Tip # 1: Monitor Expenses Regularly

A business with a positive cash flow has more money coming in than going out. Although profits are essential for your business, you should also keep an eye on how your cash is being spent.

The solution is to manage your expenses daily to avoid being shocked when you discover your charges exceeded your income at the end of the month.

Keeping track of your business costs will also enable you to see where your money is going. This can serve as your benchmark for determining whether or not you are on target.

Monitoring your spending lets you keep costs down, track what you spend, and identify your spending habits. If you look at these numbers daily, you can figure out how your budget is doing. Knowing how your money is spent will help you determine where you are overspending and make adjustments.

Ecommerce Expense Tracking Made Easy

Use software to simplify your transactions. QuickBooks allows you to track business transactions. QuickBooks Online also allows you to connect your bank accounts and credit cards. Through this feature, you can classify and add transactions, such as payments and deposits, so you will never miss a transaction.

Take Care of Your Bills

Avoid paying fees and damaging your credit score by paying your bills on time. Keep track of your outstanding bills in one place to stay organized for future payments.

Organize your bills in folders according to their due dates. In this way, your statements are not overlooked and mixed up with other documents.

Electronic Bills

Organize electronic bills into digital folders by month and year, then categorize by type of bill. Create an electronic file for utilities and business credit cards. Make sure to review your account for any discrepancies before making a payment.

After making your payment, save a copy or screenshot of your payment receipt in your digital folder. You might need this in the future for filling a dispute or for tax purposes.

Spend 30 minutes each week organizing your business bills. It will give you a better insight into your finances.

Use Online Bill Pay for Your Payments

It takes 7-10 business days for checks to arrive and be posted by mail. Additionally, there is a possibility of losing email. Online bill pay makes paying monthly bills a breeze. You can even set up recurring payments so that they go out on the date you specify each month. The best part is that most banks don’t charge for this service!

The advantage of electronic payments is that you can eliminate unnecessary paperwork and take payments directly from your business account. During your weekly bill inventory, verify that automated payments have been made, confirm that your balance is adequate, and record your payment confirmation numbers.

Tip # 2: Pay Yourself

As an e-commerce business owner, it’s tempting to put everything into the business. A little cash upfront is always good for a company, which is why many entrepreneurs hesitate to pay themselves.

Even if you’re starting and relying on your savings, paying yourself right from the start provides advantages you don’t want to miss. There are also tax advantages to paying yourself. Find out if you are eligible for any benefits by consulting your accountant.

It feels rewarding to be paid for your work, regardless of the amount. Set yourself a modest but consistent salary in the early stages of your e-commerce business. If you do, you could save money for personal use and a future business venture.

Tip # 3: Separate Personal and Business Finances

E-commerce business owners should keep separate records of their personal and business finances. Under the law, your business is a separate entity, and there are several risks you may encounter by intertwining your finances. Separating your finances helps you maintain accurate bookkeeping and protect your assets.

Bookkeeping

Maintaining an accurate record of your e-commerce business’s financial transactions is crucial for tax purposes. Ensure your business finances are in order and that your personal expenses are not included in your business books.

Business owners could sometimes charge company expenses from personal accounts while others use their business accounts to pay for personal expenses. With many transactions intertwined on your account, it will be tough to evaluate your company’s profits and expenditures.

Keeping business expenses separate is also beneficial because basic business expenses are eligible for tax deductions. Combining personal and business expenses may result in missed tax deduction opportunities due to erroneous records.

Protect Your Finances

Having personal – and business-related finances mixed up can lead to financial losses. If someone sues your business, then anything you have under your name is at risk. Keeping a separate record of your business’s finances will help you protect your personal assets.

Set up separate accounts for your e-commerce business. Conduct transactions through your business account. Use one account for payments, purchases, and transfers from customers. By segregating your expenses, you will be able to manage them better.

Tip # 4: Take Control of Your Marketing Strategies

Businesses depend on marketing to maintain lasting and ongoing relationships with their customers. It is also time-consuming and expensive. It would be best if you directly influenced your business’ marketing efforts. It is the heart of your business, and you need to know what you hope to accomplish through it.

You do not need to do all the marketing yourself, but you should know the key indicators of success when marketing your e-commerce business. Here are a few tips to reduce marketing costs.

Focus Only on Highly Successful Strategies

Businesses could spend so much money on marketing, but is it working? Check your results and find out which marketing channels are generating the most sales for your business.

Don’t waste money on a marketing channel that isn’t bringing you good results. If you are spending too much on Google Ads, yet your data suggests you get the most prospects from social media campaigns, your efforts should be focused on boosting your social media strategy.

Make Word-of-Mouth Marketing Work for You

A word-of-mouth marketing strategy is encouraging delighted customers to spread the word about your business. The primary purpose of word of mouth marketing is to ensure that you resolve your customer’s problems and make them so happy that they will recommend your products or services to their friends, family, and colleagues.

Increase the effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing by asking your customers to recommend your business to their friends and family. Clients are more likely to be confident in your company if it was recommended by someone they know and trust.

A good strategy is to ask previous customers to share your content on social media. To encourage more people to promote your business, offer free products or promotional gift certificates that can be redeemed at your online store.

Boost Social Proof With Affiliate Marketing

Social proof boosts a company’s credibility because customers are the primary source of evidence. As traditional advertising is declining in popularity, social proof is becoming more powerful at influencing customers’ purchase decisions and making them feel more confident about their choices.

Leverage the power of social proof along with affiliate marketing to generate more testimonials for your business. Develop an affiliate marketing program for your customers and other influencers who have the same audience as your business. Motivate people to join the program with an attractive incentive.

You can also use this campaign to generate more social media attention for your brand. Encourage your affiliates to post testimonials regarding your business on social media. Social media mentions will increase your website’s traffic. It will also help you build brand recognition for your company.

