Business Plus Baby

When running a business, especially during those tough two first years, stress is going to feel like an old friend. But not one you’re happy to see. The one that trips you up and undermines you at every chance. Responsibility has a big part to play in that stress, but your workload might contribute a lot more than you think. Rather than trying to get your head down and power through, it might make a lot more sense to work smartly, instead.

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Manage

Rather than focusing on managing your team so much, learn to trust them and instead learn how to manage yourself. Spend some time every morning prioritizing your work. Decide what needs to be done, what should be done, and what can wait. From that, allocate each task a time and fit it into a daily schedule. If it’s not on the schedule, don’t worry about it. However, do leave a little spare time. Within it, you can fit any sudden and urgent issues that pop up, or fit in some of the lower priority work if you find the time.

Automate

There is so much software out there that can make work so much more efficient that it’s entirely self-defeating to not use it. Automating can ensure that human error doesn’t get in the way of some of the crucial elements of the business, as well. HR management software allows you to rest assured that the monotonous, yet critical, duty of seeing employees compensated is taken care of. Accounting software can ensure all your books are kept up to date. While you can trust the best of these to work well, don’t get complacent. Check the work before you act on it.

Outsource

If it needs a more human touch but you find yourself unable to keep up with the demands of the work, then you should look at letting someone outside the team handle it as well. Outsourcing some duties like contract packaging, fulfillment, and delivery allow a smaller business to make use of much more established services. Others, such as IT system management and website development, are more about being able to use expertise that you don’t have a full-time need for.

Delegating

If you do have the expertise within the team, then consider occasionally delegating to your employees. This should be used sparingly at best and with a few caveats. For one, don’t delegate the most monotonous of jobs. It should have some training value for the team member helping you. Second, don’t delegate your job critical processes. Don’t expect employees to take responsibility for decisions or objectives that you should solely be handling yourself. Finally, ask permission. You may be the employer, but if your employee doesn’t think they are suited to handle the task or they have too much on their plate as it is, you have to respect that. You can’t and shouldn’t expect them to always be willing to work outside their role.

You are only one person and can do so much. Know what you can do, make sure you get it done and find a way to make the rest more achievable without taking up all your time. You will start to fall in love with the business if you get it right.

Social media platform isn’t considered a phenomenon just because of how many people use it (and continue to do so). It’s because of how it has managed to insert itself into so many aspects of life, business included. There was a time when the only way you could properly advertise your business or agency was through the use of traditional media such as newspapers, radio, television, billboards, and word of mouth.

In a way, the Internet is a lot like the newspaper’s more successful younger brother. It connects us in similar ways, though people from the newspaper era might have considered what it’s capable of now impossible. So, it’s no surprise that business marketing has found a way to thrive in the online world – with social media being the king of advertising.

How do social media affect my brand?

Simply put, it affects your brand by exposing it to the masses. Whether they have positive or negative things to say about your products, having a social media aspect to your business will make sure that there will always be a potential consumer reading about your business. The better you are at marketing your brand through social media, the more doors it will open as more and more people end up trying your products or your services. It does however involve plenty of legwork, requiring you to really focus on advertising and connecting with your consumers through social media platforms.

What can I do to make social media marketing easier for my business?

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to hire the services of professionals capable of handling all of the ins and outs of your company’s social media footprint. While they might cost a pretty penny compared to going for an in-house solution, their effort speaks for itself. It might seem a bit strange to immediately go for professionals when you feel like you can handle the social media aspect on your own. After all, social media was made to be convenient. Too many companies however have underestimated this and ended up falling short.

By going for a professional social media marketing agency, they can act as your voice and continue to advertise your brand while you concentrate on other aspects. For example, because you don’t have to worry about the ins and outs, it will free up some time to study what your users think, through their reviews and opinions. This kind of insight can prove to be very invaluable, which is why agencies such as those in social media marketing Cornwall offers are making waves. A professional alternative can be a sound strategy.

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You will never forget the first person you hire. It doesn’t matter if you started out as a solopreneur that suddenly needed to expand or you’re one of three co-founders that always wanted to grow; your first employee is memorable – your role is to make sure they are memorable for the right reasons.

You are now in responsible for someone else’s livelihood, you have proof your business is worth working for and you have a sudden boost in productivity. It’s a huge adjustment to get used to, and the benefits are incredible. However, the pressure is on to find that perfect person, and here is some advice on how:

It’s A Race Against Time

As soon as it becomes clear you could do with an extra pair of hands, make your moves to hire someone. Yes, it will probably be tight at first, but having someone else devote forty-plus hours a week to your cause will be more than worth it. More brainpower, more ideas, more innovation and more resource.

Their Future Not Their Past

You really want to be hiring someone based on their potential, not one they have achieved thus far. One of your key responsibilities is to see the potential in others, but it also goes beyond this – you also need to draw that potential out, which is where others may have failed. Yes, the fact they have worked someone well-known and have years of experience is good, but don’t underestimate the power of passion, empathy and a shared mission. Oh, and the fact they’ve worked in lots of places before is not a bad thing. After all, you probably dated a lot of people before you found the one.

