Mohit Tater's Blog, page 674

Top 5 Marketing Tools For Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, you carry your business on your back. From sales and marketing to customer service and IT, you know that your time is scarce. So, in the face of mounting demands of your day how do you focus on marketing and outreach?

Instead of spending money and wasting time on marketing tasks that won’t make your money, you should be focusing on what will grow your business. Part of building a smarter marketing machine is automating some items so you can focus your resources on other parts of your business.

Since marketing is a vital part of the growth of your business, I want to share some of my favorite tools to help streamline my efforts and produce better content for my business!

Grammarly

Proper grammar is not just for your high school English teacher. As your business continues to grow, you need to build credibility and authority in your market. Nothing will kill your brand faster than grammatical errors in important messages. Grammarly will help you write better marketing copy quickly and easily.

Whether you are writing an email to a client or finishing up a blog post, your content needs to be free of spelling and grammatical errors. A strong content strategy depends on clear messaging, and clear messaging removes all barriers from between you and your audience. Sloppy grammar can cause miscommunications and reduce the effectiveness of your marketing material, resulting in reduced ROI and lost sales.

I use Grammarly to make sure that the attention of my audience is on my content and not on a mistake. Instead of hiring an editor that can cost lots of money, I chose to go with Grammarly to serve as a “second pair of eyes” before I hit publish or send a project to a client.

Hemingway App

Let’s say you have a lot of tasks to complete in a short period (who would’ thought, right?). As you move from one job to another, you could begin to lose focus on readability and sentence structure. Readability goes beyond proper grammar to include how easy it is for your audience to read through your content.

Long and complicated sentence structure not only diminishes the power of your copy, but it also causes your readers to concentrate on what they are reading instead of the message. The Hemingway App helps entrepreneurs write marketing copy that is clear and concise. As a result, your marketing content will pull a bigger punch and help land you more sales.

The Hemingway App will highlight your copy in different colors to signify different errors in your text. Entrepreneurs can use this tool to ensure their sentence structure and syntax is not standing in the way of their business and their readers. This gives you real-time insight on how easy it is for your target audience to read and understand your copy.

Buffer

Content distribution is a critical piece of a successful content strategy for your business. Leveraging social media not only builds your authority and exposure to your audience, but it also helps you build trust with your market by sharing relevant content on various social networks.

While social media is an important part of your marketing strategy, it can take an enormous amount of manual labor, time and energy consistently to publish content across your social media channels. Instead of pulling away from business critical projects to send a Tweet, you can use Buffer to schedule social media posts across several networks.

The free version of Buffer allows you to schedule up to 10 scheduled posts per profile on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google Plus. This is great if you are only sending a few updates a day, but will require you to reset posts frequently. The Awesome plan ($10/month) lets you schedule up to 100 posts per profile, so you can publish more content without having to update your Buffer posts.

Content Gems

Finding great content to share on social media can be a time-consuming task. Instead of manually searching numerous sources, why not just automate this process?

Content Gems is a great tool to help you find and curate relevant content for your social media networks. The free version allows you to create two streams that are based on keywords you choose. This means you can identify different “buckets” of content, and customize keywords to discover relevant content you know will entertain your audience.

Finding content that is relevant to your business is key to build authority and grow your influence in your market. Mixing my blog posts into a calendar of curated content through Content Gems lets me have a vast library of content that my social media followers love. Use Content Gems to find and publish great content and save time!

Pixlr Editor

Pixlr is a great image editing program available online for free. While it is not as powerful as Photoshop, Pixlr is my go-to resource for basic image manipulation on a daily basis. Resizing and correcting image colors is a breeze with Pixlr.

Unless you need to do advanced layering and work with Alpha Masks, Pixlr is likely able to provide all the tools you need for your business. Jumping into Pixlr is easy, and updating images for my website and blog posts takes seconds. Since it is an online program I can upload, edit, and download revised images in a snap!

Save Time And Money

Use these tools to improve the quality of your marketing content, and become more efficient as you grow your business. Don’t waste time on performing manual tasks when you could be focusing on growing your business and increasing revenue!

About the author

Chris Giarratana is a digital marketing consultant who works with small business and nonprofits. He helps drive conversions and boost sales through SEO Copywriting, Email Marketing, and Landing Page Optimization.

The post Top 5 Marketing Tools For Entrepreneurs appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Ultimate Guide: SaaS Go to Market Strategy

Most of startups believe that launch day is the end. Nowadays launch day is only the very beginning and represents the time when the hard work starts. Hard work starts because the startup pass from the building stage to the business stage.

Direct selling is of course a huge part in the Customer Acquisition strategy as it helps to get new customers, however, SaaS companies often do not use the right process or don’t invest in the necessary tools. Customer Support, Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing and other growth hacking techniques are key elements for SaaS companies when building their go to market strategy.

