Author: Min Tang

Categories
Operations

Hiring A Business Consultant

Hiring a consultant can help businesses improve performance and make necessary changes to achieve success.

  • Business consultants help companies overcome challenges, increase revenue or grow.
  • It’s important to ensure business consultants have experience and previous success with companies like yours.
  • Business consultants may charge by the project or the hour, or require daily or monthly retainers.

Business consultants provide management consulting to help organizations improve their performance and efficiency. These professionals analyze businesses and create solutions while also helping companies meet their goals. Business owners should consider hiring business consultants when they need help or perspective on their chosen path or a catalyst for change in their companies.

What does a consultant do?

There are several reasons business owners should consider hiring consultants. Consultants offer a wide range of services, including the following:

  • Providing expertise in a specific market
  • Identifying problems
  • Supplementing existing staff
  • Initiating change
  • Providing objectivity
  • Teaching and training employees
  • Doing the “dirty work,” like eliminating staff
  • Reviving an organization
  • Creating a new business
  • Influencing other people, such as lobbyists

The first step for any business consultant is the discovery phase, where the goal is to learn the client’s business. A good business consultant takes the time to learn as much as possible about the business from the owner and employees. This can include touring the facility, meeting with the board of directors and employees, analyzing the finances and reading all company materials. During this process, the business consultant will uncover the details of a company’s mission and what operations are in place.

Once the business consultant has developed an in-depth understanding of the company, they enter the evaluation phase, where the goal is to identify where change is needed. This phase includes identifying the company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as current and foreseeable problems. These issues can include problems that ownership and management have already identified, as well as new problems the business consultant discovers as a result of their objectivity. A business consultant should also identify opportunities to grow the business, increase profits and boost efficiency.

In addition to identifying these problems and opportunities, a business consultant should develop solutions to problems and plans for capitalizing on opportunities. Perhaps a company has a particularly strong sales department but a weak marketing department. This is an opportunity for the company to increase marketing resources and capitalize on the sales staff. During this phase, it’s important for the consultant and the company’s employees to maintain open, clear communications.

Constructive criticism

It’s important for a business owner to take the business consultant’s advice at this stage as constructive criticism. The owner should not take this criticism personally, as the business consultant brings objectivity and a fresh viewpoint. The owner may be personally close to the business, which can be an obstacle to positive change and growth. The owner should have feedback and provide opinions to the business consultant, which the business owner should consider and revise plans as necessary.

Once the owner and the consultant agree on a plan, the consultant should enter the third phase of consulting. This is the restructuring phase, or the implementation of the plan. In this phase, the consultant builds on assets and eliminates liabilities. They also monitor the plan’s progress and adjust it as needed.

How to find a business consultant

Finding the right business consultant may be the most difficult part for the owner or management. The consultant should have a passion for their work, a drive for excellence and an eye for organization and detail. It’s important to find a consultant who has expertise in your industry or experience with the kinds of problems your business faces. Also, make sure they have solid referrals.

In addition, ensure the business consultant has any necessary certifications that are relevant to your industry. You should vet the consultant through their website and materials. Look for professional images and well-documented information about their services and thoroughly review contracts and consultancy fees. It’s a good idea to request examples of past successes and to speak to those businesses.

What is the typical background for a consultant?

The right background for the consultant you choose depends on your industry and needs. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that consultants can be management (business), scientific or technical. If you want someone to help your company develop new proprietary software or computer-based workflow, you may want to engage a technical consultant. Outside of specific needs, companies usually work with management consultants when they want to improve their bottom line, customer satisfaction or employee morale.

Regardless of the type of consultant you work with, their background is critical. It helps you understand how likely they are to improve your business. Here’s what to consider when reviewing potential consultants:

  • Do they have hands-on experience? This can be especially important in the business world. If someone came directly out of college labeling themselves as a consultant, do they really know anything more than you do? Consider looking for consultants who have successfully owned or run small businesses, enterprise organizations or specific departments.
  • Is their experience applicable? A former bank CEO may seem impressive, but do they have the knowledge and experience to turn your cupcakery into a profitable small business? They might, but if you’re also considering a former restaurant owner who now makes a living successfully helping small eateries grow, this consultant may be a better match for your business. Look for consultants who have worked in your industry and with businesses that match yours in style, size, needs and goals.
  • What’s their track record with consulting? You don’t just want a consultant who has the right experience; you want a consultant who has demonstrated success with companies like yours. Ask for a portfolio or list of brands the consultant has worked for, and request references. Look for a consultant who has helped businesses overcome the types of challenges you’re facing or who has grown businesses very similar to yours, and reach out to those companies to find out if they were satisfied with the services.

