Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Operations

Running a Business – Ingredients for the Recipe of Success

Article Contributed by Evans Walsh

Starting a business is a major accomplishment but you need to make sure that it grows and develops by running it effectively. The way you run your business will have a significant effect on whether or not it will be successful on a long-term basis.

Guidelines for Staff

  • In order for a business to thrive it needs to have structure. You need to set up guidelines that staff can follow, create policies and ensure that your expectations are clear.
  • New employees should be aware of the company’s mission and their roles in relation to that mission.
  • Regardless of how straightforward a position at a company may be, everyone should understand the importance of the job and why they should do it. Ensure that all employees know and understand that failing to comply with standard policies will lead to consequences.
  • Train new employees and keep track of every member of the team for accountability.

Be Organized

  • Business owners and managers are expected to be organized individuals and this should be demonstrated within the workplace. Use your organization skills to improve efficiency and productivity. Identify ways to make it easier for people to do their jobs.
  • Keep your office clean and properly maintained, file paperwork effectively and ensure that the contact information you need is accessible.
  • Running a business involves making purchases, ordering products and organizing inventory. Make sure that you have all the stock you need and employees have resources for smooth business operations.
  • You should always be aware of the things that you need to fulfill customers’ needs and avoid overstocking that can lead to wastage. Check regularly to find out whether you need additional merchandise and re-order products when necessary.

Web Design and Branding

Your website gives you a chance to share your brand with the public. People use online searches to learn about individuals, companies and projects. A website showcases your image and what the user needs to know about your products or services.

You control your website and determine the message on it. The information on your website tells users about your brand. Use text and images to reflect the general tone and mood of your business. Web content answers questions pertaining to the products or services you offer through visuals and text.

Financial Management

The financial aspects of business ownership should be addressed efficiently. You may be required to schedule meetings with accountants periodically, prepare financial plans, control the payroll, handle bookkeeping, record receipts, count money, make bank deposits and deal with tax returns.

Healthy Work Environment

A good employer does more than hire staff and pay wages. You need to be a worthwhile example for all employees as you motivate them to be productive. Spend some time with employees and give them a chance to tell you about themselves. They should be comfortable enough to talk to you. Strike the ideal balance between being a figure of authority and an approachable employer.

While creating a competitive working environment can help to increase productivity and subsequent profitability, avoid situations where the workplace becomes toxic and conflict-ridden. Hire the right people for the job.

Bio

Evans walsh has worked as an editor and writer for more than 10 years. He says the highlight of his career has been mentoring upcoming writers and watching them develop their skills. To learn more about web design services, please go to Las Vegas Web Design Co.com.

Categories
Social Marketing

5 Things A Startup Should Never Do On Linkedin

LinkedIn, with its popularity only increasing, is proving to be an excellent platform for professionals. Although at first, it started out as a mere networking tool it has grown into so much more than that. LinkedIn is now used for business development, marketing, recruitments, sales and more.

LinkedIn and other social media tools are especially great for startups because it gives these small companies an opportunity to make helpful connections and meet new people who can support their journey.

Despite the professional environment present on LinkedIn, it is all-too-easy for us to make some very unprofessional blunders and for startups, this can cost dearly. Here are some such mistakes to avoid:

  1. Overdoing the profile optimization

It is definitely a good idea to optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords. But if you take to an extreme and over-optimize, it will just backfire on you and may even lead to people blocking you or reporting you.

Optimizing is nothing but using specific words that a potential client might use to search for companies like yours, so that your startup’s name may pop-up in the search results.

For instance, let’s say you are text-expansion tool startup when creating your profile you want to use words like ‘Text expansion’, ‘productivity’ etc., words relevant to the service that your startup is aiming to provide.

The problem is when you decide that more is better and you start dumping keywords all over your profile about a dozen times.

People also make the mistake of making multiple entries for the same position hoping to be discovered better by the prospects. These below-the-knee tactics just make you look very unprofessional and untrustworthy.

A better way is to identify a set of keywords and find ways to naturally and contextually include them in your profile.

  1. Pitching sales proposals to your new connections

Every time you make a new connection, don’t make the mistake of getting ahead of yourself. That is absolutely the fastest way to get yourself removed from their connections list.

LinkedIn, before anything, is a professional networking platform. Yes, it is possible to find new business opportunities and many people have, but that is only secondary.

Imagine a complete stranger sending a business proposal to you, right after you accept their connection request. Not only will this not fetch you results, but it might build a bad reputation around your startup.

A smarter way is to send a personalized message to the person and show a keen interest in getting to know them. In fact, take a step further and observe their online behavior, the articles they are sharing etc. to understand what they like and start a conversation on that.

