Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Operations

Why Automation Matters to Entrepreneurs and Small Business

Article Contributed by Finnegan Pierson 

You may think that a small business is fundamentally different than a large one, but this isn’t entirely true. Small businesses have to do many of the same things that larger businesses do, only with fewer employees. Obviously, this means an entrepreneur has a number of problems to overcome that a larger business might handle with ease because of its much bigger staff. This is particularly the case when it comes to scheduling, achieving scalability and having the necessary skill sets to do all of similar processes. One solution many businesses turn to is automation.

Benefits of Automation

Automation can be used by small businesses to greatly simplify processes and to relieve staff from having to carry out monotonous and difficult tasks or exhausting manual labor. For example, an automated warehouse can help a business reduce costs and ensure that items are safely stored and delivered efficiently. The more you can introduce automation in your small business, the more time you can spend planning, networking, marketing your business and interacting with your customers.

The Sooner the Better

The earlier you start implementing automation as an entrepreneur in your small business, the quicker you’ll be able to enjoy its many benefits, including greater efficiency and reduced operation costs. Obviously, as busy as any entrepreneur is, you may be wondering whether it’s really worth the time and expense – especially given all the other things you need to focus on daily. But below is a list of just a few ways that automation can help your small business:

Scalable Processes

The entire point of automation is that it repeatedly carries out a preset series of automated actions without much direct human intervention – with the result of these actions being the same each time regardless of how many times the sequence is performed. This means that scalability is very easily achieved using an automated approach, since the outcome will be the same whether you produce 10 widgets or 1000.

Increased Efficiency and Speed

Instead of wasting all day on relatively menial tasks – from sending out email marketing to checking on inventory and the paying bills – an entrepreneur can take advantage of software or online services designed to entirely automate these processes. Doing this in your business allows you to get the benefits of a vast supply of available automation tools without having to reinvent the wheel yourself.

Reduced Operating Costs

Yes, you do have to spend money to automate your business. But if you implement automation correctly it can quickly pay for itself many times over – so it’s better to think of it as an investment. The key to effectively introducing automation is to fully examine your operations by considering your current and future needs. Then you can decide which specific types of automation can give you the best return on your investment.

More Effective Time Management

Implementing automation and your small business removes a number of lower-level tasks from you or your employees so that you – and they – can focus on the important matter of expanding your business. After all, establishing relationships with customers and suppliers and creatively planning for the future of your business is how you should be spending your time. Automation can easily handle any number of day-to-day, time-consuming tasks.

Final Thoughts

Applying automation to your processes can help eliminate waste in your organization. It can also take over repetitive tasks and clunky difficult to perform procedures best done by machine. Automation can give a small business the edge it needs to be able to compete with other small businesses, as well as much larger operations.

Categories
Human Resource

How to Hire an Elite Workforce

Article Cintributed by Jenn Livingston

When you own a business, the best way to set yourself up for success is to surround yourself with a talented team. The most successful companies are places where the cream of the crop rises to the top. They are places where talented people flock because they are treated well. If you are looking to boost your business to new heights, use the following tips to put together an elite workforce that makes you look good.

  1. Stop Making Your Job Announcements Read Like Novels

In the 21st century where attention spans trend ever downward, you have to change with the times or be left behind. Nobody wants to read your two-page job announcement. You will turn off many talented applicants if you make your hiring notice too long. Make it short, punchy and designed to capture the attention of people who have been brought up in the Information Age.

  1. Make a Checklist

You will never have a great team unless you give detailed thought to the type of employees you want to hire. You should put together a checklist of all the attributes that you want in an employee. When you have a checklist to follow during the hiring process, it makes it much easier to ensure you find the perfect hires to complement your team and implement your company vision.

  1. Cast a Wide Net

If you want to land the big fish, you need to cast a wide net. There are lots of ideal employees waiting for you to employ them, but you have to make sure they apply before you can hire them. The best way to ensure you get a large pool of talented is to use a multi-faceted approach to attract candidates.

Start by advertising across multiple fronts. Advertise both locally and nationally to get as many qualified applicants as possible. Network to find even more job candidates. Make use of your social media connections to find applicants.

Don’t scoff at the power of recruiters to find amazing employees for your company either. They are able to find candidates that you might never have been connected to otherwise. Using all three of these channels to attract applicants is your ticket to getting the ideal candidate pool for your job openings.

