Category: How-To Guides

Author: Donna Jo 

Building a business is hard work; it takes time, personal sacrifice, and grit to turn your dream into physical reality. You must wear many hats, learn the ropes of business law and taxes, and learn about compliance. You will experience a steep learning curve in many areas of business, but the fact of the matter is, if you want to grow, you’ll have to take some specific action steps to ensure solid and steady growth. Here are some simple yet effective steps you can take to increase growth in your business.

Success Tip #1: Automate your sales funnel

The foundation of any successful business is a sales funnel. If you miss this critical step in business growth, you are making a big mistake. Sales funnels can automate your business and create consistent and steady growth. With proper customer care and follow up communication, you will soon build a loyal following that continues to bring in revenue for years to come.

Success Tip #2: Use a customer management system

Tracking transactions manually might be manageable at first, but you will soon outgrow that system and need to somewhat automate your system of customer management in order to stay organized with increasing volume. Most customer management systems can seamlessly integrate with other types of business organizational software, and the wonderful thing about cloud systems is that they communicate and organize data by integrating all systems together. Spending a little capital right now and making the right investments in organizational software will ensure that you are around long term.

Success Tip #3: Research your competition

If you want to outsell your competition, find out all about them! Uncovering a competitor’s marketing strategy and finding out what types of products they offer will give you the knowledge and advantage to outsmart them. Whether by dropping your prices, making additional offers that customers cannot refuse, or finding ways to boost your search engine ratings, knowing what your competition’s strategy is will give you opportunities to be superior in every way.

Success Tip #4: Create customer rewards and loyalty programs

Loyalty programs are a great way to boost sales with existing customers. It costs almost three times to acquire a new customer as it does to pamper an existing one; if you offer incentives for spending more money with you, customers will begin to see the clear value of your products and services, and they will return time and again for the high-quality products and superior service you can provide. Asking for referral information in exchange for rewards is another way to continue to treat your existing base well while looking for new customers as well; treat every transaction with utmost integrity and care, and you will continue to grow your base exponentially.

Success Tip #5: Identify and capitalize on new opportunities

As you begin to know your demographic better, their needs will become clear to you. Finding ways to create products and services that fulfill these needs is key to gaining their trust and loyalty as they do business with you. Stay relevant to their changing needs; regularly ask for information with regard to what customers are looking for, and then find ways to give it to them. You never know where your next great product suggestion is going to come from!

Success Tip #6: Build an email list

Getting potential customers to subscribe to an email list will be a very important factor in building your sales funnel. Regularly posting valued content, sales promotions, and personal stories that allow others to connect with you in meaningful ways will cause people to revisit you and your site time and time again. If you are seen as a trusted and credible source of information they are seeking, you will eventually turn your contact with them into sales.

Success Tip #7: Form partnerships

Finding companies with similar and complementary visions to yours can be very helpful in determining what pathway your business travels. If your business specializes in security systems for industrial businesses, you might want to consider partnering with a company that specializes in the development of a home security system in order to boost sales and product recognition. While it may take time and a bit of forethought as to how these partnerships can be mutually beneficial, it will be worth the time, money and effort put forth to build on these partnerships and offer customers better and better product packages. Your business will explode!

Success Tip #8: Evolve….constantly

With the changing climate of the market, your changing demographic, and product saturation, it becomes necessary to constantly look at your business efficiency and ask some hard questions:

• Are my products still relevant?
• Am I making enough money?
• What can I do to gain new business while keeping existing customers
• Am I still outperforming the competition
• What do my customers need, and can I give it to them?

Being able to ask and answer these questions will put you in a position where you can grow and change as your customers are growing and changing. If you don’t change to fill market needs, someone else will. Flexibility will gain you growth.

Success Tip #9: Build passive income streams to fund growth

You don’t want to lose your shirt on every little mistake that you make. Having some income put aside from passive income streams will ensure that you can afford to take some bigger risks that yield more significant growth without worrying about your primary source of income running dry.