After you build a relationship with them, if you see a business opportunity that can benefit you both, then pitch it subtly.

When you first reach out to them, also include a link to your website and your contact details, so that they can confirm if you are a trustworthy person, before responding.

  1. Thinking that your LinkedIn network is an email opt-in list

Here’s the rule of thumb – LinkedIn is not a platform where you can send promotional messages every week to all of your connections; that is completely inappropriate.

Too many marketers think of LinkedIn connections as an email opt-in list to send their promotional messages to. Indeed as a startup, you are looking for ways to boost yourself, but don’t do it at the cost of basic manners and trust me, it won’t fetch any results.

In fact, some people go as far as adding the email contacts of their connections to their blog’s subscriber list and start sending them weekly newsletters etc. This is a great way to spoil any chance of building a relationship with your connections and you may even get removed from their list.

When experimenting with this for my own startup Hiver, here’s what worked for me – send them a personalized message after or when you connect and place a link to your website and direct them there by asking for their opinion on your product/website/service. After checking out your website, if they are interested then they will opt-in for the emails themselves.

Additionally, it is not smart to force uninterested people onto your email list. It probably won’t lead to any conversions anyway.

  1. Not sending personalized connection requests

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with people for the first time. People are usually open to connecting with strangers on this platform.

But you could go terribly wrong if you start sending generic messages to get into people’s contact lists. It gives the impression that you haven’t taken the time to view the other person’s profile and that you don’t really care about getting to know them, but just about growing your connections number.

A smart thing to do is to take the time to see who the other person is, discover some common points between both of you and then compose a personalized message touching these points.

When trying to network on LinkedIn focus on quality over quantity. Quantity is going to fetch you nothing, but quality can help you make great connections.

  1. Not having a great company page

As the founder, it sure is important to have a well-crafted profile of your own on LinkedIn, but it is also important to have a great company page for your startup.

This is important because it is one easy way for people to understand who you are and verify your credibility. For example, when you reach out to a new person, by giving them a chance to get to know what you via the company page, you are helping them make a more informed decision.

Also, people will readily connect with you when you have a legitimate company page, rather than with a lone guy who claims to be the founder of some non-existent company.

Wrapping up

Many of us are very eager to use LinkedIn as a business development tool and by avoiding unprofessional blunders we can find excellent business opportunities and make great connections via this platform.

Categories
Starting Up

Creating Your Logo: The Fundamentals

Article Contributed by Rosanie Martinez

Many new or aspiring entrepreneurs know the importance of a company logo. As a matter of fact, ask any new (and young) entrepreneur about the first things they did, and there’s a good chance that one of the first things they worked on was a logo that should be easy to recognise and works well in building their overall reputation from the start.

When creating a logo, one of the things you should do is to go on a search engine to check out big and small companies and their logos. In the process, you will find logos and elements that look great, and you might want to create something similar or incorporate those elements to your logo. While it’s generally a good idea to incorporate what works, you should only do so if it helps articulate whatever message the logo needs to convey. Otherwise, the symbol is rendered meaningless.

What’s Your Message?

Ultimately, the process of logo creation involves translating your message—your business’s purpose—into an image. So make sure that you know the reason why you’re running that kind of business in particular. To make the purpose of your business crystal clear to you, you need to write a clear mission and vision statement.

Logo creation also involves deciding on what distinct ‘personality’ your company should have. Is it serious, or is it lighthearted? What ‘quirks’ does your company alone have? What types of customers are you targeting?

Standing Out

Find a logo that’s similar to yours? Look for a way to make your logo different from that logo. Adding another element is the best way you can go about doing this.

Flexibility

The logo should work on Banner Pen, a business card, a billboard, or on the siding of a truck. It must be scalable, memorable, distinct, and easy to reproduce. While your logo can include a silhouette or even an illustration of something that represents your product or service, it might become indecipherable once reduced or enlarged significantly. So if you have an illustration on your logo, consider changing it.

You should also make sure that the logo you create is one that you can reproduce in black and white. This way, all elements of the logo are still clear even if photocopied, faxed, or used in an ad with only black and white colours.

Mind Your Company Name (and the Nature of Your Business), Please

If your company specialises in the creation and sales of jewelry, you are better off creating a classy logo. If the word ‘lighting’ is part of your company name, you can make an illustration of a light bulb part of your logo.

Beware of Clip Art and Stock Logos

While the use of stock logos and clip art can be tempting due to their accessibility, they are so easy to copy. And because they are so easy to copy, using them makes it even more difficult to stand out among your competitors. With original art, you not only stand out among other businesses similar to yours, you make a better impression of your company.

