Just because you get one sale doesn’t mean you’ve gained a loyal customer. How does a business make itself noticed, and even more importantly favored, in a world full of competition? Whether you’re still developing your brand or looking to do a makeover, the following tips can help solidify your brand as the one every customer recommends to a friend!

Become a One-Stop Shop

Oftentimes businesses seek to become specialized in one area in order to ensure quality. While this remains an important tactic, it shouldn’t diminish the other side of things, meaning that you provide a wide range of services or products relating to each other. If you’re trying to start up a donut shop, for instance, it would be remiss to not also sell milk! The truth is that customers care a lot about convenience—so making your business a one-stop shop for anything they might require further cements your brand as one they can trust to take care of their needs.

Loyalty Programs

A tried and true method of gaining customer loyalty is a loyalty program—essentially, giving them opportunities to rack up rewards points and receive discounts and free items because of their loyalty. This system encourages what could be a one-time customer to come back to you instead of a competitor, and to come back more often in order to get their rewards sooner. If you decide to look into this tactic, POS systems can track rewards points across stores and online marketplaces, so it’s pretty easy to implement.

Learn from Competitors

Every industry has competition, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The last big way to increase customer favoritism towards your brand is by studying the other brands related to it, and then doing what they do, but better. When a competitor has a sales rewards system in place already, for example, you can go above and beyond by creating a referral rewards system! Also, by looking into what people like and dislike about other brands’ qualities, you can better finetune your products, services, and values to provide everything the competition does and more!

If you want your brand to stand out, there are lots of quick marketing tactics to increase visibility. But making your brand something customers favor over any other, however, requires more in-depth planning and skill. Don’t just stop at being a good place to go for a product or service—make your brand something customers talk to their friends about!

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Figuring out how to network can feel incredibly challenging. Maybe you feel like the networking efforts you’ve made thus far have only resulted in surface-level connections rather than meaningful relationships. Applying some of these ideas will help you make your networking efforts more productive.

Talk About Your Passions

According to The Therapists’ Network, talking about your passions is one way to make the conversations you have with colleagues more meaningful. Instead of asking small-talk-related questions, learn to dive into the things you care about, and more importantly, the things the other individual cares about.

Try to ask good questions and listen carefully to the information the other person is saying. As you do that, you’ll find points of connection and commonality where you can start to build a relationship with the individual.

Attend Events

Learning to hone your conversational and listening skills is essential so that you make the most out of your business interactions. But finding opportunities to meet new people and actually forge those connections is also essential. According to the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce, if you are looking for a new job, job fairs can connect you with businesses that are looking for employees. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

Even though attending these events can sometimes be overwhelming, try to think about them more as opportunities for you to meet new cool people who are passionate about the services they are providing in the world instead of as cutthroat competition for the best jobs.

Remember People

When it comes to being a good networker, it’s easy to think that being personable and memorable are the most important things you can do to ensure that you expand your pool of connections. But in all reality, building your network requires that you actually connect with, care about, and remember the people you meet.

Making a few solid connections at an event where you actually get in contact with them afterward will be much more effective than talking to twenty-plus people without having any meaningful conversations. According to Mind Maven, you should try to remember people and to remember their names.

As you work to find the best strategies to improve your networking abilities, remember to stay true to yourself. While it’s true that networking requires everyone to get out of their shell somewhat, remember to stick to your strengths. If you’re a great listener, leverage that. If you’re a great conversationalist, learn to use that. Working to maximize your strengths will help you feel more confident as you try to build more connections.

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Are you an entrepreneur or small business owner looking to upgrade and facilitate your production processes? If so, you should probably consider how your business could benefit by using more software automation. Here are a couple of the reasons that many small businesses are investing in software automation and the benefits that they receive as a result.

Reduce Costs

According to IntelliChief, one of the great benefits of having software automation is that it can actually reduce some of your costs around the workplace. Software automation such as business processing systems can help speed up your product turnaround time and can decrease costs. For example, each invoice that is processed automatically saves $10 on average compared to an invoice that is processed manually. There are many other processes that have reduced costs when they are automated. Essentially, if you automate more, you save more.

Simplify Tasks

One of the difficulties that many small businesses face is having a small number of employees with countless tasks to accomplish within normal business hours. There are some of these tasks that can be tedious and time-consuming that don’t really require a lot of specialized skill. These tasks can be frustrating for your employees to perform since their skills could be better used elsewhere. This is the kind of situation where software automation could step in and fulfill these tedious tasks in a simpler and more time-efficient manner, allowing your employees to use their skills elsewhere. For example, according to Gideon Taylor, PeopleSoft tools can assist with all major HR tasks like onboarding and time-off requests rather than requiring an employee to fulfill those needs manually.

