Reducing business spending during a recession is one of the few available ways to secure a place in the market and make a profit from your business. The wrong strategy to reduce a company's expenses can cause it to go bankrupt. However, there are ways to reduce company costs without jeopardizing the business.
Read MoreAs an entrepreneur, you’ll want to do everything you can to protect your small business. It helps make sure you see success and can actually run your company long-term. You’ll already know about more than a few ways to do this:
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Small businesses are vital to our communities because they provide incredible products and services with a more personal touch. Many small businesses are looking for ways to ramp up their customer base, but they aren't sure they can handle an increased volume with their current staff load.
There are several ways to deal with higher volumes of customer inquiries, such as outsourcing customer support or getting a toll-free phone number, but many business owners worry that it will cost them too much to get started. Check out three affordable communication options for small businesses below!
Business phone numbers have been around for decades now, and they provide a sense of trust among customers. It used to cost a small fortune to get a business phone number for small companies, but now there are some free business phone numbers offered by quality companies.
Small businesses with their own phone line, instead of an employee's cell phone number, seem more official, and customers appreciate the opportunity to speak with a real person. Depending upon the size of the business, a business number may connect directly to a person, or it may guide a customer through a series of questions to find the right agent for them to speak with.
Some customers prefer to speak with a customer support agent via online chat. This allows them to type out their questions and get written responses quickly. Agents are still required for live chat to work, and customers enjoy this option because it connects them with a real person, but they can write out their responses instead of talking them out.
Support bots that use artificial intelligence appear to be the way of the future. These support bots are similar to live chat, but they don't require an agent to do the responses. This is a great option for businesses who get huge volumes of emails, voicemails, or chats with many of the same questions that can easily be answered automatically.
AI support bots may be able to answer a customer's inquiry on their own, like looking up the shipping status of a product using the tracking number, reporting business hours, or giving directions, or it can forward a more advanced question to an agent during normal business hours.
Many businesses find that it's helpful to have a mix of two or all three of the above communication options to give customers a choice about how they can get the help they need. Having open communication channels can help build a sense of trust with customers and keep them coming back again and again.
More and more people are turning to the web to make their purchases. It’s convenient and it offers a greater selection. Learning how to sell online can ensure you are successful. All you need is an idea so that you can turn it into a money-making business.
You can sell physical and virtual items through an online store. Physical items can include clothing, pet products, essential oils, electronics, and more. Virtual items can include eBooks, podcasts, and even services.
As long as you have a particular theme to what you’re selling, it will be easy for you to create an online store.
Any idea is worth investigating further. You don’t even have to be the one to manufacture all of the items. Maybe you have an idea to have a website where people can buy gifts for a special someone…or you want to sell products of a particular theme. You can source the products from various wholesale companies. Then, you decide how much you will sell everything for.
You’ll need to have a website presence if people are going to buy online. Be creative with a website domain name so that it’s easy for people to remember. Plus, you can make it obvious that you’re a store by including that into your domain. The ‘.store’ extension will ensure that people know that they can easily buy online.
There are a few other tips as you create a website name:
Choose a name that tells people what it is that you’ll be selling
Make it easy to say and spell
Check on the cost (and availability) of the domain name
Once you find the right name, be sure to lock it in so that no one else can grab it.
Building an e-commerce site isn’t as simple as choosing a platform and accepting payment. You have to remember that there should be a marketing strategy involved with creating your website. After all, you have to lure people to your site and encourage them to buy from you.
Think about your own experiences when you visit a website where you’re going to buy something. Learning how to sell online is all about paying attention to the consumer experience.
You want to provide a theme from the moment that people arrive on your site. This will be done through a strategic website design. You’ll want to incorporate plenty of eye-catching graphics, too.
Be sure that you make it possible for people to shop your store. You can’t just list out what’s for sale along with a price. Instead, you have to sell people what it is that you’re selling. Use photos of every item along with a product description. If it’s a virtual item, consider other ways to showcase what it is that you’re selling – videos and audio files can be incorporated into your store with ease.
You can create as many pages as you want on your website. Beyond the store itself, you may want to have an “About” page where you go into detail about your company and what inspired you to create the store. You may also want a blog where you can share information about what’s going on with some of the products.
If you build it, they will come…right? Only if you market your website.
Unfortunately, it’s never quite as easy as simply building an online store. If you want people to know what you offer and where to visit, you’ll need to employ a few marketing strategies. One of the most obvious marketing strategies is search engine optimization (SEO). Through a combination of keyword research and backlinks, you can ensure that your online store is visible in the search engines.
Another strategy is to have a presence on social media. Create profiles on Facebook, YouTube, and more. As you gain followers, you can also consider paid advertising campaigns that will help you to improve your visibility and send traffic to your store. Once you learn how to sell online, you can turn all of your ideas into money-making opportunities. You can operate as many websites as you want, too, – one for each idea that you have.
The course of true business success never runs smoothly, and whether you've just started on your journey, or you are well established, sometimes the pressures we face throughout every aspect of the business can be too much to bear. As the landscape evolves, so do the various threats. But with profit comes high risk. With this in mind, if you have a better idea of the most common business threats, you will know how to better prepare ourselves for them. What are they?
Electronic Data Breaches
The biggest mistake many startups make is that they think they are too small to suffer an attack. In fact, small businesses that don't have an excellent IT department put themselves at major risk of data breaches. There are very simple methods to overcome this. Numerous companies invest in a managed IT services company, of which there are many.
Companies like Bear Technologies don't just provide protection, but they help with other aspects of the ever-changing face of the digital coal mine. When you think about the threats your business can suffer from, it's not just common sense to have IT protection, but when you think about the financial penalties, it's more important than ever to have crucial coverage.
Business Interruption
It's so easy to underestimate the impact of weather damage. And according to the US Department of Labor, it is estimated that 40% of businesses never open their doors again after a natural disaster. Whether it's a flood, a fire, or anything worse, you have to understand that an insurance policy is worth its weight in gold, not just for the physical property, but the loss of income.
Business interruption coverage insurance helps solve the problem in the short-term. And if you've got people working for you can't even provide payment, when you are going through the process of relocating, it's crucial that your employees have peace of mind. As well as this, your customers need to know that everything is above board.
Liability Losses
Liability claims are commonplace in today's society. You will likely face a lawsuit at some point during your business life. The fact of the matter is that there are so many different types of liability claims for personal injury, slander, property damage, and the list goes on. It's essential to understand the kind of coverage that a commercial general liability policy covers. Having a good relationship with an independent agency allows you to assess the exposures your business can face. As liability covers every aspect of the business, inside and out, having comprehensive coverage will work wonders.
Threats in business are commonplace, and as we start to build our company, we have to exercise awareness of the various types of threat. Business threats work to undermine a business, not just from the inside, but from the outside too. From liability losses, data breaches as well as business interruption, there's a lot that your business can suffer from which threatens to undermine so many parts of your company.
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