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Businesses Must Not Neglect Employees’ Health

April 20, 2016 by Thomas

Do you ever stop to think about how much time and money you have invested in your employees?

Whether you run a company with just a handful of workers or one with dozens and dozens of people under your employ, your team is critical to your success.

If you have employees that are healthy and raring to go day after day, you stand a good chance of being a successful, long-running business.

On the other hand, a staff where some employees are missing work regularly due to sickness and injuries, well that can be a recipe for disaster.

So, which is it for your company?

Help Your Workers Practice Better Health

Even though you can’t (and shouldn’t) babysit your employees once they leave the office each day, it is important that they lead relatively healthy lives outside your presence.

Sure, some will smoke on a regular basis. Others, meantime, never turn down junk food or the ability to not exercise. Some are even accident prone.

No matter what kind of employees you have, you want them to be relatively healthy for several reasons.

First, you hopefully are an employee who cares about the well-being of his or her team.

Secondly, healthy employees tend to do better on the job, not to mention show up for work more times than not.

Third, healthy workers typically have a better attitude about now just the responsibilities of their jobs, but life in general.

So, what are you doing to be as sure as you can that your team is relatively fit and happy?

Incentives Typically Work in the Workplace

Giving them incentives to be as healthy as possible is certainly a good start.

Among the areas to focus on:

Healthy habits – First and foremost, your workplace (just like schools, hospitals and other public gathering places) can be a breeding ground for germs. Do your best to encourage workers to show up for work as healthy as they can be. This means not coming into work when one is sneezing, coughing, running a fever etc. Having allergies is one thing; bringing the next bad cold into the office to infect others is totally different. Be insistent that workers not come to the office when they’re battling colds, the flu, and other such illnesses. It doesn’t take long for one person to spread the illness around the office;
Knowing how to help others – While you hope and pray that you never will have a major health incident in your workplace, all too many business owners have seen otherwise. Knowing CPR, how to treat injuries on the job etc. is important for both employer and employee. If the majority (or all) of your employees do not formally know CPR, find CPR in your area and get them trained. You never know when one of your workers or even a client/customer visiting your office could develop chest pains and other related problems. Being able to deliver CPR on the spot until medical professionals arrive could mean the difference between life and death;
Fitness does matter – Remember earlier when told that you can’t babysit your workers 24/7/365? While that is true, it does not mean you can’t or shouldn’t encourage them to be relatively fit. More businesses are doing their part these days by helping employees get and stay fit. You can consider offering fitness memberships to your team or even allowing them to workout at a fitness facility in your building (oftentimes, buildings where a number of companies call home will have a fitness area available to workers). Another option is having company workouts. Know, you all don’t have to go and see which employee can lift the most weights or do the most push-ups. Outings after work or on the weekends to go bowling, bike riding, hiking etc. can be great physical excursions, not to mention more bonding for the company.

No matter what option/s you choose to keep your team as healthy as possible, do it in a productive and professional manner.

While you can’t force employees to be as fit or as healthy as you may like, always tout the positive, letting them know why this can help them and others over time.

If you haven’t thought too much in the past about the importance of employee health, change that train of thought.

Have a healthier outlook on the men and women helping you stay in business.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.

Have you fallen into a quick-fix pattern?

April 19, 2016 by Lindsey Tolino

It’s a half-hour past when you wanted to leave the office and you’re almost out the door. Judy stops you with a question about a project. You know it would be best to explain to her the whole situation so that she’d know how to handle this in the future, but instead you tell her the minimum and get out of there. You want to give her a more detailed explanation, but you just don’t have the time.

Do you ever feel this tension between giving a quick-fix versus making an investment? We try to avoid the quick-fixes and seize opportunities to invest in employees and the business, but it can be difficult to choose the investment consistently.

Though each decision you make as a leader matters, it’s the pattern of your decisions that may be even more significant. If you pause to think about it, is the “quick-fix” becoming a pattern?

