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Marketing, motivation and mindset - three essential components of the cutthroat corporate world. Being fuelled with motivation helps achieve a positive mindset. While a solid marketing strategy can help nurture company growth, which also has a knock-on effect in firing motivation and an optimistic mindset. Yes, it’s safe to say that marketing, motivation and mindset are three ‘Ms’ every business can’t afford to ignore. CMS Vocational Training, specialists in offering government funded and commercial training programmes for young people and adults across Yorkshire, looks at why every business needs to work on marketing, motivation and mindset and how to effectively achieve them. Marketing A sound marketing strategy enables a business to set tangible goals, measure progress and ultimately remain competitive. Failing to market can result in a business losing out to competitors, which can
mean the demise of a company. As the Business Chronicle writes: “The heart of your business success lies in its marketing. Most aspects of your business depend on successful marketing.” Successful marketing gives a business greater publicity and generates higher levels of brand awareness. Whether you own a business that’s becoming a more well-known brand or work for that company, marketing can help motivate a business and all who are involved with it. Setting marketing goals should be an objective of any marketing strategy. For example, if you are setting up a social media marketing campaign, set goals for the number of page likes, followers and subscribers you want the business to have in, say, three months’ time. This will help motivate, not only the marketing team, but the business as a whole. Or setting a goal for the amount of emails and newsletters you will send out, or blogs you will publish, would
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be a tangible marketing strategy with positive results. Motivation Like marketing, motivation is an essential component of keeping a business alive. Marketing and watching the excitement of a brand develop and grow, can help spur motivation within a workforce. Though marketing alone is not enough to spark and retain motivation. Employee praise and recognition is an effective way to ensure teams stay motivated, and doesn’t require a hefty amount of resources. Taking the time out to recognise and praise employees for their good work can be enough to increase their loyalty to a company, which in turn improves staff retention rates. Training and development is another area businesses should invest in if they want to improve motivation levels within their workforce. Knowing they are being invested in and having their skills and knowledge improved and developed through training and development can generate a sense of achievement and ultimately lead to greater motivation at work. With a motivated workforce under their wing, businesses can reap many advantages, such as increased productivity at work and a rise of creative and innovative ideas, as employees are more disposed to ‘go that extra mile’ for their employer.
As Monster.com notes: “Feeling fulfilled at work goes a long way when it comes to increased motivation in the workplace. Those who don’t feel a sense of achievement certainly aren’t going to take on more than what’s required.” Mindset Which brings us on to mindset. Motivational speakers regularly advise their audiences to think positively in all aspects of their lives. Having a positive mindset at work is important, both for an employee’s own wellbeing and for an employer. A positive mindset enriches peoples’ working lives, paving the way for self-development and achieving both personal career goals and the goals of the business. Being motivated and having a positive mindset at work, helps employees achieve their tasks more proficiently. With a more positive attitude, employees tend to take greater interest and care in what they do and how they deliver it, meaning they produce higher quality work. From an employer’s perspective, workforces that are more motivated and boast a positive mindset, are beneficial in increasing productivity and ultimately company profits. As we can see, marketing, motivation and mindset are three ‘Ms’ that are vital to nurturing company success and are more greatly intertwined than we may think. Ignoring them, could result in businesses seriously missing out.
This blog post was written by Hadyn Luke, Director of CMS Vocational Training (CMSVOC). CMSVOC offers a vast range of courses and training programmes across diverse sectors. CMSVOC is committed to helping people of all ages, backgrounds and industries, find the right course and training programme so they can progress in their chosen career or embark on a new career. CMSVOC’s professional and talented staff have specialist knowledge in a wide range of industries.
