Posts

How Do I Start an Online Business?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | How Do I Start an Online Business? | Initial Business PlanningStarting an online business in the present era is no big deal. However, you must not consider it as an effortless job. It would be best if you strategize things perfectly, especially about your resources while planning to open a business online.

Here are the steps you must follow to open a business and handle it on the virtual platform. Sheer dedication and smart efforts can help your business to get online sales easily.

Initial Business Planning

In this step, you must think and sort out the commodities or services you want to sell. Always check the customers’ necessity level in regards to whatever you sell.

You can organize both online and offline surveys and consult a business expert before finally executing it. Make sure you are aware of your competitors and dedicated to serving people better.

Make engaging online content

Right after planning, you must concentrate on making engaging content that spreads information among the masses about your new business. Social media sites could be the best place where you can publish posts regularly.

Your posts should primarily engage people, inform them about your product, and convince them to buy it. You can invest in professional writers to make sure your content converts more and more buyers.

Design a websiteDesign a website

A website acts as your basic tool to manage your business online. Initially, you must design your e-commerce website with simple elements. Make sure it is responsive and user-friendly.

You can link your social media posts with the website to enhance the amount of site traffic. The more you get the traffic, more you can make sales.

The commodities that you deal with should be present in an organized way on your site. End-users must be able to access all the necessary information and the price of every commodity.

Invest in search engine optimization

Once your website is ready, you must invest in SEO. Many professionals can dedicatedly execute both On-Page and Off-Page SEO, which improves the rank of your website on the results page.

search engine optimizationThe best way to get the right SEO company is by searching for quotes online. You must know about the package of services they offer and how you have to cooperate with them.

Communicate with customers to develop a reputation

Excellent communication with your customers can make you a reputed business owner. You should not only respond to the customers via your website but also through your social media handles.

Regularly observe your business profile on social sites to get a glimpse of everything the customers are thinking about you.

Your response to the customers can improve your credibility and you can make a brand-loyal customer base easily. Some brand loyal customers and even take your brand authority and reach out to more potential customers.

Provide Conveniences

Most people opt for online shopping to get extra conveniences that are harder to get in case of traditional shopping. Once your e-commerce website starts to fetch you a profit, try giving amenities like discounts to the customers.

You can also give away electronic gift cards and festive season offers to enhance the rate of sales from your website.

In case you want to clear old stocks, try giving it on flat discounts along with new purchases. These strategies can often help you to stay on a decent lead than your competitors.

Final Words

If you are not sure about opening an online business, consider this to the right period to set up one. In the post-Covid era, online shopping would drastically increase as more people would not visit markets for shopping. You should always try to keep up quality service to enjoy getting satisfactory profits.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Bhavik SoniBhavik Soni is a Creative Writer at Auto Monkey. We provide an original analysis of the latest happenings in the social media industry. Connect with Latest Social Media Trends and News plus tips on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools on the web.

3 Types Of Listening Skills That You Can Adopt For Your Next Conversation

/in /by

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article | 3 Types Of Listening Skills That You Can Adopt For Your Next ConversationHave you ever been a part of a conversation where the other person constantly shuts you out? And they just won’t let you speak! Don’t worry; you’re not the only one. We all have had to go through people dominating conversations through combative listening. It’s not a pretty picture!

But what are your options? What is the best way to react? Should you be competitive too? Probably not. An active listener would be more likely to grasp what the person is saying and defend his point of view. Makes sense, no? Although it is difficult to apply in heated debates, with a little bit of practice, you’ll know what type of listener you need to be and in which situation. Here are a few that you may already be practicing but didn’t know about! Keep reading.

#1 Competitive Listening – The One Who Shuts Someone Down

Don’t you hate how your boss interrupts conversations to emphasize his point of view? Well, it’s a type of listening skill. Instead of listening to the other person, this model involves pushing your opinion onto someone else. Whether arguing with your spouse or friend, you may have realized that you have been doing this as well. Sometimes, we jump in to say what our opinion is and make a point. This type of listening is predominant when someone wants to list the flaws or drawbacks of the other person’s argument.

One can but not necessarily should apply this to have the upper hand during a negotiation. You may have realized that when you are being a competitive listener, you may indulge yourself a little too much and have a closed mind about everything else. Which isn’t ideal – especially during conversations with important people.

#2 Reflective Listening – The One Who Is An Active Participant

The best kind of conversations are those when someone is actively listening and responding to you. This is known as active listening since a huge part of it includes listening to the other person’s side of the story. It’s necessary to be patient and reflective since hearing alone does not do the job.

Remember when your spouse told you that they would be late for dinner tonight? But you were glued to the television! You may have heard it, but did you listen? If you listened, you would have responded and asked questions or given an opinion. So, it’s necessary for both people to be interested and intrigued while this takes place. Interactive conversations can lead to discoveries about oneself and the people around you. Any conversation can become an intense one. Like an adventure ride. So push beyond your comfort zone and activate your ear lobes. This conversation is going to be a thrilling one!