Save Time

According to Business Money, perhaps the greatest benefit of using software automation is that it can save you time, sometimes even hours upon hours of time. As a small business with limited employees, specialized products, and a large audience, your time is more valuable than anything else. Just as people say, time is money, and money is time. If you invest in software automation, the steps in your production process will speed up, and you’ll be able to sell more products and make more money.

As you’re considering the different needs of your small business, remember to include the benefits of software automation in your considerations. Once you include automation in your business, you’ll never want to go back. By automating more steps of your business processes, you’ll see that your company will be more successful and be able to achieve more of your vision goals.

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Without good leads, your business will never prosper. Lead generation can be a tricky thing, however, especially if you haven’t done much research on what your target market wants. To get the most out of visitors on your webpage, increase their conversion by following these three tactics!

Use Customer Reviews

Hearing it from a friend is simply the best referral, but hearing it from a fellow online user is still pretty trustworthy to most people. Using customer reviews to generate leads is something businesses often forget the value of, simply because they feel it is outside their control. This, however, is simply not true. One of the key reasons customers leave reviews is because they are asked to do so. When a customer has a good experience, inviting them to review or even give a testimonial can be the tipping point for other users to simply browse your website, and actually make a desired action.

Source: https://leadgenera.com/knowledge-hub/marketing/do-customer-reviews-help-lead-generation/ 

Improve Web Design

What do people see when they first open the main page of your website? Just increasing your website functionality and improving its design can make a huge difference in how users perceive your products while considering a purchase. Ideally, 30 to 50 percent of your leads should become customers, so if that is not the case improving your website’s graphic designs and accessibility via mobile phone can significantly improve your numbers. Look at what other successful business websites have done, and try it yourself. Or, better, hire a graphic designer who knows what they’re doing!

Source: https://www.podium.com/article/website-conversion/ 

Make Quality Blog Posts

Often when people try to unleash the power of SEO with keywords and link building, they do so with little thought for the actual content on the page. Your blog posts and their quality, however, can make a big difference to users who are seeking a business that actually knows what they’re talking about. Also, implementing brand voice can help such users get a feel for who you are and what they can expect from your brand, instead of simple generic writing that they’ll easily forget.

Source: https://www.brafton.com/blog/creation/4-brand-tone-of-voice-examples-to-use-when-building-your-own/ 

What you can’t control is people’s decisions—but you can make the most of the tools the digital world has given and optimize your website to receive customers that want what you’re selling. If you have doubts, just give one of these tips a try and watch for results. You’ll be surprised how simple it often is to generate quality leads.

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When your business is going through a difficult period, you often need to think about cutting your costs. It is important in these situations to try to find a way to keep your costs down without having to get rid of employees. Figuring out a way to balance your budget while keeping your valuable employees on board can help you to get even more out of your business.

Negotiate Prices

One of the worst things that you can do as a businessperson is to accept the first price for things without negotiation. According to Brian Tracy International, through the process of negotiating, you can lower prices and put yourself in a better financial position. It is important to think about the number of items you are buying and the value you bring to the companies you buy from. When you have that in mind it can make the negotiation process a little simpler and help you to ensure your success. Taking time to negotiate can save you a lot of money in the long run.

Stop Wasting Resources

It’s also important to make sure that you are using resources effectively within your business. Sometimes business waste can go undetected even while it costs your business a lot of money. Think about the way you are using things like printer paper around the office and try to decrease nonessential use. This is important because according to the Utah Valley Chamber, 45 percent of printer paper ends up in the trash at the end of the day. That is a lot of waste that your company doesn’t need to be paying for.

Improve Efficiency in the Office

One way that businesses waste money is by becoming inefficient in their processes and general operations. According to BusinessTown, if you can improve the efficiency of your business, you can save a lot of money and keep your staff employed. Improving efficiency can start with good training and continue through great management that keeps your employees feeling fulfilled and excited about their work. The more you can encourage your employees and show them that they are valued the more efficient your business will become.

Running a business is a complicated and rewarding job, but it can become even more difficult when money is tight. When you have good negotiation skills, an efficient team, and a good handle on waste it will help your business to perform better. That can give you the room to cut your costs while keeping your strong pool of employees.

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In order to help your business grow and prosper, there are a lot of big steps to be taken. However, there are also many little aspects of your business that can help you take your business to the next level. Mastering these little things will make a big difference.

Consistent Voice

Having a consistent voice will build confidence amongst your customers. They will see that you are running a competent and reliable business. Your voice will be heard in a variety of ways including marketing, promotions, and official documents. To begin, you need to decide what your voice will be. Is it confident? Reassuring? Professional? Once you decide on your voice, you must make sure to match that in all content you produce. It can be helpful to create a style guide for your business, so you always have a reference. Similarly, hiring an editor to look over materials to maintain consistency can be helpful.

