Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Human Resource

Know How Happy Employees are The Key to Business Growth

Nowadays, not many leaders can make a business exemplary successful. To have proper leadership skills, you have to have a strategic approach to managing your employees. The way you handle workers can determine the path of your business. Handling the employees does not necessarily mean that you should act tough. You should be a leader who does not believe that things can only run smoothly according to your own opinions. It is worth listening to the opinions of your workers and share ideas to come up with a solution for a particular problem. The association with the workers shows that you care, and you are conversant with the challenges that the employees go through during work. Some techniques you can use to motivate the employees are;

  1. Make the Office a Comfortable Place to be

Here, it is worth noting that no single person wants to spend the entire day in a weird place. Try to make the place of work as attractive as possible and functional. People want to be in a place with features that attractive to the eyes. Make sure the machines are in the right place at the right time and are up to date and function properly. No person wants to come in the morning to start the day with the stress of some old piece of a computer that will take longer to open. Making the place neat does not mean expensive things. Fetch some interesting modern pieces of equipment and engage a local artist to spice up your place with designs.

  1. Be an Honest, Respectful, and Supportive Leader 

Self-respect is one character that makes everybody honor you. This virtue will follow with respecting, being honest, supportive, and always communicate properly with your employees. To be a great manager and to capture the attention of your workers, you should show that you are on the same page when it comes to working. These values are simple but can make your workers run away. If you are learning the management role, you can learn various management skills from knowledgeable materials like books and journals. Proper management will take practice.

  1. Offer Rewards to the Employees 

If you want to keep your employees in the business, you should offer some rewards to recognize a job well done. Many people will need a reason to stay working for you. Come up with some incentive programs to motivate the employees. Come up with something like offering home insurance, accidental car insurance, giving health benefits, or sharing of profit. Therefore, when people have a reason to compete, you make sure everything runs smoothly and increase profitability. Insurances add up fast and times the number of employees it can be very expensive. So make sure to use comparison websites like for car insurance quotes and find the best rates.

  1. Make some Room for Growth of the Employees 

For a faster growth of your business, the employees should grow at the same pace. You should cultivate the psychological factors to make the workers feel much entrusted with the management of the business. Also, you should show respect for the work done. When opening a branch of your business in a different location, look for the most appropriate employees to manage and conduct all the operations. For the other individuals who are doing an exemplary good job, you can offer higher roles to make workers feel respected and confident about the undertaking.

  1. Share Positive Information 

When you know that you did a good job, it is enough motivational factor to make you feel wanting to continue doing the work again. As a good manager, when the customers give positive feedback about a commodity, make a point of notifying the employees during the meetings. You should make sure other workers witnesses the congratulatory messages for a challenge in working even harder. When you push a good feeling to the employees, you send a message inside the heart that establishes connectivity with the business.

  1. Learn to be Transparent 

When you let the employees learn about how the business is growing, workers will feel like part of the company. Share with the workers the important details about sales, number of new customers, and every undertaking of the company. Sharing information about the development of the company can help point out areas requiring improvement.

  1. Provide Flexible Scheduling 

With the modern technology, many companies are changing the working procedure. Workers want to get the freedom of working at any place. Many workers want to complete projects from the comfort of the home. More than 80 percent of businesses are providing these kinds of flexibilities. Thus, if you want to attract top talents and many employees, you should provide chances to have a flexible schedule and time.

  1. Provide Food in the Workplace

A simple rule is that you cannot concentrate on your work when you are hungry. If you want to motivate your employees, give them food to their satisfaction. Feeding a large number of people may not be an easy task, but it is worth the effort. Giving out food shows that you value and appreciate the work of the employees. The act shows that you do not only care about what the workers can do for the firm, but you have an interest in the physical well-being of your work forces. Offering food can open up opportunities for your business when the employees endorse your place as the right one to get a job. Thus, attracting more workers.

