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A breakdown of different types of consultants

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | A breakdown of different types of consultantsThere are many types of consultants to choose from. A lot of people think that consulting is all strategy-driven, where companies hand a few slips of paper to the CEO and then leave. But this is not actually the case; there are all kinds of companies offering advice right along the value chain. This is why it is vital that you do your research into the kind of consultants you need for your organization and think about the types of problems you are experiencing.

1. Strategy consultants

Strategy consultants are the most obvious type of consultant. They are often slightly more expensive and have access to the CEO suite because they affect executive decisions. They give advice on the fundamentals of a business, such as pricing, product mix, and target market. They make decisions on the basis of profit margins, thinking about sales and costs and how to maximize the former and minimize the latter. They often work longer hours but do shorter projects because they have less need to engage with employees across the company, and a lot of their time will be spent on crunching numbers.

2. Technology consultants

Technology consultants will look at the IT systems which a company has in place and think about whether they are working as well as they could be for both the employees and the customers. In this digital age, technology is extremely important as customers often expect a seamless experience. Businesses often go to firms such as HLB System Solutions for longer-term solutions, including managed IT services. Often consultants in this area can tell companies how to migrate their systems across from legacy infrastructure to cloud computing, which can be more efficient for all concerned.

3. Operations consultants

Operations consultants look at the processes in place across the organization. They think about whether things could be done more efficiently. They may look at sourcing and where products come from, in addition to whether the cost makes sense and whether any element of the supply chain could be changed. They may look at executing projects or suggestions put forward by strategy consultants. They tend to spend a lot longer at organizations than strategy consultants because they need to be there through all the stages of implementation.

4. People consulting

Last, but far from least, in these times, HR is the most important function in a company. This is where people advisory services come in – they can understand what employees need to be more engaged and how to serve them better. They can also understand what competencies are needed for the job at hand and how those employees at the firm can meet those requirements by initially creating a checklist of different competencies, surveying employees on what they know, and then working with firms to fill in those gaps. This may be through training or learning and development – there are so many tools they have at their disposal.

There is bound to be the right kind of consultant out there for you – it’s just a question of what type you need!

How Your Business Can Become Christmas-Proof

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As we draw closer to the festive season, business owners need to be wary of the holiday rush. Just because the world has been in lockdown for so long, doesn’t mean that you can take your foot off the gas. All market indicators are showing that we will, in fact, see the same old surge around the festive season, despite most customers not shopping in-person. Online shopping dictates everything, and for the most part, has done so for the better part of a decade. But, with this comes new and old challenges, as every business needs to be sharp and ready in inventory management, sales, marketing, customer service, and invoices. This is how you can keep your business up and running, without backlogs and hiccups during the holiday rush.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How Your Business Can Become Christmas-Proof

Conduct a health risk assessment

In a risk assessment, you’re not just calculating the health and safety risks, but also the threats to your business. Customers and staff are equally as important, don’t forget this! As the number of cases rises in the Coronavirus, the threat of spreading occurring in your business rises too. This is why whether you’re still working in the office or working from home, you should take the same precautions or have precautions in place. Here’s what you need to do safety-wise.

  • Determine whether any activities you have to do, could promote transmission? Do you work in the office alongside employees? How can everyone avoid getting the virus? Wear masks, have hand sanitizer bottles on the desks, and keep airflow strong in the office.
  • Your workers in warehouses and or production plants need to take similar precautions. They should also be wearing protective gloves if they can, and making sure that they are aware of tight spaces, gathering and a lack of airflow.
  • Determine how likely you can control a spread if it occurs. Do you have a track and trace system you can use? Can you give employees sick pay, to keep them at home? Can you ask them to work from home if they do strike positive for the virus?

Analyze the competition

Alongside your own desires as a business, you need to study and know your competition. For example, you should be keeping tabs on your rivals, seeing what kind of marketing ploys they have, what kind of sales, discounts and deals they are offering, as well as what kind of products they are going to be selling alongside yours. In the latter, you need to know the pricing, quality and branding efficacy, etc.

Some rivals will be pitching to your consumer base, comparing your prices and your products to their own, openly in ads. You must be wary of this. Many retail companies will literally show a product you sell and compare the price of the same or similar product they sell, in an ad. How do you fight back against this? You must be ready for your rivals to do this beforehand!