Notes on Current Logo Trends

Do you have an existing logo you think looks out of style? Avoid redesigning an existing logo just because you feel that you should adapt to new trends in logos. By doing so, you risk alienating your present and future customers from your brand. However, if you believe you should make changes, implement each element gradually.

Other Things You Need to Know About Logo Creation and Conclusion

While a logo with many colours is beautiful on a screen, the cost of transferring it to a stationery can be very high. It may also not look that good. For this reason, it’s better that your logo have only a maximum of three colours, unless you really think it’s important that your logo have more than three colours.

Logo design is serious business, so be prepared to pay the logo designer in the thousands. Fortunately, spending that much is not necessary, what with the many freelance designers you can find online. But make sure to hire someone who is familiar with the kind of business you run. Professionals with such knowledge know how your logo SHOULD look like.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Demystifying the Local SEO Strategy for Non-Tech People

Article Contributed by Walter Moore

The SEO and SEM business has grown by leaps and bounds from the simple concepts behind online marketing to a tremendously complex set of tasks. There is a whole lot of jargon involved and an even larger list of confusing prerequisites which wards a lot of people off, but it is vital that you start optimizing your business’ presence and reach through targeted SEM. To put it into extremely simple terms which even the least tech-savvy CEOs will be familiar with; there are really only three aspects to the whole process, and these three should be the pillars on which you build every strategy and take every decision. They are Rankings, Revenue, and Reputation. Here’s how you go about Local SEO optimization for your business.

Complying with Guidelines

There are two vital steps to this- the first being determining whether the business is classified as local by Google’s guidelines; the second is to go through these guidelines extensively to ensure that the business isn’t violating them or spamming in any way. These steps are instrumental in protecting the online reputation of the brand and also showing that the business does not deal in spam and black hat tactics. Penalties to rankings are avoided, and you don’t spend funds or time on ineffective and counterproductive practices.

Developing the Website

This is a three-step process. You must first develop a clean, fully functional website which has a proper UX across all users and devices. You can also tune up your existing site to resolve any such issues. Next, develop as much relevant, quality content as you can to set your website apart. Then, you can optimize the site for organic search, local search, and conversions, all at once.

This builds reputation, protects rankings, boosts visibility and also ushers in tremendous results in organic and local search. Each of these steps builds the site’s legacy in the long-term, and hence saves revenue in terms of UX optimizations and time spent in reinventing the wheel to have a functional website.

Reviews

Start off by enforcing and perfecting customer service policies across all divisions of the company. Next, come up with a solid review acquisition strategy across major citation platforms and also for your website. When the reviews start coming in, try to respond to each one. This communication and conflict resolution builds trust with the consumer base and boosts the reputation. Several positive reviews boost rankings too, and revenue gets a great boost thanks to trust-based transactions.

Link-Building

You should look into your website’s pre-existing link strategy for any issues with linking and try to resolve them. The next logical step would be to develop exceptional content which would organically earn you links from genuine, reliable sources. Use local sponsorships, contributions to editorials and other relevant opportunities to build links on reputed sites as well. This association with the best of the best is critical to online reputation management, as it lumps your business with top names and not shoddy practices. This builds rankings over time and pays superb dividends on the initial investment in terms of conversions and traffic from previously untapped sources.

Social and Other Media

Find all the hubs frequented by your target audience and develop a customized social strategy for optimum reach and participation. Put in a genuine effort for sharing and reaching out rather than just selling, and monitor your accounts for any grievances put forward. Also look into alternative media like video and email marketing and development of apps, tools, and widgets. It is understandable if you don’t have the expertise for this, hiring a reliable bulk email marketing services Mumbai firm is absolutely the right thing to do. This boosts reputation, protects rankings and reels in revenue like never before.

Conclusion

It’s surprising that the idea of local SEO and online reputation management is still viewed so skeptically by business owners. While technical jargon does seem daunting at first, entrepreneurial instincts should tell you that this is the next logical step, and not jumping on the bandwagon now will have severe consequences in the future.

Author Bio: Walter Moore is an SEM expert and marketer spearheading a startup in Chennai. He also runs a successful blog revolving around resources on SEO and SMM and reliable references like GingerDomain.com.

Categories
Business Ideas

New to the World of Business? Say Yes to These Best Startup Mobile Apps

Starting a business can be extremely demanding. There’s a constant need to multitask effectively to accomplish more in less time. You’ve to drive your business towards long-term sustainability, while ensuring that everyday operations are managed efficiently. Thankfully, plenty of amazing applications are available to make your phone your very own IT workstation.

