As a business owner, it is essential to prioritize your physical and mental health. Due to a vast workload and a heavy responsibility, you will likely choose work over health. However, this cannot continue and is not sustainable. To show up as your best self at work, you must take good care of your health.
Therefore, here are some tips on how to improve your work-life balance as a business owner.
Don’t be afraid to outsource tasks
Although allowing an external team to take care of your business tasks can feel scary, it is beneficial. Yes, you might prefer to take care of every task yourself or oversee what is going on at your employee’s desk. Yet, this likely isn’t benefiting your stress levels. If you outsource some tasks, it will take the pressure off.
For example, outsourced IT services will help your business feel less pressure as you can work on other tasks while an external individual/team is fulfilling your IT tasks. You won’t have to stress about those tasks you find stressful or difficult. Instead, you can focus on the tasks that you enjoy the most. Hence, you will better your work-life balance.
Don’t be scared to take breaks
To manage your work-life balance as a business owner, it is essential to take breaks. Taking breaks from work can feel scary when you have so much to do. However, a break is the best thing to do if you have lots on your plate. Small and often is the way forward.
If you have a lot of tasks on your to-do list and try to work through them without a minute to breathe, you are bound to feel overtired, stressed, and tense at the end of each day. The more (little and often) breaks you take, the more you can reset your mind and be productive during the periods you commit to working. Being more effective and efficient will maximize your time and help you get more done (and to a higher standard) when work.
Schedule longer breaks too
Being a business owner doesn’t often come with the luxury of having longer breaks away. However, you are entitled to them. Hence, you should take them.
Scheduling longer breaks (when you know business will be quiet) will help you shut off from work and relax. Switching your phone off and not attending to any work tasks will ensure you get maximum benefits from a long break.
Maintain a healthy lifestyle
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is all about how you treat your body. What food you feed yourself, drink, and exercise you partake in contributes to a healthier mind and body. It is essential to treat yourself still and have lots of rest.
Yet, ensuring to maintain a healthy lifestyle will enhance your physical health and also benefit your mental health. Exercise and certain foods provide stress-busting benefits. Hence, knowing how to fuel and move your body will do your health wonders.
Ensure your business environment is healthy
If you work in a toxic business environment (gossip-driven employees, dark rooms, and a lack of a break space), you will not be benefiting your work-life balance.
Your workplace should be a healthy environment. Ensuring everyone gets along, has an open conversation, and supports one another will provide a good employee culture.
After that, ensuring plenty of light in the office will help focus and productivity.
Adding break rooms and spaces to the workspace will also enhance the environment’s health. It will allow you and the staff to find a place to switch off their tasks and reset their minds.
Create an evening routine
Working late into the evenings will not improve your work-life balance, especially if you start work early. Hence, it is essential to find set work times, so you do not burn out. Introducing a wholesome morning routine can help if you start work later.
Waking up at a reasonable time (after having plenty of rest), fueling your body, moving, and relaxing will set you up right for the day.
Whereas if you work early, you should finish earlier. Giving yourself time to switch off and relax in the evening is essential after a long day (even if you start work late). Enough time to switch off before bed will aid in a healthy sleeping pattern.
Your evening routine should consist of minimal technology, mindfulness (movement, yoga, meditation, reading, self-care), and nourishing foods to care for your mind and body after a stressful day building your empire.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/yoga-g88306f34d_1280.jpg8531280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2022-09-07 18:00:322022-09-07 16:22:20Establishing A Better Work-Life Balance As A Business Owner
Advertising is absolutely essential to any business’ success. You can spend all of the time and money in the world creating the perfect products or services, but this isn’t of much use if nobody knows that your products and services exist. You have to build awareness and get your name out there if you’re planning on making actual sales and profit. This is where advertising comes into play. Advertising shows people what you have to offer, it lets them know where they can buy it and it can also provide social proof, which shows that others have been happy with what they’ve received from you. Of course, there are countless types of advertising that you can engage with, so you may find yourself struggling to choose where to spend your budget. You can go for print, digital and so many other routes. One area of advertising that is often neglected nowadays? TV advertising. But it can be a great option for many. Here are some things you should take into consideration when deciding whether this is a route you should take or not.
