Should Our Smartphones Be Kept Away From the Workplace?

Smartphones have drastically changed over the years in how they are used for both personal and business environments. In the past, phones were mainly just used for personal calls and as a device for communication but in today’s world, technology has evolved the cell phone into an innovative device in which is used for managing every aspect of individuals lives that includes both personal and business.

With this evolution, employers are now asking and having to make decisions as to whether smartphones should be allowed to be kept in the workplace and if so, whether it be to ban or to allow usage, will their decision impact on productivity.  Many employers too are following the increasing trend of supplying cell phones and paying for their monthly payments as some devices can actually be highly beneficial for employees. This is because of their numerous capabilities including downloadable business apps, for instance the new Samsung Galaxy S7 with its large display is a great business phone as it also provides high battery life and memory, making it more efficient when away from the office.

So the question is no longer whether an employer should allow for smartphones to be used in the workplace but rather how can a company teach employees to be mindful of their time and productivity and how to be respectful to those around them.  Employers need to have policies written, distributed as part of an employee handbook, and then upper management must lead by example.  These three steps must be established in order to create an atmosphere that is conducive to having employees that remain productive.

Many rules or policies can be enforced when an employee brings their smartphone to work but some basic ones below will help provide a bit of basic guidance. Policies must be developed and specify how to use a smartphone when taking phone calls, email, and texting.

Keep the ringtones and notifications to silent mode.

No matter the size of the company and the role of the employee, hearing continuous ringtones and notifications throughout the day is annoying and distracting to those in the near vicinity. If the employee has a private office or often works outside the office, keeping the sound on is okay but if employees work closely to one another, sit in a cubicle farm or in an open-concept office, the volume must be turned to silent to avoid unnecessary distractions.

Keep personal phone calls personal.

If there is a need to take a personal phone call at work, be mindful of others in the area. No one wants to hear about an employee’s weekend or where dinner plans are for that evening. If a call must be taken, the employee should shut the door to the office or walk to an area that is quiet and again, ssure they don’t cause a distraction to others.

Be Professional.

Employees should turn smartphones off or not bring a phone into a meeting room when possible. If meeting with a client, don’t answer the phone if it should ring because it could potentially affect your business and have you labeled as un-professional.

Answer Calls.

If a cell phone number is readily given out by an employee clients and work-related personnel, then the employee is expected to answer the phone when it rings. Many times with a personal phone, a call is not answered because a phone number is not recognized but when used for work purposes, missing a client call could be costly.

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Think Long To Succeed In The Immediate

By Dana A. Oliver, author of “Mantra Design” and “Mantra Leadership“

Successful businesses are not a result of chance, but are the by-product of an effective and evolving strategic plan, complimented by an equally effective operating infrastructure, and supported by exceptional human talent. While there is more than one recipe for business success, I personally prescribe to the following four underlying foundational principles for continuity, guidance, and continuing prosperity;

• Commitment to business growth through organic innovation by funding research and development at investments of 10% or greater as a percentage of the company’s total revenues.
• Develop and evolve your company’s product brands through your customer’s eyes.
• Continuously improve your company’s products and technologies by focusing on the few truly strategic core platforms.
• Hire smart, ambitious, get-it-done employees and lead them with emotionally intelligent innovation leadership skills.

While it’s fair to say that the aforementioned cornerstones apply to more established companies and are intended to ensure for their continued well-being, early stage entrants can benefit from their guidance as well. Being part of a new and unestablished company brand results in even greater challenges and distractions as they attempt to move from angel or venture capital funding to self-sustainment. This financial reality screams for the completion of an ever growing list of all important tasks that seems to only expand. The days are long and the end game seems frequently out of sight. It’s for this very reason that emotionally intelligent and pragmatic leadership grounded in principle can be the difference between success and failure. In attempts to help ensure success is achieved for this next generation of potential house-hold names and industry trend setters, while at the same time showing the relevance and applicability to the spirit of these foundational principles. It requires that company size is factored into their understanding and that these guiding best practices can be appropriately scaled or right-sized to accommodate for start-ups and entrepreneurs.

In attempts of priority, I want to emphasize the importance of focusing on the few truly strategic initiatives to ensure early business success for young upstarts:

Focus on the strategically important.

The single biggest reason that the average company struggles or even fails is due to their lack of focus and dilution of their greatest resource, which are people. In order to be successful as an innovative company, never mind a start-up or small entrepreneurial company, it’s essential to be able to identify the few truly strategic initiatives that will most favorably impact the top revenue line. Thereafter identifying what’s truly strategic, it requires that any new start-up commits to it with laser focus until they cross the goal line with these most impactful needle moving initiatives. Here in lies the caution for small businesses with limited personnel, and small business leaders needs to engrave this mantra into their minds; if everything is important, then nothing is important! With limited personnel and so many things to accomplish such as developing your product or technology, getting approval to sell or promote your goods, developing your marketing plan, establishing your sales channel, building inventory along with executing the business plan can be outright over whelming to so few employees.

Right from the get-go, it’s important to think of this costly endeavor as a journey and not a sprint. A powerful best practice to help keep this reality in focus is to ask the following question each morning and each night and that is. What is the single most important task, or long-lead item I need to accomplish “today”, in order to make the day a success? I respect distractions are all too common place in small businesses from responding to emails, calling suppliers, updating specifications, establishing infrastructure procedures and processes, training personnel to of course paying the bills. Welcome to leadership 101, and be advised that effective leadership shares the overarching company vision, along with a realistic executable plan. In short, plan the work and work the plan.

Think 1 to 3.

Focus and accomplishment to essential tasks is elemental for success. In efforts to keep both leadership and staff focused, whether that means a workplace of one or more. I strongly recommend the concept of drafting a straw man of the few “must-have” critical goals which cannot exceed three. Physiologically, long lists are intimidating and demoralizing, whereas, challenges to accomplishment 1 to 3 goals at a time have high attainment results. More specifically, research suggests that 1 to 3 goals can be achieved with excellence, whereas when an individual is challenged with 4 or more, the result is the attainment of less than 3 goals with adequacy. The simple truth is that more is not better, and goal accomplishment with excellence comes from an absolute focus of one task at a time. Further, long lists and lack of accomplishment wears heavy at the end of a long day, and sends an unconstructive subliminal message that inadequate progress is being made.

Instead, focusing on 1 to 3 goals is not only palatable, but can also be spelled out on a white board and hung on the break room refrigerator. Additionally, as each goal is accomplished, the team should celebrate by ringing a bell or going out for happy-hour at the end of the day. Further, as the goals are updated, maintaining a running list of these accomplishments provides for a living history of the many growing accomplishments and meaningful milestones of success along the journey. Moreover, this running list of accomplishments when visibly displayed is in and by itself a powerful motivating reminder that success is achievable one win at a time.

Think narrowly.

Any start-up or entrepreneur has already made the single most important decision of their careers, and that is to step outside the norm and take a chance on something greater. Now that that decision has been made and committed too, don’t think too grandiose. Instead, think bare bones, and as narrowly as humanly possible. The fastest path between two points is a straight line. For a start-up, that line has three key points of intersection and they are; one – develop your product or technology, two – establish a stable manufacturing capacity and supply chain, and three – create a sales outlet to generate revenue. Is a marketing plan important? Yes. Is high yield important? Yes. Are promotional materials important? Yes. However, nothing is more important than having a product or service with the ability to make it and sell it. Larger portfolios and fancy promotions can follow, but get the basics in place at the very beginning or in other words, secure the foundation.

While this logic may seem naturally intuitive to most, it’s not. Leaders who start small companies have big visions and entrepreneurs can become too fixated on their invention and business essentials are often seemingly lost. By calibrating on the three most important legs of your company’s stool which are product, manufacture and sales, if further helps define those 1 to 3 goals and long lead critical items of concern.

Celebrate small wins.

