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As a business, we need to know how to spend money more than we need to know how to save it. In this is the basic principle of cash flow, that in order to get that cycle going, we need to kickstart it with some of our own expenditure. ‘Spend money to make money,’ as the old saying goes.

But while it’s true that budgeting is important and knowing how to spend is important, being reckless or investing on risky ventures can sometimes be a problem in of itself. This is why many businesses, businesses that seemingly put every step forward, can experience bad luck and have to recuperate their losses. For instance, a landlord might properly vet a tenant before letting to them, not knowing that this tenant is inclined to throw parties every weekend and is likely to cause damage to the property.

So, not only do we need to know how to spend money, but what actions to take should those investments not bear fruit. In this post, we hope to discuss how to optimize your spending as a firm:

Proper Spending Around An Investment

It’s not just that making an investment is important, but how you curate the spending around that investment, too. For instance, you may invest in proper packaging that can withstand international travel now you hope to appeal to a broader global market. So far, so good. But it could also be that learning why you need a customs broker can help you understand just how to properly move those products across borders, with the lowest amount of penalties, with utmost dedication to compliance, and with care and attention going forward. 

Predicting The Return

Of course, it’s important to calculate what kind of return you wish to get from your investment, be that a service, utility or profit. Yet it’s also important to calculate and predict this return in terms of timing, because time is ultimately the most important aspect of managing money and value.

For this reason, it’s important to consider exactly what kind of spending is worthwhile to you. It might be, for instance, that the cost of onboarding a brand new graduate staff member and allowing them to slowly grow into the role over a number of months or even years is not as helpful to you right now, at least compared to hiring an industry professional on a higher salary who is able to provide value to your firm almost immediately. In some scenarios, you may find value in the opposite approach. At the very least, you will have taken a necessary step in considering what kind of return you’re expecting, and how that should define your investment rather than flying blind.

Know What You’re Willing To Take A Loss On

It may be that certain investments aren’t a guarantee, but assume some kind of risk. For this reason, calculating risk is as important as calculating the proper return, and minimizing that where appropriate can be key.

Yet it’s also important to remember that a loss can occur, or at least will occur given enough time, as this is relatively inevitable in a fluctuating market. For that reason, it’s important to consider what you’re willing to take a loss on. For many industry-leading firms, research and development is part of this, because innovation cannot always secure perfect results, but the chances of getting to a new kind of technology, utility or service that can flip the script of your industry is more than worthwhile.

For instance, think of how effectively services like Uber have completely changed the landscape. Without the willingness to potentially take a loss in developing that app, and assuming that risk even though it flew in the face of the convention so far, success would have been impossible.

Where Can You Excel? (Especially In Response To The Competition)

While it’s important to invest in your weaknesses to make yourself competent in those areas, it’s also essential to leverage your strengths and invest in them to keep them sharp and capable, particularly in response to competition.

It might be that your business is known for its absolutely excellent support, which isn’t necessarily appreciated in many other areas of your industry. It might be, then, that continuing to uphold this standard and adapting that to the online resource management of how you interface with clients could be key for the future. Sometimes, , investing in a strength can help you secure it, maintain it, and refine it.

With this advice, we hope you can continue to make the most of your business investments.

Good customer service is the best way to satisfy your customers and keep them coming back. If you are rude to your customers or simply do not fulfil their requests, then you will likely lose their interest. 

If you want to gain your business more customers, then you will want to improve your customer service. On that note, here are the best ways to improve your customer service. 

Have an efficient telephone system

A Business Telephone system is one that should be quick and efficient. As soon as a customer dials your number, you will want to pick up the call as soon as possible. With more telephone lines and more assistants to pick up the phone, you will be able to fulfil customer telephone requests. 

On the topic of telephones, it is important to be assistive and polite on the phone. Always remember that the customer is right. If you tell them they are wrong, then you will likely lose their trust and loyalty. 

Ensuring that you are friendly on the phone will attain the customer’s attention and they will leave the call feeling like they were respected and well cared for.

Be available 

Being available means that you can reply to customer questions and requests. If you are unavailable a lot, then you will not be able to fulfil your customer’s needs. 

When you are available, let your customers know. Share a tweet or a story on Instagram to let them know that you are ready to answer their questions. 

Likewise, let your customers know your availability for answering questions. Show your business hours on your social pages and website so that customers know when to expect you. 

Offer a live chat

Speaking of being available and letting your customers know when they can expect an answer from you, offering a live chat is a great to way respond to customers during certain hours. 

You can set business hours so that customers know when to expect you. It might be 8 am to 3 pm or 9 am to 5 pm. If you show the times on your chat service, then customers will know when to expect you. 

Live chat service is a great way to offer customers immediate and live answers. They can ask you multiple questions and attain an instant response instead of waiting around for seven days through email chats.

Use positive language

Using positive language will guarantee to make customers happy. Even if you can’t help them, using positive language will show them that you tried and would like to assist them. 

When you are speaking to them online, ensure to maintain positive language more so than in person. In-person, customers can see body language. As they cannot online, it is important to use positive language so that they can get a sense of how friendly you are. 

When you are speaking to your customers, always ensure to finish the conversation by asking if they need help with anything else. It gives them an opportunity to ask further questions and see that you are always willing to help.

As an employer, you should be thinking about how to retain your employees. After all, they are the people who drive your business to success! So wouldn’t it make sense to try and keep them happy? You can do this by providing a good work environment that meets their needs. An employee’s work experience is dependent on four factors: the physical surroundings of their workspace, the type of tasks they are doing, company culture/values/benefits provided at work, and opportunities for professional development.

1 Incentivise Tasks

What do you want your employees to be doing more of? If it’s a particular type of work, then incentivise that! For example, if they are struggling with an aspect of their job and need guidance but don’t have time in the day for training or mentoring – offer financial incentives. You can give bonuses based on completing tasks within a specific timeframe or reaching defined milestones.

Incentivising employees is imperative because it helps them feel valued by recognising what they’re doing correctly and encouraging them to perform well. It also provides motivation when things get tough, which will help increase productivity. Another great thing about this approach is that you can keep track of progress through completion rates and statistics. This approach is relevant to any business but would work particularly well in retail and service positions.

2 Offer Employees Development Opportunities

Offering training courses or workshops is another way in which employers can help employees feel valued. Again, this helps with retention because it provides new skills and knowledge that will benefit them and grow your business further – after all, you’re letting them spend time learning!

If your business doesn’t currently have the resources to offer this type of training, consider partnering with a local community college or university. You can split tuition costs and work together to provide skills development for employees. Another benefit is that it makes things easier when recruiting new staff because they’ll already be familiar with company culture, making onboarding more efficient.

The bottom line here, is that companies who invest in Employee Value Proposition (EVP) are setting themselves apart from competitors and gaining an edge over those businesses without the same mentality towards human capital management – especially small-to-medium-sized enterprises!

3 Seek Employee Input

You should also be doing everything in your power to make sure employees are happy. This means making yourself approachable and always open to suggestions from staff members! Employees may want to feel like they have a voice in their company’s decision-making process. You can do this by organising regular feedback sessions with managers to discuss what is going well or give ideas for improvement. Another tip is to arrange monthly ’roundtables’, which involve inviting multiple teams together so there will be no conflict of interest when it comes down to the honesty of responses – plus, everyone has a common goal that will push them forward as a team!

In conclusion, these are three great ways in which employers can retain their highly-valued employees. It’s important to remember that the environment you work in largely determines your happiness and productivity, so this is where a lot of focus should be placed when it comes down to employee retention!