Success Tip #10: Keep everything in proper perspective

In everything, there must be balance. Work needs play, effort needs rest, activity needs stillness. Know what you need as you work your tail off to build your empire, and then take the time that you need to care for yourself and your family to ensure that nothing falls by the wayside. Business is business, relationships require much care as well. Keeping life in proper perspective will make business ups and downs a little bit more manageable.

Be proud of the work that you are doing, that you have done, and that you will do as you turn your dreams into reality! All the very best of luck to you and your future business success!

Every enterprise, every entrepreneurial venture has one foundation stone. Your business blog can be the rock that gives your operation a solid base.

If your business doesn’t have a blog yet, a quick look at the numbers will convince you to put one at the top of your to-do list. Hubspot tells us that a business blog:

• Drives people to your website
• Converts visitors into buyers
• Establishes your authority
• Drives long-term results

How Do You Build a SUCCESSFUL Blog?

A blog takes commitment to make it successful. There are no short-cuts.

Your blog posts must solve problems for your readers, or they won’t come back: There has to be something in it for them to make them love you and trust you.

The best company blogs are perceived as being run by one person, ideally, someone who is obviously important in the business such as the founder, CEO or the head of marketing. The person responsible for your blog may delegate the writing or technical sects, but his or her personality must shine through.

1. Make a Start

Your first decision is registering a domain. Business blogs are often set up as sub-domains of your main business website, eg. Blog.yourbusiness.com. If you are just starting your business and buying a new domain then make it short, brandable (ie, not in a dictionary or Google search), easy to pronounce, a .com site, and make sure you can get social media profiles that match your domain name.

2. Make it Personal

A successful blog gives customers a personal connection with someone who is fundamental to your business. Personality is important because people only buy from people they like and trust. The only workaround to this is to undercut your competitors on price, and you don’t want to get into a price war because there will always be someone who can undercut your prices.

It is essential that your blog has just one voice (yours) and one video personality (you). You can never delegate podcasts or video blogs, though your appointed blogger can prepare a script/questions and be behind the camera.

3. Delegate

Your time is precious. You can be the driving force behind your business blog without spending three hours each day writing posts. Ask someone who knows your business inside out to write blog posts and to organize video posts that feature you in your founder’s role.

Expect your delegated employee blogger to spend two or three hours every day on your company blog. Your blog is too important to be shunted into “spare time during the day.”

Target People Who Fit Your Customer Profile

You know the people who need you, the ones whose values are the same as yours. Focus your blog content on those people. Concentrate on serving your target customers because you can never serve everyone except in the vaguest of ways, and not targeting is the same as shouting your wares in the middle of the street and expecting people to buy from you.

Ensure your company rationale and branding comes through in everything you write. Keep it at the front of your thinking, or it will get lost in the daily clutter of blog-related ideas.

Solve Your Customers’ Problems

People will only pay attention to your business blog if it is useful to them.

You must solve readers’ problems. You must share basic knowledge with readers so they can solve any issues they have. This establishes your expertise and authority in your area of operations. Sharing also generates gratitude in your potential customers, they feel a debt to you which makes them more likely to buy your products or services when their problems are too big to solve themselves.

In Brief

A company blog can get you higher rankings in search results and convert browsers into buyers. It will take time and a blog should be part of your long-term marketing strategy rather than a quick-fix marketing tactic.

Make your blog personal because people buy from people rather than vague business entities. Delegate an employee or hire a blogger to write most of your blog posts because your time is n’t elastic and you will be unable to find the time your blog requires. Include video and audio interviews with yourself and ensure that yours is the only face and voice on the blog. Avoiding multiple company personnel decreases confusion and increases buyer confidence.

The first step is the most important one: Register a domain, add a blog sub-domain and make a start.

The world is constantly evolving and businesses should not be left behind. This advancement has a lot to do with the internet. It is important for businesses to have a strong online presence in order to take advantage of this.

Building an online presence can be a daunting and confusing challenge especially if you are not web savvy. This is because you have to create different profiles, several accounts and build a website. But this is essential when it comes to customer conversion. A website will not only promote your brand but also increase your marketing opportunities from a local to an international level.

