5 Ways to Grow Your Small Business in 2018

For 2018, small businesses must now learn to transform themselves to keep up with the ever-changing landscape moving the business world forward. Not only is success vital for any small business in a competitive landscape, but this success is also crucial to the success of the greater economy. As of 2013, small businesses accounted for 63% of net new jobs.

If you own a small business, here are 5 ways to grow that business for success this 2018.

Manage your office space and storage

To get started, you need to make sure your physical surroundings are neat and organized. This ensures that you will be able to perform at your highest level. In many ways, the organization of your small business is determined by how organized your desk is. For starters, make sure everything has a specific place, even if that place is the pile of papers on your desk. To make the best use of your business space, do some research on using vertical storage opportunities to improve your workflow and efficiency.

Merging online and offline customer experience

Your small business can’t just be purely a brick-and-mortar store or just on the Internet. You have to be everywhere. You need to merge online and offline experiences by getting creative. A good example is food trucks, an industry which achieved a growth rate of 7.9% from 2011 to 2016. They use social media to inspire offline engagement. Additionally, technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) make it possible to track and interact with customers anywhere. In 2017, it is estimated that there are 8.4 billion IoT devices already in use, impacting everything from logistics to the customer experience. In 2018, you’ll see more companies attempting to merge online and offline to create a multi-presence experience. That means adopting the right technologies and employing the right marketing tactics to meet your customers’ needs.

Participate in trade shows

Trade shows can be a great way for growth because the more exposure you get, the more you become known. Trade shows draw people who are already interested in the type of product or service you offer and can improve your bottom line. The trick is to select the trade shows you participate in carefully, seeking the right match for your product or service.

Conquer a niche market

A niche market is simply a narrowly defined group of customers. Think of them as a subset whose needs are not being met and concentrate on meeting those unmet needs. If your small business is already successfully targeting a certain niche market, try and conquer another.

Contain your costs

Bear in mind that when we’re talking about growing a small business, we’re actually talking about growing the bottom line. The difference between pre-tax and post-tax money can make this a very effective growth strategy. There are two main approaches to cutting costs; liquidating your “loser” products and improving your inventory turnover.

4 Useful Tips for New Business Owners to Succeed in a Tech-Centric Generation

Not many people know that small businesses have large impact on the economy and job market. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), there are 28 million small businesses in America, accounting for 54 percent of all U.S. sales. While we may not initially think of small businesses as large employers, they actually make up 55 percent of all U.S. jobs.

Thankfully, with advances in technology, small businesses today have access to tools that can help streamline operations and enhance productivity, without spending a lot. With new and more efficient capabilities in technology, even the smallest of businesses can compete with large enterprises.

Technology can project a larger image

If a small business is just starting out and operating out of a basement or a small rented space, portraying the business as legitimate and larger than it really is, can be vital to its success. Your online presence is important so invest in a website, social media outlets, and other online profiles like Yelp, Google and industry-specific sites where customers may find you, intentionally or unintentionally. Make sure your business message is clearly defined, your branding and logo is consistent, and most importantly, your information is up-to-date and accurate. Make sure customers can find you everywhere they search and that contacting you is easy.

Technology enables collaboration with everyone

Many small business owners struggle with communicating with both employees in the field and customers as well. Regardless of the type of business, there are cloud-based communications and collaboration tools, customer relationship management software and project management tools available that will not only allow you to work and manage your staff remotely, but enable your employees to work from anywhere, from any device efficiently. This flexibility will enable more workers to be effective without requiring the high price tag of rent, and allow you to expand your business, without the overhead costs.

Technology will advertise the business

Small businesses can take advantage of all the free ways to advertise. This is the beauty of technology today with the Internet such as having an online presence. The business website and social media are obviously great free ways to advertise and promote specials, discounts, and upcoming events. But it’s not limited to just these because when you collaborate with customers on, say Twitter, you can actually advertise the business. You can also try texting and e-mail advertising if you have leads from your customers.

Technology for operations and finance

Now, you can use technology to help manage your money instead of just using paper and calculator.

§  Project cash flow

Using software ensures that you’ll have the money on hand to pay your workers and other expenses when bills come due. That means you can stay on top of the cash flow.

§  Keep financial books and records

Being in business requires you to keep track of income, expenses, and other items so you can analyze how your business is doing. It’s also mandatory for tax purposes; you need these records to prepare your returns and back up positions you take on these returns.

§  Invoice customers

Unless your customers pay on the spot with cash, checks, credit/debit cards, or electronic payments, you must send bills for the money they owe. Viewing outstanding invoices can help you monitor collections to ensure that all your customers pay and do not become delinquent.

Using Social Media for Customer Service in Any Small Business

Social media is an important tool for marketing in any business, especially for small businesses. Aside from posting photos and other business updates, using social media for customer service can level up any small business and increase sales.