  1. Distinguish the Employees’ Achievements

Everybody feels good when appreciated for complete work. As a good leader, you should learn to appreciate workers who spend much time doing various business projects. Whether it is a co-worker helping a colleague, take your time to show appreciation whether as a team or calling an employee privately. Different studies show that many employees experience a lot of enjoyment when shown appreciation. Thus, the workers feel the need to continue working even harder. It is a great achievement for the business to maintain a worker for a long time. Also, keeping the workers motivated in the trying times is a tough task. When workers spend much time in your business, the management becomes more comfortable since the employees know every part of the company.

Categories
Human Resource

Is There One HR Software for Every Organisation?

When you start looking for HR solutions to improve how your organisation operates, you’ll soon find how many HR software options are out there. Since nothing is free in the world of business, you don’t want to end up spending money on products that don’t maximise your HR potential. So, how to pick? Is there one HR software to rule them all?

Human Resource Management Software comes in all shapes and sizes. Finding the one that fits your organisation can seem tricky but it can be done. The main thing is to stay focused on the big picture while looking after the small details.

Here are the two key things to focus on when finding your HR software and making sure it provides your business with the right benefits.

Focus on identifying your needs

You have to examine HR software vendors carefully and compare those services with your needs. The most important areas of focus should be:

  • Product capabilities
  • Usability of the software
  • User experience of the software
  • Additional functionalities and their cost
  • Security of the software
  • Storage options
  • Analytics tools
  • Customer support

These are the most common areas of focus, although you might want to consider other additional factors as well. The key is to focus on what you actually need and want from the software and to find a vendor that matches those.

In terms of Human Resource Management Software, it’s good to note how most of them now offer cloud-based services. This is important and practical. So always opt for a vendor that has cloud-based solutions on offer.

It’s important to pay attention to these different types of software options. If you’ve not used HR software before or you are perplexed by all the fancy things available, you should consider asking a professional vendor for help. Having a better understanding of the different options will help you know just what you need.

Integrate your new HR software with your existing systems

Needs are important in terms of finding the right software but issues around integration come close in importance. The data revolution has meant that any organisation that wants to succeed must utilise a lot of data – and this can mean trouble for integration.

When selecting Human Resource Management Software, you have to ensure the chosen product allows you to integrate your new and existing systems. Now, integration is not just about software compatibility. In fact, you also have to:

  • Integrate your HR KPIs with wider business objectives. Use software system that allows you to link the HR KPIs (employee performance) with business KPIs (sales numbers). This will make tracking your ROI easier.
  • Integrate your data collection. Your chosen Human Resource Management Software should gather information from a variety of sources, from phones to e-mail conversations.

Integration is the key to software success and if you get it right, you’ll see performance improve overall. When picking your vendor, your focus should be on finding something that makes integration efficient and useful.

One HR software to rule them all?

But you might be feeling impatient, and you might feel like the above tips and points are just too much work. The truth is that finding the right Human Resource Management Software won’t happen overnight and you do need to put in the effort.

However, comparing and reading reviews can act as a shortcut. Knowing what other small businesses think of the software is beneficial. There is a reason for certain products winning awards and being top sellers.

You still have to know one truth about HR software and that is that there isn’t a single product that rules them all. The bottom line is that the effectiveness of your chosen Human Resource Management Software will always depend on your organisational needs. Those needs can be met in various ways so you have to do the groundwork and find the right business.

Having proper HR software is essential and it will help your business to succeed. Good software will not just boost the bottom line but in the process, it will also help improve employee engagement and your service.

So, make use of the above tips and find an HR solution that works for you and you organisation!

Categories
Sales & Marketing

How To Plan A Marketing Strategy That Will Last

A good marketing strategy to ensure your brand is here to stay means including several important factors that will help you reach your target audience in every way possible. Here’s what to definitely focus on while creating an effective marketing strategy.

1. Social media

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a type of internet marketing that includes creating and sharing relevant content on social media networks to raise brand awareness. Typical activities are posting videos and images and posting text, all of which incite audience engagement, but it also includes paid social media advertising.

