Five Essential Services for an Expanding Business

April 22, 2013 by 2 Comments

When it comes to expanding a business, there are a number of considerations that need to be addressed. While a small business might not need to have a number of different services, when a business grows, it becomes necessary to have outside assistance step in. Otherwise, too much time is spent on simply managing the business, rather than focusing on allowing the business to grow and making sure that quality standards are maintained.

Five Essential Services For an Expanding Business

Accounting

When a business first begins, it might not be necessary to use accounting services. However, when the business expands, the entire accounting process becomes more difficult to manage. The average business owner is not going to be able to spend time examining the different tax codes and laws in order to make sure the company is remaining compliant. While it might be an additional expense, having an accountant will save a business a great deal of money in the long run.

Export Credit Insurance

Often, businesses that expand find themselves working with international buyers and investors. One of the most powerful tools available to an expanding business is export credit insurance. This allows a company to minimize risks from international investors while also allowing companies to expand, thanks to access to new sources of working capital. Using export credit insurance is one of the most effective ways to make sure that businesses on the verge of expanding are able to continue with their growth.

Marketing

As a business expands, it is important to make sure that marketing keeps pace with the expansion. The more that a business grows, the more focus should be placed on marketing. When a business begins to take off, it’s important to use the momentum to continue with the growth. Marketing is how that momentum is maintained.

Dispute Resolution

Sometimes, when a business expands, problems arise within the supply chain. These problems can lead to work slowdowns or stoppages. When a company expands, it needs to make sure it has some form of dispute resolution in place to allow for any problems arising to be addressed quickly and efficiently. Attempting to resolve disputes too far down the line can lead to a loss of valuable time – and that can cause an expanding business to experience an unwanted expansion slowdown.

Regulatory Oversight

Companies that expand need to make sure the expansion remains within the guidelines that Federal regulators have in place – financial, environmental, and employment. Using a service that can keep track of the regulations the business falls under will save time and effort, not to mention money.

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5 Tips to Grow Your Business

February 21, 2013 by Leave a comment

We work in a small organization and have limited day to day resources, yet the expectation to be profitable, meet all legislative requirements, be good corporate citizens and a good employer is the same on us as it is a large organization. The challenge all aspects of the business with only 30 people and still maintain the day to day operations and find improvements. It’s true that  you can not sacrifice the future for today or else you will be gone tomorrow. So then how do you do this with such limitations?

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  1. Understand the Value Chain. While you may have heard the term value chain and have seen Michael Porter’s diagram and read his works, you must build your own for your business. That is all that is needed for you to not only succeed now but in the future. You will always have the core items but it is the supporting that you need to figure out for your business. HR, Health and Safety, Lean Development, R&D, Environmental. Some of these apply and others may not to your business, but you need to know what areas are vital to your company’s life.
  2. Do a SWOT analysis. Look at your companies major needs that you cannot do with out on a daily basis. Overlap that with your team’s skills and abilities and then see where there are gaps both on primary and secondary business needs. Then depending on how crucial the gaps you may need to hire, train or possible replace a team member. Create a plan for the areas that are left with GAPS
  3. Build community relationships. In most communities there are lean groups, safety groups, manufacturing groups, etc… These groups are working together to ensure business vitality in their community and are excellent resources that you can utilize for free or maybe a small membership cost. While they cannot solve all of your gaps they can help on some and help build your knowledge base through their experts and experience that you may lack. In the times where you may be the expert, helping others is a good chance to build business ties that might be helpful in the future.
  4. Outsource some needs. To some outsourcing, contracting or consultants may seem expensive but they actually can help you save and even make money. Consultants come in many forms whether an online program, a local training company or someone that comes on site to handle business needs on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. If you are small to medium size business consultant provide the expertise you are missing while allowing your talented team resources to focus on the business areas that are their strengths and together they best help build your business.
  5. Watch your business performance. It is important to have targets and goals, whether you use a balanced score card, key process indicator spreadsheet, business plan template or whichever method suits your business it is important to monitor the results and ensure you have plans in place to address deviations. The more timely the data the better. Think of it like driving on holidays, if you catch that you made a wrong turn as soon as it happens it is easy to get back on course. However if you did not see you were lost for 30 miles it is a lot harder to find your way back to where you were going.

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Having a successful business is not easy these days and as you grow it gets even harder. It is important to know what activities are required in your value chain both primary and supportive to manage your business properly. As your business expands as you may need to look outside your organization to have the knowledge and skill sets to address all of these areas. To know if you can keep up make sure you are vigilant in knowing that you are on target and knowing your organization. Perhaps the tips we offered can help you stay a step ahead.