Any small business should have specific strategies in place for handling customer service issues through social media as this will also improve getting in touch with customers as well as customers inquiring about your product/service.

Social media is now the accepted leader in the mode of communications that customers are now choosing when inquiring about brands or sharing customer service issues. What also makes social media a viable marketing tool for small businesses is that it levels the marketing playing field since a small business can have just as large social media presence as a large corporation. The usual top social media sites that businesses can utilize for their customer service are:

§  Facebook

§  Twitter

§  Instagram

§  LinkedIn

§  Pinterest

Social media builds real customer relationships

Any small business can use social media as one of its main channels for both self-promotion and to respond to customer inquiries and comments. In this way, real relationships are built with customers since conversation is engaged.

Using a hashtag

In simple terms, using a specific hashtag helps to search concerns under the hashtag, making everything organized and easy to navigate. Original information and accurate content can be added to the hashtag as the business sees fit.

You can focus on creating a strong customer base

If a customer has a bad experience with the small business, one of the first things that customers is likely to do is to write about it on social media. Instead of trying to find ways on how to manage and respond to any negative comments, businesses should focus on providing such excellent customer service that they create a strong and loyal customer base that will advocate on behalf of the business if anyone has some negative comments to say.

Always present

Some small businesses fall short on social customer service because they simply are not active in listening and engaging with customers on social media. Companies that want to deliver effective customer service on social media should realize that all messages, inquiries, and comments must be flagged especially when it relates to the product or service.

Train your staff on social media

If your small business has all its employees handling customer service, then the company should have a clear understanding with everyone in handling customers, guiding principles, and protocols. Train the staff or employees by reviewing your social media strategy and product/service positioning and the types of social media tools the business uses. Walk everyone through the process for managing customer service, stress the importance of customer sentiment, and explain how positive and negative reviews can impact the business. You can also provide a list of potential questions employees need to respond to, including examples of negative feedback.

5 Easy and Free Tools to Help You Grow Your Business Online

Growing businesses need a fairly large amount of software to conduct operations, but it’s not necessary for the business owner to spend a fortune on commercial programs and applications. In terms of business and consumer software, there are literally hundreds of incredible and free solutions that can help get the job done for the business. The 5 free and easy tools listed below for all facets of business have been tried and tested and have received good reviews especially for startups and small businesses, handling everything from email marketing to endpoint protection.

You can also consult your IT support company to consult on the tools listed below or find something else that suits your specific business.

Don’t forget the basics – Antivirus protection

What’s the point of growing a business if it can be attacked and hacked by viruses or hackers? Endpoint protection from Avast comes in both a free and premium version, both of which offer good protection. If you opt for the free version, keep in mind that you won’t have access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. You’ll still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality. If using Windows, make sure to keep its firewall activated to support Avast.

Join.me Videoconferencing

If you’re looking to connect with clients, prospects, remote workers, or your sales people in the field, you’ll need a reliable video conferencing solution to help you get the job done. Join.me offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.

Wave accounting

To keep your financial books balanced, you can use Wave. With the free version of Wave, you’ll receive accounting and reports functionality, you’ll be able to create and scan invoices, and you’ll be able to scan receipts directly into the system. Although far from being a one-stop accounting application, if you keep things simple you can go far just by using its basic service. If you need anything heavier, go for the premium version.

HootSuite Social Media Listening

Small businesses simply don’t need a large social listening platform. A free, easy-to-use dashboard that lets you stay up-to-date on what your customers are saying should be enough, and Hootsuite Free offers a free version that’s good enough to do the trick. With HootSuite, you’ll be able to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts, and interact with your followers. You'll also be able to track how many followers you have on each of your social networks and monitor which posts are generating the most clicks.

MailChimp e-mail marketing

MailChimp is one of the best and most popular e-mail marketing platforms on the market. If your company sends fewer than 12,000 e-mail messages per month to fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you can use MailChimp’s Forever Free plan. This lets you use built-in signup forms to gather subscribers from across the web. You can use MailChimp’s drag-and-drop designer and e-mail templates to craft the perfect message.

Keeping Up with Technology Can Help You as a Business Owner

It has never been a secret that technology today can either make or break the success, transformation, or expansion of any small or medium-sized business and its business owner. It doesn’t if you’re a startup local coffee shop or an online beauty products boutique; internet-enabled IT systems can make businesses better organized, smarter, faster, or doom it to failure when technology is ignored.

So if you’re a business owner, one of the best investments to prioritize should be using technology and keeping up with it so you’re not left behind by the competition that also uses the same technology.

Use CRM to keep up with customers

Small and medium business owners can use customer relationship management (CRM) systems to meticulously plan out their interactions with customers in record time. With a CRM, you can keep all of your customers’ contact information in one place, alongside detailed information on the products they have purchased, the feedback the customers give out, and the marketing materials that have been used. Keeping track of this makes it easier to offer outstanding customer service, as well as targeted marketing materials based on your customers’ habits and preferences.