It’s far too easy to think about the end game particularly when cash flow is necessary to ultimately keep the doors open and put food on the shelves. Yes, cash flow is king and every start-up wants to achieve greatness or hit a sizable IPO, initial public offering sooner than later. However, while being fixated on that big pay day is tantalizing, don’t forget about employee morale even if the company complement is one. When people feel valued, they will literally move mountains by working countless hours and making enormous personnel sacrifices. Therefore, don’t overlook or under estimate small wins. Employee morale is fragile, and it’s very easy to get down and second guess decisions such as signing on with a start-up. Matter of fact, it takes great perseverance and grit to create a business from nothing more than a concept. In addition to having perseverance, remember to celebrate every success and small win along the journey. I’m not talking about a significant investment, but something as simple as a Friday afternoon pizza party. With this emotionally intelligent mindset, you can collectively celebrate the milestone, take a simple, yet important moment to recognize the accomplishment, and it reinforces the essence of team and team success. Always remember, that businesses are only as great as their employees.

The critically of focus while important for any sized company is only exacerbated for early stage start-ups due to their lack of profitability. With that being said, it’s essential to remain committed to the original business charter and to remain steadfast in pursuit of your dream. However, a vision without a plan is nothing more than a dream. Therefore, in efforts to help ensure your dreams materialize, adhere to the strategically important few initiatives through narrow focus, bite-sized goals and celebrating the small wins along the path to success.

 

Author of “Mantra Design” Dana A. Oliver is the Senior Director of Research & Development at Medtronic. He has helped grow Medtronic’s Surgical Technologies ENT/NT division from $100 million to approximately $2 billion in annual revenues over fourteen years. With 30 years of experience and an impressive track record of revenue generation, he has applied for over 30 patent applications and has been granted over 20 US patents to date.

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Comparing Apples With Apples

by Cian McLoughlin, author of “Rebirth of the Salesman“

After the home page statistically ‘the about us’ section of your website receives by far the most traffic. Why is this the case? Because, despite what you may think to the contrary, people don’t care all that much about your product or service. There I’ve said it!

All those features and functions, bells and whistles that you have lovingly created and perfected, those gorgeous PowerPoint slides, glossy brochures and slick sales presentations. People just don’t care that much.

They care about you, your team, what makes you tick. Subconsciously your customers are actually wondering “What will these people be like to work with?”…..“Are they passionate about what they do?”

Too often in business we focus on what we want our customers to do:

• I want them to click here on my website
• I’d like them to watch this video
• I hope they sign up to my newsletter or download my brochure

Instead we should focus more of our energies on what they are thinking and feeling:

• Are you telling me the truth or just trying to sell me something?
• How will you surprise or delight me?
• What is it about your product or service that’s different, unique, compelling? Why do you deserve my time, attention and wallet share?
• Why should I care?

Make no mistake, when a customer decides to buy your product or service, they are often buying you, your team, your culture, the vision you share and the story you’re telling through your business.

So ask yourself, what are you really putting out there, how are you telling your story and sharing your vision? In today’s information overloaded market place, creating cut through requires honesty, authenticity and a singularity of purpose.

Without it, customers are just comparing apples with apples.

 

Author of the recently released book “Rebirth of the Salesman” and recently selected in the list of the Top 50 Sales Blogs in the world for the second year running by TSW magazine, Cian McLoughlin is a passionate proponent of an ethical, honest and authentic approach to sales. His company Trinity Perspectives is committed to helping sales organisation unlock the latent potential of their customer’s insights.

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Internet Services That Are Taking The Internet By Fiber

Technology has improved our living conditions in many ways. In fact, it has reduced the distance between two points on the earth and even extended our possibilities to Space. This is an era when people are thinking of getting settled on the Moon or Mars to stay above everything and everyone! It has also been crucial in providing us some life-saving methods such as organ transplants and cancer treatments. Computers and the Internet are technologies that have helped us simplify our work and also have contributed greatly towards the other developments too. So anything that enhances the experience of the Internet has to be considered equally important. Passing through the different difficult phases of the Internet, where the connection was through the telephone cable and then through the television cable. Though the television cable is still being used popularly as a cheap medium to provide high-speed internet connection, with fiber optic cables, the scenario has totally changed. Fiber optics has become a better option which is quite feasible too to provide reliable internet connections to commercial and residential users.

Though it was initially popular only among the large organizations and multinational IT companies, start-ups like Bigpipe Internet have made fiber optics more popular among the residential users.

What is fiber optics? How do they better the internet connection?

The idea behind fiber optics was conceived way back in the 1870s or even before that. But the first fiber optics cable was first developed in 1965 by Manfred Borner. Though it was not as developed as it is today, the concept was well received back in the 1960s. Extremely thin strands of plastic or glass wires are packed together in a wire that transmits information faster. One strand of fiber optics wire can contain up to a hundred strands of thin fibers that make them perfectly suited to carry information millions of times more than a normal cable. What it does is that it converts the electric signals to light signals and carries it to longer distances. Since light travels faster, the internet connection based on fiber optics tends to be much faster than the conventional cables. The cable is packed such that none of the data is lost during transmission which ensures a more reliable connection!

These 2 essential features of fiber optics prompted the industrial Internet Service Providers to try out the cables for a better Internet connection and they succeeded. In fact, the response was immense though the expense was also as huge till a few years back. With the advancing technology, researchers were able to create affordable versions of fiber optics which prompted a few start-ups to try them out to solve the existing issues of Internet speed and consistency. High competition and high demand for better speed were the major driving force for these Millennials to adopt better technology to provide a feasible solution.

Over the years, the consumers have also changed. Earlier, only a portion of the society was able to afford and willing to adopt better technologies for a higher cost. Now a better percentage of people can afford the internet services which have become an essential way to communicate, learn and to be entertained. People are no longer dependent on the Television for entertainment, instead, they are looking at online channels that have taken the internet by storm, it is a highly competitive world and the people have no time to wait for their favorite program aired in a particular time on Television. The competition has become so fierce that most of the TV channels are making sure that their programs are available also on the internet in an attempt to retain the viewership.

Another major reason for this inevitable change is the use of internet in the households. Apparently, more and more residential users are now using the internet for playing online games, watching movies, social networking, e-learning, and for communication. All of these require a much faster and reliable connection which the television cables were not able to provide. Moreover, online shopping has caught up among the homemakers such that some don’t even step out of the home for shopping. With the horrible traffic and long lines of the queue at the stores that come along with the conventional shopping, they prefer to stay indoors and get everything delivered home. They now don’t even have to get in and get out of multiple shops to complete their shopping list, instead, they just visit the various online stores which, in fact, give them better discounts and get them delivered at home.

Internet of Things or IoT is another major development that has taken the households by storm. With multiple devices having to share an internet connection, they want a faster and more consistent connection that the fiber optics is able to provide. Ultimately, its demand that drives most of the innovations and here too it has been the main reason for the inevitable change.

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In Business, Knowing Your Customer Is Everything

Although many marketers talk about the value of building a customer-centric business, few spend much time on it. Instead, they are preoccupied with content creation, improving traffic and conversions, and positioning their brand. They are overwhelmed with the urgent and forget the important. It’s urgent to have your marketing processes going at full steam, but it’s important to know who is receiving your marketing messages.

While marketing involves many important functions, becoming a customer-centric business will yield the biggest rewards. If you do the right things for your customers in the right order of importance, your customers will not only buy your products but heartily recommend your business to other people.

What does a customer-centric business look like?

Here is a quick description from the National Business Research Institute  about why Starbucks has a worldwide reputation for enhancing the customer experience:

“Through their success, they changed the mindset of coffee customers worldwide: from a coffee shop being a place to buy a cup of coffee to a place to experience a good cup of coffee.”

3 Ways to Build A Customer-Centric Business.

Here are three ways to know your customers better than you do now to improve their buying experience:

1. Tap into primary sources of information.

When it comes to gathering customer intelligence, directly speaking to buyers can go a long way. A company called Primary Intelligence can provide a Win Loss Analysis and Customer Experience Analysis to gather relevant data from your customers on their needs, wants, desires, and buying experience. These analytical tools can then help you figure out what you need to change to achieve the outcomes you desire.

2. Engage with Customers.

There are two ways to engage with customers: by meeting customers and by connecting with them through gamification. Let’s take a look at both strategies:

Meeting with Customers

Speaking directly with customers will help you get a real-world view of what customers want. While you may have an idea of what customers want based on industry-based research, the real customers you meet might surprise you. Even if the research you have been relying on has been fairly accurate, talking directly with customers may still be able to help you see things with more perspicacity.

How do you speak directly to customers other than interrogating them when they come up to the counter?

