Michael Levitt's Blog, page 87
April 23, 2021
Four Tips To Improve Your Website Design This Year
Web design is important for many businesses to look at when it comes to their website. It’s something that can often become outdated if not given much attention and it’s a part of your business that matters significantly to your target audience. With so many people using the internet nowadays, here are four tips to improve your website design this year.
Think About What You’re Currently LackingWhat is it that you’re currently lacking in your web design? Perhaps it’s the need for a better layout or maybe there needs to be more visuals? It’s good to access your current website design and find what you’ve been missing so that you know what to include when it comes to your updated design. This might need to be a collaborative process with your digital team to figure out how you can bring more functionality and appeal to the website itself.
Ask your employees what they think and it also might be worth getting a website audit too so that you have individuals who are unbiased, reviewing your site for what it is, and giving feedback.
Think about what your audience needs when it comes to the site. It’s worth taking a look at tools that you can use to analyze the data that you have available to you. For example, Google Analytics is a very popular platform and is a great way of assessing what pages your users like and where they’ve come from to get there. There are even options to see how long they engage with the website, the longer the better!
Ask your audience for feedback where you can throw surveys and forms that they can fill out either after becoming a customer or just browsing the website for the first time.
A website builder is a great option when you just want to hit the reset button on your web design or perhaps you’ve not got a website yet and you’re starting from nothing. A company like WebX360 can start you off on the right track by helping build a website that is going to help benefit your business as a whole.
Outsourcing can be a great way of saving some money instead of having to hire anyone permanently in-house. It’s definitely one way of cutting down costs whilst still getting those all-important tasks completed.
Your competition is there for a reason and even though you may want to focus on your own efforts, it can’t harm you to take a look at what they’re doing and use it for inspiration on your own website. Look at what works and what’s consistent and features across your competitors’ websites. You can gain a lot of intel by doing this and it could certainly help create a more successful design.
With all this being said, it can definitely be worthwhile to improve your website design this year as part of your business growth and development.
10 Effective Methods For Improving Productivity At Work
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Being productive at work does not only enhance your organization and focus, but it can also help you meet your work goals. Hitting certain achievements is much easier when you are productive, as you can get more done, remember to prioritize certain tasks and eliminate distractions. For those who want to learn how to be more productive at work, here’s how.
Use one dashboardUsing one dashboard at work essentially means you can monitor all of your work tasks, emails, reports, and more in one place. For instance, with a sales engagement tool, you can manage everything your work entails in one dedicated area. This can enhance your productivity at work and help you stay organized no matter how much work you have. Instead of navigating between different programs, you can stay in one place and work on each task of priority.
To grow a successful business, the organization is important. If you lack routine at work, you may want to think about integrating one. By using lists, you can ensure you complete every task that you need to. You can write the priority tasks at the top and work your way down. Lists will also help you manage one task at a time. With more focus on one task, you will be able to complete it to the best of your ability.
Turning up late to work is bound to cause stress and make you feel unorganized. So, ensuring you are on time will help you stay focused and ensure you are as productive as possible throughout the day. To avoid being late, simply wake up and leave your home a little earlier.
It can be easy to spend too much time on one task alone. Thus, tracking your time will help you stay on track and ensure you get more than one task done. If you have a list of tasks to do, divide your time wisely to make sure you get enough time to spend on each of the tasks. It is fine to spend longer on certain tasks if you need to. But, ensure you create enough time for each task so that you can tick off your to-do list in a timely manner and not become too stressed.
Although work may set you certain deadlines, it may be useful to set some of your own. If you know that you can manage tasks better under your own time limits, then let them know that. There is no need to increase stress if they allow you to set your own deadlines. This will help you manage your time better and be more productive due to knowing you can work at your own pace.
This tip sounds easier said than done, but to be productive at work (in life in general) we need to be happier. To get happy means to focus on yourself outside of work. Do things that make you feel energized and content. This could be taking a day or two off to have a spa break or getting creative in the evenings with your cooking. Whatever makes you happy and inspired will result in a happier you. A happier you are likely to take that attitude into work, which can make you more productive. It will lighten the mood at work, which will reduce stress and help you stay focused.
