It’s too expensive to invest time, energy and resources into dealing with the fallout of bad bosses who compel their employees – often the best performers – to leave.

By Terina Allen

We’ve all heard the sayings. People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. People don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. The way I see it, people just really don’t won’t to work for a boss who doesn’t support them or for one whose poor and ineffectual behavior actually puts employees’ career prospects and promotional opportunities at risk.

Bad bosses compel good employees to leave their jobs even when they like the company. This is how:

They diminish employees by trying to control and micromanage them.

When supervisors micromanage employees, they diminish employee performance and underutilize available employee talent. This means that the organization doesn’t get the benefit of hiring great people with experiences, skills and creativity. Employees tend to shrink in their roles when their bosses micromanage them by doing this.

They neglect to solicit staff input.

Supervisors who neglect to solicit staff input cause employees to disengage. Bad bosses don’t really value their employees, and the employees can feel it. In turn, they stop making their best effort. When you don’t feel appreciate and valued, you are less likely to bring your best self to work, and you are less likely to flourish on your projects.

When a boss asks for staff input, he creates an environment for staff to invest in the outcomes and engage in processes. Engaged employees feel appreciated and valued at work. They are committed to organizational success because they believe their supervisors and managers are also committed to their success.

Bad bosses create “yes men” by rewarding perpetual agreement with their ideas and decisions and punishing dissenters. They seek to hire and surround themselves with people who will uplift their own fragile egos even when it is detrimental to organizational success.

Well-intentioned, good employees can actually find themselves having internal struggles working with these kinds of bosses. They want to support their superiors and help to advance goals. But they also want to be free to be authentic and share divergent ideas. Too often, bad bosses turn good employees into “yes men” who remain silent and support even unethical behaviors in a desire to reap some professional benefit and continue getting along with the boss.

They fail to provide resources and can’t be bothered to remove obstacles.

All supervisors must get these two things right if they are to be deemed effective. Effective supervisors must provide resources and they must remove obstacles to ensure their employees and teams can be successful. Bad bosses don’t even take the time to evaluate what is truly necessary for success. They aren’t asking thoughtful, strategic questions or making employees feel safe enough to request what they need.

The boss is responsible for helping to ensure your success. I believe that when we get hired, we have a responsibility to make our bosses look good to the extent possible (so long as we aren’t asked to violate the law, our professionalism or our integrity). Certainly, bosses are responsibility to make their employees look good as well. Good bosses listen for and respond to your needs. Bad bosses don’t.

They have an integrity deficit and display unethical behavior.

Bad bosses don’t often look beyond their own needs and interests, and they operate from a perspective of what works for them should work for everyone. These type of supervisors often challenge good employees to compromise their own integrity and ethics in order to remain in good graces. When you work for someone who lacks integrity and ethics, you risk damaging your own reputation. People are likely to assume that you condone the unethical decisions of your boss or believe your integrity is just as deficient.

It could really hurt your own leadership prospects if your supervisor is willing to behave unethically, unprofessionally or illegally and you continue working for him.

Bad Boss Honorable Mentions:

In addition to the five detailed above, here are several more ways bad bosses cause good employees to leave:

• They excessively avoid or excessively create conflict. Bad bosses thrive in chaos because it is more difficult to hold them accountable for performance failures in a chaotic culture.
• They take credit for success and blame others for mistakes. Bad bosses will quickly throw employees under the bus if it benefits them even in small ways.
• They lack cultural competence. Bad bosses aren’t committed to diversity and don’t value inclusion.
• They fail to provide stretch assignments or promotional opportunities. Bad bosses don’t consider the career paths or goals of their employees.
• They demote or promote staff based on subjective, rather than objective, merits. Bad bosses reward those who support their bad behaviors.
• They intimidate and bully employees and colleagues. Bad bosses create toxic and hostile environments without regard for how it negatively impacts others. They do it because they are insecure. They do it because they are afraid. They do it because they can.
• They use their authority or power to sexually harass or abuse employees. Bad bosses abuse their power and attempt to get others to submit to their inappropriate desires.

What to do about it?

Don’t let bad bosses drive good employees out. It is up to you to develop or drive out the bad bosses instead.

If you have the organizational authority, start to hire (and develop) better bosses. These are the ones who aren’t afraid to step back and let their employees shine.

Develop effective leaders who will make it a priority to do the most important things for staff – mainly, provide resources and removes obstacles so they can do their best work. If you think it is too expensive to invest in leadership development for your supervisors, you are wrong. It’s too expensive to invest time, energy and resources into dealing with the fallout of bad bosses (poor and ineffective supervisors) who compel their employees – often the best performers – to leave.

