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The Strategy-Driven Solution to Driving Up Interest Before New Business Launch

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | The Strategy-Driven Solution to Driving Up Interest Before New Business LaunchStarting a new business is a logistical challenge. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that will eat up your time, and before you know it, you are all ready to launch – and have absolutely zero interest from the public. You cannot keep your new business a secret while you are building it up. Your pre-launch time provides you the perfect opportunity to drum up interest in your local and digital community. Do this successfully, and you launch with a bang.

This is your business. It is not a hobby or something you can afford to learn as you go. For you to taste success, you need to be serious about it from the outset. This guide will help you to choose who to hire and what to look for when outsourcing work.

Start with Your Website

While your store is being renovated, your website should be built. It is your digital store. It is where you want to send people to sign up for newsletters, make online purchases, and generally connect with your value-driven content like blogs, videos, and more. It does not have to be complex, but it does need to look great, function exceptionally well, and be optimized for search engines.

Start first with hiring a logo illustrator and a web designer. You can save on costs with the website design by finding and buying an eCommerce theme, and then hiring the web designer to set it up, so it looks great and has all the functions you need to run your business online.

Build Up Your Marketing Materials

Marketing materials include blog posts, video, editorial images, product photos, and more. It is best to have someone on your team that can handle this, as it gives you the greatest control, but if you need to save on costs here, use a mixture of your own content, stock photography, and videography, and in the future, user-generated content.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

To grow your presence, you will want to hire the best Orlando digital marketing agency. This agency should be able to handle your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, your social media marketing, and your search engine optimization (SEO). By offloading these tasks, you can avoid many new businesses’ many pitfalls when first starting out. So far, you have a great website. Now you need a digital marketing agency to use your website and marketing content to build up an exceptional online presence.

Use These PR Strategies

You have the website, you have the marketing materials, and now you have the marketing strategy in the works. All that is left is expanding your marketing efforts into good old public relations. A good way to get the coverage you want is to plan a big launch event for your business. Local news sites and influencers alike are always on the lookout for something big happening in their area, and a cool party launch is exactly what they are looking for.

Plan the event and send out press releases to local news sites and influencers. Start small, and as more and more start to give your launch coverage, work your way up to larger publications for the widest reach.

What Qualities Really Define A Business Leader Post Pandemic?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Petrochemical Business|8 Steps to Becoming a Better Leader Within Your Petrochemical BusinessThe seismic effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic have impacted every single aspect of our lives, with the workplace and commerce in general changing unrecognisably in the space of just a few months. As workplaces transform and adapt in an effort to overcome the unique challenges they’re facing, so too do business leaders have to change and grow in order to remain effective. The pandemic has clearly shown us that leadership is much needed, and as the future continues to be uncertain, it will matter even more as we try to salvage an economic and social recovery. The right leadership has become a matter of life and death – quite literally in a lot of cases – and strong and intelligent leaders are now required to manage fractured supply chains, piece together industries and revive customer confidence. So, what are the key traits of successful leadership in a post pandemic world?

Empathy

You may have never thought of empathy as a key trait of a successful leader. But really, the pandemic has been a collective trauma for everyone, so displaying an understanding of that is absolutely crucial. Empathy can be displayed towards your own staff and also to society in general, modelling yourself after leaders such as Joz Opdeweegh who have called for support in society to combat the worst effects of the pandemic. Implementing Employee Assistance Programs and making sure they’re functioning effectively is a must, as is providing genuine support and encouragement to staff. You may need to also review some of your HR policies, especially around areas such as sick leave, dependents leave and access to counselling. If you fear that you lack natural empathy, make sure to surround yourself with others on your organization that do – you need to avoid any responses that may be seen as tone deaf or insensitive, as you could really damage employee morale and loyalty at a critical time.