Tip # 5: Consider Business Financing

A company’s financial goal is to ensure you have adequate funds to operate and make wise financial decisions. Financial resources should allow short- and long-term investments while preventing cash flow problems.

A significant amount of funding is needed by every business. Short-term loans can cover overhead expenses while your earnings are low, so your company remains financially viable.

Don’t delay seeking a loan until your business is in trouble before applying for it. A common oversight is seeking a business loan when your business is already in financial difficulty. Your chances of receiving financing are lowest at this time. It is advisable to apply for a business loan when your finances are in good shape—this way, the funding from the loan can be used to expand your business.

Evan Bleker is the founder of Etail Express; a company focused on providing excellent bookkeeping services for internet retailers. Evan’s history of starting and running web businesses gives him a unique owner’s perspective when giving top-rate business support services. His experience with starting and running web businesses goes back over two decades and has helped shape him into a strong team leader and internet marketer. Evan is also a skilled investor. In his free time, he manages an investment community focused on helping small retail investors quickly and easily identify high-quality net-net stocks. He’s been published in Forbes, ValueWalk, SeekingAlpha, Nasdaq.com, plus CMC Markets, and recently published Benjamin Graham’s Net-Net Stock Strategy through Harriman-House.

The post 5 Steps To Manage Your E-Commerce Business Finances appeared first on Small Businesses Do It Better.

“The pandemic got us to get creative and make the World’s First spice vending machine to sit outside our spice shop for in person yet contactless shopping, and we’re definitely keeping it.

We were finding that people would come by our spice factory in hopes of shopping in person, or they’d stop to pick up an order in their locker and they’d want to shop a little more.

The vending machine gave them a contactless way to shop, and it also attracted new customers who happened to be walking by our factory.

We are considering making more machines to put in more locations.”

“One change that we made during the Coronavirus pandemic is hiring remote employees. Prior to the pandemic we had a traditional in-person office and we hired people based on their qualifications but also based on their proximity to our office.
Once we were forced to go remote and not be in our physical office, I was counting down the days until we could get back. But after a few months I realized the real potential in having a remote team. I am blessed that my business grew during Coronavirus, so I had to hire many new team members.
Being able to put their physical location out of the way when hiring and expanding the talent pool to literally all states was amazing. I found such amazing candidates and have one of the strongest teams I’ve had in years!”
-Nellie Akalp, www.CorpNet.com

My business, drawing caricatures, has always been face-to-face interactions, often at large trade shows. With the postponement of live trade shows, I pivoted my website to offer a temporary “quickie” sale on cartoon avatars done by photo and also learned at least 10 different platforms over the course of taking on remote gig work.

I was able to offer a spark of fun to Zoom gatherings and other online party platforms and deliver the artwork via Dropbox or Google Drive–and suddenly I found myself in demand, drawing people at their computers in Switzerland, Mumbai, and Bogotá. While time zones made for some odd hours, I was happy to draw at 4 a.m. in order to bring some fun to a cocktail party on the other side of the world.

Colleagues shared tips on software and apps, and I customized a camera setting so guests could see the artwork take shape, just like in the real world, and we partnered with experiential engineers who created immersive party and convention platforms for global companies to hold virtual events. These were all markets I’d never have thought to tap if COVID had not forced fundamental changes to the way I do business.

-Celestia Ward, 2HeadsStudios.com

I own a jewelry business with a brick + mortar store and e-comm. My storefront is tiny so in response to COVID restrictions, I set-up my window display with scannable QR codes to create an outdoor scan to shop “literal window shopping” experience.

The eye-catching store windows drive curious foot traffic to my website. Shoppers use their smartphone camera to scan the QR code next to an item in the window and be led to order that exact item on my website. Scan to Shop facilitates fast and easy impulse shopping through the windows 24/7; a convenient option for shoppers with small children/pets in tow or for after hour browsers.

It’s like discovering the holy grail of retail; and I never would’ve had the idea without the pandemic.

-Alexa Allamano, Foamy Wader

 

The initial COVID shut-downs closed our core business. During this time without events going on we focused on our sitters personal lives and well-being. We sent two surveys out, one to assess their mental health, stress levels, and mindset. Then we sent another to see about their financial stability & challenges.  From sending the surveys we learned more about our sitters and how we can support them outside pay for working events.

We will continue to survey and monitor their growth and have plans on starting a goal program where they can create SMART goals and we can provide resources and support through our network to help them achieve it.

-Hope Oriabure Hunter, Black-Tie Babysitting, Inc.

When COVID hit us & everything started to go online and the physical world got disrupted we were forced to implement some business strategies. The most important strategy was offering free subscriptions for a limited time.  The strategy worked well, and the same was reflected in our website traffic too.
Many organizations also used our free trial service and soon they opted to become  permanent subscribers. We also launched some short and long term packages which further helped our customers to choose accordingly. We are planning to continue this strategy further & improvising it with new ideas like offering discount coupons for the next subscription cycle.
-Daniela Sawyer, FindPeopleFast 

One change we implemented during COVID was to run all of our jewelry shows online instead of in person. In the past we did all our shows in person once a month and they did very well. With COVID, we had to stop those immediately.
Our company started doing live streams through Youtube and Facebook to our local and online customers. These live streams were both educational and commercial in nature and allowed visitors to view our items, buy online and ask questions. We advertised these live streams through emails, our website, and social media. We are now getting about 1000+ viewers watching our show each time.
Not only has it helped to stay connected with our customers, it has generated a ton of sales for our business. It was so successful for us over COVID, that we do it once a month even now through 2021.
-Jeff Moriarty, Moriarty’s Gem Art

What changes did your small business make during COVID?

comment below!

The post Innovative Changes These 7 Small Businesses Made During COVID appeared first on Small Businesses Do It Better.

