July, 2015

How Do You Add Feeling To Your Products?

As humans, we tend to feel things, all the time. Joy, happiness, sadness, intrigue, disgust…. the list goes on. When it comes to purchasing products many consumers base their decisions on what to buy off of how they feel. Recently, Father’s Day was a time everybody felt the need to dedicate some lovely gifts to the man who brought them to this world. And businesses used the same concept to generate more sales and earn the goodwill of their employees and customer base. This is why it is so important to make sure that any products you are selling invoke the right feeling in your customers. But how exactly do you add feeling to your products?

One Page Business Plan

It doesn’t have to be the New Year to make new resolutions. In business we call these goals. If you then add specific plans and actions to achieve these goals, you are well on your way to creating a business plan.

While some successful businesses have lengthy and detailed business plans, they don’t have to be. Why make things more complicated than they have to be? You can create a business page on a single page. That’s right! One page is enough to provide clarity for you, your staff, potential investors and clients. This is a classic example of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Questions you need to ask in your staff survey program

Customer service is potentially the most important part of any sales process. Research has shown that if you receive fantastic customer service you will experience the same feeling as when you are told or find out you are in love. This is obviously a principle which needs to be promoted in staff. A regular staff survey with the following questions will help assess how engaged your staff are and whether they are equipped to offer this level of customer service:

What You Need to Know to Manage Your Employee Turnover Rate

Employee turnover is costly regardless of the industry. Companies with high turnover must tackle the direct costs of constantly recruiting, selecting, and training replacements. Indirect costs can also be involved when a company has high turnover. These can include a reduction in morale, declining productivity, a lack of customer satisfaction, and less innovation. At a manufacturing company, the loss of one trade worker cost them $53,000 in direct costs. These costs included overtime for employees who had to fill in for the missing staff member, the cost of recruiting a replacement, as well as training the new staff member; all of which do not include the salary and benefits of the new employee.

PR Online: What to Think About with Your Business' Web Interactions

Today's web technologies provide powerful tools for organizations seeking to manage the spread of information about their brands online. Companies are using these tools to gain greater exposure to wider audiences by reaching out on the web and using creative interactions to create buzz about their product. You’ve already seen the company twitter accounts, Facebook pages and interactions through different mediums to varying success. The rising adoption of new online engagement and social media marketing tools is proof that businesses are deriving measurable benefits from their investments in these new methods. Your business can take advantage of these techniques as well if you know where to start.

That’s the Way You Do It

I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet that my 14-year-old son Jonathan will never have a “real job.” Last month was a perfect example of why not.

We were up in beautiful Burlington, Vermont for a couple of days, visiting Champlain College. My wife Linda is an independent college counselor (she doesn’t have a real job either) and while she toured the campus and met with mucky mucks during the day, Jonathan, my 17-year-old daughter Emily and I explored the area.

App Development is Your Business

As you're well aware, app development is big business and can generate a steady income for your company.

But, if improperly managed, apps can instead bring devastating outcomes.

Here are some tips for avoiding the most common app development mistakes:

Farewell to You Is Not Goodbye to Your Business

Planning for the future is good business – and that includes preparing for what happens when you’re no longer around. While you may have life insurance, the problems that can arise do not just come down to money. You also need to consider the matters of control and transition. If your spouse were to inherit your business, would they be equipped to run it? Who can step in to ensure your business continues to thrive? These are the types of key questions you need to be asking yourself.

Starting Up a Business: What to do

Starting a business is a daunting venture at best, and many people only have high hopes to crash and burn after all their efforts.  A pessimistic outlook to be sure.  The most important part of starting a business is planning. Planning may take time and effort, but it will help you see problems and potential roadblocks, which in turn will aid you in reaching your original goals.

Is Your Business Short on Payments?

Collecting money from customers is a challenging job that not all companies want to deal with.

They often outsource to outside organizations and make them responsible for billing and collections.

In theory, this leaves the companies to do what they do best: provide the services or products for which they are known. However, there are some downsides to this decision as well.