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Business Reports You Need on a Regular Basis

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By Wendy Dessler

Running a business, whether offline or online, can be a lot of work. While many people dream of becoming an entrepreneur or running a business, the chances of success are unfortunately not as high as you might hope. In fact, only around half of all small businesses will survive into their 5th year.

One of the best ways to ensure your business is successful is to make sure you remain in tune with all that is happening. To do this successfully, you will often need to see actual reports that outline your success. Thankfully, technology has made it easier than ever to produce a wide range of reports that you can analyze. These business reports can be quite important to your business for a number of different reasons.

Without any further ado, this article is going to look at a few different reports that your business needs to check out on a regular basis.

Website Analytics Report

With more and more people using the internet to shop or influence purchases, it is important to have a good business website. You should also be monitoring the various different analytics produced by your site. This can give you insights on your customers and the overall success of your business. However, in addition to knowing things like traffic, traffic sources and demographics, there are many more analytics and information that you should familiarize yourself with. For example, you should be sure to frequently check out your logs.

Your website or software will create logs, which are essentially a time-stamped documentation of events. Anything that happens on your site such as successful logins, failed logins, security threats or dozens of other events will be logged. By checking these logs, automatically or manually, you will have a good idea what is going on behind the scenes. If you want to learn more, be sure to check out the advantages of Apache Logging Basics.

A Productivity/Time-Tracking Report

The employees at your company are incredibly important to the success or failure of your business. If they are productive and on-task, you will likely be successful. However, if they are wasting time or generally being unproductive, it can hurt your bottom line. And unfortunately, while the internet has helped businesses in a lot of ways, it can also be a massive distraction for employees.

To ensure everyone is on-task and productive, you should be sure to use a software that can produce a productivity or time-tracking report. These types of reports will be able to tell you what your employees are really doing while they are clocked in at the office. This can help you address potential issues directly and ensure everyone remains productive while at work.

A Variety of Financial Reports

cartoon hands on laptop Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Of course, one of the single biggest indicator of the success of your business is your finances. Not only do you have to be making money, but you also need to ensure you are spending less than you are making, too. Thankfully, there are a variety of different financial reports that can provide you with all of this information and more.

You should be checking sales and revenue reports, expense reports, your balance sheet, your budget and even cash flow statements. Each of these reports can provide you different information about the finances of your business. They can help you notice if anything needs to be changed and can assist in making important business decisions.

 

Featured Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

 

About the Author: Wendy Dessler frequently writes about the latest advancements in tech and digital marketing. She currently focuses on helping SaaS businesses create a better world for our kids.

How to set your pricing strategy

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One of the toughest things you have to do as an entrepreneur is put a price on the product or service you are offering.

But it’s also the step that makes you an actual entrepreneur and not just a hobbyist. Putting a stake in the ground and saying publicly, “my stuff is worth X” makes it all real.

In reality, your stuff is worth what the market is willing to pay you, but you still need to establish the baseline value you place on your own services or products.

And you may need to re-evaluate that price from time to time.

Pricing your services – where to start

If you are a solo entrepreneur, you’re basically selling your own time, which is a finite commodity. Think about how many clients or projects you can physically support at any point in time, and how much you’d have to charge to keep your business going (and keep you fed, clothed, and housed).

Know your costs/expenses – Do you rent office space? Use a virtual assistant? What software and hardware are you using? Do you travel to meet clients? Make sure you have a good handle on your monthly expenses as a baseline for any pricing exercise.

Research the market – Who is your typical customer? How big is your niche? Look for online data that will give you a picture of how big your particular market is, and how big it will be in the next few years. Imagine you’re on Shark Tank and Mr. Wonderful is asking how he’s going to get his money back.

Research your competitors – Look around and try to find out what your competitors are charging for the same service or product. You don’t need to match it, just be aware of it because your potential customers will certainly be aware of market prices. Be aware of who your competitors are, as well. Don’t compare your pricing to the Ferrari if your business is more in the Volvo lane. 

