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Quick quiz
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Each month I'll give you a new question.
Just reply to this email for the answer.
Which of these ice cream flavors was invented first: vanilla or chocolate? |
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2 Small Business Spending Areas to Scrutinize |
The survival of a small business depends on delivering the best service or product in the least costly way. Every entrepreneur, therefore, strives to minimize expenses. But deciding which costs to reduce should not be taken lightly. Some spending is vital to retaining customers and attracting new ones. Monitoring two key expenditure categories on business financial statements typically results in rising revenue and profit numbers.
First, accept the reality that buyers typically conduct online investigations about purchase options. Most types of conventional advertising can therefore be safely reduced without sacrificing sales revenue. At the least, spending on print or broadcast ads should be limited to sources that target your specific market.
The primary feature of your marketing budget is assuring that potential customers discover you. This points to crucial attention needed for your website. Don't scrimp on spending for assistance to provide optimal website design and content. Aim to ensure you appear at the top of web search results pages. Hire freelance assistance if you don't have time for updating information on your website, writing a blog or sending social media messages.
Next, never neglect the importance of the people who work for you. Whether you have employees under your direct control or hire freelancers, these people value job security and respect above all else. Concentrate on giving them flexible hours, remote work-from-home options, and cash bonuses for jobs well done. Costly perks like gym memberships, office parties, and all-expense-paid travel to conferences at exotic locations don't achieve much worker loyalty. Rather, the best results are derived from tangible recognition of the person's value. |
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How to Win Big in Today's Economy
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The altered economic landscape presents innovative and nimble businesses
with opportunities to thrive.
Find out how by requesting my free
report "How to Win Big in Today's
Economy."
Just reply to this email and I'll send it right out to you.
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Overwhelmed? Try These Easy Secrets for
Success and Happiness |
The great hamster wheel of life can be exciting, thrilling and fast-paced. But oftentimes, its relentless rotations can leave us feeling a little dizzy. Senior leadership coach Kristi Hedges believes chronic overwhelm to be one of the greatest challenges we face in the workforce today. When things get overwhelming, here’s how you can boost your productivity, health and happiness.
Hedges’s Georgetown colleague Scott Eblin published the book Overworked and Overwhelmed tackling the issue head-on. In it, he maintains the key to being less overwhelmed is to cultivate mindfulness, or "awareness with intention." Thankfully, you don't have to make huge moves to start thinking mindfully or to make a difference. Meditation or intentional reflection is a great way to start.
You’ll find it difficult to balance your priorities if you don’t know what they are, so try to get clear on what makes you feel fulfilled. Think about the last time you were truly happy. What were you doing? What do you want to do more of and less of? Outside of work, eating and sleeping, leisure time can evaporate quickly, so be intentional with how you spend it.
Learning and happiness are closely tied together. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term "flow" for the ideal state of learning, where you’re so engaged in an activity that you lose track of time. Happiness is found in these moments of deep engagement.
When you try new things, try not to let perfectionism get in the way, and remember variety is truly the spice of life. Whether learning a new skill or language, meeting new people or finding new ways to build on old skills, it’s all an opportunity to generate some new energy and avoid burnout. |
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Worth Reading |
A Framework for
Creating a Smart
Brand Strategy
Insivia |
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Your brand is more than a logo: it is an entire system of how customers, employees and ecosystems perceive and experience your business. Brand strategy creates a strong framework for all of the elements that come along with your brand, from design to communication to corporate culture. This comprehensive guide will help to lead you through the baseline elements, showcasing how to structure a powerhouse brand and create the basis for a solid and seamless growth strategy. |
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A Newbies Guide to
CRM Software
By Lidiya Kesarovska
Let’s Reach Success |
With all of the options out there, selecting
the right customer relationship management (CRM) system for your business can feel like an overwhelming task. Understanding all of
the aspects CRM software can automate and improve within your business is key to seeing it as a powerful tool and ally. From workflow automation to better efficiencies through analytics to how proper implementation
easily lends itself to increased ROI, here’s
a high-level overview of all a CRM system
can offer. |
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Apps to Build a Great Company Culture
with a Remote Team |
Many workplaces started out being required to operate remotely due to the pandemic and are now implementing a more permanent flexible office policy. Remote work impacts the creation and upkeep of corporate culture, making for new challenges with employee morale.
Your team’s culture acts as a guidepost. It sets the tone of workflow, decisions and behaviors, and it provides clarity in times of change, making for smoother transitions. Here are some tools to master the art of remote work culture.