Bring On The Professionals

Finding the perfect person is not as simple as putting an ad onto some job board and waiting for them to come to you. Oh no. That will be like trying to find a cotton wool ball in a snowstorm. Instead, you need to bring on some professionals to help you. If you are looking to hire an HR professional in order to scale up, then speak to some HR interim services that have a wide net of relationships. When it comes to standing out and attracting top talent, hire a creative copywriter to do your job description in a way that sells your culture as much as anything. Hiring isn’t easy. It is fierce, competitive and important. Remember that.

Don’t Allow Any Room For BS

It doesn’t take the most accomplished BS’er to blag their way through a set of interview questions and that’s because most of them are generic and rubbish. So, instead of just asking questions and letting a bunch of chatterboxes convince you they are right, have them complete a task of some sort. If it is a salesperson you’re hiring, then have them sell you something. If it is a marketer, then have then come up with an outreach strategy of some sort. If it is a creative copywriter, have them tell the story of your brand, even if it just to show off the tone. Trust us, you will separate the ones who want and deserve a shot from the ones just looking for a paycheck.

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When you decide to launch a business, you should be aiming to start strongly to give yourself the best chance of succeeding. After all, you won’t have an unlimited amount of time to make a success of things, and a lot of businesses end up failing within the first year.

Whether you choose to buy a business or start one from scratch, the principles of getting off to a strong start remain the same. So, let’s look at a few ways that you can do this.

Find Out What People Actually Want to Buy

So many business owners start out with an idea that they think is brilliant, but they haven’t done the adequate research to ensure that other people agree with them. A lot of the time, people are too broad in the market they are aiming for, and you are much better off targeting a highly specific area rather than doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is doing.

Get Cash Flowing Immediately

No business has a chance of succeeding without a steady flow of cash, so you need to make sure you get into good habits from the get-go. First of all, you should get into a habit of sticking to a budget, and carefully managing your outgoings. When it comes to collecting payments, asking for deposits on work up-front is a good idea, and if you can get into a direct debit system with your clients rather than having to chase invoices all the time, so much the better.

Put the Focus on Sales and Marketing

When you are just starting out, your focus needs to be heavily sales and marketing based. Essentially, this means you will be getting a steady flow of cash into the business, while also making more people aware of exactly what you are doing. And you should be aiming to get repeat business, not just getting in new customers all the time. This is by far the more cost-effective way of growing your business.

Find Ways to Keep Costs Low

Another important financial point to make is that you should always be looking for ways that you can keep your costs low. Business is all about successful negotiation, so you should always be looking to get the best deal possible. Sometimes, you can form a reciprocal relationship that involves exchanging services rather than paying for them. In a fast-growing business, it is easy to let costs get out of hand, but this is always a recipe for disaster.

Monitor Your Results

If you don’t stringently monitor your results, you will never be able to tell if what you are doing is a success or not. So, whenever you launch a marketing campaign or bring a new product to market, you should be analysing what you are doing closely in order to maximise your chances of success.

Get off to a strong start in business, and you will be much more likely to keep that success going in the long-term.

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When you set about starting your business, or when you need a revamp, it’s easy to think that your website is just a small part of things. That it can be a simple thing that will do its job without any help or updates. Well, you’re wrong. Your website is only going to be successful if you give it the right things. You need to drive traffic towards it, gear it up to look the best, and give it a leg up on the competition.

Your website is an outward representation of who you are as a business, and as such, it should have as much attention given to it as any other part.

Design

From the get-go, your website needs to be appealing. Looks do count when it comes to your site. It needs to be easily accessible, and easy to navigate by everyone. With web-building sites like WordPress and Wix, a lot of websites have a similar feel to them. And that can easily work in your favour; if a person is familiar with how to use your site, then they are more likely to spend more time there. But, obviously, you still need to make it stand out from the other, similar sites. Build the page around your company’s aesthetic, match your business cards with your website, and continue the colour scheme through your office.

SEO

You need to gear up your website with SEO. For those who don’t know, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is where you use keywords or phrases within the body of some text which increases your standing on a search engine. These keywords are what people type into a search engine most to get the results they want. So, by using them on your site, it’s much more likely that you’ll be found. SEO marketing is one of the most important parts of your marketing campaign. It should be used in every piece of text you put out on the internet. And for your website, you want the keywords to fit seamlessly into the content, and not stand out like a sore thumb. Similarly, your wording should be readable by everyone. You might be a highly qualified lawyer, but you don’t want to turn away possible clients purely because they couldn’t understand your website.

Social Media

Probably the only thing in your marketing arsenal that is more important than SEO is your use of social media. Everyone is on some sort of social media platform, so why would you not be? It’ s a great place to connect with customers, gain new ones and show the world that you are a relatable human being that they could easily do business with. And everything you post or update should be leading people back to your website. Just wrote a blog? Tweet about it, the link will lead them straight back to your site. Something happens in the news that you can link back – link it back. Every opportunity should be grasped with both hands and used to your advantage.

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