Business Hacks for Better Business Management

Business Hacks to Maximize Productivity

Bigger Business Book Club: 02

There's nothing quite like opening up an inspirational book to get your creative business minds cranking. Here's our second roundup of business management books we recommend taking a peak at that will benefit you and your business:

• The Lean Start Up by Eric Ries - "Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever."

• From Idea to Exit by Jeffrey Weber - "From Idea to Exit takes a more comprehensive approach, tackling the entire entrepreneurial journey from the initial seed idea through a well-planned exit strategy. Through a persuasive narrative, the author draws from his own success a practical call to action for those who dream of taking that first big step."

• The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki - "Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, small-business owner, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit leader, there's no shortage of advice on topics such as innovating, recruiting, fund raising, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, websites, blogs, webinars, and conferences that many startups get paralyzed, or they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they succeed. "

Business Hacks to Maximize Productivity

A picture’s worth a thousand...dollars?

Blake Warren, Director of Marketing at Handlr

Looking for a proven, sure-fire way to boost engagement and gain more attention to your business? Compelling visuals can be just as important as the content, using high-quality, attractive images can help tell your company's story, and engage your viewers.

Hubspot recently dropped some stats regarding the importance of quality images:

• Facebook posts featuring images get 2.3 times more engagement than posts without images.

• Articles featuring an image every 75-100 words pull double the number of social shares than articles with fewer images.

• Infographics are liked and shared on social media three times more than any other type of content.

• Buffer reported that for its user base, tweets with images were retweeted 150 percent more than text-only tweets.

Clearly, if photos aren’t a focus in your social media, email campaigns and other customer outlets, they should be. Now where do you find these images? Obviously if you have the means, taking photos or having your staff take them can provide real, genuine insight into your business. Unfortunately, many of us don’t have access to quality cameras and an iPhone can only take us so far. Or maybe your business doesn’t exactly offer the most exciting subjects to photograph. So, while Shutterstock and other paid services provide great quality photos, there are plenty of free options to consider as well. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Picjumbo, “totally free photos for your commercial and personal works,” Thousand of High-res photos with an easy to browse catalogue.

FreeImages has a huge library of images provided by the public. Most are free, however a few do ask you to pay.

Shutterstock - If you’re willing to budget in a small monthly payment, you simply can’t go wrong with Shutterstock. Boasting the most extensive library of images on the web, there’s a reason it’s number one.

Want to edit your new photos? Canva is a great option for a free editing tools to customize and get those images just right.

Is Your Brand on Point? 3 Points to Consider

Having a strong brand for your business leaves an everlasting impression with customers, especially when you’re a small business fighting to make your name known. A big common oversight that small business owners make, is failing to establish brand guidelines. When a powerful guideline is in place, the business looks tidy, professional, and well established. It all helps convey your company’s attitude and as Lindsay Kolowich, Marketing Blog Writer, well defines it, branding shows “what its values are, how you communicate its concepts, and which emotions you want your customers to feel when they interact with your business.”

Positioning

Branding is the driving force that positions your business within the market. Where does your company stand against competitors? A great way to tackle this is to do a good old SWOT Analysis of your business. Here’s the breakdown:

• Strengths - Define what sets your business apart from it’s competitors. What are the advantages your customers are getting by going to you?

• Weaknesses - What areas in your business can you see flaws in, things that other competitors have against you?

• Opportunities - Define areas for improvement and exploration opportunities. What unique trends can you identify in the market that complements your business? Is there new technology that your business can take advantage of?

• Threats - These are things in your business’ environment that could work against the growth of the company. (i.e., Government regulations, demographic changes, etc.)

When all of these are done, then define your brand. What’s the vision for your business? What’s the mission behind everything the company does? What’s the spirit of it all? Is your business “magical” like Disney or “adventurous” like GoPro? These are great questions to answer with your marketing team so you can establish strategic messaging that coincide with the business’ positioning.

Logo & Color Scheme

Is your logo something you pulled from ClipArt back in 1997? If you’ve answered yes, please read on. The logo of your company is the first thing your customers see and studies show, it takes less than a second for viewers to analyze your business based off of it, so make it a good impression! Color schemes also play an integral role of how well your customers perceive your business. Check out this chart below to see an array of colors and the emotions established with them. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of food places like McDonald’s, In-N-Out, and Tommy’s all have red and gold for their company colors.

This can be a long and deep process and if you’re at a loss for what colors and images your business should entail, seek a professional graphic designer for assistance.

Consistency

Do a walk through of all the materials that your customer sees. Does your brochure reflect the latest logo and color scheme? Glance over all your social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, Website), and make sure all the information is up to date but more importantly, if the messaging is consistent. Do you offer unmatched quality on your website, but your Facebook page tells your customers that you’re similar to other strong businesses in the neighborhood? Branding is like a bonsai tree and it’s a constant game of trimming and changing elements to cater to your audience. Solidifying your business’ presence creates long-lasting impressions on your customers. The easier it is for people to remember your business, the more likely it is to gain new customers and grow.

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.