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Exceptional Ways to Prep Your Company for Success (Before and After)

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Any business startup must do all it takes to ensure they don’t fail. And this also applies to companies that have been existing for more extended periods. According to studies done, many small businesses don’t make it past two years from when they got launched. While this can deter you from starting your own company, it should also be a motivating factor.

What most business owners fail to realize is that running a business is not a bed of roses. Many outside forces can have adverse outcomes on your startup that may automatically lead to losses and closure. All you ought to do is put your best foot forward and sacrifice everything you can for your business to succeed.

It is only natural for a business owner to be optimistic. An entrepreneur will start at a high note with many positive expectations of what impact their business can make. From the products, they will sell to the kind of profits they will reap.

Doesn’t this sound amazing? And it is possible to make it a reality only if you continue reading this post. If you want to start a business and ensure it succeeds in the long run, here are ways to achieve this.

Starting a Business

Have SMART Long-term Goals

The first way to prep your startup for success is by setting SMART goals. Whether you start with a short or long-term goal, you want to ensure the goals are smart.

This simply means they should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and within a given time frame. Doing this can help ensure that you prioritize what’s important and remain focused.

Start with a long-term goal. This is what your business intends to fulfill. It can also mean the kind of impact you want to make within your community. You can then set short-term goals to guide you in achieving the overall objective.

Be Sure of What You Want to Sell

Perhaps, one reason why most startups don’t succeed is due to a lack of product stability. This is where an entrepreneur starts selling a particular product, but they diversify and create a different one after two or three months.

Business experts have revealed that this is a lousy strategic move that business owners should avoid at all costs. Sure, product diversification is beneficial to a company, but it also comes with many risks that might impact your business negatively.

Therefore, when starting a business, you want to be sure of what you want to sell and stick with it until you gain market stability.

Know Your Target Audience

The next unique thing you ought to do to prep your business for success is know who your target market is. Are your products going to apply to the young generation, older people, children, people from a specific geographic location, and so on.

Knowing who your specific audience is right from the start can help ensure you create products that will match their needs. How? You may ask. Knowing what market you want to serve allows you to conduct in-depth research to identify all details about that market with little or no confusion. In the end, meeting the demands of your customers leads to business growth.

Research Your Competitors

Among the many brilliant ways to prep your business for success, none beats this one. Fundamentally, you should know who your competitors are before selling your products in the market. Doing this can help you in so many brilliant ways, which guarantees the success of your business.

Foremost, researching your competitors can help you know all things related to their products. From what they create and the quality to their delivery method and their customer service. And in case of a gap that needs filling, this is where your business comes in.

For instance, if they offer low-quality goods, you can find ways to create products with better quality. If they have inferior delivery methods, you can beat them to this by finding ways to deliver goods efficiently. This and many other flaws your potential competitors have can help you find ways to outstand leading to success.

Acquire the Best Resources

Lastly, you want to acquire the best resources to prep your company for outstanding achievements. Such resources include:

Employees

You want to be surrounded by the right people for specific tasks. This can ensure all business processes get conducted appropriately. With this, you ought to hire qualified employees who can help take your company to the next level.

Technology

The next business resource you should acquire to prepare your business for success is the right technology. Alongside this should be teams that know how to operate the technology.

Technology is one of the best tools a company should own if they want to reduce operational costs, beat competitors, create high-quality goods, and more.

Office Equipment

Lastly, ensure you have all the appropriate office equipment to aid in business functions. Such may include desks, chairs, coffee machines, printers, computers, and many others.

Running a Business

Now that you know how you should prep your startup for success. Here are ways to prep a business that has been in operation for more extended periods for success.

Invest in Your Employees

After hiring the right workers to carry out business activities, more needs to get done. Today, information is becoming obsolete within the blink of an eye. This also includes business processes and technology.

With this, you want to invest in your employees by improving the skills and knowledge to be at par with the latest technology, business processes, and information. Invest in their skills through the necessary training. Also, it would be best to invest in their well-being as healthy employees can help grow your business.