Here are five avenues to meet or listen to customers:

1. Go to an industry conference to meet a wide spectrum of customers when they come to your booth.
2. Go to a competitor’s seminar or webinar and listen to what customers have to say. Since it is not your event, you will have much more objectivity in evaluating responses.
3. Arrange an interview with a customer who has had great success with your product or service. Find out how your business helped them solve their pressing problem.
4. Listen in on sales calls made by your sales team. While the main reason management does this is to improve the sales pitch, your intent should not be on how well the sales process goes but to make a list of common objections customers raise.
5. Do a customer survey to understand your customer’s preferences.

Gamification

You can learn about what customer’s like and dislike by using gamification. This is a game-like process of rewarding customers for participating in tasks that you can measure. What offers excite them? How do customer’s respond to different marketing initiatives like special discount days, competitions, giveaways, buy-one-get-one-free, etc.? Using gamification ideas like loyalty points, leaderboards, and virtual currencies, gives you a much better understanding of your customers.

3. Create A New Buyer Persona.

Using a company to help you gather primary source intelligence and taking steps to engage customers will provide a large body of data. This data can be used for creating a buyer persona.

Your buyer persona will help you do the following things:

• Target your ideal customer more accurately
• Engage with your customers more effectively
• Relate to them in a way that appeals to their values

Incidentally, if you already have a buyer persona, create a new one. This new buyer persona will be much more accurate.

The Payoff.

Implementing these three steps will cost time and money, and you might wonder if it’s worth it.

You will derive two powerful benefits:

1. More effective marketing strategies.

You will also have a much better understanding of how to market more effectively:

• Your content across all platforms will be more compelling.
• Your understanding of customer needs will help you improve your sales funnel.
• You will be more equipped to develop a positive brand experience.
• You will be able to stay engaged with people who don’t buy from you immediately.

2. A more successful business.

Your business will flourish in many ways:

• Your company will increase your revenue.
• Your business will be more profitable.
• Your customer satisfaction scores will be higher.
• Your customers will refer family and friends.

Knowledge is power when it comes to knowing your potential customers. It can translate into sales and profits. Instead of following industry standards or working on intuition, you will know for yourself what customers want and be able to restructure your business to provide it for them.

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Streamline Sales Procedures For Efficiency And Better Inventory Control

One of the most important things a retail business should be able to do is to track the movement of goods into and out of inventory. At a glance, you should be able to see how many you’ve sold of each item, and how many are left. From there, you can not only satisfy your curiosity of what’s ringing up at the register. You can also make some very important business decisions.

Of course, it’s impossible to keep a sale-by-sale record like this by using a paper-based system. Even older cash registers won’t give you this level of detail. In an economy that loves to computerize and instantly track almost any kind of activity you want, point of sale software is a very effective way to get a quick profile of what your business is doing. Armed with that information, you’ll easily be able to handle some important decisions.

Keeping Data Secure.

Before you even consider what’s selling and in what quantity, think about security. Your system will handle a lot of transactions (you hope), and with that will come an immense amount of sensitive data.

You will have the credit card numbers, home phone numbers, addresses, and names of your customers. If you offer credit, you will also have social security numbers.

It bears repeating that the effects of a data breach with this information can be devastating. The customers can lose money, sustain credit damage, or even become victims of physical crime. Your business can see its reputation ruined and be out large amounts of money for credit monitoring services for the victims, and you can face civil or even criminal liability.

So before your workers are swiftly scurrying about the store with a tablet, make sure that the entire system is ironclad and up-to-date.

Responding To Big Sellers.

Fast-selling items can make or break your store. If you are able to keep an adequate supply on hand, the customers will continue to pour in. Most likely, they’ll pick up accessory products or other goods while they’re in the store. Then they’ll go out and tell their friends about their positive experience at your establishment, and the snowball will grow.

Of course, the snowball can also run over you if you aren’t prepared. If an item begins selling like the proverbial hotcakes, you need to know it. You need to be able to see that they are rolling out the door quickly, and you need to be able to get more of them into inventory before the shelves go bare. If you miss an opportunity to replenish, you will see disappointed customers walk out the door empty-handed–and they’ll fill those hands with a competitor.

It isn’t just about having more in stock, though. It’s also an issue of purchasing power. If you are seeing big numbers of a product moving, you should be ordering big numbers. Bulk purchase of your inventory will reduce your cost, widening the profit margin on each additional unit you sell.

Responding To Small Sellers.

By the same token, you need to know when an item just isn’t moving. If you’re updating inventory on paper on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, you may not realize just how poorly an item is selling. You’ll continue to fill shelf space with a low-volume item, generating a big opportunity cost in terms of better-selling items that could have been in that space instead.

Keep in mind that the stagnation of a single product does more than just sacrifice revenue potential from that particular rack or endcap. Shoppers who come in and wander past lots of retail space filled with things they just don’t want are unlikely not only to buy anything, but also to return later in hopes of a better selection. That can generate a negative image with your customers.

You must have the popular, current items in clear view, and save only the lowest-valued space for that occasional customer in search of an obscure item that you still stock.

Maintaining stock is a delicate balancing act. Carry too much inventory and you’re increasing storage costs; too little, and you risk running out. Your strategy for walking this tightrope is up to you, but the only way you’ll make a good decision is with good information.

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Starting A Profitable Recycling Business

by Erich Lawson, online marketing manager at Northern California Compactors, Inc.

Over the past decade, consumers have become more sensitive about their contribution to environmental degradation through waste. As such, a growing number of consumers are turning to products made from recycled or recyclable materials. Such products offer them a way to help conserve the environment. Stringent regulations have also contributed to the drive towards use of recycled products and proper waste management and disposal practice. For the entrepreneur, this is a business opportunity.

The recycling industry has been growing at a considerable pace. A report published by IBIS World Recycling Facilities in 2015 forecasts growth of the recycling facilities industry in coming years. The growth will be primarily fueled by increased consumer awareness on environmental conservation and the introduction and enforcement of regulations that will require manufacturers to use more recycled products.

There’s no better time to set up a recycling business. This article will act as a guide to starting a profitable recycling business.

Why money is in waste.

The drop in commodity prices has triggered increased consumer spending. This in turn means more waste that needs to be disposed of. Most consumers are sitting on waste materials that they have no use for and would willingly give away to free up space. Setting up a recycling business would help get rid of the waste materials and earn you profit.

On the other hand, manufacturers are sourcing for recyclable waste for use in their manufacturing processes. Your business will essentially act as an intermediary between the consumer and the manufacturer. In theory, your business will source waste materials at a cheap price and sell it at a profit to the manufacturers.

However, you’ll need to lay down the foundations if your business is to succeed. Here are the basic things to consider.

What waste materials will you recycle?

The key to running a successful recycling business is finding recyclable materials that are in high supply (consumers) and in high demand (manufacturers). This will ensure that your business stays afloat even when the industry is in a meltdown.

Some of the waste materials to consider include plastics, cardboard, electronics and textiles. Metals are also a great option but usually require high initial investment and are highly regulated.

Financing your startup.

Compared to most industries, setting up a recycling business requires significantly less startup capital. Some of the basic startup costs you’ll need to consider include the following:

• Licenses
• Staff
• Trucks
• Waste-holding facilities
• Equipment

The best places to find financing for a recycling business include the government and environmental agencies. Unlike traditional bank loans, grants and loans from environment-conscious agencies are more flexible and attractive favorable interest rates.

Apart from getting loans and grants, you can also opt to rent or lease equipment such as trash compactors and balers. Some of the businesses offering this service don’t require down-payment which enables you to start your business with little capital.

What is required to start a recycling business?

Before starting your recycling business, you’ll need to consider the following.

Legal requirements.

First, consider the legislations that govern the handling and disposal of waste in your area. There are different laws that cover specific areas such as handling of waste, its transportation and health and safety issues.

You’ll also need to consider other legal issues such as licensing and your preferred business model.

Source of the waste material.

Your business’ success hinges on the availability of waste. At this point, you should consider what type of recyclable waste is readily available within your area. Before setting up shop, you must contact each source and verify their willingness to let you handle and dispose of their waste.

Equipment.