First of all, Facebook advertising is one of the most cost-effective media channels in the world, enabling you to easily reach your target audience anywhere you want. Just to give you a hint of its possibilities – more than 75% of Americans are using Facebook, so the possibilities of advertising your brand to the right audience are incredibly high. The Cost Per Click is pretty low, while the benefits could be quite substantial.

Videos are a great way of telling people who you are and what you offer, as well as why they should choose you instead of your competitors. Videos are more popular and influencing than television and newspapers so it would be a good idea to invest in a high-quality video advertising on social media.

Visual social media sites such as Instagram and Pinterest are perfect for creative image roundups that show exactly what you offer and tell an interesting story. In order to make the images more shareable, overlay them with catchy quotes.

2. Guerrilla marketing

If you’re aiming at unexpected marketing tactics, then you should opt for guerilla marketing. It’s a way of avoiding becoming bland and predictable when it comes to promoting your brand.

It’s a different approach, where people are told stories and even drawn into them and inspired after watching/reading them. The good thing about guerrilla marketing is that it isn’t expensive but needs a certain amount of creativity and it should try to incent people to give comments.

This type of marketing includes public “stunts” and planting a new idea in people’s head – something unusual and with a twist at the end is the best possible version. It works better if you only do it occasionally, at a specific time through a targeted campaign, so don’t let the whole site get overwhelmed with this one-time hype.

3. Merchandise marketing

This type of marketing means creating brand awareness but also customer loyalty through the smart use of merchandise. The term “merchandise” refers to any tangible item, like a gift card, a T-shirt or flowers. For example, it means organizing a contest or giving out free custom t-shirts and jackets for your next tradeshow to raise your brand awareness among the targeted audience.

However, merchandise marketing is more than just promotional marketing – any use of incentives, thank-yous and referrals are also an example of using the physical merchandise. It is also highly useful for supporting other types of marketing like loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing, making it clear that merchandise marketing is not a thing of the past at all.

4. Quality content

Quality content presupposes several factors. First of all, whatever you’re writing about, it’s highly important you’re being transparent, meaning the communication between you and your audience/clients is honest and direct.

People will always buy from those who they trust, so in order to build that trust, transparency is a must. It means that that the content you’re putting on your site needs to be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable to you and you should also be prepared to share some of your personal stories and prepared to take public responsibility for your potential mistakes.

Also, you need to put yourself in your reader’s position and think about answering three questions referring to the content: Is the content relevant to the reader? Is it educational to them? Does it add any value? In order to be sure the content won’t be disregarded by the reader as irrelevant or annoying, the answer to these three questions needs to be “yes”.

The keywords you choose will also add to the quality of your content. Don’t listen to those who say that SEO isn’t that important for your marketing strategy – words that you use could help your product or service more than you think. So, pick three keywords and stick to them for a long period of time – your persistence will get you high Google ranking, and that counts!

Final comment

Your marketing strategy doesn’t need to be expensive – creating buzz for your brand generally includes creative thinking and a lot of hard work. But all of that effort will be rewarding after a certain time has passed.

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Some Essential Business Activities That Entrepreneurs Should Never Avoid

We all know that entrepreneurs are really busy individuals and they always have to do something or other, and most of the time it’s really something very urgent. The plight of an entrepreneur is constantly like moving pieces – leading initiatives, organizing activities,implementing the planned stuff in the right order, etc.

Entrepreneurs always spend their time on important things which are really understandable, but some more critical tasks should be done. They do not come under the ‘urgent’ category still; they are something vital.

In the midst of the busy schedule, creating time for these not urgent but essential tasks is really very difficult. But they can be managed with the little shift in mindset. However, for a better dream, create and thrive as an entrepreneur we need to shove the very urgent tasks a little bit and make room for the less urgent activities.

Brainstorming for your next business

It is essential that every entrepreneur should be loyal to the business. As an entrepreneur, you have lots of opportunities and chances for adventures. So, why not explore when you have the opportunities in your hand? If you always spend time in extinguishing the plans for your current business, you will never get a chance to plan for the next business. Don’t ever limit your potential or prevent things from taking place. Just keep on brainstorming about your next business moves and see what happens.

