Declare Independence: Separate Personal and Business Finances

One common mistake entrepreneurs make, especially in the early stages, is not separating their business and personal finances. Too often, business rookies will use their own debit and credit cards for work expenses. As usual, this quick and easy option is not the smartest or most efficient of managing your business finances. Without separate accounts, it is much more difficult to track important metrics like revenue, expenses, and cash flow. In addition, having a combined account makes tax preparation more tedious and frightening than it already is. Using your own card may seem easy today, but next spring you are going to be frantically crawlingly through months old bank statements – desperately trying to remember if that $30 at Starbucks was really a valid business expense.

It is recommended that all entrepreneurs create separate accounts for their businesses. Not only does this validate the new enterprise, it will make life much easier. This separation gives real credibility to the business, especially if you are thinking about incorporating in the future. It is simple too. With one trip to the bank you can create a new account for your business. In addition, software applications that aggregate and organize your finances work great with this separate account system. Handlr is an especially great resource to use. Not only does transactions get entered straight into your business account, but simply access and see valuable, accurate, financial statements when you need them. Altogether, the liberation of your business finances will make your life less complicated and your business more credible and efficient.  So if you’re still using a combined account, declare your independence, automate your business with Handlr, and hold on tight for growth.

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

01. Not staying on top of consumer needs

In our previous blog post, “Don’t Fear the Feedback” we stress the importance of always keeping the dialogue open with your customers on how they’re feeling about your business. By always engaging with your audience, you get a direct response of areas of improvements that you may have never identified. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking every word literally and doing as they wish. But figuring out why they have these hiccups with your business, and implementing a strategy that best fits your business’ needs is the way to go. You can broaden the scope of how you collect your feedback by emailing a simple survey, leaving a quick form to fill, or if you’re using Handlr, your customers can automatically review/rate your business right after the service is performed, straight off their phone.

02. Burnout

Burnout is way too common of a problem with small business owners. It’s a double-edged sword to do what you love but it requires so much effort to see little growth sometimes. No one realizes that to be an entrepreneur, is to also sign-up for a 24 hour job. You live, breath, and sleep your business and that can throw you into a crazy, go-go-go mentally. Some tips to avoid the entrepreneurial burnout:

1. Hire a team you can trust - find skilled, high-quality workers that want to be apart of your business’ growth. From our past experiences, our best employees come from referrals from family and friends, or using hiring platforms like Hireology to match up better candidates and hire smarter.

2. Don’t be afraid to delegate the work - have trust in your team members to check off some of your tasks. It will challenge them in ways that help them grow, and make them feel like a true MVP on the team.

3. Put automation in place - by utilizing business management platforms like Handlr, it can save you hours and hours per week on mundane tasks. Forget dealing with that stack of paperwork, and embrace freedom with automated scheduling, invoicing, and more.

4. Take a vacation once in awhile and don’t feel guilty about it - we all know and need that friend that forces us to go on a weekend getaway. And once in a blue moon, you’ll half-heartedly say yes and go. But so does your laptop, your phone, your forms, and before you know it, you’re still working on your R&R time. Taking a step back and breaking your work state-of-mind is a great thing to do. Listen - it’s a great thing to give yourself a real break. Taking a vacation refreshes the mind and lets you come back to your Monday more focused with new perspectives.

03. Not staying on top of digital trends

Technology is an ever evolving industry, and it’s a challenge for business owners to stay current with already little spare time. This little investment of just keeping in-the-know with the tech industry can pay off big amounts for your business. Check in on the “technology” section of your news source, get ideas from your customers and other business owners, or discovering emerging platforms on your own that could potentially help launch your business is what this is all about. And don’t be afraid to learn new things! Being complacent with your software that was designed in 1999 is definitely holding your business’ potential back - exponentially. It’s time for that upgrade. This also ties in with point 1. of keeping up to date with your customers’ needs. If your customers are always using their phone to find information or buy products, it’s a clear indicator of perhaps you’d want to expand that way as well.

