Achieve Business Rapport and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Attain Business Rapport and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Build the ultimate in business rapport and connect with your clientele – and more.

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. What? Where? Taming Your Work Distractions

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about avoiding distractions at work. Also known as – watch out for that squirrel! HBR says everyone gets something like 46 push notifications per day – and most of them are useless and completely unnecessary. Since these are a big portion of the 50 – 60 interruptions many of us get on a daily basis, turning off push notifications is one way to injure the distraction beast. But not quite slay it.

One great thing about email is that it doesn’t have to be answered immediately. So, why do we do that? Cut that stuff out yesterday. Another great idea was to set aside blocks of time to check email or anything else which is basically a distraction.

Yet another good idea was to stop hitting ‘reply all’. If not everyone has to know about XYZ, then they probably don’t want to hear you’re doing whatever it is that you’re doing. Certainly, they don’t need to follow every excruciating little step.

Tame Your Calendar

One idea they had was to not let people change your calendar without permission. Or to use Calendly which allows you to only offer meeting times during prescribed hours. That’s all well and good.

Allow us to add another idea.

Make a daily appointment with yourself to get stuff done. Whatever your thing is to do, and whatever is your most productive time – take that time back. Stuff it into a calendar block and mark yourself busy if not away.

Don’t breach your commitment to yourself. Don’t be late to your personal meeting with yourself. And don’t cancel.

If you absolutely must reschedule, do so for a big deal and an important reason. Your personal time is vital. Don’t squander, abuse, or dismiss it.

#9. Going to the WELL Standard

The next awesome tip is about making sure your office space meets the WELL standard. Noobpreneur notes WELL has seven core concepts. They are: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind.

The article has good points for upgrading your office so as to meet the WELL standard. There are benefits, like increased employee health and productivity.

But what do you do if your office is a coffee shop, or a virtual space? What if you work from home? Or you just can’t change your space that readily.

We recommend reading the article, but we have some ideas for handling WELL in these other circumstances.

Almost WELL

Kinda. You can improve air by reducing clutter and adding plants. Get in more water by having it delivered. Enhance nourishment by bringing in healthy snacks and getting together a group to head to a healthy restaurant once a week. Bring in more light with a lamp – and make it better with a full-spectrum bulb.

It’s kind of obvious how to add more fitness – join a gym! But if that’s not feasible, how about walking to work, or taking public transportation – and using a stop farther away from your home or office than the closest one? If that can’t work, can you park in the farthest away parking spot. No matter which spots are open, use the one that’s farthest away from your office door. It’s highly likely it’ll be open.

And your healthy restaurant group? Maybe they’d like a different day where you bring in lunch and everyone goes for a walk during lunch?

Enhance comfort with seats and desks which are the right height. Bring in a small pillow if you need it. Slap on headphones and block out extraneous noise. And enhance mind with collaborating. Even people alone in their respective offices can collaborate using a tool like Asana or Slack.

Use your imagination.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Attain the ultimate business rapport and more.

#8. Own YouTube With Your Next Video

Our following life-changing tip concerns YouTube SEO. Opt In Monster lays it all out for us.

Keep in mind, there is some overlap with #7, but these are not identical articles. They have some different tips.

Keywords

Much like in traditional SEO, it’s all about the keywords. That is, the main subject of your video. Can’t decide on synonyms, like film vs. movie vs. cinema? Then use YouTube’s autosuggest. It comes from searches, so you’ll see what people are actually looking for. This is the essence of business rapport.

And for gosh sakes, don’t forget to put your keyword in your video title and description!

We recommend checking out the entire article but keep in mind at least their information on Google Trends appears to be out of date.

#7. Video, Meet Google

For our next sensational tip, we looked at how to rank your newly optimized YouTube videos on Google. This is not the exact same thing as #8. AHRefs concentrates on using its product. This is typical for their articles. But the principles are good.

So, without further ado, here’s what they suggest.

Best Practices

Locate topics with ‘traffic potential’. This means checking keywords and doing research to find out what your customers and prospects are looking for. A wonderful video which no one is looking for may as well not exist at all. Ouch.
Create an optimized video. The best way to do this is to think about cooking shows (yes, really!). The best cooking videos have clear images and sound. They have clear instructions with no digressions. And the chef describes what they’re doing while they are doing it. This kind of clarity is what Google’s algorithm loves.
Fix your closed captions. Amen! In particular, if the captions get your company or product name wrong, or they don’t get your keywords right, fix that, stat!
Upload an attractive and enticing thumbnail. Don’t settle for what YouTube gives you. The software often doesn’t pick the best imagery. Make your image clear and high quality, no matter what’s in it.
Add timestamps! And keep them in your video description, with a new one on each line. The algorithm will pick these up. And your viewers will appreciate it. Consider a video with Xmas songs. For listeners playing the Whamageddon game, don’t you think they’d appreciate knowing when Last Christmas comes on, so they can avoid it? Same thing for your customers and prospects. Some of them want to cut to the chase. So make that possible.

This tip is so festive, and it works! Manta tells us how to get more customers into your business before Xmas. There are any number of ways to leverage the holidays and bring in more customers. Of course decorating, either in person or virtually, is at the top of the list. Plus, the holidays are a great excuse for a party or a giveaway – or both.

But what’s below the surface and less obvious?

Take Advantage of Scheduling

The holidays are everyone’s crazy season. Even if you don’t have any holidays in December, you actually do – New Year’s Eve and Day. You might not want to be working on those days. And your employees may not want to be working, either.

So use the scheduling functions for software such as HootSuite and Buffer.

This also includes setting tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, and blog posts for the last minute. Because we all know someone who buys for Xmas on the morning of.

Maybe that’s you. Hey, we’re not judging.

Free up your time to do just that and wield scheduling like a weapon.

#5. Achieve the Nirvana of Business Rapport

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

‘Tis the season for togetherness – so why not build a better business rapport with your employees?

Effortless HR says holiday parties and other events are the perfect time to build and reinforce team bonds.

We really loved the part about decorating the office.

Go Beyond Office Decorations

Of course, it’s easy to just put up some garlands and then call it a day. Er, a holiday.

But the great suggestion from this article was to also ask your decorating committee to check for anything which might need minor repairs while they’re putting stuff up. This isn’t meant to be a structural engineering inspection. Rather, it’s to see if the paint is chipping in one corner, or there’s a fluorescent bulb that needs replacing. Maybe the company fridge could stand to be cleaned out. Or perhaps there’s a chair in the conference room which is no longer adjustable.

Whatever it may be, the committee should tell maintenance. And the article went onto suggest getting the fixes in before the holidays, if that’s at all possible. It goes beyond just plying your employees with alcohol and baked goods. These may not be big structural changes. Instead, they eliminate certain small annoyances. And they fix certain tiny cosmetic imperfections.

All of that can help your workers feel better, beyond the season.

Go Inclusive or Go Home

This was another point made in the same section. And boy oh boy, does that ever sing our holiday song! Go beyond the tree. How about a kinara (that’s the candelabra) for Kwanzaa and a menorah for Chanukah? You can get an electronic version of both, or battery-powered individual candles.

Your employees who aren’t Christian will appreciate your including them. I sure as heck would, and will.

Volunteer Support

Now, this wasn’t in the article, but we feel the need to point it out. A decorating committee is virtually always a volunteer group. Do they need to stay late to get their work and the decorating done? Then pay those people overtime – and get them a cab or an Uber if they need to go home alone in the dark. And if they miss any work or are pulled away, get them some coverage!

Decorating the office shouldn’t be an occasion for anyone to get behind in their work, lose out on pay, or personally endanger themselves.

Not just sayin’.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Attain the ultimate business rapport and more.

#4. Pull The Trigger On Emotional Words In Your Copy

Check out this spectacular tip, all about upping your business engagement with trigger words. Talk about building business rapport! Lead Pages notes that emotions lead to actions. So, which emotions do you want to evoke in you customers and prospects? And how do you evoke them?

We recommend reading the article although we suggest that you not overuse emotional words, particularly in your titles. Otherwise, you just sound like clickbait. And that is no way to build business rapport.

#3. Once Upon a Time, There Was a Sale…

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you tell better stories in your business presentations. What better way to attain business rapport? HubSpot tells us that sales stories are a lot like any other type of story. That means, they have characters and conflict. And they have a change at the end. They have a coherent narrative.

We recommend reading the entire article as it’s helpful for building business rapport with better storytelling. But let’s first talk about fiction.

The World of Fiction

Yeah, I’m an actual fiction writer (fer realz, yo’).

Here’s how I learned to write fiction, and how it applies to your sales stories.

Characters

Who’s in the story? Where is it set – your setting is a type of character. When you match your character to your buyer persona, your prospect or customer will be more interested. If I’m a middle-aged woman, then telling me a story about a teenaged boy might not go over so well. The match should be close. It doesn’t have to be 100% on the nose. But if you try to fit one size to all, your story will fall flat.

Conflict

In the sales context, this is the identification of the problem. Say your character has a problem that only your widget can solve. They need your service. Whatever it is, this is the driving force behind your tale. It’s the heart and soul of your story.

Crisis

In standard storytelling, this is also called the climax. For sales storytelling, you’re looking to show an inciting incident which turns the problem into a critical issue that must be solved ASAP.

Think about, say, flood insurance. A lot of us realize, intellectually, that it’s probably a good idea to buy it. Yet we put it off and put it off and put it off.

The crisis is when the waters are pooling around your ankles. So, what’s pooling around your prospect’s ankles?

Change

Here’s where you show the solution in action. By having flood insurance, your character gets the full value of her possession back when they’re damaged or lost. She’s still been through a flood. But she’s much better off than her neighbors who didn’t have flood insurance. She can make a new start much more easily.

Tell. Your. Story.

#2. Come on Back

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on winning back customers with ‘back in stock’ emails. Sumo reveals all about building your mailing list and using it to bring back customers. Consider this: it’s the holidays, eh? As if you didn’t know. And stuff goes out of stock. All. The. Time.

Acknowledge it. Embrace it. Benefit from it.

The article is great and we recommend reading it in its entirety. Here’s one takeaway we really loved.

Personalization FTW

With current technology, there’s no excuse not to know what your customer or prospect was browsing and what you’re out of. That is, if you sell sweatshirts and the black is in stock, but navy isn’t, your prospect will appreciate it if you showcase the navy in your email to them. While it’s possible to offer a substitute (and you can), not shoehorning your customers in the same place is a good thing. All of those square pegs don’t fit into round holes.

Nor should they.

#1. Uniqueness Matters

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on making your product uniquely memorable. Startup Professionals says 80% of businesses believe their offerings are unique. But only 8% of customers feel the same.

That’s … not good.

One great way to differentiate you from your competition – and in your customers’ eyes – is to customize. But do so efficiently. Your customers may want an experience specifically tailored to them. So give them one, as well as you can.

This means concentrating on which customers get such special treatment. Not everyone should. Not only will it help you differentiate yourself, it will also give off an exclusivity vibe. People like to pay for that. So make it exclusive.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Attain the ultimate business rapport and more.

The post Achieve Business Rapport and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Become a Brilliant Boss and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Become the World’s Most Brilliant Boss and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Holiday Etiquette to Attract Customers

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about the best etiquette for holiday postings. Manta says this time of year can be terrific for bringing in more customers. But how?

Decorations!

You’ve (maybe) already decorated your store. But what about your website? Go beyond the clichés – but avoid overly religious imagery unless it fits. After all, if your store sells bibles, then go for it.

But if you’re a realtor, a creche is probably not going to be the best of ideas. Still, there are plenty of other ideas. Consider this idea – when your intrepid blog writer was growing up, there was a very boxy older home in town. The house was probably built at the start of the last century or so. It was white, with black shutters and a gray roof. It was a realtor’s office.

Just your standard house, right?

But they had the best holiday decoration, bar none.

It was a huge red ribbon, with a bow in the front, diagonally hung from the second floor down to the ground.

The house looked like a big holiday present. It was likely an inexpensive decoration. There were no specific lights for it. It probably just had to be folded up and stuffed into some big box to be stored.

And … that was it.

Simple. Elegant. Timeless.

People loved it.

There have been others since. But this one was spot-on perfect. And at the time, it was original.

Get a Second Opinion

We cannot stress this one enough. There are, unfortunately, so many ways to mess holiday communications up. Egad, there are more of them than there are ways to get it right, eh?

A look at Hallmark Movies tells the tale.

They’re adding two Chanukah films this year! Yay?

Except one is about how a Jewish actor goes to a Christmas celebration and doesn’t know how to act. And the other is about a Jewish woman and her Christian coworker decorating their office for the holidays.

Oy vey.

No one ever asked for special attention. These films could have been presented as your standard Hallmark Christmas movies and no one would have batted an eye. Instead, they come out as what, to many folks (your blog post writer included), feels like Chanukah isn’t good or interesting enough so we need to wrap it up in pine trees and elves.

Hallmark, I have a lot of trouble believing you couldn’t find anyone Jewish in the entertainment business to bounce this idea off.

Srsly.

So please, I beg of you – run an idea like this past the people it affects the most. What you think might be a warm, inclusive idea just might turn out to be a good gesture sheen over second-class treatment to the very people you’re trying to attract.

