Common Blunders Small Businesses

7 Most Common Blunders Made by New Small Businesses

  Small businesses seem to pop up like weeds these days, but that doesn’t automatically mean that all of the owners know what they’re doing. There is also a large portion of them who have zero experience with running a business, or who have the necessary skills for making it successful, like marketing, promotion, leading a team, bookkeeping, and many other skills. This is a recipe for a scenario wherein a lot of mistakes can be made—sometimes, very costly mistakes. If you’re starting a business, then do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to look over these very common mistakes that new owners make. There’s no need to feel bad about it when you make a mistake such as the ones we’re going to cite here because we all learn as we go. You might just be able to avoid setbacks and cultivate success for your company much …

running business covid-19 tips

Running a Business During COVID-19? 12 Tips to Ensure Success

  Running a business is never easy, but COVID-19 has created a slew of additional challenges. From lockdowns to capacity restrictions, businesses everywhere are struggling to adapt to the new normal. The pandemic is especially difficult for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Don’t panic! You don’t need to let COVID-19 bring an end to your business. So, how do you keep your business afloat during a pandemic? Online meetings & teleworking are a couple of the ways that businesses are coping. However, those solutions don’t work for every business owner.. Luckily, we’ve uncovered a variety of tactics that you can use to ride out the pandemic. Whether you have an online or a local business, the following 12 tips can help you remain successful.     1. Review Your Local COVID-19 Restrictions   If you want to avoid costly fines and penalties, you first need to review the COVID-19 restrictions in …

Tips for Bootstrapping

7 Tips for Bootstrapping Your Business Without Falling Apart

  This is for all you wide-eyed, ambitious, and driven small business owners out there, who have decided to take it upon yourself to foot the bill for your business without taking an investment from anyone. You don’t want to owe anything to anybody, which is both admirable and smart because once you get going and you’ve been in business for a while, it’s really nice to be able to keep all your profits (or put it back into the business, as one does). Bootstrapping your business can be tough, and especially tough when you’re not made of money. If you’ve made the decision to do that, then you probably know what you’re getting into. Be that as it may, however, you will likely still welcome some tips to make sure your business ends up fully-funded and flourishing. That’s the purpose of this article, and these small pieces of advice …

No Business Too Small for Phone System

Why No Business is Too Small for a Phone System

Is your small business just too darn small to need a professional phone system? Absolutely not! Whether you are running a one-person shop out of your home office, managing a remote team, or huddling with your staff in a small office each morning, your company needs a business phone system. In fact, not having a professional phone system could put you at a disadvantage to your competition. People expect to get routed into a business phone system when they call a company, store, or office. After all, that’s been the way we’ve done commerce in the U.S. since the 1960s. For about 80 years before that, all calls, both business ones and personal ones, got managed through a single switchboard in the town or neighborhood. The telephone operator managed things by plugging a cord into each person’s jack on the switchboard, and then letting you talk through the cord. But …

How to Handle Employee Performance Reviews Productively

  Performance reviews. The meetings that only the most deranged person would actually look forward to but are very necessary for employers to keep everyone on track, and for employees to learn how they can improve and advance in the company. Performance reviews are kind of an interesting enterprise because, though they seem like a simple activity on the surface, they’re actually quite complex and require some delicate consideration on the part of both the employer and the employee. If you’re the one conducting the review, you can easily turn the meeting into a complete waste of time, or worse, into an interaction that negatively impacts the employee. To make these performance reviews productive and positive, it’s good to use a few specific elements, and that’s what you’ll learn from the ideas in this post.     Don’t Pull Your Punches You’re doing both the individual and the company a …

How to Infuse Your Company with a Positive Attitude

  You might be thinking, “I don’t really care if everybody has a positive attitude. I just want them to get their work done.” As a business owner that needs to make sure your product gets made and sold consistently and efficiently, you’re probably not alone in having that sentiment, but that would be a pretty major oversight. The attitude and well-being of your employees is more important than you think because people who have a positive and proactive approach to their work actually get more done. They will also be willing to put in extra effort and get things done more efficiently. Positivity carries over into every aspect of the company, and it even creates a better atmosphere for your customers. There are a lot of ways you can inspire this positivity in your company. You can start with these few, very effective strategies.     Lead by Example …

High-Quality Phone System

8 Ways to Tell If You Have a High-Quality Phone System

Every business needs some kind of phone system. Well, nearly every business needs it. There are some businesses today who actually manage customer support entirely through email and other messaging platforms, but even for those who have the ability to do that, it’s questionable whether it’s a good idea to completely eliminate phones. Back in the old days, there was only one type of phone system which consisted of landlines and nothing else, but then alternative types of systems were introduced, such as VoIP lines, virtual phone systems, and even personal cell phones. It can be pretty tough these days to choose one and to be sure that you’re getting everything you need to properly manage calls for your business. That’s why we’re providing some points here to give you a basic barometer that will tell you whether or not your phone system has exceptional quality and performance. If your …

7 Ways that Owners Give Their Business a Terrible Image

  When you’ve got a small business to run, there’s a lot to stay on top of, and you may not spend a whole lot of time worrying about the image that your business projects to customers. You should, though, and it’s not something to which you need to devote a ton of time and resources. In the end, it really comes down to common sense because the idea is to never do anything that makes your company look bad, while making certain moves to deliberately improve your image at the same time. You would be surprised by how influential this aspect can be to motivate people to either patronize your business or decide to pass you over, just because they’re getting bad vibes from you. Take a look at the following points to get a better idea of what you should be giving your attention to improve your overall …

Reasons Need Vanity Phone Number

10 Reasons Why You Probably Need a Vanity Number

    No one wants to be just a number. People have been trying to come up with ways to add meanings to phone numbers and to memorize them for a really long time. To pull just one example from history, way back, in the 1960s, a Boston-area carpet cleaning company struck marketing gold when telephone numbers still had exchange names. While the Marvelettes were singing about BEechwood 4-5789, Adams & Swett Rug Cleaning Company asked the Boston area one simple question: “How many cookies did Andrew eat?” The answer … was their phone number. ANdrew 8-8000, or Andrew ate 8,000. Although exchange names are long gone, Adams & Swett still posts the jingle to their site, proof positive that their marketing not only worked, but that it’s still working some 50 years later. Why a Vanity Phone Number May Be Right For You Today Ok, it’s not 1965 anymore, …

which do you need

Toll Free or Local Number: Which One Does Your Business Need?

  Something as simple as a phone number isn’t often on the minds of entrepreneurs starting a business for the first time. With most business tools found in the cloud or on your computer, you probably won’t need to worry about your phones until you have at least a few customers. As your company grows and evolves, the number of phone calls you have to handle will increase, and having a professional phone number will prove to be invaluable. This leaves you with an important choice to make; should you go with a local or toll-free phone number? These different types of phone numbers provide a similar user experience, but offer a diverse range of opportunities along the way, making it critical that you consider them carefully. Before diving into the differences between these number options, it’s a good idea to take a look at what they are.   What …