Digital Eye Strain

When viewing electronic devices, blue light lands before your retina (where you would get the clearest vision) which results in what is now termed digital eye strain. The Vision Council defines digital eye strain as “the physical eye discomfort felt by many individuals after two or more hours in front of a digital screen”.

The symptoms of digital eye strain can be broken down into three causes: proximity of the light source (digital device) to the eye, intensity of light from the source, and frequency and duration of exposure. In considering ways to alleviate symptoms, keeping these causes in mind can guide treatment recommendations.

Circadian Rhythm

Circadian rhythm can be thought of as regulating our sleep – wake cycle. Historically, human exposure to blue light at night was relatively low. Daytime exposure to blue light, would trigger our internal clock to suppress melatonin secretion, keeping us alert and awake. As evening would fall, lack of blue light would allow for secretion of melatonin with subsequent onset of sleep.  However with advancements in technology, our evening exposure to blue light is at levels never before experienced by mankind. Electronic screens on our smartphones, tablets, and computers, as well as LED and CFL light bulbs, all emit blue light affecting ipRGC function, which plays a major role in synchronizing circadian rhythms to the 24-hour light/dark cycle.

Reducing the blue light wavelengths from devices

Glasses are more effective at filtering out blue light than changing the blue light settings on a screen. While the market is saturated with blue light blocking glasses, the majority can be broken down into the two most popular kinds: blue light filters and blue light blocking anti-glare coatings.

Blue light filter

• A filter within the plastic material of the lens that filters out a specific wavelength of blue light.
• These have a slight tint the lens but appears clear to most people.
• They can be worn as-is or you can have an anti-glare coating added to help with clearer vision since you won’t be straining to look through the glare on the lens.

Blue light anti-glare coating

• A modified mirror coating that is designed to increase blue reflections off of the lens to prevent it from entering the eye.
• These appear to have a noticeable purple-bluish reflection on the lens.
• The most common complaint of this coating is that people see the purple/blue lens when looking at you rather than being able to see your eye through the lens. This is most often noticed in photos and on video conference calls.

Extra tip: most light changing photochromic lenses have a blue light filter within them.

For computer use, which is better: a blue light blocking anti-reflective coating or a blue light filter?

A filter is always better because it actually filters. Blue blocking anti-reflective coating/modified mirror causes additional opportunities for the wearer that may be worse than the initial problem.

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Before going further, it is necessary to emphasize two words from this topic that shape the direction of this article -“Important” and “Small Business”.

As mentioned before, there are too many social media platforms today but in this article we’ll focus on the most important ones. Also, please note that the ultimate goal of highlighting the important social media platforms is to help grow a small business (not big ones with a huge budget).

Now let’s get to the real deal.

Facebook

Facebook is arguably the biggest social media platform today. There are over 2.7 billion active users on Facebook every month. Also, more than half of all social network users can be found on Facebook. What’s the point here? Facebook is a perfect place to launch, develop and grow your small business. But you may wonder how. Follow the key steps below to get it done.

Create a Facebook Business Page

The starting point is creating a Facebook page. It is pretty easy to create a Facebook page for your small business. Follow these simple steps to create a perfect Facebook page for your business.

Why do you need to create a Facebook Page for your small business? It helps your business to reach a wider audience and adds to the perceived value of your brand.

Publish Engaging Content

The keyword here is engaging. Posting just any content will not get your business enough attention on Facebook.

As you may know, the Facebook algorithm is limiting the organic reach of link posts or branded content so you can spend money on ads. So, you need to outsmart the algorithm by posting the best engaging Facebook content.

Also, avoid always sharing links to your business website or blog on Facebook. It can turn your audience off. Although, you can do this once in a while.

It is also important to have a social media content calendar so everything is organized.

Run Contest or sweepstake

One of the best ways to drive engagement on your Facebook page is by running sweepstakes or contests.

To run a contest that adds value to your small business, make sure your contest aligns with business goals.

Plan and run your own successful Facebook contest now.

YouTube

Any business that really wants to grow should be active on YouTube. Why? About 5 billion videos are watched on youTube every single day. This is where you should be as a growing business.

Apart from creating branded entertaining videos on YouTube, you could publish informative and educational videos about your products or brand. Then you can embed these YouTube videos on your website instead of uploading them directly. The latter slows down your website.

So, if you are confused about how to start your YouTube for business, you can follow this guide.

Twitter

Twitter is the home of hashtags and the best place to get trending news. Although it is a social media platform, businesses have taken advantage of Twitter to connect with their audience.

Twitter may not have mighty stats like Facebook and YouTube but its Total Number of Monetizable Daily Active Users is 199 Million. This is why you should learn how to position your brand properly on Twitter.

Getting followers on Twitter is not so easy especially if you do not have a budget for ads. However, you can apply some proven methods to get more followers on Twitter organically.

WhatsApp

If you are rendering service or selling a product, you need WhatsApp for Business to develop your small business.

WhatsApp for business is so important to improve communication between you and your potential customers. Moreover, it is easier for potential customers to make an order after building a relationship via WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is an important Social Media App you don’t want to miss out on. Over 69% of internet users communicate on WhatsApp (excluding China) and it is the most popular instant messaging app on mobile.

So, how best can you use WhatsApp for your small business? Consider some helpful tips to grow your business with WhatsApp.

Final Thought

Although there are many more Social media platforms existing today, I’ve narrowed them to the 4 most important platforms that will help your business grow.

Being a small business, it may be really challenging to manage your business on more than these 4 platforms. The big brands can afford to outsource this service to an agency, hence, it is easy for them to be active on almost all social media platforms.

It’s up to you to choose which of these 4 platforms you want to focus on. That choice may depend on your type of business or service. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with being active on all of these 4 platforms.

