Mohit Tater's Blog, page 636

8 Tools to Make Your Business More Efficient

The modern business must take advantage of useful tools to run at peak efficiency. Some tools improve productivity, while others remove excess downtime among employees or lower the risk of human error. If you’re looking for tools that could make your business more efficient, the following eight options offer excellent places to start.

Virtual Phone Systems

Image via Flickr by Listshack

According to a Gallup survey, as of 2016, 43 percent of employees work at home at least part of the time. When managing remote employees, you need a way to keep them connected to their offices, especially if they hold customer-facing roles. Virtual phone systems connect a business phone line with a remote worker’s phone, whether it’s a cell phone or landline phone.

With a virtual phone system, you can use a business line, avoid distributing employees’ private numbers, and keep up a professional front. Plus, your in-office employees won’t have to waste time transferring calls to employees in the field or asking customers to call other numbers. You gain credibility and efficiency in one useful tool.

Customer Relationship Management Software

Relationships matter more than ever in the business world, but tracking customer relationships can become cumbersome. Customer relationship management (CRM) software automates the process. This software aggregates data from many sources, including the following:

Information about customer interactions
Marketing data from customer touch points
Lead journeys
Customers at every stage of the sales funnel
Client support issues and interactions

You can use CRM software to automate data-related processes. Employees don’t have to waste time entering data into spreadsheets or building extensive databases. This time-saving feature allows you to finish more projects during the workday and saves your staff members from repetitive assignments.

Organizational Software

Many solopreneurs and small businesses avoid investing in software because they don’t want to increase their overhead. Fortunately, several free online organizational tools exist. Applications such as Slack, Trello, and Evernote allow businesses to organize processes and projects, and they feature rollouts from a single convenient place.

For example, if you use Trello, you can create lists of projects, each of which contains cards. Fill the cards with steps that employees need to carry out or deadlines they need to meet. As the process continues, employees move the cards to the next space on the list, creating an efficient workflow.

Cloud-Based Data Storage

Keeping your data in the cloud helps you boost business efficiency by making data available to all your employees, no matter where they work. If you manage remote employees, they can use their access credentials to view data in the cloud without having to return to the office.

Further, when you update information in the cloud, the updates sync with other devices connected to the same account. You can use many cloud-based software programs to improve business efficiency, from simple data storage to accounting programs.

If you decide to switch from locally hosted software to cloud-based solutions, keep security in mind. Choose programs that allow you to set permissions individually for each employee and that use two-stage authentication.

Business Lines of Credit

You can’t always predict when you may need a quick cash influx. When you receive a business line of credit from a funding source such as Kabbage, you can tap available cash to cover payroll, order more inventory, expand your business, or capitalize on a revenue opportunity. Since you already have the line of credit, you don’t have to wait for lengthy approval processes to end.

A business line of credit works similarly to a credit card. You borrow against your credit limit, then you pay back the money. Lines of credit tend to have lower interest rates than credit cards, though, so you’ll pay less for every dollar you borrow.

Analytics Software

Businesses can collect data on almost any topic, but if you can’t analyze the data and form conclusions, the data itself becomes almost useless. Analytics software automates data processing so that you don’t have to waste time and resources on the task.

For example, marketing analytics can show you how well your marketing and advertising efforts are working. The same goes for programs that analyze your accounts receivable or your logistics processes. As you collect more data and feed this data into the software, the program can give you more well-rounded information about your business.

Additionally, as you collect data, you can make small and large changes to the way you do business. Instead of waiting until the end of the quarter to analyze your accounting books, you can adjust processes as you go to improve business efficiency.

Employee Engagement Apps

A Dale Carnegie Training infographic reveals that companies with engaged employees outperform their competitors by as much as 202 percent. An engaged employee focuses on work while in the office, feels committed to the company vision and purpose, and remains loyal to an employer for longer time periods.

Employee engagement apps can help inspire employees to build bonds with one another, give feedback on new projects, and complete training modules. Some apps also come with quizzes and other fun modules that encourage interaction and promote healthy competition.