#3 Passive Listening – One-Sided Conversations

Some people simply like to listen. They are attentive listeners and are absorbing all the information they get with every passing minute. However, this can get monotonous for the other person if it’s a long conversation. Although ideal when you want to pay attention to someone, you may use this while someone is giving a lecture, a talk, or narrating their experiences.

Rather than being reflective, you would want to listen with utmost curiosity and be 100 percent engrossed in the smooth-flowing conversation.

Here, unlike when you’re actively listening, even if you agree with the other individual, you’re not doing so vocally. This can be a good practice to understand what someone is saying, instead of trying to put your point across.

Conclusion

There you go, those were the three different types of listening skills that you probably didn’t know about. We all use these at different points in our conversations throughout the day. Sometimes you can be an active listener with your friend but a passive listener with your boss and a competitive listener with your partner!

How to Build a Holiday Rental Portfolio Overseas

/in /by

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | How to Build a Holiday Rental Portfolio OverseasOne of the most profitable types of property to invest in is a holiday rental. These types of properties can generate a large amount of regular income, as well as provide a foreign getaway for you to enjoy from time to time.

Having a portfolio of holiday rental properties can even create enough passive income for people to leave their current employment and become a rental property manager full-time. In this quick guide, we are going to look at some of the different ways to build a holiday rental portfolio and what you should be aware of as you look for properties to let to holiday-makers.

Location, Location, Location

This is the most important factor when looking for property to build your portfolio. You need to identify popular holiday destinations in order to guarantee clients that will want to rent your homes to use while they enjoy the sun, sea, and sand of their holiday.

Spain is a massively popular holiday destination and has a thriving holiday property market, making it a great place to get started. Look for areas near to popular beaches that are serviced by airports that have flights coming in from all over Europe. Buying property in Spain is relatively straightforward but it is a good idea to find someone local to the area that can assist you. Get yourself an English lawyer in Spain to help you with the process and act as your representative when you are not in Spain so you don’t have to hop on a flight to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurial Insights Newsletter

Will You Self Manage or Use a Rental Agency?

If you want to make the most profit possible from your holiday rental property portfolio then you should consider managing the rentals yourself, though this may take up a lot of your time and could require you to live in the area around your holiday homes.

Using a holiday property rental agency will eat into your profits a little, but will make the rentals much easier and give you more free time. Many people who begin to build a holiday rental portfolio will do this at first, and then slowly take more control over the renting of their properties as time goes on and learn more about what is needed to rent holiday homes successfully.

Liabilities, Insurance, and Taxes

These types of costs must be taken into account when you are budgeting. Failing to insure your properties in the event of accidental damage, for instance, can be very costly if something goes wrong.

Taxes will vary from area to area, and there are many local municipalities that offer incentives for holiday rentals, so investigate these costs before you commit to a property or an area. This is another area of property ownership where a rental management company can help you. They will be well versed in all the local property taxes and professional liabilities and can help you navigate through all the paperwork associated with owning a holiday rental property in a foreign country.

Renting a holiday home abroad can be a great way to generate income, and could be the first part of a thriving business that you build for yourself. Hopefully, this quick guide will have helped you along the way.

Improving Your Team’s Lean Project Management

/in /by

StrategyDriven Project Management Article | Improving Your Team's Lean Project Management“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
Vincent Van Gogh

At its core, lean project management is about delivering greater value while minimizing waste. In that sense, this approach will help you improve quality while decreasing the cost of production — but where do you begin?

If your goal is to improve your team’s lean project management, resulting in greater efficiency and productivity, you need to take a number of key steps. Here’s how to get started.

Make Your Projects Run More Efficiently and Deliver Better Results Through Lean Project Management

Lean is a business philosophy that first began within the manufacturing industry. The goal was to decrease costs and lead time while yielding greater quality. Derived from the Toyota Production System, this philosophy is applied to all business processes.

Once Toyota successfully maximized outputs while reducing waste, Lean principles were applied to many business disciplines; and in terms of project management, Lean principles help managers improve key variables. For example, just some of the benefits associated with Lean principles include:

  • Greater quality assurance and customer satisfaction
  • Improved team collaboration
  • Lower costs, as well as reduced waste

How to Apply Lean Project Management Methodology

Once you understand the core principles and benefits associated with lean project management, it will be time to apply what you’ve learned. To do so, take the following steps.

Step One: Identify customer value

When developing any project, the first step is to consider the perspective and needs of the customer. In that sense, you should focus on what the customer needs and when. Quality and price expectations are important to consider here, particularly in terms of value and waste reduction. You should strive to eliminate bottlenecks in the project process, focusing on speed while minimizing waste. You’ll want to remain particularly mindful of wasted effort, inconsistency, and overcommitment issues.