Don’t be like Hallmark Movies when it comes to this.

#9. Better Cold Calling Can Be Yours

The next awesome tip is about better and more effective cold calling. Sales Hacker notes a lot of people ask silly questions or stick too closely to a script. Neither will help you.

But we really loved their other tip.

Learn Something From Every Call

Truthfully, this should be what you do with pretty much everything. But let’s just look at cold calling right now.

It can be tempting, in particular if you experience a bunch of these at once. But rejections, no doubt, are a great place to learn. Did you talk too fast? Or waste time? Did you sound unprepared? Were there objections unexpected?

Whatever it was, learn something! Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Be the brilliant boss your employees need – and more!

#8. Have Your Salespeople Meet Your Sales Quota More Easily

Our following life-changing tip concerns making your sales quota. LinkedIn lays it all out for us. A simple sales strategy was one of our favorite ideas. An easy process is going to be more likely to be followed, yes?

And one of the best ways to simplify all of it is to help your salespeople better communicate value to their prospects. If it’s easy to enumerate what’s so great about your product, then your sales team is going to be far, far more likely to do that on the first call, the last call, and every call.

#7. Smash Those Content Marketing Myths

For our next sensational tip, we looked at banishing content marketing myths. G2 says that some of the least common practices seem to get the best results.

We recommend you read the entire article to get the benefit of all of their insights. Here’s the one that really jumped out at us.

Don’t Be All Things to All People

Well, they didn’t exactly put it that way. Rather, they said that publishing daily, everywhere, isn’t doing you any favors.

Egad, please shout this one from the rooftops. Tattoo it on the inside of your eyelids.

We ain’t kiddin’.

Being everywhere isn’t just silly and nonscalable. It’s also a lousy use of your resources. And it doesn’t target your audience. At. All.

If there is one marketing drumbeat we have been hearing throughout 2019, it’s this: specify, specialize, and get personal. Trying to target everyone with a firehose is a terrible way to market.

So don’t do it.

#6. Bring Back the Passion

This tip is so different, but it works! Addicted 2 Success tells us all about refueling your passion.

What made you want to start your business in the first place? Is it feeling just a little bit stale? Are you maybe burned out a little? Then this article is for you. We highly recommend reading the whole article.

So we’ll just concentrate on one thing here: joining a community.

It’s hard to sustain your passion when you feel like the Lone Ranger. So why not join a community of like-minded individuals? They may have ideas to help you become even more successful. Or they might just commiserate. There’s nothing like talking to someone else who’s been there, done that, got the tee shirt.

In fact, that’s kind of what your Chamber of Commerce, SCORE, and a number of other local organizations are all about. You don’t have to go it alone.

#5. You Can Become a Brilliant Boss

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

If you’ve ever wanted to become a brilliant boss, then here’s your chance.

Noobpreneur provides a baker’s dozen worth of advice from the best bosses their contributors ever had.

We especially loved two of their tips.

Don’t Go it Alone

Wellll, they didn’t actually put it that way. Rather, they said a brilliant boss knows how to delegate. And a brilliant boss also knows how to encourage and elicit feedback.

We think those two go together. Consider this: the hardest, most stressful way you can work is to take the weight of the world on your shoulders and never, ever give it up to anyone else.

Don’t do this.

You have employees for a reason. Work with them! And let them in on the struggle. Their ideas just might make everyone’s life easier.

Get Your Hands Dirty

In a way, this is a corollary to not going it alone.

Raise your hand if you ever had a boss who left you work to do on a deadline, told you it was imperative to get it out, and then grabbed their coat and left. Bonus points if they never bothered to forward the finished product, or didn’t return in time to get it out on time. And more bonus points if they sat on it, or claimed it wasn’t what they wanted – but they never told you what they wanted in the first place.

That’s passive-aggressive nonsense (there’s a nice, sanitized word for it). Don’t be that kind of a supervisor.

A brilliant boss gets in the trenches and works with their employees. They help out when the team is shorthanded. And they respect their employees’ hard work and don’t undermine it by sitting on time-sensitive work.

Let me tell you about my own experiences.

A Few True Stories

Your intrepid blog writer has had several bosses. But three tie for the title of Most Brilliant Boss. Here they are presented, in chronological order.

Amy was 100% organized. Her meetings were run like a steel trap. You always knew exactly what she wanted and needed. You knew her expectations. She was (still is!) an extraordinary communicator.

Maureen was informal and funny. The first time I ever met her, she was swearing about a report which wasn’t working for her. It was my first day on the job! And so I asked – how can I fix this for you? A few months later, I had the solution. To show her appreciation, she nominated me for a company award, which I won.

Alex is smart and is a great facilitator. He has a wonderful talent for getting in the middle of an issue between an employee and anyone else. He serves as a human shield, a buffer, if you will, between his charges and other departments. These other departments aren’t hostile – it’s more that he can interpret between them and make things better for all.

Back to You

Be organized like Amy. Know what you want and need, and ask for it clearly. Your employees will appreciate the directness, and not having to play let’s read the boss’s mind. You know, where they spin a big wheel and try to figure out just what the heck you meant by what you just said.

Communicate like Amy.

Be relaxed and appreciative like Maureen. Thank the people who work for you for what they do – and not just during the holidays! You never know how your documented appreciation can help someone out. My little company award story has gotten me jobs!

Thank like Maureen.

Be protective like Alex. Cherish your employees and treat them fairly. Don’t let others undermine them. You’re the one making the big (er, maybe just the ‘biggish’) bucks. So start acting like it, and get in the middle so your employees don’t have to bear the brunt.

Protect like Alex.

Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it, Maureen. And thank you, Alex.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Be the brilliant boss your employees need – and more!

#4. Appreciate Your Employees Before They Find Someone Else Who Will

Check out this spectacular tip, all about showing employee appreciation. Entrepreneur notes that there are a number of creative ways to show appreciation to the people who work for you.

We really loved the idea of being public about it – as public as possible. You know all those company-wide emails you sometimes get because someone messed up? Why not turn them into a force for good?

Chris did an amazing job on the XYZ report and helped us keep this vital client. Thank you, Chris!

Sending that to everyone in the company means Chris can get accolades from everyone.

Point out errors and correct mistakes in private, praise in public.

#3. Manage All Around the World and In Cyberspace

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you better manage virtual teams. Proof Hub tells us there are differing cultures everywhere, and they can sometimes come into conflict when it comes to how teams are structured. In particular, this has to do with how the boss is treated. Are they an elite in an ivory tower? Or is even the most brilliant boss considered to be just another member of the team?

None of these are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, of course. They’re just a bit different.

Another area where things differ is in the area of holidays and days off.

A Fer Instance

Your intrepid blog writer has had jobs in four separate states: Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Even though all of these places are in the United States, they don’t have the same holidays.

Rhode Island has Victory Day in August (confidentially, we used to call it “Rhode Island Saves The World Day”). Massachusetts has Patriots Day in April. Lincoln’s Birthday in February is celebrated as a government holiday in Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, and New York. And poor little Delaware doesn’t have a holiday of its own. So sad, Blue Hens.

If there are so many differences in the same country and even in the same time zone, then how can anyone expect the holidays will be the same in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Ireland, and Zaire?

A little sensitivity and imagination, as in a lot of places, can go a long way.

#2. Git ‘Er Done

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on getting more done in your business. Success Harbor reveals all about improving efficiency in your business.

Truth is, this can work outside of your business.

Our fave tip was to prioritize.

Does anyone read the report you spend four hours preparing every month? If so, and they get actionable insights from it, then keep prepping that report. Although you may want to explore as many ways as possible to streamline that activity.

But if they don’t, then why are you doing? If there’s a value to the report, then can it come out semi-annually or even annually? And if there is no value whatsoever, then ditch it. Don’t waste your time on it.

#1. Get Organized!

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on the benefits of getting organized in your business. Young Upstarts says there are essential benefits to being organized in your business. That is, beyond saving your sanity!

We’d like to combine two – one is that you’ll be more focused, and the other is that you will have more time. We think these go hand in hand.

Picture it: you can find every single report you need, in seconds. The sales figures are right where you expect them to be. And you have your taxes organized.

The few seconds you spend filing, either in the real world or virtually, will save you hours later.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Be the brilliant boss your employees need – and more!

The post Become a Brilliant Boss and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Embrace Business Delegating and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Get Ahead With Smart Business Delegating and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Business delegating is going to save you time, money, and mental bandwidth.

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Up Go Your Sales and Revenues – Here’s How

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about boosting sales and revenues. Young Upstarts says there is an actual difference between sales and revenue. The difference is as follows. Sales is the numerical total of the products sold, while revenue is the total amount of cash which was taken in because of the sales.

One tip we really loved was all about prices.

Rethink Your Pricing Strategy

Prices should not be written in stone tablets, never to be changed.

So check out what your competitors are doing. It may be better to lower your prices rather than raise them, by the way. A lower price can keep your products, and thereby your company, competitive. And raising your prices can help your business make more money with fewer sales or at least without having to increase your sales.

Whichever way works, be intentional about it. We are big, big fans of metrics and data here. So don’t change your prices without concrete support from unshakeable numbers.

#9. Banish the Churn

The next awesome tip is about avoiding buyer churn. LinkedIn notes that technology, unsurprisingly, can come to your rescue.

Churn is when you lose customers for some reason or another. A subscription service might see people cancel. A local shop could see people move out of the area. And an online business might find their customers are surfing elsewhere.

So, why are customers leaving?

Understanding why customers jump ship is key to preventing more defections. And it all comes from – surprise! – data. Many customers leave because they perceive a disorganization in a business, or a lack of service – or both. Better technology can help with both. Make your business decisions with objective data, not subjective anecdotes.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Business delegating will transform your business.

#8. Put the Customer First. Always.

Our following life-changing tip concerns customer-centric selling. Help Scout lays it all out for us.

Our favorite tip from this article was the part about leading with curiosity. But what, precisely, does that mean?

Imagine you’re selling television sets. You can just sell the TV and be done with it. Or you can engage the customer in some conversation where you ask curious-style questions:

Looking to watch the big game? Who do you favor?
Do you like to game? Let me show you how to use the TV with your gaming system
Oh, what a cute baby! Need to watch TV while the little one is asleep? Let me show you how to put on the captions
I see your kids are loving the set! Do you want to learn how to get a handle on what they’re watching, and block some content?

You get the idea.

Your mission in sales is to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. This means wanting to know what they know. And it means trying to learn the things they need to know but don’t know yet.

#7. Save Your Health From the Effects of Sitting at a Desk All Day

For our next sensational tip, we looked at overcoming the harmful health effects of an office job. Effortless HR says that there are ways to incorporate some exercise into your day – and that will help to preserve your health.

We kind of liked the idea of making office calls. But we want to take it one step further.

So it’s time for a true story.

The Mentor and the Walking Meetings

Back in the day (early in this century), your intrepid blog writer worked for a major publishing company right in the city. This was a job I used to get to via public transportation. I would also add more exercise to my day by getting off at a bus stop before the one I was supposed to get off at.

Then there was mentoring.

I signed up for this (I was the oldest person who did, by far!) because I knew so little about the publishing industry when I was hired. This woman turned out to be within 10 years of my age, and we got along famously. But the best part was suggesting to her that, weather permitting, we walk for our meetings.

And so we did! We saw a lot more of the city than most people do, while still getting done what we needed to do.

Will a walking meeting work for you? Maybe for a short meeting where it’s not expected a lot of notes will be taken. Try it. What have you got to lose?

#6. Stop Overworking – Here’s How

This tip is so smart, and it works! Indeed tells us all about bringing back work-life balance and getting off the overworking train.

Here’s our favorite tip from the article – although we highly recommend reading the whole thing.

Set an Example

You’re the boss. You set the tone. And if you work late every night, guess what happens? A lot of your employees will feel the need to do the same. And if you call or text them at all hours, then they will feel the need to be available to you, 24/7.

True story – your intrepid blog writer has been friends for years with a woman who had a boss who would do both. And this boss would also call at 2 AM, screaming for my friend to do this or that. It was a marketing job. The vast, vast majority of marketing activities are not emergencies. And this was before the internet, so it wasn’t a social media crisis.

That’s nasty. It’s unfair. And it’s borderline abusive.

And my own job several years ago was a place where we were all expected to work late. But I wasn’t getting a lot of work! Rather than sitting around, I took the train home. And that was apparently the 100% wrong thing to do.

I was out of there, fast.

Don’t do that to your employees, or to yourself. Unless you’re curing cancer, working as an air traffic controller, or taking care of the people on the International Space Station, your business is important, yes. But it’s not so important that you can’t take time off and live life outside of it.

#5. Embrace the Power of Business Delegating

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

You don’t have to go it alone. Business delegating is where it’s at.

The Self-Employed says it’s possible to delegate tasks even if they are tasks requiring a lot of skill. It’s all about maintaining relationships.

It’s possible to delegate tasks even if you’re a sole proprietor. Just keep a list of skilled, competent, reliable professionals.

Consider this.

Your Value is More Than Zero

In fact, your value is far more than nothing! Of course, you know this intellectually. But the bottom line is that adding yet another task onto your plate is probably going to cost you money.