Business consultant FAQS

How much do business consultants charge?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, management consultants make an average of $150,000 per year (or $62.93 per hour). But that’s what the person “takes home” as income, and consulting charges are typically higher to cover business expenses. Consultants don’t always charge by the hour. According to a consultant fee study by Consulting Success, these are some popular fee methods and the percentages of consultants who favor them:

  • Per project – 34.2%
  • Hourly – 27.3%
  • Monthly retainer – 15.1%
  • Daily rate – 14.1%
  • Other – 9.3%

According to the study, 43% of consultants earn up to $5,000 per project, though some make more than $100,000 per project. Obviously, the size, scope and length of the project determine the cost.

Business consultants are a considerable expense, but their feedback and planning can help you increase business and boost profits while eliminating problems and identifying opportunities to ensure future success.

How do you measure the ROI of a business consultant?

You measure ROI by looking at certain key metrics to determine the worth of the consultancy services. Most companies look at their net profits in the quarter before they hired the business consultant, then evaluate their net profits in the next quarter or two after they implement the consultant’s recommendations. You should deduct the cost of the consultancy before calculating the ROI.

Considering return on investment is an important part of hiring a business consultant. If you’re paying a business consultant upward of $5,000, you certainly want to see an established ROI after

the project. Established business consultants should be able to show their former ROI data to prospective clients. According to the Predictive Index, 27% of surveyed businesses chose not to hire a consultant because the consultant could not demonstrate ROI. This is the most frequent reason for companies not using consultancy services, and it falls on the consultant to use big data to demonstrate past ROI.

How do you know when to hire a business consultant?

Business consultants don’t come in one size that fits all. You will need to evaluate your company in these key areas:

  • Human resources
  • Business strategy
  • Operations
  • Compliance and regulations
  • Financial planning

If your business struggles in any of these areas, then it’s a good idea to seek out a business consultant. Keep in mind that business consultants specialize in particular business areas, so you should seek out a verified expert in the field. For example, don’t hire an operations specialist if you need the most help with financial planning.

If you note any declines in profits that you can’t explain, this could be another sign that it’s time to hire a business consultant, who can pinpoint potential reasons for the decrease and ways to remedy them.

What Is a Business Consultant? [BusinessNewsDaily]

 

 

Categories
Online Business

Basics For Choosing A Domain Name

Did you know that if you don’t make an effort to protect your brand name (which may or may not be your business name), you could lose your rights to trademark it or to enforce it once it’s been trademarked?

That means you might not be able to prevent others in the future from profiting from your brand or confusing consumers about your brand.

The first step to protect your brand is to federally trademark it, so you can legally enforce your rights to it. Another critical step is developing and implementing a domain name strategy.

What is a Domain Name Strategy?

The purpose of a domain name strategy is to proactively protect your brand online by reducing the chance for others to use your brand name in their online activities, specifically, in their website URLs.

For example, Nike owns Nike.com. Imagine if another company began selling sportswear at Nikes.com or Nike.biz. There could certainly be confusion among visitors to those sites.

Visitors might wonder if those sites are owned by Nike or not. Only a savvy shopper who takes the time to do some research would know for certain.

Of course, Nike would want those confusing sites taken down, and since Nike is a trademarked name, the Nike Company can enforce its trademark rights and require that the confusing sites be removed from the Web.

Small businesses can do the same thing. First, trademark your brand name. Second, implement your domain name strategy. Third, monitor your brand online (and offline), and fourth, enforce your rights to it under U.S. trademark laws.