Increase your storage capacity

The only thing worse than being caught out by a rival, is catching yourself out. This occurs during the festive season more than any other time of year. Small businesses don’t plan ahead concerning their capacity for inventory management. What if you need to have a large storage capacity because sales are much higher than anticipated? You can carry on the Christmas rush over to New Year’s and beyond if you are wise.

That’s why you should consider building one of these custom industrial sheds. These metal structures can withstand any weather, they provide ample room for lots of stock storage, as well as being very easy and quick to erect. Such an industrial shed can be the perfect way to expand your business and reach. If you have export needs as well as domestic sales, but you need more storage space, this is the kind of affordable option entrepreneurs and small business owners should try.

Segment your base

Every single company in the world has a consumer base. These are people that love your brand, they keep coming back, they buy products you make and they will hold your brand in very high regard among your competitors. But you must know who they are, what kinds of individual groups there are and how to market to them.

Your base will have the following types of groups.

  • Veterans. These are consumers who have been with you for years and always check to see if you sell something they want, every other week or month.
  • Loyal consumers. These are people who will put you in their top 5 companies to buy from when they are looking for products in the categories you sell.
  • The new and enthused. The types of customers that have just found out about and are wondering what on earth took them so long. They will be excited to see what you have to offer as opposed to the companies they have always bought from.

Get ready for rules changes

We live in a Covid-19 world now, and the government can change the rules at any moment. Rather than wait for this to happen, you should have plans in place that give you leeway no matter what kind of changes occur.

This again, requires a risk assessment, because you need to know what your options are. Evaluate the following.

  • Tunnel sales. If your country goes into lockdown, can you still make export sales? Can you still make sales to other business clients?
  • Plan your most drastic sales and discount offers. If worst comes to worst and the market begins to freeze up again, consider what kind of sales you can offer to break even at the least and make a little profit at the most.
  • Work with governments. Engage with the representatives and respond to calls and emails. Accept invitations for consultancies and express your concerns to the elected officials.

The festive season is always a rush and hectic time for consumers as well as businesses. While you still have time, make as many positive changes as you can. With these measures, you should be able to proudly call your business Christmas-proof.

How to Develop a Clear Brand Strategy

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | How to Develop a Clear Brand Strategy

Whether you’re a new brand starting out or an established brand in need of a makeover, a clear brand strategy is always necessary to ensure that your message is clear, and strategy is consistent and effective. Without this background work, you might find that one or more aspects of the strategy don’t work well enough, which can lead you back to the drawing board. Below are some of the key aspects you need to premise when developing your brand strategy or rebranding project.

Purpose

Every brand makes a promise to their customers regarding the product they provide or standard of service. Implicit in this promise is also a marketing angle, a differential that separates one brand from another. This may serve to create a USP and help your brand stand out, but in today’s saturated marketplace, it isn’t quite enough.

Along with your promise, you must also provide a purpose, a statement of intentionality that runs deeper than your commercial interest. Customers today will want to know that your business has an authenticity that stands above the drive for profit. This could be the deeper values your business was founded on, but presented in a unique way.

Consistency

When branding your product or service, consistency is very important. Consistency refers to how relevant your advertising is across different platforms; this means relevance to your brand’s meaning or message. Good brand consistency continually reinforces your message and inspires consumers in the right direction.

Conversely, poor brand consistency might confuse customers and put them off. Coca Cola is one brand that has excellent consistency. Whether you watch advert on television, visit their website or Facebook page, the images, colors, and slogans all feed into the brand’s core message and overall appeal.

Emotion

Researchers have found that people have an innate desire to build and maintain relationships. This is relevant in every walk of life, including brand marketing and advertising. For instance, why is it that people decide to buy a Harvey Davidson bike over another bike that is cheaper but has an equivalent spec? The reason is the word ‘Harley’ and it’s associations.

Harley Davidson, among many other brands, are onto this phenomenon and use it effectively. Harley Davidson, for example, has created a HOG or Harley Owners Club, this is a close-knit community of owners who share their knowledge and experience of Harley bikes. The HOG not only connects customers with the brand, but it also grows a community of like-minded Harley owners.

Flexibility

Flexibility is a close cousin of consistency; both must be used wisely to achieve your brand’s success in the marketplace. While consistency is about creating a style guide that is relevant across platforms, flexibility refers to the need for marketers to adapt to changing technological innovations to enable better results.

