Michael Levitt's Blog, page 54

Services Your Business Shouldn't Be Without

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As a business, there are going to be certain things that you need in order to be successful. Too many companies these days think that they can go without some of the essentials, instead choosing to delegate these tasks to employees who are not qualified to handle them. The problem here is that your business is not going to be getting everything that it requires to see the best possible results. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the services that your business shouldn’t be without, so keep reading down below if you would like to find out more.

Marketing

The first thing that we are going to talk about is marketing. Marketing is essential to every single business out there as it’s the tool that lets people know who you are and what you can do for them. If you don’t market your business correctly, then you are not going to see the results that you are hoping for. You won’t be able to gain more customers, and your existing customers are likely to switch to another business that markets properly. As such, you should have a marketing team or at the very least outsource this solution.

Making sure that you have experts on this will give you a leg up on the market, allowing people to see exactly who you are and why you are the best choice. They will be able to reach your target audience with ease, providing you with the numbers that you require for success. 

IT

Another service that you are going to need is IT. It’s true to say that there are many different areas of IT, and not every professional who works within the industry will have mastered them all. In fact, it’s practically impossible to do this, which is why we suggest outsourcing to a company that covers it all. You need someone who knows how verilog works, as well as being able to tackle the security aspect of the business, the maintenance side, and everything in between. Without this, when things go wrong, your business is going to be in trouble waiting for someone to come and fix the issue.

Human Resources

The final service that you need is human resources. A lot of companies will tell you that this is a waste of money, and these are the same services that will have issues with their employees. Human resources are there to aid relations between the business and the people who work there and are a vital part of keeping the company running effectively and efficiently.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the services that your business shouldn’t be without. Each one of these services is going to provide something crucial to your business, and you may find that without one of them, your company ends up lacking in some way. We wish you the very best of luck and hope that you see an improvement when you have these on your side.

3 Steps To Creating a Post-Covid Workplace

The last year we’ve seen many changes come to the workplace, especially now that we enter a new phase of life after COVID-19. As an employer, it’s essential to ensure that employers are comfortable enough to come back to work; this can mean flexible scheduling so workers can work in time blocks on specific days. Others can work from home if they can’t come to the office. As we get into a new world of working, employers need to implement a system; here’s a guide consisting of three steps to creating a post-Covid workplace.

Define “Returning To Work”

As employers, we often define “returning to work” differently from one another. Nowadays, means permanently work-from-home or a temporary scheduling system with workers coming in on specific days and times.

For many employers, defining return to work can also mean deciding what a future workplace could look like based on vaccination status. Many employers feel compelled to enforce the vaccine before allowing workers back, while many search for loopholes and ways around the vaccination status.

As an employer, it’s better to let the employee decide on their own. If they don’t get a vaccine, consider alternative work schedules, such as working from home full time or implementing the mask rule for groups larger than ten.

Implementing Hybrid Work

As we transition, many who worked from home in 2020 request to remain homebound instead of coming into the office. Unfortunately, not every job type can be done from home, but for others in specific job fields, it can work. Many companies vowed to keep work from home positions permanent, but some can be temporary.

As we roll out this new approach, we need to focus on figuring if we need to update our policies, how we can operate effectively while working remotely, and how everything is supervised. Employers need to figure out the best ways to incorporate a hybrid work schedule where employees can come to the office two to three times a week and work from home the other days. Additionally, the office space must be considered. Not many can stay in one area for long; consider renting out office spaces near towns or cities if you have workers in other states.

Becoming More Communicative

After collecting ourselves from the pandemic, it’s time to consider how we communicate about problems and tension in the office. When we return, we need to find solutions to resolve issues. We also must consider how we handle employee retaliation in the workplace. Plan to hold workshops about handling conflict.

As we get ready to return to the office, another one of the steps to creating a post-Covid workplace is to consider a day porter service who can help keep the office neat and organized in between shifts. Using these steps can help further your way to a healthy transition back to the office.

How To Organize a Fundraising Event for Your Nonprofit

Nonprofit organizations are an essential part of building communities. They play a vital role in helping families, animals, and businesses grow in a stable environment. However, it can be challenging to fund certain services as they typically depend on public funding via fundraisers and donations.