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Global Power Moves: Strategies For a New Economic Era By Malik Muhammad Global power moves are strategies that focus on raising the profile and sales of your product on an international level. There is a school of thought that encourages a business to start small, build your brand then expand your customer base from national to global. This is still a useful concept, in certain respects, because business growth involves a level of calculated risk in order to increase profit. It's still sensible to start small; however, your market doesn't have to be local. Social media platforms and the effective use of websites have changed the way customers engage with products and this positively impacts your future sales. It's generally known that the Internet has created a paradigm shift in how
we shop; why then is this article stating the obvious? The relationship between customer and business thrives on reciprocity. The desire for the product that is created in the mind of the customer needs to be met by the value added through its supply from the business. When there is a shift in one part of this equation then there must be an equal response on the other side for the balance of customer and supplier relations. Customers shop differently so business must respond to this change. Does your Twitter feed succinctly promote your
goods / services? Are your Instagram posts more likely to highlight the visual features
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of what you do? What's the date of your last Facebook post? It is useful to remind customers why your product is relevant. They require a genuine reason to give you their repeat business and social media helps to provide that reason. The effective use of these promotional tools will help to incorporate what you have to offer into the lifestyle experiences of actual and potential customers by fulfilling a need or satisfying an aspiration. Take for instance vacuum cleaners and handbags. People clean their homes so a vacuum cleaner that has specific technological features to make the cleaning process easier will make a regular chore less cumbersome. A handbag holds personal items for the convenience of the owner, however, a luxury branded and well- designed handbag is an item of desire because it makes the owner connect with the feeling of luxury associated with what is essentially - a bag. Needs and aspirations are human experiences. Global power moves will enable your business to reach this wider audience in real time. How so? 1. Immediately review how user friendly and sales orientated your website is. A customer
newsletter or blog may prove useful and (depending on your product) it may not even be inappropriate to utilise quirky platforms such as Snapchat. 2. Put procedures in place to control the proper use of all social media concerning your business. Analyse the total customer experience up to the point of purchase with particular attention to how issues / complaints are reduced and satisfactorily resolved. 3. Attend industry trade shows, form and maintain mutually beneficial relationships and affiliate your brand with similar businesses. There is leverage in association as you will naturally differentiate yourself based on your unique selling point(s). 4. Stay true to the core values of your brand and authentically represent them in all aspects of your publicity and business dealings. Thinking less local and more globally means seriously looking at the bigger vision. It's a strategic manifestation of how you intend to grow your business, increase profits and stay relevant in this time. Fulfilling the needs and meeting the aspirations of as wide a customer base as possible makes good business sense.
Malik Muhammad was raised and educated in Jamaica, read law in London and is the conceptualiser of The Empowerment Mastery System. He enjoys vegan cooking, quad biking, jazz and yoga. He is an after dinner speaker, workshop facilitator and convenes international & corporate inspirational seminars. Malik is the host of online talk show 'Reasoning Sessions' and specialises in sharing self-empowerment strategies with diverse and multi-faith audiences. Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter
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4 Legal Mistakes Often Made by Start-ups By Marcus Jensen Starting a startup is an exciting moment in every entrepreneur’s life, but it includes a few obstacles on the way. From organizing business affairs and finalizing financial plans to finding office space and hiring competent staff – there are tons of things you have to handle before starting any actual work. However, that’s not all: some of the most serious problems include legal issues and avoiding troubles that could cost a lot and jeopardize your startup. Here are the most common legal mistakes and how to avoid them.
Pick the Proper Legal Entity This is the first step of setting up your startup, so it’s quite important to do it correctly. The wrong legal entity will present your business to potential clients and partners in the wrong way and cause major legal problems in the years to come. So, consult a professional who can help you decide which legal entity is right for your business. Legal entities depend on the type of company you’re running, as well as the relationship you want to build with your
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partners and investments. Although the classification varies from country to country, keep in mind that the most popular business structures for startups are partnerships, corporations, sole proprietorships and LLCs. All of these have pros and cons, so choose the right one if you want to stay out of financial troubles in the future.
Handle Your Co-founders
Have you seen what happened to Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network? Unless you want your life to turn into a Hollywood movie, avoid arguments with your co-founders. Many startups are usually founded by a group of friends having the same dream and wanting to make it big in the business world, but what should you do when they become your business partners and co-founders of your startup? The most important thing is to have mutual respect and understanding, while a written agreement never hurts. You have to specify the roles and responsibilities, both yours and theirs, as well as agree on the ownership percentage. Furthermore, define your
salaries and find an exit strategy if something goes wrong. Going into business with your friends has its advantages, but only if you approach it carefully will you avoid legal problems.
