Month: August 2013

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Pounds of Business by the Best: Experts Weigh In

Seventy-seven percent of small business owners claim that they would rather learn from failure than never try — don’t fall within the 33 percent. As an aspiring small business owner or entrepreneur, you can maximize your chance for success through consistency, time management and learning from the wisdom of the best in the business.

Richard Branson: Have No Regrets

The Virgin Enterprises mega mogul says the best advice he ever had is “no regrets.” This doesn’t give you permission to do what ever you want without guilt or accountability, it means that you must not waste time dwelling on wrong turns. Use your mistakes as fuel to propel you in the right direction.

File:Richard Branson.jpg

Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons

Pete Cashmore: Keep Listening

The young CEO of Mashable owes a large portion of his continue success to his open ears and eyes. In an interview with the Huffington Post, he reminds us that we all have access to the best sources of wisdom and knowledge in the world, all with the click of a finger. As industry experts move to social media platforms like Twitter, it’s even easier to soak up their wise business advice.

Pete Cashmore 2012 Shankbone

Photo by Wikimedia Commons user David Shankbone

Bob Parsons: Accept and Quantify Your Worst Fears

In Bob Parsons, GoDaddy CEO’s “16 Rules for Success in Business and Life in General,” one piece of advice stands out: explore your fears. When we think about all possible avenues of failure, it is often the unidentified ones that cause the most anxiety, and anxiety won’t help anything. If you spend time planning for and quantifying your worst fears, they will suddenly begin to shrink, allowing you more time for success.

Bob Parsons

Photo by Parsonrep at en.wikipedia

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Keys to Building a Profitable E-mail List

3 Keys to Building a Profitable E-mail List

The easiest and most effective way to follow up and nurture relationships with your clients and potential clients is to build an e-mail list  of people who have “opted in” and given you permission to send them e-mails.

With a profitable e-mail list you can:

  • Fill your seminars and programs
  • Attract more clients and sales
  • Turn current clients into repeat clients
  • Promote other peoples’ programs that you believe in and earn $1,000?s in affiliate commissions

Here are 3 basic keys to building a successful e-mail list:

First of all, you need to have one in the first place.  That means that you need an e-mail delivery system, which is commonly called a CRM (Contact Relationship Manager).

There are MANY systems to choose from.  I recommend Mail Chimp or Constant Contact if you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of funds to work with.  I recommend 1ShoppingCart if you want to be able to process credit cards online.  Once you have 500 people on your list and are making $100,000 or more in revenue, it’s time to consider switching to Infusionsoft, which is more pricey but much more advanced.

You also need an Opt In Page where people can sign up to be on your list.  When people opt in, their contact information gets entered into your CRM automatically.

Next, it’s important to nurture relationships with people on your list by offering them something of value, other than sales, sales, and more sales.

Your list is a community of people who have put their trust in you.  They’ve trusted you with their name and e-mail address.  Since many people change their physical address more often than their e-mail address nowadays, that’s actually a generous show of trust.

They’ve trusted you to provide them with valuable information and not to sell their contact information or spam them.  Honor that trust by sending them articles (like this one), helpful tips, or inspiring quotes.

One of my colleagues runs an auto repair center, and he realized that his clients didn’t want to learn about auto repair (that’s why they hired him) so he just sends them funny quotes, comics, and stories that have nothing to do with auto repair but make them laugh.

Finally, you need to continually build your e-mail list by having new potential clients opt in.  Focus on attracting your tribe of ideal clients, not just anyone.  That way, the people who join your list will be more likely to actually invest in your products and services.

Categories
How-To Guides

How to Improve Employee Engagement

employee-engagement21

Passionate, dedicated employees who remain engaged with their work are the life blood of any startup. Fostering that engagement, and learning from past experiences, is just as vital to your company’s growth as the products you create. Small businesses that maintain a handful of employees rely on those individuals to remain productive and flexible in environments that are often fast paced.

