Successful Blog

The Sure Bet: 4 Reasons Putting Profits Back Into Your Business is a Sound Strategy

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By Angela Freeman

The ultimate goal of any company is to generate profits. This leads to an important question: what do those companies do with the profits they create? These 4 reasons should convince you that putting profits back into your company is a sound strategy that will improve your business’s future success.

1. It Gives You the Opportunity to Grow

Your company thrives at what it does right now, but will it continue to thrive in the future?

All companies must grow to experience continued success. When you put profits back into your company, you can use the money to explore new industries or improve on the services and products that you currently offer.

For instance, you could use the money to purchase new lab or tech equipment that will let you conduct more of your own research. That reduces the amount of money that you have to give other companies to conduct research for you. It also gives you more control over the quality of your research.

Both of these advantages will help your company succeed in the future.

2. It Lets You Spend More on Advertising

If your company is earning profits, then you know it has something special to offer clients. Putting money back into the company could help you pay for advertising that lets you reach even more consumers and businesses that want to use your services.

No matter what kind of advertising you choose, it will take a sizable amount of money. Radio, print, and Internet advertising can quickly add up to thousands of dollars.

Spending that money on something intangible might feel like a waste, but it’s the only way to get a bigger segment of your target market. If people don’t know you exist, they can’t choose your services.

3. It Helps Improve Training for Employees

Without properly trained employees, you can forget about continued business success. Every person working for your business plays an important role, so you must place an importance on making sure every person receives good training.

Good training costs money. Depending on your company’s size, you might decide to build your own HR department to handle training, or you might hire an outside contractor to do the training for you. Regardless, you’re going to need to put your profits into the training program.

In the long-run, you’ll see good results, because you won’t have to worry about employees who don’t know how to do their jobs.

4. It Means You Can Avoid the Pitfalls of Debt

Many companies borrow money when they want to expand, investigate new opportunities, or upgrade their training programs. Borrowing money, however, means paying interest. That can weigh your business down for decades.

Even if you get a good interest rate of six percent, which is really quite good, on $100,000 that you pay back within ten years, you still end up paying over $13,000 in interest. You’re better off putting your profits back into the business so you can avoid that extra expense.

What have you done with the profits your company made in recent years? Have you put the money back into your business, or have you made other decisions?

Author’s Bio: Angela is a freelance business, tech and travel writer. When she isn’t writing she is being a science nerd, messing around with her lab equipment, and attempting to bake. Follow her on Twitter @Ang_Freeman3.

How to Develop Your Writing Through Inspirational Self-Critics

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By Leslie Anglesey

All writers have some type of inner editor. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have the discipline necessary to stay on track and on topic to either work for clients or focus on their own projects. At first glance, having this built-in critic might seem like a recipe for squashing creativity, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that will stop a writer in his or her virtual tracks.
Develop your inner critic
At times, self-criticism has been blamed for the famous “writer’s block” but it may not be fair to blame getting stuck on the inner editor.

Many factors can contribute to a creative person having trouble getting into the groove of a project or having trouble getting started.

The issue may be:

  • fatigue
  • boredom
  • stress in another area of the writer’s life
  • creative process the writer needs to go through to get a flash of inspiration hasn’t resulted in an “a-ha” moment yet

While the internal editor can’t be shut off entirely, there are ways to work with it to develop your writing. Keep in mind that it exists for a purpose, and you want to make sure that it doesn’t become so powerful that you are reticent to let anyone see your work.

Use a Diamond Shaped Model When Listening to Your Inner Editor

When you are thinking about how and when you should listen to your inner editor, consider using a diamond-shaped model to keep you on track with your writing projects. It should help you determine how to proceed.

When you are contemplating a project or thinking of making a pitch to an editor, keep your inner editor firmly in the background. This is the narrow part of the diamond shape. Don’t let it get in the way by telling you that you are wasting your time or that you aren’t good enough, so why are you bothering to apply or contact that editor. As a writer, you will get rejected, but you have no chance of getting anywhere if you never make a move toward your goals.