Read on to learn how to organize a fundraising event for your nonprofit to ensure that you can continue serving your community.

Gather the Right Team

The first step to planning a successful fundraiser is to gather the right team to help you reach your nonprofit goals. You’ll need someone to help with catering, finances, marketing, and volunteers to talk with your guests directly. Remember, it takes a village.

Create the Event Budget

How much are you able to spend on your event? Perhaps you and your team can sit down and figure out a realistic budget. Try considering factors like entertainment, food and drinks, merchandise, and more.

Promote Your Event

Be sure to let everyone know that your event is happening—tell them who, what, where, when, why, and how. Inform the public why attendance at your event is important, and find a way to get them invested in the event’s success.

Create a social media page, hang flyers around town, and use word-of-mouth to get people buzzing about your fundraiser.

Establish Your Funding Goal

Set a funding goal that will help you accomplish your nonprofit’s mission. Are you looking to create more space for your shelter? Are you hoping to feed more families this year? What do you want to do, and how much money will you need to reach that goal?

By setting a vision for what you’d like to reach, you’ll be able to establish a funding goal, giving your donators something to aim for when they give to your nonprofit.

Set a Fundraiser Theme

You can choose any number of themes to incorporate into your fundraiser, such as:

Marathon

50/50 Raffle

Casino

Establishing a theme for your fundraising event may increase your profit and allow you to reach your funding goal faster.

Provide Entertainment

Whichever theme you go with, you’ll need to provide entertainment during your fundraiser. Hire musicians to create background music or encourage dancing. Give out prizes or set up a silent auction to create anticipation and a fun, competitive atmosphere. You can even create your own DIY photo booth to engage your guests and give them a token to help them commemorate your event. Do whatever you can to get them excited about your mission.

Organizing a fundraising event for your nonprofit is a wonderful way to extend your group’s reach by finding a new audience or potential volunteers so that you can eventually raise more funds.

Four Tips To Keep On Top Of Your Business Finances

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A small business could face many challenges that could lead to closing its doors. One of the main factors is how difficult it is for them to manage their finances and stay organized. The financial security of any business is very important, especially for small businesses.

In order to ensure a successful business, you should keep an eye on your cash flow. Check out these top tips for maintaining your small business finances: 

Be Aware Of Your Income And Expenditures 

It is not enough to simply follow the flow when you run a business. It's important to know precisely what's coming in and what's going out. If you don't, you won't be able to survive. The tracking of your spending should be at the top of the list of your routine tasks, no matter what you use to monitor it, such as NetSuite bookkeeping services, mobile banking, or spreadsheets. 

Look After Your Credit Rating 

At some point, every business needs to borrow money. It is a normal process. It is your personal credit rating, however, that helps lenders decide whether you are eligible and trustworthy when you are a small business owner. Therefore, you need to make sure you maintain a good credit rating and prove that you can pay on time each month. 

Choose Your Business Partnerships Carefully 

As small businesses grow, they often work together. If you don't do the checks that you should be doing before you commit to anything, this can easily put you at risk. You should conduct a vendor risk assessment and read contracts carefully to ensure you aren't working with anyone who could put your business at risk. 

Be Mindful Of Debt 

Running a business is extremely common for you to have to deal with debt at some point. Especially if you are a small business owner and rely on your personal finances to run your business. It is imperative that you aim to reduce your debt as often as you can, although this is not something that is going to happen overnight. You can actually build your credit score by having a small amount of debt and paying it off each month on time. The idea is that if you are carrying a large amount of debt, you should not take on any more until it is paid down or you have gotten rid of some of it. Make sure that before you take on any more debt, you take a close look at all your options available to you. It has been proven that debt is one of the major downfalls for a business when they are not paying it down and continue to let it grow. 

Maintaining your finances as a small business can be made easier with the tips above. In the end, you should make sure to know what is going in and out at all times and keep your debts under control and as low as possible. Can you suggest any other tips? Let us know below. 

Increase Your Footfall With These Tips

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Running an online business has its perks, but running a store where you can see the joy and excitement on your customers' faces is incredible. You can help them make purchase decisions for themselves or when buying gifts for others. 