Time Trackers

Time sheets used to involve spreadsheets or word-processing tables that employees had to fill out at the beginning and end of their shifts. Times have changed. Modern time-tracking software can improve efficiency on several levels.

Some of the most popular programs, such as Hubstaff, take screenshots as employees work to show their progress on specific tasks. They automatically register when employees take breaks, get distracted from assignments, or leave their desks.

These types of software do more than simply help employers keep workers on tasks. They also offer broad data about how long specific projects take to complete and how much time employees spend on particular software programs. Use the data to change internal processes for top efficiency. For example, if employees often experience bottlenecks while performing a specific task, you may find ways to automate that task and increase productivity.

The tools described above can make your business more efficient and more profitable. Use them to gather information and to improve your business processes over time. You may be surprised by the changes you see soon after implementation.

The post 8 Tools to Make Your Business More Efficient appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

These Money Blunders Could Kill You Before Leaving College

Is your father or mother one of the millionaires or billionaires of this age? If they are not, then you should pay attention to how you manage your finances while in college. In this post, our financial management advisors at https://termpaper.help/writing-service will explore some of the deadliest financial blunders that could kill you before your graduation. If you don’t want to join the statistics of financial mismanagement victims, then remain with this post up to the end.

Over Using Student Loans

Student loans are some of the most common tools for funding the education of many college students. However, be very careful the way you use them since they can cripple your life. The reason is that an average college graduate these days steps into the job market with a debt of $38,000, which they should pay for the next 15 years. If you don’t want to leave college with a bond of debts, you should only take student loans when it is necessary. Remember, these are not student donations but binding financial obligations you should repay.

Lack of Proper Planning

Are you sinking in an abyss of financial problems in college? If you are, then consider your financial planning skills. Many students use their finances without any proper planning. If you are one of those fellows who spend money and then come back to their room to find out where it went, then you need to prepare for financial slavery. Therefore, avoid spending your money without a budget.

Also, many scholars don’t have an annual financial plan of all the things they will need. Consequently, they end up falling into unplanned expenses for which they did not prepare. For instance, if you have a plan for what you would require per year or during your entire college duration, it is easier to plan how you will foot those bills.

Credit Card Debt

If you want to avoid fatal financial blunders during your college days, you should avoid seeing your credit cards as free money bags. Many learners fall into financial woes by using their credit cards blindly. Others choose their cards unwisely without looking carefully at the interest rates they carry and whether they have favorable or unfavorable terms. Consequently, they end up losing all the benefits of convenient paying because they never read through the finer details of the cards.

Not Protecting Your Financial Details

Do you want to avoid more financial management blunders that could lead you into debt and untold money problems? If you do, then be careful to avoid sharing your credit card details with friends. Numerous young scholars get into this trap by logging into their financial accounts using unsecure computers in school libraries and other public hubs. Eventually, they end up losing their passwords to identity thieves who con them of their hard-earned cash.

The secret is out. It is now within your power to avoid these financial management blunders to avoid living in debt and other financial challenges.

The post These Money Blunders Could Kill You Before Leaving College appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Smart Ways of Earning Without Losing Focus on Your Studies

Finances are some of the biggest challenges facing many modern college students. But with a little creativity and hard work, you can find smart ways of raising cash in your college days without losing focus on your studies. Our financial advisors at https://scoobydomyessay.com/  will share out a few foolproof methods of raising money in your college days. Read on to discover more.

Work Online

With the onset of the Internet, you don’t need to depend on the traditional ways our fathers employ in raising extra cash while in college. From the comfort of your laps or even your palms, you can make money anytime and from anywhere. More interestingly, you can work at your own convenience without committing yourself to a strangulating schedule. But what are some of the ways you can use to tap into the multibillion dollar wealth doing rounds on the Net? Here are some of the channels of income you can tap into and raise money during your college days:

Transcribing

This channel of income does not require any experience since any person can do it. The Net has many sites that offer transcribing services. Moreover, some of them have ready work inside and the only thing you need is an Internet connection and a sharp ear coupled with excellent writing skills.