  1. Improve Your Interviews

Even when you get a great pool of candidates, you still need to be able to find the brightest jewels to shine in your firm. Without good interviewing skills, it is a matter of chance whether you will get the eight candidates. By honing your skills interviewing candidates, you will be able to narrow the candidate pool down to the pick of the litter. 

  1. Take Stock of Your Reviews

Like it or not, your reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed can have a huge effect on the quality of the applicants you receive. If you have a number of negative reviews, it will turn off a huge segment of the job force. You need to keep your profiles updated on these rating sites. It is critical to respond to negative reviews in a respectful, thoughtful manner. This will go a long way towards redeeming your appearance in the eyes of potential employees.

  1. Have a Succession Plan

You need to plan for hiring new employees before your old ones retire. Implementing a succession management plan will ensure you do not have a lapse in production when your employees retire. You will find you keep your company smoothly flowing forward will happen when you replace your veteran employees with talented newcomers.

If you follow these six tips, you will be blown away by the talent level that starts to flood your workplace. Taking the time to perfect your hiring process will pay huge dividends. When you surround yourself with a strong team, you will be poised to take your company to the extreme level of success that you deserve.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

How I Marketed My Startup Without Breaking the Bank

Article Contributed by Keith Elton

When I started my first business – I needed to keep costs as low as possible. The reality was, I simply couldn’t afford expensive or wide-reaching professional advertising campaigns. But I still needed to get more customers. With little money coming in, I was stuck thinking of ways to grow my business without breaking the bank. Thankfully some of these tips helped me get off the ground without spending much money at all.

Local networking events

I used to ignore these – but I was making a huge mistake. Not only are they a great place to meet like-minded business people, there a huge marketplace for your startup. Make sure you print up tons of business cards and other promotional material. Hand it out liberally. Tell everyone about your business.

When I started going to local networking events – I started seeing people I’d met come to me with business opportunities. The best thing about most of these events is – they’re totally free. You’re missing a great opportunity to spread the word about your business if you ignore these events.

Social Media

Social media is huge in business marketing. In this day and age – you’d struggle to get by without it. I was reluctant to fully make the most of social media in the beginning – I thought it was just for friends and family. The reality is, NOT having an active social media presence for your business says something negative about what you’ve got to offer.

Staying in touch with both existing and potential customers has never been easier. When people start to like you on social media, they’re telling their friends about it. That’s viral marketing juice which was hard to come by before social media – and you need it to make your business a success.

Contests and competitions

These can be tied in to your social media accounts to give followers something extra – or they can be standalone. You don’t have to give away much – but people love to take part in competitions even if they hadn’t really heard about your business before. When I started running a few small-scale contests – I noticed some of the losers popping into my store more often just because they’d become more aware of what I had to offer.

Charity fundraisers

Charity fundraisers are one of the best ways of becoming an active and valued member of your local community. You get increased publicity and get to help a charity in the process – it’s win-win.

Refer-a-friend schemes

Another way of getting people talking about you and your business is to recruit all your existing customers as casual salespeople. In fact, I noticed this scheme helped me more than some direct sales campaigns. I gave existing customers an incentive (a discount on their next purchase) if they brought me a new customer. This not only got me more customers from word-of-mouth – but I even made a profit on the discounted item I was selling to the existing customer. They actually came back quicker themselves – so it was another win-win situation for my business.

Leafleting

You might think your business is above some simple leafleting – but it can be a great way of getting to people who might not have heard of you before. If you’ve got a decent printer – you can make them yourself to quite a good standard. If you want to go door-to-door, it’s much cheaper than you might think. Another alternative is standing in a busy area and handing them out yourself. It’s a cheap and effective way to grow your business.

About the author

Keith Elton has years of experience helping people with their startup and business related questions. He also knows how important business education is, which is why he writes for a personal tuition blog.

Categories
Branding

You’re Branding Campaign Sucks – What to Do Now?

According to Henry Ford’s famous nugget of wisdom, “Failure doesn’t mean it’s already the end of the world. It’s simply the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.” This adage is a perfect enlightenment for marketers and business owners who face a significant backlash in their branding strategy.

Let’s say you hit a painful realization that your brand, in all honesty, is all over the place and is not generating the engagements that you expect. Or worse, you have a well-defined brand, but you notice that it just doesn’t fit the ethics of your business.