Carefully consider their needs and hand-select items for them. Or leaving the customers who like to be left to their own devices alone - but overjoyed when they find something they love. 

Something that many brick-and-mortar businesses find, though, is that to get cheaper rent, you often need to be outside of the central city or town. And that can mean you have to double down on your marketing efforts to attract customers.

So how can you ramp up the footfall and see a better profit? 

Loyalty 

You need to give your customers a reason to come back. A great example is coffee shops that offer a stamped card - for each time they go, you get a stamp or two, and when the card is full - they get a free drink. 

This is a great way to keep customers coming back. But what if you don’t sell something like that?

Nothing stops you from creating a loyalty card scheme that adds points to a card, and after a certain amount of spending, a discount is unlocked. 

Loyal customers aren’t just lovely to have; they are an essential part of your business, as research shows that loyal customers spend more money per visit. 

Social Media

Free to use, but not easy to master. Almost all small businesses could benefit from someone else handling their social media - and making it their full-time job. Many customers like to communicate that way when it comes to social media, and if you don’t have a presence, you will be missing out. 

If you don’t want to hire someone to manage your social media, you will need to create and implement a social media strategy. 

It will take some time, and you should be prepared to dedicate a few hours every day to creating content and communicating with your customers. 

Social media, like Facebook Pages, give customers somewhere to leave reviews too. They are free to share their thoughts and tell other potential buyers what is excellent about your store. Just keep in mind it is just as easy to leave a bad review. 

Use social media to keep people updated on your limited offers, discounts, sales, and opening times. 

ATM

Almost everything is done by card, and in a cashless society, it might seem odd to add an ATM. But from time to time, there are issues with payment processing - and that is a nightmare. Typically these outages impact a couple of stores - and suddenly, everyone needs cash. 

It isn’t just about cash sales though, there are more high street banks closing their branches, and this can make it difficult for people to access their money. But you can provide this service. You can buy or hire an ATM from an atm company and have it installed and maintained too. 

Regular shopping evenings

If you are inside a mall, you will be required to open and close as the central mall does. Simple because people won’t be able to get in or out anyway. 

 If you have a shop front that faces the street, this can present a new and exciting opportunity. Of course, it will depend on what you sell and where you are situated, but many people struggle to get to some stores during the week due to work and family commitments. 

The weekends can be too busy - but what about offering an evening once a month that is open a little later? 

Events

As well as the one late evening a month, you can partner with other local stores to offer some events. You can make it a ticketed event or give away tickets to make it feel exclusive. 

Depending on what you typically sell, you can offer a range of samples and tasters, goodie bags, and more. The idea is to introduce people to your brand. 

You don’t necessarily need to host the event in your store; you can host a pop-up in a different location and afterward direct people to your main store. Pop-up events can be incredibly successful - so long as you keep the momentum going later. 

Website

You can take a leaf from some designer brands and brands like Primark (UK). They don’t sell online. Instead, they use their websites as the window to the store. To buy anything you need to go into the store itself. 

This can be a beneficial method if you don’t want to manage stock outside of what you have in your store and store stock room. 

It can be more worthwhile to balance some products online but smaller products only available in store. It will come down to what works for your business and products. 

Signage

Part of your marketing budget needs to go on great signage - help people find you and give them a reason to go there. 

If you have a hand-scrawled sign, people will often not want to see what's in stock. Because while they know you’re there, they also know you didn’t care enough about your signage to create something meaningful and permanent. 

Your main shop sign is just one sign in a list of many. Get permission to have signs further away from your store, or hire a billboard to alert people. 

It is essential that you have a designer work with these things for you - so that the message you think you are getting across is coming from the actress well. 

The signage you use needs to be eye-catching and let people know what you are selling immediately. 

Your signage and marketing materials like banners, flyers, billboards, and others should all be part of an overall marketing strategy. 

Increasing your footfall and ultimately your profit will take a little time, but once you start using all of these methods, it won’t take long before you see plenty of people - every day. 

Are you looking to increase your business exposure? Check this: How To Get Your Business Noticed

Ways To Protect Your Products During Transportation

As a successful business owner, you recognize the importance of properly safeguarding your products during the shipping process and avoiding any lost funds from damages. However, mistakes do happen, and inventory sometimes doesn’t make it to its final destination. To ensure you never lose profits from damaged goods, check out these ways to protect your products during transportation.