At the end of each day, it can help to rethink your tasks, conversations, and actions. You can look back on how you handled each aspect as distinguish your strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, you can learn from your mistakes and enhance your strengths for each aspect of your work. For instance, if you realize you handled a difficult conversation with your boss really well due to staying composed and being calm, you can try to continue this throughout other conversations. If the end result was positive and what you had hoped for, you are more likely to continue your day in a better mood and get things done. A bad mood can have a significant impact on productivity. Thus, by rethinking your day and pinpointing your strengths, you can carry that through the next day of work and be more productive and content.
Saying yes to everything and work can hinder your productivity. If you say no more often to meetings and casual lunches out when you have a lot to do, you will realize how much more productive you can be. Although you may feel like you are letting someone down, you can always reschedule the meeting or lunch to a time when you have less work to complete. Meetings, in particular, can take up a lot of necessary time. Some conversations can be over and done within 5 minutes over an email, so ensure your meetings are necessary and proactive if you do have to have one.
Nobody is or can be perfect. Stop trying to be perfect at work as you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. It is very easy to get hung up on trying to reach perfectionism. Of course, everyone wants to be the ideal worker, achieve their goals easily, and make your boss happy. But, nobody can be perfect at work. Everyone can their own hurdles. Instead of trying to be perfect, use that time to work on improving your weaknesses. This will have much more benefit and make you a better worker, one that can be more productive and efficient.
Distractions can be your worst enemy when you are trying to be productive. Eliminating them from your workspace can enhance your focus. Thus, turn off notifications, remove your phone, and anything else that causes you to lose focus. You will notice how much more work you can get done by not attending to your phone notifications every 10 minutes.
Downtime Doesn't Need To Be Significant To Rack Up Major Costs
We’ve all heard it said time and again that downtime can drastically impact business visibility, income, and reputation. But, when we consider where the real downtime damage lies, most of us assume that long periods out-of-action are the most detrimental. But, ten minutes here or there? Surely that’s not such a problem?
Until you look at the facts, that is, and realize that even minor downtime disruptions can rack up some worrying costs. Consider, for instance, that the average amount of annual downtime (14 hours) can cost –
$55,000/year for small businesses
$91,000/year for medium enterprises
$1,000,000/year for large companies
This downtime doesn’t span for days or even hours in most cases, but the impact is still devastating, not even just because of lost custom. This is a significant factor, of course, but the real expenses from these short downtime bursts tend to come from sources such as –
Employee wages during idle periods
Overtime when making up for lost work
General workplace disruptions
Etc.
In other words, far from simply losing you sales (which it will do,) ten minutes of downtime could cost you a great deal from an employment perspective. With that in mind, taking action against even brief time spent offline is essential and is something you can achieve by –
# 1 - Prioritizing prevention
Given that even ten minutes is too much downtime, prevention is always better than cure, ensuring that you don’t even go offline for a second. Managed IT services are your best chance to achieve this through 24/7 monitoring that can pick up potential disruptions before they happen and bridge gaps so that you don’t have to worry, even for ten minutes. What’s more, managed expertise ensures that, even if downtime does sneak through, you’re up and running before your team even notice the problem and start costing you in the process.
# 2 - Plan for the worst
Prevention might be key, but you’re also going to want a disaster recovery plan that gets you back up and running fast if the worst does happen. As mentioned, monitoring can do this to some extent but, the more prepared you are, the better position you put yourself in. So, make sure that you put data backups and reconfiguration at the forefront now to save yourself a whole lot of money later.
# 3 - Get your entire team onboard
Too often, we treat downtime and its risks as a management-only issue, but remember, idle staff are one of the worst expenses of short periods of downtime. As such, a focus on training your team with your backup plans in mind means that, even if you go offline, every member of your enterprise springs into action to get you back up and running, and reduce those downtime costs at the same time.
If you thought ten minutes of downtime was nothing to worry about, then think again. Costs start building from the second the clock stops. Ensure they start a much lower level by putting these plans in place at long last.
April 22, 2021
How to Build a Culture of Safety in Your Company
Safety in the workplace is an imperative area to address to ensure the health, safety, and well being of employees. This is particularly important in industries where safety could be compromised such as in mining, healthcare, and construction.