If you don’t have the organizational authority to hire or develop better supervisors, you – as an employee at any level – have the responsibility to advocate for yourself.

Apply your best communication and conflict resolution skills and speak up. You have a voice, and you can (and should) ask for what you want or need to achieve organizational goals and be successful in your role.

If you’ve exhausted all efforts and still a bad boss persists, you have the option to leave. Your boss will have a huge impact on your career success. Of all the things you need from your supervisor, you really need for him to provide resources and remove obstacles. If he fails to do this even after your direct attempts to create change, you should get a better boss.

from: forbes.com

Leading By Trust

The Ken Blanchard Companies recently unveiled the results of their 2020 HR Learning and Talent Development Trends Survey. Over 800 Learning and Development professionals participated in the survey, comprising a wide cross-section of roles, age, and level of responsibility in organizations. Respondents were asked to identify the most critical leadership skills needed in their organization. The top five skills identified, in order, were:

1. Listening
2. Coaching
3. Building Trust
4. Creating an engaged workforce
5. Managing change

Listening—Often taken for granted, listening is one of the most underrated yet powerful skills a leader can possess. When I conduct training sessions and ask participants to describe their ‘best boss’ to me, they frequently mention their best boss was a great listener. They describe how their leader listened without judgment, didn’t interrupt, asked probing questions to understand, paraphrased what was heard, didn’t multi-task, and was truly present in the conversation. Check out Close Your Mouth and Open Your Ears-4 Tips to Build Trust for some quick help on improving your listening skills.

Coaching—Top-down, autocratic leadership doesn’t fly in the 21st century. Today’s workforce responds to leaders who come along side team members and provide a coaching style of leadership. Leaders who are good coaches know how to build trust and establish positive relationships, collaboratively establish goals and action plans with team members, and partner with them to ensure accountability for results.

Building Trust—Trust is the absolute, without a doubt, most important ingredient for a successful relationship, especially for leaders. Unfortunately, though, most leaders don’t give much thought to trust until it’s been broken, and that’s the worst time to realize its importance. Contrary to popular opinion, trust doesn’t ‘just happen.’ Building Trust is a skill that can be learned and developed, and from my point of view, it’s the most important skill needed for leaders today. A quick glance at the news headlines makes it clear that trust is in a fragile state. Read We Don’t Have a Crisis of Trust – We Have a Crisis of Untrustworthy Leaders.

Creating an engaged workforce—Engagement…the elusive magic elixir that all organizations desire to achieve. Organizations spend over $700 million dollars a year addressing engagement issues, yet the latest statistics from Gallup report that 66% of the workforce is either disengaged or actively disengaged. Research has shown that trust is a vital component in creating a culture of high engagement. Did you know that a worker is 12x more likely to be fully engaged if they trust their leader? One of the most interesting pieces of research I’ve read recently about engagement was highlighted in this article: A Study of Over 19,000 People Reveals the 2 Most Critical Factors of Highly Engaged Employees.

Managing Change—’Change’ has officially been added to the list of things that are inevitable in life (joining the famous ‘death’ and ‘taxes’). In order for organizations to thrive, they need a workforce that has a mindset that views change as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than being something to fear and resist. The most successful change initiatives are those done with people, not to people. Here are 6 Strategies for Helping Your Team Manage Change.

By Bob Adams – serial entrepreneur and the founder of BusinessTown.com.

Many of us have had that fantasy where we work hard for a few years to get things off the ground, surround ourselves with a dedicated team, and then decamp to a tropical location and keep an eye on the business from the comfort of our beach-side lounge chairs.

If you’re rolling your eyes right about now – don’t. While it sounds like a lot of hot air, being able to run an efficient business remotely isn’t just a fantasy. Now more than ever, it’s possible to stay connected with the office while attending a conference in Toronto – or tanning in Cancun!

There are a multitude of tools available to entrepreneurs for this very purpose, from project management tools to financial ones. Here are a few that can help you handle many of your day-to-day operations from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Project Management Tools

Keeping an eye on things from a distance is never going to be a success unless there is an easy, effective way for team members to communicate with each other. The ubiquitous office set-up of whiteboard in a conference room just doesn’t work when you’re part of a project that uses talent from far-flung corners of the globe (or when you want to check up on progress while you’re on that much-needed Mediterranean cruise).

Luckily, the online project management ecosystem has exploded in recent years, with offerings such as Asana, Trello, Basecamp and Slack providing the same underlying service – a central location where team members can collaborate online.