Cheers,

Lorne

Filed under Business, Leadership, Strategy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Make a Video Product about Your Site or Business

February 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

A video about your site or your business is a marketing video and should therefore be treated as such. You need to examine what the video is going to offer and what its return on investment is. You also need to examine the negative aspects of the video such as the expense and the damage it may potentially do to your brand. If your video is a good one then the worst thing that could happen is that it is ignored. If your video is bad then the best thing that can happen is for it to be ignored.

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Who will want to watch your video?

Your first task is to figure out who will want to watch your video and why. You must list all of the problems that your video is going to endure and cause, and put this question at the top. This question is the foundation of your video, because if you do not know who is going to watch it, then nobody ever will.

Do not make a video for your own staff

It may appear as if it will help to unify your staff and make them feel more like part of the business, but there are far more productive and efficient ways of doing this. For example, you could have team meetings for an hour every week where staff are allowed to freely express their opinions in an open forum.

Plan the video

Now that you know whom you are creating the video for, and why they are going to watch it, you can start to plan your video. You must first write a plot. It is similar to a script but it simply says what narrative is going to be put across. You need to clarify the aims of your video, and how each section achieves those aims. These points and the plot will make up the structure of your video.

Add in the script

Once you have created your plot you must add in a spoken script and a few actions too. Again your script must work so that it helps the video reach its goal. Each section must achieve every aim with the aid of the spoken script.

Add in actions

These are the stage directions for the actors and any other features of the video, such as props, atmosphere, weather conditions, noises, etc.

Add in the camera placement plan

You must now create a plan for where the cameras will be placed and how each scene will be shot–this is the final stage of your plan.

Hire the right people for the job

Making a good video is not just about pointing a camera at an actor; you need a staff of people who know what they are doing. You need people who can direct actors, light the scene, ensure continuity, etc. You also need people who can act, which may be a problem since your staff are not actors or actresses. Given that this is the case, it is best to have your actors/actresses do very little acting at all. One or two lines should be the maximum for each staff member. You should also not try to force the actors/actresses to emote or produce any acting skill because they are going to fail.

Be honest in your video

People are used to seeing the white teeth and silk ties of corporate videos. Be a little more honest and sincere if you do not want your viewers to see this as just another promotional/marketing video. Have your workers admit that they have to work hard and that it is tiring. Have your staff admit that they are not good actors because they are experts in their field, and acting is not their field. Show your customers that you are just like any other office or company by displaying your good side and your worst side. Show your senior executive opening new offices and shaking hands, and show a senior manager working a late night with piles of paperwork on his/her desk.

Editing

This is where it all comes together. Even a well-produced video is capable of being ruined by the edit. The editor needs to try to keep to the original structure, and unless the editor is a professional one, you should keep any fancy editing techniques away from your video.

Music

The backing music does not have to be fantastic, but you must try to avoid any form of elevator music, because it causes people to recoil. Any music should be played softly during the silent intervals and rarely whilst people are talking. If you are in doubt as to the right music then you should choose something soft and classical.

Author’s bio:

My name is Sonia Jackson. I represent the web-site http://www.dissertation-writing-help.org. We’ll help you to solve all problems with writing different dissertations and research papers in a short time; we’ll answer all your questions and give you useful advice.

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The 5 Powerful Secrets to Developing a Successful Marketing Plan

January 22, 2013 by Leave a comment

From Guest Contributor: Jennie Reedy

5 Marketing

The signs of a high-quality marketing plan are threefold: the decisions that result, the level of business success it produces, and the degree to which the plan is actually followed. The major components of a successful marketing plan are target and product focus, material features, organization, and improvement from input.

Pleasing a clearly defined target audience is key to business success. Targeting every possible audience and vaguely attempting to please all of them will in fact please none of them. For example, an elderly audience is likely to disagree with a teenage audience regarding that which constitutes a fun, recreational evening. Considering the specific, narrowly defined audience and aiming to maximize its customer satisfaction is a superior strategy of marketing.

HandCoinciding with market focus is product focus, for recognizing a particular marketed product helps to define the target audience. For example, a business whose product is alcoholic beverages will do well to avoid children as its marketing target. Similarly, family-oriented restaurants should not advertise fancy, romantic date nights that appeal to young couples. Precisely recognizing a business’ marketed goods significantly assists in guiding a marketing plan in the proper direction.

Tangible and quantifiable aspects of a business plan are essential for success. Setting immeasurable goals such as producing the greatest type of good is far less effective than setting an ascertainable one. Defining a specific number of Facebook “likes” or items sold and striving to reach the number within a given time frame, for example, implements provable material evidence of the success of a marketing plan. While abstract propositions and procedures are necessary, they need hard data to attain their full potential.

Author Bio

Jennie is a marketing consultant, author and blogger.  She recommends 123Postcards for performance-based dentist advertising. To see an example of 123 Postcards direct mail dentist postcard gallery, visit http://www.dentalmarketing.net/dental-postcard-gallery.

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