Category: Business Blog

Business Blog

Make Your Small Business Look BIGGER

There is no doubt that big businesses have a host of advantages over their smaller rivals. They can enjoy established reputations, media attention and a large following of brand-loyal customers. And while it may seem like competing with the commercial giants is impossible, you need to remember that they were all in exactly the same position as you once. While you are out achieving your goals, there is nothing wrong that making your small business appear that little bit bigger to gain a sense of trust and respect amongst your customers. So, let’s examine in more detail just a few of the ways that you can achieve this feat.

 

Create a Good Website

There are still plenty of small businesses out there operating without a website, and if you fall into this category, now is the time to make a change. Even if you are not directly selling on your site, there are so many advantages involved in having a website including looking professional, showcasing your work and displaying customer testimonials. A website can also be a relatively inexpensive investment, but the rewards that you receive could be huge.

 

Rethink Your Brand

If you think about some of the biggest businesses in the world – Coca-Cola, Google, Amazon – you can instantly picture their logos in your mind. So, if your brand is not currently up to scratch and generating the attention that you deserve, it could be time to make a change. There are plenty of graphic designers out there who don’t charge a great deal but could create something for you that is truly great.

 

Make a High-Quality Video

If you have not yet created a video for your company, the time has come to consider doing so. You can convey a great deal of information to your customers in a short period of time, and you are also playing a big role in making your business seem professional and forward-thinking. While customers may not be willing to read a blog post, they are much more likely to turn their attention to a video.

 

Hire a Virtual Assistant

Even if you are running the business all by yourself, having a virtual assistant gives your company a sense of being a larger entity than it actually is. Besides this, a virtual assistant also helps to free up some of the time that you would normally on admin to concentrate on bigger things involving your business. So, take a look at Virtual HQ if you are considering getting one. You never know what advantages you may receive from taking this step.

 

Develop a Social Media Presence

A small business can create a much bigger reputation simply by increasing the number of social media followers that they have. While setting up accounts is the easy part, increasing the number of followers is inevitably going to be more challenging. Make sure that you post regularly with content that is both interesting and informative. Nothing looks worse than a social media account which hasn’t been active for a long period of time. And you should also try to encourage comments and interact directly with the social media users.

 

Start a Content Marketing Program

Just as active social media accounts make a business look bigger than it is, so too does a great blog page. Once you have set up this page on your website, you need to create a plan of the type of content that you are going to fill it with. Just like your social media accounts, you should also have a clear timetable so that you are not left for weeks or months without making a post. Make sure that your blog is used in close conjunction with your social media accounts. So, when you write a new one, remember to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and all the other channels that you have open.

 

Get a Prestigious Business Address

Even though you may be running your business from home, your customers don’t have to know this as well. So, you could invest in getting a virtual office to give you somewhere more prestigious to put on your business cards and other marketing materials.   

 

These are just some of the techniques which you can use to make your small business appear bigger. Use a combination of them and you are likely to create the best impression amongst your customers. In time, hopefully, your business will be big enough to create the right impression all by itself!  

Business Blog

Digital Marketing: Taking Back Your Time

Has social media taken over your time? Do you find yourself living in reaction to social media notifications and email pings like Pavlov’s Dogs, jumping to attention each time you hear a “ding” from a notification?  If so, it’s time to take back your life and start automating your email and social media interactions… as nowadays, we have become so attached to our digital devices that we barely have any down time.

 

Indeed, we can spend so much time behind our computers that we don’t even realise we are still hooked in, when sat on the train or even with our partner at dinner – tapping away on our phones, and this digitally connected world we live in, can be incredibly harmful to living a balanced life particularly in terms of our emotional wellbeing and social lives.  

 

One of the best ways to ensure we find the time to enjoy a more balanced life is to automate your digital marketing by creating a network of automated process, systems, and apps to automatically take care of marketing tasks such as following up on emails, posting to facebook, and so on.

 

This will not only free up physical time, it will give you peace of mind, and a sense of certainty that things are being taken care of.

 

Furthermore, rather than having to deal with the headaches that can come with technology, web design and social media marketing reach out and get some advice from experts in their field who can act like an armco barrier in that they can help you avert disaster and keep you on the right track.  Essentially, what might take you three hours to figure out could be done in three minutes with access to the right expertise.

 

Tim Ferriss, a well known productivity expert, talks about the importance of automation in our work lives so we can focus on managing our business rather than being trapped working within the business.  Further to this, he urges us to go one step further and outsource many of our more menial digital tasks to a virtual assistant.

 

In this article we’re going to look at automating a number of the most time consuming digital tasks such as being inundated by emails, following up on sales leads, and managing our social media presence.

 

When it comes to email, there are plenty of time-starved business owners frantically sending out an email to a customer thanking them for their order and letting them know when it will be shipped.  The key point with automation is that it frees your time to be working ‘on’ the business at a strategic level rather than ‘in’ the business where you are wasting your time doing the same job as a low-level employee.  You could use something like mailchimp in order to start automating your emails at very low cost.

 

Managing your social media marketing campaigns can be extremely time consuming.  Many business owners consider hiring a virtual assistant in order to manage this time consuming task though there there are several free apps such as hootsuite and buffer that can help you automate this task.

 

In summary, it’s time to take back your time and put your digital marketing activities on autopilot rather than live life chained to your device.

 

Business Blog

Awesome Automation: Here’s How To Create a Business That…

When you first start a business venture, your blood, sweat and tears goes into it. It’s easy to lose the balance between work and life because your business becomes your life, you know that you’re the one who is responsible for making it a success. However when things progress and you’re doing well, it’s natural to want to take a step back. This allows you to reap the rewards of the profits without burning the midnight oil night after night. It frees up time for you to spend doing other things, whether it’s being around for loved ones or setting up more ventures. Either way, it’s many entrepreneurs dream to create a business that eventually ‘runs itself’ And thankfully, in many ways it’s possible to do this. Here’s how you can go about it.

 

Hire an Incredible Workforce

If you want to be able to take a step back, but want to ensure business is being run correctly then hiring the right staff is essential. These are the people who will be managing the day to day tasks, while you might choose to oversee them it’s their work which essentially gives you a business that ‘runs itself.’ These people need to be experienced, motivated and able to work to their own initiative when needed. If you don’t want too much involvement, they need to be able to solve issues without having to run to you for every little thing. As the boss, you can ensure that everyone has good equipment and a pleasant office space to allow them to do their job as best they can. If you want to futureproof your process, you could take on junior staff members too. They can be trained by senior staff, and when people leave or retire later on you have people ready to slot into the existing positions who have a good understanding of the role

 

Use The Right Software

Another way you can create a business that ‘runs itself’ is by utilising the incredible business software that’s out there right now. It means that time-consuming tasks can be done in a matter of seconds or minutes with the click of a button- instead of paying a worker hours out of their day. Using business software correctly means that you’re not hiring more workers than you need, which means more profit for you. It can be anything from an invoice editor to rota planning software, legal software, accounting software and much more. Find out what’s out there and what suits your business.

 

Utilise Social Media

One of the best things you can do to ensure the success of your business is to be smart with social media, One of the most incredible benefits of it is that it acts as a free source of advertising. Customers reviewing or talking about you and your products really gets you name out there to others. When potential customers get a genuine and honest recommendation from someone they can see is a real person, they’re far more likely to trust the company. This is an easy way for the word to spread about your business, and requires no effort or money from you to do so. Be visible on social media and your customers will do the rest.