As you land a project and move into the broader part of the diamond shape, you want to start listening to your inner critic more. If you are ever tempted to stop digging in your research or not to go the extra mile because, “It’s probably good enough,” allow this part of your mind to poke or guilt you into giving your work that little bit of extra effort to make it the very best you can produce.

Likewise, don’t let any piece of writing leave your desk until you have taken the time to proofread and edit it carefully. This piece of advice also falls under the category of listening to your inner editor in the middle of a project, whether you are working on something for school or on a professional basis. Good enough simply isn’t good enough. Your inner editor should be on high alert at this stage of the game.

Confidence above All

As you proofread and edit your second draft, you should be able to feel a bit more confident about your work. Using the example of the diamond shape, the editor should once more start to go back toward the background, and you should be able to focus on your voice in your writing when you read the final version of your work. By the time you get to the version you are ready to turn in to your instructor or the client, the internal editor should be firmly in the background, leaving only your voice in place when you read through your work.

Will your work ever be exactly perfect as a writer? There will always be something that you “could” be doing to alter, fix, or tweak a piece of work to make it better, more interesting, or more “something.” There will have to be a point at which you may need to simply tell your inner editor that you have done your best and that it will have to be good enough. That’s all anyone can do, and you will try again with your next piece of writing, which is how writers grow and develop their craft.

What are your tricks for dealing with the inner critic?

Author’s Bio: Leslie Anglesey, PhD, is an affiliate professor who loves to dedicate all her free time to writing. She is an editor at http://www.essaytigers.com and is always helping others to bring passion to their writing.

Image: Flickr CC

Big Data for Bloggers

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Have you noticed? Big data is the new buzzword. Apparently, it’s so hot you should “make out with it,” according to Mitch Joel in his new book, CTR ALT DEL.

But if you’re like most entrepreneurs, bloggers, or small business owners, you have no clue what big data is, or how it might apply to your business.

So here is my all-access definition: “big data” is sets of information that are way too large to be accessed or analyzed on your average computer or set of servers. Think of data being fed from RFID tags globally, or all of the data in Facebook’s open graph, or earthquake sensor networks. You’re probably contributing to big data yourself, whenever you serve up an ad on your site from an ad network.

Big-data-for-bloggers
Perhaps none of these big data sets apply to your blog site, but the wider discussion about how to draw business insights from big data absolutely does apply.

Maybe we should call it “medium data.”

Here are three ways you can use medium data to draw insights for your blog.

Google Analytics

It’s free, and it’s getting deeper every day. If you haven’t signed up yet, here’s a quick tutorial on how to get started with Google Analytics.

At the most basic level, you can draw insights on who is visiting your blog, which content is the most popular, and where you can improve.

Once you dive deeper into the data, you can figure out whether all that time you spend on Twitter is actually driving people to your blog using Advanced Segments in Google Analytics.

Customer Surveys and Interaction

If you’re a blogger, your customer is a reader, perhaps a commenter or member of your community. Maybe they downloaded your eBook or signed up for an online course. Every time you interact with them, you have an opportunity to gather intelligence.

Whether it’s a quick one question “how did you like that book” sent in a followup email, or a more in-depth customer survey, you have the ability to pull together data to feed your future efforts.

John Jantsch said in an article a year ago, “Until a business of any size gets serious about listening to their customers, talking to their customers, and measuring every possible data and touch point, the promise of more data will only serve to distract.”

Accessing Big Data from Researchers

All of the data you use doesn’t have to come from your own blog site or customers. There are myriad free or inexpensive resources out there that can help you build business insights on your subject area.

Organizations like Edison Research, Gartner, and The Social Habit routinely produce scientifically valid research based on a much wider data set that you can access on your own. Find a research outlet that covers your industry or topic, and leverage their reports to come up with blog post ideas, watch for future trends, and increase your own utility to your audience.

Are you using data (small, medium, or big) to draw insights for your blog?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Image: Flickr CC

Does Your Business Have a Cost-Effective Marketing Plan?

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If you run your own company, you may or may not be involved in the marketing duties.

