Seven Things to Know Before Launching a New Business

You have a business idea that you think will catapult you into the club of billionaires. You are eager to start on your own but cannot figure out where to begin. A good news is that the process of setting up a successful business is not difficult. You can divide it into seven easy steps:

• Start out with asking yourself if your idea will make a sound business in the long run. There are many young men and women who wasted their energy and money trying to base businesses on passing fads.
• Educate yourself by working in the industry of your choice. It will give you a feel for your business, even if you work part time.
• Write down your business plan. Do not listen to those who say you do not need one. Putting things down on paper validates your idea and helps you secure the money you will eventually need.
• Speak to professors, accountants, attorneys, and bankers. Surround yourself with a board of advisers who will attack your idea from every angle. If the idea survives their onslaught, it is worth pursuing.
• Hire an accountant. It may seem counterintuitive to let an accountant work for you before you have made your first dollar, but it will pay you off big in the long run. An accountant can help you understand the ins and out of local, state, and federal taxes.
• Learn about marketing. Sales are vital if you want to stay in the business for long. There has to be a way to earn. Figure it out before you start.
• Know your customers. Your clients may be 15-year-old hipsters, or baby boomers, or anywhere in between. It pays to know your customers and learn about their spending potential. Failing here will be equal to digging a tomb for your unborn business.

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How Business Blogs can help you Engage with your Customers

Even though the heydays of blogging are behind us, businesses still have a lot to gain from publishing regularly on their websites or blogs. Here are the top tree reasons businesses should blog:

Blogs Drive Traffic to Your Website

There are several ways to bring more people to your website. You can pay an exorbitant amount on email lists, you can purchase ads on search engines, or you can use any of the black hat (illegal) techniques. They may bring results in the short run, but you risk getting banned on Google and spoiling your brand’s reputation. Regular blogging is a safer and long-term way to direct traffic to your website. And it blogging does not go against social media. You can write posts and later share them on Facebook, Google Plus, and other social media platforms.

Blogs Build Authority

A common thread uniting the best blogs is that they are informative. They answer questions, at least the common ones, that leads and customers have. If you are blogging regularly and create content that your leads and customers have helpful, you will build an authority in your market and this will show up in your sales reports. Even slightly informative blogs can go a long way in making your an authority in the eyes of potential and existing customers.

Blogs are a Long-term Strategy

Create a blog today and it will continue to drive traffic for years - as long as your blog is alive and functioning. This is in stark contrast to social media posts where immediately matters. Businesses can use blogs as a long-term traffic strategy.

Authority and long-term traffic are the main reasons every business should have a blog. 

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Importance of Cultivating Customer Relationships

“The customer is always right.” has become the slogan of salespeople in industries as varied as newspaper selling and billion-dollar military contracts.

Customer first policy has many benefits. A happy customer is more than a generous patron. They are more likely to recommend your business to their friends, relatives and acquaintances and keep on giving your their business for years.

Unsurprisingly a new generation of marketeers is investing in everything they can get their hands on; from the flashiest customer relationship management (CRM) tools to trying out new philosophies that stress on development personal relationships with clients.

Happy Customers are Returning Customers

Lee Hnetinka is the CEO and co-founder of WunWun, a ABC company. On the relationships between customers and a company, he says they are huge. Happy, satisfied customers are more likely to refer your business to their colleagues and friends. Businesses serious about customer relationships should invest in a great CRM strategy because clients who are happy with your services or products are more likely to give your positive reviews and be loyal to your brand.

Set Realistic Expectations

There is not a worse crime than disappointing customers. Somes salespeople bite more than they can chew, fearing that they will sound lame if they were to under-promise. On this, the CEO and co-founder Placemeter Alexandre Winter has this to say: It is better to promise less and deliver more than the other way around because setting wild, unrealistic expectations is a sure recipe for disaster.

Connectors Wanted

Start a deal by asking yourself this: “What is it that I can do for this person?” This is the mantra of CEO and co-founder Allyson Downey of weeSpringco. He says that this kind of thinking will establish connections which will pay dividends for decades.

From putting a lid on wild expectations to connecting, successful entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to cultivate relationships because happy customers are returning customers.

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Importance of Social Media to Enhance your Audience

While some entrepreneurs are hailing social media as the next big thing, others are still sitting on the fence and waiting for this fad to pass by. A third category wants to take a practical advantage of this medium while they can.

A Hubspot report claims 92 percent marketeers confessed in 2014 that social media was vital for their business. Four out of five indicated they would increase the efforts they put into social media to increase traffic to their websites. And nearly everyone of them, 97 percent to be exact, was participating in social media.

It is high time, if you have not done it yet, to join social media to enhance your audience. Here are three reasons social media is so important for your marketing efforts:

Brand recognition

Every post, message, and blog increases the visibility of your brand. Social media channels are radio and TV of 21st century which, if utilized well, can make it easier for customers to find you and for you to find new customers. A reader stumbling into your tweet may learn about your business, and who knows, turn into a customer.

Brand loyalty

A study by researchers in Texas Tech University shows that brands engaging in social media enjoy higher levels of customer loyalty. The conclusion of the report reads that companies that engage with their customers on social media enjoy stronger relationships. A second story from Convince and Convert finds that 53 percent Americans following brands on social media are more loyal.

Conversion opportunities

Every interaction with readers and viewers on social media is also a conversion opportunity. An athlete learning about your supplements for the first time may order it right then. A reader going through your book review may come to your website to purchase the book.

Increased brand recognition, loyalty, and more conversion opportunities are three reasons to interact with your audience on social media.  

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10 Top-Notch Time Tracking Tools for Your Business

As businesses are getting more diverse and complex, their needs are increasing. There has always been need of a solution that could help the businesses track project management processes, send structured reports to clients, project costs, invoice the clients, and do all the tracking of its employees; and this solution has been identified in the form of time tracking software programs. These time tracking solutions have become pivotal for companies looking for growth and optimum utilization of resources. The software can help project managers, developers, designers and many others in the company to invoice their clients more easily and transparently. That is why we bring you a list of 10 top-notch time tracking software solutions for your business.

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