Text Messaging Small Business

Text Messaging & Small Business: Why Text is So Important

We live in a much different world today, and small business can be said to be at the forefront of changing times because commerce usually leads the push into the future. That’s a much larger conversation, of course, but one of the things that serves as a perfect example of this change is text messaging in business. Not only do you probably communicate a great deal with your colleagues and employees through text, but the need for text with your customers has most likely been developing for a few years now. If you’re like most small businesses, customers are increasingly contacting you with a text message, rather than a phone call. As is always the case with advancing technology in business, you are forced to either get on board or be left behind. This is why text messaging is so important. We All Prefer Text, and Customers are No Exception …

How to Deal with Employee Tardiness & Absences

The issue of tardiness and absenteeism is a difficult issue for both employers and employees, and it can be a sensitive one to deal with. What we hope to do here is to demystify the reasons that it happens, as well as clarify and simplify the course of action you can take to resolve it as a small business owner. Depending on what kind of a boss you are, you may either have more or less patience for this problem. Either approach actually has merit, as long as your actions are deliberate, and not avoiding the problem or acting out of frustration. Don’t Sweep the Problem Under the Rug Like many other issues you may face with your employees, it can be tempting to ignore it and hope that it goes away. This is wrong. First of all, though someone can improve for a period of time, it rarely completely …

Workable or LinkedIn: Where to Hire Quality Employees

It’s no longer so hard to find good help, as they say. As part of yet another powerful shift made possible by modern technology, services like Workable and LinkedIn bring all the talented people who want to work right to you, so that you don’t have to go on a time and resource-consuming search to find the right people for your company. Not only that, but these services will do just about all of the work for you, throughout the entire process. Workable and LinkedIn are among the best available right now, though there are others. Which one of these will best serve you in finding the quality employees that you need? WORKABLE Designed Exclusively for Hiring Employees This is obviously what this article is about, but it’s important to note that Workable is a service devoted specifically to helping you with hiring employees, whereas, though LinkedIn definitely does this, …

Use Vyond to Make a Beautifully-Designed Explainer Video

If you’re not familiar with this type of video, an explainer video is one that you find on a website’s landing page, usually around a minute long or less, which explains what your brand or company is about. You’ve seen them before. Though you can use Vyond to make videos for multiple uses, the main thing that you would probably use them for is to create an explainer video for customers, to quickly showcase what your business does when they land on your website. What makes this service truly outstanding is the ability it gives you to make a video cheaply, easily, and quickly by providing the templates and tools that anyone can use, rather than making a video from scratch. To do that, you really have to be professional video producer, but absolutely anyone can use Vyond to make a great video. Explainer Videos Help Your Business Site Perform …

Should Blog Writing Be Different from Other Forms of Writing?

  In the field of blog writing for business, there are some bad habits and misconceptions when it comes to the way that you approach the actual writing style and process. Some creators are very conscious of this and write content that is well-structure with professional technique. On the other hand, the vast majority of creators seem to barely consider it professional writing, rushing through articles with no regard for coherence or structure whatsoever. No matter how you approach the writing, pretty much anything goes as long as it is interesting and your readers approve of it, but that’s usually the problem. Because most of the blog content on the Web today is so hastily-written without any form or strategy to speak of, it tends to turn out vague, uninteresting, and unfocused. What we’re going to look at here is how to avoid exactly that and help you decide what …

keys to find perfect number

5 Keys to Help You Find the Perfect Business Phone Number

Choosing a new phone number for your business can drive you crazy, as there are so many options and factors to consider when you want it to be just right. There are a few guidelines, however, that you can use to save yourself time and frustration while looking at options for your new business number. First off, if you already have a number that you’ve been using for your business, then there’s no reason you should have to trash it and get a new one. Many new business owners feel that they need a separate number for the business because they’ve been using a cell phone or landline number up until now. That’s not a great idea if any of your customers already have the original number, and even if you don’t like it, an established number is better than a brand-new number that people will have to relearn. If …

8 Team-Building Exercises That Will Boost Morale

As a business owner, you’ve got to keep your team together, and more to the point, you’ve got to make sure that everyone on your team actually feels connected to one another. Team-building activities can benefit your business in a few ways, but the main reason is that it really does increase morale among your team, which will also improve productivity. If you’re not sure exactly where to start with this, then you can take one of the following suggestions that we’re listing here to begin bringing your team together, or even use all of these ideas if you find them to be helpful. 1. Trading Jobs It seems a little outlandish; however, this exercise can be far more effective than you think. So, if you can find some time to set aside during a workday (probably not advisable to ask people to come in on their days off for …

Manage & Automate Your Business’ Social Media with Hootsuite

Before we get started, you should know that if you don’t currently use a management service for your business’ social media outreach, you’re probably spending way too much time and energy on it. Doing it yourself without a management platform will work just fine if you don’t have any real campaign for promoting your business on social, but if you do, it’s a pretty basic practice to use a service like Hootsuite. While there are a few services who do this, Hootsuite pretty much leads the industry in SMM (Social Media Marketing) tools. Take this under advisement if it sounds like something you could use. We’re going to go over the features that you’ll need if you’re serious about promoting on social media. Social Media Management Can Be Way Easier When you don’t have a program to manage it, social media takes a great deal longer than it needs to. …

Creating Responsible Content

Creating Responsible Content: Why Should You Care?

Responsibility in writing content is not something that many people are talking about these days, especially for content that you write for a business blog. The thing is that if you have a blog on your website where you are posting articles, then this is something you should be interested in because the rules for writing published work apply to online content just as much as they do for any other form of written work or published media of any kind. This actually benefits your business, which is what we’re going to get into here. It’s Easier than Ever to Be Careless The massive wealth of information that is now available on the Web doesn’t come without its consequences. This is the issue: Anyone can write something and post it on the Internet, and then people will blindly rely on that information as fact that they will assimilate into their …

Why You Need More than a Cell Phone to Run Your Business

There inevitably comes a time when your business outgrows your cell phone, at which time you’re going to need some kind of a system. Running your business from a cell phone works great at first; however, when a ton of orders start to come in, call volume increases dramatically, and you begin to hire employees, the capacity of your single cell phone will hit its limit. If you’re still relying solely on your cell, then these are issues that you’re likely already becoming concerned with. What follows are the key issues that you can easily address by adding a virtual phone system to your cell phone to manage every aspect of your business professionally. Professional-Grade Voicemail Voicemail is one of the first things that will require your attention. A standard, personal voice mailbox that comes with your phone just isn’t equipped to handle all of the messages for your business. …