One example of marketing flexibility is the popular brand of aftershave for men, ‘Old Spice.’ Before it’s a rebrand, Old Spice was recognized as a product for older men and distinctly unfashionable. They then enlisted the help of a team of flexible marketers who effectively repositioned the brand for a new customer base.

Employee Involvement

Employee involvement is a strategy that is closely aligned with consistency. If your brand has a bubbly and exciting image, like Fitness Marketing Companies, for instance, it wouldn’t make sense for your customer service representatives to be monotone and dour. This will create a brand inconsistency that will confuse customers and put them off. This idea also includes transparency to bring employees closer to customers.

The first step in creating excellent employee involvement is to assess your brand’s core values and decide what tone you want to implement. This can be outlined in your style guide. A tone consistent with your values or mission statement will strengthen your brand voice and deliver a positive customer experience. In terms of transparency, create photo shoots that include all back staff and out them front and center across platforms.

Loyalty

Loyalty is always important for brands, but it doesn’t just mean creating loyalty; it also means reinforcing the bond that’s already been established in some customers. Brand loyalty can be created by rewarding new customers with points or discounts, providing the service advertised, and following up with friendly enquiring emails.

Over time you will build up a customer base, people who have responded well to your product or service and have spread the word about what you do. Don’t ignore the power and relevance of these free brand ambassadors. Retain their services with more excellent rewards, discounts, and personalized messages.

How to successfully work from home

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article | How to successfully work from homeThe transition from office to home is almost irresistible. According to Stanford News, the culture of working from home is going to continue even after the CoronaVirus pandemic.

As usual, the home space can be relatively small and the unforgiving environment of destruction. You need to have an ideal working space to increase your productivity. In this article, we have provided some tips on how you can successfully work from home.

Let’s have a look at them.

Create an official workspace

Having in mind that destruction is almost inevitable at home, it is wise to inform your friends and family members that you are at work. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves just like when in office.

However, it is healthy to give yourself a healthy break to prevent boredom and muscle inactivity. You can also empower yourself with office-like tools to facilitate your work.

To deviate from the norm, you can dedicate a working space within the house or a room to enable you to feel different from the typical house set up.

Set office hours

For you to be productive, you need to be disciplined with your time. Working remotely with no organization can cause you to underperform. Create a schedule with breaks like time to eat, rest and time for the family. This will help you get used to that schedule, and you will avoid boredom.

Use a sit-stand workstation

Sitting in one position for a very long time can be toxic to your health. Changing positions is helpful to your muscles and the trunk. With the spine being part of the central nervous system together with the brain, changing position is needed.

It’s important to have a special work space at home, and just the desk could make all the difference. You can use a desk from HADO to help you avoid sitting in one position. An adjustable standing desk allows you to raise it to a comfortable height.

Docking station

You could be having a laptop, and that’s what you have to work from home. Nevertheless, it’s usually hectic to stare on the tiny screen all day, no mouse with a keyboard that demands hunch over.

A docking station will be your best choice that will assist you in converting your laptop to a desktop. This will help you have a mouse, a keyboard and speakers in a separate way.

Chair

The chair plays a vital role in your locomotor nerves, especially with the current trend of working remotely. This, therefore, becomes an essential tool in your efficacy. The choice of your chair will determine your well being because of muscle mobility and blood supply.

A steady blood supply to your system makes your body feel great, and you become productive. A chair that allows you to change postures is usually the best.

Excellent communication skills

Communication is very vital in virtual work. Now that you are not in office to give a physical report, you need to brush over your communication skill to improve on efficacy. Conveying your message clearly and precisely makes the work smooth.

You need to save yourself embarrassment due to poor communicating by polishing your virtual communications skills.

Organizational tools

Averagely, your working space at home is likely to be smaller than the office working space. You could have a room but not big enough or a space at the corner of your living room. This will need a super organization to have your office tools at the right place.

It also entails the creation of enough space for an ambient working environment. If it is a room, you better make it private under lock and key to prevent a lot of destruction. On the other hand, if it’s at the corner of your living room, you will have to arrange it in a way that it doesn’t destroy the aesthetic appearance of the whole room.

Proper lighting

Are you having trouble with your sight or unending headaches? This is the proper time to consider redoing your lighting system. It is advisable to have layers of colours at the comfort of your eyes. This must also blend with the colour of the walls.

