The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.
1. Use energy efficient lighbulbs in your workplace and take advantage of natural light wherever possible.
2. Recycle any waste that is generated by your business. Try to also reduce your waste output wherever it is possible by cutting down on needless waste like paper cups.
3. Encourage teleworking within your business if it is possible to do so. There is little benefit to meeting face-to-face with your staff that cannot be achieved through video conferencing and phone calls.
4. Try switching to more environmentally marketing techniques. Ditch those pointless paper flyers for email marketing and social media campaigns.
5. Make a concerted effort to make your workplace more energy efficient. Ensure workstations are at the very least placed into power-saving sleep mode at the end of the day and try to unplug other office items like printers, copiers and appliances.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.
1. Look at your competitors and see how their product offering has changed over the course of the year and examine what they’ve done right and wrong.
2. Try to get the year off to the best possible start by innovating. Look at your existing product offering and consider how you could make it more popular or reach a new audience.
3. Remember to focus on finding solutions rather than stressing over problems. You should be aware of what went wrong in 2011, now think of ways to do things better with a fresh start.
4. This one is important: don’t repeat your mistakes from this year all over again! Running a business should be a learning experience and failing in the same way each time shows that you are not learning at all.
5. Finally, look back at 2011 and evaluate what has worked and your business did right. Do more of it in 2012!
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.
1. Keep track of what your competitors are doing over the festive period. If they are undercutting you by a huge margin you may wish to react to their price cuts.
2. Add personal touches to your website so that online shoppers will feel more confident about buying from you. A blog or behind-the-scenes pictures and videos of your business will help with this.
3. Make sure it is easy for customers to contact you in the event of a problem. Display phone numbers and your email address prominently to reassure them.
4. Ensure that your website security certificates are up-to-date. Nothing is more likely to put off potential buyers than the perception of poor security.
5. Try to offer a money-back guarantee if possible. People shopping for presents need assurance that they will be able to return them if they are unwanted by the receivers.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.
1. Make sure that your chosen area of business is something that you know and understand, but most importantly it should also be something you enjoy and are enthusiastic about doing.
2. Be frugal with your business spending. The most successful startups are those that obey the basic principles of bootstrapping.
3. Don’t overlook the power of mentoring. A quality mentor is able to provide help and guidance through difficult periods.
4. You can’t expect to receive investment without first proving yourself. Demonstrate that you have a healthy growing business on the right track and investors will soon take notice.
5. Try to lead a healthy lifestyle. Entrepreneurship is a lot more demanding than the typical 9 to 5 workday, but you still need to find time to eat healthily, exercise and find time for your favourite activities.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.
1. Make sure that you listen to what the other people who work in your business are complaining about. Your staff on the frontline are the ones most likely to first encounter any problems within your business. You should make a point of asking them about their concerns in relation to the company.
2. Work to address and fix problems rather than assigning blame to individuals or outside factors beyond your control. Dwelling on these issues will do your business no good whatsoever – it is important to get to the heart of the issue and attempt to fix it.
3. Don’t forget to address the complaints you personally have with your business. If some small problem is niggling you then it is likely to be extremely distracting and can cause you to lose overall focus on the important issues.
4. It is essential that you fix the right problem. Don’t assume that just because sales are low that it is the fault of your salespeople. Have you invested enough in marketing, or has your customer service perhaps been lacking lately? Hidden issues can be the root cause of a problem and it is important to identify these and address them.
5. If you find that the same old problems keep coming back even after they have been addressed, you have most likely addressed the problem but not the cause.
For example, faulty parts can be remedied quickly but unless your supplier changes their production process it is likely to recur. Similarly, if you keep addressing problems with your customer service department then you probably need to go back to the drawing board and provide better training to them.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
Hiring staff is aways a double edged sword, staff cost money, time but hopefully they will take work off of your back and increase productivity.
After weeks you are still doing the work you hoped your new staff member would do, but here you are still talking to the customer, etc. – so, why did you hire the new staff member? The reasons are still the same, aren’t they?
So – what is the problem? Simple, YOU are the problem, because you will not let go. Why? Out of fear they do it wrong, or god forbid they do it different to you.
By hiring your new staff member your job has changed, you are no longer doing your colleagues’ job, you are there to help him/her to do the job you used to do. You never know, maybe they will teach you a thing or two as well.
You should only hire people that are better at what they do than you. Do that and you’ll enjoy having your new colleague on-board much more.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
You put the phone down after one hour of explaining to your client why you can’t deliver yesterday or perform miracles! And the bad thing is, he will call back again tomorrow. But you are in customer care and that is what you have to do – taking the good with the bad – right? Wrong!!
You can’t do it right for everyone, that is not possible, no matter what you do! There are some people who don’t want you to make it right for them, because they would not have anything to moan about! Get it?
Be friendly, but firm when you tell them it’s all your fault, but you have to cancel the contract with them! Problem solved and now you have a better day and more time for customers who want what you have to give.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
Answer phone messages you really enjoy:
Accountant: “Good morning, I’m calling to talk about your P & L and your Balance Sheet!“
Web Designer: “Hi, we need to talk SEO – call me!“
These are conversation you can’t wait to have, right? Well, how about these:
Accountant: “Good morning, I wanted to talk about how much money you made/lost last year – give me a call.” or…
Web Designer: “Hi, I’d like to talk to you about getting more business from your website for you!“
Jargon, like arrogance, are barriers and often betray deep in-secureties. You should insist on having jargon explained until you understand what the person is talking about. Contrary to popular belief, it is not you who is stupid, it is the user of these jargon terms.
We all use jargon from time to time associated with our work expertise, but if you are customer facing – jargon is a business killer.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
Search engine optimisation aka SEO is on everybody’s mind these days. A term that strikes fear into many small business owners hearts, as it is jargon and nobody really know what it is or what it really means. Answering the question is complicated.
Therein lies the problem. I hear from many clients that they had SEO done(!) and nothing happened. Asking what SEO means to my clients, the answers are often along the lines of getting more traffic to their website. It did not work, why did it not work?
After all how would you know, if the ‘friendly advisor’ knows what SEO is or if he/she is just playing with your fears? Easy – put their website into alexa.com (not an absolute measure, but good enough) and see what their world ranking for their website is!
Anything more than a million – don’t even think about it – if they can’t do it for themselves, how are they going to do it for you?
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
For most big businesses customer care is a ‘cost centre’ – in other words it is something that costs them money, they outsource it (often to India, to save some more money) and they generally wish it would all go away so the quarterly results look a little better to their shareholders.
Here is the thing – who pays your bills, who do you sell to? Yep – that would be your customers! They call, you should be happy and thank them for it AND mean it! This is your golden opportunity to get some business.
Why are you spending money to advertise, if your customers are calling you already? Take care of them and they will take care of you!
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