Each year, thousands of employees across the globe are prone to experiencing injury on the job. This leads to loss of productivity, days of work, or even life. This is a key reason why it is important to create a culture of safety in the workplace that will ensure employees will not only follow safety rules for themselves but for other employees and potential customers in the workplace.
Here are some ways in which a culture of safety can be achieved in the workplace.
Improve knowledge through skills training programsTransforming workplace culture means doing more than an introduction to health and safety training. While these are excellent tools for providing some of the basic tools and instructions as to what to do in specific scenarios using the right equipment to do so-- they won’t bring the culture shift that businesses need.
It means working alongside experienced people such as Carlos Ramirez Safety who have both industry experience spanning over several years and up-to-date knowledge of current practices. To achieve the desired culture shift, employers need to gift their employees with learning experiences that encourage them to think differently about workplace safety to and take ownership of certain areas that keep both themselves and others safe at all times, preventing workplace accidents from happening.
Plan towards making changes
In order to make the shift towards a culture of safety, employees need to first understand their current situation. Two ways of getting to know about employees’ attitudes towards workplace safety are through conducting surveys and focus groups surrounding this area.
Charting the path toward a culture change will also require a safety objective that is clearly articulated. Goals can include; reducing or eliminating the number of workplace injuries, enhanced sanitation protocols, or upgrading cleaning signs to prevent injury. Whatever the goal, it will need to be measurable with the metrics stated so that progress can be recognized and celebrated once the goal has been achieved.
Get support from leaders
Frontline workers who are face-to-face with customers, patients, hazardous materials, or heavy machinery are not the only people who should be held responsible for ensuring workplace safety. Leaders at the top play a critical part in building a culture of safety by working to champion safety as a crucial aspect of the overall success of the business through regular communication. Not only that, they should work to ensure that sufficient resources are available to all employees who should be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to use them safely while celebrating those who do it successfully.
Creating a culture of safety in the workplace doesn’t have to be a pipeline dream for employers. These goals can become a reality when both leaders and employees work together to demonstrate a commitment to their safety goals. With the right level of training, support, and planning, every member of the workforce will be empowered to help to improve workplace safety.
3 Effective Methods of Online Data Acquisition
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Businesses large and small depend on swathes of data in order to effectively acquire, manage and serve clients, adapt their strategies, and implement new models. But in a world of constantly changing data, trends, and technologies data acquisition has become almost an art form with many different tactics, both subversive and direct, that can be employed before analysis.
Of course, studies can be performed and metrics, habits, and loyalty can be tracked either through customer reward cards, website cookies, or onsite survey teams but these either take time, incur an expense, or both, so when it comes to modern data strategies, the internet can be your best friend as it lends itself well to data mining.
Some of the best methods of data acquisition are:
Online Surveys
Social Media Engagement
Analytics Tools
Surveys are a tried and tested method of gaining large amounts of specific data in a short space of time while social media can provide instant and direct access to consumers and employees alike and analytics tools offer a comprehensive overview of all aspects of consumer data.
Online SurveysAn older form of data acquisition, yet still effective, surveys can be an excellent tool for gathering information on pretty much anything since they can be tailor-made to ask direct questions and opinions about a particular subject, product, or even your business itself.
There are many online survey sites that can be utilized and will pay customers a small fee to fill them, which is covered as a part of your expense or you can choose an email surveys provider that can create a custom solution and then mail it to a segmented recipient list in order to gauge quick and efficient data on a specific topic.
Social Media EngagementThe communication choice of the 21st century, social media is now used by almost 5 billion people globally, which means its platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are an absolute gold mine of data. Most of the platforms, Facebook in particular, actually provide data acquisition tools such as short surveys that can gauge a customer base response to a specific campaign, their opinion of your company, or reflect any changing trends.
However, given the recent allegations and scandals concerning Facebook data practices, you would be wise to be careful in how any data is processed, sorted, stored, or shared since not informing clients of this could constitute a criminal offense depending on your country or state of origin and its laws.
Analytics ToolsOne of the most effective methods of data acquisition is the use of free analytics software. Primarily, Google Analytics is the tool of choice for most people since it can provide a fully comprehensive overview of web development trends and user behavior on your website, how your traffic is attained, and from what sources. Social media platforms also implement their own analytics tools that you can use when monitoring any kind of campaign on their sites as well.