Official Records

To create a sense of professionalism for your business, you should aim to create official records. This again demonstrates to your clients and customers that you are a dependable business. Having official records, as well as an organizational system, will also make things much easier for your business. With official records, you can easily locate any records you’re looking for and be able to file records efficiently. Having an invoice template helps improve your record keeping. This way you can easily fill in information and make sure it stays consistent.

Authenticity

Many of today’s consumers are eager to find authentic businesses. These types of businesses help them to connect and build trust. They want to make sure they are being treated well and that they get what they expect from a business transaction. To create an authentic business, you need to adopt policies of honesty and transparency. Be sincere about the mission of your business and stick to the values that you align your business with. If a mistake is made, don’t try to cover it up. Be honest with your customers about what happened and make an extra effort to amend the mistake.

Running a business requires a lot of moving parts and a lot of work. As you continue growing your business, make sure you don’t skip out on the little things. These things will help lay the groundwork of your business and they will make a major impact over time.

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Investing is made up of a variety of avenues to suit pretty much any investor’s needs. One way to get into the world of investing, especially as an entrepreneur is to invest in private businesses. Here are a few techniques you can use to make investing in private businesses a little bit easier on yourself.

Buy Undervalued Companies

The best time to get into any investment is when something with great earning potential is undervalued. Investing in undervalued companies can give you the best possible chance of making a profit. The challenge is finding those businesses so you can take advantage of their undervalued status and make a profit before another investor beats you to the chase. Finding undervalued businesses requires time and research, but it can be a great way to invest without that you are excited about with plenty of room for growth and profit.

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/101316/how-tell-if-stock-overvalued-or-undervalued.asp 

 Invest with Your Values

Making investments in private businesses allows you to invest in a way that matches your values and keeps you feeling good about yourself and your investments. Around 4 million businesses in the U.S. are now minority-owned. Investments like ESG investing and Impact investing allow you to make investments that have a positive impact on your community and the world at large. When you invest with your values, you have a unique opportunity to make money while doing something that you believe in.

Source: https://www.podium.com/article/small-business-statistics/ 

Build Relationships

Investing in private businesses gives you a chance to build a name for yourself and create lasting relationships with the people around you. When you make an investment in a small business, you have an opportunity to forge strong bonds and make your community better. By focusing on building relationships with businesses and other investors you will open up more opportunities for yourself to continue investing. Reaching out to other entrepreneurs can also help you to grow your network and make smarter investments over time.

Source: https://www.freshbooks.com/hub/leadership/find-investors-small-business 

Investing in private businesses is a great way to expand your portfolio and develop yourself as an entrepreneur. While there isn’t necessarily a right way to do it, taking your time to choose investments that you believe in and establish relationships will help you to increase your success. No matter what business investments you end up making, having a good understanding of your values will help you to make choices you are proud of.

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Your company’s success is closely dependent on the people who provide the management, marketing, and means of your business—otherwise known as the employees you lead, the organizations you partner with, and the suppliers you utilize to create products or services. Fostering strong, positive relationships with these people is of the utmost importance if you want to create a thriving, developing business!

Employee Relationships

More than ever before, people look for occupations that are rewarding and pleasant for the employees working there. Make work a place that your employees enjoy being! They are the reason you can be up and running at all. If you can create an environment in which your employees feel welcome and appreciated, they will feel more inclined to work effectively for the benefit of the company. They will make the effort necessary of all employees to reach the vision that you all have committed yourselves to. According to Randstad Risesmart, you should let your employees know how much they are needed while doing everything you can to keep them from feeling overwhelmed and overworked.

Professional Organizations

According to the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce, professional organizations provide opportunities for networking, learning new skills, and developing local policies. Connect with organizations that support your vision and help you access a broader audience of consumers. This will mean offering your support of these businesses as well, so be prepared to dedicate some time and resources to help them! The benefits will pay for themselves in the long run.

Suppliers

Your suppliers are the means of creating any product or offering any service. If you want fair deals on quality products—especially ones that you can endorse on their own—work to develop a strong relationship with your suppliers. Like with employees and partnering professional organizations, according to The Meeting Magazines, you should let them know how appreciative you are of their hand in your (important) work. Demonstrate that appreciation by offering your support and endorsement of those products they provide you. Show them that they can also depend on you to help them grow their business because it is such a helpful element of yours! Communicate with them the needs of your company, and their role in your success, while highlighting the benefit that success will be to them as well.

Good connections and positive, reliable relationships are a large part of what can make or break a business. Devote some extra energy to your employees, fellow businesses, and the suppliers that make your business possible.

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