When the Plague Strikes

According to the study conducted by netimperative, about half of consumers will end up liking a brand more after an unpleasant experience, provided that it’s well-handled and in the right way. Apologizing and admission to mistakes can be a difficult thing to do. Notwithstanding, brands who refuse to take accountability will face serious consequences.

Brands sometimes get it wrong and fall flat in marketing department despite having the best intentions. But it shouldn’t compromise the loyalty of the customer. The best thing to do when your mess up is to get on your feet and take charge, the sooner, the better.

Look for Customer Engagements in Different Perspectives

For the sake of your brand, be creative about how you engage with consumers and stop doing what everyone else is doing. There are unique mediums that you can use such as guest posting services, content marketing, influencer marketing, etc.

You should learn by now that there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing. Don’t grow complacent, but learn to mix up and experiment. Don’t be too predictable, instead, think out of the box. Every brand is vulnerable so don’t take your audience for granted.

You need to remember that consumers re-evaluate their needs more often than not. Be on the front end and guide the consumers as they reinvent themselves instead of just being reactive to their needs. You need to manage your customer engagement strategy on a higher level if you don’t want others to do it better than you.

Establish a Relatable Identity 

It’s puzzling to see how brands muddle their unique value proposition (UVP) to get the attention of people. In their efforts to renew and reinvent, they complicate things which only frustrates the consumers. Thus, the branding campaign fails.

The identity of a brand is most powerful when its value proposition strengthens and evolves in alignment with the ever-changing lifestyle demands of the audience. Make it simple since people don’t have the time to decipher what your brand is trying to solve. Consumers want brands to be straightforward while at the same time forward-thinking. In short, deliberate with their identity. 

Develop a Lifestyle Platform for Your Brand

Business owners and marketers need to remember that the influence of brand can reach one’s state of mind and lifestyle. If your brand isn’t a way-of-life platform that communicates hope and inspires people, the influence and impact of its message will quickly evaporate into thin air.

Consumers want the value proposition of your brand to come to life and affect their lifestyle through messaging that’s not only educational but also applicable to them. A comprehensive branding approach gives people hope, which increases your chance to earn the trust and loyalty of the consumers. It also creates a more precise feedback and dialogue to keep your brand operating in continuous innovation mode.

Continue to Innovate With a Flawless Execution and Timing

Innovation may be an obvious strategy, yet many companies are too late or fall short in their branding efforts. Just like Blockbuster and Blackberry, all of which failed to innovate in go with the digital flow in branding arena.

Nowadays, markets demand flawless execution and perfect timing for every new strategy that you implement. It’s more than just cultivating your brand in blogger outreach platforms, print ads, and web. You should be all set when the consumers are ready, which means that your timing must sync with the demands of your audience.

And please, don’t launch a new packaging, product, service, strategy or logo if your audience is not yet ready or you are not prepared to bring the requirements for sustainable success till the end. There are no shortcuts to success. It’s a form of slow death in a marketplace where consumers anticipate brands to over-deliver before they buy. 

Promote the Spirit of Giving  

The majority of marketers fail to realize that generosity is an integral part of every brand’s DNA. Being a great brand is about genuinely sharing the success with others whether they have purchased your product or not. It’s not just about profitability and market share gains.

Make it a point to show your gratitude and respect to the people and communities who support your brand. Grant sponsorships, support charitable organizations and events and be consistent with your community outreach efforts.

If you just want to keep it simple or have insufficient resources, be sure to at least show your gratitude and say thank you to those who supported your brand through thick and thin.

Leave a Legacy 

What is the product association or experience that you want to leave behind for your brand? What will your audience remember most about how it affects their lifestyle or business?

The most successful brands don’t experience an identity crisis. These brands understand the responsibilities that they have to their audience. Their innovations are genuine, sincere and consistently delivered. And they focus on the interests of their consumers.

These brands fall flat on the excitement scale sometimes, but their customers remain satisfied. You know that you are creating a robust brand legacy when the loyalty of your client is strong and remains unfazed by strong competitions.

Takeaway 

Failure is just a natural part of mastering and learning your craft. It’s just a condiment that makes success more flavorful in the future. The good thing about failing whether at branding, marketing and even in relationships is that you can incorporate the lessons that you learn from your past failures and apply them to your future branding endeavors.