Treat Your Employees Fairly Just because your startup is small at the moment doesn’t mean it won’t grow, so you can’t always depend solely on yourself. Hiring reliable people to handle your affairs sounds hard at first, but it’s much better than doing everything alone. Once you employ them, treat your employees fairly and take care of their documentation according to the laws. All your employees have to sign a number of documents before they start working, including the “at-will” employment offer letter, the confidential information and inventions assignment agreement, the IRS W-4 form, as well as several benefit forms. These and other documents will protect their rights as well as yours and are vital in all cases, from promotions to termination of employment. They are especially important should an accident or workplace injury occur, claims a trustworthy work injury lawyer. Finally, proper documentation will also save your company from being penalized by the external control.
Protect Your Intellectual Property If you invent, produce, develop or manage a unique product or service, you have to protect it. The issues of intellectual property misappropriation are often and can become a burning issue for your startup
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any day now. There are several protective measures to look into – copyrights, patents, confidentiality agreements, trademarks, etc. – and they depend on the type of product or service you’ve developed. When in doubt which method of protection to choose, remember that patents are the safest choice you can make. By patenting your product, you become the sole right holder, preventing any third-parties from stealing your idea. Patenting something isn’t easy, and only
absolutely unique concepts are eligible for patents and trademarks, so hire good legal representation when entering this process.
Other Issues Some of the other legal issues a startup could face include missing tax payments, finding a distinctive company name and not hiring an in-house lawyer. However, now that you know all of these potential threats, you can avoid them and take your startup to the top!
About the Author Marcus is an Australian IT support professional. He’s running his own business, working with companies that outsource their IT maintenance. He often writes about technology, business and marketing and is a regular contributor on several sites.
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Top Nine Lead Generation Ideas for Your Business and No One Is Talking About By Michael Lundberg As marketers we have been spending a lot of time and resources generating leads. For many of us the end goal here is to generate leads which in turn will become paying customers. Small business organizations face numerous challenges accessing to capital, creating sustainable revenue, making pay roll etc. Growing a small business b2b companies into a larger one can help in some of these issues, but b2b growth requires leads. Generating leads through traditional sales model generally requires more number of people and time. The following lead generation ideas are designed helping you think outside the box, achieving best results with fewer resources. Creating a product video: According to a study conducted by social science research network 65% of us are visual learners. So why not have something created that will explain your offering in a way speaking to majority of people around. In a case study conducted by Bhaji Illuminati product videos help us in generating leads at a rate of 33%. When done in a right manner videos help us in keeping customers engaged inspiring us to take immediate action. Product videos
don’t have to be long or complex and with tools like Animoto they can be easily created.
Split Test Your Call To Action: The very first thing you need to ask your self is Do you have a call to action added, prompts users to share their name and email addresses. If no then create a button and optin form that clearly identifies you want your visitors to do. While you might have a different CTAs on page you need to know what works the best for you. And the only way you can find out is the split test for your call to action button. For instance have you tried split test with different color buttons. While most generally prefer a call to action button at the bottom of your page, your readers might not make it to the bottom of the page.
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Trying The Squint Test: Take a few shots of whiskey your choice and then have a look at your website. Does your call to action stand out? In a study conducted by blastam analytics and marketing a travel website tested their call to action button against a more contrasting CTA passing the squint test. The result was they saw an increase with more than 591% in the leads.
Hosting a Give Away: Give away’s are one of the most successful ways of generating leads. Give away’s process can lead you with many number of junk leads wasting your time if not done in the right manner. So what’s the trick? Make sure you are giving away people whatever they want. For example Ninja Outreach has put together give way of several products and services that turn out to be useful to their target demographic.
Creating a Quiz: Offering up a quiz to your website visitors generally serves as a creative and an alternative way of learning more about them and obtaining their contact information. The goal here is to bargain the result of the quiz in order to generate leads which in turn can be really effective when done in a right manner. For instance here is an example from Eastern International College. They had the following quiz created in order to help students make proper section.