Innovate

This is a fantastic trick and one of the best ways to ensure your business succeeds. Most business owners tend to shy away from innovating, and this is entirely understandable. This is because the process of innovating within a company isn’t a walk in the park.

It is littered with many obstacles such as lack of funds, expertise, tools, information, and more. Fortunately, there are various companies you can follow such as Beachbody Company quality sourcing to learn how you can maneuver through business innovation correctly. This company is more than willing to partner with other businesses to make a difference through innovation.

Innovating is a surefire way to ensure your company remains up and running in the market. It can also have massive benefits such as increased sales, profits, boost your customer base, and many more you don’t want to miss!

Outsource Services

This is an incredible tip that involves getting particular services from experts. Today, businesses can outsource almost all services. This includes human resource management, IT, logistics, warehousing management, marketing, and more.

One significant benefit of outsourcing is improved business efficiency. Others may include sharing of risks, access to technology, access to markets, improved quality output, and access to information. Be a wise business owner and have the right people do what you are incapable of!

Digitize Your Business

There is no better way to prep your business for success in the long run than to go digital. The good news is that you can digitize almost all business processes. Though costly, it can help reduce costs in the long run.

You might want to start by getting rid of all hardcopy documents within your company. Have all data and information uploaded to the cloud where it can be secure, and you can access it anytime. Digitize how you recruit workers, your warehousing systems, logistics, and other processes.

This can save you time and money by improving how tasks get carried out. In the long run, this will boost the growth of your business.

Know Your Competitors Next Move

If you are still wondering how to prep your business for success, this is a unique tip to embrace in your endeavor. It is vital to know what your competitor is up to. While this can make you lose focus, it can help keep you woke as you will identify how to stand out from your competitors.

Please don’t make it a habit to know your competitors’ next move to make yours. Doing this can make you lose track of your main objective. Find a balance between these two. Know what your competitors are up to and at the same time find ways to achieve your main goal.

Form Business Partnerships

A business partnership is an excellent way to grow your business. While it has many positive outcomes, you should also be keen on the risks of this strategic move.

A business partnership may offer many benefits such as more capital, moral support, sharing risks, boost innovation, access to technology and knowledge, and tax benefits.

While this sounds intriguing, you might want to know of the downside of forming a business partnership. Disadvantages include a lack of stability and trust, contract complications, liabilities, and loss of autonomy, to mention a few. Knowing the advantages and weaknesses can help you make a solid decision.

It would be best to plan for when things don’t go accordingly and when they do. This can help you maintain growth stability for your business. With the above pointers, this should be more than manageable. Ensure you consider some if not all the above factors which can help you grow your business.

7 Pro Tips and Tricks to Develop and Grow a Business Online

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Grow a Business Online|7 Pro Tips and Tricks to Develop and Grow a Business OnlineIt’s necessary for many businesses both big and small, to get themselves online. A lot of business can be done online and many forms of communication and collaboration is done through the internet. With that being said though, not every business is switched on or knows exactly how to utilize the world wide web in order to benefit from it.

If you’re looking to help tap into the online market, then here are seven pro tips and tricks to develop and grow a business online.

1. Cross-promote your channels for maximum exposure

Cross-promotion is an effective way of reaching a wider audience and for getting maximum exposure. If you think about your following and where your audience is found, it’s likely to be in different places. Whether that’s on your website, through your social media handles, etc. by linking them altogether and cross-promoting, you increase growth on all your platforms.

You may also find that some of your followers on one platform are not following you on another or aware of its existence. From an SEO standpoint, it can be helpful to link your pages elsewhere in order to help tell Google that it’s a quality link and deserves to rank higher as a result. After all, impressing the search engines is what will likely increase the amount of traffic that you drive to these pages.

So with that being said, where it’s possible, try to find ways to cross-promote in whatever you post online. It can be a webpage on your website that links to your Instagram or it could be a link to your website via the description in a YouTube video.