The following steps will help you establish a good online presence:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A sound business requires a website. It is the place where customers learn about your business, see what you have to offer, and get your contacts. However, this will not matter if your webpage is not visible. This is where SEO comes into play.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility of your web page in order to increase traffic to your website. When you are doing online research, search engines like Google and Bing provide a catalog of websites that are supposed to offer the best solutions to your inquiries. These are called search results. These search results can be paid or organic. Being polled at the top of the organic list is the reason why SEO is so important. Being at the top of the organic search results means getting the lion’s share of the consumer market. You want to have an SEO friendly site.

A good SEO company will improve your web page visibility on popular platforms like Google, driving traffic to your website. A good SEO will build trust and credibility for your business. Quality SEO means optimal user experience. This will put your business at an advantage. A good SEO company must have a good experience because the field is quite large and complex. A good SEO company must be trustworthy, credible and have a good understanding of the web.

2. Have goals

For your business to reap maximum benefits from an online presence, you need to set clear goals and establish ways of achieving them. The goal must be clear and have a sense of time. For instance, you may want your website to be among the top 10 most viewed in 2019. You would need to break down your plan into smaller practical steps. This would mean coming up with quality blogs daily and giving incentives to loyal customers. Making small daily steps will give you the confidence to achieve your long term bigger goals.

3. Be consistent

Provide consistent value for your customers. Once you have started on an action to help you achieve your goals, for example, blogging, make sure you do it daily. This will give you credibility and soon enough you will become an authority in your field.

4. Social media

A terrific online presence includes social media. Social media gives that human touch to your business and connects you to new customers. It also fosters the relationship with clients. Social media enables you to respond to the needs of your clients and enables you to learn about your target audience by using in-built analytic tools like those found on Facebook and Twitter. Social media is important in keeping your business relevant.

5. Meet customer needs

The customer is king. Build your business so that it revolves around the needs and interests of your audience. Your business should be less about you and more about your customers. Design your website so that it meets the demand of your clients; this will increase the traffic to your website. Give them what they want and you will be laughing all the way to the bank.

If you take the aforementioned steps, then a strong online presence is forthcoming. Also, explore more and play around with different options to figure out what works best for your business.

Starting a new business is a thought out process. You have to take in several aspects of starting a new business. There are several aspects of the entrepreneurial industry that must be taken into consideration. Plus, you have to be dedicated to your business for it to be successful. Your business strategy must be stable along with applying consistency. For example, will you have people working for you, or will you be working on your own? You should always be passionate about the business that you decide to start. Many people have turned their hobby into a business and it has been a success.

Decide On Your Business Goals

There are several types of businesses to choose from to start your entrepreneurship. Many people are choosing between selling goods, services, or products. There are brick and mortar business opportunities or a chance to start an e-commerce. A brick and mortar business has a greater financial start-up cost than an e-commerce. However, you can give your business curb appeal by deciding on either business type. E-commerce affiliate websites, like WooCommerce, will give you an easy start-up business platform that’s completely accessible over the web. They have a ready-made business template that provides unlimited inventory, secured third-party merchant services, 24-hour support tools, and more.

Marketing your business is very important. If you’re starting a new business, getting your business in front of new people is the key to success. When new people have access to your business, you have the potential to make a substantial revenue. Your revenue will allow you to put money back into your business. A significant part of a business is being able to use your revenue and seed money to put back into your brand. For instance, great earnings will allow you to pay overhead costs, pay your employees, or purchase ample business tools.

Business software is essential to every business type. You can choose accounting software that will help you keep your finances in order, help you pay your employees on time, and prepare for tax time. You can purchase the software and manage it yourself, or hire a professional accountant. Risk management software is also very important to any startup. It allows you to have extra eyes for your business. Keeping track of your inventory is very important to the success of your business. You can find several different types of risk management software for your business needs by browsing online.

How will you fund your business? Funding is an essential part of starting and maintaining your business. Will you be taking out a business loan? Many lenders are reluctant to loan money to a business that doesn’t have a sufficient business plan. Lenders want to know what kind of financial risk your business endeavor poses. Consider the risk that borrowing money will have when it must be paid back. You can also save enough money to start a business by setting money aside for a few years. Once you reach your goal, you can start your business.