Cost
First, consider cost. If your business is working to an extremely tight budget, you may find that TV advertising of any worth is going to be a little out of reach. The cost of TV advertising varies drastically depending on a number of factors, including when the ad will be aired, what channel it will be aired on, what shows surround the ad space you’re looking into, how many people are likely to be reached and how long you want your ad to be. Shop around for a few quotes. You’re going to want to target channels and airtimes that you know your target demographic will be present for, so do a fair amount of research into this area.
Time
Next, consider the amount of time and resources it’s going to take for you to create a TV ad. If you haven’t created an ad before, this can be a steep learning curve and you may need to take time to recruit, learn or hire freelancers or agencies who can help with the entire process. There are plenty of resources out there, looking into niche areas that may help you. Law Firm Marketing: How to Audition Actors for TV Ads and Avoid Suprises Ads could be ideal for those considering law ads.
Impact
You also need to consider the impact that ads may have. Most companies who manage ad space and time on TVs will be able to provide you with plenty of in-depth information regarding ads and their likely results. This can be estimated based on previous companies’ ads and revenue for similar times and channels. You need to make sure that the anticipated revenue from your ad outweighs the costs of creating it.
Sure, TV ads might not be for everyone, but you may find that they’re a good option for your business. Keep the above advice in mind and see how you get on!
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2022-09-07-230056.jpg7961200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2022-09-07 17:00:142022-09-07 16:09:09Should Your Business Consider TV Ads?
So you’re thinking about getting your marketing off the ground for your business? Before you do this, it can be a good idea to establish your brand voice. Brand voice is a brand personality that is created by the company. It is what a customer perceives when they are in touch with your brand. It can be something as simple as a logo or as complex as an entire business strategy. A brand voice can be a strong point for your business and an opportunity to create more revenue for your company. It can also be used to build trust of customers and help them to make the right decision when buying from you.
What is a Brand Voice and How Can It Be Created?
How can you create a unique voice for your brand? The new generation of brands are characterized by a distinctive voice, that is, the way in which they communicate with their customers. This unique voice is created through the use of digital marketing and branding.. The most common examples are logos and brand names that are used to convey information about the company’s identity, products or services.
Finding Your Unique Brand Voice in Today’s Market
In today’s world, the need for brands to be different is more important than ever. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you must create a brand that will be remembered for years to come. The key to building a unique brand voice is finding your own voice. You can do this by asking yourself questions about who you are and how you want to be perceived. You can then start to think about pulling together the personality of your brand and create content that fits within the voice to start creating your brand position.
Creating a Brand Position For Your Business
Branding is one of the key elements of any marketing campaign. It helps companies stand out from other competitors in the market and make them easy to remember. There is no doubt that branding is important for many businesses. But even if you are a small business owner, you will probably want to attract more customers and increase your sales. The best way to create a brand positioning for your business is to create an image that you can use for your business. This then allows you to place an image of your business in their mind about who you are and what you stand for.
Hiring the Best Content Writer For Your Business
Sometimes, it can be a great idea to hire a writer to help bring your brand voice alive. A content writer is the one who writes all the copy for your website, blog, newsletter and any other medium in which you want to communicate with your audience. You should hire a good content writer because they are highly skilled and have expertise in writing different types of content that your customers or potential customers might need. You need to make sure that you are hiring an experienced professional who knows what they are doing and can help you create high-quality content that will be of great value to your audience.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/windows-w79mIrYKcK4-unsplash.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2022-09-06 18:00:592022-09-06 17:36:28How to Create Your Unique Brand Voice
The world is facing something of a crisis in tech skills. More businesses than ever before need technical and digital expertise to help them grow their company online. But this rush for talent has created the unfortunate problem of a skills gap: there are simply more roles that require technical skills and experience than there are candidates qualified to fill them.