With every passing day, technology is making things possible we never imagined. Managing finances, accessing emails on-the-go, making to-do lists, delegating tasks, mobile marketing and so much more is now possible with a simple touch on your smartphone.

Exclusive applications are designed keeping in mind young start-ups and small business owners. Recent statistics show that 71% of small business owners in the United Kingdom run most of their operations through mobile apps. This helps in bringing down the administration cost and scaling the business.

From the endless list of apps, here are 6 mobile applications that assist startups across industries in staying functional, connected and organized:

  1. PayPal

Compatibility: Android and iOS

Price: Free

Since its inception in 1998, PayPal has facilitated millions of businesses and consumers through transactions in billions of dollars. PayPal Here, the mobile payment system, was launched in 2012 and has been a delight for small business owners as it assists seamless monetary transactions and instant money deposits. It enables contactless payments from Maestro, Visa or MasterCard credit and debit cards for a small fee. The charge levied ranges between 1.5% and 2.75% of the total sales volume.

PayPal account services are compatible even with your smartwatch. The app charges no monthly fee, and allows you to send and receive electronic invoices, process checks, and perform other payment-related services. Keeping the growing number of small-scale businesses in mind, the brand has launched a complete range of Point- of-Sale (POS) solutions, with countertop charging stations and lockable iPad enclosures.

  1. Dropbox

Compatibility: Android and iOSPrice: Free and upgradable at extra cost

One of the most popular and trusted solutions for cloud storage, Dropbox allows you to store, share, and sync important business data through its seamless app. This amazing app has over 500 million users and is growing continuously since its launch in 2016. Dropbox app supports over a billion files that are uploaded on a daily basis, and these files can be accessed anywhere through laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

The app offers excellent security features such as the SSL encryption, mobile passcodes, and two-step authentication. Opt for its paid version to avail 1TB of cloud space at $8.25 per month, and enjoy unlimited cloud storage at $12.50 per month. The paid version also includes enhanced security features, and support for phone and email.

  1. Wave

Compatibility: Android and iOS

Price: Free with country-based charges for payroll and credit card processing

A no-fuss app, Wave offers a free platform for small businesses to manage accounting books and send invoices. If your business has less than 15 employees, Wave is your best option. It takes care of expense tracking, invoices, and scanning receipts. The app allows you to integrate services with PayPal as well.

Wave has over 2.5 million paid and free users all over the world. It aids in both, cash and accrual-based accounting and comes to users at a low cost as compared to the other apps in the same category.

  1. Google Drive

Compatibility: Android and iOS

Price: Limited free space, upgradable at extra cost

Straight from the mastermind workshop of Google, Drive comes to young startups and small business owners as a comprehensive system for data management. It allows you to create new documents, worksheets, presentations. You can edit and synchronize them with email, once you connect it to your Gmail account.

New businesses that sign up for the amazing Google Drive app have to pay $5 per user every month. The entire suite including Google Hangouts, Calendar, Drive, Gmail, and Google Docs comes to you with 24/7 customer support and is compatible with Microsoft Outlook along with other email clients.

  1. Trello

Compatibility: Android and iOS

Price: Free

Trello can make your life as a manager extremely easy. The app is a brilliant productivity tool, yet simple to use. Don’t assume it to be just a to-do list app. It’s a great help in planning projects and keeping tabs on every project at any given point, thus enhancing visibility across all departments.

You can create task cards board to distribute work and keep tabs on the progress, completion and deadlines of the project. Leave comments and keep your team up-to-date with the developments and announcements. The app also gives you a historical record of the actions and changes you’ve made in a particular project.

  1. Local Vox

Compatibility: Android and iOS

Price: Free

Enhancing the power of your business on social media just got easier. Local Vox allows you to publish and promote your services across all major social media platforms. It helps businesses in marketing themselves locally and expand their circle through the network of publishers, email newsletters, search, and also the company’s own website.

Local Vox app facilitates easy communication with the push of a single button and optimizes your ranking on Google and numerous local directories such as CitySearch, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, and more. The app creates a mobile website and allows to publish updates automatically. It offers monthly reports that enable owners to access productive business metrics.

Conclusion

From among the various great apps available for small businesses, the one you pick for your trade largely depends on the needs of your business. An assessment of the budget, and compatibility and usability vis-à-vis the application needs to be done carefully to select the best app to accentuate the growth of your business operations.

About the Author

Swati is a qualified dietitian at Practo. She has a Masters degree in Dietetics and Food Service Management. She is a strong believer in spreading the goodness of ‘nutrition through healthy eating’. As a responsible dietitian Swati examines her patients’ health history carefully before recommending any diet or workout regimen, because everybody has different requirements.