Paid Surveys

Another way of earning online while studying is filling paid surveys. A few genuine firms exist on the Net, and they can help you earn something for your upkeep.

Online Writing

If you have a writing gift, you can earn writing articles online. The good side of this avenue is that you don’t need to do the job alone. The Net has platforms where you can hire people to do the jobs for you. Your only job remains performing statutory proofreading and light editing before submitting the word. For instance, places such as Writer’s Domain pay up to $16 per 400 words. In a peak season, you can do up to 8 articles per day. If you have a sharp writer, you can pay them ¼ of the amount and walk away with your $96! Your hardest work will be checking your account, choosing the work, and assigning it while waiting to receive and submit it after one hour.

Donate Life

Do you know you can earn some cash on campus by donating life? All you need to do is find out reproductive service agencies that pay for reproductive samples. For instance, ladies can donate their ovaries while men can donate sperms for cash. This method is lucrative since we have many rich families with sterile men and women who are ready to pay any amount of money to get children. Also, some states in the US pay for donating blood.

Selling Unwanted Stuff

Lastly, do you remember those items you had in high school and you no longer need them in college? If you do, then sell them. You can sell that smartphone, laptop, clothes, and even shoes to make some cash to spend in college.

The channels are unlimited, but we stop it here because of time and the scope of our post. But with the ones we have shared, you can optimize them to beat money challenges in college.

The post Smart Ways of Earning Without Losing Focus on Your Studies appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

How to Learn about Marketing without Going to Business School

Marketing is a vital part of growing your business. You have to be able to attract new customers, interact with your target demographic, and develop a strong brand if you want your company to succeed. But marketing is something that many new entrepreneurs don’t know how to tackle. It seems like this giant, three-headed beast that only a trained professional could possibly tame. And so, they think they’re left with only two options—hire someone else to do it, or go back to school to learn how to do it yourself.

But that’s not true. There are many ways that you can learn about marketing your company without having to go to business school. Here are just a few techniques that you might want to try.

Seek Out Learning Opportunities

Marketing skills are not just going to come to you intuitively. With a constantly shifting market, it takes determined focus and effort to really learn the skills you need to succeed. So start out by making learning about marketing your new job, and seek out every opportunity you can. This means everything from online courses to free eBook and guides on the topic. There is a plethora of information about marketing out there—start looking for it.

Understand SEO and SEM

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are cornerstones of marketing in the digital age. If you don’t know anything about these topics, this is where you need to start. Fortunately for you, Google—the godfather of SEO—offers free courses to help teach you about search advertising. So learn the basics of SEO and SEM, and implement what you learn on your business’s website.

Turn to Social Media

If you’re like most people, you’re on social media every day. Why not use that Facebook and Twitter time to help market your business. Start by taking a look at the way you interact with businesses on social media platforms. What sort of headlines get you to click and read an article? What posts are you most likely to engage with? Odds are, your behaviors will be mirrored by your target consumers as well, and they’ll be an important guide in helping you make marketing decisions.

There are a lot of online lessons out there for social media as well, so look for those. But the most important thing to know about using social media for your business is that you must be active! You should be posting every day, providing engaging content for your followers. If you’re not at least doing that much, then you’re not using social media properly as a marketing tool.

Start as a Consultant

If you really want to learn sales and marketing from the ground up, then you should consider making consulting your first entrepreneurial endeavor. Becoming a business consultant is fast, cheap, and relatively easy to manage. But for entrepreneurs, the lessons you’ll learn as a business consultant can become valuable tools that you’ll use in your future endeavors.

According to successful entrepreneur Sam Ovens, “Consulting is the best way to learn sales and marketing from the ground up…. Many of the marketing and sales strategies required to grow a new consulting firm are pretty straight forward, good ‘ole fashion selling techniques, and so you will learn from the ground up. This experience is invaluable later on when you are building a much more complex team with more resources to allocate.”