Take the cybersecurity skills gap as a key example. In a recent survey, 85% of organisations said that a shortage of staff was affecting their ability to keep their IT systems and networks secure. And, the news only gets worse from there, as the same survey revealed 30% of current cybersecurity workers are considering a change of career path.
So, there can be no doubt that the tech skills shortage is real. Thankfully, by understanding it and reacting to the issue, businesses can actually be more successful in the long-term.
Retaining top talent
There can be no doubt that the tech skills gap has made it essential for businesses to retain their best staff. It is no good having a great recruitment procedure if those staff that you do hire have moved on within six months. Likewise, if you hire too few valuable tech staff and they have an unexpected absence, you might need to spend more of your hiring budget on some freelance or temporary back-up staff.
It is a much better idea to put a great deal of focus on retaining your top talent and giving them a great reason to stay via incentives, a great team atmosphere and running your business ethically. This can have the great knock-on effect, as tech staff are likely to have friends that work in the industry, and if they feel well treated, they might feel happy to recommend the business.
Broadening recruitment possibilities
It may be the case that you have always managed your recruitment in a certain way. However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise in remote working and hybrid patterns, it is now possible to recruit from anywhere in the world. Broadening your potential talent pool gives you a great range of talent to choose from.
Working with contractors
You might not be aware of the scale of the need for tech-smart staff. For example, the average large organisation tracks 1.4 million issues through a single Jira instance. This shows the absolutely vital need to familiarise workers with technical products like Jira.
But if you can’t find specialist Jira professionals to hire, you might have to look at alternative options such as working with contractors. This can actually be very effective, as contractors can be hired for a specific period and simply to get a certain job done. This means you are hiring for exact needs.
Upskilling your team
Don’t forget that one way that you can overcome a lack of tech skills is to provide your team with new ones. Creating a great training program can help to upskill your workers with the skills that your business needs. In the modern-day office of flexible working, hot desking and the merging of work and personal devices for work purposes, being digitally and knowing how to use technology more effectively is more vital than ever.
Thorough cybersecurity training should be a key focus and an area within your tech and IT remit for staff that it is wise to consider throughout the year. It can’t be forgotten that staff are a vital part of good cybersecurity. If your team doesn’t have the knowledge to know how to deal with certain technical situations, investment in even the most powerful cybersecurity measures won’t be as effective as they should be. Therefore, it should be considered essential to provide staff with regular, basic and high-quality training on the latest cyber threats and what to do about them.
In general terms, ensuring that your company is digitally savvy can be a great way to advance your business for the future. Upskilling staff on a regular basis will also impress your team. They will feel more positive about your investment in them and your support in helping them to develop new valuable skills for their longer-term success.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-thisisengineering-3861969-1.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2022-09-05 18:00:332022-09-06 00:57:56Why Understanding the Tech Skills Gap is Key to Your Long-Term Success
There are certain standards that all business websites must meet if they’re going to achieve success. Things like your marketing and your SEO are essential, for instance, as is the professionalism of your website. If your website doesn’t have a professional look and feel, then you’ll be unlikely to be all that successful. After all, without professionalism, your potential customers may not trust your business — and when it comes to the online world, trust is everything.
But fear not because professionalism is something that you can always improve. In this blog, we’ll take a look at a few ways that you can push your professionalism levels in the right direction.
Invest in the Design
The look of your website is essential when it comes to making a positive first impression in the eyes of your visitors. You’ll know this from using the web yourself — you’ll be naturally skeptical if the site has a design that doesn’t look in line with modern standards. There are some standard design templates that you can add to your website, but if you really want to make a splash, then look at handing the job over to a design agency.
High Quality Text
The design of your website will draw people in. But it’ll be the quality of the words on the page that keep them there. A company could invest in good design, but if they don’t have high quality writing on their site, then it’ll be natural that people begin to have doubts. Excellent writing does two jobs. First, it shows that care has gone into the website. Second, it helps to convey the message that you want your visitors to receive. Convoluted or just all-around poor writing will have your visitors scratching their heads about what you really mean.
