Teching Your Way To Better Employees

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Being an employer can be a tough job for a lot of people. In this sort of role, it can be very easy to be overly compassionate, giving people much more than you can afford. Likewise, though, some people are much too strict to be a good boss. Sat in between these two issues is a balance which few manage to reach. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some subtle ways to watch over your workers, while also looking for ways to make their work easier. This may involve a little bit of spying, but this will be worth it if you’re able to make a difference.

Monitoring (Digital): Keeping an eye on the work which people are doing will be very hard without the right systems in place to handle it for you. Options like Excel used to be the only way to do this, and you would have to create your own detailed spreadsheets if you wanted to do properly. Nowadays, tools like Asana take away this work, giving you a much easier platform to handle your work from. As long as everyone keeps something like this up to date, it should be nice and easy to keep track of their work. This is particularly good for digital companies with very little work outside of computers.

Monitoring (Physical): In some cases, the work your employees will be doing won’t be able to be tracked digitally, and you might need a physical tool to help with your monitoring. Though it may seem a little secretive, one of the best ways to do this is through the tools on a site like Sentel Tech. Giving you the power to watch over work without being noticed, this is a great way to see your employees working. More importantly, though, this will also help you spot any issues they are having at the same time.

Finding Solutions: Once you have an idea of the issues which could be floating around in your business, it will be time to find some solutions to them. For example, if a worker seems restless towards the end of their shift, and it’s making their work hard, giving them an additional five minute break each day would be worth the benefits it could bring. Most employees will work as hard as they feel their job is worth to them. If you’re able to improve their work, they will feel more valued, and will often work much harder as a result. A lot of the time, the issues your employees will have will be directly related to your company, giving you the chance to fix them.

Hopefully, with all of this in mind, it should start to get a lot easier to work your employees into something much better. Most of the time, employers have a lot more power in this area than they think. Simple changes to your company, like better facilities or computers, will make a big difference to the people having to use them everyday.

Strive For Success: Here’s How Your Small Business Can Beat The Competition!

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There has been an explosion of businesses being established in recent years. Thanks to the improvement of technology and the accessibility of the internet, more people than ever have been able to follow their dreams and establish their own venture. However because of this, it means that there’s fierce competition between similar businesses. Since you’re competing for the same customers you really need to make your company stand out, and give people a reason to choose you over the other options they have. Here are a few ideas.

Invest in an App

In the past couple of years, more sales are now made on mobiles and tablets than they are on laptops and computers. This is hugely valuable information to know as a business owner and isn’t something you should ignore. It’s something that the world’s largest companies got on board with a long time ago, but times are moving. Smaller businesses are getting involved and chances are your competitors will already be cottoning on to this fact. If they’ve set up a great app, customers could well be choosing them over you based on this fact alone. Take steps to develop a mobile app for your business.

Use the Right Software

Are you still powering through with old methods for things like creating legal contracts, accounting and scheduling rotas? If so, you’re creating additional work and hassle for yourself and wasting time and money. There are all kinds of business softwares for various areas of business, which can tackle tedious jobs in a matter of seconds. Investing in the right programs can massively boost productivity and generally help you to get ahead. It means you save money since you’re not paying a human employee for hours of work since the software is able to do this pretty much instantly.

Hire the best people

In some ways, being a smaller business can allow you to take a more daring approach; while a lot of your bigger competitors will seek to hire square pegs for square holes, you can take a risk from time to time and pick someone you can mould into a brilliant contributor. You’ll know you’re hiring well when your keen “potentials” are being headhunted by bigger companies. Then, you can put this guide into action and either fight to keep your hire, or at least lay down a marker to show you’re up for a battle. It might result in compensation or even a bit of useful publicity; but better yet, it’s a boost for the business’s reputation.

Update Your Marketing Techniques

Every business needs the right marketing techniques to reach potential customers, regardless of what it is that you sell. If it’s been a while since you reviewed your marketing methods then now could be the time to do so. For example, video marketing is becoming more and more popular in recent times and if you’re not on board with it yet you could be missing out. Marketing is complicated, if you’re not knowledgeable about things like SEO, blogger outreach, social media marketing and more, you might be best leaving it to the professionals. Marketing agencies and experts will have access to technology like SerpWow, and will also have the skills, experience and knowledge to get your site out there to the right people.

Listen to Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is crucial, and while good feedback is great, it’s so worth going through negative comments too. Find out what it is that left your customer dissatisfied, and whether there are steps you can take to prevent this from happening again. For example, multiple complaints about shipping being slow could mean you need to change companies or pay the extra for faster service. If a customer is unsatisfied with your business, it could well mean they switch over to your competitor. Address any issues so you’re getting it right for every customer, every time.