So, if you are ever in doubt about the most important Social Media platforms to grow your small business, remember; Facebook, YouTube, Twitter & WhatsApp.

Stephen Oyelabi is a full-time online Entrepreneur. He has immersed the last 5 years of his professional career in Digital Marketing with 3 different brands. If he’s not doing SEO, it simply means he’s busy with Football because he’s a die-hard football fan. Stephen is the founder of Soofootball – the most innovative football content platform for football fans around the world.

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You will find some recommended best B2B marketing audiobooks below. These books describe new approaches to understanding, connecting, and motivating shoppers. They’re big, expensive, inefficient beyond budget, and they introduce smart, efficient, and compelling strategies and tactics. Perhaps this is a by-product of the Great Depression of 2008. People have begun to look very carefully at what they can get with $ 1 million or $ 100,000. Executives have started marketing to find ways to squeeze more juice.

Media attention has skyrocketed. You won’t believe the media achievements in the latest channel sharing reports. Digital channels continue to grow, and this data helps support cases and prioritize trafficking efforts.

1. Unleash Potential: A Marketing Manual That Boosts Sales

This book contains 15-chapter that includes structures, question lists, and templates. This will make you want to put down a book and try the recommended tactics.

There are few B2B marketing books on product marketing that clarify the discipline without filling in too many theories or too many worksheets, but this book does a great job explaining it.

2. Challenger Customer: Sell to Hidden Influencers Who Can Increase Your Results

The name of this is a bit misleading. This book is a sequel to the popular and exciting Challenger offering. One of the key statistics they share is that purchase directly affects the number of people involved in decision making. Solutions are generally purchased by groups rather than individuals so that you can oppose the solution provider.

Everyone in B2B sales and marketing is now familiar with the concept of customer-side sampling to help manage orders between the lines. The challenging authors determined that averages of 5.4 people were involved in each B2B sales transaction. So what you need is not just a champion, but a challenging champion who can effectively convince 4.4 other people to buy the solution.

3. Sell to Challenger – Manage Customer Conversations

If anyone’s number one on the list is a Challenger customer, the Challenger sale should be close, too. Challenger Sale’s thinking and vocabulary are already deeply ingrained in selling B2B technology in just eight years. First of all, nobody wants to sell software, but a solution. Nobody pretends to be a provider but a solution provider. Nobody wants to be a salesperson, but now everyone wants to be a trusted advisor.

Challenger Sale loses its classic relationship, especially when selling large and complex business-to-business solutions, according to a detailed survey of thousands of vendors across multiple industries and territories.

Challengers provide customers with unique insights on how they can save or earn, rather than pestering them with endless data and features about your business and products. They tailor the sales message to the specific needs and goals of the customer.

Rather than agree to all customer demands and dissent, this framework encourages challengers to be assertive, decline if necessary, and control sales

What makes a challenger unique can be duplicated and taught to most marketers. Once you understand how to identify a challenger, you can shape your approach and incorporate it across your entire sales force. People who understand the Challenger model and make it work take the right discovery steps, behavior, and characteristics during hiring to increase the team’s productive challengers

4. Never Separate The Difference. Negotiate That Your life Depends on It

Surprisingly, this book and its methodology are very similar to the sales training it offer to new Bright Edge salespeople. Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss’s strategy begins with open-ended questions like “How do I know if you have the ability to meet those hours?” Therefore, he recommends reflecting on the words and actions of others. This book sales consultant explained this tactic 25 years ago when he was a new salesperson.

In fact, most people struck by the frequent sympathy of the economic literature in recent years. Voss combines common sense listening and empathy with labeling the other person’s problem, just as a political candidate tries to label the other person before defining himself. Note that the master Yes and No are the other two Voss originals. He continues the chapter to say “yes,” “double their reality,” and “negotiate hard.”

5. Growth Hacker Marketing: Handbook on The Future of Public Relations, Marketing, and Advertising

If you like short books and quick leads in B2B marketing, this book is only 77 pages long. Of the many hacker-themed books, this is the most focused on marketing. The author, Ryan Holiday, has an interesting experience. He was dropped out of college at age 19 and became vice president of marketing for American Apparel. When he learned about marketing for growth hackers, he quit and became a promotions consultant.

Kept listening to it and began to worry that it would be a game-changing concept that the next wave of high-end marketing and successful managers would pick or go away. It was important in the start-up and software industry that you hired.

Chris is a passionate writer, hungry for new innovation. New trends fill him with tons of enthusiasm to uncover hidden topics. Speakaudible covers a wide range of subjects related to audiobooks. You can check best selling bible audiobooks on Speakaudible.

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Yes, there is a new social media platform in town. Before you get overwhelmed, let me tell you exactly what the Clubhouse app is, and how you can use it for your business like no other social media platform!

What is Clubhouse App?

Clubhouse is an audio-based social media platform. It now has over 1 million users, even though it is still in the beta stage and only available on iOS. (Sorry android users) You need an invitation to get into Clubhouse and that might be another factor that contributes to the exclusivity and all the FOMO (fear of missing out).

Inside the Clubhouse, there are clubs, which are communities based around an interest or topic. The main action takes place inside the rooms. Rooms can be held as part of a club or on its own. They usually have specific topics and through browsing the rooms, you can choose to enter rooms to listen as an audience, or “raise your hand” to participate on stage.

The stage is where the moderators and speakers are. The moderators are the ones that are running the rooms and manage the flow of the room. The speakers are people that have been “pulled onto stage” because they are interested in speaking.

One of the main reasons why Clubhouse has blown up is because it is in real-time and everything is live. It also gives you the opportunity to be inside rooms with huge marketers, influencers and even celebrities, and you can listen to them speak in real-time.

Clubhouse helps remove any barriers and bring people close together. You can truly connect and reach people you never thought possible inside Clubhouse.

