How does your company survive? That’s a question that every entrepreneur has asked themselves at one time or another.
Furthermore, how do you make your business thrive? It’s not easy for new businesses to get started and stay afloat, but there are some simple ways you can do it!
In this article, we will answer some of the most common business pain points. Thus, allowing you to rest easy knowing that you now possess the answers to the most painful of questions.
Corporate Questions Deduced: How to Hire the Right People
In order to hire the right people for your business, you must first know what is needed for the position. This will allow you to find people who are a good fit and who provide more value than just filling a vacancy.
Many entrepreneurs struggle with this because they don’t have time. Or they simply do not have enough money in their budget to train their staff members properly.
Nonetheless, employees must work well together and should share similar values. So how do you make sure that happens?
Ask yourself a few questions about the culture of your company. Having this information will help you to identify potential hires that share in the same culture.
Here are some example questions: What motivates you? Are things done “old school” or “new school?” Do you need someone who has experience in the field? Is customer service part of an employee’s role?
Next, let’s continue with an in-depth look at more corporate focused questions tailored to your business.
How to Reduce Business Risks
Risk in business is part of the appeal, but it can also be the danger that comes from uneducated and even educated decision-making. In order to reduce business risks, you must first assess your company’s needs.
- Do you need a new staff member?
- Are you considering entering into an agreement or partnership with another company or individual?
- Is the decision to make this move based on necessity, or is it for personal gain such as pride, status, etc.?
You should only consider reducing business risk once you have assessed whether there are any risks that can be reduced by changing the existing course of action.
But if the facts haven’t changed since before implementing your game plan – then go ahead! Taking calculated risks can end up paying off over the long run. Remember: “It’s better to regret something that didn’t work out than feel like we made no mistakes at all.”
How to Optimize the Customer Experience
The customer experience is paramount to the success of your business. In order to optimize it, you must have a sense of who your customer is, as well as, how they behave and think, and what their pain points are.
The most important thing about the customer experience is that it’s seamless. There should not be any barriers between you and your customers (e.g., ads or excessive site navigation).
Customers want to spend as little time on your website as possible. Stick with one goal per page, and don’t overwhelm them!
For example, instead of offering blog posts in addition to products with an option for purchasing the product directly from the same page, keep these two items separate. You can also optimize the “customer experience” by making sure that everything works seamlessly across all platforms which will help build trust among your consumers.
How to Use Social Media to Attract Customers
In our modern times, social media is integral to communication with clients, generating sales, and getting brand exposure. In order to use social media to bring in clients, you must have a solid social strategy in place.
The first step is to create an account and fill it with valuable content that will keep the audience engaged. You can then use your page for marketing, branding, networking opportunities, customer service (provide quick responses), contests/giveaways, or interactive polling which can help you gauge public opinion on your company’s products.
But this is a very basic way of looking at this aspect of the business. In social media, you can also utilize targeted advertising, sales psychology, and customer insight research to create effective campaigns and messages that will lead to higher conversion rates.
Social media can also be a great way for companies with physical locations (like restaurants) to generate more business by driving traffic via online promotions, ads, or social events.
How to Ensure a Healthy Life/Work Balance for Business Employees
A successful business is a healthy business. And a healthy business is one with happy and healthy employees. In order to ensure a quality work/life balance for employees, you must first know what the challenges are.
For example, a lack of work/life balance can lead to increased stress levels and less physical activity which in turn leads to higher rates of obesity, mental illness, heart disease, and diabetes.
In other words: You must ensure that your employees have enough energy for their real lives outside of work. Encourage them to take vacations at least once every two years (or more if they wish). And build flexible hours into their schedules so that they’re able to come in early or stay late without sacrificing valuable time with friends and family members who also matter just as much.
You can offer free tools to enhance their skills and knowledge. Consider education plans, premium benefits for services, and more. This will ensure that employees feel like what they’re doing is worthwhile while still having quality time away from it all.
How to Gather Feedback From Customers
An important part of improving your product or service is to gather feedback from your customers. In order to do this, you must make it easy for customers to give you feedback.
This could be in the form of surveys and polls or through an email address on your website. A place where they can contact you directly with any problems or questions.