Planning for your next product

The main factor is introducing new products into the market. The better product you can develop the more sales you can expect.

Let’s take a small example – you are successfully running the business accompanied by a strong customer base. You are planning to serve your customers better by providing them with the new unique product. And this is the right thing that you should do as an entrepreneur because it will help you to grow your business.

So you have to plan cautiously and accurately to launch your next product. You have to keep on adding something new to your product line in order to hold the attention of your customers. You can never expect to keep a hold on the market share with your existing line of products.In fact, if you need any sort of extra fund for that, you can make plans and approach for the various fundraising methods. To know more about this you may visit fundraising sites.

 

Mentoring someone

If someone has ever mentored you, then you would definitely understand the power of entrepreneurial mentorship. There are lots of people who would like to learn from you. If you come across someone, then don’t hesitate to mentor him. He can be your co-founder, employee or a friend. Always try to spend some time with such people who want to learn from you. Remember, mentoring always serves a two-way purpose. You can get to learn a lot of things as well as you will have someone with whom you can actually think aloud.

Strategizing your business move

It is not possible to say that every entrepreneur has been a born market, but one can say that every entrepreneur has some exclusive marketing ideas up on the sleeves. As for the studies, it has been found that some of the eminent entrepreneurs in the world are not skilled at technology, business or products, but they are simply excellent in only one factor, i.e., marketing.

In reality, if you can innovate the process of your marketing and spend time in dreaming and brainstorming, you can also get to experience the same success level as Steve Jobs.

Studying the human behavior

Every entrepreneur should learn how to study the human behavior. The time which you will spend on studying the motivation psychology, development, behavior and cognition of people – will never be wasted. You will able to understand your customers better and serve them exactly in the way they expect from you.

You will able to understand what they want from your organization and how you are you going to provide them with it. You will able to understand how to make selections and take decisions in the right way. Last but not the least, you will learn how to face conflicts as well as the accurate procedure of mediating the same.

Networking

As a businessman, you cannot strive in the market without networking. Although the term seems to be little artificial and smarmy, still it is something which is really essential for establishing a strong business. You need to establish a strong connection with similar people in your field for striving in the market. You must have heard that no business can strive on an island, so you will have to make connections and be social. There are several ways of networking and today; social media plays one of the best networking channels for everyone, including entrepreneurs.

Taking off time

This activity is really not an activity and of course, does not fall under any specific business activity. But it is equally important like the above business activities, which I have already discussed. Take some time off in a week or month. On these days or specific hours, simply switch off your phone and stay away from any sort of business activities. You need some time to unwind and unplug yourself and do something different. When you actually take some time off for yourself, you can get time to think for some creative ideas that can ultimately help you in your business. You can even learn something from the experiences you can have on these days, which can add to your business insight for being a better entrepreneur.

Final thoughts

You have tons of things to execute but finding out time for the essential activities which are must for being a proper entrepreneur is really essential for thriving in the long run. When you can manage to take out 10 minutes from your busy schedule to read this post, I believe with a little shift in your mindset you can also get to manage some time in your hectic schedule for these little less urgent tasks. Always keep in mind, it’s all for your benefit. It is you who will be benefited and not someone else. So, ultimately you are doing everything for yourself!

Categories
Technology

Should Small Businesses Invest in Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay and change the way we live and do business forever. This may seem like a bold statement, but take a closer look. We already have self-driving cars, cashier-less grocery stores, robotic household servants, and other marvels of modern technology around us. They are much more than passing fads— they herald the dawn of the new business age.

Namely, the compound annual growth rate for global spending on AI is predicted to reach $57.6 billion by 2021. AI startups are sprouting up at a rapid pace, automation is on the roll across the industry sectors, and that is all just the beginning. Of course, small businesses have one big concern and that is the risk of blowing the budget. That is certainly not an option, but the million dollar question remains: does AI add enough value to the organization to justify spreading precious funds a bit thinner?