It makes sense that we would fall into a pattern of quick-fixes. They work, they get us through the moment and they take less effort and time than the issue really calls for. Yet, we know from experience that it’s often worth investing time and effort to set things straight. We take the time to fully train employees when we hire them. We try to pass on our knowledge and experience to others. We hope that they will absorb it, become even more productive in the business and grow into greater roles. We count the investment worth it.

But it’s not always convenient to make the investment. Like in the example above when you’re leaving the office, you would have had to sacrifice your time to stay longer to invest in Judy’s education. Or would you? The investment doesn’t always have to be in the moment. We can schedule investment instead. In fact, blocking off time to invest in your employees and your business is an excellent way to ensure it gets done. So next time, when Judy stops you on your way out, you can give the quick fix in the moment, but schedule time to explain more later.

We seem willing to assess our patterns and change for each new year. Why not today? I’m calling us to reassess our patterns. Are we investing in others and our businesses to improve them or have we simply fallen into a quick-fix pattern? The investment is worth it. Let’s block off time and do it.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Gratisography.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

What Must Change About Your Website?

April 15, 2016 by Thomas

How would you rank your business website when it comes to effectiveness and winning over current and potential customers?

In answering that question, think about the time and money you have sunk into your site, whether you are a long-time business or one of the new kids on the block.

Remember, your website is oftentimes the first contact between your brand and the public, so you want to make sure you get off on the right foot with consumers.

Many Eyes Are Watching

Start and end the website review process by looking at the following:

Look – Are you happy with the appearance of your company site? If not, what needs to change about it? While the content of your site is also of utmost importance, the look of the site can’t be neglected. Give consumers reasons to not only want to visit your site, but refer it to their friends and family. If you are a little short in experience and/or time when it comes to finding the right imagery and/or infographics, hire someone that can handle those tasks. You may decide (depending on the size of your business) to do the hiring within, though outsourcing such needs is always an option too. Lastly, the site’s appearance should not remain stagnant for months-on-end. Updating the site, giving it a refreshing look from time to time etc. will always prove to be necessary tasks;
Content – What kinds of content you place on your website also will have a major impact on dictating exactly how much business comes your direction. It is important that your content (notably what runs on your company blog) is not canned material, but has real meaning to it. The content should be useful to consumers, especially those considering your products and/or services. Give them something they’re not going to find anywhere else; meaning your business will be the source (notably your website) they come to. Also be sure that your content helps improve your search engine ranking (see more below) if you are currently struggling with this. Where you rank (most notably on Google) should always be a priority with your business website initiatives;
Ranking – Speaking a moment ago about where you rank on Google, do you take the time to check such numbers regularly? If not, it is something you should include in your regular plans. When you put a number of pieces in play – content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media (see more below) – you have a great opportunity to improve upon where you rank on sites such as Google and even Bing. Also avoid some of the ways that ranking can be damaged. These include practices such as duplicate copy on your site, updating your site infrequently, being viewed as a spammer and more. At the end of the day, you want your brand at or near the top when consumers do searches for your product or service, be it home/life/health/auto insurance, divorce attorneys, Texas license plate lookup, furnishings for your home, rental cars/hotels/flights and so much more ;
Socializing – As great as your business website may be, what if basically no one knows about it? If you think that isn’t possible, think again. You need to have a solid social media component to your website’s marketing plans. This means being active on at least what are generally regarded as the top sites – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. You can’t be all things to all people, but you do need to push your social media agenda as much as possible. One important aspect of doing such is sharing what others in the business community have to say about your respective industry etc. When you share what others are saying in their blog posts and more, they tend to want to do the same for you. By doing so, you’re getting your website out in front of countless eyes, some you may never have even known or thought about.

If you’re perfectly happy with your website, that is fine.

The hunch is, however, that there are one or more things on the site that you can do better.

Ask yourself, is it time for a change?

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business and marketing topics on the web.