It’s worth having a check-list of cross-promotion that you can do when it comes to every bit of content you produce over all of the platforms available to you.

2. Optimize your website and make it mobile-friendly

Optimizing your website is important for SEO and ensuring your website is ranking as high as it can on the search engines. One of the biggest influences for your website’s optimization is to make it mobile-friendly.

Think about it, how many people do you see using their phones on a daily basis in comparison to using a desktop computer or laptop? For those on their daily commute, they spend almost all of their time on the phone when traveling via public transport. With that being said, it’s more likely that they’ll browse your website via their mobile phone.

According to Perficient, ‘68.1% of all website visits’ in the year 2020 came from mobile phones. With over half using mobile devices, it’s essential to focus your efforts in optimizing your website to perform properly whilst on a mobile.

There are tools that you can utilize in order to test how mobile-friendly your website currently is and how you can then improve on that going forward. By improving mobile functionality of your site, you’re likely to see more engagement and prolonged use of the website too. When a website doesn’t work properly on any device, the user is more likely to bounce off it than to try and reload it.

3. Strengthen your online security to protect your data

With GDPR compliance regulations in place, it’s now even more important that you’re being very careful with how you handle and store your customer’s data, as well as your own. Osanos GDPR guide is a great place to start if you need a better understanding of making your business compliant.

So what can you do to help strengthen your online security? Well, for many businesses nowadays, outsourcing IT services can be an effective way of protecting your business not only from the threat of cyber attacks but also to strategize and organize your business data.

It’s good to have your business data more accessible to your employees and for sharing with any outside sources where necessary. Cloud services tend to be very reputable nowadays, even if they did start off with a few teething problems. As technology improves, cloud computing and remote working does seem to be a direction in which many businesses will be heading.

Finding weaknesses in your online security is only going to help strengthen your networks and to ensure you reduce the chances of becoming victim to a cyber attack.

4. Always look to create quality content over quantity

As much as it can be necessary to create lots of quantity content, it’s often more beneficial to focus on the quality of the content you provide.

The challenge is how busy and noisy the online world can be. Just take Twitter for example, where there’s around ‘6,000 tweets’ tweeted every second of the day. Now that rakes up to an incredible amount of tweets per day, so that one or two posts you make could easily get lost.

However, it’s better to concentrate on how your content can be improved and therefore attract the algorithms that are in place with these platforms to promote your content above other profiles and more importantly, your competition.

When it comes to creating content, think about what your audience would enjoy engaging in and whether it provides value to the reader. There are going to be some topics that might not seem so interesting to write about but may be useful information for the audience to know about. Some tips for creating quality content include:

  • Research and have a backlog of ideas available.
  • Apply data and link to other resources.
  • Structure your content so that it’s easily digested.
  • Incorporate imagery and grammar-check.

These are just a few tips but implementing them when it comes to your content, could make the difference between a post that’s average and something that’s viral-worthy.

5. Collaborate with other businesses

Collaboration is something that can have a mutually beneficial objective for all parties involved. However, not all businesses take advantage of the networking opportunities that can come from being online.

Sometimes using creative ways to engage employees can be helpful for helping with collaboration and the same thing should be done with those outside of the company too. Think about the businesses that align with your values and perhaps could offer something that you’re lacking currently.

Perhaps they’ve got more access to your audience and in return, you might have the tools and resources available to bring to the table. Collaborating with other businesses can bring around future business and you never know who will help influence your company’s growth and success.

6. List yourself on all reputable web directories

Even though they may sound a little old-fashioned in comparison to promoting your business via social media platforms, web directories still serve substantial benefits as a business. It’s all about finding the most reputable and engaged web directories available.

So if you’re looking for the best ones out there, a quick Google search is likely going to pull up some good ones. Just a few examples that are worth using right now would be Yell.com, Google My Business and Yelp. These are great platforms for spreading consumer awareness of your business being available online.