The online nature of analytics software means that it is best suited to monitoring one platform at a time though and at the moment they do not all integrate with each other, but this is something that could happen in the future. That being said, there are other paid analytics tools such as FullStory, Pendo, and MouseFlow that can track and manage data from multiple sources including keywords, conversions, and sites across multiple campaigns at the same time.
3 Career Changes You Might Not Have Previously Considered
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught you that you’re unhappy in your current role and seeking a change, then why not consider a fresh start altogether? Sometimes it isn’t the company or the job that we are in that is making us unhappy, often it can be the wider sector altogether. So, if you’re tired of banking, law, or commercial property, here are three career changes you might not have previously considered. Who knows? One of these could be your dream job!
Always been good with numbers? Then perhaps a career in tax is for you. There is good money to be made as a tax accountant, especially if you set up your own firm. It’s worth trying to enroll in a tax preparation course first to learn the basics before making such a big career jump but it is very much possible. Tax accountancy firms help clients to pay less tax by taking advantage of various Government schemes and loopholes. Everything is legally sound, it is just about helping other firms become their most tax-efficient.
In return, tax accountancy firms receive a retained sum every month from clients who want their taxes to remain at their most efficient. If you come from a background in property, then you’re in luck, as there are the highest number of tax loopholes in this area that can be exploited for your clients and earn you money as a result.
The written word more your thing? If so, then an exciting career in PR could be exactly what you are after. People come into PR from all sorts of different backgrounds, whether that be journalism, sales, marketing, or after graduating in almost any Arts subject whatsoever. It’s a very competitive and fast-paced industry, meaning you’ll never be left bored or clock watching. If you like the idea of taking journalists out for drinks and selling in some exciting newsworthy stories to them, then this could be the career for you.
While PR can be glamorous, there is plenty of hard work involved too. Agency life in particular can be fast-paced and stressful, so be wary of this before making the switch. If you prefer a slower pace and less high demand, then an in-house role might be more suited to your needs.
Happiness in the workplace is essential for a healthy work-life balance, so if you’re tired of your current role, then why not consider a career as a project manager? This job is rather easy to articulate; essentially you manage either a specific or multiple projects.
This could include coordinating and collaborating with team members to keep them on track, managing and keeping the project within budget, avoiding overspend, or even risk management to ensure that a deadline can be met on time. Project management can be a really fun and rewarding career for the right person, so why not give it a go if you’re tired of your current role?
April 21, 2021
Digital Marketing Strategies You Can't Afford to Ignore
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In a world of constant online engagement and evolving digital interfaces between businesses, clients and employees now is the time that you are required to make the decision to embrace digital marketing if you have not done so already. Developing a digital marketing strategy can help you get a foothold on the competition as well as move your business into the modern age and future-proof it for the foreseeable future.
While there are many facets to digital marketing that are undertaken by extremely talented and knowledgeable professionals as an ongoing process, there are also some that can be implemented right now that can yield significant and almost immediate results when done properly.
These strategies are:
Search Engine Optimization
Social media
SEO is a key factor when it comes to online performance as it allows you to become associated with an industry or product in addition to being discoverable while social media at this point is a necessary part of any business.
Search Engine OptimizationAlmost an art form, successful SEO implementation is difficult to master but when done properly ensures that your company is seen as the perfect choice in relation to relevant queries through a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo!. At the most basic level, SEO serves to inform web crawlers about the content of your page which is implemented using various methods related to your site’s content.
Relevant copy, inbound and outbound links, and headers, as well as digital media, meta descriptions, and alt text are all used to relay information concerning your site to a web crawler that can then reference your site appropriately based on a search, called Search Engine Page Results (SERPs) that a user can see and click on. The importance of this is to drive traffic to a site and convert users to customers. Because of this, SEO should be configured as soon as possible so as to beat competition since it is estimated that around 70% of small businesses don’t implement an SEO strategy.