In some instances, company owners can afford to reach out and hire a marketing specialist to work onsite with them, while others take the option of having an outside firm that specializes in marketing do the job for them

Whichever way you determine to be best for your business, there are a number of factors that you should focus on, allowing you the best possibility of succeeding with your marketing needs.

Among them:

* Don’t hit the panic button – First and foremost, you will find your business going through peaks and valleys during the course of the year, so never hit the panic button. You may get the urge to scale back your marketing budget when things are not going well, but that is likely the worst time to do that. While you’re toning down your marketing budget, your competition is likely going in the opposite direction. Reevaluate from time to time what’s working and what isn’t working, giving you the guidance necessary to move around money and efforts if need be. Remember, the day you stop marketing could be the prelude to the day you close your business.

According to research from AWeber Communications, close to 70 percent of small businesses said they would be adding to their marketing budgets in 2013, with some 97 percent planning on doing no less than maintaining their present level directed towards marketing expenses.

That being said, some well-known companies noted in the last year that they were scaling back their marketing over the next 12 months, with one even noting in hindsight, such a decision ended up costing his business customers and revenue.

Those making headlines included:

1. Campbell Soup Co. stated last summer that it would reduce its marketing budget over the next year, placing new emphasis on distribution, merchandising and product innovations. In fiscal 2012, Campbell’s marketing got a piece of $100 million of new investment the marketer put forth toward brand-building, research and development and innovation for its U.S. soup and simple meals business. That investment came as the business looked to distance itself from major discounting, which executives noted failed to lift sales volume as planned;

2. HTC (mobile phone maker) reported that less money and effort towards marketing has actually hurt its business in the last year. In comments to the Wall Street Journal, CEO Peter Chou stated that the company’s competitors proved to be both too strong and resourceful, placing lots of funding into marketing, while his company did not do as much.

While both Campbell Soup Co. and HTC continue to make money, reduced efforts on the marketing front are definitely reasons of concern for top executives.

While you may be hesitant to spend money on marketing, you can’t deny its importance.

Among the key facets to zero in on:

* Cohesive message – Whether you and your team do the marketing or you outsource it, make sure the message is one in the same. Your message needs to be clear and concise, meaning no confusion and questions for consumers. Make sure the foundation behind your message is solid, therefore allowing you to get a better return on your efforts. This brings us back to the question of whether or not it is better to outsource your marketing needs? On the plus side, you can put it in the hands of professionals who know the ins and outs of marketing, alleviating some of the daily tasks that you need to do to run your business. On the down side, you better than anyone else know your company, what makes it tick, and what its goals are. If you outsource the marketing, those strengths need to be conveyed to the individual or company;

* Social media – You may be the brightest and hardest working business owner going, but how involved and educated are you when it comes to social media? If the answer is not really, then you are missing out on a great opportunity to promote your company. Starting with social media, this should be a no-brainer, yet there are many businesses out there that fail to grasp how easy and effective this tool can be. Not only does having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and other major SM sites give you instant access to a larger swath of consumers, but you can be tuned-in to their needs 24/7. You also can focus in on what is being said about your brand, both positive and negative. Lastly, social media is a good tool for you to put out any potential fires in the cases of negative information about you and/or your company. As more and more consumers turn to social media sites and online forums to talk about companies and their experiences with them, you want to be along for the ride;

* Blogging – Do you ever troll different business sites in your free time, only to be amazed how many of them do not have blogs? This is yet another great tool to promote one’s company, still many business owners either don’t want to take the time or fail to realize the potential of blogs. Your company blog is a great marketing tool in telling consumers what you offer, how you can stand out as an authoritative figure in your respective industry, and how you are up to speed with what is going on in your field. If you have yet to actively engage in blogging, take note that it needs to be relevant, update on a regular basis, and promoted. If you are not willing to do it right, then you’re probably best served not doing it at all;

* Relationships do matter – Lastly, how often do you reach out to your current list of customers? They may seem silly, but contacting them with a quick email or other form of communication on their birthdays, offering them special deals, and asking them if you can do anything else for them are all important. In a day and age when consumers have so many different options to choose from, building your relationship with them is key. When your customers feel valuable, they are apt to want to continue doing business with you. If you take them for granted, they may very well take their business elsewhere.

