Do You Have the Guts to Run Your Own Business?

    To be successful, a business owner has to have some key traits, and one of those things is guts. It’s great to be your own boss, but running and growing a business is not for the faint of heart. An owner experiences long hours, long weeks, and extreme highs and lows, which requires some guts to stick it out.   Startups are taking a gamble. If you’re running a startup company, then you need to be especially bold, due to the risky nature of a startup of any kind. Your average small business can be risky, as it is, but a startup is even more so.   You may be sitting on a gold mine, but startups are usually just an educated attempt, by nature. It usually means that you are testing an original idea for a product or service, and only time will tell if the market …

6 Lists Every Business Owner Should Have

    It’s just one of those simple, indispensable things—a list. Whether you are the type of person who likes to use them, or not, the items you put on these lists might end up saving you a huge amount of time and headache.   1. Professional Contacts If you don’t already, you should always have a dedicated list that contains complete information for all of your business contacts, and not just on your smartphone.   We all depend on our phones for a lot of information these days, but you should consider keeping a separate, additional list—or at least back up your phone contacts in the Cloud.   That way you won’t be lost, if something happens to your phone. Murphy’s Law pretty much guarantees that something will happen to your phone.   2. Alternate Suppliers/Vendors   If you’re running a business that requires operating materials & supplies, then …

Loving What You Do is Appealing to Customers

    Consumers have a lot of options for any given product these days. There are many factors that cause someone to choose one business over another, and the enthusiasm of the owner is one of those factors. Passionate owners are not only attractive to customers, but they create a business that emphasizes quality and inspires trust in potential customers.   If you’re confident about your product or service, they will be, too. Passionate business owners exude confidence about their product or service. If the owner does not believe in what he or she is selling, then the consumer has no reason to believe in it either.   When you show that you have full confidence in your product, your customers will be more comfortable investing in it.   People would rather buy from someone who is excited about what they do.   Who would you rather buy from—a business …

5 Quick Ways to Maintain Your Business Contacts

    Every day, as we get busy with all the chores that are necessary to keep a business running, it is very easy to neglect the people with whom we have formed professional relationships along the way. In this article, you will see a few ways in which you can maintain all of those connections, without taking up too much of your time.   Spreadsheet for business contacts? Why not. The first thing you can do to make sure that none of your professional contacts are forgotten is to make a list of those people. However you prefer to stay organized, whether you use a hand-written list or a spreadsheet, keeping a list of your contacts is important.   Once you have this, you will have something to reference that will help you stay in touch with everyone. This is also a good place to add pertinent information, such …

5 Ways to Use Your Impulses for Social Media

    1. Post company photos to engage a visual culture. Are you snapping photos all day long? That’s not a bad thing. In fact, you can use this impulse to your advantage by sharing those photos with your followers, and especially on Snapchat, or Pinterest, if applicable.   Just make sure that you get your business’ name in there, or even a CTA if it’s appropriate. Try taking a couple photos of your team, just doing their thing around the office, presenting kind of an online journal of daily operations at your company.   We all have a voyeuristic streak, so giving your followers a little glimpse of what goes on the inside could prove to be effective in engaging people.   2. Post interesting ideas as they come, and turn it into valuable content. Any thought about your business that you think might be interesting to others—really, anything—take …

What Happens After You Port a Number to a Virtual PBX?

The foremost thing you have to understand about ports is that when you take your number from one service provider, and port it to a provider, it is a clean transfer. That is, once the port to your new virtual PBX is complete, the phone number is no longer associated with the losing carrier, in any way. This leads us to the second most important point, which is this: The old phone will stop working. Let’s say that 555-1234 is your primary business phone number, and this number is attached to a desk phone in your office. What makes it possible for that desk phone to ring when people dial 555-1234? It rings because the service provider, whether AT&T, or Comcast, or whoever, has activated the line going into this phone by attaching the number, 555-1234, to that line. When you port that number away to your new provider, the …

4 Simple Steps to Get Return Customers

    When it comes to running a store, return customers are essential because there are a finite number of people in a given area.   Creating a place that compels customers to come back is not altogether complicated. Generally speaking, if they feel comfortable and you provide what they need, why would they not come back?   Here is a 5-step plan for gaining loyal customers that doesn’t require you to drop a ton of money into the advertising budget.   1. Keep customer records & analyze them to gain insight. Just as with any other aspect of your business, you have to keep records of customer activity to learn how you can improve their experience. Some things that are helpful to document are:   What they buy and the quantity, how long they spend at your business, how much each person is spending, and even what times they …

Death in the Afternoon: Keeping Your Energy After Lunch

    Many of us have come to dread that languid hour, around 3:00 or so, when doing business seems not quite worth the effort and your energy inexplicably escapes you.   Even if your lunch consists of nothing more than a cup of coffee (not recommended), we find ourselves struggling to stay in the game. Everyone has their own way of dealing with this because, of course, we have to soldier on. The following are a few ways to keep your momentum.   Do some cardio. There’s no need to take a trip to the gym in the middle of the day, unless that’s your thing. We’re just talking about ten or fifteen minutes of something cardiovascular, like a quick run or even a walk.   Try doing jumping jacks every ten minutes for an hour, hit the trampoline—whatever floats your boat. The point is that the slump doesn’t …

5 Time-Saving Tips for Customer Support

    Answering customer issues and troubleshooting problems can be difficult to manage and very time-consuming. Whether you’re a one-man or one-woman show, responding to every customer yourself, or working with a team of support agents, these tips offer simple strategies to help you assist them more effectively.   1. The virtues of online support. Handling customer inquiries through online support such as email and applicable messaging software is a great way to provide thoughtful answers and solutions, as well as to keep a written record of support conversations.   To get the most out of this method, it is necessary to set up notifications so that you can quickly respond. Responding to customers online, rather than over the phone, gives you a little more time to compose an answer for them; however, you should provide an answer quickly, clearly, and as comprehensive as possible, since you ideally want to …

How to Tell if Your Prices are Too Low

Typically, business owners will quickly correct their prices in the beginning when they realize their product or service really is worth more, and people are willing to pay for it. This can, however, be a problem that you encounter later in the life of your business for a variety of reasons, such as the release of new products. Undervaluing your product can be detrimental, and it’s important to examine the following to make sure you’re not giving it away, which could kill your business. Customers are frequently and consistently surprised at your low cost. This is one of the first indicators that you’ll notice when you’re not charging enough. If you receive comments from customers on a regular basis that sound something like, “Really? That’s all it costs?”, then once you get over your regret and self-loathing for not foreseeing this, it’s time to reevaluate the cost of your product. …