Having the right equipment will allow you to sort, process and transport waste materials efficiently. The type of equipment you invest in will largely be determined by the type of waste you recycle. For example, if your business will focus on recycling cardboard, a cardboard baler will come in handy. The most basic pieces of equipment include a crusher, baler and shredder.

Labor.

Most small recycling businesses start as a man-and-van operation. However, if you’re handling huge volumes of trash, a larger labor force might be necessary.

How will you collect the waste material?

Your business operations will involve collecting waste material, transporting it, sorting and processing it, storing and finally selling it to your clients. Most of these stages will require investing in trucks for transportation.

How you’ll collect the waste materials will largely depend on your agreement with your waste product suppliers. You can opt to collect waste from their premises (best for small areas) or, agree on a centralized point where the waste is deposited for collection.

Who will buy your final product?

At the end of the day, you’ll want to pass on the waste you’ve collected to the buyer. Most recycling businesses start even before knowing who will buy their product. As a result, they end up holding huge volumes of waste for extended periods of time.

Some of the possible buyers for your products include manufacturers, larger recycling businesses and even consumers.

How to make your operation efficient and profitable.

Your goal is to make profits by selling recyclable materials. Some of the easiest ways to maximize on profits include the following.

• Lease or rent equipment rather than buy them
• Opt for automated equipment to cut down on labor needs
• Ensure that you meet legal requirements before starting the business to avoid fines and legal procedures
• Focus on recycling materials that are in constant supply and in high demand

In a time where manufacturers and consumers are shifting focus towards recycled products, starting a recycling business can be a profitable venture. How successful your business becomes depends on how much work you put in to lay its foundations. By following the steps mentioned in this guide, you should be able to start a recycling business that turns a profit from the word go.

 

Erich Lawson works with Northern California Compactors, Inc. as an online marketing manager and writes on a variety of topics related to recycling, including tips and advice on how recycling machines can be used to reduce industrial waste. He loves helping businesses understand how to lower their monthly garbage bills and increase revenue from recycling.

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[Infographic] How Money Moves: The Many Paths Of Currency

The life of money is an interesting and intricate cycle. Currency, whether electronic or physical, is constantly moving throughout our economy, our bank accounts, and our wallets. Everyone participates in this cycle by spending money. Learning about the life cycle of a dollar bill or the 12 Federal Reserve banks in the United States provides an inside look at how currency works.

From the time the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) prints a dollar bill, it remains in circulation for an average of only six years. During that time, however, dollar bills go on a long journey, so it’s no wonder they need to be replaced so often. Despite the billions of Federal Reserve notes in our economy today, digital transactions are extremely prevalent, and most people are more used to swiping plastic than they are to spending physical money. Indeed, although the BEP delivered 6.6 billion paper bills in 2014, many monetary transactions took place electronically, never using physical money from the Federal Reserve.

However, even if you’re using virtual instead of tangible money, you’re still helping money circulate through the national and global economy. Visualizing the life cycle of a virtual dollar might be more difficult, but these digital transactions allow people to spend money in faraway places, to send money online via International Money Transfer, and to keep track of their finances in real time. Learn more about the life cycle of paper money and virtual transactions by checking out this infographic on how money moves!

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Why Web Presence Is A Necessity For Your Business

There is no business or company who doesn’t have a website as it has become the most favourable marketing plan for everyone. Having a website doesn’t mean you will succeed in your business. Your website has to be decent and clean for your customers to navigate through the website easily. But, if your website is not up to the mark, that means having a below par website would just ruin marketing plan. To run a business nowadays, you need to be skilful and have knowledge about your customers.

The way you reach out to your customers through your website is eminent, because technology is moving ahead, so is the customers. To keep up with them, you need to use all the tools you have got and take the advantage of your assets. Then you need to make offerings that can easily attract the customers. Customers like try out new things and explore through different websites to find out the best of the products and services. Your web designer and developer needs to customize your website in way that makes it functional. With the help of good visualization, you can let your customers know that you are here for business.

Balancing your website with a designer and developer.

It is very important to have a professional web designer and a web developer as they both are the backbone to create a great website. Web designers are responsible to make the website look good where a web developer handles the functionality of the website. Web designers have many programs for designing the website. He balances the colour layout of the website with good contrast that can fascinate the dear consumers. Highlighting a website’s elements is the job of a web designer for the consumers to get a very user-friendly experience. Web developers are programmers who take the finished work of the designer and makes the website functioning with various programs like HTML, CSS, coding and CMS. Their work is to make the website responsive to any kind of device with optimal resolution. Your website needs to load fast and needs to be optimized for smart phones and tablets. Your website can be redesigned by your web developer, because he knows how to get the attention of the clients with good use of programming. If your business is small, then you can reach out to some web design agency bangalore to hire programmers for the course of development of your website.

Check before launching your website.

The final verdict has to be made by you. You need to make sure that the website your designer and programmer has presented in front of you, is eye pleasing and operating well or not. Check everything, absolutely everything. Then with the help of a developer from a web design agency bangalore you can approach for social media which has developed briskly in reputation. Although, that the tools are simply reachable and plentiful, proper planning is still needed. The use of social networking websites can improve your marketing labours with your website performing as your main marketing core. Blogs are also a great source of promotion because they upsurge the reputation of the website and let users to comment and update content.

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Can Too Much Bootstrapping Be Bad For Business?

Image credit: Bootstrapping from Shutterstock

by Anand Srinivasan, founder of LeadJoint.com

Looking at the startup scene through the lens of TechCrunch or VentureBeat, one may not be faulted for assuming that securing VC capital is the default way to raise a business. Yet, a study from the Kauffman Foundation reveals that less than 1 percent of startups actually receive VC funding. A major chunk of businesses are built the traditional way – either through capital infused by the founders or through bank loans. Either way, you are not alone if you are bootstrapping your business. You are in the vast majority.

There are a few benefits to bootstrapping your way through your business growth. For one, the business owner continues to own major equity which gives them greater financial leverage and control. Also, by their very nature, bootstrapped businesses are built on sustainable business models. This is so much different from the valuation based strategy played by VC-funded startups that fail to make profits even ten years into the game.

But having said that, operating a bootstrapped business can be extremely difficult, at least in the initial stages. With not enough money to play with, it can be difficult to invest in tools that can help you automate and hasten the growth process. Imagine a startup that builds software applications for medium and large businesses. Building a sales funnel to reach out to this category of decision makers can be an extremely lengthy process. While a VC-funded startup can afford to instantly go with a sales management service for building this funnel, bootstrapped businesses may not always be in a situation to afford this, given that such tools can easily cost several thousand dollars each year. What this means is that a VC funded business can more often than not aim for rapid traction and adoption that may often elude bootstrapped businesses.

This can have a direct impact on the shelf-life of your business. A startup that gains rapid traction and adoption also stands to benefit from early mover advantage. Not only that, when such a business manages to spread its wings across a larger chunk of its demographics, it is less vulnerable to local shocks and uncertainties. Take the example of Uber; a startup that managed to grow rapidly in several cities across the world. Despite suffering setbacks in places like Germany, France and even in many cities within its home turf of United States, the company continues to chug along thanks to its universal spread. On the other hand, a bootstrapped Uber rival with limited operations would not be able to survive a similar ban. This is due to its local nature as well as because of limited funds that do not let it to fight the system legally.

As things stand, there are a number of well-documented risks with accepting outside funds to run a business. This includes loss of operational control and an inability to take your own decisions. But there are advantages too that bootstrapped businesses do not enjoy. The solution to this is to find a reasonable middle-path that will provide businesses with sufficient capital to quicken their traction without losing too much operational control. What are your thoughts?

 

Anand Srinivasan is the founder of LeadJoint.com, an online lead generation tool for digital marketing agencies. He is also a part-time marketing consultant and has previously worked with some of the most promising Indian startups.

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Why Innovation Depends As Much On Personality As Skill

By Merrick Rosenberg, CEO of Take Flight Learning and author of “The Chameleon: Life-Changing Wisdom for Anyone Who has a Personality or Knows Someone Who Does“

Everything we invent begins as an idea. Over time, ideas take form and manifest into reality. But ideas can only advance as quickly as people advance them.

In highly innovative organizations, leaders save good ideas from needless deaths. Leaders put people in the right positions and recognize that, in addition to skills, personality plays a critical role in success. Perceptive leaders tap into each team member’s personality to propel innovation forward.