04. Profitable Business Model

At the end of the day, if your business isn’t showing profit, it’s in a state of decline. Identify where the money gets made and shift your focus. It’s a game of trial and error but there’s a tremendous amount of gains to be made. We all know of the beginning story of Zappos where they weren’t even sure consumers would be comfortable with buying shoes online. So what did they do? They threw up images of shoes and a couple of “Buy Now” buttons to gauge the response. Orders flooded in, and they had to scramble to buy shoes from retailers to fulfill orders. Now, they make over $2 Billion in gross merchandise sales per year. The lesson learned? They weren’t afraid to research and investigate where the money was. Identify your profitable strengths or else you’ll end up in the 80% business failure bracket.

05. Out-of-Control Growth

This is an unfortunate scenario of overnight success that we’ve seen too frequent in the past. Businesses nail a product and the demand is skyrocketing high. But the infrastructure is lacking - not enough hands on deck, manufacturers aren’t solidified, the business owner takes out a huge loan to make the ends meet, and things just go flying out of control. Sometimes, baby steps to scaling a business is the route to go where you can control and fine-tune details just the way is needed.

The take aways: Failure is expected in the entrepreneur world but it’s the reaction to it that matters. See failures as a learning opportunity and lesson for the future. A true entrepreneur will get back up from the failures, find a new venture, AND apply the lessons learned from past failures to come back stronger than ever. Be resilient, persistent, and dedicated to the work will pay off down the road.

Business Hacks to Maximize Productivity

Ch. 13 of the Comprehensive Checklist for Growing Your Business: Don’t Fear the Feedback

Often times, we business owners cringe in fetal position with the thought of hearing criticism and feedback from our own customers. Sometimes, hearing those comments can be a little bit too raw and too personal to see the bigger picture it serves. When we talked with a local pet walking business owner, she shared, “I get anxiety attacks when I see an email from Yelp that I’ve had a new review!” I think we can all share that feeling. Let’s try and retrain our minds on how we handle and manage feedback for our business positively.

Criticism = Opportunity

No one likes to be criticized and we all like to believe that we’re Beyonce-level flawless. Unfortunately, no one is without flaw and we tend to discredit them and even ignore criticism altogether. However, most feedbacks that our customers provide presents a great opportunity for improvement. We should want it. If no one ever told us how to do things a better way, our businesses would be in a constant state of mediocrity. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers if they’re happy with your service!

Utilizing Yelp

As biased as Yelp can be, it is a necessary evil. Asking your customers to post their reviews to help you boost your presence on Yelp can benefit your business greatly.  After all, Yelp has 86 million monthly mobile visitors on their platform and most likely, your customers are going to it to seek information about your business.

Ask For It!

Asking for reviews means you also have to monitor it and follow up with them. Even though we’re quick to search for the ‘delete’ button when a 1-star appears for that stickler of a customer, it speaks greater volumes to deal with it. Go head first into the problem and reach out to that customer and make it right. With the latter approach, we often see 1-star reviews get bumped up to a terrific 5-star.

Even sparking the conversation in real-life (I know, what a thought) could open up trust with your customers. A question as simple as, “Are you happy with our service today?” Or following up next time with, “Were you pleased with XYZ last time?” Gives your customers an opportunity to share their thoughts and insights about your business.

How Do You Handle It?

Do you have an internal method of handling customer suggestions and opinions? Some opt in for the good ol’ paper form, some send a survey in an email afterwards, or some might find it conveniently on their smartphone. As the general consumer population is increasingly referring to their phones for everything, a lot of mobile apps are now offering follow-up strategies this way. Particularly with mobile and on-demand services, it’s quite a challenge to find an app that helps you run your business, yet alone manage customer feedback and reviews, until Handlr came along. With Handlr, every service your business completes prompts your customer to tap a star-rating and write a review if they want to. This way, you as the business owner get a precise evaluation for each employee and service. It also alleviates the middle man (Yelp) and directs those not so happy customers directly to you.

So what do you do with all of this information? It’s great to sit and assess what pain points you hear often, patternistic issues that keep recurring, and strategize how to apply changes to your business to minimize those concerns. Again, feedback and reviews don’t have to be hair-pulling and personal. It’s to benefit you as a business owner and your business itself.