Still, what, precisely, is your time worth?

If you’ve been recently employed, consider that figure. And think about what you pay yourself (you do pay yourself, right?) and the kind of time you put in. But there’s more, particularly if you haven’t recently been employed anywhere but in your own business. Here are the details.

Think about what was the last big sale you made or account you landed? Got that in your mind? Good!

How much was it worth? And how long did it take to get it? This is everything from research to calls to perhaps visits, advertising, you name it.

Divide the amount of that big sale or account by the number of hours and set that figure aside. Do this again for a few more so you have a few numbers. Now average those numbers. More or less, that’s your hourly value.

So if it took you 100 hours to land a $10,000 sale, then your time is worth $100 per hour.

See why doing the filing is an expensive proposition which you should delegate to someone else?

Let the Professionals Lead the Charge

Do you do your business’s taxes? Payroll? Hiring? There comes a time in every successful business’s life when you stop doing that and you do some business delegating. You send the first two tasks to accountants. You send the last one to an HR professional. You get out of doing those things and you go back to what you do best – landing deals to buy widgets or whatever.

And don’t forget this. Your value should rise, commensurate with your experience, your time in business, and the size of the deals and sales you land. That $100 per hour might turn into $500 or even $5,000 per hour.

Engage in business delegating and save money – and your own time.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Business delegating will transform your business.

#4. Get to the Point

Check out this spectacular tip, all about better focusing your content. Copy Blogger notes that meandering content doesn’t do you any favors.

Preach.

Their best tip was to let first drafts sit and then edit the hell out of them. But what if you can’t? You might have a certain minimum word count and you just made it, so cutting even one word is too many. Or maybe there’s very little time.

C’mere, and I’ll tell you a secret.

Everyone’s on a deadline.

But here’s how to do the editing dance when there’s very little time or wiggle room with words.

Editing for Fun and Clarity

Is there more than one writer in your company? Then have them switch off and edit each other’s work. This will get the editing done, and in less time. It’s a lot easier to spot errors – and let them go – when they aren’t your errors.

Only got one writer? Then pair the writer with the employee with the second best writing skills. Not a perfect solution, but not a bad one.

It’s just you? Then do yourself a favor and take a day to start as many blog posts as you can. This is basically just the bare bones outline and no more. How to Paint a Wall. Where to Find the Best Sushi. Whatever your topic is, just write outlines. And then when you do blog, stick with them as if they were gospel. Your article on the best sushi shouldn’t include where to find great barbecue. Keep two questions in mind:

What are your goals for this piece of content?
What one thing should your audience take away?

Your outline should address both of these points.

Outlines help to focus your writing, especially if you have no other way to edit. And by getting back to these outlines later, you have let them sit, our favorite tip from this article – to let things sit for at least a day.

#3. Start the 20s With New Marketing Techniques and Tools

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can improve your marketing in 2020. Buzz Sumo tells us that we can start the year off right with a few changes.

We highly recommend reading the entire article, as there are some great, detailed ideas in there. But we want to showcase one in particular. Stories.

Tell Me a Story

This isn’t necessary a story in the sense of a beginning, middle, and end with a protagonist and a story arc. Rather, it is an ephemeral form of content. On Instagram and Facebook, for example, the content is just plain gone pretty quickly. But on both places, people love it.

Why?

There’s something fun and a little mysterious about getting in on a bit of content that others don’t. We might not have backstage passes and maybe we can’t get past the velvet rope at the club. But we can be on Instagram at the right time to experience a story.

Facebook does this to great effect in a thoroughly noncommercial sense. It does it with birthday stories.

And it’s a brilliant piece of advertising.

Say what?

By getting people used to stories and giving them a reason to check them out, Facebook is showing consumers that they just might want to check out stories from marketers. And the beauty of it is that Facebook has been Birthday Central for years. Sometimes a birthday greeting is the only communication between two connections in a year. By associating this seemingly necessary thing (remembering a birthday) with stories, Facebook has even created a demand.

And that’s the story!

#2. Ready, Set, Holidays!

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on readying your business for the holidays. Because they are coming faster than you might think! Score reveals all about getting set for the inevitable.

And we so loved the fact that they led with business delegating!

We loved two of their ideas which can both be done by someone else. Talk about your business delegating.

It’s Website Facelift Time!

We’re not talking so much about updating the design. It’s more to make sure that you can handle orders and inquiries. If your website goes slow or stops altogether, you’re going to lose sales. And you might even lose future sales.

Dang.

It’s a great area where you can practice business delegating, too. You can even hire a professional for a look-see to make sure you’re not overlooking anything big.

After all, most people haven’t started holiday shopping yet. There are probably going to be a lot of folks out there who are more than happy to deal with your website for a few hours or days and get a few bucks in anticipation of holiday bills.

It’s Also Office and Store Facelift Time

Now we’re talking about something more artistic.

How into the holidays are your workers? Do they watch It’s a Wonderful Life once and then call it a season? Or do they have brackets whereby they pit film and TV Santas against each other to see who comes out on top?

I’m partial to Art Carney myself. Fight me.

Either way, a lot of people are into decorating this time of year. This is a great time and place for business delegating, because it’s more fun that way.

Do your customers, prospects, and non-celebrating employees a favor and don’t make the decorations too religious unless you’re a religious book store or the like. Then have at it! But for most other establishments, snowflakes, bows, and boughs can be festive without excluding anyone.

Same with holiday music. And please don’t make it all Xmas music even if it’s fairly secular! There are plenty of winter tunes which don’t mention the specific holiday at all. Here are a bunch – but they don’t have my personal favorite!

And don’t forget to have fun. You work hard all year. You deserve this.

#1. Leverage Small Business Saturday

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on succeeding on Small Business Saturday. It’ll be here a week from this Saturday! The SBA says Small Business Saturday is a terrific way to usher in the holiday season and make some profit. But you need to be ready.

We really loved two specific ideas. One was to leverage local events. That is, if your town is having a tree lighting ceremony, and are a salon, why not hand out little cards with basic skin care tips for the cold weather to the people outside watching the ceremony?

The other idea we loved should be no surprise – keeping track of what works, and what doesn’t. Otherwise, how will you know what to do next year?

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Business delegating will transform your business.

The post Embrace Business Delegating and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Improved Business Writing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

Improved business writing will help you make more sales. Check out how better overall communications will make you money.

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Improved Business Writing and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Goodbye is Just as Important as Hello

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about creating a good business offboarding process. T Sheets says the last impressions a departing employee has of your business can often be just as important as their first ones.

Knowing how to successfully offboard an employee is a vital part of running any business.

Tell People!

Don’t leave folks in the dark. In particular, the soon to be ex-employee has coworkers and, possibly, direct reports. Don’t those people deserve to know what’s going on? Otherwise, they are going to fill in the blanks. And you are probably not going to look too good if that happens.

Seriously.

It’s Also in Your Best Interests

Telling people isn’t just about making sure they don’t say bad things about you. It’s also about making sure that your departing employee imparts their wisdom before they hit the road. Yes, you’re going to ask them to document things. But the article also says – don’t overdo that. It’s unpleasant to begin with. Plus you are more likely to need them to wrap up loose-ended projects.

So keep the lines of communication open. Don’t sweep the employee’s departure under a rug. It’s nothing to hide, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. People move on all the time. It’s not a reflection on you or your company.

And, if you offboard someone really well, you know what can happen?

They just might decide to come back and work for you again. These impressions matter.

#9. Win at Negotiating With a Win-Win

The next awesome tip is about negotiating a better deal for your business. Noobpreneur notes any business person is going to have to do some negotiating in their lives. This is everything from working out the terms of employment agreements with workers to getting a better deal on vehicles.

Their first tip is the best one.

Research FTW

If you don’t know what the other side wants and needs, you will have a lot of trouble with negotiations. Why? Isn’t the point of negotiating getting what you want, damn all the others?

Not quite.

Yes, you want to get what you, well, want. But if you can get the other side to a win, then they are far more likely to say yes to your terms.

How come?

Most people have a well-developed sense of justice and fairness. I give you a few dollars, and you give me a coffee at your shop. But if I only give you a penny, I have no right to expect a coffee from you. And if I give you $100, then I expect to get either a lot of change back or enough coffees to caffeinate the entire team.

So give to get. You just might be surprised.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Show off your improved business writing and more.

#8. Forecast Better Than Vegas Odds

Our following life-changing tip concerns forecasting sales more accurately. Sales Hacker lays it all out for us.

And like a lot of the processes which we see which involve numbers, the best practices are to be organized and consistent.

It all comes down to the metrics.

Going Metric With Your Sales

What do you need to measure? What makes the most sense to know? in the article, they lay out a few which should be no-brainers, such as churn rate and win rate. That is, who stops subscribing, and who you’ve sold to.

The most intriguing measurements had to do with pipeline. That is, are you setting things up for the next sale?

What, you’re not?

It’s time to start.

#7. Seal Your Deals With a KISS

For our next sensational tip, we looked at using basic design principles in order to close more sales. HubSpot says that the old design principle of KISS can help you land more jobs.

Kiss means: keep it simple, stupid.

Also known as, don’t overdo stuff. Don’t overcrowd. And it should be no coincidence – better design can dovetail well with improved business writing.

The article covers a few basics of design, such as balance. But the one we really liked had to do with scale.

Draw In Your Clients to Scale

Quick – what’s bigger, a man or a whale?

Usually, it’s the whale. But a baby whale (not a baby shark, thank God) can be smaller than a man, yes? How are your readers going to ever know this without scale?

The same is true for your designs. If your widget is bigger or brighter, then show it in comparison with another widget which isn’t so big and bright. Otherwise, how could your prospects ever possibly know?

#6. What Happens When We Communicate?

This tip is so neat, and it works! Young Upstarts tells us all about using conversation intelligence to improve sales. Communications intelligence is all about understanding when certain conversations lead to closed deals and others … don’t.

Consider how understanding your communications work, or not, will improve all aspects of the selling process. Like many data-driven aspects of business, knowing what works and what doesn’t will save you time later. Communications can be oral or written, so improved business writing should be included, too.

We recommend you read the entire article to get the full idea behind this new concept which, to us, sounds a lot like listening to your customers.

What a concept.

#5. Listen to Ernest Hemingway and Start Showing Off Your Improved Business Writing

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Improved business writing is where it’s at. Because no one – no one – wants to read boring business writing.

Copy Blogger says the Pulitzer Prizewinning author has tips which you can use, too.

Here’s what we loved.

Forceful Prose That Means What it Says

Oh. My. God.

Essentially, the idea is as follows. Vigorous English is the kind of prose which tells you what’s going on, and does so in a way that you are immersed in it.

Consider the following two sentences.

For sale: one electric scooter.

For sale: your ticket to freedom – an electric scooter.

Now, does everything benefit from such treatment? Probably not. After all, if you sell casket, an immersive experience is probably the last thing on your prospects’ minds. Unless it’s Halloween, of course.

Used well and not all the time, kind of like chili powder, vigorous prose can work wonders.

That’s not the only part we loved when it came to creating improved business writing.

What Is It? It’s This, Not Something That’s Not That

Say what?

So the other bit we really loved is the concept of forcefully and clearing declaring positively what something is.

This doesn’t mean happy talk. It’s not that kind of positive. Rather, it’s being clear and declarative with your prose.

Improved business writing – or any sort of writing, for that matter – starts here.

Let’s talk about toothpaste as an example, okay?

And let’s say that your toothpaste has a cinnamon flavor. You don’t say that it isn’t spearmint flavor. No. You say that it’s cinnamon flavor.

It’s assertive. And it’s accurate, of course. But it’s also not apologetic. Saying that it’s not spearmint – doesn’t that feel like an apology? Like the copywriter is sorry, we didn’t go in the spearmint direction. But here’s some cinnamon as a consolation prize.

No. Don’t write like that!

Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Thanks, Papa.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Show off your improved business writing and more.

#4. Ready, Set, Write!

Check out this spectacular tip, all about writing better blog posts faster. Addicted 2 Success notes that there are a few ways to speed up the process of writing blogs.

Templates and the Blank Page

So, here’s a dirty little secret about these Friday posts.

C’mere, and I’ll tell you.

It’s based on a template. And that is for a very specific reason. Just like the posts being referred to in this article, this post has to be written rather quickly. With a template, the article comes together with a lot less effort.

And there’s another perk to using templates. Blank pages can be daunting. By themselves, they can cause the kind of anxiety that can slide you right into writer’s block.

Templates banish the blank page.

We strongly suggest you check out the entire article. It’s a great ticket to improved business writing.

#3. Lights, Camera, Your Business!

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you build a great studio for a video series. Wistia tells us that your first mission is to figure out just where you’re going to put your studio. But that makes a ton of sense, as a lot of your other considerations will follow from this.

So, what’s best?

Consider how you’re going to use the space. Is this going to be a space to record videos where the expected sounds come from the action on the screen? Or can you dub it in later? Either way, you need a quiet place to do audio. But if you’re going to do unboxing videos where the narrative is added later, or music plays over it, then you can kind of do your unboxing while a jet flies overhead, yes?

But then there’s one little thing.

Say What?

