Daniel Watson
All businesses need to understand the importance of customer retention, and all employees need to be educated in respect to company policies relating to customer service. The key objective of customer service, is to create the environment that embraces the customer in such a way, as they become customers for life. This excellent article is a must read for business owners everywhere. It explains why getting business from your existing customers is less costly and unpredictable than attracting new ones, and suggests that a customer service policy is a must have to ensure business survival.
Bad employee behaviour on social media outside of work hours can be damaging to a business’ brand and reputation. Along side all of your other HR Policies relating to the behaviour of employees, it is highly desirable to ensure that you implement a workplace social media policy for your business. This good article identifies the need for such a policy, as cases involving bad employee behaviour on social media, are now making it into the legal system.
Life is busy, and when you include work it becomes very busy. To be effective in business and to maintain the required high energy levels, you need all of the help you can get. Often busy business people, get buried in their own "busyness", and loose track of the things they could be doing, to make themselves more effective and to avoid flat battery syndrome. This excellent article, provides 11 suggestions that you can implement, to stay sharp and effective in your business owner role.
In this day and age, a business website is considered a must have, yet around 40 percent of small businesses continue to operate without an online presence, supported by a website built with a clear purpose in mind. One reason many small businesses have not got websites, is the complexity involved in properly developing and launching, a business website that will actually provide a return on the investment involved. This good article, outlines many of the do's and don't, that a business considering creating their own website, would be well served to read and take close note.
Getting your small business message out to the mainstream media, can be a difficult task for business owners whose budgets don't run to engaging Public Relations companies, to do the work for them. Rather than ignore the great opportunities, that generally arise for a business after favourable press coverage, small business owners should be taking advantage of the DIY opportunities that are now available. This excellent article discusses 10 such tools that you may be able to use to promote your business message in the mainstream media.
You don't have to be a sole trader, to be in a position where you only have a very small budget to market your business, to potential new customers or clients. Whilst most small business owners are aware of the basic marketing channels available to them, sometimes small marketing budgets call for considerable creativity to be exercised by the business owner looking for the most bank for their investment. This excellent article provides 18 tips that you can implement to drive your small marketing busget further.
Business owners are a breed apart from most normal members of any community, and as such they tend to bottle a lot up, and keep it to themselves. This may or may not be a good thing, and due to the solo nature of most business owner roles, deciding what to say and what not to say to employees, can be a bit hit and miss. This excellent article, highlights commonalities in the small business owner world, as to things business owners wish they could say to their employees, but perhaps choose not to for many reasons. Well worth a read.
To the uninitiated, social media is a confusing space, and a space that many who should be participating, are unwilling to enter. Businesses not yet participating in social media, either choose this path as a conscious decision based on clear understanding of benefits versus costs involved, or they simply avoid the adoption of social media because of a lack of understanding of the benefits, and confusion as to which elements of the social media mix, would work best for them. This good article, provides a basic overview of the key social media channels and then identifies where each can benefit a business.
The first step on the road to success, is to have a plan and to delegate activities that support the achievement of the various objectives in the plan, to the right team to deliver the required outcome. The second step, and an often neglected one, is to first establish the mechanics of how each team will operate, as they work towards achieving their objectives. This good article, outlines the four key areas that need to be covered off, before each team involved, sets out to perform the required work.
Business Improvement need not be a complicated process for small business owners. Sometimes, implementing simple ideas, can kick start a business improvement process, and set up the foundation for future success. This good article, introduces six business improvement ideas, you can immediately implement in your business.
Many people perform leadership roles in small businesses, but not all are able to successfully guide their business, towards achieving great long term outcomes. What can successful leaders teach those still striving for success in their businesses? This excellent article, distills five key lessons, gleaned from interviews with successful small business owners.
You are the sum of your experience, knowledge, skills and wisdom gained over your lifetime. Often, your gut instincts will tell you that you know a better way, than a way that is being proposed to you, by someone claiming expertise in a particular subject. Unfortunately, too often leaders and managers ignore their own gut feelings, or the gut feelings of their employees, when considering various options as part of a decision making process. This excellent article, explains why you should take note of yours and others gut feelings at key decision points, and how you can learn to trust your own gut and teach others to trust theirs.
To operate successfully, a business requires many roles to be effectively performed. If the business also involves partners working together to achieve planned outcomes, then it is vital that they understand what the most important roles are, and they are all clear on who is performing which roles. Three key roles, which all need to be performed in an effective manner, are the roles of visionary, middleman, and detail person. This excellent article, discusses these three roles, and then explains their importance to the success of any business enterprise.