The Small Business Administration suggests using all the resources that you have available to help you with the success of your business. There are many people that have come before you and can offer ample strategies and tools to help you keep your business headed in the right direction. Your local chamber of commerce has paid business resources that will help you get your business started. In fact, some of these resources will also provide ways to create your business plan or fund your business. You can also look into free business resources that will help you too.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to other successful business professionals to see what worked for them. You’re encouraged to network with other entrepreneurs. Don’t risk not reaching out to other people to generate ideas. Recognize that there is help to get you started along the way. Your business plan should also include your potential losses. There’s a small chance that your business could take a loss and you should be prepared for any and all circumstances. Starting a business won’t be easy, and you should be prepared to put in long hours at the beginning of starting a new business.

Anyone trying to run a business knows the importance of understanding your consumers. Whether you’re selling baked goods, trying to run a software company, or running a blog, your company relies on strong data.

Data is a massive part of business and encompasses much of what you do. Customer data can be anything from everyday purchases to simple phone numbers, but no matter what it is, it drives your business—if used the right way.

Organizations all over the world understand the importance of big data. While they may be storing that information somewhere, not putting that data to good use can ruin a company.

So how do you use, store, and leverage data to create content tailored and refined for your customers?

ERP System Integration

ERP, or enterprise resource planning, isn’t new. In fact, in its basic form, ERP integrated solutions have been around for nearly 100 years. ERP system integration helps you manage all your business activities from accounting, project management, and helps keep all your data in one location.

When you use this system, you can do away with every department having their own string of spreadsheets. This organization is essential, especially when you’re organizing customer data.

How are you supposed to effectively sell a product or provide quality content to your consumers if you don’t understand who they are? What are they looking for? Or what drives them to your site?

These questions are answered through data. Data is stored and streamlined in a more efficient manner when using ERP integration.

ERP and Your Customers

There’s no magic wand you can wave to create success in business. Instead, there are other tools like ERP integration to help you manage your data and develop good practices.

ERP integrated solutions store your data in one central location. This means employees can see all the latest information and trends immediately. These centralized reports and analytics provide your business a value that’s difficult to manage without enterprise resource planning. ERP system integration brings order to chaos and ensures that all the data is correct and up to date.

The Value of Enterprise Resource Planning

More than ever, businesses are data-driven and require communication between different platforms. With the right data, you can

• Improve business insights from real-time information generated by reports automated in the cloud—not spreadsheets.
• Lower operational and management costs
• Support more intuitive collaboration between departments—that’s a win for your consumers.
• Create strong data-driven marketing campaigns.

This is only a start for realizing the potential of ERP integrated solutions, especially as you focus on your consumers. Whether you’re looking to drive people to your site through quality content or you’re selling products, data is your key player.

Using customer data helps you create more personalized experiences for people. Take blogging for example. As you’ve worked on a site for months and months, posting several times a day consistently, you will begin to see trends. The data from what’s popular and what’s not can help you build your site to fit what’s successful, while still maintaining your voice.

This same idea applies to companies trying to create a pleasant shopping experience. When you leverage this consumer data found with ERP integrated solutions, you’re supporting the shoppers. This could be informing them of special offers, promotions, or something that pairs well with a purchase they’ve already made.

So Much More

ERP integration goes beyond the consumer experience. When used correctly, customer data allows you to:

• Create new products or services
• Provide better customer service (who doesn’t love that)
• Improve existing products or services through detailed feedback

ERP system integration also works on an employee level. When things are organized, this allows employees to feel more confident with their communication. Because data is all in one place, internal communication strategies have a stronger foundation. There’s no more wasted time searching for stuff on external hard drives when using an enterprise resource planning system.

At the end of the day, you want to succeed in your industry. So don’t let data overwhelm and get the best of you. Organize and bring your company together through ERP integration.

Author Bio

Annabelle Smyth is a freelance writer located in Salt Lake City, Utah. She enjoys writing about leadership, HR, and employee engagement. She has most recently worked with DocInfusion. When not writing and educating herself, you can find her hiking the canyons with her dog and friends.