Professional Photos
You could have the best design and have your text written by Zadie Smith, but if you’re not also investing in professional photos, then your other efforts could be close to pointless. When it comes to your website, you can’t just use any old photos — you need to have high quality photos. Most people think that getting these will break the bank, but that’s not the case. There are plenty of free stock photos available that’ll give your site’s professionalism a nudge in the right direction without breaking the bank. It’ll also help to make your website more engaging for the user, too.
Contact Information
People naturally have doubts when there’s no way to get in contact with the owner of the site. This is especially true if you’re selling items. A contact form won’t suffice! It’s best to make as many contact options as possible available to your users. This will include a phone number, email address, live chat feature, and links to your social media accounts.
Regular Updates
Finally, be sure to keep things updated. A site that hasn’t been updated in months can make the website look dead. You can show the public that your site is alive and kicking even by doing something as simple as posting a weekly blog.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-format-1029757-2.jpg7861200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2022-09-04 07:00:492022-09-04 01:17:40How To Make Your Website Look Professional
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Establishing A Better Work-Life Balance As A Business Owner
/in Entrepreneurship/by StrategyDrivenTherefore, here are some tips on how to improve your work-life balance as a business owner.
Don’t be afraid to outsource tasks
Although allowing an external team to take care of your business tasks can feel scary, it is beneficial. Yes, you might prefer to take care of every task yourself or oversee what is going on at your employee’s desk. Yet, this likely isn’t benefiting your stress levels. If you outsource some tasks, it will take the pressure off.
For example, outsourced IT services will help your business feel less pressure as you can work on other tasks while an external individual/team is fulfilling your IT tasks. You won’t have to stress about those tasks you find stressful or difficult. Instead, you can focus on the tasks that you enjoy the most. Hence, you will better your work-life balance.
Don’t be scared to take breaks
To manage your work-life balance as a business owner, it is essential to take breaks. Taking breaks from work can feel scary when you have so much to do. However, a break is the best thing to do if you have lots on your plate. Small and often is the way forward.
If you have a lot of tasks on your to-do list and try to work through them without a minute to breathe, you are bound to feel overtired, stressed, and tense at the end of each day. The more (little and often) breaks you take, the more you can reset your mind and be productive during the periods you commit to working. Being more effective and efficient will maximize your time and help you get more done (and to a higher standard) when work.
Schedule longer breaks too
Being a business owner doesn’t often come with the luxury of having longer breaks away. However, you are entitled to them. Hence, you should take them.
Scheduling longer breaks (when you know business will be quiet) will help you shut off from work and relax. Switching your phone off and not attending to any work tasks will ensure you get maximum benefits from a long break.
Maintain a healthy lifestyle
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is all about how you treat your body. What food you feed yourself, drink, and exercise you partake in contributes to a healthier mind and body. It is essential to treat yourself still and have lots of rest.
Yet, ensuring to maintain a healthy lifestyle will enhance your physical health and also benefit your mental health. Exercise and certain foods provide stress-busting benefits. Hence, knowing how to fuel and move your body will do your health wonders.
Ensure your business environment is healthy
If you work in a toxic business environment (gossip-driven employees, dark rooms, and a lack of a break space), you will not be benefiting your work-life balance.
Your workplace should be a healthy environment. Ensuring everyone gets along, has an open conversation, and supports one another will provide a good employee culture.
After that, ensuring plenty of light in the office will help focus and productivity.
Adding break rooms and spaces to the workspace will also enhance the environment’s health. It will allow you and the staff to find a place to switch off their tasks and reset their minds.
Create an evening routine
Working late into the evenings will not improve your work-life balance, especially if you start work early. Hence, it is essential to find set work times, so you do not burn out. Introducing a wholesome morning routine can help if you start work later.
Waking up at a reasonable time (after having plenty of rest), fueling your body, moving, and relaxing will set you up right for the day.
