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Preparing Your Store so You Attract Customers and Keep Them Coming Back for More

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Preparing Your Store so You Attract Customers and Keep Them Coming Back for MoreTake in every part of your business, from the dingy store counter to the floors that have clearly seen better days. If your first thought is about how your business needs a makeover, keep reading for tips on making your space seem fresher while following the ADA guide, and keep your customers coming back for more.

Lighten the Rooms Up

When you walk into a dark space, you feel that you have no options. Unfortunately, many people don’t like this and will leave a store that is too dark. This can be costly for your business, especially if repainting isn’t an option that will help. Fortunately, the easiest way to brighten up a room is to tackle the floors.

Often, hardwoods can become dirty easily but are still salvageable. They need a good cleaning and refinishing. If you have painted concrete, you can also give this an update. Your first option is to repaint it with a lighter color and keep it clean. Or, for a lower maintenance option, you can install linoleum or similar material over the concrete. Just remember to keep the floor in touch with your main theme.

Move the Counters

One of the biggest problems stores face is the layout. Sometimes things are arranged in a way that cuts off sightlines and makes walking around confusing. Plus, many stores place their displays too close to the walls, which cramps up their counter attendants. If these problems sound familiar, you should consider investing in smaller counters, such as the ones Hestra offers, that can be placed in the center of your shop. That lets customers easily walk around your counters.

Start this process by setting up folding tables where you want your counters to go. Then, think about where you will place all your items. You don’t want anything important to be stashed into an unfrequented corner. You also want to avoid allowing anything to block your customers’ line of sight. Lastly, ensure nothing offputting is located at the entrance to your store. Remedying these problems can freshen up your shop’s layout, making it more attractive to customers.

Get Some Coolers Up and Running

Call your local distributor and have some coolers brought in. Have plenty of space that offers cooled items, whether it is fresh produce or something else. Many people are thrilled to see local products, such as cheeses, to snack on after shopping. When you figure out what cool products you want to offer, make sure they have enough light.

Don’t be afraid to paint your coolers, so they match your shop’s theme. Then, keep them out in the open, but don’t block your customers’ lines of sight. Also, get rid of any unnecessary racks for merchandise. At first, this may sound like a bad idea. However, having too many racks can make them get dusty and leave your inventory spread out, which can make your store appear old. Instead of relying strictly on racks, try fun ideas, like hanging merchandise on the walls. You can also try built-in options which may make your space seem more homely.

Give the Space a Makeover

Aside from these, figure out ways to make your space cosmetically appealing. The easiest things to do include figuring out ways to let more natural light in and painting the walls. Also, during your makeover, clean every surface thoroughly. Finally, if you’re changing the layout, think about how you want people to walk through your stores and place your displays accordingly. At the end of the day, make sure you highlight all of your products and that they are well lighted. By the way, lose the spinning racks because they will date your store.

Get Rid of Some Merchandise

If you want to bring in the new, get rid of the old. Even if you love something, don’t keep it in your store if it doesn’t sell. Instead, mark it down and don’t restock those items. They are simply a waste of space on your shelves.

Sometimes, it takes work to get your shop set up properly. However, taking the time to freshen up your space will help you attract new customers and keep them coming back to visit. So get started on your store’s makeover today.

The 4 Best Ways To Save Money On Your Printing

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The 4 Best Ways To Save Money On Your PrintingThere are a lot of ways to save money for your business but one that is often overlooked is printing. It seems like a given that your printing costs a certain amount of money that is more or less fixed. When looking to cut wasteful spending on expenses, printing is rarely considered.

Yet, there are a lot of ways to get your printing done in a much more economical way. Cutting these expenses down will go a long way toward keeping your company in the black. In this article, we will go over several ways to save money on your printing needs.

1 – Enterprise printing

Having specialized printers for your company can be quite expensive. They are expensive to buy and to maintain. For instance, if you have printing needs for perforated paper then it can be quite costly to buy the printer, the paper and have people specially trained to use them.

Instead, outsource your printing to a specialist enterprise printer. These companies have a full range of printers and paper so they can handle whatever your orders are. Their staff are properly trained and they keep the printers fully maintained at all times.