Consistency

One of the things causing such distress for a lot of people is the lack of consistency that the pandemic has brought – rules changing overnight, conditions escalating rapidly. No one likes to live with continuing uncertainty, so it’s our role as leaders to provide consistency with our approach. Always base your decisions and communications on data. Making data-driven decisions removes emotion and bias from the equation and allows you to explain your decision making. Communicate clearly and frequently, even if there aren’t many new items to relay. This gives staff a sense of confidence and a knowledge that they can rely on your updates, and it doesn’t create a void for gossip and speculation to fill.

Flexibility

This ability definitely needs to become part of your professional development goals.
The ability to pivot is more vital than ever, as customer needs, supply changes and the economic landscape around us all shift rapidly. Responsiveness will begin to define those companies who are able to thrive and those which are devastated. Review new information and circumstances constantly in order to incorporate them into your decision making.

How to Manage People in Your Small Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How to Manage People in Your Small BusinessPeople are your business’s most valuable assets. However, they also represent assets that may be difficult to manage. Because owners frequently overlook employee management when launching a business, it is important to acquire this skill and cultivate it. Doing so will help you realize a faster earnings stream and will give you the incentives needed to grow and expand.

Find the Right Talent

In order to be successful in business, you need, first, to hire the right talent. Otherwise, how can your business reach its full potential? Doing do will not only create an inspiring culture, it will step up productivity.

Selecting a Candidate: What You Should Ask

When making hiring decisions then, you need to ask the following questions about the candidates you wish to hire:

  • Does this person share my vision for the business?
  • Does he or she love working in this field?
  • Does the candidate possess the right skills for the job?
  • What do the reference checks say about this person?
  • How does the person get along with others on social media sites?

Make Training a Priority

By training your staff, you are also investing in their business development. In turn, they will perform better on the job, which will help your fledgling business to grow.

Affordable Training Methods and Practices

If you cannot afford to spend money on external seminars or courses, you might try these more affordable training methods and practices:

  • Arrange to give monthly educational sessions at lunch.
  • Ask your employees to train new employees. For instance, if an employee possesses strong skills in a specific subject, he or she can use these skills to educate new recruits.
  • You can also cross-train employees so they can cover sick or vacation leave or can be used on staggered shifts.

You don’t have to spend a large amount of money on training when you hire people who have good skills and who are well-versed on certain topics. You can use their knowledge to increase the competence of newer and more inexperienced members on your staff.

Design Training Courses for Online Learning

One idea you might consider is to have a professional writer design and write courses for your company that your employees can follow. For example, courses can be developed using software programs that can be added as plug-ins to WordPress. You could award employees who complete the courses with certificates that can be inserted into their human resource (HR) file.

Keep Communications Open and Productive

To ensure better employee performance and prevent misunderstandings, communicate your expectations with your employees and allow them to make decisions. Make sure all your employees are working collectively toward your company’s goals.

If you keep communications open, you are more likely to receive valuable information about improving your business. Everyone on your team should know what you expect of them. It also helps to involve your employees in making decisions while giving them ownership of the tasks that you delegate.

Support Your Employees

If you want your employees to perform well in their jobs, they need to know you support their efforts. Therefore, you need to foster a good relationship with your staff. You can do this by recognizing what they do and providing them with certain incentives. You can also garner their support when you do the following:

  • Create employee growth initiatives – Give your employees something to work towards in their jobs, allowing them to learn new skills and assessing what they already know.
  • Give regular feedback – Don’t wait until a performance review to provide feedback. By communicating regularly, on a one-on-one basis, you can discuss current projects and review any challenges an employee may be facing. In turn, your employees will feel less worried about annual reviews of their performance. When you lessen this type of anxiety among workers, you will also realize a higher level of production.
  • Assign mentors – Everyone on your team will have specific weaknesses and strengths. Play on the strengths and develop what is weak by assigning mentors to employees. For example, if you have a customer service employee who would like to work in sales, assign a salesperson to mentor them so they can eventually transition into the role.
  • Promote a work-life balance – To make work more of a joy, you need to make sure employees are also happy away from work. That means setting certain boundaries. Encourage employees to check emails at work, not at home, and host programs, such a yoga, to lessen worker stress.
  • Show your employees you trust them – Show you employees you trust them in their jobs by not micromanaging them. In turn, they will be happier and therefore more productive.
  • Make sure employees are taking time off to regroup – A rested employee is a more productive employee. Make sure staff members are taking vacation days.