Use accounting software to manage your finances

Keeping a close eye on income and cash flow is an integral part of managing a successful small business, but this process can quickly turn into unnecessary time consumption if you don’t have the right technology. Accounting software can access up-to-the-minute reports on where your business stands at all times especially if it has easy-to-use user interface and simple setup to invoice your customers and keep track of payments.

Create an open and communicative environment

By centrally locating the performance appraisal information within a formal online framework, business owners can more easily communicate business strategy and create measurable goals for their employees that will support overall company objectives. It also allows for greater visibility, thereby allowing employees to see the whole picture and understand better how individual goals fit into the company’s business objectives. This creates energized and engaged employees that will definitely raise the work productivity of the business.

Connect teams virtually

Create employee portals and team sites to help people work productively inside the business or when they need to be out in the field, no matter what location. You will eliminate “silos” that effectively cut off communication because employees can utilize technology to reach out to others working on similar projects or find experts to answer their questions inside the business.

Performance, progress, and productivity analysis,

Naturally, employees in any business want to be appreciated for their hard work. Business productivity software can bridge the gaps in communication and convey to each member of your team that they are valued. With your people working at their highest capabilities and your business aligned from top-to-bottom, you will be creating a workforce that is engaged, productive and loyal. Feeling valued is the key to employee loyalty which leads to greater business productivity, and technology can help with this aspect.

5 Steps to Prepare Your Business for Technology Growth

It’s one thing for business owners to start using technology to grow a business; it’s another matter when the business needs to prepare for technology growth. Naturally, technology improves all aspects of a business such as in sales, marketing, production, and communication, and so, a business must always keep in step with technology so its brand or services can also keep pace with its customers.

However, the rate that technology is changing can be daunting for any business. As quickly as a company puts up new computers to improve work production, it quickly becomes outdated or a new version has taken its place in a few years time.

And so, here are a few steps to keep pace with changing technology trends and growth that will help any business to stay ahead.

Acknowledge that not everyone needs to be in the office

A business owner must realize that this isn’t the age of typewriters anymore wherein everyone needs to be in the office and follow a clocking system wherein everyone needs to punch out by 5:00 p.m. Some can be on a business trip, on the road dealing with customers, or staying at home, all using technology to work from where they are. Staying locked to a desk is no longer the norm, especially when innovation is needed. Likewise, the 9-to-5 clocking is no longer the norm since many businesses are now going 24/7 in order to stay in step with their customers. Business owners must realize that technology growth means improving work production but seeing less and less of your workers in the office.

Make the most of communication

A worker no longer needed to be at their desk to be reached by phone. No matter the location of any worker, even overseas, mobile phones, instant messaging, and video conferencing is now making the office worker more mobile and always reachable. Contact and communication is almost always instantaneous. Business owners need to invest in growing communication technology to improve work production.

Paperwork and presentations are no longer done manually

Back in the old days, paperwork was paperwork, and any errors on the manual work was corrected manually as well with white correction fluid and typed over. Likewise, product or brand presentations had to be drawn on overhead projector slides. All this mess is gone thanks to technology. Business owners can invest in software that improves paperwork and filing to the point of paperless files and presentations that can be prepared in a matter of minutes.

Technology streamlines operations

With a growing technology, any business system becomes more efficient, operates much faster, is less burdensome, and is even sometimes automated. By being aware of technology growth, all areas of a business can run smoothly and efficiently.

Technology growth will improve customer service

Technology growth means providingand improving customer service. Technology makes the system run smoothly and efficiently, thus, making customer service interaction in real time and making everything including payments a seamless experience.

Content Marketing Strategies Every Small Business Must Implement

Statistically speaking, small businesses are the slowest to adopt the latest content marketing strategies that larger, corporate marketers use. However, with SEO constantly evolving, it is clear that in order to remain competitive, small businesses have to create comparison guides, e-books, how-to's and other content products.

If you are ready to ensure that your content marketing strategy is successful, then you may want to consider implementing the following tips.

Make an Investment in Visual Content

There is no question that you live in a visual world. When it comes to content marketing, there is no difference. Digital technology is continuously evolving at a rapid pace and has provided marketers with the ability to tell stories with the use of infographics, videos, and other types of compelling imagery. In fact, 94 percent of content that includes visuals will receive more total views than strictly contextual content. This means you need to incorporate some type of visual element in all your posts, articles, and tweets.

Utilize A/B Testing Methods

Testing allows you to see what works and what doesn't. Software related to testing is now abundant and enables marketers to test and change any element of their strategy. You can use this to your advantage when you implement split testing and try out different call-to-actions, images and titles to see which one performs the best.