This article highlights techniques and tools that can be used by SaaS startups to go to market successfully. Just pick up those which fit with your team Skills, Branding and Customer Profile,  test and optimize it.

DIRECT SELLING

Direct selling (by emails or phone calls) can be seen as an easy way to increase the revenue of your SaaS startups by just hiring a bunch of salespeople.

However without the right process, a decent sales stack and some training your sales team will never sell anything.

A successful direct selling process start by defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Your ICP is represented by specific characteristics such as demographic data, emporographic data, technologic attributes and customized data. Determining your ICP start by collecting data on your actual customers (first users) and revealing some trends.

Next steps consists of gathering data about potential customers that fit with your ICP.  Professional social networks such as Linkedin, Github or Crunchbase represent great places for your sales prospecting team to hunt. Social profile are always updated and the search on those networks can be very specific (job position, company size, industry, and so on) using the Advanced Search Option. Sales leaders then extract all required information using a sales prospecting software such as Salestools.io and export the data into their CRM. Salestools saves 45% business developers time while prospecting.

Final steps, start emailing and calling your targeted prospects by individualizing your content and making it as informational as possible. Using a CRM such as Close.io is highly recommended to track, analyze and optimize your email & call campaigns. Do not forget to follow up as only 8% of prospects answer after the very first email.

CONTENT MARKETING

Ultimate tactic for acquiring new customers at a very low price is to utilize the power of content marketing.  Content marketing is a strategy that empower users with marketing materials related to your business, industry and all subjects above or below you in the customer journey. The buzz around this term is at an all-time high as every single successful SaaS companies have extensively used content to acquire customers.  

Content created has to be aligned with your ICP and target specifically those who are the most likely to make your content viral. When the audience is defined then the content has to offer a real solution for your actual or potential users. The best practice to write a compelling content is to gain knowledge about what are the pain of your users regarding their existing experience and the surrounding environment. Define some areas where your users need information by interviewing your actual customers, offering them questionnaires against rewards or by collecting data around most visited website of your core audience.

Materials has to be compelling, sharp and as various as possible. Use infographics, pictures, videos and GIFs to make your content as easy to understand as possible. Niche influencers are a great source of content and leveraging their expertise and name will make your content heavily viral (all depends on the number of followers they have). Use various format as well while sharing influencers content such as podcasts, blog posts, GIFs, videos and so on.

Content marketing is a necessary step for SaaS companies to go to market with success as it represents the playground for all of your next marketing strategy (Social Media, SEO, Inbound, etc).

Content has become so important for SaaS companies that some tools has emerged to help marketers. Buzzsumo is surely the most famous tool in content creation has it helps marketers to find relevant content that fit their business and offer insights regarding their social media activity.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Customer Support is a magic trick for customer retention and can even attract new customers thanks to the word of mouth. Having a phone support service for all users, a support live chat 24/7 and a FAQ is already a great effort to keep your actual customers. Unlike most of SaaS providers FreshBooks, an online invoicing and accounting service, provide the full customer service package listed above and send randomly cake to new users or users birthday. It can seem weird or expensive, but it skyrockets FreshBooks brand reputation better than any other marketing tricks.

Month to month plan is nowadays the most common trend for SaaS companies which means that customer service is fully part of the sales process! Great customer support is essential to the long-term success of your startup.

“To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business” Harvey Mackay

ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE

Onboarding is crucial for SaaS companies as customers cannot ask physically how works the product and be accompanied by a salesperson. Providing a very complete and user-friendly experience is essential for SaaS companies to educate their customers and help them succeed using their solution. A happy customer is a customer who knows perfectly how to use your product and get the max out of it. Onboarding is the best way to educate your newly signed-up customers succeeding with your solution. Usually, there are a few steps that new users need to complete in order to be successful with your product and an onboarding process makes it easier.

Zendesk has made the onboarding process its main priority. Their users have a large number of steps to complete before being considered as “onboarded” due to the nature of their application. If a user is not fully onboarded, then he/she will never succeed with their solution. In order to avoid this situation Zendesk has developed a “Getting Started” screen that shows up right after the user has signed in. This onboarding process walk the user through a step by step setup process with videos and useful tips along the way.

PROVIDE FREE GUIDES

Providing ongoing training is a great after sale service for users and a great way for SaaS companies to reward their valuable customers. MailChimp, an email marketing provider, provide many free eBooks to all of its users. These ebooks  not only educate the users on how to use the product, they also cover many of the best practices and tips for sending bulk email. MailChimp knows that making their users smarter and more successful is good for them as well!