When a group of people collaborates well, they accelerate collectively. Consider that the world record for the 400-meter dash is 43.18 seconds. For an individual, that is lightning fast. However, the world record for the 400-meter relay is 37.04. That’s more than six seconds faster in a world where winners are measured in hundredths or thousandths of a second.

Amidst continuous cycles of innovation and disruption, leaders can no longer rely on single individuals to reach the finish line ahead of the competition. Instead, they need teams in which individuals play to their natural strengths.

The Four Roles of Innovation.

There are four core personality styles, and they each play a specific role in innovation. I have linked them to four birds to make them easy to remember.

First up are the Eagles. They are direct and results-oriented. In the innovation process, they create big-picture, revolutionary ideas that shift paradigms. After the Eagles generate new ideas, logical and detail-oriented Owls dissect them. They examine ideas from every perspective to make sure they will work. Next, the soft-spoken and methodical Doves establish a plan to bring the ideas into existence. They consider roles and responsibilities, timelines, budgets and more. Finally, ideas need energy and momentum. That’s where the Parrots come in. These individuals are enthusiastic and generate buy-in so that great ideas don’t fail for lack of support.

There are three ways leaders can tap into the four personality styles to fuel innovation:

• Enable team members to utilize their gifts – If Parrots are tasked with organizing the project plan, they may overlook the finer details. Likewise, if Owls are responsible for generating excitement, they may offer clear logic for the new idea, but neglect to inspire enthusiasm.
• Ensure that each person is playing the right role at the right time – While Eagles are generating radically new ideas, they need the freedom to explore all possibilities. If Owls cut the ideas down before they are fully formed, the group won’t innovate.
• Create smooth handoffs at each phase of the innovation process – Just as runners must smoothly pass the baton to the next runner, each person needs to smoothly advance the project to the next person in line. Owls should evaluate Eagle’s ideas only after they are ready to be considered. Doves can only create plans once all of the ideas are carefully analyzed. And Parrots need to promote the ideas when they are ready to be shared.

When forming teams, most leaders assign roles based on skillset and fail to consider personality style. The drama of clashing personality styles can inhibit innovation – even more so than lack of skill.

As a leader, do you include an Eagle in your initial brainstorming process? If not, the Owls may spend their time refining the status quo. Do you include a Parrot in the discussion of how you are going to communicate the new ideas to the organization? If not, the ideas may be communicated in a factual, but uninspiring way. Do you ensure that Owls are present when the ideas need to be vetted? If not, you may move forward without considering the downstream implications. Finally, imagine creating new ideas, thinking them through and generating excitement, but failing to create a solid plan. Doves are equally essential to innovation.

Successful leaders understand that great ideas don’t just work because they’re great. By tapping into the power of personality, leaders can fluidly move ideas through each stage of the innovation process and bring ideas to life.

 

Merrick Rosenberg is the CEO of Take Flight Learning, which he founded in 2012 and co-founder of Team Builders Plus, which he started in 1991. He is the author of “The Chameleon: Life-Changing Wisdom for Anyone Who has a Personality or Knows Someone Who Does“ and co-author of “Taking Flight!: Master the DISC Styles to Transform Your Career, Your Relationships…Your Life“, two books about the DISC personality styles.

 

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How To Create An Effective Tele Sales Team

Telephone sales agents are the backbone of many organisations. These guys cold-call prospective customers to generate leads for the business, as well as handle incoming calls from new and existing customers. They are the first contact for customers, so you need them to be good at their job. Clearly sales agents need to be motivated and well trained, but there are other things you can do to improve results from your telesales people.

Analyse Calls.

It is sensible to monitor calls using Code Software or similar, as this will help you spot if there are any weak links in the team. Call analysis provides lots of useful data for the tracking of agent performance, as well as how long customers are kept waiting and other important metrics.

Mentoring.

Less experienced telesales agents tend to be more effective when they are paired up with a mentor. Working with someone who is a high performer teaches the agent how to handle customer calls more effectively.

More Carrot and Less Stick.

People rarely respond well to endless criticism and no praise. It is important that you spend time improving the performance of under achieving sales agents, but not at the expense of ignoring those people who consistently hit their targets. Be sure to praise your high performers. Make them feel appreciated, as this will encourage them to try even harder.

Don’t Rely on Sales Scripts.

Scripted calls are useful as a guide for standard situations, but there is a danger that the customer will not feel they are getting a personal service. Customers much prefer talking to someone they can relate to. For example, if your customers are mostly older people, hire telesales agents of a similar age. This will improve your results.

Encourage Regular Breaks.

Making endless sales calls can be draining, so encourage staff to take regular breaks. This will help them keep their energy levels and enthusiasm up, which is better for the customers and better for your sales targets.

Make Agent Scorecards Public.

Have an up-to-the-minute sales results board. That way everyone can measure how their performance compares to the other sales agents in the room. This is a powerful tool, as it puts pressure on the low achievers to up their game. Not everyone responds well to this type of pressure, but generally speaking, those that don’t are not in the right job.

Offer Incentives and Prizes.

Material rewards don’t motivate everyone, but offering big prizes such as holidays and cash bonuses is a powerful incentive for sales agents. Long-term prizes will motivate people, but a few surprise rewards thrown into the mix are useful for focusing minds when you need results.

Hire Enough Sales Agents.

Customers forced to wait on hold are not normally very pleased when they finally get through. Try to maintain the right staffing levels in line with call volume, or agent effectiveness levels will be compromised.

By providing the right telesales call centre environment, you will have a lower turnover of staff, and therefore greater productivity as a result.

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Get Your Business Spick And Span And Looking Presentable

When you’re running a business, you need to understand that image is important. People need to view you as a professional and successful brand. And the best way of doing this is to make sure you keep a clean and presentable business.

Use these tips to help you achieve that and get the company up to scratch:

Make Sure You Have Clean Premises.

There is nothing more off-putting than having an untidy business. If you have a dirty store, no one is going to want to go in there. If you have an unclean office, it can affect morale, health and productivity. So, you have to do what you can to make sure you get the place as clean as possible. The way to do this is to make use of commercial cleaning services to really ensure a professional job. This is important because it keeps the business clean, tidy and presentable as often as possible.

Refit.

If you run a retail business, you need to look at how you can make the place look better. It needs to be as tidy and professional as possible. And the way to do that is to make sure you have a refit. This is the best way of ensuring that you make your store look as great as possible. There’s nothing worse than having a store that looks disorganised and untidy. And sometimes the layout of it plays a big role in that. So, take this opportunity to make sure you give the place a full and proper refit. Improve the design and layout and make sure it gets a more contemporary facelift. You might have been looking to do this for a while but not had the chance until now.

Outside is Crucial as Well.

Don’t forget that the outside of the business matters just as much as the inside. You need to understand that it’s important to leave a good first impression before people even get in there. And that’s why particular attention needs to be paid to the external of the property. There are a lot of things you need to get right such as the signage and the cleanliness of the building. Make sure nothing is damaged and that everything looks perfect. You should try hiring some landscapers as well to make sure the exterior has a bit of life and energy. Adding some greenery is the perfect way of making your business more presentable.

Clean Image.

As well as focusing on the physical parts of the business like the premises, you also have to think about reputation and image. Your company projects a certain image to people and this is crucial for how they view you. And this image has also got to be spick, span, and presentable. People will make judgements about you, and your company, based on the image you have. You have to keep the business out of trouble and make sure you always do everything by the book. Presenting yourself in a professional way is important because this is what people look for.

Getting your business looking presentable is extremely important because it makes it more professional. You need to project a positive and clean image to your potential clients. This is key because people will scrutinise so much these days, and a poor reputation can spread like wildfire.

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How To Make Sure Your New Startup Business Is Legal

When you think about starting a new business, you’ll have dozens of things to think about. You might not know it. But, new startup owners seldom consider the legal aspects of their new enterprises. As a result, they could find themselves in legal hot water.

Let’s face it. Entrepreneurs are interested in making money and increasing brand awareness. They don’t wish to get bogged down in paperwork. Still, startups need to ensure they don’t make any problematic legal mistakes. Here is how to make sure your new business is above-board:

Make a legal definition of each person’s role.

