Shannon Gronich – Page 29

How to Finance Your New Business Venture

December 2, 2021 by Shannon Gronich Leave a Comment

As an entrepreneur, one of your main responsibilities is acquiring financing for your new business. It can be stressful to think about all the money you need to make your business work, but it can also help you to know that there are many different funding sources that can help you meet your goals. With that in mind, you can start creating a business that will be able to sustain itself over the years.

Use Loans

One of the most common types of funding that new businesses use is loans. This kind of funding can be very helpful to get you started in your business, and, as Original Funding points out, there are many small business loans available that are tailored to the needs of small business owners. The main thing here is to make sure that you select a loan with the lowest interest rate that you can get. This will make it easier to repay and help you to balance your budget more effectively. Make sure that you know how much money you are comfortable taking a loan for, and don’t exceed that number.

Attract Investors

Another way to get funding is to have individual investors provide you with funding. This kind of funding can be great and can help you to establish relationships within your industry. You do want to make sure that your expectations for investors are clear, and that they know what level of involvement they will have in your business beyond providing initial funding. It’s also important to remember that the kind of structure you choose for your business will be very important to bringing in investors. According to Freeman Lovell, a C-corp is a great business structure if you want to attract outside funding.

Crowdfunding

A newly popular way to get a business started is through crowdfunding. This method can be great for many businesses because it relies on many small investments from many individuals rather than larger investments from just a few sources. It is also nice because generally speaking crowdfunding will allow you to offer products and services to your mini investors, rather than giving them control over any part of your business.

Getting the funding for your business is one of the most important parts of getting the process started. Once you have secured funding you can start working on other elements of your business and getting things running. Then you are even closer to your goals as an entrepreneur.

Read this next: Why Should Your Business Partner with Larger Retailers?

Filed Under: Business

How to Avoid Reputational Harm to Your Brand

November 18, 2021 by Shannon Gronich Leave a Comment

When you are running your own business, your reputation is one of the most important things that you have going for you. But your reputation can also be easy to ruin if you aren’t paying attention. Here are a few things to keep an eye out for so you can make sure that your brand reputation stays intact no matter what is going on with your business.

Fix Issues Promptly

Every business will face problems from time to time, but it is the way that you react to those issues that can hurt or help your reputation. One of the worst things you can do for the reputation of your brand is to ignore the problems that come up. The longer a problem is occurring with your brand, the more likely it is to lead to a negative impact on your reputation. That’s why you need to focus on resolving issues quickly so that your reputation is unharmed, and your business can move forward in a positive way.

Secure Your Data

Perhaps the most horrible thing a modern business can experience is a data breach. Not only will this breach lead to problems for your company, it can also have a severe impact on your reputation as a brand. It is so important that you make sure your data is well protected from a potential breach. If you don’t invest in cybersecurity, your business could be vulnerable to IT threats. That means you may be in serious trouble, so it is important to invest in that protection and make it a part of your regular budget.

Constantly Work on It

Your brand can’t avoid a negative reputation if you leave it to its own devices. Instead, your brand and reputation should be something that you are constantly working on. This constant work will help you to catch problems early and build a stronger bond with your customer base. Make it a priority to keep your brand in check and ensure that you are working towards a positive brand image all the time.

Protecting your reputation is an important part of running a business effectively. You have already worked hard on developing your reputation, so it isn’t worth it to give up on it when something negative happens. Make a continual effort to support your brand so you can continue growing and improving your business.

Read this next: Strategies That Can Save Your Business Time and Money

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How to Build Goodwill with Your Customers

November 4, 2021 by Shannon Gronich Leave a Comment

As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you probably realize that one of the best ways to boost your business is to build a good relationship with your customers. While this can take time, money, and effort, it is very worthwhile and beneficial. Here are a couple ways to improve your relationships and goodwill with your customers.

Focus on Product Quality

First off, Business News Daily recommends you focus on your product quality in order to increase your customer satisfaction and happiness. Remember that your customers order a product from your business, they are expecting to receive top tier quality products, no matter how small your business is or how short staffed you may be. If your customers aren’t satisfied with your products, they’ll likely go elsewhere, which is a huge loss for your business. If you notice that you are having repeated issues with some of your products, or repeated complaints from customers, do everything you can to resolve those issues. Train your employees on how to improve the quality of your products in order to improve the happiness of your customers.

Improve Customer Service

Next, improving your customer service will greatly increase your customer satisfaction and goodwill. Sometimes, working in customer service can be very difficult when you deal with customers that are never satisfied and always unhappy. However, you need to remember that your interactions with customers directly affect your sales. If your customer service employees get defensive and hurt about problems, your customers may not ever want to buy from your company again. Instead, ROI Solutions recommends you proactively try to uncover and solve customer issues to increase loyalty.