Reactive marketing: what is it and why should you do it

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News travels fast, and is easily shared thanks to the increasing role of social media in the lives of consumers and the businesses they engage with. Indeed, there are many advantages to this connectivity beyond the social aspect; people can instantly mark themselves ‘safe’ after natural disasters or violent attacks, and ‘good news’ stories from around the world inspire on a daily basis.

With this greater, and faster, connectivity between news sources, businesses and end consumers, it’s now more crucial that brands use dynamic and agile marketing strategies; adopting a timely, reactive approach. So what is ‘reactive advertising’ and why is it important?

What is reactive advertising?

You’ve seen it before, even if you are less aware of the marketing term: when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie announced their divorce, Norwegian Air launched a print ad in UK newspapers offering low-cost flights to Los Angeles under the headline ‘Brad is single.’ This – and many stunts like it — fall under the category of ‘reactive advertising.’

Reactive marketing capitalizes on newsworthy events as the inspiration for quick turnaround, and short-lived, ad campaigns. They are not always tongue-in-cheek, as with Norwegian Air; reactive ads are also a solid means for brands and businesses to make clear their stance on politics, culture and ethics. For example, see Patagonia’s response to The Administration’s recent protected lands policy change.

Why businesses should be reactive

The presence of brands and businesses in social media means consumers expect these companies to act more like people, and less like corporations. Investing in reactive marketing is a quick and easy way to do this, along with hiring an expert team of social media managers to control your company’s tone of voice and digital content. If you reach your audience with relevant, topical dialogue, your engagement levels will increase on the whole.

Shifting media spend into smaller-scale, nimble reactive advertising can save you money too; gone are the days of huge annual payouts for marketing campaigns, instead momentary media requires short bursts of activity with lower overheads and less planning time.

If you want to learn about Affiliate Marketing, then check out the The Ultimate Beginner Guide For Affiliates.

How to be reactive

Firstly, you must be crystal clear on your company’s values and ethos. Only then will you be able to react to a news story, in a way that’s advantageous to you commercially — if not, you risk doing damage to your brand perceptions in the public eye. Keep abreast of the latest news stories on a platform such as Worldnewshub.org, and when a conversation comes into public debate that you could chime in on, don’t hesitate to act.

Being reactive is your chance to influence, too. So if you feel strongly about a news event, and wish to inform, enlighten or reeducate your audience on the matter, then you can via a reactive marketing campaign.

Of course, you must sense-check any reactive messages with your board of directors or group of stakeholders; lest you take a misstep. However, in the game of reactive marketing, time truly is of the essence.

8 Tips for Organizing Your Busy Office

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With a large in-house team, it’s inevitable that your office will get into a bit of a mess every once in a while. We know as much as anyone that in the midst of a busy project, paper will get strewn around, files will end up stacked on every available desk space and tables will become buried under office stationery junk.

There are plenty of solutions to this problem which will ensure your office stays a calm haven during busy periods rather than a chaotic heap. Check out these fun and functional office organization ideas that will keep everything in its place and stress levels low.

1. Organized Storage

Storage is key – and effective storage at that. Label all drawers and cabinets for easy location when you need to find things. Explain the new system to all employees so that they know where everything should go.

The more storage you can get that fixes to the wall, like shelving units, rather than standing on the floor, means you have more floor space and gives the illusion of a larger area (plus makes it easier for people to get around).

Draft in more filing cabinets and in-and-out trays for mail if you need to have physical files – the most efficient way is always to look into digital filing solutions and give up all paper where possible, to keep your office completely free of unnecessary clutter. There’s nothing that can’t be computerized these days.

2. Combine Your Appliances

Check out companies like CDS for their Complete Document Solutions, offering office appliances at the best prices. Xerox machines that combine printing, copying, scanning, paper storage, print-from and scan-to USB capabilities and more, mean that you don’t have to take up valuable free space in your office with multiple clunky machines.

3. Cable Organizers

This is not only a space-saver but a health and safety savior! Tangled cables lying around are not just a trip hazard but really annoying to navigate. Ensure all your staff can walk around the office freely and quickly by clipping all cables under desks or covering them with floor covers, both of which can be bought online or from office stores inexpensively.

4. Message & Pin Boards

Pin important documents and messages that the whole team need to see on a big office pin board. This way, need-to-know messages won’t get lost and will be positioned at eye level for all to see.

5. Desk Tidies

Give everyone in the office their own personal desk tidy, like a small cabinet or a computer screen platform with built-in drawers. Give each person their own coat and bag hook to avoid personal belongings being dumped on the floor. This means everyone is responsible for their own tidy desks and there can be no excuses!

6. DIY Organizing

If you’ve blown your business budget for the month but can’t stand the mess any longer, there are plenty of temporary DIY solutions you can turn to. Use old shoe boxes for filing papers and jam jars as pen pots. Clip cables and wires together and out of the way with crocodile clips and use a long line of parcel string fixed to the wall to clip papers onto and keep desk space clear.