PROVIDE A VIDEO LIBRARY

The SaaS evangelist, Salesforce.com, uses a successful proven customer training method. Every year, Salesforce host dozens of user conferences all around the world to provide training and build community around their products.They also make videos of these conferences and make them available for free online. Salesforce.com users have literally hundreds of free training sessions to choose online. Each one of these video is designed to make the users more successful, more happy and transform them into salesforce evangelist.

LAST TIPS:

Prospect companies that have raised funds in the last month
Find the decision maker
Train your team using B2B programs
Use dashboards and gamification softwares to motivate your team
Use sales prospecting softwares

The post Ultimate Guide: SaaS Go to Market Strategy appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

An Overview of PAYE for Small Businesses

Many budding entrepreneurs face the reality early on in their business careers of having to deal with the various elements of running a business, outside of the areas that they’re used to. One such area is in finance. Such is the complexity and importance of getting your accounts right, most sensible small business owners will seek out a good accountant, before even thinking of taking on their first employees and growing their business.

One such financial requirement on UK businesses with employees is HMRC’s system of paying employee’s tax, known as Pay as you Earn or PAYE. In this article I’d like to go over some of the fundamentals of this system, but let’s start with looking at what it means to take on an employee.

Employer’s Responsibility

Taking on employees is a big step for any business and one that requires careful consideration, both in terms of the candidate and your ongoing responsibilities to them as an employer. Perhaps the most fundamental responsibility you have to them is to pay them regularly and on time. Paying your employees also means paying their income tax and National Insurance contributions (NIC) through PAYE.

As of the tax year 2016/17 if your employees earn more than £5,824 in a year then they will be liable for NIC, meaning you will have to pay this for them to HMRC through PAYE. If they earn more than £11,000 in a year (£212 per week or £917 per month) then you will also need to pay their income tax through PAYE as well.

What Else does PAYE Apply to?

As discussed PAYE includes salary or wages of all employees but it also covers overtime, shift pay and tips, even if those tips are paid in cash (although you don’t have to pay NIC on these).

Bonuses and commissions are also liable to tax and therefore covered by PAYE, as are some expenses and benefits, statutory sick pay, maternity or paternity pay and compensation payments such as redundancy pay-outs. Expenses and benefits in particular can be particularly complex and won’t always be covered by PAYE. It’s important to know what these are and how you pay tax on them.

PAYE is also used to collect payments from your employee’s salary for things like pension contributions, student and employee loan repayments.

Reporting PAYE to HMRC

Setting up and administering PAYE is not a straightforward affair and with a small team of employees many businesses opt to outsource their payroll function.

The first thing you’ll need to do when you take on an employee is register as an employer with HMRC. It’s then advisable to use some accounting software with payroll functionality, which will calculate PAYE for each employee for you. This makes it easier than it sounds and the payroll software you use is only as good as the person who’s inputting the data into it so make sure you check and double check your figures.

If your employees’ income tax and NIC (and this includes sub-contractors incidentally) average over £1500 per month then you’ll need to submit PAYE payments monthly to HMRC. If it’s less then you can pay quarterly.

Employees must also be kept informed of how much tax and NI they’ve paid through their payslips and as an employer you must provide them with a P60 at the end of the tax year (5th April) detailing gross and net income and all tax paid. Employers must also send HMRC an Employer Annual Return (P35 or P14) for that tax year no later than 19th May.

About the Author: Richard Symonds is the director and founder of Bristol based Trust Local and has been helping create growth opportunities local businesses since 2011. Richard has years of experience helping companies across a range of sectors build networks and establish trust amongst their customer base. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

The post An Overview of PAYE for Small Businesses appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Pick You Failing Company Off the Floor – and Keep it On the Up

There are a lot of ups and downs in the commercial sector. No business will enjoy perfect trading conditions all the time, and no company boss can afford to act as though it will. While it is vital to make the most of the good times, some might say that the real skill in business lies in being able to face up to tough times and come through the other side stronger and more competitive. If your company is struggling, don’t despair. Here are some pointers to getting it back to where it should be.

1. Face big challenges head on

When your business is in trouble, there’s no point in pretending that everything will be fine if you continue to manage it as you always have done. Adaptability is key to business success, and that applies now more than ever. As the person at the top, the buck stops with you, and part of that responsibility includes being prepared to make difficult decisions. Your turnaround strategy is likely to involve significant cost cutting, and that may well mean making good people redundant. It won’t be easy having to let these people go – but if you don’t make that tough call in time, you could find yourself running out of cash completely. If your business goes bust, you won’t be employing anyone at all.



2. Find creative, imaginative solutions

Look at every part of your business and consider whether radical changes are needed. Think about innovative solutions to specific problems, rather than simply following the same old templates. Try to develop new concepts and service delivery models, which can often be put into practice much faster than developing brand new product lines. Outsourcing and resource sharing can sometimes save significant amounts of money, although you should be careful to ensure that any new partners are a good fit with your business. If one reason for your problems is a poor image with customers, look for ways to improve this that can be implemented immediately and don’t require the services of consultants.