Additionally, in a consulting firm, the product you’re selling is you. Learning to sell yourself from day one is critical to entrepreneurial success, and business consulting provides the best on-the-job training available for this kind of skill.

While a business degree is a great way to learn about marketing, you don’t need to go back to school to learn how to market your business. Try these tips, and you just might be surprised by the results you can get.

The post How to Learn about Marketing without Going to Business School appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

How to be an Appreciative of People in Your Professional and Personal Life

How many times have we wanted our bosses or clients to appreciate our efforts? But all we get is a fake, manipulated string of words that are said not out of real gratitude but mere obligation.

So, as a leader, it is necessary for you not make any of your employee feel this way. Lack of real appreciation can make them feel insecure about their jobs. Your employees will like their jobs only when they are being given enough credit for their work. Let us help you out, with the whole appreciation spree:

Before you move to your employees and coworkers, you need to take a moment to appreciate people in your personal life. Your parents who have constantly supported your ambitions, your education. Your maid who keeps your house clean and cooks great food when you reach back home tired. Your partner for their continuous push and encouragement.
Take a moment to appreciate all those friends and colleagues at work who make your office days enjoyable. These people make office life less stressful, and support your professionally, mostly because they are probably going through the same thing. Make an effort to make them feel special or simply thank them for their help and assistance.
Sometimes to let a person know how much their presence means to you, you may have to do a little more than merely thanking them with words. Get them a tangible present – gift coupons, a plant, and movie tickets, anything that has visible benefits. Some people need to hear it, while some people need to see it.
There are some people in the office that help you out with certain specific tasks that you may not be able to do on your own, well you’ve got to make them realize they add meaningful input to your efforts. Make it clear to them that you are genuinely appreciative of their efforts.

A moment of gratitude can bring a great difference in your attitude. You can’t survive in this world alone, and there are people who constantly help you move forward. It is therefore important to acknowledge their presence and importance in your life. Surrounding yourself with people who constantly push you forward just adds onto your productivity. Sometimes you may to do more than just a ‘hey thanks’. You do better, when you are aware of all the people who help you through your day. Don’t take anyone for granted and learn to appreciate efforts.

The post How to be an Appreciative of People in Your Professional and Personal Life appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Is Self-Driving Technology Increasing Car Accidents In Houston? And Who Is At Fault When It Causes An Accident?

Major car manufacturers from Nissan to Lexus are in the midst of developing completely self-autonomous cars. The projections are that by 2022 you will be able to invest in a car that will get you anyplace you want to go without you even needing to watch the road. What was once science fiction in the automobile industry is becoming real, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is on board with turning their car’s reins over to a computer to make life and death decisions.

Many cars already come equipped with self-driving technology. Self-driving safety features are intended to do away with the human error that is responsible for millions of accidents on Houston roadways. But statistics are beginning to show that not all self-driving technology is helping to reduce the number of car accidents. In fact, in some instances, self-driving safety features might be to blame for several accidents across the US and in the Houston area.

By some accounts, cars equipped with self-driving technology are over three times more likely to get into an accident than those that aren’t self-driving. This isn’t only concerning to those who have the technology built into their cars; it is causing legal headaches for the people who are in an accident and believe that it was the self-driving feature that led to them being at fault.

Texas is a no-fault state. That means that when you are in a car accident, no one is technically “at fault.” Each driver, whether negligent or not, pays for their own damages and injuries. That is why every driver in Houston is required to carry PIP, or Personal Insurance Protection. Since no one is declared negligent in automobile accidents in Texas, every driver has the responsibility to carry insurance to cover any accident they are involved in.

But what about when it isn’t the driver who is responsible for an auto collision? What if it is self-driving technology that leads to an accident? The driver would still be responsible for their own injuries through their PIP insurance. The manufacturer of the self-driving technology, however, might also be to blame.

As the law currently states, until a car is completely autonomous – meaning that there is no driver behind the wheel – if you are driving a car, even while using self-driving technology, and you are in an accident, you are technically at fault for the accident. Although you are determined as negligent, that does not mean that the manufacturer might not be on the hook for a product liability case. If it was the self-driving technology that failed and caused your Houston accident, then you might be able to hold the manufacturer liable for your injuries.

