How to Create the Perfect Home Office

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Home Office| How to Create the Perfect Home OfficeWorking from home can be an absolute joy. However, it definitely puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. If you want to be productive when working at home, you need to create a home office environment that facilitates productivity. Fortunately, this is something that anyone can do, if you know what you’re doing.

Here are some basic but essential tips for creating a home office environment that will make it easy for you to maintain your productivity.

A Comfy Chair

This is definitely important if you are going to be spending a lot of time in your home office each day. An uncomfortable chair isn’t just unpleasant to sit on for long periods of time, it can be damaging to your health. You need a chair that can offer you adequate support for your back and legs, otherwise you will experience pain and other physical problems before long.

Good Lighting

If you are spending all day sat in a darkened room, squinting to try and see what you’re doing, you will soon feel the effects. While straining to see what’s around you in the dark won’t cause permanent damage, it will make you feel needlessly tired. You should ensure that your home office has plenty of light, preferably natural light. If natural light isn’t available, look for fixtures that produce light that is as similar to daylight as possible.

Computer Accessories

Of course, the centerpiece of any home office setup is going to be the computer you use to work on. Whether this is a laptop or a desktop, Windows or Mac, you will want to make sure that you have everything you need to use it efficiently and comfortably. This might mean plugging a mouse into your laptop, rather than relying on the trackpad, or adding a stand for your laptop so that it can be at a comfortable viewing angle when you’re sat at your desk. You can find quality Mac accessories at thegadgetflow.com, click this link to check it out!

Add Some Plants

Even if you are working from home, it is worth spending some time to create a pleasant environment to work in. Your surroundings in your home office will determine how you feel after you spend long periods of time alone in there. Adding some plants to your surroundings is an inexpensive way of adding some color and life to your home office setup.

Buy Some Desk Accessories

Finally, when you work from home, it’s important to remember to have fun. It’s too easy for a work from home job to end up consuming your entire life if you aren’t careful. Add some fun desk accessories to your setup to make your home workspace more inviting. Desk accessories can either be practical or they can be there just for fun. Remember, this is your home office, so it needs to feel like home to you.

With a little bit of love and care, your home office can become the perfect environment for you to work in. Improving your home office doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive; a few simple touches can make a world of difference.

Should You Start a Packaging Design Business?

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Packaging Design | Should You Start a Packaging Design Business?A packaging design business helps to both improve current packaging designs, and create new ones with enhanced visual graphics. And, while the design itself is very important – after all, this is what tempts consumers to find out more about what you’re selling – it’s also vital that the packaging protects whatever’s inside it during the transportation, storage, and distribution process. Every package serves to protect the product inside it, and so it’s not a business that should be taken lightly.

If, after reading the above, you’re still interested in moving forward, keep reading for some tips that will help you start your own packaging design company.

The Skills You Need to Get Started

Packaging design businesses are ideal for creative individuals who have a good perspective for forward thinking designs that will sell. In order to be a success in this industry, you need to understand the different target markets and how certain design schemes and colors work within each of these markets. You also need to have a logical, analytical head, and understand the best types of materials for different types of product. A client selling a new range of organic juice, for example, will require a totally different form of packaging to a client selling children’s toys. If you also pay attention to the environment, and are willing to put in the hard work, you are ideally suited to this career.

How Much Money Do I Need?

In order to get started with packaging design, you’ll need between $2,000 and $10,000. Technically, they can be operated from home, although it’s wise to think about how you will grow the business as you may want to invest in a workshop quite soon after getting started. In addition to rent, you may also need to spend money on design training, employees, and equipment. Print finishing equipment can be purchased online, though do think about the type of materials you will be focusing on before making your decision. You may also want to set aside some money for tradeshows and events, as networking will be very important, especially during the early days.