It’s important to use this information as a way to improve what is working well. It’s also to find out what and why things are not going so well. It may even help lead you toward new opportunities that will be better suited for meeting customer needs.
How to Gather Feedback From Employees
You’ll also want to make sure that employees know how valuable their input is in the businesses decision-making processes, like product development or marketing campaigns – otherwise, these crucial voices would fall silent!
In order to do this, you will need to consider your employees as more than just a means of production.
You’ll want to think about them as the people who are on the front lines with customers, and who have unique insights you might not otherwise be privy to when it comes time for decision-making.
To get feedback from your employees:
- Assess what they do well in their position and where they need improvement (this is often easy if you’re honest!)
- Reach out to them informally over lunch or coffee break
- Hold quarterly one-on-one meetings with each employee individually so that you can ask specific questions related specifically to their work duties and how it relates back into improving customer experience
Your employees should not only feel valued but also act as valuable assets when it comes time for decision-making processes such as whether there’s a need for improvements or new products being developed!
You’ll also want some input from those who work closely with clients so that customer experience continues to improve over time.
How to Allocate Business Resources Effectively
Another important aspect of the business is knowing how to allocate your resources in the right places. To do this, you need to identify where your resources can be maximized.
The most successful businesses know how to boil their business down to the bare essentials and then add back what’s needed as they go along.
What this means is that these companies have a clear idea of what their core purpose or mission statement is, who their target audience is, why they exist in the first place, and what it looks like when all those pieces are working together smoothly
For example, if you’re an eCommerce company with physical stores, chances are good that one major area will be financing inventory (either on consignment or by paying upfront), while another might be product development for both online and offline retail locations.
Allocating budgets appropriately should account for this information so that each area is given the funds they need to succeed.
The other common pitfall of new business owners is that they often don’t know where their time should be spent. This can lead them down a dangerous path where it’s easy to start doing things but harder to do what needs to be done effectively.
It can also mean that if you’re an employee at one point and then decide to go into business for yourself- your knowledge base may not be as wide or deep because it was never necessary for your work before. There are ways around these challenges by following some simple steps:
First, make sure your company has clear goals (what does success look like?), a well-defined mission statement (why does the company exist? What is the company’s purpose?), and a specific niche that is clear to clients, employees, and the public (what differentiates your business?).
With these three things identified, it will be much easier to figure out what you need to do in order for those goals and missions to happen- which means making sure everyone on board knows how their work fits into the big picture.
How to Develop Brand Consistency
As a business, first and foremost, you are a brand. Your brand is the image that attracts customers and makes them stay if they deem so appropriate. Brand consistency is important to ensure your customers know who you are.
In order to develop a consistent brand, you should first establish a plan of action. This means identifying what your company’s purpose is, and then narrowing in on something that will differentiate you from other companies- for example: do you specialize in photography? What specific type of photography? Wedding, portraits, or landscapes?
Then, it is important to think about how employees can contribute to this goal as well.
For example, while an employee may not have any control over pricing (unless they are the owner), they should know what kind of product or service their job contributes towards so that when customers come into contact with them, there isn’t confusion as to why their role is necessary!
Finally, make sure everyone knows where all aspects of branding fit into the big picture by creating company guidelines that define who does what and why.
The Importance Of Company Guidelines
Define who does what and why by creating a list of company guidelines. These should include how to behave on social media, dress code, etc.
Don’t be afraid to create boundaries for your employees that will keep them from going against the branding standards you have set in place!
For example, if everyone has their own personal Facebook account but they all represent themselves as part of your business (i.e., posting pictures with signage or logo), then it is important that these accounts are not public so as to protect any professional information and avoid confusion between personal life vs work life.
This goes for making phone calls during working hours too. Make sure there’s an understanding about when phones will be on and when they’re off.
Formal attire is a great way to set boundaries for employees. This is so their dress code doesn’t become too casual. This includes not wearing jeans, sneakers, etc., even if the work location allows it.
When you establish formal dress standards, people know exactly how to behave in order to maintain high standards of quality at all times.
As an employer, you have the right to ask your staff members about where they are going after work hours as well. Some companies require employees to take a lunch break during working hours while others do not.