Whereas if you work early, you should finish earlier. Giving yourself time to switch off and relax in the evening is essential after a long day (even if you start work late). Enough time to switch off before bed will aid in a healthy sleeping pattern.
Your evening routine should consist of minimal technology, mindfulness (movement, yoga, meditation, reading, self-care), and nourishing foods to care for your mind and body after a stressful day building your empire.
Should Your Business Consider TV Ads?
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenCost
First, consider cost. If your business is working to an extremely tight budget, you may find that TV advertising of any worth is going to be a little out of reach. The cost of TV advertising varies drastically depending on a number of factors, including when the ad will be aired, what channel it will be aired on, what shows surround the ad space you’re looking into, how many people are likely to be reached and how long you want your ad to be. Shop around for a few quotes. You’re going to want to target channels and airtimes that you know your target demographic will be present for, so do a fair amount of research into this area.
Time
Next, consider the amount of time and resources it’s going to take for you to create a TV ad. If you haven’t created an ad before, this can be a steep learning curve and you may need to take time to recruit, learn or hire freelancers or agencies who can help with the entire process. There are plenty of resources out there, looking into niche areas that may help you. Law Firm Marketing: How to Audition Actors for TV Ads and Avoid Suprises Ads could be ideal for those considering law ads.
Impact
You also need to consider the impact that ads may have. Most companies who manage ad space and time on TVs will be able to provide you with plenty of in-depth information regarding ads and their likely results. This can be estimated based on previous companies’ ads and revenue for similar times and channels. You need to make sure that the anticipated revenue from your ad outweighs the costs of creating it.
Sure, TV ads might not be for everyone, but you may find that they’re a good option for your business. Keep the above advice in mind and see how you get on!
How to Create Your Unique Brand Voice
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenWhat is a Brand Voice and How Can It Be Created?
How can you create a unique voice for your brand? The new generation of brands are characterized by a distinctive voice, that is, the way in which they communicate with their customers. This unique voice is created through the use of digital marketing and branding.. The most common examples are logos and brand names that are used to convey information about the company’s identity, products or services.
Finding Your Unique Brand Voice in Today’s Market
In today’s world, the need for brands to be different is more important than ever. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you must create a brand that will be remembered for years to come. The key to building a unique brand voice is finding your own voice. You can do this by asking yourself questions about who you are and how you want to be perceived. You can then start to think about pulling together the personality of your brand and create content that fits within the voice to start creating your brand position.
Creating a Brand Position For Your Business
Branding is one of the key elements of any marketing campaign. It helps companies stand out from other competitors in the market and make them easy to remember. There is no doubt that branding is important for many businesses. But even if you are a small business owner, you will probably want to attract more customers and increase your sales. The best way to create a brand positioning for your business is to create an image that you can use for your business. This then allows you to place an image of your business in their mind about who you are and what you stand for.
Hiring the Best Content Writer For Your Business
Sometimes, it can be a great idea to hire a writer to help bring your brand voice alive. A content writer is the one who writes all the copy for your website, blog, newsletter and any other medium in which you want to communicate with your audience. You should hire a good content writer because they are highly skilled and have expertise in writing different types of content that your customers or potential customers might need. You need to make sure that you are hiring an experienced professional who knows what they are doing and can help you create high-quality content that will be of great value to your audience.
Why Understanding the Tech Skills Gap is Key to Your Long-Term Success
/in Talent Management/by StrategyDrivenTake the cybersecurity skills gap as a key example. In a recent survey, 85% of organisations said that a shortage of staff was affecting their ability to keep their IT systems and networks secure. And, the news only gets worse from there, as the same survey revealed 30% of current cybersecurity workers are considering a change of career path.
So, there can be no doubt that the tech skills shortage is real. Thankfully, by understanding it and reacting to the issue, businesses can actually be more successful in the long-term.