Step Two: Create a value plan

Whenever you’re about to tackle a new project, it’s important to consider the initial idea, visualizing your end goal. In doing so, you will become more mindful of the steps in between. That way, you can better understand which steps add value and which do not. For example, when designers create prototypes, this step typically adds value.

The same is true when building your design system, allowing you to eliminate inconsistencies while standardizing all ongoing processes. Design systems bring order to chaos, boosting efficiency and consistency. As a result, companies are able to create at scale. In contrast, meeting with the entire design team daily to share updates may not add a significant amount of value. Remember to think of the customer. While analyzing each step, ask yourself, does this step add value to the customer?

Read more: Lean UX: Expert Tips to Maximize Efficiency in UX

Step Three: Eliminate activities that don’t add value

This step is all about reducing waste. The ultimate goal here is for your team to end up working on activities that add value, eliminating all those that are non-value adding. Depending on the scope of your project, this may be easier said than done. However, even small improvements can make a significant difference when aiming to become Lean.

Step Four: Continue to improve

It’s important to note that the step above is not a one-time job. To be an efficient, successful Lean project team, you need to continuously review ongoing activities to eliminate and reduce as much waste as possible. It’s also important to empower your team so that everyone feels comfortable challenging inefficient activities.

How to Identify Waste Activities

While you may want to improve your team’s lean project management for a number of reasons, eliminating waste is at the core of this philosophy and is addressed by three Japanese concepts, known as:

  • Muda — This includes any activity that consumes resources without creating value. In relation to project management, this is often seen when resources are utilized without any sense of meaningful output. That is why you need to create a well-defined end-to-end project plan. Work closely with your team so that each individual understands what they’re responsible for.
  • Mura — This focuses on reducing unevenness without your team. The goal here is to maintain balanced progress while identifying risks in your work schedule. Within project management, Mura often evolves due to changing priorities, dependencies, poor risk management, and a lack of clarity — all of which can be avoided.
  • Muri — This involves the concept of being overburdened, relating to both humans and machines. When required to work at a higher pace, for longer, this can lead to low-quality output. To avoid this, establish clear boundaries regarding work-life balance and encourage breaks when needed.

Implement Lean Six Sigma (DMEDI)

DMEDI is a structured, measurable, and highly proactive method. The purpose of this approach is to identify issues upfront so that you can prevent waste in terms of your time and resources. The five phases of this method include:

  • DEFINE
  • MEASURE
  • EXPLORE
  • DEVELOP
  • IMPLEMENT

These phases essentially act as a blueprint when setting up a project.

So, whether your goal is to reduce the number of useless activities or would like to address overburdened team members, lean project management will help you reduce wasted efforts and become more productive. It’s a win-win!

Want to learn more? Check out the following resources:

Creating The Perfect File Organization System For Your Business

/in /by

Managing file storage correctly is important in business for a number of reasons. Firstly, if your business computers are clogged up with unnecessary files, they will run slowly and it will be harder for employees to find the files that they need, which means that productivity will take a hit. It’s also important to make sure that all of your files are stored securely to reduce the risk of accidental data loss. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t put enough thought into their file storage system, which causes them some big problems. However, if you follow these simple steps, you can create an effective file storage strategy for your business.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Creating The Perfect File Organization System For Your Business

Clean Out Unnecessary Files

The first step is to clear out any unnecessary files that you have stored on your computers. This will speed your computers up and make it a lot easier to organize things moving forward. There are some great applications that can quickly find and remove duplicates on Mac or Windows, which will make a big difference immediately. Once you have cleared all of the duplicated files, go through the rest and delete anything that you don’t need anymore. This may take a while but as long as you keep on top of things in the future, you should only need to do it once.

Use Folders

Using folders is the easiest way to keep things organized, but it only works if you file things away in their folders right away. A lot of employees like to keep things on the desktop while they are working on them, with the intention of putting them in organized folders afterward. However, that doesn’t always happen and they end up with a big mess of files on the desktop with no semblance of organization whatsoever. If you ask them to pull up an old file a few months down the line, it’s going to take a long time to find. It’s a good idea to plan out your folders and categories on paper before you get started so you can make sure that everything has its place.

Back Up On The Cloud

Backing up all of your files is essential if you want to protect yourself in the event of a cyberattack or a hardware issue. If files are only stored in one location and you lose them, there’s nothing that you can do. But if you upgrade to a cloud storage system, you can easily recover anything that is lost.

Use Note Taking Apps

When you are making notes about things that you need to remember, you might decide that post-its or notebooks are the best option. But then you end up with a disorganized mess of paper and when you need to refer back to a specific note, it’s nowhere to be found. That’s why you should treat notes like you do the rest of your files and get organized. There are some great note taking apps that you can use to get everything in order and make life easier for yourself in the future.

If you can create the perfect file organization system for your business, it makes things a lot easier for you and your employees and you will notice an increase in productivity as a result.