7. Have a Spring Clean

To tackle the clutter of old paper, junk, cardboard boxes, and more, consider hiring rubbish removal services to efficiently clear out the items you no longer need and have been meaning to throw away for a long time.

Set aside one morning for the whole team to clear out their desks and throw out anything that is no longer needed – you might need to hire a skip! Afterwards, you should all have much more space to breathe and the whole office will be fresh, clean and clear of clutter.

8. Cubby Holes

Give each employee a cubby hole for their mail so that parcels and personal mail doesn’t end up littering the office, or worse, getting lost. Try to ensure that everyone keeps their cubby clean and neat – maybe install a bin beside the area so people can throw away any rubbish instantly.

Common Problems That New Business Owners Face

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Starting a new business venture may sound as simple as having an idea or a product prototype, and setting up a base from which to sell it to the masses. However, there are many other factors which you will need to consider to make your company a success; from marketing your product well to managing your overheads. Failing to take into account the negatives of being your own boss and the difficulties which can come with being a business owner could cause you major problems down the line. Many small businesses fail within the first year of opening, so to successfully avoid becoming another statistic, you need to plan ahead to combat the common problems that all new business owners face.

Cash flow

Of course, when you set up a new business, you’re not going to be in the green from the start. There are many different start-up costs which are unavoidable in starting up a business, such as buying insurance to cover you for building contents, as well as any other insurance policies you may need to take out. Not forgetting the general costs of running a premises, for example, water and electricity expenses; paying to employ staff members, and purchasing stock. Money issues are always going to be a cause of stress and apprehension, especially if you’ve had to take out a loan to set the company up, or if you are experiencing pressure from investors that are expecting fast returns. In order to avoid getting into deeper money problems, it’s important to keep track of your incomings and outgoings. There are apps and online tools available which can help you with tasks such as calculating budgets. However, it might also be advisable to find an accountant who can help you to keep track of your finances, and advise you on the best course of action to keep your overheads to a minimum.

Becoming overworked

As a new business owner, it is completely understandable that you would want to be fully involved in the running of the company, and keep the control firmly in your own hands. Unfortunately, the running of a business is not simply a nine to five job. As you may have realized, there are many aspects of running a business which you have to do from behind the scenes, such as managing paychecks and paying expenses. If you are acting as the business accountant, manager, and the main point of call for customer liaison, on top of everything else, it won’t be long until you become burnt out. That will be detrimental to both your health and the wellbeing of your business because if you are overworking yourself, you could become disorganized, overlook important details and start making mistakes. It is incredibly challenging to run a business alone, so you may benefit from enlisting some co-owners to share the responsibility of the business, or choosing a few trusted employees to delegate tasks to. Work out which aspects of the business require your expertise, and which assignments you can afford to have less input in. There is also the option of employing independent contractors to take control of jobs which do not fall under your areas of expertise.

Managing legal requirements

There are several legalities that you must meet the requirements of when you start up your own business. You’ll first need to decide what legal structure you will follow; for example, will you be the sole trader, or operating as an LLP? Registering your business name, and acquiring a tax identification number should be high on your list of priorities. There are multiple different types of tax payments businesses can be liable to pay, such as federal and state income tax, BPOL tax, payroll taxes and sales tax. Dealing with these legal and financial processes can be difficult and confusing, especially if you are new to the process. It may be a good idea to consult with USAttorneys who will be able to offer professional advice and assistance in navigating and understanding tax regulations.

Finding loyal customers

For a new business, finding clients is incredibly important, because without the sales you will never be successful. It is imperative that you create an in-depth marketing plan, which will allow you to target as many people within your ideal client group as you can. You need to identify a unique selling point that will grab buyer’s attention, so it’s vital that you conduct comprehensive market research. Gaining a vast number of customers is not the only aim; you also want to find customers who spend more and repeatedly shop with your business. Identify the characteristics of your most loyal customers, and specifically aim future marketing ventures at gaining more clients of this nature. Don’t be afraid of gaining feedback from your customers, as long as you do so in a way which isn’t intrusive, and that won’t take up too much of their time.

Employee satisfaction

When you are stressed and juggling a lot of responsibility, it can be hard to prioritize the well-being of your employees. Nonetheless, your workforce is the heart and soul of your business. They are the ones who interact with client’s the most, and if you want a successful business, you need to keep your employees content. Show your workforce that their welfare is important to you by communicating with them on as regular a basis as you can manage. Ask for their opinions on how the business can be better run; they see first hand how your clientele respond to business procedures and are likely to know best what the company’s strengths and weaknesses are. Offer incentives: they don’t have to be expensive, but it doesn’t hurt to recognize an ‘employee of the month,’ or to hold an annual Christmas party to keep spirits up. If you have a high staff turn over, it doesn’t create a good impression to your clients, and it may be a sign that your employees feel undervalued.

By addressing these points from the beginning, you will minimize the likelihood of encountering complicated issues further down the line.