A domain name strategy can be very complex. Large companies with household brands like Nike might own hundreds of domain names, but for a small business that doesn’t have the budget to register every imaginable variation of its brand name, it’s important to ensure the basic steps are taken at the very least.

How to Develop a Domain Name Strategy

Following are five essential first steps you should take to protect your brand with a small business domain name strategy:

1. Common Extensions

If you do nothing else, be sure to register domains that include your brand name with the most common extensions including, .com, .net, .org, .us., .info, and .biz.

2. Common Misspellings and Obvious Variations

Register domain names that include your brand name with obvious mistakes or variations using the most common extensions referenced in no. 1 above.

For example, if your jewelry brand is Snowcone, register snowcone.com and snocone.com as well as snocone.net, snocone.biz, and so on.

3. Phonetic Equivalents

It’s also important to register domain names that are phonetically equivalent to your brand name.

For example, a company with the brand name WearsLikeNew would register WearsLikeNew.com and WaresLikeNew.com using the common extensions.

This is particularly important for brands that include numbers. A brand like 4TheWin.com should also be registered as ForTheWin.com and FourTheWin.com using the common extensions.

4. Plural and Singular Variations

If your brand name is singular, register the plural version as a domain name, too. If your brand name is plural, secure the singular domain name as well.

For example, InnovationToProfits.com is also registered as InnovationsToProfit.com. These variations should be secured for each common extension.

5. Hyphenated Variations

The final step in the most basic domain name strategy is registering hyphenated versions of your brand name.

For example, CircleLegal.com should also be registered as Circle-Legal.com. As with the four steps above, do this for each common extension.

5 Essential Basics of a Small Business Domain Name Strategy [Smallbiztrends]

Categories
How-To Guides

Using Venmo For Business

What is Venmo? Venmo is a digital wallet. You’ve heard of Venmo, and may use it.

the Venmo that’s for business isn’t the same thing. What’s more, if you use both, you’ll easily be able to keep personal and business transactions separate.

And this is new – Venmo for Business now accepts cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

What is Venmo?

Venmo is owned by PayPal and as such, you can use Venmo through PayPal. The original Venmo is an active community enjoyed by more than 60 million users. PayPal existed for 11 years before launching Venmo.

Using Venmo as a digital wallet, friends could easily make and take payments from each other, friends to friends or within a family. In addition to sending money to and from each other, they could use Venmo to make payments for all kinds of services, as another payment option. They could also get cash into an account instantly, using e check. The instant cash feature was a hugely popular service.

Venmo vs. Venmo for Business: What’s the Difference?

When Venmo launched, users were accepting Venmo quickly. Articles about its ease of use flooded the internet, and even more, people became to pay with Venmo – and not just to friends who use Venmo. That led to more articles, and more people accepting Venmo.

Company owners saw how easy it was to pay with Venmo, and tried to use it for their operations. But the “personal use” Venmo wasn’t a fit.

The Venmo for businesses shares features that Venmo has, but adapts the platform specifically for small business owners.

Using prompts an owner sets up a business profile. From the profile, the typical business transactions can take place. Venmo for Business can handle online sales on point of sale touchless sales. It can be linked to credit cards, debit cards and banks.

Can You Use Venmo for Business?

Once you set up a Venmo business profile, you can start to accept Venmo transactions for your business. You can accept payments from customers online or at a brick-and-mortar location.

As a payment option, it’s faster than credit card processing. You don’t need a credit card processor.

You can also use the business version of Venmo to purchase supplies or inventory for your business. This way, it will be easy to organize your taxes. The “business” Venmo will be separate from your personal Venmo.

Here’s a big advantage to the business profiles. Customers can search the business profiles. This is a way for more customers to find you.

How Does Venmo for Business Work?

Let’s say you already use PayPal when customers make a purchase. How is Venmo for Business different than PayPal? Which one should you choose?

First, let’s talk about similarities with PayPal. Both have a platform that uses IOS, Android and the Web. Both have payment methods that can use a credit or debit card, or bank transfer. The fees for credit card transfers are similar, 3% for Venmo and 2.9% + .30 for PayPal. A lot of individuals and businesses use either to make donations to non profits.