Choose Creative Ways to Reward Your Staff

You don’t necessarily have to reward your employees with a raise, although it does not hurt from time to time. You can also consider providing the following incentives:

  • More flexible working hours
  • Public acknowledgement in industry journals or on social media
  • Casual dress days

Provide Good Benefits

Show you appreciation by offering retirement benefits and insurance perks. Talk to a financial advisor or insurance professional so you can provide benefits and enjoy savings on a benefit packages.

When you give employees what you, yourself, would like, you will find that your business will grow, your employees will try harder, and your operations will be easier to manage and maintain.

What Are Your Thoughts?

So, what do you think? Do you have some ideas about motivating employees? What have you tried that worked? Do you think it is better to use outsourcing instead? While outsourcing is more affordable, will it give you the same results as hiring an employee? Whatever you choose to do, you need to make sure to instill the type of principles that will lend to a more productive and motivational environment.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Sam Mollaei, Esq. Sam Mollaei, Esq. is a Business Lawyer for Entrepreneurs With 4,000+ Clients Served and 1,500+ 5-Star Google Reviews. As a business lawyer, I help entrepreneurs start their U.S. business with peace of mind without dealing with complicated government forms.

What Are the Organizational Benefits of Professional Development?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | What Are the Organizational Benefits of Professional Development?Hearing the phrase “professional development” makes some people squirm, others roll their eyes, and a few actually listen candidly. There’s often a misconception that managers who suggest some type of professional development to their employees actually suggest it because of poor performance, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Professional development is a great way for people at all levels of an organization to hone in on what exactly they want their career path to look like and gives them the opportunity to experiment with new tools that might help them to get there. There are many different avenues of professional development, but some common types include seminars, workshops, conferences, career conversations, job shadowing, and online courses.

The Benefits of Professional Development

If you’re reading this and thinking, “as much as I’d like to offer these types of programs at my organization, it just sounds a bit time consuming and expensive,” then consider the many benefits:

Long-Term Money Savings

As the tried-and-true sales saying goes, it costs more money to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing ones. The same goes for people within an organization.

It is important to note, however, that poor employee development (unorganized structure, prioritizing high performers over the whole, etc.) will cost more time and money than no development at all. So if you’re going to go in, go ALL in.

There’s No “I” In Success

Some people enjoy the monotony of knowing exactly what their tasks are for the day, how long it will take to complete them, getting them done successfully, and doing it all again tomorrow. Others like a challenge—setting higher goals and aiming for the moon. By understanding the unique motivations of your employees you can tailor a different professional development plan for each individual. Skilled managers should strive to foster their employees’ development because when your employees are successful, then everyone is successful. By creating professional development plans, you can combat complacency and build teams from simply competent to excelling in no time.

Improve Company Culture

Company culture may seem like a cliche buzzword, but it still holds a lot of value to today’s labor force. As of 2019, 46% of job seekers say company culture is very important when applying for a specific role.

Now more than ever, employees are worried about crafting a sustainable career with a company that has values closely aligned with their own.

Initiate Professional Development Conversations With Employees

“But how do I go about starting the conversation on employee development,” you ask? It’s simple, talk to your team and discuss your motivation for wanting to start a development program. If you’re in a hybrid or remote work environment, you can easily set up a video conference call and begin asking questions to get the team thinking about how they would like to see their role expand.

One great question to ask your team is: “How can being an employee here help you become the person you want to be?” It shifts the perspective from “what” you would be (your duties in a role) to “who” you would be (emphasizing you as an individual.) Unlocking your team’s core values will help you further understand their goals as well as new ways you can help support their success. After all, contributing to meaningful work is the number one reason employees choose to stay in their current positions.