Social mediaSeemingly dominating the modern world, social media is everywhere these days as it provides a free and effective method of communication to relevant target audiences. Whether you like them or not, social media platforms have their uses and if you are serious about expanding business or being competitive then you will need to embrace social media now so as not to become irrelevant. As it stands, there are currently almost 5 billion social media users, all potential customers.
One of the key factors of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn is that they can be tailored to very specific audiences based on their demographics, interaction history, and user interaction. While the specifics of social media targeting have been the subject of much controversy lately, the fact remains that they are a valuable tool for any business as they can also be used to actively engage with your customers, integrate into your business, and gauge the public opinion of your company.
5 Ways To COVID-Proof Your Offline Business
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Life hasn't been easy for those business owners who operate their businesses offline. These past 18 months have been very difficult indeed, and the blame can be placed on the COVID pandemic. Some businesses have closed for good, while others have lost money due to the temporary shutdown.
Trying to stay afloat and financially solvent has been tough but thankfully, for some business owners, there is light at the end of the dark tunnel they have been stepping through. Vaccinations are now in place and offline businesses are finally starting to open again. Hopefully, your business will be in the process of opening too. But now is not the time to get complacent, of course. The COVID virus still poses a risk, so for the benefit of your customers, and to make your employers feel good about returning to work, safety measures need to be put in place. These can include the following.
One-way systems, barricades, and sticky tape markings on the floor are just some of the ways to ensure social distancing. It's also a good idea to have members of staff on the shop floor to remind customers of social distancing rules, especially when members of the public start to act negligently.
Some people are exempt from having to wear a face mask, such as those who have a disability or who have breathing difficulties, so this is something you need to be aware of. But for all other people, you do need to insist that they wear a mask while on your premises. Provide face masks for those that don't, either by giving them away for free or by selling them to your customers. Provide hand sanitization facilities too by installing a cleaning station at your entrance.
You don't stop COVID-proofing after closing time as there is still a need to sanitize your building and furniture. Hire a cleaning team if you're understaffed, and hire a linen service to take care of your staff uniforms and other pieces of laundry.
This might be the last thing you want to do, especially when you're trying to reclaim lost profits, but for the sake of social distancing, it is imperative that you do. This will be relatively easy if you're running a restaurant or healthcare business, as you can use a booking or appointment system to limit numbers. If you run any other kind of business, it might be that you have to ask some people to form a socially distanced line at your entry point.
Some businesses will have to take specific precautions so make sure you know what these are. You can find out by checking the information provided by the CDC and by visiting those sites that offer advice to businesses such as yours. By educating yourself, you will know the steps you need to take, and you will be able to sidestep any potential illegalities too.
There will be a time when life returns to normal, but for now, we must all do our bit to keep our customers and employees safe. Follow our suggestions and then continue your research online for information relating to your particular industry.
3 Risky Business Ventures that are Essentially Gambling
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The financial world is full of risk and any good financial advisor will tell you to invest wisely, and while this is absolutely true, there are some business ventures with more inherent risk than others. Investing in anything comes with risk since you cannot know the exact outcome of a business venture and more often than not, they will fail.
Putting your hard-earned and saved money into something is a frightening prospect, both figuratively and literally, and while there are some sectors that seem like a good idea, they may not be the safest. Sure there are safe investments with long-term gains but generally, most people are looking to get the best return possible in the shortest amount of time.
There are business ventures and investment opportunities that present quick gains at a significant risk that is more like gambling than wiser investing. These include:
Stocks and trading
Startups and new ventures
Casinos
Trading stocks might seem glamorous, exciting, and rewarding, and it is but it comes with a massive risk of failure while startups are essentially a 50/50 gamble as it will either succeed or fail and believe it or not, because of the massive initial capital required, casinos actually fail to make a profit in most cases.
Stocks and TradingMovies like Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street as well as TV shows such as Billions and The Industry can make the hardcore industry of stocks and trading seem like an exceptionally glamorous venture that most people would do well to be a part of. Wall Street and City of London traders alike do indeed make vast amounts of money, can buy the most glamorous properties, and drive high-end vehicles, but these are (usually) very talented individuals who understand the markets.