Staying engaged with your project is usually as simple as providing some incentive to finish. Creating that final product is not always motivation enough, so create a system that encourages productivity through employee action.

The Engagement Concept

Engaged employees typically have some stake in the business, a reason to see it succeed. Larger companies offer executive bonuses or increased vacation time for higher ups as an incentive to drive the company toward success.

Startups typically don’t have the resources for that kind of compensation. Many of these small businesses will foster community building in the hopes of keeping employees interested in the company future. Engagement helps keep customers hooked on products, so the same concept translates to your employees.

Tracking Engagement

Creating measurable goals that an employee can accomplish, and tracking the progress toward those goals helps measure engagement. The concept of SMART goals talks about objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant to the over all picture, and time sensitive. When an employee has specific parameters, he or she can take action to attain goals.

Measurable goals include increasing traffic to a website, or answering more phone calls each week. Goals must always have relevance to the company’s mission and goals must have an end time so workers can be held accountable. Use these tips when creating task lists for yourself to keep your day more productive.

In addition to tracking goals, design surveys with the intention of discovering ways to increase employee engagement. Asking employees questions about feelings on company protocol and company culture can produce unexpected results. You might find that offering longer vacation times in place of free snack food would make a huge difference in the enthusiasm employees show toward their work. The most important element to tracking engagement is listening to employee concerns and being responsive, the same things that you expect when they deal with customers.

Contract Workers

Physical distance is becoming more commonplace in today’s workforce. In IT and graphic design professions, contract companies and individual employment are outpacing salaried workers according to the BLS. Keeping remote employees engaged in your projects is vital to keeping your products top notch. It’s best to establish a goal system that rewards contractors financially for accomplishing their tasks.

You can also try other means, like physical gifts sent to a contractor’s home or a well written recommendation for their website.

Improve Office Engagement

Not every business has a large work force, so if you can afford to do it take employees out for lunch. Failing that you can have employees meet at an event, like a local sports game, where you pay for snacks. Try paintballing, hiking or a barbecue at the park too.

Group events give everyone a chance to mingle, and introduce families to coworkers. Team building is an extension of trust that comes from coworkers becoming better acquainted. If you want a more open work environment with better team cohesiveness, improving office engagement is key to creating that culture.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith

Categories
Work Life

3 Strategies to Positively Turbocharge Your Productivity

3 Strategies to Positively Turbocharge Your Productivity

What one word describes what these three scenarios share:

Many states have passed a “no texting while driving” law.

The gallery is quiet while a golfer putts.

You are overwhelmed at work.

So what’s your one word? Mine is…

…focus.

Texting diverts your attention from driving and you wreck.

Noise distracts a golfer’s attention.

You try to do everything at once and do a small portion of it well.

So how do you improve your focus with greater productivity so you get out of the office earlier?

Here are 3 Strategies to Positively Turbocharge Your Productivity:

Put your smartphone in the desk drawer.

A regional account manager for a major beverage distributor described a recent training session which began with their leader asking them to pick up an empty, wallet-sized box with lid from the table at the rear of the room and return to their places. He then requested that they cut off their smartphones, place them in the box, and put them on the table. “Yes,” he said, “what we’re talking about today is that important.”

The leader knew what you know intuitively—your smartphone is “productivitas interruptus” of the highest order. On average, users pay attention to their smartphone about 150 times per workday. It takes you at least 10, some studies suggest 20, minutes to return to your previous task.

Schedule 3 times per workday to consult your smartphone while working at your desk on a project. For all other times, leave it in your desk with the ringer turned down but not on silent mode which makes it buzz in your drawer.

You finish faster and more accurately than currently…and yes, that text, update or tweet will wait.

Focus on the task.

Lean forward and look the person in the eye.

Ever play the game of wandering eyes across the desk? The one where the person with whom you’re allegedly talking has eyes that wander to the computer monitor, to the caller id, out the door and window?

How much are you listened to?

Instead, close the door. Put the phone on DND. Turn the monitor to the wall.