How can you use Clubhouse for business?

Clubhouse has been incredible in helping different entrepreneurs and business owners, including myself, show up in front of our ideal audience.

Apart from how close and “real” everything feels, you can use the clubhouse rooms to share your expertise and experiences, give feedback, tips and action steps for those interested in what you have to offer.

Through hearing your voice and your immediate responses, people in the room can feel connected to you. That can lead to them reaching out, checking out your business and even becoming customers or clients. There are endless opportunities in where the relationships can go.

To help you get in front of your ideal audience, here are some key tips I have to help you use Clubhouse for your business.

Tip 1: Optimize your profile on Clubhouse

Your profile is the most important part of your Clubhouse presence. It is where people get to find out more about you and decide whether or not they want to connect with you.

Since Clubhouse is audio-based, your profile is the one thing that represents you.

Your profile is a place where you should showcase your expertise and show off who you are, what you do and why people should follow you.

One thing you can do is to save a few versions of your bio in your notes app and depending on the room you’re joining, you can change up your bio. This can help optimize your conversions and showcase what you offer around the topic of the room.

You should include your face in your profile pic. Try to have a headshot or a clear photo, so people can see your face even just with the small profile pic inside the room.

The first line of your profile will show up in search. Make sure that it includes what you do, your expertise, your niche and any qualifications you might have

Make sure you have connected to Instagram and/or Twitter on your profile so people can message you. Since there’s no chat feature on Clubhouse at the moment, this is important to help people connect with you offline

Tip 2: Engage in Clubhouse rooms

This might sound basic, but engaging in rooms can bring significant visibility and potentially generate leads for your business.

The main way to engage is to raise your hand to indicate that you have something to say, something you’d like to ask or to simply participate in the conversation. This allows the moderator to get you up on the stage so you can speak in front of the room.

This is very powerful to give you visibility in front of tens and hundreds, even thousands of people that are interested in that topic.

When the moderator brings you onto the stage, make sure to introduce yourself but keep it brief. No one is here to listen to your entire sales pitch (unless that’s what the room is for). Highlight a few key points around who you are and what you do.

It’s easy to ramble on when you’re on stage, especially if you’re nervous. Speak clearly and not too fast. Make sure there’s minimal background noise. Try to find a quiet space when you speak and use headphones to avoid any feedback.

Another way to engage in Clubhouse rooms is to do it passively.

When you join in rooms and listen in, you will be surprised who might stumble across your profile. Since people in the room are likely in the same position as you, sitting around and listening, they are probably checking out who else is in the room.

Engage with other people in the room by following those that interest you. If someone has an interesting profile and you want to connect with them, simply follow them on Clubhouse, maybe also follow them on Instagram or Twitter and potentially send them a DM.

Tip 3: Make use of the calendar feature

Although it’s totally fine to join rooms whenever you want, if there’s a room that you are super excited for, or a room that you want to be on the stage and talk in, it is good to join in the conversation when the room opens up.

The calendar feature is able to help you with that. It shows you all the upcoming scheduled rooms that people have created. You can go into the schedule and check out the different topics, descriptions and find the ones that you want to participate in.

When you find an event you want to be a part of, you can add it to your calendar.

Adding to the calendar is my favorite way to remind myself to tune in to the rooms that I think I can contribute in. By adding it into my calendar, I can fit it into my schedule, without distributing my work or other plans.

Once you start following clubs and following different people, you probably get so many notifications about different rooms being scheduled. It will probably become difficult to navigate.

Having the ability to add to a calendar, you can easily commit to those time slots when you need to be available for the rooms and tune out the other rooms that you might not have time for.

Tip 4: Join rooms of all sizes

There are rooms of all sizes on Clubhouse. You will find rooms that have hundreds and even thousands of people, while others might have just a few.

It might be tempting to join the big rooms. After all, that’s where the big conversations are happening, right? Those rooms are definitely great for consuming content, but you might find it difficult to get up on stage since there might be many other people waiting around. Those are also usually rooms that have the Q&A structure, so it might be hard to network and have conversations.

Don’t get me wrong, I have listened in on many incredible conversations in big rooms. When do you get to be in rooms in real-time with huge celebrities, online marketers and people that you follow loyally?

But I have also created many incredible and valuable relationships through smaller rooms, where people can connect and get to know each other. I have hosted many smaller rooms with around 50-100 people and those usually get incredible feedback because of the relationships that are built.

Tip 5: Create your own rooms

Speaking of the small rooms I have created and built relationships in, let’s talk about creating your own rooms. It might be scary at first, but creating your own rooms can be powerful to increase your credibility, authority, followers and turning strangers into connections.

If you are new and not exactly sure what to expect, you can start by creating a closed room with people that you know. Hosting a closed room lets you have a glimpse into what it is like to be a moderator. You can see all the features that will be available to you as a moderator.

Create rooms that would appeal to your ideal audience, so you can give tips and advice, answer questions while sparking interest in driving people to find out more about you.

For example, if you are a health instructor, you can start a room talking about the biggest mistakes people make when trying to switch to a healthier diet. You can also start rooms around the topics of exercise regimes, the benefits of supplements and any topic that could attract people that you are able to help.

When you are running your own room, make sure to introduce the room in the beginning and let people that have popped into your room know about what it is that you offer and what is the topic of discussion. It might take a few minutes for everyone to hop in, so just introduce the room, yourself, the moderators if there are any and make people feel welcomed.

Reset the room every so often. Resetting the room is basically introducing what the room is all about so the newcomers feel welcomes and know what to expect. It is also a good time to take the speakers that have spoken off the stage and pull up people that have raised their hands up onto the stage.

One very important thing you should keep in mind is to keep the room on topic. As a moderator, it is your job to make sure the conversation is staying on topic, or else people might start leaving and not engaging.