3. Listen to your customers

No business can pull itself back from the brink if it doesn’t have its customers on board. That won’t happen unless they feel they’re being listened to, so make a real effort to understand their complaints. If they tell you that they’ve had difficulty resolving problems, that suggests failures in your customer relations – a common and serious flaw. If they’re unhappy about responsiveness, your first priority should be improving efficiency there. Be prepared to hear things you don’t like, such as that one of your pet projects is in fact an expensive dead end, and to act accordingly. Don’t concentrate entirely on the negatives – take note of what your customers do like about the products and services you provide and put an emphasis on making those even better.

4. Keep your sources of finance in the loop

It’s vitally important that banks, creditors and other providers of funds are kept up to date with your turnaround strategy at all times. You must keep lines of credit and cash open, otherwise your company will have no way of financing its continued operations and will almost inevitably fail. Develop and enhance relationships with key contacts and offer them as much information as possible about what you are doing to turn things around. If you previously provided monthly statements, try to offer weekly summaries as well in order to increase confidence in what you’re doing. Highlight improvements you have already made and the effect they have had on your cashflow and return on investment.



5. Make sure you can keep it up

Turning round a failing company is very rarely a quick or easy job, but once the corner has been turned there’s a temptation to sit back and relax. Don’t do it; it can very rapidly lead to disaster. Maintaining sustainable growth is vital to restoring your business’s health and reputation with its customers, suppliers and finance providers. Especially if you’ve had to make staff redundant, spend time rebuilding morale among those personnel who remain and making them feel like an integral part of the company’s future. Keep improving the quality of your products and of your customer service, and keep looking for new opportunities, alliances and markets.

The post Pick You Failing Company Off the Floor – and Keep it On the Up appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

The Introvert Entrepreneur : How to be a Successful One

For most people, the term introvert is synonymous with shy or quiet, but a shy nature is not indicative of introversion. An introvert does need quiet time to themselves, just as an extrovert needs at least occasional group events. However, it may surprise you to learn that some of the best public speakers are introverts. What makes them so great is their ability to focus, their attention to detail, and their ability to speak on a subject that interests them at length. Introverts aren’t fond of small-talk that doesn’t accomplish a purpose, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like to talk.

Introverts make great CEO’s for those same reasons. Their social interactions, if properly managed, will always work toward achieving a specific goal. They make great leaders because of their need to understand, and then respond to, employees. Just as charismatic extroverts have strengths, so do keenly intelligent introverts. Today’s introverted entrepreneur will succeed in every endeavor when they learn to use their personality traits to their advantage.

Be an Attentive Leader

Image via Flickr by Maryland GovPics

Extroverted leaders tend to rise through the ranks by taking initiative, always craving the spotlight and reaching ever higher for recognition. An introverted leader has a unique, natural talent that offers them the opportunity to rise higher; their observation skills help them seem the best in their fellow workers. There is no better way to improve yourself and your business than to lift your employees up. Not only does this ensure you have top-notch workers, but they’ll be more loyal for it.

When managing a small group of workers, an introvert will naturally learn as much as they can about each individual so that they can properly delegate tasks in a way that ensures the best results. This is an opportunity introverts can use to form stronger working relationships as they are ascertaining a person’s level of skill. When an employee is particularly impressive, the introverted supervisor is not likely to forget.

Find a Compatible Extroverted Partner

To continue with the point above, introverted CEOs can further those business relationships with one-on-one business lunches. If said CEO happens to find a great employee with great people skills, a trait many extroverts possess, they would do well to team up with that person for future networking opportunities.

When the company requires outsourced work, it pays to have a charismatic partner go with you to meetings with contractors and such. Many introverts are upfront and won’t waste their time trying to get a better deal. An extroverted partner who is willing to haggle on behalf of your business is an invaluable asset.

Extroverts often have a large network of acquaintances, and can find a better match or price for the job. The introverted businessperson will likely have a smaller circle of associates with which they are much more familiar. While the confidence you gain when working with someone you know is invaluable, you won’t always know someone who can do the work you need.

Manage Events to Keep Social Interactions Small

Many introverts dread yearly company dinners, social events wherein everyone from every department mingles. When properly arranged, introverts can actually enjoy the time spent with their co-workers or employees. This is important for the introverted CEO because just as it’s crucial to know your employees, they need to know you.

When making arrangements for a caterer or open bar, set up small areas that are spread apart from one another. If a table is only big enough to serve desserts, only two or three people can serve themselves at a time. This makes conversation easier for the introvert because you avoid over-stimulation.