Why would self-driving technology be to blame?

As good as some self-driving technology is at sensing things and conditions around a car, there are times when it can’t do what the human mind can, like anticipating specific circumstances. Working via sensors rather than human processing and forward thinking, self-driving technology can’t always predict what human drivers can. That is why as good as the technology becomes, there is always going to be room for error.

Until cars are completely driven without the assistance of humans and are all running with self-driving technology, there is going to be the potential that it can cause an accident instead of avoiding one. Since it can’t anticipate human reactions or behaviors, if there are still unpredictable people behind the wheel, self-driving technology can’t think in the same way.

According to Zehl & Associates, PC, If you are in an accident in Houston and you believe that it was your car’s self-driving technology to blame, you are still responsible for your injuries and damage through PIP. But that does not mean that you can’t initiate a product liability suit against the manufacturer who designed the self-driving technology. If you can prove that the technology was to blame, you might be able to recoup your costs.

The post Is Self-Driving Technology Increasing Car Accidents In Houston? And Who Is At Fault When It Causes An Accident? appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Improve Your Credit Score Faster

A credit score that’s gradually sagging towards the bottom is not ideal for any income earner. If your credit score is suffering, you should immediately take the necessary steps to improve it before the situation gets worse. That’s easier said than done, however. Maintaining a high credit score takes a lot of effort. It can also take time if you are not committed. In case you want to improve your credit score as soon as possible, here are several tried and tested suggestions:

Check Your Credit Report

You are entitled by law to a free credit report annually from TransUnion, Experian, or Equifax, whichever you work with. Do request this credit report and once you have it, check it field by field. Credit reporting companies are known for making errors in credit score reports. If you don’t examine your report carefully, you might miss these errors. Your low credit score could be caused by a silly error that can be easily fixed. In particular, check all unpaid balanced to make sure that each is, in fact, unpaid. Sometimes, fully paid debts might show up as unpaid in credit reports. You can also opt for one of the many legitimate credit monitoring services that assist subscribers to detect errors in their credit reports. Complete this step first and then proceed to other ways you can improve your credit score fast.

Start Paying Down the Remaining Balance

Close to one-third of your credit score is calculated based on the amount of debt you owe, according to FICO’s consumer division. The other factor that determines the score is credit utilization ratio. It’s calculated based on the amount you owe and your remaining credit. People with high credit scores have a credit utilization rate of 30 percent or less. The easiest and quickest way to manage a healthy credit utilization level is to pay down the amount you owe. You don’t have to pay it all back at once. Start making payments, even small payments, to bring down the overall balance. Pay at least slightly above the monthly minimum required to improve your utilization rate faster.

Pay More than Once a Month

It makes sense to make a monthly payment to your credit card company. But this can negatively affect the credit utilization rate mentioned above. For example, if you max out $1,000 on your credit card and make a $1,000 monthly payment, this amounts to 100 percent credit utilization. This does not bear well on your credit score. Therefore, pay more than once per month to improve your score as fast as possible. You can break down payments, but it’s best to make an additional payment each month. You can find out how well this method works by signing up for a free credit score monitoring service.

Up the Credit Limit

There’s one proven technique to improve the credit score without necessarily eliminating the debt. That is by increasing the credit limit. This improves the available credit you have, which decreases the credit utilization ratio. When that happens your credit score would naturally increase. You will have to call up the creditor and make this a special request. But do keep in mind not to use the extra credit you get. For example, if you increase the credit limit from $1,000 to $2,000, don’t start spending $2,000 because that would negate the purpose of getting that limit increase.

A bad credit score will affect your life in many ways. It will become difficult to obtain essential loans and your employer could use it against you. Therefore, use the above suggestions to improve your credit score without delay.

The post Improve Your Credit Score Faster appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

How can you Attract more Visitors to your Exhibition Stand?

When it comes to business marketing, there is no doubt that trade exhibition is better than any other marketing strategy.