So, where are your marketing plans and budget as we head into the halfway point of 2013?

Photo credit: keyhousemedia.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers a variety of business and consumer topics, including convertible car seats.

On Being the Kind of Boss People Want to Work With

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By Stacey Thompson

More often than not, the average employee views management in a negative light. Feared, resented, or even reviled, bosses are seen as cruel, unfeeling taskmasters that care only for the bottom line and will readily sacrifice any of the rank and file to attain their objectives.

This culture of hating on the management can go two ways: either employees aspire for these positions in order to propagate the perceived cycle of tyranny, or they will not make the effort to become better workers, seeing that promotion will only turn them into the same monsters they so despise. Neither of these attitudes does justice to the employees, the management, or the company they work in, for that matter.

Are you a boss people like to work with?

In the case of companies, I firmly believe that the culture is propagated from the top down. This places the responsibility of maintaining a prosperous and positive work environment squarely on the shoulders of the managers and supervisors. Just as bad habits and mentalities spring from negative examples provided by the people on top, productive and motivational attitudes are spread by good bosses.

Many people have plenty of theories on what managers should be doing to keep their people motivated, happy, and productive. In my own experiences as both a subordinate and as a manager, I can summarize all these lessons into four pieces of advice:

Open Lines of Communication

No amount of mutual understanding and teamwork will happen if the boss doesn’t even talk with his/her subordinates. This isn’t limited to meetings or official office correspondence; the ability to be able to shoot the breeze with the troops at the water cooler is an important ability to have, if you want to be an exemplary manager of people. It will give you more insights on what motivates (and de-motivates) your people, and in turn, it will humanize you in their perceptions. You’ll cease to be a cruel monster in their eyes, and that can’t be all bad.

Try smiling a little more, too

Though you want to appear a tad more friendly and approachable, do not overdo this, either. Being too chummy with your subordinates will often result in them respecting you less, and your ability to reprimand or correct them will be severely hindered. This does make things lonelier at the top, but remember, this is for the sake of all of your livelihoods.

Give Them a Chance to Shine

You shouldn’t be taking all the glory and credit for yourself, either. This is probably one of the fastest ways to lose favor with your constituents. When they do something above and beyond the call of duty, or have stayed consistently productive and cooperative, give them due praise, and possibly even a material bonus. Let the entire team know when one or more of them have done well, and if your own boss recognizes your team’s accomplishments, let them know where the credit should go.

Allowing them to take the lead and enjoy the benefits of their own achievements will inspire them to work more effectively, and it will give them lessons that will be of use to them when they become managers and supervisors themselves.

Be The Final Word

The two previous bits of advice portray a softer, more yielding kind of management strategy. One cannot be a boss without putting one’s foot down, however. The final lesson on being the boss your people can respect involves being the authority within the team or organization. You are the go-to guy/gal when they want a decision made, the King Solomon that will decide who gets the baby, so to speak.

As a leader, it is on you to set clear goals for you and your team, and you have to be firm when it comes to these things. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to change your mind; it means that you will only do so if your colleagues make a strong enough case for an alternative, or if you yourself have evaluated the factors and have found that a course alteration is in order.

Are you an effective boss? What are your strategies for leadership?

Author’s Bio: Stacey Thompson (@RedHotStacey) is a professional writer, marketer, entrepreneur, and a lover of weird little animals. She is based in San Diego, California, and aspires for her own little company to grow successful enough for her to qualify in entering an elite CEO peer advisory group, one fine example being The Sage Executive Group.

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Five Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Liz Strauss

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By Shonali Burke

Like many bloggers in the PR and marketing realm, I’ve been in awe of Liz Strauss ever since I became aware of the “name bloggers” in my professional world. When I started my own blogging journey, four years ago, Successful Blog was one of the first to become a regular stop; always for inspiration, and sometimes as I asked myself the question, “Will I ever be able tolike that?”