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Identifying Leads with Followerwonk on Twitter: On twitter you can think of leads as fruits. Some are ripe and ready to use product where as some a waste of time. Followerwonk helps to make the distinction for you. For instance seer interactive put together a whooper of post on how Followerwonk helped them in generating leads by identifying them, filtering, and reaching the ripest leads generating customers. Using Twitter Cards: Twitter cards make it easy enough for the marketers to capture the right leads in the activity stream using lead cards. Is twitter equivalent to the sign up box that you generally see on blogs? Twitter is not always about just putting on smoke and mirrors either. For instance Web trends decided to put their lead generation twitter cards to test and increased leads tenfold lowering their cost per lead with 500%. Creating a Promo Video: Not each and every one of us will learn by reading. Some are visual learners where as some are audible learners. Having a promo video created for your business can help in educating your visitors in terms of your products and services you are providing. As a marketer you can go ahead and use technology like Wistia adding a call to action button in the middle capturing their business email addresses. Videos allow you to take the leverage of all the third party platforms like YouTube, Facebook, giving you an extra reach in the newsfeed.
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Slide Share Presentation: Slide share is a community that allow businesses to upload and share presentations related to their products and services. Since presentations are things that lead to a great content, having a well-designed slide share has the potential of making things go viral providing a greater exposure to your website. Slideshare helps in featuring your content on their homepage bringing more traffic towards your website.
To conclude: To conclude a sales funnel that is filled with leads is the best ways of validating your marketing efforts delivering value to your prospects. When lead generation is done successfully each and every one of us will gain benefits from it. As marketers the pressure is always there in us to deliver qualified leads into the funnel or the sales department. We all understand what the importance of lead generation really are and it’s coming up with ideas that can turn out to be tricky at times.
About the Author Michael is the Marketing Manager at Ampliz, specializing in email appending and marketing database management software, editing blogs, case studies, and guides. He tries to make the world just a bit more pleasant enough by working on strategies that would help them prevent and eliminate spam in terms of email marketing.
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How To Create The Best Brochure For Your Business
By Amy Trotter Creating an effective brochure for your business is vital for success. It’s important to highlight the advantages of your company, and include everything you offer, so that those who are reading your brochure will understand what your business stands for. A brochure is an easy way to make a long lasting impact, and grow a target audience that is ideal for your business’s success. These tips will help keep you on track to creating the best brochure for your business.
Budget A cheap brochure may save you money, but it will look just that: cheap. The less money you spend on the brochure doesn’t necessarily mean the better. Better quality prints and paper make a big difference, and your audience will notice it. This doesn’t mean that you have to spend a ton of money for top dollar supplies, but you should create a budget that works for your company, and also isn’t skimping on the important things. If it looks and feels cheap, than most likely your audience won’t take you seriously, and might even think that
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you are unprofessional and not fit for their services or needs. Researching where to find cheap ink cartridges that produce at the same quality as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) products is a guaranteed way to ease on your spending.
Simplicity
will stay in the minds and memories of your target audience. Once again, keep it simple, yet strong! The front of your brochure is the very first thing that your audience will see, and if it’s not powerful enough, then they might not take the time to open up the rest of it and read it. You might find it hard not to include as much information as you can, but the simpler the better. Your brochure should include information that is relevant and important to your business, and refrain from any clutter or filler information. You don’t want too much on the brochure as this could become overwhelming to read or look at, and instead carefully include the most important information pertaining to your business and what will lead to its success.
Attention Grabbing A really impactful headline will not only grab the attention of your readers, but will make for a good first impression. You want something that will not only stand out, but
Call To Action Grabbing your reader's attention is not enough, you need to make sure that they continue to interact once they’re done. Including a call to action will help lead your audience from your brochure to your main business page. You can say something, like “shop online at…”, or “ visit our page for more information”. These simple phrases are what keeps visitors coming to your business and looking for more information, or resources that they need. It’s a way to lead or direct them to the specific products or services that you’re looking to increase on sales too.
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Social Media
for more information, and give them a better understanding of what your business has to offer.
Details
One powerful tool that many people use for just about everything in their lives, is social media. If you have social media pages for your business, make sure to include them on your brochure. Since social media has such a powerful impact within our society, and it’s popularity is growing each and every day, including the resources to this is important for your business success. An easy and subtle way of including these in your brochure without taking up too much space, is to use the social media symbols for each page that you have. For example: if your business has a Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram page, place those symbols near your call to action. This will entice readers to visit the and/or follow your social media
The overall design and information that you choose to include will be the main source of information that your readers can get without actually stepping foot in your business. Remember, this brochure is a way to gain more consumers, and to increase your overall audience. You’ll want to make sure that you use proper formatting, and include items, such as your tagline, appealing photos, graphics, and easy to read paragraphs. The details of your business should be outlined in a simple, and short format, but include enough to help your reader understand what it is you do or sell. The overall appeal that you create for your brochure will develop a design that is practical, but also impactful. You’ll want to make sure that your brochure stands out from other competitors, so it’s important to design something that will appeal to your audience, and maintain a level of professionalism for your company.