Price evaluation – at least semi-annually

Listen to your prospects, and do some testing – If you consistently get price pushback from prospective customers who you believe are in your target audience, take note. Consider exactly what they’re saying…are they telling you that you haven’t demonstrated your value, or are they saying that your competitor has a drastically lower fee for a similar service?

How are you going to scale – Hopefully your semi-annual evaluation will have to address growth (if you’re being successful). You’ll need to plan for adding partners, consultants, or staff if you’re selling time. You’ll need to ensure that you have developer, creative, or manufacturing capacity if you’re selling a product. Don’t get caught short if you have a sudden surge in demand.

Be willing to pivot – Right from the start, be willing to shift your pricing strategy if necessary. Flexibility in terms of payment options, discounts, invoicing, and terms will mean you can work with a wider variety of customers. You don’t need to be a doormat, but as a small business you have the flexibility to adapt quickly (which is more difficult for your larger competitors).

Price strategy – be confident

Once you’ve established your prices, be confident and unapologetic about them. Yes, you can be flexible on payment terms, but stick to your guns on the actual prices. Don’t be intimidated by customers who ask about special discounts or freebies. Refusing to work for free doesn’t make you a bad friend; it only makes you a good business owner. That applies to major projects as well as “can I pick your brain” meet-ups.

What are your best tips for setting prices?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

 

Featured image via Flickr CC: Dennis Wong

5 Tips for Creating an Unforgettable Name for your Product or Company

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By Mark Skoultchi

In the US alone, 543,000 businesses start up each month. Whether those businesses are large corporations or just one guy selling T-shirts online, they all need a name. Most large companies can afford to hire a professional naming agency, but what about the little guys?

Have no fear!

We believe that everyone, big or small, deserves to have a great name. Let these naming tips serve as a jumping off point for creating a great brand name. And after you feel good about your strategy, you can dive even deeper with our naming guide and other naming resources.

1. Stare at your palm and ask, Who are we?

The first step to any successful naming project is to convene with the key stakeholders of your brand, which could be a product, company, or service. Really think about what makes your brand tick.

What makes you unique? Are you the practical jokers, like Playstation? The sages, like Google? The outlaws, like Xbox?

These are examples of a brand’’s archetype, which, when defined, can help you choose how you will communicate your brand to your audience. This will be the foundation upon which your name will grow.

2. Look up from your palm, and stare down the competition

Explore the competitive landscape to see what sorts of names are out there. Often you will notice that there are identifiable trends.

There are literally hundreds of cloud computing companies whose names include Cloud in some way, like Cloud One, Cloud Web, Cloud Bus, etc. While most brand stakeholders gravitate towards names that sound familiar, this leads them to just regurgitating what’s already out there!

Be brave and go against the grain. Choose a metaphorical name to stand out from a cloud of descriptive names or coined name in a land of real-word names. A great name makes you-you, and not you-them.

3. Now look at who’’s standing with you

You should always think about your customers before embarking on your naming project and remember that there are many customers that you don’t have yet. What language do they speak? What do they enjoy? Who do they love? Your name can address some of these questions.

Clif Bar is a great name for the outdoorsy consumers who buy organic, whereas PowerBar appeals to the consumers who want pure, invigorating energy. Whatever name you choose, make it resonate with your audience.

4. Look over your portfolio or get ready to have one

Brand architecture refers to the way that one company’s products or services are named in relation to each other. Even if you’re naming your first product or service, make sure that you choose a name that can be built upon if needed. Or, if what you’re naming will be part of a line of products that already has a naming protocol, do not stray from it.

Take Lexus’’s alphanumeric car names as an example. The IS, ES, GS, and LS sedans all follow the same naming pattern. Brand architecture allows your customers to easily identify and compare what you have to offer.

5. Now stand up, and take a look outside

Consider in which contexts will you use this name. Are you naming an App for which there is a strict character limit? Will your name be traveling to foreign language speakers where it may encounter unanticipated negative associations?

The name Cosm sounds pretty hip to us English speakers, but in German it sounds very close to kotzen, which means “to vomit”.