You will never have any printing downtime and you won’t be paying for printer repairs when they inevitably break down.

2 – Go monochrome

Colored ink is very costly. When you print papers that have colors that are not necessary to the document it costs far more money than you should be spending on ink. For instance, if the paper has headers in another color or there are logos on the document that will be copied.

These are items that have nothing to do with the purpose of the document and can be eliminated. Use a monochrome, or black and white printer, and it will save you money since black ink costs far more than colored.

3 – Go paperless

While no business can go 100% paperless, there are a lot of things that don’t need to be printed. If you go paperless then you are stripping down your printing needs to the bare essentials.

For instance, many documents can be scanned and then shared via the cloud. Even documents that need to be signed can be done electronically so there is no point in which they need to have a physical copy made.

One issue is that to be 100% paperless would require every employee to have a smartphone or tablet to be able to properly share documents at any time. However, there will still be some printing that needs to be done so you can just pay for those few documents.

4 – Use tracking software

One way to save on printing is to know how much you are doing. Install some tracking software that will register every print job from type of paper to how much ink is used. This way you can analyse the data at the end of the month and see where there are opportunities to save money.

Losing Sight of These Three Things Will Tank Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Losing Sight of These Three Things Will Tank Your BusinessIt is not just about sales. Take a good look around the company. Have you noticed that sales is not the only department? It isn’t even the biggest department. Truth be told, it isn’t where your biggest brains work. You don’t need an MBA to be a great salesperson. Too much education can actually be a liability in the sales department. Some of your best salespeople are the ones who partied too late, drank too much, and slept it off in their car. They stopped by the apartment just long enough to take a shower, change clothes, grab a burrito, and show up late for work. It isn’t glamorous. But that’s the stuff of sales.

Don’t worry about those guys. They’re going to get the job done because that’s what they do, with or without a hangover. Believe it or not, your company probably has bigger concerns than the miscreants on your sales team. It is often the case that great sales hide big problems in your organization. You can’t just look at how sales is doing to gage the health of your company. If you take your eyes off the following, you won’t have a company for very long:

Expenses

In the hierarchy of budgetary items, the telecom portion of the budget has moved from number 10 to number five. This is why telecom expense management is so important. According to the experts,

“…telecommunications spending is expected to grow even more in the coming years. TEM cannot stem the tide; however, it can help manage the costs, which can lead to controllable growth within the budget.”

It is a mistake to equate cutting costs with cutting services. You are going to have to use prodigious amounts of telecommunications. That is not going to change. But within that usage and the way your services are structured, you can find dozens of inefficiencies that are costing thousands of dollars that you don’t have to spend.

It is not just about telecom. The same is true for your power usage. Your impact on the grid is a reality that can be reduced with the right plan. You do not have to stop using electricity to power your lights. But you could build your offices and factories in such a way that they take in more natural light. Your small to medium-sized enterprise is most certainly has wasteful expenses. Keeping them under control is just as important as a good quarter of sales.

Logistics

If you are not careful, you can lose all your gains in sales to logistics. There is nothing more frustrating to a sales person than to win a new client only to lose them over the inefficiencies of another part of the company. Courier mistakes can cost you clients. The longer it takes your company to ship out an order, the longer a client has to change their mind. That happens a lot with those clients that were on the fence in the first place.

Clients will not be happy doing business with you a second time if they feel like they were taken for a ride with regard to shipping and handling fees. You have to compete with Amazon, a logistics company. They are so good at it, Amazon is delivering packages for their competitors. That is what your customers are comparing you to. Don’t make the mistake of taking logistics for granted because if you do, you will find yourself in a hole that even sales can’t get you out of.

Social Media

You don’t have the luxury of hating Facebook and Twitter. As a businessperson, you have to learn to love social media. And if you can’t quite bring yourself to do that, you at least need to learn to master it. Like it or not, your clients are on social media, and they are making decisions about whether or not to do business with you. If you are not the one telling your story to the world, others will step in and do it for you. No sales team can turn the tide of a story that has turned against you.

By all means, keep an eye on sales. But don’t blink with regard to expenses, logistics, and social media.