About the Author Amy Trotter is a freelance writer and a graphic designer from Santa Monica, California. By envisioning her artistic ideas in accordance with her clients’ businesses, she has helped many companies achieve an optimal product, including posters, brochures, and websites. When she is not busy designing, she enjoys writing informative articles about her expertise.
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The Importance Of Great Web Design For Your Small Business By Chris Pautsch
Building a successful small business is not always possible overnight. Instead, there are myriad marketing tactics available to boost growth and potential sales lead opportunities based on your business model. There are various benefits to building and sharing web design that is appealing, up to today's standards and functional. Knowing the importance of great web design for your small business is a way for your company to set itself apart from competitors while attracting new potential consumers who are not familiar with what you have to offer on your official website and any social media sites you have set up dedicated to the company you represent or own. Below, learn about key web design components small businesses should consider. Branding Branding is a key element to a positive reputation for any business, whether you are showcasing products or offering a service to potential customers. A welldesigned logo and coordinating website adds to your company's authenticity,
legitimacy, and even authority in the market or niche you represent. A brand is what most users recognize with companies they trust, especially when reading magazines, scrolling through their smartphones, or checking out new content online. The more established your brand appears (with a working and well-designed website), the more likely you are to see an uptick in return visitors to your site and the content you provide. Branding is another method to keep users from choosing potential competitors that offer the same or similar products and services you represent. Outshining competitors with a beautifully designed website is more likely to appeal to users who see the correlation between good design and a legitimate business. Graphics and Videos While graphics and videos have become mainstream today within websites, it is highly advisable to keep them to a minimum unless they are absolutely necessary. Dedicate a section on your website to videos rather than bogging
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down an entire home page, causing some users to lag — which may ultimately lead to a higher bounce rate. Check the size of your graphics to ensure they are fully optimized for the quickest viewing of those who are browsing your site. Graphics and videos should always align with your company's brand and message you want to perpetuate in any industry or market. Browser Functionality When companies begin developing the design of their site, it can quickly become overwhelming when the target demographic is ignored. Websites require functionality that is simple and straight to the point. Avoid overbearing graphics, flashbased websites that take longer to load (within browsers and mobile phones), and walls of text on each page. Designing an effective and efficient website should be consistent throughout — limiting words to each individual page and minimizing the number of unnecessary graphics, especially when sharing content or promoting products. Mobile Adaptation One of the biggest errors when developing a website for a small business is the ignorance of mobile viewing. Ensuring your website is responsive to all browsers and not just those on a traditional computer is imperative. Mobile adaptation is not simply for smartphones, but it is also necessary for tablets and other devices where your website may be accessed. Proper CSS coding and formatting of your website can easily modify the overall look and feel of the website within mobile and tablet devices, giving more users and potential consumers access to the content, services or products you provide.
CTA Placement in the Right Spots Within Campaigns With branding in mind, be sure that all CTAs are visible and in appropriate locations — especially when attempting to sell a product, get users to register for your website, or even sign up for an email list you have available for future marketing campaigns. The CTA copy should match the overall language, tone and style used throughout your website to help maintain authenticity and authority in your market — standing out from competitors. Taking the time to ensure your web design for any business is up to par with today's standards is essential, regardless of the target audience and demographic you are attempting to reach. The more you know about your visitors and potential consumers, the easier it is to cater to them in terms of ads, banners, color schemes, and the overall branding of your site and company (for ease of access purpose). Catering to your consumers is key not only to generate revenue and income, but also to garner a higher rate of brand loyalty and a legitimate following in the process —ultimately helping to take any business to the next level of success. About the Author: Chris Pautsch is Founder and CEO of KeyLimeTie. KeyLimeTie is a full-service design, development and digital strategy agency, helping clients communicate more effectively and intimately with their customers through interactive marketing channels.