Reason?

First of all, the company is in a position to directly communicate with their customers. This is the best way to get first-hand information on the type of products you deliver and areas that need more attention.

The aim of every business is to get as many more customers as possible. Trade shows will give you a chance to showcase the type of products you offer, and you never know who your next customer will be

But as much as trade shows come with many benefits, most businesses face challenges when it comes to attracting people to their stand. So, what are the most effective ways you can use to ensure more visitors make a stop at your exhibition booth?

Get the best look

Well, your business exhibition stand can be compared to a shop window. The more quality and attractive the stand is the more people will stop to have a look at what you offer. The type of exhibition stand plays a very vital role in helping you achieve the show objective-marketing your brand

You therefore need to come up with the best exhibition stand decoration in Las Vegas. You should also ensure that your exhibition stand has the same colors as your company’s logo.

Small is always beautiful

There is actually nothing wrong in having a large exhibition stand. But you also have to think of the costs involved in terms of the exhibition space and decorating your booth. If the cost is too much, it doesn’t harm to have a small, unique exhibition stand.  Remember that the aim of the exhibition is to have more customers to your business with as minimum cost incurred as possible.

Make prior preparation

If the exhibition stand is set up a day prior to the main event, you will save time and avoid the rush-hour hassles. You will also have an idea of how the exhibition stand will look, and get rid of what you think will not work.

Be creative

This goes without saying, the creativity used in making the exhibition stand determines whether you will be please with the whole exhibition or leave in frustrations. To be creative enough, you need to use proper lighting, sound, posters and electronic presentations. You can also stand at a distance and see how your exhibition stand looks. As much as texts are also important, ensure that the stand is more of images and graphics.

Select the right team

The type of people you place at the exhibition stand will also play a role in marketing your brand. Ensure you have a strong dedicated team who can effectively communicate to prospective customers.

The post How can you Attract more Visitors to your Exhibition Stand? appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Tips That Will Make it Easier for Your Small Business to Embrace Affiliate Marketing

Thanks to the rise of social media, many consumers have fixed their eyes online. As their attention shifts to all things digital, it is natural for brands to follow suit. However, you do not have to own a large business to take advantage of affiliate marketing.

Digital marketing offers great opportunities for any small business that is looking to increase its national footprint and communicate with its target audience. Here are six steps that will help your small business to grow as you embrace digital marketing:

Master the Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Simply put, affiliate marketing refers to making cash online after online publishers promote your product or service online at a cost. Therefore, regardless of how small your business is, an online tool exists to help you to increase its impact on your target market. Beyond this, due to its targeted approach, affiliate marketing is ideal for small businesses because it helps them to reach their target audience instead of using a broad-brush advertising approach.

Take a Joined-up Approach

In affiliate marketing, integration is important because the strategies employed are more accurate when used in conjunction with existing activities. For instance, if you have an in-store advertisement that offers a special promotion, you can mail it to your customers, use it in a social media campaign, and have your affiliate partners promote it. According to https://executiveautoshippers.com/resource-center/local-car-shipping-affiliates/, even if you run a very specific business, such as car shipping, you need to look for partners to help you with affiliate marketing.

Nonetheless, you need to remember that one size does not fit all when operating in the digital space. You should make sure that your campaigns are tailored to your target audience and the platform you are going to use to reach it.

Understand that it’s not Expensive

You need to know that affiliate marketing is not as expensive as people think it is. It is not about splashing large amounts of money on the web in an effort to reach as big an audience as possible. Affiliate marketing is about choosing the right tools and campaigns, thus making sure that you will get a good return on investment.

Not only is it more measurable and accountable than its traditional counterparts, but its return is also more easily recognized. This makes affiliate marketing the best choice if you want to grow your small business without spending an arm and a leg.

Embrace New Strategies and Tools to Keep Your Campaign Fresh

Nowadays, you will come across many technologies and tools that can help you to take your campaign to the next level and allow publishers to connect with new audiences. Taking mobile web as an example, many consumers are turning to it because it makes it easier for them to browse online while on the move. The introduction of cheaper mobile broadband plans and upgrades to network capacity has made it easier for small businesses to reach the consumer.