Set tables with plenty of space to move between, and with no more than three or four chairs at each. Dining with only three others at your table also helps prevent social burn-out. And if you’re an introvert, you’ll know exactly what that term means for you. For those who don’t know, it means an early exit and an awkward explanation. Avoid that by keeping social interactions small.

Enjoy the Company of Your Employees

Extroverts do well meeting workers for drinks on a Friday afternoon, but introverts tend to balk at the prospect of a small space filled with a lot of people. In most cases, that’s exactly what drinks after work on a Friday night means. With a little planning ahead of time, that kind of social interaction doesn’t have to be unpleasant for introverts. If you’d like to take part in social outings, initiate events on your own terms.

Just as you would with company events, keep the extracurricular activities small-scale. Invite one or two of your employees out to dinner or for drinks, and rotate those invitations to include them all at some point or other. Segment your workers into groups according to personal interests, especially those with whom you have something in common. You’ll be much happier discussing a familiar topic with a small group.

Pencil in Some “Me Time” Daily

The biggest difference between introverts and extroverts is how they “recharge” at the end of the day. Everyone needs some quiet from time to time, but introverts need it daily. Whether you’re sequestered in a home office, curled up with a good book on the sofa, or taking a nap, make that downtime a priority.

When you allow yourself this time to recharge, not only are you better ready to face tomorrow because you’re rested, but you also have that bit of peace to look forward to throughout the day. Even if you’re having a particularly bad day at work, take solace in a half-hour of silence. Those few minutes can go a long way.

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you can’t be a successful entrepreneur. In fact, you have several qualities that can make you one of the best. Allow yourself to fully embrace your introversion, and use your strengths to your advantage.

The post The Introvert Entrepreneur : How to be a Successful One appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS IMPORTANT FOR THE NEW AGE ENTREPRENUERS

The world is rapidly shifting from analogue to digital. People are consuming more and more digital content on a daily basis. Whether  it is on mobile phones, laptops, desktop computers and many more devices. The companies need to adapt to this changing marketing strategies to get recognized.

What makes digital marketing? Or broadly we can say why Digital marketing important is? Well not because it is growing with a rapid force in marketing but because it seems that digital media will soon replace the traditional forms altogether.

While the previous generation will no doubt lament the newspapers, books and communication methods and traditional TV and radio broadcasts, those who have grown up with the internet and mobile phones as a God given right (no offence) are already embracing the brave new world of digital consumption. The facts that digital methods of communication and marketing are faster, versatile and streamlined so it is unsurprising that once technology becomes available we will begin quickly moving into digital age! What makes digital unique is the fact it offers just as much potential to marketers as it does to consumers.

Here are some key forms in which the digital marketing is present over the internet:

Blogs
Websites and SEO content
Pay per click ads
Mobile marketing( the text messages)
Social Media marketing (Like ads on Facebook feeds, twitter, LinkedIn etc.)
Email Marketing
Online Video Content
Internet Banner Ads

This list might soon get outdated due to new innovative ways coming up every day for digital marketing. Yet, these points are the pivotal one.

WHY DIGITAL MARKETING?

Without a second thought everyone will agree that digital marketing is much more affordable that traditional marketing methods. An email or social media campaign will just cost you a mere fraction of cost of a TV ad or print campaign. Also it will reach a wider audience (as almost everyone has access to internet nowadays).

Still one of the main benefits of digital marketing is the ease. The ease with which results can be traced and  monitored. It gives an additional chance to change your strategy which the print and TV media lacks. Rather than conducting expensive customer research, you can quickly view customer response rates and measure the success of your marketing campaign in real-time. This enables you to plan more effectively for the next one.

Probably, the strongest case for incorporating a digital element into your marketing strategy is that digital media forms are overtaking traditional forms of information very rapidly.

CONCLUSION

The bottom line is that the digital age is here and if your business will fail to adapt to the new marketing climate, you are at a greater risk of going extinct sooner or later.

The startups founders or the upcoming entrepreneur are fully utilizing to communicate their ideas to wider audiences. The already established companies have to realize the power of digital marketing. It generates much greater recognition than the traditional information sources at much mere investment than them.

The post WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS IMPORTANT FOR THE NEW AGE ENTREPRENUERS appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Top Team Members Every Entrepreneur Needs

When you are looking to make it out there as an entrepreneur, you will need more than just your skills. You will need a team and not just any team but the best of all. A good team is a combination and compilation of the best you can get your hands on who are right for the job, who are meant to do it and definitely the ones who take actual interest in the field you have taken up. Not that you are any less talented to make it on your own, but having a team of exclusive talents will be more impactful than just you along with a truck load of talent. Here’s a list of some members you can have on your team.