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Powerful Tips To Drive Your Start-Up Towards Success By Steve McMeechan Starting a business is an exciting, yet challenging mission that requires a lot of time, money, and hard work to make it rise above your competitors. The hardest part of a start-up business is making it succeed. If you’ve just started up your very own business but you feel like you’re struggling, then here’s some powerful expert tips on how to drive your start-up towards a successful outcome. Let’s get started.
Best Methods To Improve Your Start-Up’s Success
1. Know Your Target Customers For any business to succeed, especially a start-up, you need to know who your ideal customer is. The reason why many startups fail is because they don’t research their potential customer base before they invest in their business. By not knowing your target customer, you fall short of being able to directly target them with your marketing efforts. So how do you find out your ideal customer, you ask? The answer is customer segmentation.
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Customer segmentation is the process of narrowing down a wide customer audience base until you’re left with who your ideal customer would be. The first step in completing this is by developing your main customer categories. These include
Geographic Locations Demographics Behaviours Psychographics
Once your main categories are established you then begin to analyse and narrow down your potential target audience, as seen in the table below, by determining their traits. Socio-Demographic Psychographic
Behavioural
Geographic
Occupation Education Ethnicity/language Religion Income Marital status Family size Sex Age
Frequency of behaviour Consistency of behaviour Readiness to change Relevant behaviour Stages of change Duration of behaviour
Peri-urban District Urban Region Rural Community
Preference Activities Opinions and attitudes Personality Benefits sought Values
When you’ve deducted the traits of your target customer, you can then work on narrowing them down more until you have the identity of who you should target your marketing efforts towards. Potential Audience
SocioDemographic
Geographic Psychographic
Behavioural
Women
25-35 years Fashion Enthusiasts
Melbourne Sydney
Loves to go clothes shopping every weekend Enjoys going out to parties and socialising Isn’t afraid to speak her mind
Wants to become a fashion designer Loves to buy new clothes just released Works in a high-end job that pays decent money Wants outfits that mix and match well
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As seen above, by analysing and segmenting your ideal customer you’ll be able to improve your marketing efforts greatly so you can gain more interest from the right customer base. This will help your business thrive and succeed in a competitive world.
2. Use Criticism To Your Advantage At some point, any start up business will receive criticism and some negative feedback, it’s all a part of the growing process. The difference between successful businesses and the ones that fail is that those who succeeded used criticism to their advantage. When you gain negative feedback, there’s a few things you should do. These include:
Thank the person for the negative feedback and bringing the problem to your attention. Use this negative feedback to help improve this area of your business. Addressing these key areas will dramatically improve the way you conduct yourself as a business, and how efficient you are when selling your products or services to your customers. If possible, ask the same customer to try again with the process that caused the negative feedback in the
first place. This will allow you to see whether there’s more issues with this area of your business. Don’t take negative feedback as a personal hit. All businesses will have negativity at some point in their years of operation. Instead use it to your advantage as a way to grow your business into a powerful enterprise .
3. Build A Long-Term Strategy
Many start-up businesses don’t have a long-term strategy in place when they begin their business. This can be a problem when trying to achieve success in a short amount of time because you don’t have a solid foundation to work from. When building your long-term business strategy, here’s a few things to think of:
Decide on where you would like to be in 5 to 10 years. Do you want to be selling overseas, opening another business in another location, or
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earning big dollars from your company?
Keep your profits in perspective. This means estimate your spending and your possible financial growth over the next 5-10 years. Look for possible partnerships that can help excel your business forward to a higher growth margin.
Look into the team and staff you need to hire long term if your business expands. Account for this within your long-term spending and financial growth margin.
Look for other ways you can grow the business; improve services, add more products to sell etc.
Analyse the best marketing efforts that would target your ideal customer the best; TV advertising, online marketing, social media marketing etc.
Analyse your competitors. Are you able to give customers in your industry something they can’t?
By really thinking about the future, how you can expand your business growth, and developing a long-term strategy as your foundation, you’ll be able to really drive your business towards success.
Conclusion Owning and running a start-up business isn’t an easy task to begin with. However, by utilising all the advice you’re given you can achieve the unachievable if you put your mind towards it. So, have you started a business? Are you going to implement these tips?
About the Author Steven McMeechan is a strategic marketing and communications specialist with over twenty years’ experience in senior marketing management roles across a range of industries including Information Technology and Financial Services. He works for Capstone Financial Planning and lives in Melbourne, Australia.
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