It’s sound. Viewers are going to forgive a lot these days. They know that you’re not in the business of making videos – unless you are, of course. So if you aren’t in the business of making videos, a lot of prospects and customers are going to be perfectly fine with that. In fact, it can even turn into an asset.

How?

Have you ever seen a slick used car salesperson on TV? Of course you have. And they are about the most artificial people out there, amirite?

A little imperfection in the visuals is pretty easy to forgive.

Not so with sound.

Your customers and fans want to hear what you have to say. So have decent microphones! And then there’s post-production.

True Story Time

So, your intrepid blog writer used to be a podcaster. Podcasting, when you’re an amateur, means you wear nearly every hat there is. You book the talent, write up the questions, and even serve as your own laugh track.

I used to use Adobe Audition. And I still recommend it. It’s a great program, not too horribly expensive, for cleaning up audio. Clip out longer silences and put in segue music. You can even add introductory music and closing credit music. Most of all, it’s not too hard to use.

I cannot recommend this program enough, for any endeavor you pursue which requires good sound, such as podcasting or releasing your own video.

#2. Expand the Right Way

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on expanding your business. E One Network reveals all about expanding your business.

We think the best tip was the first one – and of course we welcome your opinion if you disagree!

Being Cash Poor is Not Going to Help You Expand

Truer words were never written (well, maybe a few times…).

The bottom line is, if you don’t have enough cash on hand when your business has, say, three employees, what makes you think things are going to get any better once you have six? Unless, of course, you do something about that.

So think about what you can do. You might be able to get into a cheaper lease. Maybe you can stretch your fleet a little longer, rather than buying so soon. Or maybe you can switch to mugs rather than expensive one-use paper mugs and cups.

They had a terrific idea which should help – consider reducing your terms to Net-30 or Net-15.

Getting paid faster is bound to get you more cash on hand.

#1. Scaling Up

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on scaling your business successfully. The Self Employed says the move from a small startup to a larger business can be accomplished if you follow a few steps.

While this is similar to tip #2 (and the opposite of tip #10!), it goes beyond the financial aspects of making a business bigger.

Here’s our fave tip of the bunch.

Invest in Good Technology

It’s like buying a better sweater which will last for several seasons, as opposed to one which costs less up front but you need to replace in a year.

Buying better tech which will help your business is key. Think about what you can automate. Is the cost prohibitive? It might not be if you start small, such as with an individual license versus an enterprise one.

Are your computers durable? Do you have good warranties for them? Now might be a good time to invest in that sort of assurance that bad components will be repaired or replaced.

We want your business to get bigger. These are just a few ways to make that happen.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Show off your improved business writing and more.

The post Improved Business Writing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Keep a Competitive Small Business and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Keep Up and Be a Competitive Small Business and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Become a more competitive small business and succeed today!

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Map Your Way to More Sales

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about building a sales process map. Mail Shake says “a sales process map outlines how your organization interacts with your buyer from attraction, engagement, selling, closing, and retaining.”

So the concept is to have a blueprint for dealing with your sales and your buyer. It is not the details or the ‘how’. It is the ‘what’. So if your organization has a step for a demonstration, that should be listed.

In fact, per the article, a lot of prospects get the demonstration too early within the process. How come? Because a lot of demonstrations are long and just plain not that interesting. So know when to make the demonstration. And then your buyer will actually be primed and ready. And interested. Talk about being a competitive small business!

But it all comes down to one thing. The bottom line is to have the process understood and written down. Because the last thing you want is for only one person to know it, and for that person to leave your company.

#9. Take Your Sales Efficiency to the Max

The next awesome tip is about achieving maximum sales efficiency. LinkedIn notes this comes down to two separate questions. In what way can you be more productive? And how can you make your time spent selling more efficient?

Essentially, the idea is not to work late – or at least, no later than you must. Rather, you need to spend the time you set aside as well as you can. Make it effective!

Say No and Own Your Time

This is perhaps the best takeaway from this article. What’s sapping your time and strength and energy? Is it doing anything good for you?

If it isn’t, then jettison it from your life.

And more importantly, learn how to recognize such piles of temporal quicksand, and steer around them in the first place.

We recommend checking out the last third or so of the article – the rest is more of an ad for a part of LinkedIn. You want to zero in on the quotes at the bottom.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Stay a competitive small business!

#8. Oops! These Digital Marketing Errors Are Costing You Money

Our following life-changing tip concerns avoiding digital marketing mistakes that are costing you sales. G2 lays it all out for us. There are any number of mistakes but we’re only going to concentrate on one in this blog post. We’ve covered a lot of the others before and fairly recently. So we’ll just look at one.

The Absence of a Mobile Marketing Strategy

We cannot emphasize enough just how vital a mobile marketing strategy is! Consider this. How many times have you gone to a website while on your phone and been frustrated with how hard it was to get around and find things? And how many times have you wondered why there’s no app for whatever it is that you’re looking for?

Plus, how many times have you downloaded an app and then suddenly everything is so much easier? And while that’s great and all, it ignores one basic issue. And that is that the website should still be responsive to mobile. Yes, even in the presence of an app.

Plus a responsive website design makes it so much easier to accommodate all of the new tech that’s coming our way in the future. What, you thought your version of an iPhone or Android was the last one ever going to be made?

Think again.

#7. Get to the Point!

For our next sensational tip, we looked at building a profitable audience with specificity. Copy Blogger says that ultra-specificity in copy will help you sell more. Kind of hard to argue with that.

In particular, specifics rock headlines. How? Consider some of the more exceptionally memorable news headlines of all time:

Ford to City: Drop Dead! (New York Post, 1975)
The Filth and the Fury! (The Daily Mirror, 1978, talking about the punk group, the Sex Pistols)
Ali Stings Joe, Wins Decision (New York Daily News, 1974)
War Over! (The Dayton Herald, 1945)

Every single one of these gets to the point fast. Although you can argue the one from the Daily Mirror is a touch tangential. But paired with an image, it’s obvious what they mean. All of these headlines do it in 5 words or less.

That’s an incredible economy of words.

Four U’s

This section of the article is worth the price of admission all by itself.

“The Four U’s of headline writing, as outlined by American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI), are a helpful guide when evaluating any piece of sales copy or content:

Useful
Ultra-specific
Unique
Urgent”

Without urgency, you have nothing. After all, if you don’t have an interest in the local news in Dubuque, then who cares how awesome my headline is? And the corollary is also true. If the local news in Dubuque is the thing you want to read about, then I had better get that across in my headline. Otherwise, you just might miss it.

And that doesn’t do either of us any good, now, does it?

So check out the article in its entirety. It is well worth it!

#6. You’re Hired! Or, Rather, You’re Hiring!

This tip is so cool, and it works! All Business tells us all about hiring.

We highly recommend reading this article in its entirety as it makes some excellent points about, among other things, how good hiring can save your business a ton of money. So instead we’re going to concentrate on a point that they don’t quite make.

True Story Time

15 years ago (egad, it was that long ago?), your intrepid blog writer worked for a voice recognition company. The work was … okay. But the boss was terrific. And one day I asked her: how do you decide who to hire? And how did you decide to hire me? Keep in mind, I had absolutely no experience in voice recognition whatsoever when I was hired.

She said, “If all other things are equal, I hire the person who I feel is the most curious. Because they will learn new things and they will be diligent about finding mistakes and better ways of doing things.”

And so I leave you with this bit of wisdom. Hire the curious.

Thanks, Amy.

#5. Become and Stay a More Competitive Small Business

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

It’s all about being a competitive small business. So, can your business compete with the bigger companies out there? Or are you being left in the dust?

The Business Backer says a smaller business has some advantages, simply by virtual of its size. So use them!

Business Be Nimble, Business Be Quick!

It’s a great way to be a more competitive small business – and even a competitive small business versus a larger business.

Very large businesses can be entrenched in bureaucracies and layers of management. With all of these cushions, these businesses can end up with a lot of hands touching even some of the smaller decisions.

Committees can end up deciding on everything from the official company font to whether they’re going to start offering muffins for sale in the cafeteria. And that means they are also deciding on things such as how to change an approach to a prospect. It can be a hard, slow process for a large business to alter its advertising and marketing strategies.

You don’t have to do any of that. Rather, you’re quite possibly a committee of one. Your entire company can possibly meet in one room.

True story – your intrepid blog writer once worked for a company which could and did meet in a compact car.

So you can be faster. This also means flexibility. With fewer stakeholders, people might not be so married to your color or advertising campaign choices. If something is better, there are a lot fewer people to convince of that fact.

Small businesses have flexibility that larger ones just plain do not have.

Scratch That Niche!

Here’s another place where being small helps you. You are a competitive small business when it comes to niche marketing.

Being a small company means you can relate pretty directly to a small group of people. And that means a niche audience, almost by definition. If, say, you’re Marvel Comics, you pump out tons of comics and films all the time, to appeal to a myriad of tastes. But if you’re Mom and Pop Startup Comics, maybe you concentrate on just superheroes from Milwaukee.

If you can corner the market on people interested in your niche, your marketing, sales, and advertising will be easier and quite probably cheaper.

Don’t spray your shots!

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Stay a competitive small business!

#4. Bring Order Out of Chaos

Check out this spectacular tip, all about keeping order in your office. EO Network notes that a messy work environment will often negatively impact your performance.

Preach.

Our favorite part of this is that it can work for a home office or if you actually – shudder – leave the building.

Reduce Your Stuff and Find Homes For All of It

It all really comes down to those two things. What needs to stay? And what needs to go? In addition, what needs to move or be transformed?

Do you keep old drafts of writing? Do you have to? Consider this – you can probably get rid of nearly all of that or at least convert it to an electronic format. Even if you have to somehow prove you drafted a document or two or twelve, there can be ways of proving that without having to hang onto a ton of outdated drafts. Electronic signatures, anyone?

Photograph or scan anything which you know you’re going to need in an electronic format and recycle the rest of it. Good bye, chaos. Hello, space.

More space means you’ll find everything more quickly. And it also means you’re more likely to have the latest version of whatever you need – after all, you’ve stored or discarded the older versions, right?

Save your sanity and tame your office clutter!

#3. Brick By Brick, Build a Brand Strategy

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you build a strategy from scratch. Young Upstarts tells us a brand strategy is a long-term plan to help you make your clearly defined goals and objectives. So this is, in a way, an expansion of our tip #10, going beyond a sales strategy and looking at everything in your business, from soup to nuts.

Discovering Your Business

As in, why does your business exist in the first place?

If you can’t answer that one easily, and explain it to others readily, then why should they trust you? Why should they do business with you? And why should they listen to anything you have to say.

Ouch.

Who Are You, Anyway?

What makes your brand and your business different from any other? Why should your customers and prospects choose you over any other business? What makes you a competitive small business?

So let’s consider an example from, of all things, the movies.

Moscow on the Hudson and the Confusing, Frightening World of Too Many Choices

This is a 1984 Robin Williams film, so if you have never seen it, don’t worry. The premise is that Williams plays a Soviet circus musician who defects. And life in the country where the streets are paved with gold is not so easy, he finds.

Here’s the only scene you need to worry about:

It’s less than a minute long. I’ll wait.

In this scene, Williams’s character goes to a small supermarket to get coffee. And, he’s confronted with a rich array of choices. Now, keep in mind that people for real who lived during the Soviet Era were often lucky to get coffee at all if they went shopping for it. Most of the time, there was just one form of coffee and you either took it, or you left it.

Two things happen here. One is that he reads off the names of several brands and types of coffee – espresso, decaf, etc. And the other half is how overwhelmed he is by the embarrassment of choices.

Both parts of the scene work for our purposes.

Brand Strategy and Identity

In the first part, did you notice how much you know about each of the brands he mentions? You may even think of their tastes and aromas. Or you might consider their prices or whether they feel ‘premium’ or ‘basic’.

All of these feelings and associations showcase the success of these various brands’ strategies. Their identities are well-known. But then there’s the other half of the scene.

It’s All the Same When You Don’t Know Anything About a Brand

And, that’s the character’s problem in a nutshell. For the character, no such associations have been made yet. And since that’s the case, unless it’s a generalized, obvious piece of information – such as price or caffeine amount – he knows absolutely nothing about any of the brands on display.

What you want is for your customers and prospects to make those associations from the first half, rather than become confused and frustrated by the overwhelming pressure to decide on something, anything.

A lot of that comes from how you execute your brand strategy. If you’re Sanka, you emphasize how having little to no caffeine is relaxing. If you make espresso, you emphasize the elegance and associations with Italy and bolder flavors.

So, what flavor of business have you got?

#2. Get Your Startup Out of Your Dreams and into Reality

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on moving from inspiration to business reality. Startup Professionals reveals all about how to avoid being one of the over 75% of all startups which fail.

We’ll concentrate on three points.

Test and Test. Then Test Some More.

People aren’t just going to buy your stuff because of your good looks and charm. And testing with your family and friends is only going to get you a bunch of false positives. Instead, test with people with money to spend!

Because otherwise, they can’t buy your stuff.

Get Ready to Tell Your Marketing Story to Anyone and Everything

The article talks about what is essentially an elevator pitch. This is a bit like our tips #3 and #10 – you need to be prepared. And in particular, you need to be ready to talk to just about anyone about your product or service. How’s the easiest way to do this? Build a strategy. Don’t just try to wing it. That never works out like it does in the movies.