An Assistant

Having an assistant is one of the most important things in the life of an entrepreneur. You could have more than one assistant and classify them for various purposes. From getting you coffee to making your important bookings and appointments, you will need a personal assistant. You can use another hand that will look closer to the aspect of marketing which is one of the most important aspects of your business. Being closer to the field and preferably being an experienced person in the field of marketing would be a great plus for an assistant. And then there is an assistant you can hire to be the next best thing after you. Someone who has a similar point of view or so could be an ideal choice and you may need more than just one interaction to hire this kind of an assistant. Rather than three, finding one with the talent equipped by three will make it the best decision you ever take.

Accountant

Having an accountant might be mandatory and you may be making use of accountants that you can hire when the period of audit comes closer. But that is not the right way to go about it. Having an accountant is almost equal to giving your most precious list in his hands, the treasury balance sheet. Hence, if there is someone familiar you know who is looking for a job, let them have it and you will be more at ease when you think about the safety of your accounting process and also you will have the comfort of knowing them .

An Attorney

An attorney is what you need more than an assistant. Having the right attorney will give you the confidence you need to be out there and rule the market. An attorney is someone who has your back and will not leave by your side in case of disputes and any other form of legal hurdles. And since you cannot be defending yourself in court, this attorney of yours needs to be the best you can have to fight for you or defend you for that matter. This one aspect is something you cannot compromise on and is one of the most valuable person in the whole team.

A Friend

A friend by your side to constantly criticize you and keep pushing you a little more than what you are capable of is the right kind of friend to have in your life. While they can be pretty supportive and pushy, do not take it offensively and hamper the status of your friendship. You need them more than you know and they are the ones who will give you a break when you absolutely need one off from the hectic schedule you have. They are the ones who perform favors without expecting anything in return and who are on the lookout for you because you deserve the best and they believe it. Come to think about it, a friend is probably what you need more than anything else.

Customer care expert

You know that customers are of utmost importance to you. When you know that, you are sure to take matters into your own hands and not let it fall into someone else’s. You are willing to go all the way to keep up the relationship shared. But, there will come a point of time where you will not longer be able to put up with the long list of customers and clients that you have. You will need someone who is good with people and has an impeccable skill of convincing and even manipulating. Giving the responsibility of taking care of your group of potentials is not an easy task. Hence, when you do hire this person, make sure you are getting the best and go through a number of mock sessions to test it out as to how they react in emergency situations or harsh conditions. Getting one such with an exceptional amount of patience will reward you in the future.

A Critic

Have a critic on board. Preferably, someone you don’t know. The lesser you know this person, the better. Yes, friends may be good critics, but they are friends who know you and know exactly what is running through your head. Having someone who is into the same genre as your company will help you in getting honest reviews and opinions. Depend on this person’s honesty for getting the true feedback and take it as a customer’s feedback. This small but of analysis before you jump forward to setting up your project on the production line will enable you to deal with the customer satisfaction and be like a review of what you intend to launch in the market. Getting it evaluated even before it is released into the market is what will keep you on your toes and allow you to deliver better quality and better-finished products.

A Role Model

You may have entered into this field due to various reasons. One of the top most will state that you have been inspired by someone who did something absolutely amazing when they ran a business of their own. Get them on board with you. Having them by your side during your presentations and meetings and product launches will see you having a great source of motivation and you will put in extra efforts to make sure they find your work worthy. Seeking for their approval will take you places and will ensure that you are under a watch, making you less prone to messing up any bit of it. If you cannot get them onboard with you, you can at least keep them in the loop so that you have someone to report it back to, making it all the more meaningful.

When it comes to hiring people, the most rookie mistake we make is by taking people we know best. What we may think of as an advantage may turn into a bad one later on. Given the fact that many people have chosen to betray their friends and partners and take over their firms and rob them of all that they believed in, it is best you keep your mannerism as official and be a boss rather than trying to be a friend. You never know what life has in store for you. So keep digging till you find that gold.

The post Top Team Members Every Entrepreneur Needs appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Is Selling Your Business Giving Up?

As entrepreneurs, our companies become extensions of ourselves. When the company succeeds, we succeed. When it hits a rough spot, we feel like failures. And if it comes crashing down – which unfortunately happens regularly – we can take it very hard.

But does the thoughtful, strategic decision to sell your business equate to giving up or failing as an entrepreneur.

Absolutely not.

In fact, selling your business may be the ultimate sign that you’ve succeeded as an entrepreneur. It really comes down to those important words above: “thoughtful, strategic decision.”

If you’re choosing to sell your business and you’re in control of the situation, you’ve succeeded.

The beauty of an exit strategy

Really, every business owner should go into a venture with at least an idea of what his or her exit strategy is going to be.

An exit strategy is the business owner’s eventual plan for removing themselves from the business they’ve built – either by passing it along to family or partners (called succession planning) or through a business sale. Entrepreneurs who go into business with no thought to how they expect to eventually remove themselves from the business are doomed to be stuck working the rest of their lives.