For example, let’s look at Trello. There, project managers create one or more “boards” – the central repository of a project.

Let’s say that your business sells gadgets, and you’ve got a new model of gadget being introduced to the market. Various “cards” are created on the boards, each card representing a specific task group that has to be performed. One card in our gadget example could be “Finish Quality Control”. Then, various tasks can be added to the card, each assigned to one or more people. Jim and Jacqueline might need to work on checking variance numbers while Ezra focuses on getting the regulators to sign off on certification. A different card could be created for “Marketing Campaign” with related subtasks, and so-on.

Your employees are able to attach files, send messages, ask questions, check off their tasks, all while you give feedback and monitor their progress, mai tai in hand. A notification system means that you’re always alerted when progress has been made…or when a deadline is looming! And, there are even third party apps that work in conjunction with Trello if you want to add currently unsupported features like time tracking.

Employee Engagement/Idea Sharing Tools

The main asset for any business is its people. Any one of your employees could come up with a game-changing idea for the company that could increase sales, decrease waste, improve quality of life at work or at home, or be the next hit product or service for your business.

Letting them languish in a traditional suggestion box is an almost criminal waste of the brain trust you have so carefully assembled. It’s imperative to have an easy, effective way for sharing ideas.

One fantastic tool that does just this from anywhere in the world is called Vetter.

Once you create an account, you add all the users you want to be able to submit ideas. You can also create groups (perhaps corresponding to the various departments in your business) that your users can belong to. Everyone can then submit and rate ideas, and you or an account administrator can pull up reports analyzing uses, groups, and ideas, along with their financial impact. The highest rated ideas can then go on to become reality!

Tools like Vetter are invaluable not just because they provide a painless way to capture ideas generated by employees, but because of how they foster discussion among your staff, getting them to talk about and internalize company goals and values. This creates a deep sense of ownership among your team, especially when they start to see their rock star ideas being implemented in the business.

Of course, the cherry on top is that you can monitor and/or manage it all in between scuba sessions in Saint Lucia!

Accounting/Financial Management Tools

Accounting can be one of the most stressful parts of a small business owner’s life.

Keeping accurate accounts is vital to the health of all businesses, and large businesses have entire departments dedicated solely to wrangling the numbers.

Small businesses, not having the luxury of a large staffing complement, often rely on a few hard-pressed employees to scrupulously keep track of payables and receivables. And there’s not much room for error either, as one missed invoice can cause untold misery for a small company operating on razor thin margins.

Luckily, the flourishing professional services sector has given the small business owner multiple options for making financial recordkeeping as simple and as painless as possible. One of the easiest tools that doesn’t require you to have years of formal accounting education to figure out how to use is Freshbooks.

With Freshbooks you can generate invoices for your clients, keep on top of clients who have not paid, track your expenses, and generate a variety of reports. And again, because everything is stored securely in the cloud, it doesn’t matter if you’re at your home office or lazing around on Laguna Beach. Once your laptop or mobile device is online, you’re good to go.

Conclusion

One thing to keep in mind is that the remote work lifestyle doesn’t just end with the three kinds of tools outlined above. There are a myriad of options to choose from, and if you have an operations problem you think requires you to be in the office day in and day out, there’s most likely a software solution to help you ditch the four wall and a ceiling. With a little planning and preparation, you can literally be running your business from a hammock on the white sandy beach of your choice!

Reposted from: businesstown.com/tools-to-help-you-run-your-business-from-the-beach/

Neglecting your own well-being is just as bad as taking your eye off the numbers

by Jack Torrance

Entrepreneurs should always have an eye on their company’s financial health, but it’s also important to stay in shape yourself. When you’ve got investors breathing down your neck and targets to hit, that’s not always straightforward though.

‘The biggest problem for entrepreneurs is they get excited about their business and they put themselves second,’ says John Neal, a performance coach and tutor at Ashridge Business School who has worked with Vodafone, the Bank of England, and the Welsh Rugby Union. ‘So they forget about exercise, diet, sleep – they’re so excited by the entrepreneurial idea that that’s all they do. Before they know it they’re tired, they’re fatigued they’re overweight, they’ve got cold, flu.’