Spend Big on Quality

The cost of high-quality shipping materials pales in comparison to the cost of losing items to damages. Remember, not all boxes are created equally—corrugated boxes are designed to withstand crushing and can be stacked atop each other with little risk of collapsing. Resist the urge to reuse boxes for fragile items, as a box’s effectiveness wears quickly over time.

Industrial tape costs more than conventional tape and is graded to withstand water or other harmful liquids or materials. Tape is essential in creating more stability for your shipping containers.

Guard Against Inclement Weather

While keeping your products out of the elements, factors like humidity or frost threaten both packaging and the inventory itself. There are a few ways to combat inclement weather to ensure your products stay safe. Mainly, hygroscopic materials like desiccants that come in packets (silica gel) maintain dryness within the packaging. This is because desiccant absorbs water, preventing mold, corrosion, or other damage.

Thermal packaging is a pricier material but does an excellent job of insulating heat or cold, depending on the needs of your inventory. Thermal packaging protects products both during transportation and when boxes may be lying around waiting to be shipped.

Go With Pallets

One of the ways to protect your products during transportation is the use of pallets—this method has many benefits for guarding inventory during the shipping process. Pallets manage large quantities well and are made of solid wood, plastic, or metal materials. They can withstand heavier loads and offer superior protection concerning boxes or flimsy shipping containers.

Before implementing this shipping method, research how you can maximize your pallet load stability during transportation. Consider factors like the height and weight of your products and how that affects your pallets’ integrity.

Balance the Containment

Packaging items too tightly or loose puts your products at risk of breaking or suffering minor or significant damages. Wrapping too tight will crush fragile items while leaving too much space allows your inventory room to shift around and potentially break. To prevent this, research the correct containment process for each item.

Your business relies on the satisfaction of the consumers by delivering them intact products. Don’t put your finances and reputation on the line with improper packaging techniques—instead, research what methods work best with your inventory and ensure they are protected every time you transport them.

How To Win Over Clients The Easy Way

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Winning over clients is not always an easy feat, especially if you are in a saturated industry. With the right tips and knowledge, you will find it much easier to win over clients and get in there before other businesses do. If you are a business looking to win over more clients, use this guide for the best tips.

Smarten up your workspace

When you host clients in your workspace, you will want to wow and impress them as much as possible. Although your pitch and conversation are what matters most, it helps if you have a smart and polished interior. A well-cared-for workspace will say a lot about your business and show that you care about the finer details. 

Therefore, it helps to smarten up your workspace. For instance, should you want to host your clients in your outside space because of the calm surroundings, then you might want to get help to install Commercial Awnings to your building as this will ensure that you can use your external space no matter the weather. It will be convenient and often beneficial when the weather turns bad. 

Show off your health and safety methods

On the topic of having an impressive workspace, you will also want to ensure that it meets health and safety regulations. Should you host a client meeting and they cannot see how your business is maintaining safety, they might question your business. 

Therefore, make sure to show off your health and safety methods by clearly labeling hazards, having high-tech security, and overall happy wellbeing in the workspace. 

Get to know more about them before meeting them 

Whenever you chat with clients, it doesn’t look good if you question their business and the facts that they present to you. Whereas if you know the facts already, it will be pretty impressive. Just like in an interview, if you show that you know a lot about the business then it shows you care and have taken your time to get to know more about them. 

This will help cut the small talk too so that you can have more in-depth discussions and allow you to have time to speak about what you can offer them. 

Attend more events

The more you show your face in your industry, the better known you will be. The best way to show your face and network with more people is to attend more events. 

Every industry will host business events, which are often open to invitation. Thus, you can go or you can avoid them. If you go, you will be able to meet more people and also build your business reputation. Showing your face and making more connections will open your business to more opportunities and help you be the best business in the industry to go to for certain services. For instance, if you offer marketing expertise, then attending events and showing off your knowledge will encourage clients to choose you over others who didn’t bother attending the event.

Why Should Your Business Outsource Construction Work?