As long as there’s consistency within the company guidelines then it will help avoid any confusion later. It also removes worries from other staff members that they are being picked on.
There is no set time for when to have a break. But it’s important that you don’t interrupt the daily work routine by taking too many breaks. For example, if employees take 15 minutes during their lunch hour and then another 30 minutes in the afternoon, will it be an issue with finishing projects or not meeting deadlines?
The team may meet once per month at least – this way everyone can get together without having long meetings every day of the week.
It also helps establish boundaries so people know how often they’re expected to check-in. These monthly meetings can range from 20 minutes all the way up to two hours. This is depending on how much is to be discussed.
The team may also have a weekly meeting. This helps keep everyone accountable for their current work and future work.
It’s important not only to share what you did over the previous week but also your goals for next week. These meetings help keep people focused so they don’t get distracted.
How to Attract Investors or New Funds
Businesses often have a hard time getting off the ground due to resource limitations. A great way to resolve this issue is to attract investors or get new money, but how is this done?
In order to attract new funds or investors, you should be able to show them what they’re contributing money towards. This is illustrated by a ‘business plan’.
A business plan should include the steps for achieving goals and objectives. It should also have financial projections such as profit margins or the net worth of the company. The more detailed you are in your proposal, the better chance it will be a successful model.
Get people excited about your idea by making sure there’s an audience for what you’re creating. Then find ways to get those potential customers to talk about your product so that others hear about it too!
One way this can be accomplished is through social media campaigns like Twitter ads. These allow businesses to target their desired demographics with advertisements.
Continuing on the idea of creating an audience, it is also important to make sure you’re speaking their language. Use relatable images and/or videos.
These days people have a short attention span so keep in mind that videos should be about 20-30 seconds at most. After this, there should be some type of call-to-action where they can sign up for your email list, try out your product, etc.
You may want to include offer codes as well to incentivize customers with savings. This way when customer service calls them back, they’ll remember what you’ve done for them!
Loans
You can also attract loans from federal institutions or banks if you need help with the cash flow. In order to get a good loan, you should have some collateral, so think about what you have that is of value or take out a loan on your house.
When taking out a loan, you want to consider these aspects of it:
- How much money do I need?
- What is the interest rate and how long will it take to pay off my loan at that rate of interest?
- If there are any fees or penalties, and what would they be?
- Do I want a fixed-rate loan (meaning the same amount each month) or an adjustable rate with no default clause so that if rates go up my monthly payments also increase?
The latter has more risk but can offer higher returns as well. If you’re not sure which one to choose, ask your financial advisor for help!
Ideally, when starting out on this journey into entrepreneurship, try to keep some cash handy in case something happens unexpectedly and never put all your eggs in one basket.
How to Measure Outcomes
Finally, the greatest part of the business is that, for the most part, it is predictable. By using analytic software or KPI tracking tools, you can predict what the future will look like from this point in time. However, you can also adjust your parameters and see what it will look like if you put more resources into advertising as an example.
Measuring outcomes and analyzing performance are important. In order to do it, you must first define your key performance indicators, then set up the parameters and standards for how you measure them.
Key Performance Indicators: These are typically quantifiable metrics that tell you where to focus in order to drive change or improvement. They can be very specific like revenue per day or more general (e.g., the total number of downloads on an app).
It is important not only to track KPIs but also to understand which ones will have a greater impact on certain areas of your business as time goes by. That way, you don’t rely on just one measurement for everything – this would be putting all eggs into one basket!
Parameters/Standards: Once KPIs are defined, it’s necessary to establish what numbers they must attain in order for the company to be successful. For example, if your company has a goal of generating $500k in new revenue this year and you set KPIs for conversions at 25%, then the parameters would dictate that they must drive 50 sales during each month – or 1,250 total!
After this, do some research on appropriate tools that you can use for the purposes of tracking these metrics.
Marketing Assistance for Your Business
Now that you know the answers to the most common of corporate questions, you are well on your way to ensure that they no longer bother you or your business. In any case, there’s plenty of time to take care of these problems before they become a problem in the first place. You have an ace up your sleeve. If you’re interested in full-scale marketing services for new businesses, get in touch with us and we will happily accommodate your needs.