The Game has Changed

While advocates hail it as a game-changer and equalizer, skeptics denounce AI as a disruptive influence, even a threat to small businesses. Indeed, many entrepreneurs are leery of this development because of the allegedly steep costs of implementation. These notions echo what we have seen before: tech seismic shifts bringing disproportionate advantages to established corporations.

However, what gets overlook is the fact that this time around, we have a level playing field. The proliferation of plug-in tools, ready-made solutions, and affordable services has diminished if not eliminated the barriers to integrate AI. There are already so many nimble and agile organizations leading the way to innovation instead of playing catch up. After all, they stand to gain much and they can reap benefits faster than large and laggard companies.

To be more precise, AI has already yielded impressive results, mostly in terms of streamlining work processes and improving efficiencies across the board. For instance, in the education sector, it has reduced the men-hours spent on administrative tasks. Forward-thinking manufacturing companies have managed to trim hefty overhead costs and elsewhere, intelligent automation solutions are reshaping workflows and business models.

Creative industries are also hit by strong winds of change. You want to hire a reputable website design agency that employs AI and machine learning tools to deliver design solutions like the industry leaders. The same goes for top-performing marketing agencies that are utilizing AI for personalized marketing. They create highly-targeted ads relevant to users and are able to reach a much wider audience with automated systems.

A Strategic Approach

All of this is not to say that the AI revolution has fully unfolded. We are still in the early stages of adoption: According to Adobe, only 15% of all enterprises use AI. Things are moving fast, though, and in 12 months, this number is expected to more than double. And while many small businesses already experiment with some form of automation, 84% of enterprises believe AI holds the key to gaining a competitive edge.

Therefore, the best time to take action would be now. And I am not talking about merely buying a voice-search assistant like Siri or Alexa for your office. If you really want to become a digitally mature organization, you have to embrace innovation and put a refined AI strategy in place. The possible applications abound and range from generating employee engagement and making sales forecasts to automated end-to-end accounting and email marketing.

What you should probably consider right away is setting up AI frameworks for gathering and collecting business data, as well as producing actionable, real-time reports. Note that the process of transitioning from on-premise servers to cloud platforms is underway. Here, we see that AI leads to better and faster decision-making. The beauty of it is that one does not need to assemble huge data warehouses and carry out extensive infrastructure overhauls.

Basically, you can take advantage of third-party tools to connect your data directly to AI and machine-learning-powered solutions. That allows you to face the ocean of available data and come on top, whether you are pulling data in order to figure out product-market fit, understand consumer market segmentation, or optimize the sales funnel. Handling an endless amount of data manually is almost unimaginable in this day and age.

Providing Service Excellence

One other lucrative opportunity for small businesses is to use AI to take customer service to the next level. According to entrepreneur opinion surveys, this is the benefit that is second only to “freeing up time and getting more things done”. So far, it seems that niche services and products offered to consumer hold the most potential when it comes to improving the bottom line.

Likewise, chatbots are one facet of this trend consumers are quickly getting used to. These sophisticated virtual helpers are capable of tackling repetitive tasks like sorting tickets, answering common questions, solving practical problems, and coming up with recommendations. Not everyone is eager to “talk” with a computer program, but many companies have increased customer satisfaction and engagement with their help.

The list does not end here, but we need to conclude on one crucial note. Regardless of the specific field of implantation, AI is supposed to lead to fewer human errors, less time-consuming guesswork, and minimal resource waste. So, let automation work to your advantage, first and foremost on the back-end side of the spectrum. This should give you more time focus on priorities on the front-end, such as face-to-face customer service.

Ultimately, AI should make your life easier, not more complicated.

Time to Get Ahead of the Game

As it turns out, you do not need fat budgets and data goldmines to put AI tech to good use. The most advanced solutions and platforms are accessible to organizations of all sizes there, so there is no reason for small businesses to lag behind. They can compete at scale with top dogs and even lead the charge towards the cutting-edge frontier of the future. You have the opportunity to sustain growth while keeping expenditures in check. Thus, it is time to get down to business: move to the forefront of the industry and make strides towards your goals in 2018 and beyond.