Patrick Panuncillon

Patrick Panuncillon is an adventurous entrepreneur and the clever mind behind Creative Working Playground, the brainchild of his passion for digital marketing and content management services. He is also a big writing aficionado. He loves to write just about anything related to business and technology as a form of his creative outlet. Patrick is also a jet-setter and goes out on travel escapade whenever his time permits.

Categories
Networking

5 Qualities to Look for When Cultivating an Effective Professional Network

Article Contributed by Jessica Thiefels

To network means to “leverage your business and personal connections to bring a regular supply of new business,” explains Ivan Misner, the founder of Business Networking International (BNI) and VIP contributor of Entrepreneur.com. In simple terms, this is the process of building relationships with people who could become valuable assets and referrals as you ascend the corporate ladder, find your passion, or build your businss.

Simply attending networking events, however, is only the start. You need to put in the work to cultivate a network that will provide value for years to come. Keep these qualities in mind as you meet people, offer your services, and search for people who can help. A network built on acountabilty, integrity and generosity is one that will set you up for success in the long run.

Accountable

Connect with people who are accountable and realiable, who you can count on in a pinch, or for a last-minute request. While you can’t know that upon first meeting them, you can keep an eye out for people who are flakey or unavaible; if they bail on a meeting or cancel last minute more than once, your time is being wasted.

If possible, find someone who’s willing to be your accountabiltiy partner. This person helps you stay on track and holds you accountable for timelines and goals: “Linda Galindo, author of The 85% Solution: How Personal Accountability Guarantees Success (Jossey-Bass, 2009), says accountability partners are an entrepreneur’s secret weapon for quick growth,” explains Stephanie Vozza, contributor for Entrepreneur.

She continues, “ An accountability partner can help you identify weaknesses in your business, make plans to overcome them and hold you accountable for action.”

Well Connected 

Every effective professional network needs a well-connected person—someone who’s been in the business for longer than most, and as such, provides a lot of value:

“This segment may be the most important part of your network. Connectors are people with a large network of their own who like to share connections. They have access to people, resources, and information, and are generous with their time and their contacts,” says Christine M. Hollinden, founding principal of a professional services marketing firm, Hollinden.

Authentic

Your contacts should be familiar with the most authentic version of yourself, and you want people in your circle who operate as their most authentic self as well. In our ever-expanding business world, it’s easy to get involved with someone who’s integrity is shaky—and in the end, you’ll suffer from having that toxicity in your immediate circle.

Authenticity is hard to spot, so keep these qualities of authentic people in mind as you network:

  • Have realistic perceptions of reality.
  • Are accepting of themselves and others.
  • Are thoughtful.
  • Have a non-hostile sense of humor.
  • Express their emotions freely and clearly.
  • Are open to learning from mistakes.
  • Understand their motivations.

Your first conversation alone will help you uncover some of these personality traits.

Generous

All professional network relationships should be mutually beneficial—meaning you give as much as they do. However, not everyone is in the networking game to help someone else, and if they get what they need from you and then go radio silent on all future communications, you know they’re not someone you want to keep close. A network built on generosity bodes well for you, and everyone involved, so look for people who are already helping others—that’s a good indication they’ll be generous when asked for help from you as well.

Different (Than You)

Diversity is one of the most critical aspects of an effective professional network, and the best way to facilitate this is to use a targeted approach. Know the kind of people you want to surround yourself with, and cultivate a network with that in mind:

“Networking will be most profitable for you when you master this targeted approach. Find events, networking and otherwise, where you can connect with people that cross geographical, organizational and hierarchal lines, and you’ll be on your way to success,” says Ted Rollins, global entrepreneur recognized by Inc. 500.

Your needs will evolve, so before every networking event, consider what you need help with, advice on, or direction for. Then keep your eyes open for someone who fits that bill and always offer to help them first—which is the best way to start a mutually beneficial relationship on the right foot.

There’s more to networking than handshakes and small talk at a charity gala or client luncheon. Forging sustainable connections in the business world requires purpose and intentionality. But when you look for these qualities and commit to the process, those long-term benefits will make your efforts worthwhile.

BIO: Jessica Thiefels has been writing for more than 10 years and is currently a full-time writer, content marketing consultant and business owner. She’s been featured in Forbes and Business Insider and has written for Manta, StartupNation, Salesforce and more. Follow her on Twitter @Jlsander07 and connect LinkedIn.