Book Review, X: The Experience When Business Meets Design

April 14, 2016 by Rosemary

Brian Solis is an award-winning author, blogger/writer, and futurist. His experience as principal analyst at the Altimeter Group research firm gave him wide ranging access to data, innovative technology, and business strategies that help companies connect with their customers.

His latest book, X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, makes the case that we need to move beyond just great products, creative marketing, and delightful customer experience.

We need to create meaningful experiences.

The book itself is an experience for the reader. It was designed with the intention of being surprising, engaging, and meaningful itself. The shape, the fonts, and the “chapter design,” all give the reader permission to create his/her own journey through the content.

Meaningful experiences don’t happen by accident

My favorite summer job was when I worked as a tour narrator in Washington, DC. The training was intense; we went through two weeks of learning every detail contained in a 3-inch thick binder of material.

Each morning we’d be tested on the previous nights’ assignment. We had to pass the fact memorization part of the training before we could get on the tram microphone.

The magical part of the process? There was no script.

Once we memorized all of the facts, we were responsible for weaving them into an educational, entertaining narrative for our audience of tourists on the tram. That meant that every time someone hopped on a tram, they would be getting a fresh experience, based on the specific tour narrator at that moment.

It was a complete rush for me, designing that experience on the fly, every time the tram left the station.

“Shared experiences have become a critical part of marketing.” -Brian Solis

How to create meaningful experiences for your customers

Map your customer journeys. You need to know what they are currently experiencing before you can offer a new perspective.
Align your organization. To deliver experiences that resonate, you’ll need to get the whole team on board. Marketing, sales, developers, everyone.
Create a plan. Decide how you will create an “experience layer” along the entire customer journey. Be sure to avoid any disconnects between pre-sale and post-sale experience.
Listen. The experience process isn’t static. Pay attention to the signals your customers send out along the way, to find areas where you can improve the experience.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to build a business that can survive and thrive into the future, as the power shifts from brand to consumer. It’s a deep dive, but very approachable. It makes a good reference book, since you can quickly pop into the structure at any point. There is also an interactive experience online to reinforce the messages.

Does your business strategy include the experience factor? What types of experiences could you provide for your customers?

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

This book review was unsolicited and reflects my own opinion. I was not given a review copy of the book.

Make It Your Business to Get All Available Deductions

April 13, 2016 by Thomas

Running your own business comes when joys and heartaches. The key is to avoid too much of the latter.

With that being the case, recording and paying taxes as a business owner can be one of life’s biggest headaches.

If you’re self-employed and have no employees under you, life is much easier when it comes to your tax responsibilities.

On the other side, making sure you take the right amount of money out for employees and meeting your other tax responsibilities as a business owner, well, it can sometimes seem downright taxing.

Don’t Make Running a Business Taxing

In running your own business, be sure that you not only are meeting all your tax requirements, but that you are receiving the deductions entitled to you.

For those individuals working out of their homes full-time, there are myriad of deductions one qualifies for, though many oftentimes forget or quite frankly do not know what is and isn’t acceptable to the IRS.

If you’re one of those self-employed folks working out of a private residence, note the following:

Your home is deductible…. up to a point – Working out of your home does allow for some deductions, but don’t expect to cover the entire residence from top to bottom. If you set aside a room etc. as your work area, you can use that as a deduction (estimate the square footage involved). What you can’t do is try and deduct the entire residence;
Your home office supplies – Assuming that your business needs office supplies, those can be used as deductions. Make sure you save the receipts for items you purchase. If you end up getting a new computer, fax machine, printer or other such office item, you can also deduct those. The key is always to save the paperwork from such purchases, especially if you need to show at a later date that you did in fact buy such items;
Your client meetings – When you mix and mingle with clients, you can deduct such meetings (that is up to a point). Meals and mileage to and from such meetings is fine, but don’t try and deduct a gift you may have bought them etc. Stretching things too far could run you the risk of an IRS audit, so it is definitely in your best interests to record and be honest about your deductions. If you do have legal questions or in fact do get audited, a New York tax attorney or one closer to you can assist you with how to proceed;
Your health insurance – Unless you have been under a rock for the last three or so years, you know about the governmental requirement that the majority of Americans be covered by health insurance. As a result, make sure you not only have coverage, but look to see if you are eligible for a tax credit. The whole idea behind Obamacare was to make health insurance affordable for the majority of the country. When it comes to medical items, you also can deduct a portion of your doctor visits (including mileage to and from) and prescriptions or other such purchases;
Your retirement planning – If you are wise, you have been putting away money over the years for retirement. In doing so, you are planning for that day and time when you will not be working, most likely getting by on Social Security income. Whether you have an IRA or other such retirement vehicle, try and contribute as much as possible to it yearly. This then allows you to record deductions from the money you put into the plan. While there are caps on how much individuals may invest in their retirement portfolios, doing it now and getting the deductions makes it well worth it.