Put Together a Strategy for Growth and Improvement

That is, plan for success! And just as importantly, get ready for change. For if there’s one constant these days, it’s change. Embrace it before it knocks you over.

#1. Leverage Your Website and Improve Your SEO

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on an SEO audit checklist. Main Street ROI says there are a number of basic mistakes they see over and over again.

Don’t let your website be one of those error-riddled sites.

Clarity FTW

A clear and easy to follow website will do you a lot of good. It doesn’t just make your readers happy. It also makes search engines happy.

A well-organized website where the pages are easy to read and load fast will help out tremendously!

Another tip we loved is to essentially use as much of the free real estate you’ve got that you can. What do we mean by that? Basically, the idea is to put your keyword phrase or at least your website name in all of the places where you can.

We do not mean keyword stuffing. Rather, there are places such as the alt tags for your images. You know, the place where you tell a search engine what an image is about, to make it easier to index.

Are you using yours? Or did you not know what they were until this very moment? Or worse, had you never even heard the phrase until just now?

Organize your website and use the free spaces you’ve got to the max.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Stay a competitive small business!

The post Keep a Competitive Small Business and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Reach Your Optimal Work Time and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Reach Your Optimal Work Time and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Get to the optimal work time for you and your employees and stop wasting time!

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. This is the Good Kind of Enabler

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about sales enablement. Mail Shake says it’s the act of helping someone better reach the objective of making a sale. Here at Credit Suite, those terrific folks are called the Setters Team.

The best thing people in sales enablement do is smooth the way for sales to do its thing. Sales will make more sales and be more successful if they know their prospects better. And they get this knowledge from the people in sales enablement.

But that’s not where sales enablement stops. The sale doesn’t end the relationship.

Post-Sales Enablement

Your customers won’t like it if they’re buttered up and sold to and promised to and then dropped like yesterday’s news.

Can you honestly blame them?

So there’s another piece of the sales enablement puzzle. This is maintaining the relationship. The sales enablement team is extraordinarily helpful here as their work frees up the sales team to concentrate on getting new sales.

The sales enablement team is, of course, the perfect group to ask if the customer is happy. Maybe their circumstances have changed and they can benefit from an upsell. Or maybe there’s something which just annoys them about your product or service. Giving your customers empowerment and listening to their concerns is extremely helpful when it comes to retention and renewal.

Your goal should always to be to surprise and delight your customers. A sales enablement team can make it easier to do just that.

#9. Keep Your Facebook Pictures the Right Size and Reap the Rewards

The next awesome tip is about Facebook ads. Wordstream notes the main image size for Facebook has been 1200×628 for several years now. But that’s not the only image size you can use on the largest social media platform on the planet.

The article is just fantastic as it goes into exquisite detail on the sizes and where you should use them. It also outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

In fact, this article goes into where in the customer sales journey you should use each type of image. This is an outstanding amount of free information in one short article. We highly recommend bookmarking it and referring back to it frequently.

Yes, it’s that good.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Reach your optimal work time today.

#8. Customer Loyalty Rocks!

Our following life-changing tip concerns customer loyalty programs. Sleek Note lays it all out for us.

You’ve seen these in a thousand places by now. It’s the card your local coffee shop gives you and, once you get the eleventh punch, you get your twelfth latte free. Or maybe you get a muffin. We might be hungry ….

This article adds a few twists to the genre. One is what we all know as Amazon Prime – pay for the privilege of saving money. Which seems weird when we put it that way, eh? But the bottom line with Amazon Prime (and the article’s example, Barnes & Noble) is you are paying for more than a discount. It’s also faster, free delivery and a greater selection.

Save the Planet With Your Customer Loyalty Program

Say what? The Body Shop ties its loyalty program to charity. They know their clientele cares about the planet and about animal testing. The logical extension of that is animal welfare in general. Hence, beyond offering the usual perks, The Body Shop lets you donate your points to a specific animal welfare charity, Born Free USA.

The Community Approach

Plus there’s Sephora. In addition to offering products and discounts, they bring access to an exclusive club of like-minded users. Hence they get a commitment that goes beyond the free makeup samples they provide on your birthday. Pretty cool, huh?

#7. Get a Bigger and Better Email List

Speaking of loyalty, for our next sensational tip, we looked at growing your email list. WP Beginner says that the tried and true methods can help your business, too.

Signups Galore

Make it easier for people to sign up for your emails. Don’t make them hunt for how to do this. In fact, the article gives a number of places on a website or in a blog post or other webpage where you can add a signup form.

Perhaps our favorite tip is to use multiple signup forms. After all, your customers are individuals. Treating them all like one, big monolith isn’t going to get you sales or win you any fans.

Dovetailing with this is the idea to create multiple lead magnet pages. A lead magnet essentially offers added value for your customers and prospects. Hence you’re offering 5% off or the like, most likely clearly on your signup form.

Treating customers and prospects like individuals will go a long way in all aspects of your business.

Twitter to the Rescue!

Then there’s Twitter. Users can even sign up for your mailing list without having to leave Twitter. Now that’s convenient.

#6. Solve Problems and Make Your Business Better

This tip is so helpful, and it works! Startup Professionals tells us all about successful business problem solving.

There are a number of actionable tips, including acknowledging a problem exists, and verbalizing the problem.

So we recommend reading the article in its entirety. But first, a real life story.

Personal Conflict and How Hard It’s to Get Transportation in Some Parts of the US

So.

My darling cousin got married a few years ago, in the western part of Westchester County, New York, near Dobbs Ferry. The venue was beautiful, and it was right at the peak for foliage.

There was just one problem.

Your intrepid blog writer lives in Boston. My brother lives just outside DC. Our elderly parents live pretty far out on Long Island. We were at odds as to how to get there.

Flying was a bad idea as the closest airport was still over a half an hour away, and everyone had so much stuff to take, we’d all be over the weight limits. This was a three-day weekend extravaganza, after all.

This problem was solved by figuring out what worked best for all. This turned out to be a train for my husband and me, and driving for my parents and brother. My parents got us, and I was able to drive the rest of the way and do all of the driving while at the event. Plus I drove back to the Newark train station when it was time to go. So the folks didn’t have to drive quite so much.

And having two cars for the event meant flexibility and comfort.

How Do You Apply This to Business?

It all came down to negotiations. And it also came down to recognizing how fulfilling others’ needs also fulfilled our own. It also meant embracing the fact that the solution wasn’t a perfect one. After all, my parents still had a few hours of driving to do after the train station. But at least it was better than without us.

So consider looking outside yourself and your own needs and think about the other person’s. What satisfies them just might help you out, too. But you will never know if you just sweep your company’s problems under the rug all the time.

#5. Reach Your and Your Employees’ Optimal Work Time

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Your and your employees’ optimal work time is a vital decision for you to make when hiring.

What do we mean by that? The question is, which is better for your needs: full-time, part-time, or temp?

Effortless HR says there are a number of factors to take into consideration. It’s not just about the money!

Your Employees’ Optimal Work Time and Their Productivity

How fast are your employees at doing their tasks? If Susan gets the same task done in half the time that Dave does, do you make her a part-timer? Truth is, we think that’s kind of unfair. Is she getting punished for efficiency?

Don’t we all want more efficient employees? So why work with them less?

So, we were happy to see this article didn’t push for that. Rather, the idea is to see how much can get done – but productivity can only be improved so much. Plus, we think you should be concerned with your workers’ health and well-being. Bring a slave driver isn’t good for anyone. All that does is increase absence and turnover.

One exceptional point the article makes about optimal work time is that two part-time workers don’t quite equal one full-timer. Part of this is due to more flexible work schedules which many part-timers get as their due. And another part is double the training, more sick days, more slow days, more ramp-up time, etc. Saving on paying full benefits just might not be worth it.

What if Temping is Your Employees’ Optimal Work Time?

We see this in retail all the time. As the holidays wind up, more and more people will get a job in malls and stores. Or it might be a second job for them, to pay for gifts or get ready for tax season or whatever.

And then once the holidays are over, those people will experience layoffs.

Er, you didn’t think Santa’s helpers worked in the mall all year ‘round, now, did you?

And of course tax season reminds us of the people with advanced math skills and accounting degrees who can get temp work as tax preparers and reviewers.

If your business is seasonal in nature, temping might be the optimal work time for most of your employees. If you sell swimming pools, you probably aren’t seeing a lot of sales action in November. So why not stay on good terms with those folks and rehire them when the weather gets hot again?

Even non-seasonal businesses might have big projects where they temporarily need more hands on deck. It’s another option for filling your staffing roles and giving your non-temp employees their own optimal work time, too.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Reach your optimal work time today.

#4. Marry Social and Email Marketing

Check out this spectacular tip, all about combining the power of social and email marketing. The Self Employed notes that the return rates from email marketing are far better than those from social.

And that makes sense, as email is something which goes straight to your customers and prospects, whereas social postings are subject to platform rules and algorithms. Of course your audience won’t necessarily open your emails. They might bin them, or their email programs might. Or they might skim and then hit unsubscribe.

But there is still a better chance of reaching them this way.

So, Why Bother With Social If Email is So All-Fired Awesome?

Because you can cross platforms, folks!

What this means is, you want to have an email newsletter signup form on your Facebook page. And you want to use snippets from the newsletter on Facebook and Twitter, along with a link to subscribe.

In return, you also want to ask your newsletter subscribers to share your content with their social networks.

But the best part is creating and using a common calendar. Synergize the newsletter and the social media folks so they are quite literally on the same page. That’s where the magic happens.

#3. Control Your Inventory Before it Controls You

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you better manage your company’s inventory. T Sheets tells us that good inventory management can make for a far better customer experience. After all, if you can’t find what they need, or they can’t, or it takes to long to get to them, guess what?

They’ll go to someone else. Someone who has their inventory act together. Very ouch.

Dropshipping Can Save Your Bacon

Our fave tip was to embrace dropshipping. The truth is, we think many businesses can benefit from it. Dropshipping is when you pay someone else to deliver your goods for you.

By working directly with a dropshipping company, you are working with a transport specialist. They will have a better idea of when to start the process, which form of transport to take, etc.

Concentrate on selling your widgets and let someone else handle the headaches of maintaining a fleet and all that it entails. Yes, you will have to pay a fee for shipping. But if you get more time to perfect your product and improve your prospects’ customer journey.

Leave the driving to someone else.

#2. The Holiday Shipping Season is Coming – Ready or Not!

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on holiday shipping. Fundera reveals all about the busiest time of year – it’s coming faster than you think!

Being ready is, of course, far superior to not being ready. So, here’s how.

One of the best tips is to understand just what are the absolute, last days you can ship in order to make an Xmas delivery. These dates differ from FedEx to UPS and the Post Office, so know those days!

FYI this year Chanukah overlaps Xmas, running from December 22 to the 30^th so there may be more deliveries right around the 24^th and 25^th than in most years.

Give Your Customers Many Happy Returns

We loved this tip, and we know a lot of people will use it. The idea is to, quite simply, make returns easier and more convenient. And, of course, keep a written return policy if you don’t have one already.

Don’t wait until the last minute, when your staff is up to their elbows in sweaters that people didn’t like. Have a policy so they know it and can wield it. And making the process easier can make new customers. They might decide that your return process is so excellent, they would like to do business with you. It can happen!

#1. Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude When It Comes to Your Customers

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on gratitude and how to thank your customers. The SBA says thanking your customers may not be 100% altruistic on your part.

But you should do it anyway.

Our favorite tip was the one which is the vaguest – offer a little something extra, and make it clear it’s in thanks for them being your customer. The kicker is for it to be a surprise.

Don’t look now, but here’s an upgrade! Surprise – free shipping! Woot, here’s 10% off, just because! Or maybe a little something comes in the snail mail. A card, a gift card, flowers, a fruit basket? Only you know what your customers want, need, and will appreciate.

As always, the only limits are your budget, your time, and your imagination.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Reach your optimal work time today.

The post Reach Your Optimal Work Time and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Relax with Office Comfort and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Relaxing Office Comfort and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Keep Rolling With Payroll

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about easily managing payroll. The Self Employed says payroll can be a difficult task for many companies. Which is weird when you think about it. After all, unless a company is 100% volunteer (even nonprofits aren’t), then someone has to be paid, at some point in time.

You’d think businesses would be ready for that. But noooooo.

So this article had two tips which were pretty interesting.

Separate Bank Accounts Keep Everything Organized

It’s true, and it’ll probably help with your company’s bank credit score, anyway. The suggestion was for three separate bank accounts. One is for taxes to be withheld. That, we suspect, should be a savings account. Why not earn a smidgen of interest while setting aside the quarterly chunk of tribute to Uncle Sam?

The other two definitely need to be checking accounts – although we think there’s a possibility that this is a touch of overkill. Either way, the article suggests one for expenses and the other for payroll.

But no matter what, you need to work your payroll from a checking account.

Cards Versus Checks Versus Direct Deposit

The world of work, it seems, is divided into two camps – those who use direct deposit, and those who, for whatever reason, don’t. They might not live in the United States and so it’s too hard to do this. Or maybe they don’t trust the banking system or the like.