Be respectful of people’s time. Not just in what you say inside your room, but try to keep the room going. If someone has asked their questions and maybe babbling on, you can chime in and tell them politely that the next person can have the floor.

Conclusion

Clubhouse is still in Beta but there is already so much hype around it. New features and functions are being rolled out continuously. It is a great opportunity for business owners and entrepreneurs to connect with like-minded people, get in front of your ideal audience and generate leads to your business.

Venese runs an events and marketing company in Tokyo, Japan. She has been an entrepreneur since she was 19, running all kinds of offline and online businesses. She is the host and face behind Your Entrepreneur Resources, where she helps entrepreneurs start, grow and scale their businesses, connecting them with the right mentors, resources and tools. Follow Venese: Clubhouse @venese, Instagram, Facebook Group, YouTube, Podcast

The post 5 Tips to Increase Your Business Visibility Using Clubhouse appeared first on Small Businesses Do It Better.

Many small businesses were extremely ingenious in pivoting their business and this was instrumental in keeping them alive during this tough time. I put out some feelers asking how small businesses had to make changes to stay afloat and how the change affected their business. Hopefully these ideas can help others:

One of the things I’ve done since COVID struck the world is I hired Virtual Assistants to help me with my business. Because people were strictly prohibited from going out during the first few months of lockdown, they had more time in surfing the internet and the impressions on my website have recorded a huge increase! I had to hire additional help from freelancing sites and I found some great talents there who are helping me with my day to day operations.
Never be afraid to open yourself to getting help from others. There are so many experts in these freelancing sites who are only waiting to be discovered.
-Lewis Keegan, SkillScouter.com

One marketing challenge we faced with this pandemic was not being able to sell life insurance face-to-face due to social distancing. We were doing a combination of face-to-face selling and telesales (remote selling). After the pandemic business restrictions were forced on us, we decided to go with 100% telesales. This strategy has proven to be a terrific business move, as it has shortened our sales cycle and allows us to be more profitable. Our clients also love our new system because we can now get the approved easier and is less time.
Every entrepreneur who wants to succeed in business must learn to adapt to the new normal. Adaption may not be easy, but we need to do it to ensure business continuity and profitability. Do your research and do not be afraid to embrace change. You will discover that it will be beneficial in the long run.
-Randy VanderVaate, Funeral Funds

The fitness industry was one of the first industry’s to be hit hard during the start of the pandemic, as thousands of gyms and studios had to close immediately. As the main software provider for these gyms, studios, and fitness businesses needed to act fast to come up with a solution to save our clients, their customers, and our own business. Our team of 14 people worked day and night for two weeks straight, to fully integrate with Zoom just in time for the lockdown to begin in the states, and before our customers in Europe had to shut down completely. With our Zoom integration, our customers worldwide were able to launch online classes from their homes and still be able to connect with their customers and clients. Not only did this help our customers’ businesses avoid full closure, but it also helped them grow their businesses as they were now able to reach new audiences and customers who would not normally be able to attend classes in their physical location.
-Jessica, TeamUp

I have offered my employees regular coaching sessions with experts that would help them remain productive and efficient. I know that COVID has put a lot of pressure on people and I wanted to figure out a way of making things easier for everybody. I know that my business directly depends on my employees so I put all of the efforts into support and empowering them. The results were amazing and almost all of my workers reported feeling much more relaxed once they started with regular coaching sessions. In turn, my business suffered minimally and we were able to keep our performance at a very high level.
-Tom Winter, DevSkiller

We are a small jewelry business that had to close our brick and mortar store during the pandemic. We had to come up with different strategies to keep business going and we did this through digital marketing. Two weeks into the crisis we started doing live streams through Youtube and Facebook.  These live streams were both educational and commercial in nature. These live shows allow visitors to view our items, buy online and ask questions. It is something we had discussed in the past, but never went through with, due to time constraints. We advertised our live streams beforehand through emails, our website, and social media. We are now getting about 1000+ viewers watching our show each time. Not only has it helped to stay connected with our customers, it has generated a ton of sales for our business. It has been so successful that we have continued it, even with our store now being open. It has really helped in terms of revenue with the reduced amount of people coming into our store.
-Jeff Moriarty, Moriarty’s Gem Art

With people shying away from brick and mortar stores, due to the pandemic, our sales have actually increased by 20% compared to pre-COVID numbers. Engagement across our social media handles has also increased by 30-35% during the lockdown. We achieved this by moving to automated organic marketing instead of paid. The best results with no investment of time and resources were through Pinterest. What we did was automate Pinterest (Organic) – We used to post manually on Pinterest every now and then and didn’t attract any customers/visitors to our eCommerce portal. A few months ago, we installed a website plugin to automatically push product’s shoppable posts to Pinterest. The results were unexpected: We now have around 930k monthly Pinterest viewers with 26k followers without spending a penny on Pinterest. We are based in India and offer International shipping. Most of the Pinterest customers are located internationally, primarily within the US, UK and Canada with a sizeable number in the MENA region.
Do not ignore any social media platform, automate the ones using their APIs or SMM tools if you can’t afford manually updating them regularly.
-Akram Tariq Khan, YourLibaas.com

I think staying connected and putting extra emphasis on communication is vital in the current climate of working remotely. As a leader, I’ve been more present and available to my team members. I do daily check-ins with employees to keep them on track but also to listen to any concerns or feedback they might have to offer. It is extremely important to me to keep my team happy, comfortable, and optimistic. We have put trust in our employees to handle the return to the office as they feel it is safe for them to do so. We do have the offices open, but we only offer non mandatory meetings as a team once/twice per month. We get all the team building activities done then and everything else is done over video conferences. The biggest challenge of a remote workplace is the limited ability to collaborate. I recognize that in-person collaboration is always superior, but with technology advancing rapidly we have many tools that help us combat this issue.
-Ashwin, WOW Skin Science

The post How Small Businesses Have Pivoted Because of COVID-19 appeared first on Small Businesses Do It Better.