Will your customers be spreading your name via word of mouth? If so, it should be pretty intuitive to spell. Also, If you’’re planning on registering a domain for your new name, ensure that it makes sense when spelled out in lowercase letters.

Would you believe that penisland.com used to be an island-themed pen store? Lastly, don’’t get too hung up on getting an exact domain name because these days, you probably won’’t without pretty deep pockets. It’s really not a big deal to add a modifier to your domain name (we did it ourselves).

Ponder these five tips and do the soul searching before you start naming. We promise it will help you arrive at a robust list of names that communicate who you are as a brand. Naming is a long process, but it’s time worth spending because your name is the first thing that your customers will see. It is a vehicle that can drive your customer to images, emotions, and memories. And with some work, you can steer them right where you want.

Author’s Bio: Mark Skoultchi is Principal, Project Lead, and Head of East Coast Operations at Catchword. He is a veteran naming professional with 20 years experience counseling clients in every aspect of product and company name development. As head of Catchword’’s East Coast operations he’s managed projects for Volkswagen, Weight Watchers, McDonald’s, Time Warner Cable, Xerox and many other multinational companies.

Happier Employees Make for Better Results

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Can you say with certainty that you have a bunch of happy employees? What if it is just a few?

Whether the numbers are high, medium or low, happy employees make for a world of difference in the business world.

For those individuals running large companies, there is sometimes a disconnect with the workers. This may not be due to an unpleasant owner, but more so because there are so many employees for one to keep track of.

Meantime, those running smaller operations can have an advantage in that they oftentimes have one-on-one relations with the various employees, especially the managers of different departments.

No matter what your relationship is when it comes to owner-employee, there are a number of ways you can increase the odds of having happy employees, employees who typically will turn out to be more engaged and more productive.

Insurance Brings Peace of Mind

There are various opportunities for medical coverage, wellness, and growing with the business you can offer your employees. They include:

  • Health benefits – Next to one’’s salary, having the proper healthcare coverage in place is likely paramount for the majority of employees. Locating affordable health care plans does not have to be an agonizing chore for you as a business owner. If you don’’t like the one you currently have in place and/or are just interested in seeing what else is out there, you have several roads to travel. While your HR (human resources) head may be tasked with the assignment, you or they can network with other business owners you are friendly with to see who they use. You can also turn to the Internet and use social media and blog posts to learn more about employee health insurers’’ who may be a good fit for your company;
  • Fitness – Going hand-in-hand with health benefits, encourage your employees to stay or get fit. Not only is it for their benefit, but healthy employees are less likely to miss work days or be out of action for an extended period of time. You can offer something as simple as gym memberships to qualified and interested employees (typically after their probationary period is over). Having a solid wellness program in place benefits your employees and your overall business goals;
  • Advancement – Lastly, if you worked at a company that gave you little or no room to grow and advance, would you stay there very long? In most cases, the answer would be no, so make sure your employees have options to move up the corporate ladder no matter what size business you run. Not only is there financial incentive for employees when having the opportunity to move up in the business, but there self-esteem and ability to work better with co-workers and customers will grow too.

When you give your employees the ability to care for themselves and their families, not to mention achieve some personal professional goals, you are more likely to have an overwhelming majority of happy employees.

As a business owner, what makes your employees happy?

About the Author: Adam Griffith writes on different topics for the Internet, among which are business, health and finance.

Are You Successful at Gathering Quality Leads?

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Many businesses focus on gaining new leads. The problem is that they don’t determine the difference between any lead and a quality lead.

A quality lead is anyone that is a good possibility of becoming a sale.

It is essential that businesses find more online leads to increase growth against fierce competition.

Think Long-Term

To build more leads that will turn into customers, you must think past the immediate future to the long-term.

Blogs and social media are two good ways to do this.

While they might not garner you immediate results, you will see the benefits when you do it right.

What this means is putting value in your posts or tweets. Think about what your audience wants to see instead of just posting whatever comes easy.