Or maybe they don’t have a bank account at all.

The article points out the sad truth – the last group of people in particular are perfect victims for 24 hour check cashing scams. The article had an interesting solution. But we feel it doesn’t go quite far enough.

The article’s solution was to use white label prepaid debit cards. It’s an interesting idea, and it can certainly work for a lot of people. Prepaid debit cards could turn out to be the perfect solution for employees who live outside the United States.

However, we thought up two more solutions to this vexing problem.

PayPal, Baby, Yeah!

How many of your employees have PayPal accounts? Why not direct deposit their checks there? Just like any electronic funds transfer to a bank, the transfer is as secure as PayPal can make it. PayPal is accepted in lots of places and that number is growing. You won’t earn interest with it but, let’s face it, interest rates for checking accounts are pretty abysmal these days. You’re probably not missing out on much money.

No PayPal? Then there’s Samsung Pay and Apple Pay. It seems to be easier to do this with Samsung Pay versus Apple Pay, though it’s not impossible.

Don’t like any of these solutions? Then say hello to Bitcoin. It could be another way to get around not being able to directly deposit.

But What About Paper Checks?

Paper Checks are kind of an idea whose time has passed; we feel. Still, there are some people who insist on still getting them. However, talk to your employees about paper before you say yes to it. for one thing, it’s obviously worse for the planet to cut checks made with paper. And the costs of processing are higher with paper. Plus there’s another issue with paper – it can be so much more easily lost or stolen.

Getting off the paper train is probably a good idea all around.

#9. Support Is So Sweet

The next awesome tip is about measuring your brand affinity. Wistia notes brand affinity is the extent to which your customers identify with and support your brand.

We love measuring stuff, because it’s the best way to see if you’re succeeding. If you can’t measure it, then you don’t know if something is working, or what to fix.

This article pulls together a number of metrics to get this figure and make it concrete.

Measure and Combine

Start with Google Analytics and look at your number of sessions and their average duration. That will give you an idea of how much time your customers spend with your content. Multiply the two together and that’s a number you want to strive to increase.

Another metric to look at – although it’s not as helpful – is Facebook Insights. You can look at minutes viewed for any videos you’ve got on your page. It’s in the aggregate, and it’s for every 5 – 10 second impression. That’s an issue because quickie ‘views’ by bots are going to inflate this figure.

Another metric to check is YouTube Analytics. Look at Watch Time and then segment it by traffic source. And look at Google Search Console as well.

We recommend looking at this article closely, as it includes helpful information on how to clean up the data and get rid of trivial fake interactions which don’t really tell you anything.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Enjoy relaxing office comfort and more….

#8. Hurry Up, Web Page!

Our following life-changing tip concerns speeding up your page for Google. Wordstream lays it all out for us. Because how fast your site loads isn’t just a concern for your customers and prospects. It’s also a concern for Google itself.

The faster, the better.

So, how do you speed things up? Stop having your website do things which aren’t necessary. Like what?

How about getting rid of plugins you don’t use if you’ve got a WordPress site? And even if you don’t, get rid of images you’re not using – and compress the ones you keep.

Check out the rest of the article for more helpful tips – it’s that good. And look at offerings from HubSpot – check out their Website Grader and their recommendations. Like this one – to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

Cut the fat and your customers and prospects will be happier to go to your website and hang out. And, we hope, buy something.

#7. Serve Your Customers, And They’ll Serve You

For our next sensational tip, we looked at providing excellent customer service, which never goes out of style. Fundera says that happy customers come back and buy again. And they’re more likely to spend more, too. Excellent customer service can put money in your pocket.

So why wouldn’t you do your best to do it?

Be Empathetic

There were a number of detailed specific recommendations which we loved. In fact, we strongly suggest reading the article in its entirety – it’s that good.

But most of the suggestions boiled down to one basic premise. Be empathetic. Bring some of your office comfort energy to them.

Listen to concerns. Communicate, but respect your customers’ time. Elicit feedback. Get to know your customers, beyond how they connect to you as customers.

In short, treat them like, you know, actual human beings.

What a concept.

#6. Be The Business With ALL The Answers

This tip is so cool, and it works! Buzz Sumo tells us all about creating a comprehensive knowledge base for your site.

The Twitter tip alone is worth the price of admission on this one, no lie.

Twitter Questions, Found

Got a keyword or keyword phrase and you want to see what people are asking? Then pop it into the search bar of Twitter in this format: [keyword ?]

Yes, keep the space between the keyword and the question mark. Hence a question about credit looks like this: credit ?

It works for keyword phrases, too.

Essentially what this query does is, it gets you the most popular tweets with both your keyword and a question mark. Naturally, this assumes everyone with a question uses a question mark (not always the case, given Twitter’s character limit).

The article has tips for finding other kinds of questions online. After all, if you don’t know what people are asking, how can you possibly know which answers they need?

#5. Relax With The Best In Office Comfort

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Office comfort will make you so happy!

Noobpreneur says office comfort will help with attendance. After all, if your employees don’t like where they work, they aren’t going to want to come in if they can help it.

So, there are three great areas where you can enhance office comfort. But what we really loved was the first one.

First Stop, Ergonomics!

Seriously.

For those of us who are – ahem – pretty far past the latter side of 30, office comfort is a must because otherwise we throw our backs out.

High quality office furniture can make the difference between a good day at work and a not so good day. A bad day at work, where pain punctuates the hours, is a recipe for short tempers and a decided lack of concentration.

Do you want to invest in office comfort and buy good chairs? Or do you want to keep paying for the same reports and content to be corrected, over and over again?

Pro tip – invest in a decent chair for your home computer area as well. Office comfort doesn’t have to stop the moment you leave the workplace. And of course if you work from home, then office comfort by definition is a function of what you do at home.

True story – a better desk chair has improved your intrepid blog writer’s performance, no question.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Enjoy relaxing office comfort and more….

#4. Do You Feel A Sales Chill?

Check out this spectacular tip, all about using cold calling to get to sales conversations faster. Mailshake notes that you don’t want to just be cold calling anyone. You want to be calling prospects only.

The key to this form of calling is to understand your prospects’ problems. And you need to know how your product or service is the solution they need. Once these two things are known, the script practically writes itself.

Where’s the Priority?

For your prospects, ordering a paid solution, or at least taking a meeting to discuss such a thing, directly relates to priority. If they don’t think their problem needs to solved any time soon, then they won’t feel either activity is something they need to do any time soon. If ever.

See tip #3 for even more detail on how to nudge people from prospect to customer.

#3. Let’s Go Prospecting

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can make your sales prospecting more effective. HubSpot tells us this form of outreach is absolutely essential when it comes to getting new customers.

Their tip about warming up prospects before contacting them is an oldie but a goodie. But there was one tip which we adored and think should be tattooed on any salesperson’s forehead in reverse script so it’s easy to see in a mirror. No lie.

Don’t Sell!

Oh gosh this is perfect and is the answer to, we suspect, most prospects’ prayers.

For the first prospecting sales call, don’t try to sell anything. Why not? Because it’s off-putting. So don’t do that. The last thing you want to do is leave a bad taste in the mouths of your prospects. And nothing can do that faster than being nothing but a sales mouthpiece, 24/7.

Think about it. Your prospects probably fast forward through commercials on recorded shows. They might use popup and ad blockers on their computers and phones. They don’t read billboards for fun.

So what makes you think they want to hear you go on about your product or service every time they hear from you?

Hint: they don’t.

#2. Price It Right The First Time

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on correctly pricing your products. Sleek Note reveals all about this essential skill. Many online customers value the ability to get better prices and compare prices easily as two of the most important reasons why they shop online in the first place.

How Do You Price Your Wares?

Just how much science goes into pricing? Or do companies just close their eyes and point, or spin a big wheel?

What if you could carefully put together your pricing so it would best serve you from the start?

Makes a lost more sense than just throwing darts at a board.

Compare and Analyze Your Key Competitors

This is a key tip. Consider how your customers are using the internet to seek your wares and decide if they’ll buy from you or your competition. They are likely doing some form of head to head price comparison.

So why not do one yourself? If you were looking at your prices versus your competitors’, would you choose to buy your stuff?

Tweak If It’s Not Working

This is maybe the most important tip of all. They’re your prices, not the Ten Commandments. If your sales are high or your reviews are off the charts amazing, maybe your customers will tolerate a slight increase. If your sales are low, then maybe a discount or some coupons are in your future.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and change. Words to live by in business!

#1. Get Moving With Emotional Motivation

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on motivating people to buy. Copy Blogger says feelings drive action. They are the very essence of motivation.

There are a number of emotions which will spur action. An approach motivation, for example, is a positive one, whereby people want to experience or discover more of something or other. Hence you can tap into this emotional well with blog posts and other content which justifies why your product or service is what the prospect needs.

Another emotional motivator is attacking. This is where people want to criticize, devalue, or attack something. Why not tap into this emotion with an ‘axe to grind’ style of post? Ask what your customers’ pet peeves are. Get to the root of what they want to get rid of, versus what they may be trying to avoid.

An emotions can drive our decisions. It’s more than a feeling.

And you just might have something there.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Enjoy relaxing office comfort and more….

The post Relax with Office Comfort and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Jumpstart Creativity in Your Business –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Jumpstart creativity and rev up your content engine. Plus nine more awesome tips to get your business humming all week!

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Jumpstart Creativity and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Explain it to Me!

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about creating better explainer videos. Young Upstarts says explainer videos have their own rhythm and rhyme. They aren’t really short cinematic masterpieces. At least, they’re not meant to be.

Our favorite tip was to sell the lifestyle, versus the features. What an interesting premise. The concept behind this is to show how much more convenient, easier, happier, safer, whatever, the prospect’s life will be with your product or service.

For explainer videos, it works well to show the difference between the prospect’s current life and the improvements which are inherent in using your product or service. Talk about how to jumpstart creativity!

Sound, Visual, and Captions

It should probably go without saying that you need to be spot on with all of these. Why captions? Because a good half of your audience is likely to be watching without sound, as they might be in a crowded place without earbuds. Or they might prefer to multitask a bit and listen to a conversation or music.

Or they could be hard of hearing. If your buyer persona is over the age of 40 or so, you should consider this a very real possibility. Beyond that, caption files are the kinds of files Google will crawl – so add them!

And while visuals are certainly vital, please be sure the sound is great. Yes, I just got through telling you how many people aren’t listening to your explainer video. And that’s still true. But at the same time, for the other half, who are listening, give them a good listening experience.

Seriously. People will be a lot more willing to forgive less than stellar visuals than poor sound quality.

#9. We Gotta Hand it to Ya

The next awesome tip is about reliably handing off sales to service. Sales Hacker notes there can be a documented, formal process to this. And a documented process makes a lot of sense. After all, it can be a part of onboarding new employees in either sales or service.

A formal process also gives your customers a sense of what to expect. A great tip is to conduct an introductory phone call.

“It’s been great working with you; now Lisa will be happy to handle your future service needs. Lisa, this is our customer, Steve.”

It sounds kind of like common courtesy, doesn’t it? The beauty of this kind of hand off is it’s an occasion to set expectations. In our example, Lisa can tell Steve the hours she works, or how long it normally takes to deliver replacement parts or whatever. Steve now knows what to expect. And Lisa doesn’t have to contend with Steve calling when she’s off work, or complaining about the speed of delivery of replacement parts.

Pretty neat, huh?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Jumpstart creativity today and watch your productivity soar!

#8. Sell With Superlative Skills

Our following life-changing tip concerns the best sales skills. Mail Shake lays it all out for us. For most of us, it’s pretty obvious that a sales person needs to have the gift of gab.

But there are a number of other talents which will juice your sales team’s success percentages.

Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Sale

So, what does curiosity have to do with sales? Quite a bit!

Consider the curious person who learns everything they can about their prospect. A prospect will be a lot happier if they feel like you know them well. Can you anticipate their need, and fill it? Or are you just generally selling in the same way to everyone?

Curiosity also matters in terms of finding better solutions.

No lie, curiosity and laziness drive many inventions. Of course you shouldn’t be lazy! But curiosity is vital.

#7. Don’t Spam, Plus More Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

For our next sensational tip, we looked at avoiding email marketing mistakes. Business Knowhow says that your mission is to stay out of prospects’ and customers’ spam folders. Heck, yeah.

Vagueness is Kinda Bad

Get to the point in your from lines. Don’t be overly cute. Name your business and don’t hide. It’s a pretty surefire way to get your emails binned if the reader has no idea who you are.

And to go along with that, make sure your calls to action are clear. Vague calls to action do nothing but confuse people. Should they click? Call? Download? Fill out a form? And, more importantly, what will they get if they perform the correct task? It’s great to jumpstart creativity in this area. Just make sure people know what you’re talking about.

Measure, For the Love of All Things Holy

We’ve beaten this drum before, and it bears repeating. If you don’t measure your efforts, then you have no idea if they’re working. And if you have no clue about success, then why do this or that (or anything, for that matter)?

Now is not the time to jumpstart creativity. Rather, you need to measure what most any company measures. These are verifiable, helpful metrics such as open rates.