This becomes a problem for training. Organizations conduct training through training sessions where participants attend the program at the office. Remote workers will find it difficult to attend such training and this can demotivate them. This is why most organizations have implemented remote workplace learning, where employees learn new skills and hone their skills through training sitting at their location without having to move out.

Remote Workplace Learning

Organizations can implement remote workplace learning through online corporate training courses. These courses can be offered online through the company’s own website or through a third party provider. The benefit for the organization is that training modules need to be developed once and any employee in any location can attend the program online. This saves time and money for the organization. Employees benefit since they can take up these programs at their convenient time even from a remote location.

The following are some considerations for organizations that offer online training courses for remote employees.

1. It is important to understand the learning needs of employees. The needs of corporate team members may not be the same as that of remote workers. A standard program should not be offered to everyone; instead it should be customized for their need to ensure effectiveness.
2. The software platform/tool used should be appropriate for the organization’s needs. Not all remote employees are tech-savvy, hence it is important to find a platform that is simple, user friendly, and is easy to learn.
3. Self-paced learning is very important to ensure remote learning. The employees should be able to learn at their convenience. The employees should be allowed to learn at their own pace. This benefits slow learners.
4. The methodology used should ensure effectiveness of training. Some live online sessions can be considered but most of the training should be through video sessions and other multimedia modes. Online forums for discussions, online assessment, and chat sessions with faculty are some of the methods to be used.
5. It is important to involve remote employees in the training and make them interact with other employees. This helps to build a strong bond between employees and makes them feel involved.
6. Feedback needs to be taken from remote learners to understand how effective the learning has been. This will help in making changes/improvements.

Remote workplace learning is a great way to engage with remote workers and make them feel a part of the corporate office. This allows employees to learn at their pace and convenience, which is why organizations across the world are implementing remote learning through online training.

The article has been written by Marilou Alcaide, marketing writer at Coggno Inc. that offers online training courses for employees & students. Creating appealing contents to engage the readers all around the world is the author’s keen desire.

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How video calls represent your business

Whites of eyes and handshakes have suddenly been replaced with awkward waves and calls of “I think you’re on mute!”. It’s no longer just your communication skills and appearance you need to consider when it comes to impressing a new prospect, but ensuring you aren’t about to face any technical issues. Untidy backgrounds and bad signals can undermine all the hard work and preparation you’ve put into your call. You wouldn’t turn up at a client’s office mumbling, with your shirt untucked, after all, would you?!

On the other hand, taking a bit of time to understand your video call platform and some of the ways you can improve sound and video quality can get your meeting off to a great start, and present your company in the best light.

Improving visual quality

A cluttered background with members of your family making the odd cameo appearance is at best, a little unprofessional, and at worst, distracting for others on your call. Our advice would be either to find a quiet and tidy corner of a room that you can dedicate to video calls, or experiment with custom backgrounds.

Platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom allow you to select from a range of backgrounds, or, better still, upload your own custom background. Not only do you not have to worry about any frantic last-minute tidying, it’s also an opportunity to use your branding, and can be a great ice breaker – win, win!

Improving audio quality

“Can you hear me?” and “you need to unmute your microphone” have become the battle cries of 2020 that will go down in history. It’s the challenge that’s levelled the playing field for businesses of all sizes, but luckily there are ways you can improve the sound quality of your video calls. Doing so not only makes you look more capable and in control but ensures you get as much out of your meeting as possible and that no valuable information is missed.

Muting your microphone is important when you aren’t speaking, especially if you’ve got a large number of participants – it eliminates your background noise, as well as that dreaded feedback (just remember to unmute yourself when it’s your turn to speak!). You can even adjust your settings to automatically mute you when joining a call.

To improve your connection, and therefore avoid the break-up of sound mid-call (or worse, being disconnected mid-sentence), consider freeing up some bandwidth. Disconnect some devices from your wi-fi before your call and uninstall any unnecessary apps.

If you’re still struggling, remember you have the option to dial in separately on a landline or mobile too.

Consider Zoom Room installation

Depending on the size of your business and how frequent your video calls are, you might also want to consider Zoom Room installation. A Zoom Room is simply the physical hardware setup that allows companies to schedule and launch Zoom meetings from their conference rooms.

It allows your employees to join your Zoom meetings remotely, the quality of your calls is vastly improved, and it’s much easier to set up and join a meeting in the first place – how many times have you been in a Zoom meeting where every attendant is on time, having encountered no issues?! You can also use Zoom Room apps to share files, websites, and other content during the meeting itself, making the whole experience much more seamless.

It’s something to consider if you see Zoom calls being a big part of your future, or you’re planning to scale up your business.

However far you take things, remote working is set to be a big part of the future, so it makes sense to make the best impression you can by making sure your video calls represent your business in the best way possible.

Sam Dimond is Director of Spotlight Sound, lighting, video and sound specialists, who also provide Zoom installations for companies of all sizes.

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What Can Lead To An Ineffective Logo?

If you’ve utilized one of these options, chances are you have a logo that isn’t working well for your company. Let’s quickly go over why these directions lead to a logo that can hurt a company.

1. Designing it yourself.

Just like owning a piano doesn’t guarantee you can play Mozart, owning Photoshop doesn’t guarantee you are a designer. In fact, if you made your logo in Photoshop, that’s a tell-tale sign that you are DIY-ing something that you should be outsourcing.

Only a small part of designing is knowing the software. When you hire an experienced designer, they bring marketing and branding knowledge to the table. They also know what makes a logo effective. You will receive someone who has spent years honing in on the skill of creating a logo that both looks good and functions properly. A DIY logo rarely hits both the marks. And if it falls short, then it hurts your company.