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Construction is a very important field to modern businesses. No matter the size of a company, it will almost always need a building for the people that work for it, and this means that a lot of the world’s properties are used exclusively by businesses. Handling construction work for yourself can be a very challenging process, presenting issues that only a professional company can overcome. Of course, though, many business owners are tempted to try and handle work like this internally. So, why is this a bad idea? Let’s find out.

Skill & Experience

Many of the construction jobs that businesses need to handle are very dependent on the skill of an operator. This creates a challenge when companies want to have their own construction team, as every little job could require a different employee. Using contractors is a much better way to go, giving you the chance to benefit from skilled workers without having to pay the price for employees. Of course, you need to choose the right company to benefit from the skills you need.

Tools, Machines, and Resources

Buying tools and machines can be very costly, especially for specialist jobs that you aren’t doing all the time. Companies like well diggers are able to complete jobs that you need very specific tools for, providing you with the chance to sit back and relax without having to worry about sourcing it all for yourself. This can also apply to resources, as companies often have connections with suppliers that you would find it very hard to make.

Guarantees

Having work completed by your own team gives you control, but it also strips away your security. Using third-party companies for the construction jobs you have will give you the chance to secure the work they do with guarantees. This means that if the construction work you have done is handled badly you will be able to get money back from the construction company that you choose. They will usually have insurance in place for this, ensuring that you don’t have to worry about affordability.

Saving Money

Many people assume that hiring a construction team directly will be cheaper than outsourcing work like this. In reality, though, taking on all of the employees you’d need to put together a building could cost you a fortune. Not only do you need to pay for salaries and benefits, but you also need to cover things like insurance, recruitment costs, and an HR team to look after it all. This creates a challenge that many businesses can’t afford to overcome.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to choose contractors to handle your business construction work. This can make it much easier to handle complex jobs, taking all of the scary work out of your hands and giving you the chance to sit back, relax, and enjoy the results of the work being done for you.

Social Media Strategies To Immediately Boost Your Platform

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When it comes to helping your business get noticed, establish trust, grow prestige, and simply help drive sales and interest, the platform you have built is going to play a huge role. However, very few businesses start with a big platform, even after a successful launch. However, there are ways to quickly boost it that you can make use of, and here are some of them.

Pump some money into your socials

Social media is one of the most reliable platforms when it comes to building an audience and getting noticed online. However, you do have a lot of competition so building the audience that you need manually can take a lot of time and work. You can’t entirely skip that process but you can invest in paid social media posts that boost your content, making it much more readily available and visible to others. This is often used to drive specific sales or campaigns but can help bump your engagement metrics, too.

Start appearing in all the right places

Aside from building up your own platforms, you can also redirect your audience towards yours by getting your name in other platforms as well. This can include options like cross-posting in well-known blogs, getting articles posted in trusted online publications, as well as cross-promoting with other brands that are adjacent to your own. Networking is just as important when it comes to the online world as it is in the physical world. Make sure you’re looking for opportunities to work with others and develop content that they will want to push.

Get the right names on your side

Aside from posting content in the right places or with the right platform holders, you should also look at those who can bring some name recognition to your business. In particular, podcasters, bloggers, and other influencers can help you get immediate access to their audience, not to mention the degree of trust and perceived legitimacy that comes with being supported by them, so consider looking at an influencer marketplace for the right people. Make sure you work with those that suit your brand, not just anyone who has the right-sized audience.

Get a structured approach to social media

On top of the strategies above, don’t underestimate the importance of getting your house in order, online. The sooner that you start getting more consistent and more reliable with your posts, the sooner that you’re going to be able to see consistent and sustainable growth, as well. Social media management tools make it much easier to do just that by allowing you to schedule posts so you can get your content ready in advance then schedule it to be posted throughout the day, especially at the times when your audience is most likely to be active.

It’s going to take some time to grow the kind of platform that sustains your business success. You can make it take less time, however, with the tips above. There’s nothing wrong with giving your business a little boost until it can maintain that platform naturally.

Starting A Product-Focused Business? Here's How

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Starting a business can be an attractive proposition. If you’re successful, you get the pride of knowing that you’ve built the company from scratch. Coupled with that are each of the other benefits of running a company, such as being your own boss.