Here’s where they’re different. With Venmo, the debit card fee is zero; with PayPal it’s 2.9% + .30. The transfer limit for Venmo is $4,999.99; for PayPal, it’s up to $10,000 for a single transaction.

Using Venmo for Business

So should you start using it? For some business owners, the transfer limit is a deal-breaker. For other business owners, the pre-existing familiarity of the name – remember that community of 60 personal Venmo users – is a deal maker.

Can’t decide? Thinking about going to an app for in-person, touchless merchant transactions? Venmo recently added a QR kit. The QR kit makes it easy to get set up to do business transactions that way.

Using Venmo for Online Stores

You can connect your account to you most-commonly used Apps and websites.

Using Venmo for a Business App

You can accept online orders or do touchless business transactions.

Using Venmo In-Store with Approved Point of Sale Systems

You may already have a QR but if you don’t, Venmo for Business has a QR kit. The kit will lead you through the steps of setting up your unique QR code for customers to scan.

How to Set Up a Venmo Business Profile

It’s easy.

  1. Find the Venmo for Business App.
  2. Tap the profile pic.
  3. Tap Create a Business Profile.
  4. Customize your profile, adding details about the services or products you provide.
  5. Publish your profile.

How Much Does It Cost?

Well, you knew there would be some processing fees. That’s common with payment processors. The first 30 days are free. Here’s how this one works:

  1. No fee to sign up, no monthly fee, no fee to send money.
  2. No charge for moving money from linked bank account or debit card. These transactions normally take 1-3 business days. If you want the option for an instant move, you’ll pay a 1% fee.
  3. A 3% fee for moving money using a linked credit card.
  4. After the 30-day free period, the fee per transaction is 1.9% + .10.

The Best Features of Venmo for Businesses

  1. No fee for debit cards.
  2. Quick money transfers are possible.
  3. The single transaction ($4,999.99) limit is a fit for many businesses.
  4. Name (branding) familiarity with personal Venmo users.
  5. The QR kit makes it easy to add this service for business purposes.

Advantages of Using Venmo Payments for Businesses

  1. Someone can search businesses and find your business profile. What business owner doesn’t like that?
  2. Easy to send and receive money from Venmo personal or business users.
  3. Venmo now accepts cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.
  4. Money can be moved instantly (with a 1% transfer fee) between bank accounts.
  5. Typically faster than credit card processing.

Disadvantages of Accepting Venmo Payments for Businesses

  1. Some businesses don’t accept Venmo because they see the transaction limit ($4,999.99) as too low.
  2. You can’t pay with Venmo overseas. The service is currently only available in the US.
  3. Some companies don’t yet accept Venmo.

Alternatives to Venmo

You have options when choosing websites like Venmo as a payment processor for your company. There are all kinds of ways for customers to make payments for goods and services.

Which one should you choose?

The checkout option you choose must fit your company’s needs, and also be the payment method preferred by the people who use businesses.

  • PayPal: The PayPal checkout is fast and seamless. PayPal checkout can be used internationally.
  • Apple Pay: Works with all Apple devices. The way it can be used include online, in stores and thru Apps.
  • Braintree: Used by merchants in 45 countries, and can service payments of 130+ currencies. Braintree is a top choice for those who conduct business internationally. Braintree is the top pick for those businesses.
  • Google Pay: A mobile payment app which replaced Android Pay and Google Wallet.
  • Zelle: A digital payment network owned by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, CitiBank, Wells Fargo and others.

Why do some people say you shouldn’t use Venmo for your business?

People who say Venmo isn’t for businesses to use were most likely those who tried to use the original version for business. Someone had an issue with payments trying to use the original Venmo, which wasn’t set up for businesses. Venmo users shared the experiences citing problems with payments.

Which wasn’t fair, since the original version wasn’t structured for merchants payments. In development, the Venmo strategists for the venture looked at what merchants said in complaints and fixed the process.

Using the original platform, individual people, often family members, could send and receive money amongst themselves. They could make purchases, and often shared reviews of the purchases and buying experience with other Venmo service users.

The For Business version is all geared to facilitate each step of the customer to merchants’ experience. The business profiles are a way to boost your company presence. And the services and fees included are designed to facilitate the payment process for a company, both accepting and remitting with seamless transactions.

