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How to Maximize Your Small Business Success

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleStarting or maintaining a small business is challenging and risky: your limited resources mean that your company is more susceptible than most to the tosses and turns of torpid financial tides. However, with the right planning towards optimal efficiency, you’ll be able to turn your small business into a profitable and risk-free enterprise that’s based on savvy decision-making and mature financial planning. This article depicts such a strategy for small businesses hoping to absolutely maximize their potential is often busy and turbulent marketplaces.

Cash flow

One of the major obstacles to business efficiency is a blockage in your cash flow. In plenty of scenarios, this means you’re unable to reinvest the money you’ve made through sales of products or services, which means your business plateaus on a certain level of business that prevents its exponential growth. To help avoid cash flow blockages, consider using Peerform peer to peer loans for speedy and well-established loan arrangements, up the $25,000 mark, which are provided with a competitive interest rate and with the benefit of your being able to adjust the loan amount and repayment schedule on a sliding scale, as it suits you and your business.

Marketing

Successful companies aren’t just good at what they do: they’re good at telling the world they’re good at what they do. To increase your visibility and draw in more customers, it’s therefore a crucial part of a small business’s strategy to plan marketing campaigns aimed at encouraging repeat customers and enticing new clients. You’ll be able to outsource this if you don’t have the capability to manage this in-house, or otherwise hire a digital-savvy employee to cover your branding, website, social media and marketing initiatives, with measurable data analysis showing you the success of your marketing endeavors.

Staff

The crux of a successful business is the staff that work the inner cogs of your intricate business plans and market penetration strategies. If your staff are unhappy or demotivated, you’ll be far off maximizing your potential as a company. In this sense, it’s well worth the investment of your time and occasionally of your money in order to boost morale, encouraging a more enthusiastic working ethos within your staff. Staff reward days and incentives will help you motivate your staff, as will personal meetings and benefits set-ups that will help your workers feel valued and cared for.

Strategy

The final component that contributes to a sound small business that’s using maximal efficiency to drive up its profits is the establishment of both long-term and short-term strategies that are aimed firmly at future growth. It may take weeks to draw up a sound strategy, and some small businesses like to use financial advisors and business strategy consultants to help formulate their ideas. However, on the whole, your strategy should guide all the efforts you make to become a well-performing, efficiency-saving and smart business with a model that maximizes your ability to profit and accrue new custom.

These four tips should be useful for any small business owner looking to further maximize their potential for sales, profits and growth.

Nathan Ives Listed as a StrategyDriven Trusted Services Partner

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StrategyDriven Service Provider NetworkStrategyDriven is proud to introduce Nathan Ives as our newest Trusted Services Partner!

Having completed our rigorous certification process, we found Nathan Ives to be a market leading service provider with proven client results.

Nathan Ives’ flagship website, www.StrategyDriven.com, hosts hundreds of digital products – ebooks, videos, podcasts, articles, and full-scope training programs – and is accessed by over 31,000 unique visitors viewing over 1.8 million webpages every month.

Nathan Ives provides services in the following areas:

  • Market: Marketing and Sales
  • Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship

About Nathan Ives

Nathan Ives’ creative genius drives the elegant professionalism of numerous online businesses and digital product platforms. His flagship website hosts 100s of digital products and has been visited by millions of people.

Learn more about Nathan Ives at: https://nathanives.com

About StrategyDriven

StrategyDriven provides executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior bottom line results. At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leader experts deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to tens of thousands of business leaders worldwide.

StrategyDriven Service Provider Network Provider Network Disclaimer

8 Reasons Your Business Should Have a Podcast

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales ArticlePodcasts have become incredibly popular in recent years. Consumers can access files they want via the internet, whether downloading them (like downloading videos) or streaming them and listening to the podcasts on their chosen device. Podcasts are not just a way to entertain the public – they are an invaluable tool for small business. Here are eight reasons your business should be considering podcasting as a marketing solution.

It Is the Best Alternative to Video Marketing

Video marketing has a high return on investment because it is so engaging. However, not everyone wants to shoot a video.

They may not have the right equipment. They may think the output won’t meet customer standards. They may not be comfortable in front of a camera, or they know they aren’t experienced dealing with lighting, sound, and backgrounds and know that mistakes here could ruin the shoot. The solution then is to go with a podcast, essentially the audio portion of a presentation.

Podcasts don’t have to be a lot of work. You could work with a company like AudioFile Solutions; they offer transcription services but specialize in podcast production. You could give your narration over the phone or in their studio, and they’ll do all the work from recording to editing, sound effects, and music.