Few people know how to start a product-focused business, however. While certain things will undoubtedly be obvious, such as getting financing and sorting out legalities, others won’t. If you plan on creating a product and unveiling it to the world, you’ll need to follow a few steps.

Though this will take time and effort, it could be a much simpler path than you’d think.

How To Start A Product-Focused BusinessDevelop The Product

You might already have an idea for your product. It’s quite a different thing to bring that into reality, however. Part of that involves the design. With this step, you’ll need to look after functionality and safety, among other areas.

Following that comes creating the prototype. Many first-time entrepreneurs choose to make this themselves at home. That’s primarily because of budget constraints. If it’s possible, it’s recommended that you hire a manufacturer to do so.

Many options will be more than happy to, and you could even develop a long-term relationship with them. These manufacturers will take advantage of insert molding and other techniques to make your prototype and subsequent products.

You should learn more about the process before getting your products made.

Starting Testing The Market

Once you have a prototype and some samples made, you should start testing the market. Letting other people use the product is the best way of doing so. You should then get as much honest feedback as possible.

Using this to optimize and improve the product will be recommended. Doing this repeatedly until most of the people you speak with are happy with it could be an appealing path. In many cases, friends and family might have positive feedback from the start.

If that’s the case, it’s worth moving on to further steps.

Find Buyers

When it comes to how to start a product-focused business, finding your buyers will be the natural next step. You’ll need to find out everything you can about the people who would benefit most from your product. These will be your potential customers.

When you’re researching them, you should determine their average income, where they’re located, and much more. That will inform quite a few things going forward, such as where you should advertise, how much you should price your product for, and more.

If you’re primarily targeting companies, you should focus on the types of products they need, who their decision-makers are, and how they typically learn of new products.

Determine The Best Distribution

Once you’ve identified your target market and developed your product, you’ll need to start distributing it. You won’t be able to sell customers anything if you can’t get the product to them, after all. That means putting effort into figuring out the best distribution for your company.

Many companies do so by opening a storefront for customers to visit. As attractive as that is, it also means figuring out a logistics network. In that case, you’ll need to look for suppliers and delivery experts rather than distributors.

You could instead choose to operate your company entirely online. That can simplify the process quite significantly. With this, you can use software and partnerships with suppliers to sell and distribute your products.

Alternatively, you can use a combination of in-store and online distribution. While that will take you more work, it does offer the benefits of both worlds, which could be an attractive proposition.

Have A Marketing Plan

If nobody knows about your product, then they’ll be unable to buy it. You’ll need to get the word out somehow. That’s where a high-quality marketing plan comes in. You should craft a core message for this strategy, with this focusing on your product’s features and benefits.

Part of this will involve creating a high-quality website. When you’re doing so, you’ll need to differentiate your product from its competitors. There could be dozens of other firms trying to get their attention, after all. Alongside this, you’ll need to determine the best places to market your business.

There are multiple platforms and channels through which you can do this. Which ones you choose will depend significantly on where your core market is. That’s why researching your potential buyers is so important.

Using this information, you can identify which marketing techniques would best capture their attention. Social media, email marketing, and search engine marketing are all recommended. 

Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A Product-Focused Business

With how exciting and complicated starting a company is, it can be easy to make mistakes. The key to knowing how to start a product-focused business is to ensure you avoid common mistakes. There are more of these than you might realize.

Perhaps the most notable of these are:

Not planning enough.

A product or service isn’t different enough to provide value or stand out.

Not enough of a focus on customers.

A failure to test and adapt.

Scaling too early.

There are multiple other business mistakes that you could fall victim to. Knowing about them in advance could be the easiest way to avoid them. As such, you should aim to avoid the above as early as possible.

Wrapping Up

If you’re struggling to figure out how to start a product-focused business, the answer could be simpler than you’d think. With the increasingly connected world, many of the things that you’ll need could be at your fingertips.

That doesn’t mean that it won’t take time and effort, however. You’ll need the passion and drive to make sure that your company is a success. There are plenty of others trying to do the same thing, after all.

That’s where each of the above tips and tricks comes into play. Mastering your marketing will make your product stand out. Making sure that your product is high-quality and fulfills a need will ensure that customers buy and are happy.

That makes each area just as important as the others. With that, they’ll deserve a significant amount of attention.