How I Started a Dog Walking Business Turned Tech Company

Nobody understands what it’s like to have your hands so full of dogs, that you don’t even have time to change your pants after a dog lifted his leg on you at the dog park. Or what it’s like to spend time with so many happy dogs all day, but to come home exhausted and covered in dog hair and slobber. It’s a labor of love and it can be the hardest and the best job ever.

You might have fallen into dog walking like I did. I have always loved dogs and I’ve always loved people too. When I was at UCSD, I missed my dogs back home so much that I decided to help out my neighbors with their dogs. Before I knew it, I was walking dogs on almost every street in La Jolla. By the time I graduated, I was walking 30 dogs per day and that’s when I decided to turn DogZenergy into a professional business.

My goal:

To create the best and biggest dog walking agency in San Diego so that I could spread my love to hundreds of dogs.

My biggest hurdle:

Fear and burnout.

In the first few years of running my business, I was happy, but tired. After walking all day from 7am-8pm without any breaks, it was exhausting to come home and do the busy work. The last thing I wanted to do was work on the schedule, create invoices, and get back to customer requests. I felt like I was stuck on a hamster wheel of the daily grind.

One day, one of my favorite clients was extremely upset when I handed her a late invoice. She said to me, “Brittany, you are not a businesswoman, you are a dog walker.” These words really stung. I put my whole life into being the best dog walker that I could be, but it was true. I was not running a streamlined business. I was behind on invoicing, I had no systems in place, and I had no help. I felt like I was drowning. A friend of mine told me to read The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber and this book really changed my life. In the book, Gerber explains that you have to work “on” your business and not just “in” it. You can’t just be a dog walker, you have to be a mindful business owner too. You need systems and processes so that you can hire a team and bring on more customers without compromising your quality of service.  

It sounded easy enough, I needed to build a team. But how do I trust them? How do I know that every dog got walked and no mistakes were made? How do I not get cut out? That’s when I started searching for the perfect software, but couldn’t find it. When Uber and other on-demand apps came out, I really wanted to get my hands on the same technology for my business. So I decided to pack the last ten years of trying to make my life easier into one easy, simple to use mobile business platform called Handlr.

With the Handlr business dashboard and connected team app and customer app, you can seamlessly handle the following:

• Automate scheduling and dispatching of your dog walkers

• Keep track of your client list. See revenue and satisfaction ratings per client.

• Keep track of your dog walkers’ performance ratings

• Receive check in and check out alerts and GPS track your walkers

• Three-way chat between you, your dog walker and your client so that phone numbers are not shared.

• You and your clients can see photos and updates about their dog’s day and share them on social media.

• Easy client registration and safe, encrypted, credit card payment

• No more invoicing. Get paid right away.

• Always know how your business is performing with revenue reports.

• See new customers magically drop themselves into your schedule.

Now my business is running completely on auto-pilot and we have 15 dog walkers and hundreds of clients using the Handlr app. Our clients are booking our services on the app 20% more than they did before and we are growing faster than we can hire. We’re on track to do a million dollars in sales this year. And now you can gain control over your business by using Handlr too.

If you’re interested in applying to join Handlr click here.

We look forward to handling business with you!

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Britt Alwerud lives in Los Angeles, CA with her menagerie of animals - two goldens, Daisy and Taj, two cats, Tiger and Monkey, and two horses named Gracie and Moo. Britt owns DogZenergy in San Diego, CA. Now she is the full-time Founder and CEO of Handlr. Learn more at myhandlr.com/petprofessionals or email her at britt@myhandlr.com.

Ch. 12 of the Comprehensive Checklist for Growing Your Business: Creating the Sizzle

Creating content for your business’ social media channels is a fun way to get creative while engaging your customers. My colleagues: content is all around us. It is everything you do for your business. Every conversation you have with your clients, every email sent, in every customer complaint we take -  there’s a story and a lesson to be learned within all of those small details we tend to overlook.

There are a few key pointers to touch base on while we’re sourcing content.

Offer a variety of rich content for your audience.

• Rich content is really the focus here. We want the information we share with others to be saturated with unique things that they may not have known before. Offering a variety of information, whether it’s a compilation of quotes, infographics, surveys or interviews, makes it a pot of gold for your customers to hit that, “share” button.