Be detailed in your bio or description so that the person engaging with the web directory, finds yours to be the one that is right for them and their needs. The beauty of the internet is that you can find just about anything and everything. The downside though is that as the internet continues to grow, competition comes with it.

By investing a bit of time and effort into creating these listings, you’re going to hopefully see a big difference to the amount of potential customers you end up attracting. Make sure you include everything and anything that will help promote the business.

7. Make your platforms universally accessible

It’s important that as your business grows, you’re also keeping an eye on who is seeing your business online. After all, the internet is a global network and your company might be attracting overseas customers as well as those local to you. With that being said, it’s worth making your platforms more universally accessible.

One way of doing this could be through transcription services and perhaps finding ways to caption and translate the content you provide. This can be easily done via your website but you may also want to create content in other languages when it comes to things like your email marketing for example.

A good way to assess your customer base is by looking at the analytics that your platforms provide you and that are mostly available for free. These will be able to tell you where your audience is from, their ages and gender, etc. All of this can be really useful and valuable information to help further improve your marketing as a business.

Developing and growing a business online takes time and it’s something that many businesses should be doing actively. The future of the online world is one that’s going to remain, so it’s good to take advantage of what it can offer you right now and in the future.

About the Author

Natalie Redman is a freelance writer for a wealth of clients including Skale. Natalie has over two years of copywriting experience and provides both web page content for businesses and blog content.

Owner of two blog websites, UpYourVlog and Tilly & Rouge, she also works as a social media influencer and runs a crime YouTube channel in her spare time!

Best Ways To Enhance Your Clients Reports

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Client Reports|Best Ways To Enhance Your Clients ReportsEnsuring that your client gets the best quality service from you is a must, regardless of the amount that they are paying you per month. So why not better the experience with a tailored report. To help you out, we will be providing you with a few simple ways that you can enhance your client reports with ease.

Know What Your Client Wants

When you are looking to enhance your client reports, it is important to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your client. By having open communication with you and your clients, you can begin to customise the reports for your clients and ensure that they have all the data that they need all saved within a template to benefit to you in the long term.

Ensure That All Key Data Is Reported On

In addition to making sure that the report you are generating a report that has everything that they require, it is important to make sure that you are ensuring that all the key data is reported on. By using accounting software to help you with this, you can ensure that all data is monitored with ease. Whether this is a report for your own business or a report for a client, having all this information available to you, will make generating the report much easier. Whether you decide to use all the data or you only select parts of it, the information some help you over time.

Avoid Jargon That Could Confuse Clients

When you have inputted all the data into your client reports it is then time to make sure that you avoid as much jargon as possible. By using language that is easy to read, you can ensure that they are happy with the report that they are getting and are able to understand. By minimalizing the amount of jargon that is present in the report, you can ensure that your client can easily digest the information that is being given to them throughout the contents of the report.

Write A Report That Showcases Your Companies Personal Style

When you are looking to write a report it is important to include your companies own personal style within there as well. Whether you are adding your own branding to the corner of each slide or you are adding a colour theme, there are several ways that you can begin to generate a report that showcases your company as well as theirs in a professional manner. These templates can also be used for pitches and several other important documentation to showcase your business in the best possible light with every single piece of official documentation that you send out.

With this in mind, there are several options out there for you to choose from when you are looking to enhance your client reports. Which of these tips and tricks will you be using to enhance not only your internal reports but client reports moving forward.

Building A Friendly Digital Marketing Plan For 2021

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Forbes magazine wrote early on in the pandemic, and further identified that a key component in responding to the crisis lies in digital transformation. Many businesses have identified the opportunity and are working to strengthen digital marketing activities. At a time when flights are being canceled and business gates are closing or shrinking, digital marketing serves as an active channel with no boundaries of time zones and geographical boundaries and allows for business activity, capacity expansion and more. The way in which we used to market traditionally is changing, in all areas. In B2B, too, most of the marketing activity has gone digital So what do we identify? And how are you prepared? As a trend, there is more activity online, literally in the amount of surfing hours. More and more people are using the internet, therefore, marketing is making a larger switch from traditional to digital; even more so than the beginning of the century.

