SMS Guide for Business: What Not to Send in a Text

SMS is quickly becoming a pervasive tool used by businesses, and that’s not only for company to client, but also for employees to message each other. With all these messages flying around, it’s good to give yourself some personal guidelines as to what is acceptable to send in a work text, and what you should never, ever send to a colleague or client. There are no written rules for this (unless your company has its own stated rules for work texting), so these are only common sense suggestions, and some of these may actually be acceptable for you, depending on the situation. It’s good to have some rules. It’s just like when you meet a new romantic interest. Even if you don’t intend to say anything off-color to this person you’ve just met, you may inadvertently send a text that is construed as inappropriate. Most of us have found ourselves …

10 Essential Quotes from Veteran Business Owners

    When you’re starting a new business, you need advice from experienced entrepreneurs who have been in the game. You can scour the Internet for endless articles about how to approach running a small business, or you can look right here for a condensed version with the bullet points of successful entrepreneurship. The following are a few gems of wisdom from seasoned business owners that you can use to fuel your own small business or startup.   1. “Get into good habits early on, such as creating meeting agendas, sticking to meeting times, and walking away with actionable plans.” —Jennifer Mak   2. “Give your employees the right education: Our sales per square foot is above the industry’s average, and that’s due to our extensive training program. If your staff is trained appropriately, they can offer better service and be more efficient.” —Christi Rudolph   3. “Stay away from …

Finding Your Own Rhythm to Get More Work Done

Business owners and professionals of any kind all want to figure out how to be more productive. The best way to be productive and grow your business or career is not to simply white-knuckle it, by forcing yourself to do more work (though that is necessary at times); the best way to achieve high productivity that leads to success is to find your own rhythm. That’s when the work becomes less miserable, and more of a natural flow. Trial & Error Not everyone works in the same way. Instead of completing daily tasks the way you always have because that’s what you know and that’s what you’re used to, the better way is to make a conscious effort to find out how you work best by trying multiple ways of breaking up and organizing your tasks and projects. For example, you might need more breaks than other people between tasks, …

7 Steps to Being a Huge Success with a Small Team

    The truth is that many small businesses don’t quite have as many people on their team as they would like to have because they’re, well… small (and growing). In the ideal situation, it’s great to have one employee for every position, who performs his or her duties unencumbered by extracurricular tasks, but the reality is that much of the time, everyone has to pitch in to cover unmanned positions. This could cause serious problems, however, if not done carefully. The following are a few suggestions for managing a team of employees who are carrying the workload of multiple people.   1. Rigorous Organization When everyone has multiple responsibilities going on at the same, organization is paramount. Who is doing what (down to the smallest task), how long each job takes, how much attention or emphasis should be given to each responsibility, etc.—this should all be worked out in …

Business Phone Systems Traditional vs. Virtual

Business Phone Systems: Traditional vs. Virtual

    The easiest way to understand a virtual phone system is to think of it as a traditional office phone system, with all the features, but without all the equipment. Virtual phone systems have been around for a while now, but many people still have some trepidation about them because they don’t really understand what it is. To clear this up, what follows are a variety of features you find with any professional phone system and how they are handled in traditional vs. virtual systems.   Multiple Live Call Management   Traditional System: A local PBX system is required to facilitate multiple lines, or otherwise a phone for each line. These are connected by hard lines and linked together within an on-site network, normally installed and maintained by an outside contractor.   Virtual System: Talkroute provides a unique “call stacking” feature not available with most virtual phone service providers. …

First Impressions: Win Over Customers in Seconds

    First impressions are crucial. We decide within seconds whether we like or trust a person within seconds of meeting them. The same is true for a customer meeting a new business for the first time, and their impression is based on a few defining points that your customers use to judge your business.   Helpful, Knowledgable Staff The importance of a great team cannot be stressed enough. This is one of the things that we mention often in this blog, and the reason is that the people who work at your business are one of the first things that will either cause someone to fall in love with your business and become a loyal customer, or turn them off to you completely. Hand-picking and carefully training your team is something to which it is worth devoting a good deal of time & energy.   A Comfortable Environment You …

10 Warning Signs of Investors You Should Avoid

    Business funding. Without it, nothing happens. The moral of this story is simply to be cautious when choosing an investor and not to let your eagerness to find capital cloud your judgement. Chances are, the perfect investor for your business is out there, and to find them, you have to first weed out those who fit the following description.   1. No portfolio, or a very small one. Finding the right investor for your business is not the time to take a chance on someone. Even if they seem to have all of their ducks in a row, you should probably pass on them if they can’t show you any prior successful investments, or very few.   2. Investments in various spaces. It’s not a deal-breaker if your investor has their hands in a few different projects; however, what you do want to see is a good deal …

Teach Your Customers Not to Mistreat Employees

We can easily forget that there is a proverbial line which customers should not cross when interacting with employees of a business, and there are people who are more than happy to cross that line if they’re allowed to do so. The old sentiment, “The customer is always right” was invented during a time when the customer was probably a little more respectful of employees than they are today. Now it isn’t uncommon for a customer to make ridiculous demands and mistreat customer support representatives, even to the point of verbal abuse. That’s why your customers need some boundaries to discourage and prevent this kind of abuse. Yes, you should go above & beyond, but… This doesn’t mean that you should stop providing excellent service and support; on the contrary, we all know that it is essential for building positive relationships with customers and for generating good word-of-mouth for your …

Simple Tips to Solve Minor Phone System Issues

When a technical issue arises with your phone system, it can be scary. Your phones are something that you don’t really expect to stop working. Maybe it’s because the landlines we had in our homes growing up almost never went down, even when the power was out (landlines have an independent power source); or maybe it’s because we don’t even want to think about missing important business calls. It’s natural to feel anxiety when something isn’t working quite right with your virtual phone system, but there is no need to worry and this is why: Around 95% of the issues that Talkroute users experience with their phone system are due to errors in the setup configuration or user error, which are easily and quickly remedied. The rare cases when there is an actual system issue are typically solved in less than an hour or even in a few minutes, with …

How Small Expenses Can Really Hurt Your Business

Many small businesses run things on a pretty tight budget to make sure they stay in the black, and to maintain that budget, they will naturally start thinking about cutting costs, to save large chunks of money where they can. A safer and more interesting cost-saving strategy, however, is to find the small expenses that can be more painlessly cut, eventually adding up to significant sums. The following little expenses are a great start to cutting costs. Ordering Too Much Product Depending on what your product is, this may have a lesser or greater impact on your business. For example, if you run a plant that manufactures building materials which do not deteriorate, then you can order more raw materials than is immediately needed without worrying about it too much. If your shop sells perishable products such as food items, on the other hand, then you can easily waste a …