2. Using an online logo generator.

Online generators take generic images and spits them out for a few bucks. But It’s important to understand that an effective logo is not an arbitrary image simply slapped onto a company. If a logo is worth a thousand words, it needs to be designed in a way to say the right things. Using a random generator will not produce a logo that is custom made for your company, its audience, brand position, or goals. It will not strengthen your company, and you’ll miss out on all that a good logo can bring.

3. Hiring an under-qualified designer.

If you’re outsourcing to a designer, you’re a step in the right direction. But like any trade, there are varying degrees of quality. Most small business owners shy away from investing larger amounts of money into a logo design. This leaves them browsing sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Bidding sites like those result in low-quality designers undercutting each other to win jobs, and they end up doing work for mere dollars. Now, you might strike gold on these sites and receive some good designs. But from most people who use bidding sites, you’ll probably find yourself dissatisfied with the quality of the designs or the communication during the project. The reason excellent designers stay away from sites like those are because they know the value they bring to companies, and they know that their ideal clients aren’t the ones posting jobs on Fiverr. If I bring $10,000 worth of value to a company by designing their identity, then I’m not going to waste my time on a site where people don’t want to pay more than $10.

When starting out a company, bidding sites aren’t the worst, because you might not be able to pour a couple thousand into your logo and identity. Starting a company is a gamble, so you want to lower your financial risk. Utilizing Fiverr isn’t a bad option. But if your company has reached a point where it’s growing, and you want to keep it growing, then rebranding is a requirement. You’ll want to move beyond Fiverr and upgrade to a designer that brings strategy and experience and can provide a logo that strengthens your company, instead of hurting it.

How To Assess Your Logo

So we’ve covered how many small businesses end up having a logo that hurts them. But how do YOU determine the effectiveness of your logo? Here’s three things that can indicated you have a logo that isn’t working for you.

It doesn’t convey positive feelings.

I’m not saying that all logos require a smiley face and a puppy. In this context, positive means constructive. Positive feelings can mean professional, equipped, friendly, inclusive, qualified, dignified, etc. Every company has different positives that they want attached to their brand. Another phrase for positive feelings is “brand position.” If you’ve ever researched marketing, this phrase will have popped up. It’s essential to determine a brand position when you are developing a brand strategy. In summary, a brand position is what you bring to the table. Is it convenience? Is it superiority? What intangible attribute of your company makes you worthy of your consumers resources?

Let’s say you have a coffee shop. Your positives might be: inviting, safe, tasty, casual, or calm. If your logo doesn’t evoke those feelings, then it’s not strengthening your company. A clothing line could want the positives of luxury and confidence. But if its logo isn’t pulling its weight, then it could be saying the wrong things.

Let’s look at an example.
Say there’s a clothing line called Riley’s. They want to position themselves as the new Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein. Their positives are luxury and confidence.

And this is their logo:

It’s safe to say that their logo is falling short of their position. No one would mistake this for the likes of Ralph Lauren. If anything, it says mom and pop consignment store. This logo is saying all the wrong things, and is hurting Riley’s. They will have to work much, much harder to get high-paying consumers into their store.

But what if this was their logo?

It looks more luxurious and more befitting of a high-end clothing line. The bold font and strong icon evokes confidence. This is a logo that aligns with a brand position and works FOR the company, rather than against it. It doesn’t function well as a logo.

 Previously, I had mentioned that designing a logo in Photoshop is a big red flag that you shouldn’t be DIY-ing your logo. This has to do with the functionality of a logo. A properly designed and created logo is scalable. As the primary graphic for a company, a logo goes on almost everything, from business cards to billboards to monogrammed polos. It needs to work on a small and large scale.

If a logo is created in Photoshop it is not scalable. It is only usable at the size it was created. This is because Photoshop is raster-based. It means that Photoshop uses pixels to create an image. If a logo is created at 300 pixels by 300 pixels, if you enlarge to be 3,000 pixels, then it will be low-resolution. That means it will be pixelated and impossible to decipher, because it only had 300 pixels of information.

Any graphic that needs to be scalable is created in Adobe Illustrator. This is because Illustrator is vector-based, meaning it uses mathematical equations to create images. Instead of remembering the location of each pixel, like Photoshop does, it remembers equations. It uses these equations to maintain the quality of an image at any size. So for logos, whether it is 3 inches or 300 feet, it will remain clear and crisp and won’t lose any quality.

That covers the software part of functionality. But on the design side, scalability is one of the most important factors of a logo. Since it will be in a variety of locations at a variety of sizes, it needs to remain readable. Let’s go back to Riley’s.

You can see at a small size, the roses become blobs and the font is too close together to read well. For some companies, a logo most often is used at a large scale, so you’d be more concerned how it reads when it’s big. But for a clothing line, the logo will mostly be used on tags and embroidery. It has to work at a small scale. So this logo works against the company when it comes to function.

With this logo, its legibility remains at a small scale because the letters are all caps and there’s large spacing between all the letters. It will be easy to embroider and will still look nice on tags. It also has a nice icon in the red star, which could be used as a monogram.

Conclusion

If your logo doesn’t function where it needs to, then it’s hurting your company. You don’t want people struggling to read your business cards, or for your logo to be pixelated when it’s put on a company car. Logos are the trickiest design, because so much is required of them. But they also bring the most value to a company, so it’s important to get it right. If your logo doesn’t do its job well, it harms your company and becomes a hurdle to get over. As a small business, you’ll encounter enough hurdles, so don’t let your logo be one!

Madison Carr is a devout believer in the power of effective designs. As a graphic designer and consultant, she works closely with clients to deliver creative solutions that elevate their business. She offers brand development and design, as well as print and web design. Her work and services can be seen at Creative Chameleon Studio.

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