Are you starting up a business with one or more people? If so, you need to define each person’s role. And you must do so in writing. But, what is that so important? After all, surely everyone knows what they’re doing anyway, right?

If there is no written definition of each person’s role, problems can ensue at a later stage. For example, let’s say a rift between you and one of your business partners develops. What if you are complaining that you are always doing their share of the work? You might decide they don’t deserve to receive the same level of pay or dividends as you.

Should the issue go to court, you can prove what they were supposed to do. That’s because their role got defined on paper during the startup phase of your business!

Hire a tax attorney.

Running a business usually means you have to hire an accountant. Their job is to take care of your financial affairs. Plus, they must ensure your firm is running in a tax-efficient manner.

What happens if the IRS decide to investigate your tax affairs? Perhaps your accountant did something wrong with your company’s tax return? A tax attorney can ensure that you don’t end up entering a legal minefield.

Choose the right legal entity.

During the startup phase of your business, you will get faced with one question. Should you be self-employed or launch an incorporated company? Both options have their pros and cons.

For instance, staying self-employed means that your tax affairs are simple to manage. Plus, there is less bureaucracy to deal with from the government. But, if you become a company, you’ll pay less tax. And you’re more likely to get lucrative contracts from big clients if you’re incorporated.

I recommend talking things over with a business advisor. They can help you decide which legal entity is right for you and your needs. Don’t just do a quick Google search on the subject. You need to make an informed decision!

Use a standard contract for your clients.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a product or service. It’s important that you have a standard contract you can use with your clients.

Why? The answer is simple: to cover your back from a legal perspective! Contracts define the terms and conditions surrounding the supply of goods and services. They detail your obligations, and the things your clients need to know.

You should talk with a business lawyer to draw up an appropriate contract for your firm. It must also be “watertight” in a court of law.

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Five Legal Tips For Startups

by Matthew Horn, Esq., President and Co-Founder of Legal Services Link

When done properly, launching a startup can be an exciting and fulfilling endeavor. When done improperly, it can be a nightmare. Unfortunately, in an effort to get the business off the ground, many new founders overlook the importance of legally protecting their business and themselves.

Below are five important legal tips for startups:

Tip 1: Incorporate the Company.

Many founders overlook the need to incorporate their company. There are many benefits to incorporation, the most common which include:

1. Personal Asset Protection. Incorporation offers the founders personal asset protection, as it limits their personal liability with respect to business debts and legal obligations to those amounts that the founders have invested in the business.

2. Protecting Your Brand. In most states, a business cannot register or use the same trade name of another business. Therefore, incorporating protects your brand by preventing competitors from using that same name and/or brand. Additionally, adding “Inc.” or “LLC” to your business name can lend your business a sense of additional credibility when dealing with investors, suppliers, and customers.

3. Longevity. With a sole proprietorship, which is the default if incorporation is not pursued, once the owner dies, the company dissolves. Incorporating allows the company to continue existing even if ownership changes.

4. Taxes. Aside from personal asset protection, potential taxes savings are one of the key advantages to incorporating.   You should consult with your accountant in determining which corporate structure is the most advantageous for your business, but generally, there are tax benefits realized when incorporating.

Tip 2: Get an Operating Agreement.

As a startup, it is important to get an operating agreement in place before starting the business. An operating agreement is a written document that outlines the rights, responsibilities, and contributions of the business owners and describes generally how the business will be run. A properly drafted operating agreement negotiated upfront by the owners can save the owners from endless hassle, headache, and expense, and in some cases, can even save the company.

While every operating agreement is different, they should all identify: (1) the percentage of ownership afforded to each owner; (2) how profits and losses will be distributed; (3) who can bind the company; (4) how decisions are made on behalf of the company; (5) what happens upon the death, incompetence, or desire to leave by one of the owners; (6) what happens when an additional owner is added; and (7) how disputes will be resolved concerning the operation of the business.

Tip 3: Prepare Independent Contractor Agreements.

In today’s world, many startups hire independent contractors to help start their business instead of employees. When doing so, it is important to distinguish between hiring someone as an employee or as an independent contractor. With employees, the company has to ensure that it is in compliance with a myriad of labor and employment law issues. In addition to initially creating more costs for the company, employees can also expose the company to liability if someone sues the company for an act performed by the employee in the course of his/her employment.

At the outset, hiring independent contractors is typically less expensive and less burdensome, as none of the issues discussed above apply. That said, when hiring independent contractors, it is important that the company uses them properly and defines the relationship in writing before the work starts. When preparing an independent contractor agreement, there are few key things that should be included:

1. “Work for hire”. In order to own the copyright to any work that an independent contractor does on the company’s behalf, the agreement must specific that it is “work for hire.” Doing this makes the company the “author” for copyright purposes, rather than the contractor. Excluding this from the agreement places the company at risk for not owning the work completed by the contractor.

2. Date of completion and payment terms. Being as detailed as possible in the agreement eliminates confusion as to the responsibilities of both parties. The agreement should be specific on deadlines for completed work, and should include a timeline and terms for when and how the contractor will be paid.

3. “Not an employee.” The agreement should explicitly state that the independent contractor is an independent contractor, not an employee. Related provisions should provide that the contractor must pay their own taxes, obtain their own insurance, and are free to work for others.

Tip 4: Register and Trademark the Company Name and Logo.

A trademark is defined as a word, phrase, logo, or other graphic symbol used by a company to distinguish its product or service from those of others. A word does not have to be unique to receive a trademark. It simply must be identifiable for the purpose in which it is being trademarked. Once a trademark is registered, it prevents others copying the mark.

A trademark can be registered before it is actually being used, and it is beneficial to do this to: 1) prevent someone else from registering the trademark; 2) prevent the company from accidently infringing on another entity’s trademark; and 3) give yourself a stronger position in the event a trademark infringement issue arises.

Tip 5: Hire an Attorney.

Finding and hiring a trusted attorney to help you navigate the tips outlined above and any other legal issues or headaches encountered along the way is a must. Like with most DIY projects, DIY legal work usually results in more trouble and expense than if an expert had just been hired in the first place. Fortunately, there are now resources available like Legal Services Link which makes finding the perfect attorney extremely easy, allowing startups to post short summaries of their legal needs which interested attorneys then apply to satisfy.

 

Matthew Horn, Esq. is the President and Co-Founder of Legal Services Link, a leading online platform connecting those with legal needs with attorneys interested in satisfying those needs — at the click of a button. He holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a JD from The John Marshall Law School.

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Schroders: Leicester City’s Premier League Triumph And Retirement Investment

by Stuart Podmore, Investment Propositions Director at Schroders 

If you thought the most important investment-related news story of 2016 so far was China, Brexit, Donald Trump, the oil price, or politicians’ tax return revelations, you’d have missed a point. It’s Leicester City FC and its first Premier League title.

Loss aversion.

I don’t make this statement to trivialise or belittle either the fortunes of our clients in uncertain markets or the success of a proud football club.

Our clients’ success is ours, given our goals are completely aligned with theirs: the creation of long-term value to assist them in meeting their future financial needs. And the conviction, patience and support shown by football fans could be a timely reminder of core values for struggling investors in tough times.

The reason I believe Leicester City’s story relates so closely to markets and investment is due to the behavioural psychology that those fortunes reveal.

It was Matthew Syed at The Times (The Game, Monday 14 March 2016) who first highlighted this parallel. Leicester City, in trying not to lose the race for the Premier League rather than playing to win it, was facing the challenge of loss aversion.

It’s the equivalent of an investor’s temptation to lock in gains too soon and become overly protective, or the counter-productive desire to avoid losses at all costs without understanding risk as manifested by volatility.

In the case of Leicester City, it has affected those fans cashing out on their start of season bets at 5,000-1. Locking in a gain becomes very tempting when so much is at stake and I don’t blame them for that.

Committing to the cause.

What investors need is assistance to differentiate when they are selling out of conviction, as opposed to the fear of losing a gain, and a reminder of the importance of a long-term financial plan that is a supplement to the CPF.

Loss aversion, first demonstrated by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, is the most pervasive of all behavioural biases, mainly because people have always had a tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains.