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When times are tough, everyone looks to their leaders, for inspiration, direction and assurance. As a leader, you need to be many things, if you are are to meet the expectations imposed upon you, by others. This good article, identifies 12 traits that you can develop, that will assist you to thrive in tough times.
Marketing is always a challenge for SME Businesses, especially those with limited budgets and never as much time as needed, to effectively build a solid brand. SME business owners, also tend to ignore what the big brands do in respect to tactics they employ, to build and protect their brands, in very competitive markets. This excellent article, shares tactics used by big brands, that are equally useful for SME businesses, that are seeking to grow and prosper, through adopting a coherent marketing strategy.
Many business owners, are babes in the woods, when it comes to negotiating with bigger corporate entities, or experieced suppliers. Whilst street smart, and able to talk well, most business owners can benefit from having the knowledge of what not to say, whilst in the midst of a stressful negotiation. This good article, outlines five such never say things, that you should always be conscious of in any negotiation.
The market for high quality employees is always a tight one, but it becomes more so, when skills shortages start to rear their ugly heads. Smart businesses, have realised that they need to market their business as an employer of choice, and adapt a range of attraction methods, to find the employees they need. This excellent article, explains how a business needs to proceed in future, if it wants to attract the right employees, to overcome skill shortages.
Do you have any real idea of how much of your work time is taken up by attending to reading, actioning, responding and initiating e-mail messages? If you are like most busy business people, you might find that you are spending far too much time on e-mail activity and not anywhere near enough on specific projects that will yield far greater benefit for the time expended on them. This excellent article highlights the problem and provides 13 tips you can use to reduce the impact of e-mail on your productivity.
As a business promotional tool, webinars may not be for everyone, however as they are becoming more and more a mainstream activity in the constant search for new customers or clients, every business should look at developing the capability to incorporate webinars into their marketing. The technology that is available today, makes such activity far easier to conduct and the costs involved, are now minimal. This good article, provide 10 tips from a recent convert to webinars, that will help you avoid some pitfalls, if you decide to tip your toe in the water.
If you failing in your efforts to delegate tasks effectively, the reasons can probably be found, by examining the way in which you undertake the delegation process. Ineffective delegation is often evidenced by the monkey ending up back on your back, after a due lapse in time, with the task unfinished. This excellent article, outlines three simple steps you can take, to ensure that when you delegate, the monkey leaves the room never to return.
If your business has a website (and it should have one), SEO is a term you should become very familiar with, and you should develop an understanding of what good SEO can do for your website, and for your business. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), is a very mis-understood activity by the general public (it has nothing to do with goats), and in general many business owners share the same misconceptions about the practice. This article (albeit a plug for a website offering SEO services), throws a little light on the misconceptions, and it may encourage business owners to take more interest in SEO, and what it can do for your business.
A key objective for any business owner, is to ensure that over time, they build a solid business, that becomes a very valuable and saleable asset. To ensure that this objective is kept in focus, and eventually achieved, it needs to be incorporated into a succession plan for the business. A plan that should be in place from day one. This good article, outlines the value of succession planning, and suggests a number of areas that need to be regularly assessed and effectively managed.
The 21st Century has turned marketing on its head. Consumers have developed strong resistence to the tried and true marketing efforts of old. Marketeers now must revise their approach to fit in with the new consumer who is a totally different beast than the compliant consumer of past years. SME business owners, need to be especially clever in their future approach to marketing, as new complexities bring greater costs, and higher risks of expensive failure. This excellent article, from a well know Australian marketing expert, outlines seven tips for making your marketing a success, in this age of the new consumer.
A long term program of consistent engagement, reward and recognition, will deliver far greater return from your employees, than any one big gesture, or token adoption of the latest motivational fad. Businesses that introduce on-going recognition programs for individuals and teams, will retain their good staff, and motivate all to work hard at achieving business goals. This excellent article provides four tipsthat you can use to create a culture of consistent engagement, reward and recognition in your business.
Successful collaboration within a larger business operation, is often hard to achieve, due to the lack of understanding amongst managers, as to the difference between team work and collaboration. As collaboration requires agreement and co-operation that crosses functional boundaries, it differs markedly in the competencies required to be executed, as distinct from those required to executed in effective teamwork. This excellent article explains exactly what collaberation is and lists the six key competencies that must be developed for collaberation in any undertaking to succeed.
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