How to Get Set Up

In order to start your business, you’ll need to follow a number of steps. Many of these are similar to businesses in other industries, and include:

  • Create a business plan
  • Form a legal entity
  • Register for state and federal taxes
  • Set up a business bank account
  • Hire an accountant if you need one – at the very least, invest in a cloud accounting software to keep track of your expenses
  • Obtain any state required licenses and permits
  • Get business insurance
  • Establish a brand
  • Create a web presence

It is possible to do much of the above on your own, although don’t be afraid to reach out to other professionals to help you with anything you are unsure how to do.

Starting a packaging design business isn’t easy. However, if you have the motivation and the skills, you could go far.

How to Successfully Rebrand Your Business Through Social Media

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Rebranding| How to Successfully Rebrand Your Business Through Social MediaYour digital brand is probably the first thing potential customers see. And the chance that the first interaction they ever have with your brand is through social media are very high, considering that nearly eighty percent of the population is said to be on at least one social media network.

You may have moved your original brand identity online, but it isn’t a fit for the new digital world. Or you simply need to update your brand to stay relevant to your target demographic. Here are a few tips on how to successfully rebrand your business through social media.

Have a Plan before You Act

Rebranding is risky, because you’re putting your online reputation at risk. You could compromise the awareness you’re trying to raise if you do it wrong or choose a totally new brand that alienates your core customers.

Know exactly what your end goal is. Decide now what message you want to promote and how it helps you accomplish your goals. Select a brand that matches your new or revised company principles. Test various profiles, taglines and marketing materials to determine what your audience loves and what they hate. Create a step-by-step plan for transitioning to the new brand. Don’t rush the process, or you’re certain to make a mistake.

Stake Your Claim

Before you announce your new brand name, make certain that the domain name and social media handles you want are available. For example, make sure the Twitter handle that matches your new brand name is available before you tell people this is what you’ll be using. The best thing you can do is seize these domains and social media profiles before you do anything else. If the handle is already taken, you can get creative as you try to find a variation that works for you.

StrategyDriven's Social Media Publication Timing Whitepaper


Prepare Your Audience

Some members of your community will love the new brand, and others will hate it. Regardless of their opinions of your vision, you need to be transparent with all of your customers. Let your customers know that you’re gearing up for rebranding as it will help minimize the potential backlash. An abrupt overnight change without audience preparation will cause engagement to plummet, and that will hurt your rankings.

A slow, planned transition that is talked about with customers can actually help your company. It may improve your new brand’s recognition, because it allows you to leverage word-of-mouth marketing. One of the ways you can achieve this is by offering sneak peaks. This will pique the interest of everyone else, causing those with privileged information to generate buzz while others will tune in to see the new brand as soon as it is revealed. This is true whether you’re changing your logo, updating your social media profiles, or totally revamping the brand.

Plan for the frequently asked questions before you go live. Don’t leave people with unanswered questions. Take the time to anticipate their needs, create a list of frequently asked questions, and then give them straightforward answers. Explain to people why you’ve decided to rebrand and what the change will mean for your customers, if anything.

It is a good idea to assign someone the job of monitoring social media profiles after launch to address community questions quickly. This can avoid confusion and ensure that correct information gets out to the community. This should be done in addition to blog posts and videos introducing and promoting the new brand.

Create a Consistent New Brand

For the sake of professionalism and consistency, update all of the social media profiles on the same day. Change your domains at the same time. Don’t announce a rebrand and then wait a long time before changing your presentation. Make certain that everything from your website to paid ads to business directory entries follow the new branding scheme.

A branding agency like BrandLume could help you set things up so that it all transforms on the same day. They offer a variety of branding services and will provide clear timelines of what to expect at every stage of the rebranding process. They will do as much or as little as you need them to do so that the project fits your budget as well as your deadlines. And they don’t lock you into long-term contracts, either, though they can handle the social media reaction to your rebranding effort for you as long as you need them to.

Have all of your employees update their biographies too, so that customers know that they’re talking to the right person when seeking help or information. Ensure that everyone is speaking in the new company’s “tone” and following your new branding guide.

Stick with It

When you’ve committed to a new brand, stick with it. Don’t revert back to old posts with the obsolete branding because they generated a lot of activity. Don’t announce a rebranding only to change your mind later.

Avoid vanity engagement at all costs. Stick to your plan, monitor engagement throughout the transition, and address problems as they arise without deviating from the overall plan. Wavering will end up eroding trust in the brand. Be aware of the negative comments and possible loss of some clients. Be consistent in your brand’s new aesthetic, voice and content so that your numbers will start to grow again.

Continue engagement with your followers, too. This increases the odds they’ll stay on board after the rebranding. Keeping up the engagement will also increase the odds newly acquired followers will remain connected to the brand. This could also be a commitment to your new brand, and a focus on building a closer interaction with your core base.

Rebranding can hurt your brand when done incorrectly. However, when done right, it will help your business succeed on social media, give your company a second life, and boost awareness and recognition. Make sure that you take all these points into consideration and also consider working with professionals if you need help.

5 Signs Your Business Needs a CRM Solution

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article | CRM Software| 5 Signs Your Business Needs a CRM SolutionBuying software and changing your business processes is a major decision. The same is true if you are considering changing software tools such as adopting CRM software. After all, it affects your sales, your marketing and your service workflows. It probably costs money to implement as well. However, you may be losing money if you don’t change when your business is in dire need of Customer Relationship Management software. Here are five signs your business needs a CRM solution.

The Productivity of Your Staff is Falling

Manual processes like filling out forms and filing them or maintaining spreadsheets take a lot of time. What worked when you had a few dozen clients becomes unworkable when you have hundreds or thousands of people, and the productivity of your staff falls as they struggle to scale up inefficient systems. CRM systems replace these manual processes, automating a lot of data entry and repetitive work. The faster access to accurate data increases revenue per salesperson by forty percent. This allows the organization to grow, and CRM systems will scale much better than your paper filing system.

It can improve the productivity of the rest of the team by giving everyone a single, shared interface containing all of the relevant data. One study found that three fifths of employees say they have to search through four or more systems to find information. That’s wasted time in every case, and it can lead to mistakes. Whether your customer is placing an order, calling customer service or talking to the warranty department, all notes about the customer interactions and all of their history is available to whomever is working with them at that moment. Anyone in the organization can see where clients are in the lifecycle and know exactly what they need.

Sometimes the issue is the basic CRM system you have. Hubspot is one of the most widely used CRM tools, but it is easy to end up with it being just another database to maintain. You may need help integrating it with your website or existing databases. This is where consultants like Chief Martech Officer come in. These HubSpot experts can optimize HubSpot, making it easier to administer or create the custom reports you need. Or you may need help training staff in the proper use of Hubspot’s features, so that their productivity will hit the levels you hoped for.

You Don’t Know What Your Sales Team is Doing

If you don’t know what your sales team is doing, you probably need a CRM system. CRM systems give you visibility into the sales process. They create a centralized place where all information about their schedules and clients are, typically in easy to read dashboards. You can see how many appointments each person has and the number of prospects they’re working with. This allows you to ensure that sales leads don’t fall through the cracks, and you can hold salespeople accountable when they didn’t follow up. You’ll reduce the number of missed sales, and that will improve the bottom line.

You Don’t Know How Your Sales Team Is Performing

CRM systems eliminate tedious, manual reporting. The Customer Relationship management system will generate the reports with a few clicks, freeing up your time for the more important task of analyzing it.

CRM systems allow you to compare the performance of sales people relative to their targets. It allows you to see how your team is doing relative to department goals, and you can pull up this information at any time. It gives you the up-to-date information you need to take corrective action instead of being surprised you fell short of your goals this month.

You won’t have to worry about creating reports and trying to figure out what they mean, either. CRM systems have built-in reporting and data analysis to give you an insight into customer demographics, seasonal trends, and preferences for individual customers or entire groups. You can study the buying habits of existing customers and start to work on nurturing existing business relationships.

Customer Service is Inconsistent or Constantly Bad

If customer service is inconsistent, your organization doesn’t have a shared set of information and business processes. This means that one department may have great service but another doesn’t. And a third department may fall short of good customer service because they simply don’t have the information that they need to do the right thing. All of this contributes to low customer satisfaction. A customer relationship management system allows you to give all customer-facing employees access to all prospect and customer information, and it can be used to standardized business processes.