How to Manage International Expansion

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How to Manage International ExpansionOverseas expansion represents a hugely valuable opportunity for any business, regardless of what industry they are in. Managing international expansion is a very exciting job prospect that also comes with a great deal of responsibility. This article has been created to help you understand how you can easily and effectively manage your business’ international expansion.

Create a Clearly Defined Timeline

The first step to successfully managing international expansion is to create a clearly defined timeline. With so much to consider and different factors to think about, a clearly defined timeline is key. You should outline everything that needs to be done and who is responsible for which jobs.

In your international expansion timeline, you should try to add in as many short-term goals as possible. Try to make these goals as clear and quantitively accessible as possible. Doing this will mean that you are able to measure goals as you go, which will allow you to evaluate progress and restructure if necessary.

Use Translation Management Software

Smartling describes how translation management software is key to successful international market expansion. When you are looking to expand to international markets, it is very likely that you are going to be operating in languages and cultures that and are outside of your own. If this is the case, you should be using translation management and localization software to ensure you are able to effectively communicate with your new target audience.

Outline All Rules and Regulations

When you are expanding into new markets you will likely have to consider a number of rules and regulations including, employment laws, taxation and product restrictions. Before you begin any active stage of expanding your business into a new market you need to outline all rules and regulations that might apply. Sorting these considerations out early will help you to ensure that you are not risking the future of your business by not complying with restrictions.

Use Cloud Computing and Communication Software

When you are managing an international expansion it is likely that you will work with a range of different people, possibly in a number of different countries. You should utilize the right software to ensure that the quality of communications is not limited by geographical locations.

You should use cloud computing solutions so that everybody who is working on the project is able to access all the necessary information, no matter where they are. You should also upload all relevant planning information, like your timeline and contact details of everyone involved in the project.

Using communication software can be a vital step for managers looking to maintain a high quality of communication. Communications software as the platform can facilitate a range of different types of communication, from direct message to group video meetings.

Project management software is another useful resource that managers might choose to utilize during your expansion process. Project management software can help you to stay on top and up to date with any progress that is being made in real-time, reducing the chances of unexpected delays.

The Best Software to Improve Operational Efficiency

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article | The Best Software to Improve Operational EfficiencyOperational efficiency is the process of delivering quality services with fewer resources. The more high-quality output you can produce with limited input, the more you can sell and the better able you are to serve your customers. When your business is able to maintain high levels of operational efficiency the more profit you are able to make from a project. So, with all the benefits offered, all businesses should be looking to improve their operational efficiency today.

Accounts Payable Automation Software

AP automation software can help you to improve the operational efficiency of your accounts processes. No matter the size of your business or the scale of your operations, you will benefit from using an AP automation system. The software helps you to automate every related process, from invoicing to manual checks, helping you to save both time and money.

Problems with cash flow and accounts can cause issues above and beyond operational efficiency. For example, when you experience issues with accounts and your staff are not getting paid on time, this can lead to low morale, poor worker wellbeing and increased staff turnover.

Chatbots

Chatbots are another very valuable piece of software that businesses can use to improve their operational efficiency in their customer service teams. Chatbots can be set up to answer many routine customer questions, which means that staff can spend their time on more critical tasks.

Not only does using chatbot technology help you to improve the operational efficiency of your customer service teams, but it also benefits your customer relations. The average customer expects an answer from a customer service representative instantly, which means, within 10 minutes from making contact. Chatbots will provide customers with that instant response they desire no matter the time of day, or day of the week they are contacting you.

Employee Engagement Software

The term employee engagement is used to describe the relationship your staff have with their work and your organization. An engaged employee is absorbed in their work and will go above and beyond to further the interest of the organization they are working for. In contrast, a disengaged employee will do the bare minim work and is either apathetic to the organization or might actually try to harm the business’s reputation.

Using employee engagement software can help you to track levels of engagement in your organization. This can help in everything from task allocation to hiring, all of which can help to boost operational efficiency.

Project Management Software

Project management software is another hugely valuable tool that you can use to improve operational efficiency in your business. Project management software enables you to track the progress that is being made with all staff members that are involved in the project.

When managers have access to the up-to-date information that is provided by the software, they are better able to identify potential drains on efficiency. When you are able to identify when progress is not being made as expected, you are able to make changes early on.