Make it look professional.

• It’s pretty awkward visiting a business’ page only to find dark, grainy photos with harsh filters. Photography isn’t everyone’s forte and that’s quite okay. Just keep in mind to consider the composition, clarity, and color of the image. If those words already have you spinning, consider using an app to enhance your photos! Some of our favorite photo editing apps that make it easy to create beautiful images are VSCO, Photo Editor by Aviary, and the good old photo editing options on your iPhone.

• If you’re looking for something more involved like making a video for your business, hiring a local videographer might just be the solution. A videographer can help wonders in terms of figuring out frames, angles, and a smooth storyboard to better tell your story.

• Check out some of Handlr’s videos from our YouTube Channel:

Ballin’ on a Budget?

• Get creative with your iPhone and capture moments yourself! If you need inspiration, see some of the greatest photography shot with the iPhone that Apple compiled here.

Be persistent!

It's easy to throw in the towel when your content isn't picking up traction - but that's expected. Marketing Ninja, Mike Linville of BlackDogMarketing assures us that it takes about 12-18 months before the traffic begins to pick up. He suggests a couple things to help speed up the process:

• Strategize on how to share your content. (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Stumbleupon)
• The 5 Day Strategy - promoting your content for 5 days for maximum exposure on different channels.
• Sell the sizzle, then the steak. Give your customers what they want, then reel in the traffic with the information they need.

Just remember to inform and/or inspire your audience and make it relevant to your them.  After all, if you’re spending all this time creating posts and writing articles that no one pays attention to, it’s absolutely a waste of time. Be genuine, and try not to overthink about the process. Social media is creative, fun and a great growing process for your business. Ready, Set, Create!

Ch. 10 of the Comprehensive Checklist for Growing Your Business: Community Outreach

In the midst of your crazy day of managing a business, the thought of community outreach and social responsibility probably isn’t floating around at the front of your head. They all say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and that applies to raising a business as well. Without the support of your neighbors and community, your business probably wouldn’t exist. Let’s take a minute to surface the real ROIs on doing a little something for your community.

There are different levels of involvement that you can choose from that best fits your availability. You can sponsor local events, organize meetings/networking gatherings, or participate in a meetup. The opportunities of helping your community can get really fun and creative while also being a cost-effective method of marketing. It’s also a great opportunity to rally up your employees for good old team building and morale boosting. Now, on top of all those positive things, let’s get to how it can help build your business.

1. Get yourself publicly known by your locals.

   The more you put your name out there, the more your community will gain awareness of your business. Community outreach is heavily effective because it puts a real person in front of prospective customers. In contrast, with an ad, or website, it garners a one-way communication to your audience. Making real connections to people involves engagement, and a moment that you and your customer share - it’s hard to forget that.
    

2. Build long-lasting relationships with them.

   By putting a face on your business and engaging in conversations with people in your community, it’s only natural that you start to build long-lasting relationships with them. You get to know first names of pivotal people in the neighborhood, their family, and story. Slowly, business owners can build their network and make important connections that are beneficial for the long run. However, these connection are symbiotic. The more resources and value you can provide for your customer, they more they depend and come to you.
    

3. Increase company reputation and image.

   By staying active and involved in community events, it builds fantastic repertoire amongst your neighbors and customers. The driving force of purchasing decisions are made by emotion. If you can connect with your community on an emotional level, it’s a win-win for them and your business.

Community outreach can build your clientele and strengthen your presence in your community. By participating in these events, businesses can develop customer loyalty and top of the mind recall. It is also fantastic for building a positive reputation which can then lead to long-lasting, returning customers. Investing time into this method of marketing doesn’t have to be a complex process. Doing something as little as printing branded bookmarks for the library, or providing water for your local marathon can leave an unforgettable, lasting impression on your business.

Let’s Take Customer Relationships Back to the Basics...