It Gives You the Ability to Reach New Audiences

Podcasts are readily shared among those with similar interests or demographics. If you create an engaging podcast on a topic, it will get shared widely. People who haven’t seen your advertisements may hear your podcast as it plays on someone else’s speakers or see others mentioning it on social media. This can lead to increased traffic to your website.

You Generate Qualified Lead

A podcast is one of the most effective ways to get high-quality and organic leads. Podcasts that demonstrate your professional expertise or knowledge about a given area will generate far more qualified prospects. You’re essentially having a one on one consultation with a thousand potential customers, and a modest share of them could come to you for a paid consultation. The prospects that do arrive need less time to onboard. Those who are already customers remain loyal to you because of the podcast and are less likely to leave, so you don’t have to work to replace them.

It Is Affordable

Starting a podcast doesn’t take a lot of work. You’ll need a good quality microphone, though the one in your phone could be enough if you’re working with a third-party service. Editing software is cheap and generally easy to use, but you can also work with services that will edit, polish and package the final podcast into something you can upload to your website. If you don’t want to host the podcast files on your website, there are plenty of services that will allow you to host your podcast and promote it to your subscribers. And there’s always the possibility of your podcast getting sponsorships, making it not only affordable but turning it into another revenue source for your business as well.

You’re Adding Depth to the Relationship

Listeners often subscribe to a podcast series. They’ll regularly listen to new content, and they may peruse older podcasts. As long as you keep offering good content, your audience will probably keep listening.

Every session builds familiarity with the speaker and the brand. Because they’re listening, they feel like they’re part of the conversation. This helps build trust with your audience and increases the odds they’ll convert to a paying customer. They’re more likely to buy something from a friend, and after listening to your content for hours, they feel like you’re more a friend than a stranger. This explains why nearly two-thirds of respondents on a survey of podcast listeners said they’d bought something the host promoted.

You’ll Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

One of the benefits of doing a podcast is that you’re practicing your public speaking skills. You’ll develop a natural, easy going flow while speaking. You don’t need to be afraid of mistakes since they can be edited out, though you can also re-record the session. This practice will allow you to do much better in public speaking opportunities such as sharing a sales presentation.

No can Go Much more in Depth then Text

The average length for a blog post is around 700 words. That doesn’t seem a lot to go in-depth on any subject, but shorter blogs reflect the short attention span of most people when reading online posts.

On the other hand, the average podcast will have over 4,550 words of content. And if you asked a lot of people, most would probably answer that they would rather listen to a podcast then sift through 4,550 words of text. And that’s one of the reasons podcasts can be so powerful. They allow you to dig a lot deeper and cover every aspect of your topic while delivering it in an easily digestible way. This also allows you to showcase your knowledge better by speaking about various aspects related to the main topic as well.

Awesome Tool for B2B Businesses

According to a recent survey by Bredin, over one-third of small business owners listened to podcasts. And among that percentage, over half said that they listen to at least one podcast per week.
But this isn’t limited to small business owners. As a matter of fact, the percentage was even higher for bigger companies. The study found that over 70% of all business owners with 100 to 500 employees also listened to podcasts.

If you’re in a sector with high consumer value, podcasts are a sure bet. Podcasts seem to be especially effective in the legal, business, and financial field. It can also work in sectors like real estate as well, especially when showcasing a particular area or promoting high-end services, for instance.

Conclusion

Podcasts are an excellent marketing tool accessible to businesses of any size. Anybody can afford to start a podcast, but no one can afford to ignore their potential.

4 Ways to Safeguard a Company from Failure

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleWhile the abundance of tools and resources available online mean that this generation is arguably the best time in history to launch a new company, many startups are still sinking within their first few years of operation. Regardless of which industry you operate in, there are going to be expenses and risks that contribute toward the possibility of going under. Some business models carry fewer risks than others, but any time you go into business you’re taking on the fundamental risk that things might not go as planned. With that said, here’s a short but powerful list of four steps every company can take to ensure continuity and avoid closing down prematurely.

1. Study Safety and Redundancy

Occupational safety and operational redundancy are two factors that can cause serious financial, legal, and informational issues in the event of a mishap. Startup founders should immerse themselves in the research process and maybe even attend educational events like SeminarFest before officially launching any kind of business. Doing the research beforehand will ensure that you’re not surprised and overwhelmed by problems during the early stages of company operation. Of course, if your company is already doing business, it’s not too late to go back to the drawing board and make precautionary revisions.

2. Diversify Revenue Sources

Diversification is a classic concept that’s often pushed by successful entrepreneurs, and for good reason – it helps to have your eggs in many different baskets. Even within the confines of a single niche or industry, you can still diversify by obtaining more clients and pursuing more projects. You can also diversify your marketing efforts by targeting additional keywords, intersecting topics, and new demographics. Taking a multi-faceted approach will prevent your company from losing big when one source of revenue starts to dwindle or dry up.