Many work from other work environments than usual or from home and surf from mobiles for their business needs as well. The big advertising companies have identified this and lowered advertising rates during the crisis. Those who continued to advertise gained an opportunity for exposure and prominence. Now, even in B2B, contact is also made through social networks, including requests for technical specifications and quotes. This direct connection with the buyer, sometimes gives a close look at our new and potential customers beyond those we have known so far. Digital marketing has turned a marketing effort into the center of gravity of the business – a channel open to communication 24/7 So what exactly is the change in marketing channels?

Changes across all areas

Network exposure has more value today If network advertising was once considered a luxury and a place for updates for special activities or consumed by certain populations for certain needs, digital channels are now a cornerstone of any business – a real mouthpiece and a direct means of receiving inquiries and providing a truly valuable response to customers. The demographics of the seekers have also changed and millennials now make up the majority of buyers.

With more and more customers turning to technologies and online platforms for their day-to-day needs, businesses need to make an aggressive transition. By working with a reputed digital marketing company, they can hope to build and improve digital performance on search engines and social media platforms. This can help them drive awareness for their brand, connect with target audiences, build branding and ultimately contribute to sales, revenues and profits. Being successful on digital platforms requires a sustained approach that needs to be both unique as well as innovative.

Studies show that B2B buyers conduct online research just like a final consumer, before turning to a company. That is why, having a great online presence is going to help sell the business. People put trust and faith into a company that has a good online reputation, a good website, easy contact information and they can see what other people are saying about the brand too. The discourse is moving to digital and digital marketing channels have become power multipliers. With direct inquiries and targeted messages, it is possible to reach a variety of target populations and audiences and generate exposure to potential customers and even, generate interest and receive real inquiries. And this investment is long-term. A successful infrastructure will serve you well even when you decide to open an online store or a special area for distributors to download content and marketing tools efficiently and quickly. All together it will create a complete ecosystem that is your new business environment. It’s time to renew things! Companies are also exploring saas marketing in 2021 which is something to read up on.

How does digital transformation serve us?

It is definitely worth establishing digital marketing capabilities because our customers, business partners and distributors are already changing their behavior according to constraints and should be prepared accordingly. The expectation of easy and convenient access to information about the service or product you are looking for, accessibility to contact, receiving a quick and even immediate response requires preparation accordingly, including automation for response in other time zones. The gates have opened and we can work globally and now more easily than before. Budgets vacated from canceled exhibitions and flights, can now be invested in activities that will benefit us and can be measured live. No need to wait – the results are noticeable straight away because as with anything on the internet, there is instant gratification. The questions to be asked are: Are you interested in the ad, commenting on the message and contacting us? And who exactly is the company? Where is it located? People can find this information immediately on social channels and therefore these are the channels to invest in and how to direct the annual budget.

Building an ecosystem for winning digital marketing

We will donate a lot if we know how to appear and be exposed on a variety of platforms, of course in accordance with our product or service. As we create a denser ecosystem, we will increase the chance of creating a hook that will raise the next lead. In the components of the ecosystem, it is worth preparing the following:

  • Understanding your target audience – what and where they are looking for.
  • Original professional content with a tailored answer
  • Reviews of the product and services
  • Visual materials match for prominence and reinforcement

Visual content

The visual content is already used for searches in a variety of channels, including of course shopping through online advertisements. Interactive content such as surveys, 360 greatly raises the interest as well as video and voice search is also here and the preparation for it should include reference to the manner and length of the wording. Mobile adaptation is of course a must in an age where browsing is done from anywhere, individual-level appeal whether on mailing or ad platforms also yields better results than general inquiries to our audience made up of individuals who appreciate addressing their unique need – even when the customer is a company.