Foster Professional Development During COVID-19

It might be daunting to talk to your employees about their careers in the midst of a pandemic, but, nonetheless, these are still important conversations to have. It’s vital to utilize a secure network option to ensure your line of communication is private and confidential. Other tools like learning management systems make it easier to track employees progress with special e-learning courses unique to the company.

You can test the waters of your development plan by checking in on your remote employees often, and making sure they know that you’re accessible, even if it’s only over Zoom. You can also encourage their success by highlighting them in larger team meetings.

After getting a feel for the areas your employees have expressed interest in, try introducing them to other people in the company that have experience in those areas. Professional development doesn’t have to be only hard skills—it can also include soft skills such as networking or public speaking.

6 Obvious Signs that it’s Time to Quit Your Current Job

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Have you ever questioned the reason why you joined your company? Sometimes your workplace may not turn out to be what you expected. While every job has its pros and cons, if you feel unhappy at work or feel like you do not fit, you should be ready to move on and do something else.

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article | 6 Obvious Signs that it's Time to Quit Your Current Job

But things are not always so clear cut. There is no fairy tale office where everything is always as you want them to be. You have to encounter both the negative and positive aspects of a job when working. In such a situation, making the wrong decision can lead to the loss of a good job promotion. You may also end up destroying the goodwill you have created since starting the job.

So how do you tell that it is time for you to move on?

When you lose the Thrill of Going to Work

Do you no longer feel excited getting up early to head to work? Do you feel like a machine when you start working on some of your daily tasks? That is a clear sign that you need to end your job and find something else to do.

The lack of excitement in doing your daily tasks can lead you to waste your time searching for other things that may excite you, such as playing online games or watching movies at work. Instead of wasting your valuable time, you should make use of it somewhere else.

When Your Ideas Are Not Being Considered

How long have you held out waiting to impress your boss? Sometimes you have to bear being left on the sidelines until you can prove your capabilities to your boss. But if you remain in the same position for a long time, you should consider working at a different place that identifies your value.

Moreover, if your workmates exclude you when making decisions or don’t appreciate your opinions, you should find somewhere else that is more welcoming. It is essential to work in an environment that appreciates your effort and work and makes you feel valued.

When You Are Smarter than the Boss

It is not a crime to be the smartest person in the room. But if you believe you have more skills than your boss, you may have to consider switching to another job. It can be very frustrating since you may have to downplay your thoughts as you conform to your boss’s even when you know they are disastrous.

Additionally, you will constantly be uncomfortable if you do not trust their decisions regarding the company. If you do not want to go down with a sinking ship due to poor leadership, you should seek a more challenging working environment.

When You are Underpaid

Does the work you do equate to the amount you receive as payment? You should not consider sticking around if your salary is too low. Aside from your monthly income, a good company should offer you work benefits, an employee health insurance, a 401k program, and a paid time off, among other monetary benefits. If you’re looking for a better job opportunity, you will find that there are plenty of advantages of Truck Driving for Barr-Nunn Transportation that you cannot find in other similar companies.

You Cannot See a Future

Does your company offer you opportunities to grow? A good company should create an opportunity for you to grow and rise in the hierarchy. Everyone is entitled to go after new opportunities and create a name for themselves. However, if your company does not provide you with such opportunities, you should find somewhere else to explore that.

When Your Work Environment is Toxic

Does your company tolerate bad behaviors, or does it hold perpetrators responsible? The culture of a company is depicted by how it responds to particular behaviors in the workplace. How does it deal with bullying, gender, and sexual harassment, or conflicts in general?

It would be best not to work in a company that does not protect you from such acts. Not only can they be demeaning, but some of them can hurt you mentally, physically, and emotionally.

It does not matter if you receive a good salary; if the environment is toxic, your productivity will be affected. You should instead find somewhere else that provides you with a safe working environment.

Summing up

Do not stick in a work environment that does not benefit you in any way; the grass is greener on the other side. Once you decide to leave, you should figure out what you want and find ways to get there. Take the step forward, fearlessly, and pursue a positive future.