When it comes to doing your taxes as a self-employed business owner, they don’t have to seem as frightening as they might first appear.

Getting organized now, keeping all your necessary receipts, and knowing who to turn to in the event of a dispute and/or audit, can make all the difference in the world.

If doing your taxes seems a bit taxing to you, put organization and the help of others to work for you.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes about business topics on the web.

Make your blog worth bingeing like House of Cards

April 7, 2016 by Rosemary

My husband and I recently finished an epic binge of Breaking Bad (yes, I miss Jessy already). Next we’ve queued up House of Cards’ most recent season for the next binge marathon.

Now that quality shows are available in an instant, on any screen you choose, we can soak in three or four years worth of episodes over a few weeks.

No more waiting for the cliff-hanger resolution, no more slow reveal of the “will they or won’t they.”

When you binge, you are marinating in the characters, settings, and stories in a very intense way, and it increases your sense of closeness to the characters and the show.

Wouldn’t it be cool if your blog was like that? Maybe your bounce rate would be 10% instead of 75%.

Here are some ideas that will make your blog worth bingeing

Make it easy to binge

Give your readers easy cues for entering and browsing your site, like “start here if you’re new” pages, or boxes that highlight your most popular posts.

Put it all out there at once

Think about creating a blog series, and tease it in advance. Release the whole series at one time instead of one post per week. I know that I’m like a kid on Christmas Eve the night before a new season of Orange is the New Black arrives on Netflix.

Open a new window for links

This is a simple but often-overlooked technique. When someone clicks a link or image on your site, make it pop open a new tab or window. You don’t want people to be leaving your site and letting the screen door shut behind them. You want them to briefly check out the additional information and then resume the binge.

Include a call to action at end of content

What do you want your reader to do? Why does your blog exist? Make sure that you are telling them often. Give them a homework assignment, put a link to your latest book, or ask for comments/shares, but don’t just leave them hanging.

Promote, promote, promote

The House of Cards ads and promos were ubiquitous before the last season appeared. Teaser videos, interviews, and traditional ads were part of the PR blitz. When is the last time you thought about the way your promote your blog? Could you do an interview with a fellow blogger in your industry? Try a Facebook ad?

Surprise & delight to encourage word of mouth/sharing

Remember that time the major character was tossed in front of a speeding Metro train? You don’t have to go to that extreme, but your blog should include moments of surprise that make readers want to talk about it.

Make it easy to share

I can’t count the number of times I find a great blog, get very enthusiastic about a particular post, and can’t find the social sharing buttons (or even a subscribe button, sometimes). Once you’ve got me excited, don’t leave me hanging. Show me the buttons! (Apologies to Jerry Maguire.)

Tap into emotions

Emotion is the most direct way into someone’s world. Your blog should share (judiciously) personal tidbits that give your readers insight and attachment to your point of view. When Frank Underwood speaks directly to the camera, breaking the “fourth wall,” it brings us directly into the show.

Now I’ve confessed to some of the shows I’m bingeing. What is in your queue right now? Share your binge-worthiest shows and/or blogs with the rest of us!

If you have tips about how to make your blog worth bingeing, please share those too.