Track and Report to Evaluate Trends

When using new technologies and affiliate marketing trends, you need to make sure that the affiliate-marketing program you are using is accurate by employing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track it. You can keep campaigns alive with this approach and incentivize your affiliate-marketing partners in case they start losing interest.

As an advertiser, you need to ensure that you are using the right sites and that they are providing you with genuine leads and customers.

Diversify Your Affiliate Campaigns

You need to diversify your affiliate campaigns to ensure that they are successful. You should not assume that using a few sites is going to result in success.

The post Tips That Will Make it Easier for Your Small Business to Embrace Affiliate Marketing appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

How to Bootstrap your Business

There’s this glamour about bootstrapping a business. The idea you can grow a massive operation through free (or semi-free) platforms and strategies.

Yes, quite a few businesses have achieved success through these avenues…

…more have failed because of it.

There’s usually a point in the business cycle where time and finances converge. A business owner begins spending more money and time on free strategies than what they’re worth.

Time is diverted from mission-critical tasks. Competition steps in and overtakes what little market percentage they’ve built using bootstrapping.

Here’s how to do it better — by paying a little more.

A Professional Website

Plenty of DIY options exist using platforms like Wix, Shopify, or WordPress. But, small business owners continue to struggle with building a website despite their built-in, visual webpage builders.

A common factor for these troubles rests on the shoulders of the small business owners undertaking the challenge of building a site.

The DIY sites tend to lack:

Tracking codes used for reporting and testing
Strong user experience and layout
Lackluster on-page SEO

These factors create traffic drops and eventually discourage the SB owner. The project is abandoned.

The website plays a central role in all online efforts including social media marketing to PPC campaigns.

South Carolina web design firm, Vertcy, shares a case study in which they increased one client’s traffic by 1850% through the addition of a professional, responsive web design and SEO improvements.

It goes to show the importance of outsourcing web development when necessary. Especially with almost all online efforts funneling back to a website.

Professional web development can cost thousands but it’s no bigger than the costs you’d sink into a brick & mortar location or billboard advertisement.

A Simple Business Card

Business cards continue to matter despite our global shift to online communication. LinkedIn is a tour-de-force in the business networking world… but you’ll find yourself hard pressed driving interested parties to your profile.

Business cards are cheap and easy to make:

Visit print sites like VistaPrint or Moo
Use their WSYWIG tools and templates to design
Order a stack of business cards

For about $10, you will have a tangible asset to hand to people during networking events and meetups. You won’t scramble to write contact information on a napkin — appearing unprofessional.

These cards can further improve lead acquisition through the strategic use of landing pages.

Consider this:

Develop a landing page specific to the event
Rework cards to include the unique link
Personalize the page for the intended audience

Doing so will likely increase conversion rate due to the inclusion of key points lifted from the event. It creates continuity throughout the contact.

You can print business cards at home for pennies on the dollar. Or, spend $10-$30 for custom, high-quality cards with designs that’ll leave lasting impressions (and more inquiries).

A Better Box

Why do we spam “track package” the moment we order something online despite us knowing it’s days away from being delivered?

Logistics is an experience and a branded box is just as much a part of the whole.

Consider doing the following:

Source professionals to create a unique box design
Include branded extras like flyers and stickers
Add puzzle-like elements in the unboxing process

The unboxing creates a similar hype to what customers felt when placing the order. Some may go as far to record the unboxing and uploading it to social sharing sites. This creates awareness and referrals to the business.

Else, a simple logo will often do the trick since it makes the package recognizable.

Custom boxes cost a few cents more for custom labeling. The extras you may include could run another $0.05 – $0.10 worth of printing costs.

It Pays to Pay

Paid advertising, social media shares, long-form content, and business tools cost money. But, they’re a necessary expense to bypass competition stuck in bootstrapping mode.

Do you feel these items warrant their expense?

The post How to Bootstrap your Business appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.