Retaining top talent
There can be no doubt that the tech skills gap has made it essential for businesses to retain their best staff. It is no good having a great recruitment procedure if those staff that you do hire have moved on within six months. Likewise, if you hire too few valuable tech staff and they have an unexpected absence, you might need to spend more of your hiring budget on some freelance or temporary back-up staff.
It is a much better idea to put a great deal of focus on retaining your top talent and giving them a great reason to stay via incentives, a great team atmosphere and running your business ethically. This can have the great knock-on effect, as tech staff are likely to have friends that work in the industry, and if they feel well treated, they might feel happy to recommend the business.
Broadening recruitment possibilities
It may be the case that you have always managed your recruitment in a certain way. However, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise in remote working and hybrid patterns, it is now possible to recruit from anywhere in the world. Broadening your potential talent pool gives you a great range of talent to choose from.
Working with contractors
You might not be aware of the scale of the need for tech-smart staff. For example, the average large organisation tracks 1.4 million issues through a single Jira instance. This shows the absolutely vital need to familiarise workers with technical products like Jira.
But if you can’t find specialist Jira professionals to hire, you might have to look at alternative options such as working with contractors. This can actually be very effective, as contractors can be hired for a specific period and simply to get a certain job done. This means you are hiring for exact needs.
Upskilling your team
Don’t forget that one way that you can overcome a lack of tech skills is to provide your team with new ones. Creating a great training program can help to upskill your workers with the skills that your business needs. In the modern-day office of flexible working, hot desking and the merging of work and personal devices for work purposes, being digitally and knowing how to use technology more effectively is more vital than ever.
Thorough cybersecurity training should be a key focus and an area within your tech and IT remit for staff that it is wise to consider throughout the year. It can’t be forgotten that staff are a vital part of good cybersecurity. If your team doesn’t have the knowledge to know how to deal with certain technical situations, investment in even the most powerful cybersecurity measures won’t be as effective as they should be. Therefore, it should be considered essential to provide staff with regular, basic and high-quality training on the latest cyber threats and what to do about them.
In general terms, ensuring that your company is digitally savvy can be a great way to advance your business for the future. Upskilling staff on a regular basis will also impress your team. They will feel more positive about your investment in them and your support in helping them to develop new valuable skills for their longer-term success.
How To Make Your Website Look Professional
/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by StrategyDrivenBut fear not because professionalism is something that you can always improve. In this blog, we’ll take a look at a few ways that you can push your professionalism levels in the right direction.
Invest in the Design
The look of your website is essential when it comes to making a positive first impression in the eyes of your visitors. You’ll know this from using the web yourself — you’ll be naturally skeptical if the site has a design that doesn’t look in line with modern standards. There are some standard design templates that you can add to your website, but if you really want to make a splash, then look at handing the job over to a design agency.
High Quality Text
The design of your website will draw people in. But it’ll be the quality of the words on the page that keep them there. A company could invest in good design, but if they don’t have high quality writing on their site, then it’ll be natural that people begin to have doubts. Excellent writing does two jobs. First, it shows that care has gone into the website. Second, it helps to convey the message that you want your visitors to receive. Convoluted or just all-around poor writing will have your visitors scratching their heads about what you really mean.
Professional Photos
You could have the best design and have your text written by Zadie Smith, but if you’re not also investing in professional photos, then your other efforts could be close to pointless. When it comes to your website, you can’t just use any old photos — you need to have high quality photos. Most people think that getting these will break the bank, but that’s not the case. There are plenty of free stock photos available that’ll give your site’s professionalism a nudge in the right direction without breaking the bank. It’ll also help to make your website more engaging for the user, too.
Contact Information
People naturally have doubts when there’s no way to get in contact with the owner of the site. This is especially true if you’re selling items. A contact form won’t suffice! It’s best to make as many contact options as possible available to your users. This will include a phone number, email address, live chat feature, and links to your social media accounts.
Regular Updates
Finally, be sure to keep things updated. A site that hasn’t been updated in months can make the website look dead. You can show the public that your site is alive and kicking even by doing something as simple as posting a weekly blog.