I met Liz fleetingly a few years ago, when she spoke at a DC-area event. Our meeting was brief. She was standing outside the event venue and, spying her in a rare moment of solitude, I couldn’t help but go up to her and tell her how much I admired her. She didn’t know me from Eve (probably still doesn’t), but that didn’t stop her from graciously thanking me. Later, she was kind enough to connect with me on various social platforms, even though the benefit was certainly skewed towards me.

As Liz recuperates from her illness, I couldn’t help but think of five lessons small businesses could learn from Liz Strauss.

1. You’re only a stranger once.

This is the tagline of Successful Blog, but is applicable to your business if you approach your customers as people first. Sure, customers come and go. But a successful business will convert first-timers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into evangelists. I don’t care how large or small your business is, this is possible and applicable…if you treat them as people first.

How do you start doing this? By using today’s myriad two- and multi-way communication channels to build relationships instead of email lists.

2. Building relationships takes time.

Especially with the number of (how many? I don’t know! Too many to count!) social media/self-help/gurus shilling their wares, I am not surprised at how many small businesses that think the way to use social media is this:

The path to social media failure

After all, once you have a presence, the rest will fall into place, right?

Wrong.

Connecting – i.e. following/being followed back – on a social network does not automatically translate into a relationship. All that that first connection means is that a door has been (slightly) opened to you; how you now conduct yourself will determine whether that door opens more fully or slams shut in your face.

How do you start doing this? Be a human super-collider. Find out what makes the people you meet, whether they are customers, or prospects, or business professionals you come across at networking events, tick.

3. When you build relationships, your community steps up when you most need it to.

Look at the way this blog has been running for the past several months. Liz’ health situation was announced at the beginning of 2013. The last post I read, as I drafted my own, was dated May 10, 2013. That’s a full five months later.

Had Liz not spent several years genuinely building her community via real relationships, do you think she would have had people like Rosemary O’Neill step up to manage the blog in her absence?

No way, Don Juan.

How do you start doing this? Part of the answer is in #2 above, so first I will say, “Read above, lather, rinse, and repeat.”

4. Educate and empower your community.

The second part of the answer is to educate and empower your community. Tell them, as you engage with them over time, what’s important to you… and why (and if your business is community-centric, chances are it’s what’s important to them too).

How do you start doing this? As you continue to engage with them, find people who can become your de facto or de jure community managers, and empower them with enough know-how – such as your engagement goals and guidelines, and your content needs – so that they can step into the breach if and when they need to.

The great thing about this approach is that you may never need them to fill a void in your absence… but if you do, they are ready and willing to do so.

5. Focus on what works.

A recent Constant Contact survey reported that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology. Continue reading, though, and you’ll see: “… it’s important to note that, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.”

I don’t think this 65% of the 34% is necessarily behind the times. Being a small business owner myself, I know the conflicting demands placed on small businesses.

What will you pay attention to? When? How? Who’s going to do it?

It isn’t a question of never paying attention to technological advances, it’s a question of being attuned to the technologies your customers are using or expect, and providing the appropriate platforms, while planning for the future. Just as Liz does here on Successful Blog, by maintaining a framework visitors are familiar with, but by keeping an eye on what’s to come.

How do you start doing this? Stay on top of technological and industry developments. But don’t jump on the bandwagon until your business can sustain and recoup the additional investment… and don’t let anyone pressure you into doing so either.

I’m sure there are many other lessons you have gleaned, on a business level, from Liz’ incredible contribution to the blogosphere and our time. Would you share what you have learned, so that we can salute her collectively?

Author’s Bio: Shonali Burke takes your business communications from corporate codswallop to community cool™. She also blogs, teaches, and cooks. You can find her on Twitter as @shonali.

Thanks for the shout-out, Shonali! I was honored to be able to give back a tiny bit to Liz, who has shown her generosity and kindness to so many over the years. She is the nougaty goodness at the center of this amazing community.

Rosemary