Granted, if you truly love what you do, that’s not the worst thing in the world. But it still leaves a lot of financial and legal matters unresolved and can leave your company strategically aimless in a fast-moving commercial environment that requires strong direction.

On the other hand, a clear exit strategy, including a timeline, milestones to reach, and a goal for what you hope to get out of the eventual sale of your business, can keep your company moving forward with clear direction and provide personal fulfillment and a sense of expectation for you as the owner.

Preparing your business for sale

In line with your planned exit strategy, you’ll be able to tell how close you are to the eventual sale or succession of your business. If you’re planning to pass the business along to your children, one or more business partners, or employees, now is the time to begin grooming your replacement to handle your responsibilities and guiding them in planning for the future.

If you’re planning to sell your business, there are some important actions you need to take to be sure the company is optimized for sale:

Get all business records in order – While running your business may be second nature to you at this point, it’s likely to be a brand new adventure for a prospective buyer. Their first concern, understandably, is going to be making sure the business is profitable and well run. That means thoroughly reviewing your legal, financial, and business records. So make sure they’re clean, neat, organized, and complete.
Obtain an accurate value of the business – You know your business better than anyone else, but when it comes to placing a realistic dollars-and-cents value on it, you’re best off relying on professionals who are experienced in valuing businesses of your type and in your area: a commercial real estate professional, business broker, and accountant with experience in business valuation can all be helpful.
Clean and maintain the physical location(s) – Much like when shopping for a home, the “curbside appeal” of your business locations will have a huge impact on your prospective buyers. Even if your business is running like a top and profits are consistent, a dirty or rundown location may prevent a buyer from even getting as far as researching your records. On the other hand, a clean, neat and inviting premises can make a powerful first impression.
Involve employees – Keep your employees informed and up-to-date on the progress of the sale so they can play an active role in keeping things looking good and running smoothly throughout the sales process. This also helps them stay productive if they’re not left up in the air, wondering whether they’ll even have a job the next day.
Arrange to remove yourself from daily operations – Although your exit strategy may assume you’re going to continue operating the business right up to the last day, it’s important that prospective buyers can easily see themselves stepping into your role. If it appears that the business can only be successfully run with you at the helm, no one is likely to take the risk of buying it. To accomplish this, set up systems and train replacements that will allow you to step aside, especially late in the sales process, to concentrate on courting a buyer.

Selling your business is not the same as quitting

As you can see, selling your business in a planned, strategic way is the farthest thing from quitting or giving up. In fact, it’s a natural part of the entrepreneurial adventure, and should be part of your business plan.

Author bio: Bruce Hakutizwi is the U.S. and international manager of BusinessesForSale.com , a global online marketplace for buying and selling small- and medium-sized businesses. With more than 60,000 business listings, it attracts 1.4 million buyers every month.

The post Is Selling Your Business Giving Up? appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

15 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Entrepreneurship is on the rise and it is not just a types of occupations but is now becoming a trend and a tradition. It is widely celebrated and appreciated and even acknowledged if you are an Entrepreneur. But, the road to success is not so simple. You need to know the plus and minus and also get rid of the ‘ifs and buts’ that may be in your head. It is not something light that you have chosen to take up. It’s a herculean task and when you are in the due course of your journey, you need to know a few things which are more like a ‘must know’ since you are in the field. Here we go.

The time is NOW

No, there is no tomorrow for you. Or at least, live like today is the day you need to finish all your tasks. Whether they are small or big, you have got to do them. And if you are still in the process of thinking about launching your company or your products, then you have to do it NOW. As mentioned, there is no tomorrow.

You do not have to be one among the herd that is headed nowhere

In the view of the path you have chosen, being different is rewarding. As a matter of fact, the more different you are, the better it is. There are millions of people who are going down the same road and if you too join them, then you are just being another addition into the flock. Dare to be different and see how rewarding it is going to be.

Push yourself forward and drag your failures along with you

You might have failed and not just once but repeatedly. Do not listen to others and let them go. You need to hold on to your failures and evolve out of them and when you do, you will be in a position to kick those failures out of your life in style. Use the failures to your advantage and learn more out of them every time.

Let it be your way

There are people who work with a plan and then there are a few who don’t know what tomorrow has in store for them. Try it out and see for yourself if the planned system works for you or not. The field of entrepreneurship has the unpredictability factor itself and is something you need to keep on your side and play with.

People in your life matter more than anything

Be it clients or partners or friends and family, people are the ones that matter. Take care of people and treat them how you want to be treated and you will find yourself in a favorable situation when you will need them and take it from the experts, you always need people.