Make Use of Social Media

Aside from Facebook, a lot of social media platforms are also making their significant values on the web. While it is thought that LinkedIn and Whatsapp are the next contenders, sites such as Instagram and Pinterest are now the biggest competitors when it comes to social media. It is equally important that you take time to find out where your customers are in terms of social platforms and then join the conversation. Be sure to use these platforms to share content and promote engagement with your customer's one on one.

Repurpose Previously Used Content

Unless you have a large number of staff of content creators, it will likely be extremely difficult for you to produce a ton of material each day. If you want to maximize the value of every post you publish, then you should find ways of repurposing it for continual use. For example, you can take the key points of your article and create tweets or make an entire blog series off of a longer blog post. When you repurpose the content, it will extend its valuable life.

Learn to Curate Content

It is becoming more and clearer that your customers are not as interested in promotional content and instead, are more drawn to quality content that helps solve a problem. This means you need to eliminate the idea that you have to force-feed sales copy and instead invest some time and money into developing yourself and your business as a source of valuable content. When you curate content, you can provide your followers with the information that they want and need.

Ways to Reduce IT Spending Cost for Your Small-Medium Business

We all know that running a small or medium-sized business means there are a lot of things you can’t do that large corporations can only do, such as have their own IT department and technical department. Of course, you still need some sort of IT infrastructure since computers are an essential part of any business, especially startups and those still in the stages of growing pains. So, how do you trim down the numbers without sacrificing so much and risk losing the business?

If you’re looking for ideas on how to reduce IT spending without risk of losing the forward progress of your business, these tips might come in handy.

Learn about and use open source

You can save a lot of money when you don’t have to dole out precious funds for licensing fees to Microsoft and other third parties. And don’t ever think that using open source applications will move your business backward. On the contrary, many startups today are adopting open source in wholesale fashion because it is the technology of the future, and it’s also reliable, scalable, secure, and ready to serve nearly every need you have.

Shift to virtualize your servers

Instead of constantly repairing and replacing those aging servers, why not go virtual instead? You’ll save a lot of money on hardware or buying new computers, and your backups will be much easier while and failover will be almost non-existent. Add to this the fact that maintenance on your virtual server farm will be greatly streamlined, and you’ll arrive with the same conclusion as many IT pros have seen for themselves, in that, virtualization is always a win-win situation.

Prioritize your spending

Prioritizing is especially important for fixed spending, especially for those things that your business can’t do without. In fact, this should be one of the first things you do when faced with a small and fixed budget. Go through it line by line and prioritize the items you can’t do without. Then take them off the table and move on to what you can do without. While you’re prioritizing, make sure the spending on your priority item is really in existence. If item A is a priority, make sure the budget you have earmarked for item A is accurate. If you think you need to adjust on anything, then do so at once.

Outsource to data centers

If you’ve been spending a lot of money on legitimate licenses, but that is costing you a higher percentage of your budget than you deem necessary, migrate from a local server to a hosted server. Plenty of those services are available and they will save you money. You can also migrate away from that costly local backup solution and move it to the cloud since many data centers offer that as well.

Seek good advice from others

Seek the opinion of others who were affected by IT change, especially from your friends. They will give you key insight as to what works and what should be changed.

5 Simple Ways to Increase Customer Loyalty

It's definitely a challenge to turn first-time customers into repeat customers with so much competition in the marketplace today. It always shouldn't be enough to provide good customer service in order to keep consumers coming back. The key to create loyal customers is by making them feel special and wanted.

Here are some five tips that will help small businesses improve customer loyalty:

1. Render good service

Poor customer service entails poor customer loyalty. At all times, see to it that the customer is attended to promptly, courteously, and efficiently. Listen to their needs and try to meet those needs as efficiently as possible. Customers will remember this, but do keep in mind that they will remember bad service even more.

2. Resolve issues in the quickest time possible

Admit it, not all products work golden, and sometimes, paid services fall short of expectations. Accept the sad reality when customers' expectations are not met, and just work hard to make sure any issues your customer has are resolved to their satisfaction. Rest assured that they will appreciate and remember this, and will fell like their transactions are safe with you next time.

3. Reward loyalty

It would be a great idea to treat a loyal customer with a free product or special discount once in a while just by simply being loyal to your business. Who knows, this loyal customer may spread the good news about your special treats to others, and you'll be surprised what wonders it can do to your small business eventually.

4. Keep in touch

If possible, gather some contact information about your customers. These info will be useful, especially if you would like to send them some special offers, new products or services, or simply send them a birthday card. This way, you'll have a way to keep in touch with them as often as possible.

5. Show some appreciation to your customers

The fact that a customer chose you among several competitors in your business industry would mean a lot for your business. That is why it is very important to thank them for their support by letting them know in words and in actions how much you appreciate them. It doesn't matter whether it's a small or a big-scale customer, what's important is to make a way to thank each one of them for choosing your product or services.