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
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! Show off your improved business writing!
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.
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