For those who insist on trying to time the markets and sell at the first sign of increased volatility, here is the “Schroders 3 Step Journey to Rational Decision Making”:

• Take the Schroders incomeIQ test at http://ift.tt/1qNcxIc. Then use the results to make a (genuine) holistic financial plan.
• Remember that capacity for loss goes far beyond a number and an objective definition.
• “The easiest way to increase happiness is to control your use of time.” (Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2013) Your plan should include activities that can increase your overall life satisfaction – such as holidays, buying the finer things in life, or retiring overseas – and reduce the worry that loss aversion can cause.

Sticking by long-term tactics.

As individuals, we all make choices that sometimes don’t make sense – it’s human nature.

Mix in the fact that we are often over-confident in our own financial acumen (our recent research found that 65% of investors globally are confident in their ability to make sound investment decisions) and we have a potent, destructive force that can de-rail our long-term financial plans.

Our value fund managers frequently talk about their unemotional appraisal of risk and reward, and their conviction in the value style.

Leicester City has demonstrated that it has stuck to its long-term, tactical success with low squad turnover and an absence of fear as it beat loss aversion and emerged victorious in the title chase.

Similarly, Singaporeans should comprehensively plan and implement their independent life-long financial strategies as soon as possible. An early start can help overcome the fear of loss, and give you the confidence to focus on the potential long-term gains. Envision what your ideal retirement lifestyle would be like and implement an investment plan that can help you achieve this objective. This would be in contrast to worrying whether you will have enough for retirement and helps you avoid making rash decisions when facing short-term volatility. The same goal, but with a different psychological approach, can put you on a path to long-term success and can be the crucial difference in creating your desired outcome.

 

Stuart Podmore joined Schroder’s Financial Institutions and Strategic Accounts team in December 2015 as Investment Propositions Director. Prior to joining Schroders, he held positions at JP Morgan as a Fixed Income Client Portfolio Manager serving the EMEA Funds business and Head of UK Strategic Alliances within UK Fund Sales. He is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Charter Holder and holds the Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Society of the UK.

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Give Your Customers An Unforgettable Experience

No matter how innovative your product is or how great your staff are, your business depends on your customers. If you didn’t have any customers, you wouldn’t make any sales. No sales, no revenue, no business. Because the people you sell to are such an important factor, you need to be doing everything you can to make their experience with you a positive one. This comes naturally to some businesses, whereas others need a more proactive approach.

Here, I’ve listed some of the best ways to improve your customer’s experience. Take this advice, and you’ll see the positive effects straight away!

First of all, attentiveness. Although it’s neglected by a lot of businesses, this quality is something your clients will appreciate, and won’t forget. You should be training your staff to treat every customer as an individual, and to make an effort to get familiar with them. Make sure your workers are taking in every little scrap of information about the customer, and applying it to give them a better experience. This is easier to do in customer service environments, but there’s a way to bring it into any business model. Let’s say you were running a restaurant. If someone calls to make a reservation for their kid’s birthday, make sure you know the name of the birthday boy or girl. Have one of the waiters extend your birthday wishes and bring out a complimentary cake. Or, if you notice a regular customer asks for a certain ingredient to be taken out, then make sure all the waiting staff are aware of it. When they don’t have to ask for you to hold the onions anymore, they’re certain to notice and appreciate it.

Recognition is another great way to improve the customer’s experience. You’ve probably been told before that people appreciate it when you remember their name. This is common advice mainly because it’s true! When your staff recognise the customer by name straight away, it’s a small but highly cherished detail. Let’s say you’re running a large office building, with a meeting scheduled later in the day. Make sure the receptionist at the front knows exactly who’s going to be walking in. They’ll then be in a position to make eye contact, smile and say “Good afternoon Mr. Smith.” Knowing who someone is, and making like the entire business is happy to see them, is something no one’s going to forget. This is true for corner shops just as much as it is for large, multi-national corporations. Set the standard high and make sure it stays consistent. Even if it’s the most irritating and rude client in the history of mercantile, make sure they come into your premises and are greeted by a nice warm smile.

So, you’ve set the customer service bar high enough in your building. But what about your website? Company websites have become progressively more important over the past few years, and this isn’t going to change. More and more people are looking to the internet as the first place to find any information on a business. Your site is going to be the first impression you give to your entire target market, so make sure it’s nice and polished! Try to keep the visual design easy to absorb, and don’t oversaturate it with fancy graphics and animations. Make sure the navigation is easy to understand, and that contact info is accessible from any page. The speed of a website is also an important factor to consider. Then most direct fix for this is to splash out on a super-fast server. If this isn’t practical in present circumstances, then try to avoid too many large files on the website. Slow loading times are one of the major reasons websites get a high bounce rate. Finally, make something about it unique. You might want to have add a customer feedback form or client portal to the design.

Finally, be as transparent as possible with your entire customer base. If there’s one thing that will sour the customer’s experience, it’s feeling like they can’t trust the company they’re buying from. If there’s a big slip-up that’s going to affect your customers, then don’t try to hush things up. There may be a leak, which may well spiral into a full-blown scandal. As soon as problems like this arise, tell all the customers that are going to be affected. Follow up with everything about what you’re doing to fix the problem. When a company is seen as honest and open, customer loyalty goes through the roof!  

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4 Startup Lessons I Learned From ‘SimCity’

by Zach Ferres, the CEO of Coplex

Dad always limited my time on video games to two hours a day. Little did he know, all that SimCity would end up being more important than my math homework.

My accounting class in college was so focused on memorizing financial ratios that the actual meaning of them was lost. I don’t remember much of college accounting — but I vividly remember this report I used to get from SimCity as a little dude.

Playing simulation and strategy games like this while growing up taught me a lot about planning and resource management. As a retired gamer and not-so-retired entrepreneur, I wanted to relay some lessons I learned playing SimCity that helped me create a successful startup.

1. Plan for the worst.

Anyone who’s played SimCity knows that sooner or later, shit will hit the fan. No matter how well you build your city, eventually a fire will ravage that dilapidated industrial building or a T. rex will rip through your most prominent residential community. These disasters are out of your control; you just better hope you have a fire station ready to deal with it. Otherwise your city is toast.

This happens to startups all the time. (OK, maybe not the T. rex.) You never know when you’ll find yourself defending against a lawsuit, struggling to replace a key employee, or facing a new competitor. We all hope for success, but that can only be achieved by anticipating failure.

A successful risk management plan should include a good insurance policy, money in the bank for unexpected costs, and a backup plan in case someone quits or a process fails. With these in place, you can bounce back from the expected unexpected.

2. Take debt carefully.

In SimCity, going into debt can effectively kill your municipality, stop you from maintaining it, or even end the game. Experienced players know this is OK as long as you spend your borrowed money on profitable growth initiatives.

Startups can be tempted to take a loan or convertible debt to get over a short-term cash crunch, but this cash comes at a cost. Debt can be a useful tool, but it needs to be used carefully.

Before taking on any loan, make sure putting that money to work will earn you more than the total repayment (including interest). Don’t assume you can pay off the loan early (see #1 above). Calculate this ratio based on the worst-case scenario to make sure you don’t push your company to game over.

3. Build in iterative steps.

It’s tempting to build your SimCity for the end game, especially when you’ve played for a while. You can quickly spend all your money on a high-end commercial district without enough residential and industrial areas to sustain it. The game is designed for iterative growth, so you may have to start with less visually appealing light zones and some of the basics before building denser zones.

Tech startups make this mistake all the time: They start building around the “final masterpiece” and run out of money before shipping a simple (and inexpensive) product to validate the market needs. It’s unreasonable to build an app to handle 100 million users when you don’t even know if 10 will pay for it.

Instead, simplify your business and build iteratively. Create a thin layer of each necessary component and get it in front of a small group of users to test. This allows you to generate revenue while continuing to iterate toward the sustainable end-game product you envision.

4. Work with your competitors.

Of course, no city is an island. One of the easiest ways to grow your SimCity is to connect it to neighboring cities with roads, water, train tracks, or electrical grids. By trading resources or funds between cities, a smaller town can grow to become a large city that helps its neighbors for the good of the community.

Unfortunately, many real cities don’t work this way (look at the problems Detroit and Los Angeles face), and companies sometimes spend more time fighting than collaborating. The book “Tribal Leadership” by Dave Logan and John King covers this important point of competitive rivalries; it’s the difference between a stage 4 and stage 5 company and culture. Successful companies change the game without wasting time scuffling with competitors.