Blake Warren

We recently talked about tips for successfully utilizing a CRM (Read it here), something you’re probably already using as a business owner. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is typically a software that helps your business keep track of… what exactly? Well, obviously things like phone numbers, addresses, lead status, purchase history, etc. But what do these things embody? It’s in the name; a CRM is a Management tool for Customer Relationships. So let’s discuss Customer Relationships, that you can better understand how to foster and keep those very things you need a CRM for. Google the words “customer relationships” and you’ll be met with a dizzying amount of articles, books, DVD’s, Podcasts and videos promising the newest techniques, software and guides to CRM. It can be daunting to say the least. Let’s take a step back and look at the basics of customer relationships.

Stay Relatable

As a consumer, would you rather do business with a personable company than the corporate machine of a big business? Of course you would. Having personality disarms your customers, they will be more likely to trust your recommendations. Don’t try to deceive your customers, are you a small company trying to get your foot in the door? Show it. Working out of your moms garage? Show it. Customers will be further compelled to give you their business if they can see you as a peer.

Understand what makes your product or service desirable.

It’s impossible to be relatable if you don’t have a true understanding of what drives your customers. It’s easy to think about your business concept from the wrong shoes. As a business owner you may have no problem coming up with reasons for making your product or offering your service. But you need to spend a lot of time looking at it from the perspective of potential customers. What are the real reasons they might be purchasing your product? What real-life circumstances lead them to booking your service? This is an easy exercise to shrug off, “Of course I know why people want what i’m selling”. But the more you explore this practice, the more you discover about your customers and how to serve them.

Take a look at the customer experience from start to finish.

Even if you simply sell an online product, what is the experience of the purchasing process like for your customers? How do you handle inquiries, returns, confirmations, packaging? Everything, no matter how small adds to the customer experience. Obviously this entails much more for a service-based business and should be treated as such. Every aspect of the process should be scrutinized until the customer experience is perfected.

Be Honest

The biggest downside of the countless books, products and techniques that you’ll find when researching this subject is that through all the fluff, we’ve been taught to do anything but be honest with our customers. We’re told to follow a call sheet, distract our customers with special offers, or avoid gripes they may have with our product or service using fancy techniques. The reality is, your customers will appreciate your honesty more than you may know. Calling up a customer and asking for feedback, apologizing for a mistake or simply telling them how much you appreciate their business can take you farther than any call-sheet or internet technique.

7 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your CRM Software

““Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.””

— Steve Jobs

The late Steve Jobs said it best, knowing your customer better than your competitors is the only way to succeed. Knowing how to actually do that is where it gets tricky. A solid Customer Relation Management system is the first step in that process, so we’ve compiled some solid tips to ensure that you use your CRM to its full potential.

1. Choose a platform you can stick with.

Talk to a few business owners and you’ll undoubtedly hear some horror stories about switching CRM’s. Choosing the wrong form of Customer Management can set you back big time down the line. It’s important to choose a simple, easy-to-use software with enough features to work now, and down the line. This doesn’t mean you need to pay thousands of dollars for SalesForce to manage your ten customers and 2 employees, but don’t just take the easy route and start a messy, half-assed Excel Spreadsheet either. One of the worst experiences in business is realizing 2 years-in that you need to go back and redo all the work you’ve put into your CRM now that business is starting to pick up. We recommend checking out ActiveCampaign or Nimble.

2. Consider CRM training a crucial point in your small business growth.

Take the time to learn every corner & every inch of your new CRM, and make sure your employees do too. Employees often treat training programs as waste of time or a chance to relax. Don’t allow this to happen in your office. You’ve made a considerable investment in your CRM and you should insist that everyone takes the training process seriously.

3. Use it to track sales and new leads.

Your CRM has one main purpose, to keep track of your customers; so use it! Insist that your sales team processes any and all new leads through the new system. It will make keeping track of these potential customers so much easier as they move through the process of cultivation.

4. Use all the features of the system instead of resorting to other ones.

Even the most simple CRM systems out there come packed with features. Explore these early on and try to use them as much as possible. Does your CRM have a group huddle or chat feature to keep everyone on the same page? What about a document manager? Use them instead of an outside program for a better flow of your daily operations.

5. Use in-house feedback as much as customer feedback.

Introduce your new CRM and it’s very likely that a few employees will adapt to it rather quickly. Focus on the feedback they provide about why they like it, what features they use most and where it can improve. Customers are an equal source if this type of information. Send out a quick survey or interview your more trusted customers about their experiences with the new way your business operates.