Lean forward. Look the person in the eye. Deeply listen. Feedback with, “What I hear you saying is…”

You’ll get more done, faster, and more accurately than “wandering eyes.”

Focus on the person.

Play positive music.

Your brain responds to music in amazing ways.

Mindlin, Durousseau, and Cardillo wrote, “Your Playlist Can Change Your Life” about their discovery of 10 ways your favorite music can revolutionize many things including your productivity.

Listen to your playlist of positive music in the background or on headphones. Your mind achieves a laser-focus which rivets your productivity.

Focus with the music.

Improve your focus with greater productivity so you get out of the office earlier when you put your smartphone in the desk drawer, lean forward and look the person in the eye, and play positive music.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Work Positive coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Categories
Online Business

E-Commerce Tips for Small Businesses

ecommerce

E-Commerce Tips for Small Businesses

For small businesses and entrepreneurs, the Internet is not only an effective tool but a necessary one for growth. Customers and clients turn to the Internet not only for information about a business, but also for shopping. Gone are the days when “brick and mortar” businesses dominated the landscape; e-commerce is the wave of the future.

Setting up an e-commerce platform is easier than ever, but succeeding in a sea of competition has never been more difficult. You’ve got to set yourself apart from your competitors, which means learning the secrets of successful e-commerce and putting them into practice.

Focus on Product Descriptions

One of the most difficult aspects of succeeding in e-commerce is portraying products effectively. It’s not enough to simply list your products; you’ve got to put them in the best light possible if you intend to convert a fair amount of sales. Since most e-commerce platforms allow you to add descriptions for each of your products, you should take full advantage of this and craft the best messaging possible. Think about why your audience might want to purchase a specific product and how it can benefit them, pointing out each and every selling point.

The photos you use to display your products can also have a huge psychological impact, and should always be Hi-Res. Products typically look best against a blank, white background, although there are plenty of different techniques you can utilize. For best results, you should always hire a professional photographer to shoot your products.

Offer Lucrative Deals

E-commerce should be viewed as the digital equivalent of a traditional selling platform, which means deals and weekly specials still matter. One of the reasons why many people turn to the Internet for their shopping needs is because they expect to find better pricing than what is available locally, and you’ve got to deliver the goods. Since overhead tends to be far lower with an e-commerce platform, offering significant discounts should be easier than it would be in a brick and mortar scenario.

Social media can be a very effective way to not only spread word about deals you might be offering, but also to build your audience and awareness about your products. For example, you might wish to offer a deal that customers can take advantage of only if they share it on their personal Facebook timeline, as this will accomplish two things at the same time.

Allow Multiple Payment Options

Customers who shop e-commerce websites want to know that they can pay in as many different ways as possible. Ideally, your platform should accept credit cards, Paypal and – if it fits your model – check. Restricting your payment options will do nothing but turn your customers off and lower your chances of making a sale.

If you sell online, you should also consider implementing a credit card reader into your business model. Being able to accept credit cards on the fly is a highly-effective way to sell your goods when you don’t have a traditional storefront, and will open up a great deal of doors for you and your business.

Don’t Neglect SEO and Search Functionality

SEO (search engine optimization) can be very effective when properly implemented, and can help your e-commerce site to pop up at the top of some of the most popular search engines on the Internet. You can implement SEO yourself or hire a firm that specializes in this discipline, which can take a lot of pressure off of you and your business.

Another aspect of searching that you should focus on is that which is internal to your site. Customers should always be able to search for what they’re looking for without having to browse through page after page of items, and the more targeted you can make your internal search features, the more likely it is that you’ll convert a sale. After all, customers who find themselves getting frustrated when looking for specific products on your site will likely leave and choose to shop elsewhere–something that is easily avoided with a powerful search option.

There’s no use in ignoring the importance of building a strong e-commerce platform any longer. If you put in the work to ensure that your site can compete with the best of them, you’ll begin to see results in a short period of time.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith