Four Top Tips for Growing a New Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Growing a New Business|Four Top Tips for Growing a New BusinessBecoming an entrepreneur can be the dream scenario for those wanting to escape the sometimes monotonous and uninspiring 9-5 working life. However, once you have bitten the bullet and launched your new business venture, it can become all too easy to sit back and let your business simply plod along, rather than seek new ways to enable its growth. However, if you want your business to succeed, then you need to ensure that you develop both short term and long-term strategies to generate new business and expand your customer base.

From improving your customer service by embracing the latest technologies, to implementing a digital marketing campaign, to learning how to network effectively, keep reading to find out how you can grow your new business in four simple steps.

1. Listen to your customers

If you want to keep your existing customers loyal to you, as well as attract new ones, then you need to make sure that you actively listen to their needs. An excellent way to find out what they want from your business is to consistently ask for feedback on your products or services. Although it can be hard to hear criticism, especially when it comes to your own business, it is essential to know where you are going wrong so that you are able to put it right. A simple email asking, “How can we do better next time?” is all it takes to gain invaluable insight into your customers’ requirements.

2. Improve your customer service

As a small business owner, it is incredibly important that you provide your customers with the best possible level of customer service, as just one poor experience can result in you losing a loyal customer, and also encourages negative word of mouth. If you are struggling to respond to your customers’ inquiries as quickly as you would like to, but cannot afford to take on any more employees, you may want to consider investing in a chatbot that can deal with an infinite number of customers simultaneously.

3. Don’t forget the bigger picture

It can become all too easy to get preoccupied with the day to day running of your business and fail to invest adequate time and funds into your long-term goals and strategies. For example, it has never been more critical for small businesses to improve their SEO rankings as this is the simplest way to attract more customers to your site, which in turn will increase your conversion rates. If you are not overly confident in your SEO abilities, a digital marketing agency can help you to generate leads that will result in conversions and ROI.

Try and make sure that you sit down with your employees and/or investors at least once a month to discuss your long-term visions and goals for the business while making solid plans and action points.

4. Extend your networks

Not everybody loves to network, but unfortunately, it is a necessary process if you want your business to grow. Are you familiar with the saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”? Well, never has a truer phrase been said when it comes to expanding your small business. You need to attend as many relevant networking events as possible, as well as ensure that you network effectively.

How do you do this? It is not rocket science. The key is to make sure that you give and take. For example, if you see someone who you think can offer you advice, don’t approach them and simply bombard them with questions. You also need to listen to what they have to say and try and find a way in which you can be of use to them too.

Networking can be a great way to connect with customers, investors and even potential employees, so make sure you are open and responsive when you attend events, as you never know when you may need a helping hand from someone in the industry.

How to Reduce Employee Turnover Rate

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | How to Reduce Employee Turnover RateEmployee turnover rate refers to the number or percentage of employees who leave an organization and have to be replaced by new workers. Employee turnover is a common issue affecting both big and small firms. The problem with employee turnover is that it costs a lot of money and time to replace an employee.

According to a report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost of replacing a single employee can be as high as $4,425. The cost of replacing an employee may include the onboarding and training expenses, severance benefits, and fees for processing technical details and documents. The figure also includes any time lost during the recruitment and onboarding process. So, how can you reduce or prevent employee turnover and avoid losing valuable time and resources?

Hire the Right People

The very first step towards avoiding a high turnover rate is hiring the right people to begin with. Create thorough hiring, recruitment, and onboarding process that sieves through the job applicants to find the most suitable candidates to work in your company.

Although skills and qualifications are important, selecting the right staff goes beyond examining academic and professional achievements. Scrutinize candidates on soft skills that would come in handy for the job position. Also, ask about the candidates’ career paths and goals to see if they align with what your company has to offer. These are excellent criteria to measure whether a candidate will be happy and satisfied with their position in the business.

Create A Flexible Work Environment

The 9-to-5 workplace regimen seems like an outdated and traditional workplace arrangement nowadays. Many employees are now looking for more flexible workplaces where they can balance their work and personal life more easily and conveniently. In fact, most employees value workplace flexibility more than other job descriptions.

Flexibility defines things like working hours, collaborations, workload, deadlines, and rules about absenteeism and reporting to work.  With modern IT solutions, you can have employees working from home, on a contract or freelancing basis, or even during odd hours. In such a case, however, you have to implement work from home policy guidelines to ensure accountability. Remember, the goal is to create a relaxed atmosphere without compromising productivity.

Offer Competitive Salaries and Benefits

One of the main reasons why people go to work is to earn money. Offering competitive salaries and benefits can help your business attract exceptional talent and retain employees. Money is a great incentive that you can use to lure employees into dedicating their time and effort to meeting the company’s goals.

You don’ even have to raise your salaries and benefits by thousands of dollars. Just take a look at what other employers in the same industry are paying their staff and raise your offering by a noticeable margin – and that should be enough to discourage competitors from poaching your employees.

Praise and Reward Exceptional Employees

Besides compensations, benefits, and salaries, you should also look into recognizing and rewarding exceptional work and employees. Recognizing your workers’ efforts and rewarding their hard work accordingly makes them feel valuable and important to the company. This gradually develops into building trust and long-lasting relationships between the employees and the employer. Plus, a fair reward and recognition system helps motivate morale and determination among the workers, which leads to higher employee satisfaction and productivity.

Many employers fail to see the importance of their employees, probably because they think they’re dispensable. However, your employees are most certainly one of the essential assets that your business has. Employees are the lifeblood of any organization that needs human input or labor, which is why they must be valued and appreciated. And although employees can be replaced, it’s a costly process, and a high turnover rate can hurt your operational costs and productivity significantly. So, work on ways of retaining your employees to avoid expensive surprises along the way.

Do You Need a Toll Free Number for Your Business?

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Do You Need a Toll Free Number for Your Business?In these days of smartphones and websites, does it still make sense to have a toll free number for business? It might surprise you that the answer is “Yes”! Tool free numbers show that you are serious about your business, they are easy to remember and they can help with brand recognition. Even though many people are on calling plans now, the allure of the 800 number has not disappeared.

  • Toll free numbers give your business legitimacy. You might be only one person sitting in a coffee shop, but your customers don’t know that. A toll free number gives an air of professionalism to your venture.
  • A recognizable toll free prefix makes you look like your business is national rather than local. This is mainly perception, but then many sales are based on a customer’s image of your business.
  • When a business is willing to pick up the tab for something, i.e. free shipping or toll free calls, the customer perceives you as willing to go that extra mile to make a sale.
  • Vanity numbers are those ones that start out 1-800-SPL-AWRD. This can help with branding because people tend to remember words better than numbers. Be careful to pick a number that will make sense to customers.
  • Put some effort into choosing your vanity toll free number. The number can describe what you do, relate to the name of your company, make a call for action or an amusing aside. Be sure that customers will be able to connect it to your business.
  • If you choose to get a toll free number for your business, you must connect it to a local number, however, you can change this number if you need to and program the toll free number to ring to different phones depending up the time of day.
  • Toll free numbers allow you to track incoming calls. The number automatically keeps track of the people who have called you.
  • Finally, toll free numbers are easy to remember. They don’t have to be vanity numbers to be easy. They can simply be a memorable sequence of numbers, such as a repeating pattern like 2211 or a sequence such as 1234. Words are easier to remember in general, so vanity numbers are still probably your best bet.

Despite the fact that many people have gotten rid of landlines, tool free numbers are still relevant to business. Put some thought into choosing your number and then let it work for you by connecting customers to your brand. Check out toll free phone numbers today.

4 Ways to Reinvest in Your Small Business to Drive Success

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article|Reinvest in your business|4 Ways to Reinvest in Your Small Business to Drive SuccessAs a small business owner, earning your first profit is a milestone. Hanging your first dollar from your first sale on the wall is a symbolic gesture that pays respect to the hard work that goes into building a business. Whether you actually hang up your dollar or not, you can understand the feeling of working tirelessly to create something that works. It’s an exciting moment for a new business owner.

This moment also comes with the decision of what to do with your company’s profits and how to put it towards an investment that will pay off. It can be a tricky decision, especially if this is your first business venture and you aren’t sure what course of action is best. Here are the best four ways to invest or reinvest into your company to drive future success.

1. Invest in business improvements

It’s common for start-ups and small businesses to reinvest in the early stages in order to help the business grow. Reinvesting in improvements like equipment, infrastructure, product development, and improving customer service are all valuable ways to build your business.

Software

Finding ways to streamline business processes is another good investment to make into your company. One aspect to consider is what kind of software your business should use to help achieve this goal. You are definitely spoiled for choice as there are so many programs out there designed to help you and your team save time and eliminate unnecessary tasks through automation. These programs are especially useful for start-ups who are operating with minimal staff and have a lot of team members wearing many hats already. You can purchase software to help with everything from your accounting to employee management and acquisition.

Organization

One integral but often overlooked program to invest in is a digital asset manager. Digital assets can quickly become disorganized if there isn’t a strict organizational method in place. If you’ve ever worked at a company with an internal drive that had no structure or naming conventions enforced, you know how chaotic it is to try and keep track of assets. This is especially true if you send and receive assets for feedback to retailers, partners or an outsourced team. Using digital asset management or a DAM such as Brandfolder can help save you from the headache and panic of trying to track down the asset you need.

2. Invest in your team

Building a strong team from strong foundations will help your business thrive. Creating a workplace culture where your employees feel valued, challenged, and happy to come to work every day improves productivity, which turns into profit. It also helps attract other talent because they know they can be successful in that environment and helps reduce turnover, which can be quite costly.

The best ways to invest in your team are with education and training courses, benefits packages, competitive salaries, and in-office perks like meals, flexible or remote working, and a good employee lounge to help people de-stress.

3. Invest in your marketing

When done well, investing in your company’s own digital marketing is a smart investment. It helps build your brand’s presence online and in your industry to attract customers or clients and talent. Sometimes start-ups take their time dipping their toes into their digital marketing efforts, possibly because they aren’t sure where to begin or don’t think they have enough in the budget. It can be a low-cost endeavor if you know how to strategize and plan properly, and there’s no downside to investing in performance metrics.

4. Invest in yourself

If you’re the one leading the charge, you should also be spending time and resources improving yourself and your expertise. Many start-up CEOs have some of the skills required to run a successful business but are missing others. For example, they may know how to innovate and fill a market need, but they don’t know how to manage people. Skills development courses can go a long way for the success of your leadership and business.

5 Ways to Improve Your Cloud Security Standards

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article|cloud security standards|5 Ways to Improve Your Cloud Security StandardsCurrently, roughly 90% of companies in the United States use some kind of cloud service. While the cloud computing industry may be worth more than $100 billion as of 2020, it’s still yet to reach it peak.

Just about any type of business can benefit from cloud services when it comes to their critical business processes. Cloud computing presents great advancements in efficiency and supportability.But does this shift in technology guarantee your company foolproof cloud security standards? The good news is that the top public cloud service providers offer a highly secure environment for your sensitive business data.

But while cloud service providers are generally reliable when it comes to data protection, they can’t guarantee protection when that data leaves the cloud to other systems.

In this friendly guide, we equip you with the information you need to know about cloud security policies, including cloud computing best practices. Keep reading to learn more.

Why Do Businesses Opt For the Cloud?

For many years after the internet entered the scene, organizations hosted their hardware in an office within the premise or hired space in data centers nearby. In the last decade, cloud computing has completely transformed that architecture. Companies no longer have to invest in hardware to securely store their data.

The rise of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) through cloud service providers means that companies can now entrust their data and systems to a third party. It’s a reliable alternative to hosting your website or storing your data in a physical location. Then cloud affords an organization more flexibility and can significantly cut costs.

How Do You Ensure Topnotch Cloud Security Standards?

As we mentioned earlier, transferring your data to the cloud does not make your information entirely immune to security breaches. But you can avert these breaches by adopting the best security practices. We discuss some of these practices below.

1. Set Up Multi-Factor Authentication

Stealing credentials is one of the top ways cyber criminals use to access your digital business data. That’s why you need to ditch the conventional username and password combination to access business accounts. This combination is often weak when it comes to protecting yourself from hackers.

Among the simplest and most effective cloud security controls is deploying multi-factor authentication. This authentication technique ensures that only authorized staff can access your sensitive data by logging in to your cloud applications. So reliable is this security measure that most security experts consider businesses that haven’t yet deployed it as negligent.

2. Manage User Access

While you want to maintain as much transparency as possible within your company, the fact is that not every employee needs to access every file or piece of information. That’s why you need to set up clear levels of authorization, so every employee only accesses data or application necessary for their job.

You want to avoid incidences of a member of staff accidentally editing data that they have no authority to access. Additionally, you want to protect your sensitive information from hackers who may have stolen the credentials of one of your employees.

3. Monitor User Activity Continuously

What if a hacker succeeds in stealing login credentials and can access your sensitive business data? Well, that’s where real-time monitoring comes in.

Through real-time monitoring, you can spot any irregularities that vary considerably from the normal usage patterns. These deviations include log in from previously unknown devices or IP addresses.

Once you notice an abnormal activity, you can promptly investigate it to determine whether there has been a breach of your system. In case there is, you can fix that security issue before it causes mayhem in your organization.

Besides monitoring user activity, it’s essential that you need to keep a record of instances that your employees have accessed business data and any changes they’ve made on it. This way, you can provide auditors with a report of people who have access to the data at any given time in case there’s a breach.

4. Develop a Secure Off-boarding Process for Outgoing Staff

When individuals depart from your company, you want to ensure they don’t leave with your trade secrets. Create a foolproof process of taking away access rights to outgoing employees so they can no longer access your business systems, client information, or intellectual property.

The off-boarding process may seem easy, but it isn’t. Keep in mind that a departing employee could have access to numerous cloud applications. Revoking access to each of these applications can prove time-consuming.

Have a systemized deprovisioning procedure to revoke all the access rights of departing employees. Some organizations opt for solutions that consolidate user credentials into a single identity that can be turned off for the company’s cloud applications at once.

Remember, you can always turn to an expert to help you with the off-boarding process if you can’t manage it internally.

5. Have a Cloud-to-Cloud Backup Solution

The risks associated with cloud platforms and applications are legitimate. You could lose your data anytime, especially as a result of human actions. For instance, an employee could accidentally delete data, or a hacker may intentionally clean it out.

Given the dire consequences of data loss or manipulation, companies need to have backup solutions. At the moment, numerous cloud-based backup solutions that can protect you. Consult a credible IT solutions provider like charlotteitsolutions.com to help you determine the best solution for you.

You Can Reduce Your Cloud Computing Security Risks

Generally, cloud computing is a highly beneficial option for businesses in the 21st century. However, companies that choose cloud services need to adhere to cloud security standards to get the most out of it. Fortunately, cloud computing best practices are reasonably easy to implement and follow.

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