During the day, natural light is preferably the best, and so your room should be well lit. Consider all options from ceiling lighting to desk light stand to suit your preference. This must be comfortable for your eyesight and to allow you to get details to the core.

Keep the supplies you often use within reach

To avoid a lot of destruction and unnecessary movements, it is noble to put all you need at your reach. This will save you a lot of time and also keep you professional in all you do.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle

Weight gain is a common issue among most people working remotely. Having in mind that you are a reflection of what you eat, then it is a good and noble thing to have a healthy eating habit.

This will include having healthy snacks around you and most importantly taking enough water. Having regular exercise on your schedule is one part that most telecommuters don’t consider. Don’t be enslaved by work without exercise because it is toxic to your health.

There is so much in terms of working remotely. There are a lot of innovations about making working at home bearable and productive. It is good to put into consideration all these factors because they are so beneficial.

What else do you do to work from home successfully?

Why Should People Consider a Career in Therapy During the COVID19 Pandemic?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | Why Should People Consider a Career in Therapy During the COVID19 Pandemic?COVID19 has led to huge numbers of people seeking a career change, whether this is due to the loss of a current position because of redundancy or simply having time to reflect and put lives into perspective.

One increasingly popular question people are asking is ‘how do I become a therapist?. In this crisis, people are focussing on helping others in every way they can. While medical staff are proving their worth during this time and are incredibly valued, the long-term effects of the pandemic are predicted to impact mental health more than anything else.

How Many People Are Wanting To Become A Therapist?

One of the easiest and quickest ways to determine the demand for anything nowadays is by analysing Google searches. Research by RTT shows that the term ‘how to become a therapist’ and similar phrases have seen a 10x increase within the first 6 months of the pandemic compared to the same months of 2019.

What Is A Therapist?

Therapists are essentially a guide, they aid people with mental health disorders or someone who is struggling with their own mind, to understand their feelings on a deeper level and learn to manage these and cope.

It’s important to know that therapists do not ‘cure’ people. Instead, they provide a safe space for anyone who needs it to be able to talk through their problems and explore any underlying issues or repressed feelings.

Psychotherapists are specially trained therapists who deal with a severe mental health diagnosis but do not have the authority to prescribe medication.

Why A Career In Therapy Could Be For You?

There is never a definitive answer as to why people want to become a therapist but quite often is it because of previous personal experiences.

This could be having struggled with mental health yourself and witnessing just how much a mental health professional can positively impact your life and wanting to do the same for others.

Another reason is some individuals have seen a loved one suffer from mental health issues, whether they sought professional advice or not, many see just how valuable therapists can be.

However, some wish to become a therapist without any previous related experiences, the need to help others is ingrained within human nature and turning this into a career can be very rewarding.

With a lot more free time on our hands at the moment, training in a new career has never been more popular. While a career change can be scary and even risky, especially during the pandemic, the mental health crisis is just as imperative as the COVID19 one and therapists are rising in demand.

What Skills Do You Need To Become A Therapist?

Becoming a therapist doesn’t happen overnight, depending on the student, it can take a few years to be fully trained and practising. The most conventional way is to undertake a BA within a relevant field and then proceed to do an MA.

After this, internships within a clinical practice are done to then be able to apply and obtain a license.

However, there are other routes for those who can not attend university for whatever reason. Training and qualifications within the following sectors do not require a degree:

  • Hypnotherapy
  • Rapid Transformational Therapy
  • Life Coaching
  • Neuro-Linguistic Programming

All of these can be just as rewarding.

However, even the most qualified professional won’t be successful if they don’t have some key personality traits to begin with, such as:

  • The want to help others and give advice
  • Being a good listener
  • Putting others before yourself
  • Compassionate, non-judgemental and empathetic
  • Strong-minded (you may hear many upsetting things every day)

What Do Therapists Earn?

The average earning for a therapist in the US is $48,000 but this can vary between states too.

Opening your own practice can lead to substantially more earnings and you can earn upwards of $82,000.

In the UK, the average wage for a mental health therapist is around £32,000 but those in the industry report anything from £25,000 to £41,000.

If you are a compassionate individual who strives to make a difference in people’s lives, why not consider looking into the best avenue for yourself to become a therapist? While it isn’t deemed as the easier of jobs, it is certainly one of the most rewarding.