Quality over Quantity

It’s easy to create a product to add people to a list.

Many marketers think that they more people they get on the list, the more they will sell. They choose a product that everyone wants as part of the freebie without putting thought into whether those same people will invest money and become customers.

Instead of trying to win numerous leads that go nowhere, choose a freebie that complements the product the business sells.

While you may not end up with as many people added to your list, you will have leads that are interested in what your business offers.

Try Something New

Be willing to try a new way to reach people.

If you have been using your blog or white papers, do a video instead.

Make it fun and get people’s attention. You won’t know if it will work until you try it. Don’t let the fact that you have never done a video keep you from moving to a profitable marketing option.

If you can’t get in front of the camera, find someone who will. Take advantage of the latest trends to capture people’s attention.

If something doesn’t generate the results you want, move on to something else. That being said, make sure you give each method enough time.

As the following article looks at, some options generate results quickly while others take longer to increase leads online.

Look to Your Current Customers

Your customers can be the spokespeople for your products. If they like what you have to offer, they can convince their friends.

Give them a reason to promote your business, and you will see results. Since people who are alike tend to spend time together, their friends will be more likely to be interested in your business.

Check out the most effective ways to spread the word.

For instance, a Share button on Facebook can get attention. Encourage others to tweet or retweet. You never know when one lead will generate many other secondary leads.

Generating quality leads online is essential for the survival of any business. Be willing to invest time and thought and be open to change.

When you find the right formula, be dedicated to following it to ensure that you always have new prospects that turn into sales.

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including running a business and marketing.

How To Keep Your People Engaged When Making Changes

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By Lindsey Tolino

When I was in middle school, my best friend moved to another school district. She came to me and explained that she was moving. She said she couldn’t do anything about it and would miss me. I was sad and didn’t like it, but part of me understood because she came to me and explained the situation.

hand writing on chalkboard

Sometimes you have to change things in your business. It can be scary because you don’t want to lose loyal customers or disgruntle employees. Your customers and employees have grown to expect your business to run a certain way and you may fear changing it.

I would have been very disillusioned if I showed up to school one day and my best friend was gone because she moved. I would have been hurt because I thought our relationship meant more to her than that. I would have been angry that she didn’t care or respect me enough to tell me ahead of time.

As humans, we may feel disrespected, disillusioned and angry if someone changes something that we’ve grown to expect, without telling us ahead of time or explaining why.

This is essential to remember when making changes in your business. You don’t want to disgruntle your employees or isolate your customers by executing decisions without communicating with them. Your employees and customers hopefully feel a sense of ownership in the business. If you simply change something without communicating with them, they may become annoyed, frustrated and less invested.

Change is difficult for most people. If you talk about it ahead of time, it gives people time to process and prepare for it. Furthermore, if you discuss the reasons for the change, people are likely to be more understanding, even if they don’t like the change itself.

I grew fond of a counter-service restaurant over the past year. Without warning or explanation, many menu items increased in price by at least a quarter. The restaurant had become wildly popular, so it didn’t seem like the price increase was necessitated because of low sales. As a customer, I felt like they were trying to squeeze every last cent out of me. This may not have been true. But since they didn’t explain the increase, it seemed like it came out of greed.

If the business had simply explained the reason for the increase, my loyalty may have been strengthened rather than shaken.

Unfortunately, even if you let people know your reasons ahead of time, the changes may still isolate customers or upset employees. But discussing it will minimize the discomfort and create a smoother transition. Maybe some of them have even been hoping for the changes you’re making.

If you have changes coming, discuss it with your team and make sure they know the reasons. Talk to your customers. Let them know it’s coming and why.

It shows you respect and care for them. If you share your reasoning, it may even deepen their trust in you.

Don’t drop changes on people. Show them how much you care by discussing it with them ahead of time.

Author’s Bio: Lindsey Tolino is an intentional creative who helps make businesses better. She serves business owners with her words at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino or connect with her on Google+.
Image info: Royalty-free image by Death To the Stock Photo. (deathtothestockphoto.com)