questions to the candidate that would be related to their job for which the hiring process is taking place.
5. Be clear about your expectations – It is essential that you are clear about what you would expect from your candidate. This communication is important as you don’t want any future arguments in terms of delayed work.
6. Use employment documents while hiring – Employment is important to be documented so you have records of the timeline the employee has maintained. Make sure that appropriate documents like an appointment letter and an offer letter is provided.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
5 Ways to win back a disappointed client
Business is a space where you need to give importance to the client’s opinion. The client is always right. This might not always apply, but maintaining a stance becomes important and vital for a deal to be cracked. Sometimes certain circumstances arise when the client in the business could be disappointed and it happens with a number of people. The situation becomes tricky for the seller as the client is the one responsible for revenue generation. Such situations need to be handled with care and here we will be discussing about what has to be done to win back a disappointed client.
1. Remain calm – A disappointed client is already agitated and might not want to discuss this further. You as a businessperson have to remain calm and patient. You don’t want to irritate them any further. You do not have to win an argument as it could end up in a heated discussion and that would be a loss for the company.
2. Identify the problem – Try to identify what went wrong and this will be possible if you initiate to look in to what went wrong. Let some time pass and gently approach the client by asking to what went wrong. Assure the client that things would be solved.
3. Solve the problem first – As soon as the problem has been identified, make sure that you find a solution for it and implement it immediately. Doing that would calm the person and open the doors for apology.
4. Offer an apology – Clients are the most valuable asset for a company and it is OK to offer an apology with a gift to compensate. Do not consider it as a bribe but a gift to make the client feel special.
5. Learn from your mistakes – Mistakes surely give you a lesson and this is the best opportunity to learn from the mistakes. The right action at the right moment can help you to understand the needs of the clients.
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
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