3. Practice Stringent Hiring Techniques

Unless you’re running a one-person show, the success of your company is going to depend entirely on the skills and effort contributed by your employees. Thus, it’s imperative to create a strong foundation in the beginning by building the business around a staff of competent, experienced, credentialed, and collaborative individuals. Take time to screen plenty of candidates and consider offering appealing salaries and incentives to attract premium talent.

4. Use Performance Monitoring and Analytics

It’s possible to hire an all-star staff and still face operational deficiencies and suboptimal results. People don’t always live up to their track record, so it’s important to monitor or review employee performance and correspondence to ensure that everyone is carrying out their job duties in the most effective and efficient manner.

Taking Steps to Reduce the Probability of Failure

Ultimately, all of the tips suggested above should be thought of as core components to a much larger risk mitigation and prevention plan. Start by identifying the biggest risks your company faces, and then implement strategies to proactively address those potential issues. By operating with the “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” mindset, you can create backup plans that account for almost every possible cause of company downfall.

Important Things to Consider Before Starting Your Own Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleYou’ve got a great business idea that you’re pretty certain won’t fail. Perhaps you’ve got a crafty side to you and can make things you know people will want. Whatever your new business idea, there are a few things you should consider before you give up your day job and leap into working for yourself. Starting a new business can be very exciting, but it can also be very costly. Costs you’re not likely to get back if you don’t have a clear plan for the future!

The best place to start with your new venture is to write a business plan. It will help you decide whether your idea is as feasible as you think and give you some direction to follow. Draw up your business plan correctly, and it will provide you with a series of clear steps to follow. To help with your business plan, there are going to be some questions you need to ask yourself.

Do You Have Any Competition?

Is there anyone else doing what you want to do? Are they any good at it? Before setting up your own business, you need to do some research on the competition. It’s possible you could learn a lot from the mistakes they may have already made. You should also be able to gain an insight into what their customers appreciate. Look at what people are prepared to pay for the same kind of service or product you’ll be offering.

Who Will be Your Target Audience?

It’s extremely unlikely that your product or service will appeal to everyone, and even if it did, you’d need to narrow your audience down for marketing purposes. Consider the type of people who are going to want to pay you money and target everything at them. It will include your website, advertising and your marketing campaigns. If you’re not sure whether you’ve targeted the right audience, you can always send out a questionnaire. Alternatively, communicate with them via social media. There is another benefit to consulting with your customers; it will make them feel like they have a say, which will ultimately bring their loyalty and increase the chances of them making a recommendation.

Think About a Web Presence

It might surprise you to learn that as many as half of small businesses don’t actually have a website! Out of these, there are bound to be a large percentage that wants one but doesn’t know what to do about building one. If you’re likely to fall into this bracket, don’t worry because it is easier than you think. There are some pretty amazing web building tools that an absolute beginner will be able to understand. Even if you’re not planning to sell anything online, it is important to have an online presence. So many consumers do their research using their smartphones you’d be mad to miss out on such an opportunity.

What Payment Methods are You Planning to Accept?

This is particularly important if you’re planning to open an e-commerce store. There are a wealth of different payment methods you can choose to accept. However, it’s probably not wise to accept all of them. For example, will you accept credit cards or just debit cards? What kind of card provider would you prefer? Is PayPal going to be an option worth considering? Payments can also be made using:

  • Skrill
  • Bank transfer
  • Cash on delivery
  • Direct debit
  • Amazon payments
  • Payoneer
  • Checks

Do You Have Any USPs?

What are your USPs? They are unique selling propositions or points; it’s what will make you stand out from the competition. Is there anything special about what you’re offering? Are you offering something customers won’t be able to get anywhere else? Maybe the customer service experience you’re planning is what will make you stand out. Think about your angle and make sure everything is true to it.

How Are You Going to Fund Your Enterprise?

The ideal scenario would be for you to have enough money to fund your new business yourself. The truth of the matter is more likely to be that you will need to look for funding. Start with friends and family as they might be willing to help you out in the short term. You’ll also be able to avoid paying huge sums in interest payments. There may be business grants available in your location. If you’re struggling to finance your idea, then start small and prove to yourself that it works before looking further. This will also put you in a better position to approach banks or investors for their support.

There are numerous other things worth considering such as licenses, accountants, insurance, staffing requirements, bank accounts, partners, marketing your business and many more. Starting your own business is a big step to take, but as long as you have your realistic plan, you’re already on the right road to success.