Have Good Communication

Finally, having good communication with your customers is a sure way to increase goodwill with your customers. This doesn’t only refer to the way that you communicate with your customers when they are in your store, but also refers to other methods of communication. According to ProProfs Desk, you should be easily reachable so that customers can get fast answers to their questions as they are considering buying your products or services. One way to do this is to have a phone number on your website and social media accounts. You can also use texting services to send reminders and updates to your customers.

Customers in the end are the most important people investing in your business. When they feel valued and well accommodated, they will be more likely to buy from your company. If you build goodwill with your customers, you not only secure their loyalty but also are more likely to get referred to their friends!

Read this next: How to Inspire Your Employees to Perform Their Best

Filed Under: Business

Why Should Your Business Partner with Larger Retailers?

October 29, 2021 by Shannon Gronich Leave a Comment

As an entrepreneur or business owner, you’re probably usually thinking that larger retailers or superstores are your worst nightmare. While this could be true in the fact that they may take some of your customers away from you, larger retailers don’t always have to be your enemy. In fact, there are a number of reasons why your business should partner with larger retailers to find more success.

You Get Immediate Visibility

One benefit of partnering with a larger business is that it will get your small business immediate visibility for minimal time and effort. Running your business through a small online ecommerce site can be difficult, as your site traffic may be hard to come by. Getting your products exposed to new customers can be very difficult. If you partner with a larger retailer, particularly a retailer with an online marketplace function, you’ll be immediately exposed to thousands of viewers who can easily access your site.

You Don’t Need to Build a Marketplace

Another advantage of partnering with larger retailers is that it can help you to sell your products without having to build a marketplace site yourself. Selling your products on third-party marketplaces is easy and lets you sell more widely. For example, rather than taking the time to build your own ecommerce website, you can use sites such as Facebook Marketplace or Etsy to sell your products. This saves you the time and money of having to build your own marketplace site. Additionally, you can reach a much wider audience by using these marketplace sites, as your potential customers don’t have to find your individual, obscure website. Instead, they can search with keywords that are related to your products and find your shop and services that way.

In-Person Shopping

If you’re interested in providing a brick-and-mortar location for your clients to shop at, partnering with a larger retailer could make that dream come true. Some larger retailers, such as department stores, or chain stores like Target like to feature smaller businesses and designers to bring in customers loyal to those brands. A similar setup could provide you with the chance to sell your products online and in-person.

As you are considering a partnership with a larger retailer, weigh the pros and cons to figure out if such a partnership would be right for you and your company. Remember, there are lots of benefits that could greatly improve your sales and reach. If you’re seriously contemplating beginning a partnership, make sure you take the time to figure out what retailer would be a good fit for your company, and you’re sure to have success.

Read this next: Strategies That Can Save Your Business Time and Money

Filed Under: Business

Strategies That Can Save Your Business Time and Money

October 8, 2021 by Shannon Gronich Leave a Comment

All businesses, but especially small ones, are seeking out new methods that will help them be more efficient. Running a small business can be a costly endeavor, particularly as you are starting out. Here are a few strategies that can save your business time and money if they are carefully applied to your mission and production processes.

Organic Marketing

First off, there has been a huge shift in business marketing in the past few years. Gone are the days of newspaper or radio ads as businesses have welcomed the onslaught of organic social media marketing. Billions of people use social media for hours on end each day, which provides you with a large window of time and a huge audience to reach. From Instagram reels to Facebook ads to TikTok videos, Hootsuite says the possibilities are endless when it comes to cultivating social media content. Try out all of the different advantages that social media has to offer until you find the approach that works best for you and your business.

Client Retention

Secondly, it is very important to retain the clients that you have in order to prosper as a business. According to the Utah Valley Chamber, it costs more to gain new clients than to retain your existing ones. Gaining new clients means putting much more time and money into marketing and publicity, which can be difficult. If you retain the clients that you already have through great customer service, good communication, and new product launches, you’ll have a consistent stream of customers. In addition, your loyal clients will probably recommend your business to people that they know, which will bring in new clients without an increase in time or money on your part. For this reason, it is important to do all that you can to guarantee that your clients have a good experience with your business.

Automation Software

Another great way to save time and money is to automate tasks that are tedious and time-consuming for your employees. According to Calendar, this will save you from having to pay employees to do tasks that could be more easily accomplished through automation software. For example, invest in software that will create work orders and invoices so you don’t have employees taking up their work time doing so.

As you’re trying to figure out how to save your business money and time, don’t forget the strategies that have been discussed in this article. Apply each of them to your business routine and processes and adjust them accordingly so that you have more success without blowing a budget!

Read this next: What Do Customers Want from Your Business?

Filed Under: Business