6. Don’t forget the least active users.

If you have a few employees neglecting your new investment, don’t just slap them on the wrist and push them to use it more. Try to understand what is holding them back and why they don’t like the new system. You’ll find that some simply don’t understand it and need more training, while others have specific gripes that can be fixed with simple solutions. Don’t be afraid to contact your CRM company directly with these complaints as they will often have a work-around or trick to fix the situation.

7. Try a system that engages the customer directly.

You’re CRM is all about the client, so try using one that has tools to get you in touch with them directly. ActiveCampaign for instance, works as both a CRM and email system, so you can track your customers and message them directly from the same software. This ensures that customer management, feedback and things like open-rates and stats are tracked in the same place.

Investing in a CRM is a big step in a small business. Learning to use it properly and introducing it to your staff can be a big commitment. These CRM best practices can help you ensure your effort is rewarded.

Ch 6. of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Modernize and Invest in Your Brand

It is mission critical to have a logo that conveys your brand’s look and feel. According to smallbusiness.chron.com, the company logo is, “the single most visible manifestation of the company within the target market.” We couldn’t agree more. For this reason, it is heavily important that you brand your company in a position that aligns with your target market. It’s a visual first impression to your customers so, make it count. Another astonishing stat from ConversionXL says, “visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms” (Laja). That’s a fast assessment! Where does your logo stand on the eye-catching meter? Graphic trends are ever-changing but we do know that resorting to ClipArt, gradient heavy graphics, and busy elements in a logo add noise when you’re trying to break through the clutter. Seek for a clean, easy-read symbol for your company.

A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you logo is a clear read if it is shrunk down to a 1-inch area. Often times, many businesses strive to include tiny details in their logo that unfortunately, get lost when it’s printed on a business card or other small marketing materials. If your logo needs a bit of a facelift, there are many platforms available to you to solve your problem. You can hire a local graphic designer to create branding and marketing materials for you. 99designs or Canva for Work is commonly used to instantly get a few designs created. Moo.com and Vistaprint.com are great options for cost-effective and high-quality marketing materials with a fast overturn rate.

If you have employees, it’s not a bad idea to have matching team shirts made. Even having branded marketing materials like table cloths and tents can help strengthen your brand image amongst customers and team members both. Having a cohesive and unified look across your company on all platforms goes a long way. Paying attention to small details and cleaning up the look of your company positions your business in a better spotlight in consumers’ minds.

Ch. 3 of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Guidelines

Why Guidelines?

Guidelines are crucial to maintaining consistency and excellence in your business. McDonald’s and every other franchise of the world have detailed guidelines and protocols in place to ensure that services are performed the same way, every time. Employee Handbooks and Business Guidelines (even if it’s just for yourself) are important to make sure that your business can run without you and that quality is guaranteed every time.

Guidelines are there to set the company’s tone that you see perfect for your business. It explains the core mission/standards of your business and covers all aspects of your business you can dream of, going beyond the protocols. From team member benefits, team member work behavior, or the specific conditions of what constitutes an absence, tardy, write-up, citation, or termination. It’s a great resource/reference to have for you and your team in uncertain situations.

Read the E-Myth and the 4-Hour Work Week to change your life as a business owner.

Gerber offers insightful strategies and tactics to conquer having your dream business. He walks you through the cycle of a business, from, “entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective” (Amazon). The E-Myth is considered mandatory reading from us for anyone looking to start a small business.

4-Hour Work Week

From an entrepreneur himself, Timothy Ferriss shares a common problem all entrepreneur encounters. The work overload and no life balance what so ever. He introduces a new acronym, (also the names of the chapters): DEAL (Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation). It’s so easy to get caught up on the hamster wheel and before you know it, running a business means working day in and out endlessly. Read the 4-hour workweek and seek the balance you want in your live/work life.

It’s a Bonsai Tree Thing

If you already have your guidelines in place, be sure to revisit them and update/edit any changes once in awhile. Owning a business is a constant learning process and as you grow, your guidelines should become more detailed and fine-tuned as your business changes.