Business flexibility

A long-term strategy is a necessity for the business, but the recent period has shown us how important it is to be prepared even with short-term goals and objectives for quick wins. It all depends on the general business purpose of the company, of course. Accordingly, metrics will be set, accurate and improved as the process progresses. It is important to understand the great advantage in that with one click, a campaign can go up and down, a target population can be created for us based on insights and increasing the exposure is also possible relatively easily by budgeting. It’s time to make the most of 2021!

Government Funding Can Elevate Your Business: But Know What You’re Getting Into

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Government Funding|Government Funding Can Elevate Your Business: But Know What You’re Getting IntoFunding is always at the top of mind for small business owners. From startup costs to expansion, your current cash flow dictates how you structure your business and plan for the future.

There are as many different funding stories as there are businesses. Venture capitalists, self-funding, crowd-funding, and loans can all be a good fit at times, but in some industries, government grants are the easiest, fastest way to grow.

There are pros and cons to working with government funding, but if you go into the process armed with facts and flexibility the pros generally outweigh the cons.

The upside to government funding

Government funding is appealing for obvious reasons. It’s generally free to apply for and, unlike a loan, doesn’t need to be paid back. Most government programs also offer some form of mentoring service or access to research and development opportunities. With more resources at your fingertips, you can level up your skills as a business owner.

Government grants also provide instant credibility to your organization. Having the backing of a state, federal or national agency shows that you have a solid plan and beat out other proposals. That vote of confidence can go a long way in attracting customers and investors.

Do your homework

As with most things in business, working with government funding is complicated.

Finding grant opportunities is generally as simple as searching the internet, but finding the right opportunities is a different matter. Government grants generally have a focused set of goals and strict requirements. Applying for grant money that isn’t a good fit is a waste of time.

Once you’ve identified a solid funding opportunity, it’s good to do some background research on the grant process in general. Things move fast in the corporate world, but the government operates a little differently. Expect the process of applying for and being awarded funding to take at least 6 months.

You should be prepared for the complexity of the process, as well. Missing technical details can disqualify your application. Plan on turning everything in ahead of schedule, so you have time for last-minute additions and corrections.

Know the cost

While government grants don’t drain your financial resources directly, don’t be fooled into thinking there is no cost associated with them.

Once you get through the application process, if you’re awarded a government grant, there are conditions attached. You’re expected to provide regular reports, which means a lot of paperwork and a large time investment. You are responsible for the administration of the funds, and must stick with the plan you outlined in your application.

In some cases, you might also be asked to participate in PR efforts, giving press interviews or meeting with government officials. Think of these events as opportunities to put your business in front of new audiences.

An influx of cash is always welcome, but when it comes through bureaucratic means, you will be pulled into some red tape.

Have a plan B

When working with the government, you are at the mercy of the political landscape. This means that the people you work with, policies and procedures, and departmental goals can change every couple of years.

An awarded grant is like a contract––the money that you’ve received or are due to receive over the course of a year or two won’t be affected by every election. That said, you need to be aware of politics, shifting legislation and administrations when working with government agencies. Electoral results can definitely have implications for future funding opportunities.

Grants also run out after a set period of time, and it’s not guaranteed to be renewed. Using government funding to add to your business is a good plan, but relying too heavily on that money can set you business up for failure if it falls through. Plan ahead, and have an exit strategy if you don’t receive grant money in the future.

Conclusion

Government grants are an incredibly useful tool for small business owners, but navigating the process takes patience and real work. Understand the advantages and disadvantages before diving in, have a backup plan, and you’ll be well prepared to take advantage of the valuable programs available to small business owners.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Tim CarterTim Carter is an entrepreneur and the owner of Discovery Tree Academy, a top rated childhood development center with locations in Springville and Payson, UT. Tim began his entrepreneurial journey at the young age of 19. He has experience in sales, professional cooking and is even a licensed pilot. Weaving his diverse talents together, Tim is on a mission to create a better childcare model. His passion lies in helping kids thrive, including his own daughter and twin toddlers at home.