How can Venmo be used for business?

You already know this – few people are writing checks. Credit card processors – as a single piece of equipment – are replaced by processors that can handle credit and debit cards.

When a company is accepting payment or making a payment, having a speedy process is a benefit to all. As an option for a payment, the Business version is a great choice for merchants.

How do I open a Venmo account for my business use?

It takes just a few steps before you get acceptance for a business profile. Go to the Venmo App or site. Using the prompts, create a business profile. You can use a profile pic and a background pic. Add you details. Accept the terms and user agreement. You’ll need to include your email address. That’s it! Publish your profile.

Is Venmo better than PayPal for small businesses?

Each business is different, depending on the goods and services offered. The option you choose may depend on the typical amount for the payments you receive. Is that number for average payments greater than $5,000. Then it’s PayPal for those goods and services.

How to Use Venmo for Business [SmallBizTrends]

 

Categories
Starting Up

Skills To Master Before Launching A New Business

Launching a business is hard. Launching a business before you’ve done the legwork to determine your market and identify your challenges is nearly impossible. Similarly, if you’re becoming the head honcho without mastering some important skills first, you may find success harder to come by.

Here are some of the most important skills any entrepreneur should know, and where to learn them. All these courses are on sale for Memorial Day, so make the savvy business decision and take advantage.

1. Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is one of the most important programs in business today. It’s far more than just a spreadsheet software (although that’s a valuable use case, as well). Excel helps you with data analysis, financial forecasting, and many more things that are essential to running a data-driven, solutions-oriented business.

2. Public Speaking

Entrepreneurs must be able to sell their product or service to others. Whether you’re pitching to investors, employees, or potential customers, public speaking will be a significant asset. With great public speaking skills, you’re more likely to inspire people to see your vision and get on board with your company.

3. Developing Business Plans

Naturally, every entrepreneur needs a business plan. This course is led by an award-winning business school professor and offers a 13-step methodology to creating a business plan. It even comes with 50 business plan templates and 25 business presentations made specifically for startups.

4. Data Science

Data drives everything in business. As an entrepreneur, if you can successfully model and understand data, you’re already a few steps ahead of the pack. Not only will you save money by not having to hire analysts, but you’ll also have the skills to make informed business decisions right out of the gate.

5. Facebook Marketing

Facebook is the second-largest advertising platform on the planet, meaning it’s a key tool for any entrepreneur starting out. In this course, you’ll learn how to reach and engage with new audiences on Facebook. Hitting the ground running with a Facebook marketing strategy can go a long way for your business.

6. Search Engine Optimziation

If you don’t have a ton of capital to work with when you’re just starting out, paid advertising may not be for you. Search engine optimization (SEO), however, is often free and just requires a technical understanding of how to make content stand out online. This course will show you how to get your web pages to the top of Google’s search pages.

7. Copywriting

Great copywriting sells products. You can outsource your marketing and sales content to third-parties, or you can handle it yourself. This guide will teach you how to write copy that sells so you can save money and generate more income from the get-go.

8. Quickbooks

QuickBooks is the top accounting software on the market. When you can use QuickBooks effectively, you can handle all of your business’s financial and bookkeeping needs, thereby saving money on accounting services. It’ll also help you track inventory, vendor payments, invoices, and much more.

9. Generalist Skills

The best entrepreneurs never stop learning. With that in mind, check out Big Think Edge. This library is filled with lectures from Ivy League professors and world-renowned experts like Elon Musk and Malcolm Gladwell, covering some of today’s most important topics.

10. Project Management

Project management is all about finding the most efficient and least wasteful way of doing something. For entrepreneurs who are likely strapped for cash after launch, that’s extremely important. This training will introduce you to several top project management methodologies, including Scrum, Agile, and PMP.

10 Skills to Master Before Launching a New Business [Entrepreneur]

Categories
Business Trends

Making Machine Learning Work For Your Business

Demand for machine learning is skyrocketing. This growth is driven not only by “middle adopters” recognizing the vast potential of machine learning after watching early adopters benefit from its use, but by steady improvements in machine-learning technology itself. It may be too early to say with certainty that machine learning develops according to a predictable framework like Moore’s Law, the famous precept about computing power that has borne out for nearly 50 years and only recently began to show signs of strain. But the industry is clearly on a fast track.