Inconsistency Stinks!

Make it so your customers and prospects know what to expect, more or less. This is another area where you don’t want to jumpstart creativity.

Certainly, you need to be creative and interesting enough. But at the same time, it’s the ultimate WYSIWYG. It has to be. Your audience needs to know your messages won’t be NSFW, for example. And they need to know the message will be about widgets, and they’ll be conversational, etc. If you want to say something different (let’s say your business is supporting a charity and you want to get the word out), you’ll need to explain that early in the email. Don’t just spring it on your readers.

#6. Look Past American Borders for Marketing

This tip is so cool, and it works! Startup Professionals tells us all about global marketing challenges.

For purely online companies, it’s important to consider how marketing works in everywhere from the Philippines to Bangladesh to Chile to France to ….

The article provides some great tips and ideas for what you might not have thought of. For example, consider protecting intellectual property. There really isn’t a universal global copyright out there, so you’d need to apply everywhere. And that’s expensive! So consider protecting your intellectual property selectively.

After all, if you don’t have much of a market in New Zealand (if any), then applying for copyright protection there is going to be a waste of money, at least to start.

Talk the Talk

And one more thing – translate your website! Yes, lots of people speak English these days, and that’s terrific. But it’s easier for nearly anyone to read and write in their native tongue. And here’s a pro tip – get a person to do this. While it may be easier and faster (and possibly cheaper) to get this done via machine, don’t.

Just, don’t.

After all, consider the Spanish word, guagua. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, it means bus. But in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru, it means bus.

Taking a guagua could have a rather different meaning, depending on where you are and what you mean, eh?

#5. Get a Jolt of Mental Caffeine and Jumpstart Creativity

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Jumpstart creativity today!

Word Stream says a blank page is one of the most daunting things out there for a writer of any sort – and this spoke to us 100%. God, yes.

So, they had a bunch of awesome ideas on how to get something, anything on the page so it doesn’t look like such a void when you sit down to write.

But they didn’t include two things we do – use templates and listen to music in order to speed up typing and really jumpstart creativity. That’s okay; there are still a bunch of great concepts here.

Write a (Lousy) First Draft

This, oh boy howdy, this. This dovetails well with another tip, which is to free write and not self-edit. But what do they mean by a lousy (er, they used a far earthier adjective here. But this is a family show, so we’re going more PG) first draft?

It’s exactly like in fiction writing, truth be told.

Writing a lousy first draft means you don’t self-edit. You don’t worry about flow, grammar, etc. You just write. This means you’ll need to edit more later. But at least you’re getting started! And that’s a lot easier than going completely from scratch.

You can’t edit a blank piece of paper.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Jumpstart creativity today and watch your productivity soar!

#4. Strategize Your Strategy

Check out this spectacular tip, all about executing your strategy better. The Harvard Business Review notes that these tips can work for pretty much any situation. Hence you can use these for your industry and even in your personal life.

Seriously!

Be Specific and Imperative

Vagueness still stinks (see tip #7). A strategy to just get better isn’t much of a strategy. A strategy to get better by 5% in 2 months is a lot easier to work on. It’s easier to measure, too.

The idea of making strategies imperative also puts a lasso around a task. Hence you want to tell people to ‘improve sales’ versus ‘start improving sales’. The former has a specific focus, particularly if you pair it with numbers. But the latter just feels like a continuing process. And while many tasks go on and on, that much should be understood.

The imperative to improve sales by 5% has an end. It should be a no-brainer to see the strategy in the future might be something like ‘improve sales by 10%’.

It may feel the same, but it’s not. You’ve given people a goal to strive for. This way, they know when they’ve won.

#3. Get Your Product or Service Front and Center So Your Customers Fall in Love With It

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you better and more easily cultivate customer buy-in. Succeed As Your Own Boss tells us there are keys to cultivating repeat buyers.

Keep in mind, one of these tips is for products only (to use eye-catching packaging), but the others will work for either products or services.

Listen and Act

Being responsive to feedback will trigger what is essentially love and brand loyalty. But why? One reason is that the customer or prospect will see you care about what they think.

So here’s a fer-instance.

Let’s say your product is marketed to people aged 50 and up. If the print is too small, you’ll probably hear about that. So, what happens if you tell your customers and prospects to get lost and get a magnifying glass?

They’ll get lost. Permanently. And they will be more than happy to do business with a company which listens and changes the size of the font on the package as soon as possible. And if that’s not possible for the time being, that company should be telling its customer base – bigger print is coming, thank you for your patience.

So, listen to customer and prospect complaints. They just might jumpstart creativity to find a solution.

#2. Customer Service Will Save Your Business

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on customer service. G2 reveals all about how excellent customer service should be every business’s secret weapon.

How and why do customers renew and reup? Service can often have a lot to do with it.

Accentuate the Positive Messaging

We truly adored this tip. Consider the difference in tone between saying, “I can’t do that.” Versus “I can do that in two weeks.”

They might, on balance, mean the exact same thing. But the latter pre-frames everything positively and opens up the relationship with the customer. There’s something to look forward to. But the former feels like a door is slamming shut.

Not a good look.

#1. Be Good to Your Employees, and They’ll Be Good to You

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on rewarding and engaging employees. Effortless HR says **

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Jumpstart creativity today and watch your productivity soar!

The post Jumpstart Creativity in Your Business –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Manage Military Marketing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

Military marketing? We’re looking at lessons in marketing success from the military – more on that later. But first….

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Military Marketing Matters and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Military Marketing Means a Successful Campaign is a Must

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about finding the money for your first marketing campaign. The Self Employed says it’s a lot like finding the bucks for anything when you’ve got a new business.

So, you’re going to have to be creative.

Crowdfunding

Their first idea is one of our pet favorites – running a crowdfunding campaign. Crowdfunding is a perfectly legitimate way of getting money for your business. So why not crowdfund to pay for your first advertising campaign?

However, as the article points out, this is going to be nigh well impossible to do if you don’t have at least something of an audience already. Hence, you probably don’t want to be doing this if it’s happening before you get prospects and customers.

Don’t put the cart before the horse.

Subletting For the Win!

What?

Now, keep in mind, this is only going to be an option if you have your own space. If you don’t (or, say, you’re using a virtual office space), it is probably not going to be on the table.

But if you’ve got your own space, then read on.

Consider this. If you live in a semi-remote area and there isn’t that much of a startup scene, it is possible there are few options for entrepreneurs who don’t have their own office space. Why not provide some as a sublet to your own space?

Your extra desk could make a difference for another entrepreneur, and help your community, to boot. Pretty cool for a bit of furniture you’re not using, anyway.

#9. Get on the Groupon Train

The next awesome tip is about setting up Groupon offers for your small business. Score notes Groupon is a better venue for raising awareness than turning a profit.

But why?

Don’t Look for a Profit Here

It’s due to Groupon’s requirements. After all, they demand you offer a substantial discount, as in 50 – 90% off. And then they take a cut (the listing itself is free). So if you sell something for $100 (a good or a service; it doesn’t matter), and you offer 90% off, Groupon will take a cut as their marketing fee. This fee will depend on industry and customer demand, plus the market. Let’s say that’s 10% (this is a figure for-instance and isn’t based on anything in particular).

For your $100 good or service, you’re now getting $9. That is, you lopped off 90% as your discount, which brings us to $10. And then with Groupon taking a 10% marketing fee, that’s another $1 off (10% of $10).

Ouch.

Still, if you’ve got to get stuff out of a warehouse, and need it to move fast and hopefully get at least something for it, then this could be a way to go. Plus, there’s no law that says your discount has to be so steep. You can go with the minimum of 50% off, which would put your take at $45 ($50 is 50% of $100, and then Groupon in this example is taking another 10% off the top, or $5).

Rather, Look for Awareness to Grow

A far better use of Groupon is to up the awareness of your product or service. Perhaps the best bit of advice in the entire article is to use Groupon not only for this purpose, but also to plug underutilized services or get rid of excess inventory.

So, if you go into working with Groupon this way, it can be a win-win. After all, it’s advertising (in a way), which you’re being paid for (in a way). And if you can unload some white elephants at the same time, then so much the better.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Get lessons from the people in uniform with military marketing and more.

#8. Put LinkedIn to Work for Your Business

Our following life-changing tip concerns improving your LinkedIn lead generation. Wordstream lays it all out for us. The article is comprehensive, and we highly recommend reading it in its entirety.

Our favorite tip was to differentiate between quantity and quality when it comes to generated leads. What do we mean by that?

True story time.

Surveys, AKA What Kind of Potato Are You?

When was the last time you filled out an online form for, well, anything? I recently decided my time is worth far more than a trinket, and so are my personal details. As a result, unless the offer is a great one which I will use ($100 Amazon gift certificate? Yes, please!), I will pass it by unless I have some other reason for filling out a form. say, I might want to know more about a product.

But I also take note of exactly what a business wants out of me. As in, what does my marital status have to do with the type of clothes I might want to shop for? If it’s just to decide on a title for me, then why not add that as a form in an address field and keep out the specifics? After all, a woman who’s married, divorced, or widowed might want to be called Mrs. A woman of any marital status might want to be called Ms. (I do).

And if you’re a doctor, then all of that is out in deference to Dr.

I also pay attention to the number of questions. At a certain point, usually when the ten-question threshold is passed, I bail. Sorry businesses! But I often have better uses for my time.

But What Does This Have to Do With Leads?

A lot! The more questions you get answered, the more qualified your prospect is going to be. The fewer, then the less qualified. But with fewer questions, you’ll get more responses.

Hence, you need to make a decision. Do you want far fewer prospects but they’re all pretty warm, or a ton of chilly not so well-qualified prospects? There are virtues to both approaches. Choose the one which works best for your business.

#7. Oh, Won’t You Please Stay?

For our next sensational tip, we looked at creating reasons for customers to stay. LinkedIn says that retaining customers is vital for continued business success. And truer words were never spoken.

But, how do you do it?

Listen!

We really hope it’s a no-brainer to most to know that you need to keep your finger on the pulses of your customers. That is, conduct a relationship health check, if you will. Work with your customers and don’t just disappear until it’s time to renew.

After all, their circumstances may have changed since the initial sale. And we certainly hope so, and that it’s due to using your product or service. Because nothing stands still, it’s imperative to figure out if what you first offered is still going to be helpful.

Maybe they need more, because they’ve expanded. Or maybe they’ve had a not so good time of it and need to cut back, but still want to do business with you.

Either way, you’ll never know unless you ask, and listen to their responses.

Stay in Touch

This goes hand in hand with the first. If you bug out the moment that the sale is finalized, why should your customers trust you to be around when they have questions or need some sort of service?

Your mission in sales doesn’t end the moment the check is cashed and clears. Much like military marketing, you need to hang around afterwards.

Make Life Easy for ‘Em

And this third tip should be at the top of your mind, no matter what. Is your phone number hard to find, and it’s the only way to get service? Then change that, yesterday. That can take the form of adding online support or another phone line or changing your website design to make the phone number more prominent.

And if your customers can’t figure out how to renew in a short amount of time (as in, often, a minute or less!), then they’ll go to your competition, if it’s easier to renew there.

In these days of responsive web design, there’s no excuse for making such things obscure.

Pro tip: make sure you website works for phones. No matter what, the vast majority of Americans have cell phones, and the vast majority of those are smart phones.

If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, then you’re losing money.

There’s no clearer way to say that.

#6. Start a New Business Effectively

This tip is so cool, and it works! Noobpreneur tells us all about starting a new business effectively.

We liked this sensible, practical guide to starting a new business, and succeeding.

However, we felt it glossed over one area which we kinda know a few things about – getting funding. So there’s a bit that’s incomplete there.

However, the remainder was good advice. In particular, it makes a great deal of sense to not quit your day job until you’re sure your brand-new baby business is making money.

#5. Try Taking Your Advertising and Communications Cues from Military Marketing

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Military marketing is something we’ve probably all seen a lot of. And we can take some lessons from it.

Perhaps our favorite tip had to do with thinking offense all the time. That is, continually acting. This makes a great deal of sense, as passivity can, at times, lead to things just happening to you. The concept was also to eliminate or at least minimize indecisiveness.

However, we do have to say that we like the idea of analyzing decisions. Of course the idea in the article is to eliminate the dreaded analysis paralysis. But we still think you should at least think about what you’re doing.

That is, charge up and take that hill! Just, know which hill.

Military Marketing and Leading from the Front

What do they mean by this? Essentially, the idea is to have vision and courage. We like this idea, although there’s a lot to be said for employee input. And that is one thing which the military really doesn’t do much of – get feedback from the lower levels in the command food chain.

So, we encourage courage (that’s hard to say) but, at the same time, there are some bits of military marketing which we should probably all take with a grain of salt.

Startup Professionals says these lessons from the folks in uniform can give you a

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Get lessons from the people in uniform with military marketing and more.

#4. Freshen Up Facebook and More

Check out this spectacular tip, all about revamping your company’s social media profiles. Fundera notes that social media profiles can sometimes get stale over time.

So, how do you fix that?

We really loved their idea of using a mascot. Now, this idea cannot work with every single company out there. But for those where it can, it can be a fun and entertaining way to keep your audience engaged.