Don’t lose your company’s focus by always trying to beat your rivals. Turn competitors into friends instead of spending time and resources fighting them. Otherwise, another competitor will rise up and serve the customers you’re ignoring by watching each other.

Video games can be powerful tools for teaching entrepreneurship and financial responsibility. Games such as SimCity are excellent simulations that teach strategy and resource management in real-world situations. I’m not much of a gamer these days, but running my company is my real-life version of SimCity. Without the T. rex, of course.

 

Zach Ferres is the CEO of Coplex, a Los Angeles- and Phoenix-based startup studio focused on truly collaborative design and development. Coplex builds startups and digital products using lean and agile techniques. Follow the company on Twitter.

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Tips On Promoting Collaboration In Your Executive Office

 

One of the most important things in any office space is collaboration between employees, which can help to create community in your business. This sense of community that is spurred by this collaboration can help you to grow and expand your business beyond your wildest dreams. Most of the best ideas that you will have as a business will be done in collaborative think tank sessions where everyone has input on what is going on.

The following are a few ways to can promote collaboration in your executive office:

Outsource Your Call Center.

The best way to increase the level of communication and productivity in an office space is by hiring call center services to help out. In some cases, the employees of a business will spend so much time on the phone with employees that they don’t have time to do anything else. By hiring a call center, you will be able to allow the employees you have to converse and work problems out that may be prohibiting them from getting their work done.

Avoid Micromanaging.

One of the first mistakes that many small business owners make when giving employees the opportunity to collaborate is trying to micromanage everything during these sessions. There is no good that can come from this practice and it will only help to destroy any productivity that might have come from the collaboration. The best thing you can do as a business owner is step back and see how the employees handle the task that you have laid out for them. Unless they begin to veer off track or stall out during the process, you should not interfere. If they come to you for help, then it will be alright to give them your opinions on what they have done thus far.

Frequent Meetings.

Another great way to promote collaboration in your executive office is by conducting regular meetings with your employees. These meetings will be the catalyst for the collaboration that you want and you can see how the employees communicate ideas with each other. Usually, the meetings should be about one certain topic to avoid jumping around from subject to subject. If you see that some employees collaborate well together on a certain topic, you should give them a chance to develop their ideas.

By taking the time to do things like hire a call service, you will be able to give yourself and your employees the tools needed to get the job done. Be sure to do a good bit of research before making a decision on the services to employ.

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Does Your Company Need A Service Overhaul? Eight “Red Flags” That Demand Action.

by Joseph Michelli, author of “Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way“

These days providing a great — heck, exceptional — product or service won’t keep customers happy (you can thank the hyper-connected global economy for their fickleness). No, we must also delight customers with an outstanding service experience. Problem is, it’s all too easy to assume they’re delighted while, in reality, they have one foot out the door with an eye trained on one of your many (many) competitors. Is there a way to tell if your company needs a service overhaul… before your customers take their leave?

Signs that you need to pay more attention to the customer experience can be very subtle. In fact, some signs might not initially seem to relate to ‘service’ at all. The good news is, knowing and paying attention to these red flags can help you correct your course while there’s still time to recapture your customers’ loyalty.

Here are eight service-related red flags that require your immediate attention:

Red Flag #1: You’re not asking your customers how they feel.

Directly asking customers what their level of satisfaction is, and why they feel that way, is a simple but crucial component of providing outstanding service. (No, making assumptions about how customers “seem to feel” based on their attitudes, foot traffic, web traffic, or even sales metrics isn’t good enough.)

Even if you’re doing well profitably right now, you lack indicators to tell you if you’ll be dead in the water tomorrow.It’s possible that you’re flatlining and you don’t even know it yet. Consistently harvesting customers’ opinions is the only way to keep your finger on the pulse of their service experience.

Red Flag #2: You aren’t taking a “customer’s-eye view” of the service experience.

Sure, you might be investing plenty of time, money, and energy in making customer service improvements. But if you haven’t taken the time to map and design the service experience from the customer’s perspective, you’ll inevitably do a lot of work that’s irrelevant.

It’s important to take a holistic view of the customer’s journey at all touchpoints, ‘cradle to grave,’ even beyond the transaction. If you don’t, sooner or later, all of your incremental efforts at positive change are going to miss the mark.

Red Flag #3: Your social media strategy is halfhearted (at best) or (worse) nonexistent.

No matter how popular or established your company is, no matter how loyal you think your customers are, you need to establish a social media strategy.

The young market doesn’t look up companies in the yellow pages. Often, they don’t even use email when they need help or want to ask a question. They turn to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But this isn’t just about millennial customers — even baby boomers are deeply interactive online! If you don’t make it easy for customers of all ages to contact and engage with you in the way they prefer, you’re treading on thin ice.

Oh, and this may go without saying, but be sure you also have a working, updated, intuitive website. Preferably one with a blog that regularly pushes out helpful information.

Red Flag #4: You’re not listening to what people are saying about you online.

Maintaining an active, updated social media presence is only half the online equation.

Sooner or later, the voices online are going to turn the market away from you. If you’re not monitoring what people are saying about your company, your competitors, and your industry in general, it’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wondering what went wrong. But be aware: Managing the online chatter doesn’t mean trying to argue with critics; it means really trying to fix problems and turn those critics into advocates.

Red Flag #5: You aren’t transforming prospects into buyers.

If you’re spending plenty of money on marketing to drive traffic but can’t get people to walk in the door, it’s not them — it’s you. Your efforts to serve and engage (potential) customers aren’t working, and it’s high time for an overhaul.

The same thing is true for conversion. Say people are walking in but you are not earning sales in ways that are in keeping with growth. While you may have lovely products and a lovely visual, you’ve not figured out how to help people make the connection to becoming buyers — and that too is a service issue.

Red Flag #6: You take a laissez-faire approach to referrals.

Tracking referral business and rewarding referrals is an important part of providing outstanding post-transaction service. You’ve got to leverage your existing zealots to generate business and to make sure they continue to choose you instead of your competitors. Great service brands teach their staff how to help their customers effectively refer them to other like-minded consumers.

Red Flag #7: You rely too heavily on your Net Promoter Score.

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is great for measuring the strength of your customer relationships right now — but it doesn’t give you the whole picture. A low NPS doesn’t tell you what to fix. A high NPS doesn’t reveal where you have an opportunity to forge an even better connection with customers by satisfying them at even more key moments.

Relying too heavily on your NPS is like hoping to lose weight just by looking at the scale. If you don’t track other metrics like what you’re eating and how much energy you’re using, you won’t know how to affect the scale two weeks later. So be sure you’re also capturing other real-time analytics and leading indicators — like high-value touchpoints, satisfaction ratings, and so forth—that will help you understand where breakdowns are happening and how you can intervene.

Red Flag #8: Your employee turnover exceeds industry standards.

Yes, some employee turnover is healthy. A certain percentage of your population has to move to keep your organization dynamic. And if it’s the “right” people who leave (i.e., low performers), all the better. But if your turnover is approaching or exceeds industry norms, you have cause for concern.

Large pockets of turnover are often reflective of an unhealthy culture — and unhappy, disengaged employees do not provide outstanding service. Plus, during tumultuous turnover, your customers are interacting with a new brand every day. They’re not getting the benefit of seasoned service professionals who have a great deal of corporate knowledge and product knowledge, as well as the type of enthusiasm that becomes infectious in the life of the customer.

There’s one more, not-quite-as-objective litmus test for gauging your customer’s satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty: Do they seem willing to spontaneously sing your praises? If not, their opinion of you is probably “meh”… and “meh” can be deadly.

Can you imagine a customer putting a bumper sticker on their car telling others how much they love your company? If not, that’s a red flag, because these days, Facebook ‘likes’ are the new bumper stickers. If you can’t see your customers being excited enough to publicly say, Yes, this is a brand I’m proud to be associated with, you are missing opportunities to secure satisfaction and emotional engagement.

 

Joseph A. Michelli, PhD, CSP, is an internationally sought-after speaker, organizational consultant, and New York Times number-one best-selling author. He is a globally recognized thought leader in customer experience design. He is author of “Driven to Delight” and “The New Gold Standard“.

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