Perfection is not the only key

If you are waiting for everything to be perfect, good. But, if your products and ideas have a significant impact on the crowd you are targeting, then it is enough for you to launch and like mentioned before, it is time you do it NOW. Now or never is the principal you need to follow. Waiting for achieving perfection is a good thing but your wait may be a little too long.

Curiosity may kill the cat, not you

The most benefitting thing you can have is the factor of curiosity. Being curious and asking why will get you a truck load of knowledge which otherwise will go in vain. Keep your spirits up and question the existence of everything and see how it favors you.

Learn new things everyday

You started a new firm and that just doesn’t imply that you are having a sound information and knowledge of what needs to be done or what has to be done. Keep learning and do not let the learning curve get down and low. The sharper the curve, the better it is for you.

Keeping up a job will not make you any less of an entrepreneur

The most fascinating part of being an entrepreneur is that you do not have to be restricted to it and can take up anything you like and keep it as a regular job. Running your business while working can be a tough scenario to keep up, but if you need more time to be sure about your decisions, then you need to have a backup.

‘You’ are the only thing that matters

No, you do not have to worry about anything else. Where your office is, where you are located, where you need to stay, how much time you need, nothing matters. You are the one that needs to make it work and you are the one who is responsible for it all.

Keep up your customer care

Make calls and make them more frequent than you can. You need to be in constant touch with your clients and customers and make sure you give out gestures that show them that you care for them. And if you don’t, start caring. The bond that is shared between you’ll, will play a major role.

Speak up every time you are asked to

Speak up. Every time possible and at every chance you get, speak up. You need to get yourself aware that when you are given a chance to speak, you need to make the most of it since the power given to you while offering a speech is more powerful than any other form of media advertising.

There is no work life and personal life

You have just started and you cannot have the dividend between work life and personal life. You need to fuse them into one and live your life in a web woven into a complex and sturdy one.

Keep up the competition

Once you launch a product, do not sit back and relax. Every moment you spend relaxing, your opponent is making something better than your product. Keep up the spirit of competition and use it to your advantage.

Make partners

Take up partners. It will always add to the basket of knowledge you carry and make the most of. Try as much as possible not to downscale on the number of partners you have. Have more if you wish, but not less. The amount of work load, responsibility, pressure and everything else will get divided and seem much smaller to you when you have more partners supporting you.

An entrepreneur is someone who has chosen to battle it out against all odds. Now that you fit into this category, there would be many who are expecting more and more out of you. Don’t let it get to you. Keep yourself up and running and maintain your levels and standards and do not give in to what people say. Being an ‘out of the box’ person is not easy and is sure to have a lot of hurdles down that road. But once you do pace those hurdles either by knocking them down or by leaping across them, the finish line will greet you well.

The post 15 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

10 Things You Should Know About Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is, for many, the shape of advertising to come, but it’s also one of the least understood areas of marketing. Our easy to follow guide will round up 10 facts you need to grasp to get your head around this lucrative area of native advertising UK companies are exploiting in growing numbers.

1. It’s efficient

By employing software to purchase advertising, instead of the more traditional method involving actual human beings, the process is a lot quicker and cheaper.

2. It happens in milliseconds

This is how programmatic advertising works: every time a webpage loads, information regarding the user’s preference and the content of the site is uploaded to an ad exchange, which auctions the ad space off to the highest bidder. All of this happens in an instant.

3. It doesn’t rule out human agency

Programmatic advertising automates the nuts and bolts of selling advertising space, leaving human beings to focus on more complex decisions about strategy and planning.

4. The pricing is transparent

By paying for a specific number of guaranteed page impressions, and often targeting people with specific interests, you know what you are buying.

5. It’s easy to see if it’s working 

You get instant feedback on what is and isn’t selling, making it easy to adjust your strategy to make sure your ads are having the desired effect.

6. It goes straight to interested parties

If you can guarantee that, for example, your brand of fish food goes to a million users with an interest in fish, the value of your investment is much greater, and this is one of the advantages that programmatic advertising provides.

7. It looks just like normal advertising

To the average internet user, programmatic advertising looks just like old-fashioned, bought-and-sold-by-human-beings advertising. The only difference is it is more likely to appeal to their interests.

8. It’s more complicated on mobile devices

A lot of the targeting involved in programmatic advertising relies on browser data stored in cookies, and these don’t really work on mobile devices, so the value drawn from this market is much lower.

9. It’s growing fast

The Internet Advertising Bureau reported that programmatic advertising sales in the UK nearly doubled last year to almost £1 billion, so this sector is becoming hard to ignore.

10. But you have to be careful who you buy it from

With fake domains, hacking and bots muddying the waters, there is a lot of fraud in the programmatic domain, so it pays to do your research when buying this kind of advertising.

The post 10 Things You Should Know About Programmatic Advertising appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.