Consider Swatch, the mascot for Mood Fabrics who is also an unofficial Project Runway mascot. This cute dog’s picture is in just about everything. He makes everything more accessible.

Think about your mascot a bit like colleges do. And in the interests of full disclosure, your intrepid blog writer is a graduate of Boston University and our mascot is the Boston Terrier. Which is what made the connection that much more obvious.

If your brand can do with a mascot, then have at it. And, by the way, your mascot can be someone’s child or a stuffed animal.

Listen to This

Another fantastic idea was to publish playlists. These can be fun and utterly unrelated to your business. Or maybe they can more subtly be related to it.

Do your employees have get up and go songs which get the blood pumping? Those are great! Or maybe a little mood music? If you’ve got a long haul trucking company, there are any number of songs about places and driving. And don’t forget Route 66!

Even marches are probably okay (talk about your military marketing!), assuming your clientele would find them interesting and pleasant.

Just make sure the songs are G rated. The last thing you want is to accidentally insult your customers.

#3. Influencers All Have to Start Somewhere

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help beginner influencers. Young Upstarts tells us there are ways which embryonic influencers can become more seasoned.

While this article is written more for the influencers themselves, there are bits of information which are useful for you, the entrepreneur.

Our favorite tip was to use an influencer matching site.

We had no idea such things existed!

Did you? We don’t want to feel left out.

Back to the topic at hand, these influencer sites (in this, as in all things, Google is your friend) are a way for influencers to connect with brands.

Keep in mind, the more seasoned influencers with larger followings are probably not going to feel the need to use such services. But that’s okay. This can be a way to link up with an influencer with fewer followers. It should cost less than working with a big wheel influencer.

And who knows? Maybe your brand and your influencer will grow together.

#2. Multitasking Just Might Not Be the Best Idea After All

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on quitting multitasking and focusing better. Addicted 2 Success reveals all about how to keep your focus from splitting.

Breaks, Breaks, and More Breaks

We loved this idea, and it’s probably not surprising. When you fail to take frequent breaks, your mind wanders. And, inevitably, you end up checking Facebook or Twitter briefly, or text someone, etc. A few minutes here and there, and it’ll all add up.

So why not schedule those times, rather than let them take little nibbles out of your day and your focus? Interval working also makes sense simply because it’s not possible for us to go, go, go all day long. We need breaks anyway!

Swallow That Live Frog First Thing

The other tip we really liked was to do the hard stuff first. Take advantage of being fresher and give yourself the advantage of being done with the hard stuff when you’re getting tired.

Our corollary tip is to do the most unpleasant tasks early, too. That way, the fun stuff will be a reward.

#1. Throw Some Ice On That Burnout

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on helping employees avoid burnout. Effortless HR says we, as a culture, don’t value rest time like we should. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed that as well.

A corollary to this is a personal observation – not being treated like a person at the office. Employees can sometimes be treated like just so many cogs in a wheel. And when we treat people that way, it should be no great shock when they start to feel that way.

So, what can you do?

Goals and Credit

There were two tips which go hand in hand. One was to set achievable and realistic goals; the other was to recognize when those goals have been met.

These are key. Long before Credit Suite, your intrepid blog writer worked at places where goal-setting was another box ticked off by management. Goals had little to do with reality. These included going on more trips – yet cutting the budget.

Er, that’s not how the universe works.

Plus recognition, boy howdy, recognition! Money is nice (it’s always appropriate), but it can be spent. Recognition can bring with it promotions and recommendations. And those tend to last longer.

In short, treat your employees like flesh and blood humans.

What a concept.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Get lessons from the people in uniform with military marketing and more.

The post Manage Military Marketing and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.

Leverage Your Work Downtime and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week

The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Take the Best Advantage of Your Work Downtime and More

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfills its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So, settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Drop Bad Data for Better Data

Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about dealing with bad data and better visualizing sales performance. HubSpot says there are all sorts of ways for data to go a little, shall we say, ca-ca.

In the interests of full disclosure, your intrepid blog writer used to work in data analysis. And this article brings it all back.

Excuse me while I crawl into a corner and cry for a few minutes.

Okay, I’m back.

There’s an Error for Every Occasion

Or so it seems.

The biggest issue with bad data is that it wastes time. And we all know what time is.

So, what’s wrong, and how do you fix it?

One should be obvious-ish. Human error! For every time a human must touch data, there are opportunities for error.

Another issue is not having what they call ‘one source of truth’. Hence, your sales figures from Des Moines (for example) should have but one origin. That origin can be fed from several places. That part’s no problem. After all, you get online sales data from a different place from where you get the offline data. But it’s up to the Des Moines office or someone in charge to put that data together and make it the one number – the sales figures.

Another issue was not accounting for seasonality – and yet another was not accounting for differences. You might be expecting, say, $100,000 from Des Moines, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. Don’t go into data analysis with preconceived notions of what the answers are going to be. That way lies madness.

A Personal-ish Plea

While this isn’t in the article, it kind of should be.

Hire a data professional.

Once your business gets big and you start making regular money, you might want to make a data person one of your hires. This person can be part time and they can be a junior person. But with a person who knows what they’re doing with data, that can make all the difference. It can also save you time and money, because that person will oversee tracing down errors and cleaning up data to make it usable.

Let them have those headaches, so you don’t.

#9. That Lead Shoots! It Scores!

The next awesome tip is about lead scoring. Opt in Monster notes lead scoring is a way to rank your prospects to better understand their sales readiness.

Wait, you don’t do this?

Er, you probably should.

Separate the Wheat from the Chaff

More accurately, this more like separating the mature wheat from its seeds.

What’s the difference between someone who got on your mailing list three years ago and never interacted again, versus someone who did that, plus follows you on Facebook and retweets you?

If you don’t see a difference, you might want to reconsider this entrepreneur thing, mmkay?

The difference, of course, is that the second person is far more engaged in your brand. So, it should follow that you want to concentrate your efforts more on them than the other.

This doesn’t mean abandoning the other person! It just means treating them differently.

Scoring adds an objective angle to this. It’s hard to argue with hard numbers.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Leverage your work downtime and more.

#8. Dashboarding Through the Snow (or Falling Leaves)

Our following life-changing tip concerns building an ecommerce dashboard. Sumo lays it all out for us. Dashboarding is a great way for you to see how your business is doing at a glance. Specifically, this tip is all about setting up one within Google Analytics.

We were so happy that this article has step by step instructions. Hence, we highly recommend reading it in its entirety. Heck – print it out and make a poster out of it.

Google Analytics is an exceptionally powerful tool, and it’s 100% free. It would be a shame for your business to not use it to its fullest capacity.

#7. It’s All in the Presentation

For our next sensational tip, we looked at presenting business proposals to win clients. Succeed as Your Own Boss says that leading with stories is helpful. This is as opposed to facts and figured – stories are compelling!

A lot of this article concerns relating to your proposed clients. You want to show them data as a backup, yes. After all, without data, you have no proof that anything you do will work. But then dovetail that with a story.

Make it personal, and make it relate to your prospects. And talk to your prospects – ask them questions and show an interest in them and their business.

If you don’t, then someone else will.

#6. Save the Simoleans With Accounting

This tip is so unexpected, but it works! The Self Employed tells us there are ways to save money with accounting.

Yes, accounting.

Ya Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated

So, of course this article starts with our old chestnut tip – separate your business and personal money. Keep the spending in separate buckets.

You will not only be more organized; you’ll be so much happier at tax time.

But it was with the third tip where we really felt the article hit its stride.

Make Your Payment Teams Clear

Now, how many times have you dealt with someone just getting started who was wishy-washy about the due date for getting paid? You may very well have.

That person may even be you.

So, cut that nonsense out. Yesterday.

The best way to be clear about payment terms is to put them in writing. Not just on your website. Slay a tree and put those terms on paper if your clients are at all local. There’s just something about getting a paper bill in the mail which can help to spur people to action.

This should be in addition to electronic billing, and not in place of it. Clear bills are also 100% vital if you find yourself in court.

Date of service. Add whatever your terms are (say, Net 30). And add the due date for the invoice. Make it clear which percentage is due when, if you do that. So, for example, if you own a construction business, you will probably want a percentage on the first day, more in the middle if the job goes on for a while, and the balance upon delivery.

Why? Because you’ll need cash to buy materials. And you’ll need income to hold you over until the final payment comes in. Protect yourself with clear billing and payment terms.

With less time spent chasing payments, you might get some work downtime, which we’re covering next.

#5. Take Advantage of Your Work Downtime

Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot!

Every single one of us has work downtime. Find out how to make the best possible use of yours and your employees’.

The Work at Home Woman says there are a lot of great ways to fill up those unexpected moments when suddenly everything is clear.

Not like we would know what those look like. So, in theory ….

Use Your Work Downtime and Change Things Up

We loved two separate tips which certainly go together well. One was to take on a new challenge. The other was to learn something new. Take the time to learn a new skill.

So, for example, if you’ve always been mystified by mail merge or how to best set up your email folders, do it now! It’s a great use of your work downtime.

What Do You Mean, You Don’t Love Procedures?

Heh, just kidding. We find them kind of regimented and often not well-written at all.

Therefore, why not edit and improve and update them during your work downtime? Or write them if they don’t exist at all.

How do you lock up for the night? Make it a procedure. How do you answer an angry customer on social media? Write that down, too.

You will be so glad you did this.

Organization

One thing which wasn’t mentioned in the article was something we highly recommend during work downtime – getting organized. Change up your email rules (or add them in the first place) and get incoming mail foldered before you ever see it.

Personal pro tip: you know all those emails which you need to get to but not at this very moment? If you’re keeping them unread, then you might be messed up if you accidently convert one from unread to read. Or, heaven forbid, all of them.

So, this is what I do.

Create a separate email folder and name it something like Inbox Overflow or Almost Urgent or whatever works best for you. Place those emails which require attention but not right now in there. And, please remember they’re in there, of course.

This way, you can pluck them from the stack without having to worry about keeping them unread. And email folders are sortable and searchable in every system. Hence you can get a handle on which of those emails are more pressing than others.

It also beats pawing through your entire mailbox to try to find these emails.

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Leverage your work downtime and more.

#4. Get on the Right Track

Check out this spectacular tip, all about tracking website traffic the right way. Success Harbor notes that tracking the wrong data does you no good. It’s almost a subset of tip #10, above.

We loved that this article discusses Google Analytics (tip #8, above) – but it doesn’t stop there. The article adds several other helpful sites to track valuable metrics.

However – a caution – the article was originally posted in 2017. And at least one recommendation (Attention Meter) seems as if it is no more. So, take it with a grain of sale.

#3. Instagram Stick-to-itiveness

It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you increase Instagram engagement. Foundr tells us all about Instagram stickers.

Oh, we so loved these! What amazing ideas these are.

Seriously, collect the whole set. They’re that awesome.

Engaged? We Barely Know Each Other. Still, That’s an Awfully Nice Ring You’re Offering

Oh, wait, engagement on Instagram doesn’t involve getting down on one knee. Ah, well.

Rather, engagement on Instagram (or any social platform, for that matter), is all about who comments, who likes, who swipes, etc.

Consider how engaged your followers would be if they could buy your products and services directly in the ‘Gram. Or how you could do a bit of informal customer research with a quick one-question poll. Another idea is to ask a simple question. You might get unexpected answers, and they could give you more ideas of how to better serve your customers.

Read this whole article. It is exceptionally helpful.

#2. Soar Past Seasons Greetings

Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on creating holiday emails in your business. Sleek Note reveals all about it.

Yes, the holidays are coming. And faster than you may think.

As of the posting of this blog, it’s 10 days to Columbus Day, and it’s just under 8 weeks to Thanksgiving and 11 and a half days to Xmas. So, if you’re going to send out holiday emails, you’d better get cracking.

The examples are all related to gift products, and they tend to be great examples of concepts we’ve gone over before. For example, separating gift givers by price or recipient, the email effectively divvies up your customers. This gives them far better user experiences. Plus, you don’t waste their time. If I’m shopping for my hairdresser, I’m probably not getting her a new car (sorry, Katie).

By the way, their best tip was the last one.

Sensitivity Rocks

No, it’s not salesy. And that’s 100% okay.

We loved the idea of giving people a heads up in case they want to opt out of some emails. The example was a stellar one – allowing an opt out of Mother’s and Father’s Day emails. Consider the people this helps. It’s not just people who are childless by choice. It’s especially helpful and kind to those who aren’t childless by choice.

In this and in all areas, kindness goes a long way.

#1. Round Up and Brand Your Social Media

We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on social media branding. Women on Business says there are a few simple ways to stand out on social media.

We really loved the first tip.

Stop Being All Things to All People

What does that mean? It means, your business isn’t suited to every single social platform out there. So, stop trying to fit your square peg business for seniors into a Snapchat round hole. And quit trying to force your business for tweens onto LinkedIn.

Neither will work very well. They’re just a waste of time. And time is the one thing you never have enough of.

So, which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now? Thank you for reading during your work downtime!

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Leverage your work downtime and more.

The post Leverage Your Work Downtime and More –10 Brilliant Business Tips of the Week appeared first on Credit Suite.