A side benefit of adopting a CRM system is that it ensures accountability. Customers don’t fall through the cracks because no one took responsibility for a prospect or didn’t follow up on a customer’s problems. You must implement a good CRM system to be able to work on customer experience management.

You Don’t Know What You Do and Don’t Know

How many clients do you have? Who are your clients? If you don’t know this, you may let a lead walk out the door because you didn’t take a hot lead seriously. If you are relying on a key person to know everything, you run the risk of losing information because their laptop was infected with a virus or they left the company. With a CRM system, all of the information is stored in a centralized location.

Furthermore, that data can be backed up to a safe, alternate location. You can pull reports to find out anything you need to know, and you don’t have to worry about mistakes made because people lacked the information they needed to make the right decision. You’ll also know that your departing sales team won’t leave with a list of all their customers.

CRM tools allow you to improve the customer experience and improve the bottom line. Once your business reaches a certain point, you can’t afford not to have a CRM system.

Designing Your First Business Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Design| Designing Your First Business WebsiteWhen you are starting a business, one big cost-saving you can make is setting up a website yourself. This is quite a risky move if you are a beginner but it will get you started sooner rather than later.

As an entrepreneur, it is really important that you start building up your brand awareness as soon as possible. The more you can do to start winning over customers, the easier it will be to launch your business successfully down the line. Your website is the first thing you should do.

Keep Your Design Simple

The first rule of all websites is that your design must be simple and intuitive. While a bespoke website might appeal, there are two main reasons that this is out of your league right now. Firstly, building an intuitive bespoke website is a lot harder than you might think; secondly, unless you are a genius when it comes to development, you are probably out of your depth.

Instead of building a bespoke website, you should choose a ready-made design for a website. This is much easier because a lot of the legwork has already been done and you can customize most designs with your own branding. Having a solid foundation also means that you can look at the website’s usability and decide which design will be best for your customers.

At this stage, you should be building your website in order to give Google a chance to discover your URL and see what your business is about. Please don’t worry about making something perfect. As long as the basics are there, you will have something to work with later on. Many businesses start with a basic website and then move on to something designed by a professional after their first year.

Make Your Branding Stand Out

Your business branding is absolutely essential. This is the first impression you give your customers and must tell them exactly what your business is about and why they will like it. Branding isn’t just about having a cool logo, you also need to think about your company’s name, the imagery you use and the tone of voice.

Some of the best examples of small business branding show that the process of branding a business can also help to refine who you are and what you are doing. This process should clarify the main messages you want to present to your customers as well as to your employees. Take your time at this stage and the rewards will really pay off in the long term.

However, just like your website, your branding can be open to change later on. What you stand for in your first year of business is very likely to change, even if it’s a subtle shift. At the moment, you should be looking for branding that will entice new customers and bring people to your website. You should then use your time to refine your brand, a process which may eventually lead to a complete rebrand later on.

Add a Blog and Start Writing Content

A basic website can be a single page that gives the user everything they need to know and an opportunity to convert. However, this isn’t going to get you very far with the search engines. Adding more pages might be a stretch right now but adding a blog is really simple and posting just once a week can make a big difference.

Every business should have a blog. It’s by far the easiest way to add more keywords to your site, improve your overall SEO and have shareable content at your fingertips when you are struggling for a message to post on social media. Blogs are also a good way to answer questions your customers might have and provide the information they need to convert.

As you write and update your blog, you will gradually find that you have more ideas for pages and be able to see which routes customers take to convert. This is a great way to see what sort of content marketing strategy might work and give you a chance to get to know your audience a little better. Engaging with the people who are most interested in your brand through your blog is a huge compliment and actually listening to their advice is a good idea.

Designing your first website takes time and patience but it is the perfect opportunity to learn more about your brand, pick up some SEO skills and refine your marketing skills. The first year of any business should always be treated as a learning curve. Make the most.