As machine-learning algorithms grow smarter and more organizations come around to the idea of integrating this powerful technology into their processes, it’s high time your enterprise thought about putting machine learning to work, too.

First, consider the benefits and costs. It’s quite likely that your business could leverage at least one of these five reasons to employ machine learning, whether it’s taming apparently infinite amounts of unstructured data or finally personalizing your marketing campaigns.

1. Taming vast unstructured data with limited resources

One of the best-known use cases for machine learning is processing data sets too large for traditional data crunching methods to handle. This is increasingly important as data becomes easier to generate, collect and access, especially for smaller B2C enterprises that often deal with more transaction and customer data than they can manage with limited resources.

How you use machine learning to process and “tame” your data will depend on what you hope to get from that data. Do you want help making more informed product development decisions? To better market to your customers? To acquire new customers? To analyze internal processes that could be improved? Machine learning can help with all these problems and more.

2. Automating routine tasks

The original promise of machine learning was efficiency. Even as its uses have expanded beyond mere automation, this remains a core function and one of the most commercially viable use cases. Using machine learning to automate routine tasks, save time and manage resources more effectively has a very attractive paid of side effects for enterprises that do it effectively: reducing expenses and boosting net income.

The list of tasks that machine learning can automate is long. As with data processing, how you use machine learning for process automation will depend on which functions exert the greatest drag on your time and resources.

Need ideas? Machine learning has shown encouraging real-world outcomes when used to automate data classification, report generation, IT threat monitoring, loss and fraud prevention and internal auditing. But the possibilities are truly endless.

3. Improving marketing personalization and efficiency

Machine learning is a powerful force multiplier in marketing campaigns, enabling virtually endless messaging and buyer-profile permutations, unlocking the gate to fully personalized marketing without demanding an army of copywriters or publicity agents.

What’s especially encouraging for smaller businesses without much marketing expertise is that machine learning’s potential is baked into the top everyday digital-advertising platforms, namely Facebook and Google. You don’t have to train your own algorithms to use this technology in your next microtargeting campaign.

4. Addressing business trends

Machine learning has also proven its worth in detecting trends in large data sets. These trends are often too subtle for humans to tease out, or perhaps the data sets are simply too large for “dumb” programs to process effectively.

Whatever the reason for machine learning’s success in this space, the potential benefits are clear as day. For example, many small and midsize enterprises use machine learning technology to predict and reduce customer churn, looking for signs that customers are considering competitors and trigger retention processes with higher probabilities of success.

Elsewhere, companies of all sizes are getting more comfortable integrating machine learning into their hiring processes. By reinforcing existing biases in human-led hiring and promotion, earlier-generation algorithms did more harm than good, but newer models are able to counteract implicit bias and increase the chances of equitable outcomes.

5. Accelerating research cycles

A machine-learning algorithm unleashed in an R&D department is like an army of super-smart lab assistants. As more and more enterprises discover just what machine learning is capable of in and out of the lab, they’re feeling more confident about using it to eliminate some of the frustrating trial-and-error that lengthens research cycles and increases development costs. Machine learning won’t replace R&D experts anytime soon, but it does appear to empower them to use their time more effectively. More and better innovations could result.

If the experience of competitor businesses that have already deployed machine learning to great effect is any guide for your own experience, the answer to this question is a resounding yes.

The more interesting question is how you choose to make machine learning work for your businesses. This prompts another question, around what operational and structural changes your machine learning processes will bring. These changes, up to and including reducing headcounts in redundant roles or winding up entire lines of business, could be painful in the short run even as they strengthen your enterprise for the long haul.

Like all great innovations that increase operational efficiency and eliminate low-value work, machine learning does not benefit everyone equally. It’s up to the humans in charge of these algorithms to make the transition as orderly and painless as possible. It seems there are some things machine learning can’t yet do … yet.

5 Reasons to Make Machine Learning Work for Your Business [Entrepreneur]