If you ever decide to invest in stocks and trading yourself then it is highly recommended that you either study the industry, get a low-level job and experience it or join a respected broker as a client and leave investing to your hired professional. Professional market investors are able to make decisions based on their analysis and understanding of the markets and therefore use your money wisely, probably a lot better than yourself. However, be advised, even the best brokers make mistakes and your money is always at risk when trading and there are some days when even the toilets of the best firms have the local Fiberglass Parshall Flumes working overtime.
Startups and New VenturesStartups are seemingly everywhere these days and you can’t’ switch on a channel like Bloomberg or MSNBC without hearing news of another startup either reaching stupendous profits or failing miserably. This highlights the binary nature of investing in startups or new ventures as either becoming profitable or losing all of your invested capital. Sure, there are exceptions that can eventually make money but this can either take some time and cost more money or appear to be making money and failing spectacularly. Theranos, anyone?
Good advice when investing in a startup is to check the claims of the business owners since many, such as Elizabeth Holmes, make bold claims in the beginning and adopt the Silicon Valley attitude of “fake it ‘til you make it”, which not only uses your money recklessly but can have legal consequences down the line where nobody wins and all of your invested capital is lost without any way of recovering it. It's also an excellent idea to consult a financial advisor before investing in anything as these professionals usually have their ears to the ground when it comes to sorting the genuine from the Charlatans.
Casinos and GamblingOne of the biggest gambling ventures you could invest in is well, gambling. Casinos and other gambling establishments such as betting offices might seem like they make a ton of money, and they do, but only if successful. The fact of the matter is, however, that a casino takes a lot of initial capital, business planning, and time to get off the ground with no guarantee of becoming successful for many reasons, but not least for the mass of existing competition that already does it well. Even Donald Trump's Atlantic City casinos went under, however this was due more to mismanagement and leveraged bonds.
If you decided to invest in a new casino you would likely be facing stiff competition from experienced companies that know how to do it well - attract visitors and manage them. How do they do that? Well, most of the work is done before someone has even entered the casino by offering high-end or celebrity shows, dishes by world-renowned chefs, and enticing half-naked ladies that will give you free drinks. None of this can be maintained without large amounts of initial cash which is one of the reasons why modern casinos only stay open thanks to investment by massive corporations.
April 20, 2021
Why Employee Happiness Is Important In The Workplace
Now that life is slowly starting to return to normal, a lot of businesses are preparing to welcome back their employees into their office spaces. This will be the ideal opportunity to ensure that any last minute adjustments that need to be made can be organized before they return so that your employees feel happy, safe and willing to work.
The office is an integral part of your business as it allows your employees to gather together, discuss ideas and progress with business tasks. As a business owner you want to know that you are doing all you can to stimulate creative ideas to push your business further. So having a happy environment in which you staff can all thrive in is key.
A study carried out in the UK in 2018 looked at employee productivity in the workplace. They ascertained that employee satisfaction could improve annual sales by at least 10 to 16% due to working in a happier environment.So anything you can do to contribute towards your employees overall satisfaction in the workplace is going to have a positive effect on your business sales too.
If your employees are able to work in a well organized, brightly lit, clean and comfortable office space, they are going to feel more comfortable and content which can help them feel less stressed and more productive.
To carry out any necessary repairs or undergo construction plans for your office then then you are certainly going to need a commercial contractor who will be able to fulfill this role. This will allow you to refurbish any run down or tired areas to spruce up the office environment.
Ideally you want to be able to provide different rooms so that staff that get distracted by any light noises can work in quiet rooms, whilst those that enjoy working in a more open environment can work together. It is about getting the balance right to try and accommodate as many employees as possible, as not everyone is able to concentrate in the same sort of working environment.
Encouraging Healthy Eating and Regular Breaks
It is certainly ideal to provide kitchen amenities so that staff can have an area to prepare and eat food to keep their energy levels consistent throughout the day. It also enables staff to have a break from staring at their computer screens and chat to other colleagues.
Researchers in the British Journal of Health Psychology discovered that what people ate had a significant impact on their productivity levels throughout the day. The healthier foods the participants were able to consume, the more engaged, happier and creative they felt. So by having nearby kitchen facilities this allows your employees to grab healthier foods throughout the day and avoid an afternoon slump.
What You Eat Affects Your Productivity- Harvard Business Review