Discover. To find what makes your team’s culture unique, peel away elements solely attached to desks and lunchrooms. What bonds your team together? What similar values and attitudes are shared? With this, remember to clarify the greater vision and strategic purpose your team provides to the organization.
Communicate. Keeping the team up to date and in sync with each other is critical to maintaining culture and flow. Some of the most popular options, Slack and Monday, are great tools to bring your team together in one place.
Connect. Take every chance to foster and celebrate collaboration and teamwork. Apps like Nectar, Assembly and Fond help to reinforce great teamwork, easily automating and giving a boost to morale and socially recognizing contributors for their everyday excellence.
Engage. Especially key to maintaining employee engagement levels, the camaraderie created within a corporate culture also helps to remedy the loneliness that comes with remote, isolated work. Fun team-building apps like those on QuizBreaker, Go Game and Let’s Roam allow teams to play and further develop rapport even at a distance. |
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Share This Newsletter
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If you find this newsletter helpful or interesting, share it with those you care about.
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Links You Can Use - Market Research |
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Market research is an invaluable and inextricable part of business planning. From startup to the next fiscal year, here are some resources to kick-start efforts. |
Market Research Is the
Foundation of a Successful
Small Business |
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From the start of your business plan to daily operations and future growth, discover why market research is the lynchpin in a successful venture. |
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How to Conduct Thorough
Market Research for your
Startup or Small Business |
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One of the best in the business,
here is Salesforce’s guide to
comprehensive and methodical
market research. |
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How to Do
Market Research:
A Guide and
Template |
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With the understanding of all market research entails, learn how this research will trickle into your daily operations and customer interactions. |
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Research for Small
Business: 8 Affordable
Market Research
Techniques |
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The market research process doesn’t
have to cost a fortune. Here are ideas
for how to affordably go about the
process. |
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3 Business Traps to Avoid with Financial Information |
Recurring scrutiny of the financial health of your business is security for avoiding common traps that impede sustainable success. Three primary pitfalls await the unsuspecting entrepreneur. Recognizing these dangerous states prepares you for maintaining a high level of knowledge about your business.
Of primary importance is being alert to the overall financial factors surrounding the enterprise. Next, you don't want a merely casual approach to the business's financial statements. Profitable outcomes don't arise without the input of your expertise. This knowledge is derived from careful attention to the information conveyed in your business's financial statements. Lastly, optimal business operation requires financial data that quantifies actions aimed at maximizing profits.
Lacking Awareness
Business setbacks are often the result of being unaware about key components of business operations. Financial statements measure what you accomplished and the resources required. Constant awareness of expenditures informs you about potential avenues for cutting costs. The best business owners are always looking for ways to increase output more efficiently by minimizing the amount of cash needed to generate sales revenue.
Your financial statements also uncover cash reserves needed for upcoming expenses for ongoing operations. Don't be an unaware business owner who is merely reacting to surprises. Instead, be aware of spending decisions that were sound and opportunities for improvement.
Lacking Insight
Some entrepreneurs are aware of basic financial numbers for their businesses but lack deeper insight about their meaning. Intimate understanding of financial statements entails knowing the fixed costs of doing business and the expenses that vary with revenue. Seek to learn more than simply your overhead expenses and gross revenue. Rough familiarity alone is insufficient for meeting the challenging demands of business ownership.
Consider the trend in sales and the costs incurred to achieve it. Maybe revenue is rising but variable costs could be increasing even faster. Find out which costs rise the most as sales revenue climbs. Scrutinize profit margins, marketing costs per customer and revenue per hour worked.
Lacking Action
Being thoroughly informed about the financial condition of your business permits you to implement changes for accomplishing better results in the future. This necessitates having a system for tracking your progress. The business needs a plan comprised of forecasted numbers you expect to achieve. This budget process needn't entail the burden of finely tuned details. It's only a general guideline. Sensible financial statements will have enough accounts for analysis but not so many that you are budgeting for minor expenses.
The goal is comparing actual outcomes with the budget. You also want to contrast recent figures with historical data. Especially savvy business owners will learn from their accountants some relevant ratios to monitor. Financial information should inform you about the effectiveness of decisive action regarding allocation of business resources, including time and equipment. The key to active management is using financial statements to quickly identify when current conditions vary with the past or the budget. When financial circumstances are fully understood, revised judgments and new strategies for improvement in profitability are easily implemented. |
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This newsletter and any information contained herein are intended for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial or medical advice. The publisher takes great efforts to ensure the accuracy of information contained in this newsletter. However, we will not be responsible at any time for any errors or omissions or any damages, howsoever caused, that result from its use. Seek competent professional advice and/or legal counsel with respect to any matter discussed or published in this newsletter. |
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