Of course that’s bad for you personally, but staying healthy isn’t just about your own wellbeing. ‘The healthier people are, the more focused they are, the better they are at performing at the higher level which they need in order to successfully run their own business,’ says Ross Cowan, who runs his own personal training business, M.E.T.A Studio. Focusing too much on work and not enough on yourself is bad for your business, your employees and for your family.
There’s plenty of help out there for busy people looking to stay fit, from the clinically medical to the deeply spiritual. But you don’t need to call a celebrity nutritionist or a witch doctor just yet – there’s some simple steps you can take to keep your mind and body fighting fit.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

If you’ve got a lot on, it’s easy to shun healthy options for a Mars bar. ‘When you’re entrepreneurial you’re normally adrenalized, you’re excited,’ says Neal. ‘What that does is cause you to crave short-term hits of sugar. So typically you’ll grab for the biscuits, cake, anything that’s quick, easy, processed and you can consume quickly so you can carry on.’

Instead, keep your energy levels up and cravings at bay by eating a high-protein breakfast, grazing on nuts, seeds and fruits and drinking plenty of water. Soup can be a good lunch option, says Neal, because it contains both water and food.

Whatever you do, don’t try to get by on coffee alone. ‘Try to get some real food into your system instead of running on adrenaline, which a lot of business people do,’ says Jacqueline Harvey, who owns and runs lifestyle clinic Crystal Clear Health.

‘It’s these caffeine uppers and downers and that can be, in the long term, very detrimental to your endocrine system, your adrenal system can crash. A lot of people in business can burn out because they keep pushing and their body gives way.’

KEEP ON MOVING

Some people just can’t get enough exercise, but on a cold rainy morning it can be tempting to hit the snooze button rather than put on your running shoes. Finding ways to fit it into your day is important, though.

Entrepreneurs are ‘driven people who need to have an entrepreneurial type challenge, which requires them to be fit,’ says Neal. ‘They won’t prioritise fitness or health, but what they will do is try to achieve challenges, because they’re driven people.’

Needing to be in shape for a forthcoming task can be a great source of motivation. Neal suggests cycling around Britain or climbing Kilimanjaro, for example, and Cowan recommends Tough Mudder, a gruelling obstacle course that includes swimming through ditches of icy water and crawling through mud under barbed wire (if that floats your boat).

As for the type of work-outs you should be doing, ‘Match your exercise with the intensity of your work,’ suggests mind and body coach Alisa Burke. ‘If you are in a very intense work period then I would do something like interval training, or even just going outside and running fast between lampposts and walking for a bit. It trains your body to cope with an intense period of putting your body under a lot of stress and then learning to recover from it.’

LEARN TO REST

Take some time to let your body and mind recharge. ‘Taking a cyclical approach to how you work is proven really beneficial,’ says Burke. ‘It’s fine to have really intense periods, but then to schedule in, perhaps after a big deadline, a week where you can take the pace off – whether that’s lightening your work schedule or shifting the way you exercise.’

Resting can help get the creative juices flowing again, too. ‘If you go and speak to entrepreneurs who have made it long-term, like Dyson or Branson, what you will find is, yes they were hard driving but they would also take time out,’ says Neal. ‘They recognise that good ideas come when you take time out. You’ve got to have the patience, you’ve got to be willing to slow down to speed up.’

GET CHECKED OUT
Nobody enjoys going to the doctor’s and it’s especially easy to put it off if you have a busy lifestyle, but ignoring signs of illness can have severe consequences. ‘The biggest issue for executives, a bit like the biggest issue for men, is getting them to actually come along to see anybody in the medical profession for anything,’ says Dr Nick Summerton, a GP who is medical director of health screening firm Bluecrest.

‘We can list lots of health problems that executives might have, but they won’t know they have high blood pressure or high cholesterol unless they have it measured.’

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

Emotional well-being is important too. Some entrepreneurs ‘tend to take on these bad habits of fear and worry, and that can have really damaging effects on your energy and your health,’ says Burke. ‘It’s a real cognitive drain as well, both mentally and physically. Even really successful business owners, there’s always a fear of “oh I’m not good enough”. I would definitely say pay attention and do what you can to shift those habits before they take a grip and take their toll.’

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that there’s no point in working every hour God sends if it means neglecting your health. ‘Running a business is one of the most fun and dynamic things anyone can do – if you look after yourself,’ says Harvey. ‘If you don’t, it can be the most arduous.’

Reposted from: https://www.managementtoday.co.uk

By morebusiness.com

What’s the secret to a happy customer and generating more word-of-mouth referrals that you ever imagined? Improve customer satisfaction and you’ll have raving fans who tell the world about your business.

The old adage, “it costs five times more to attract a new customer as it does keeping a loyal customer,” still holds true today. When customers churn, your marketing and sales expenses go up because you need to spend more effort just to recoup the revenue you lost. That’s why you should do everything you can to keep a happy customer coming back for return business.

Easy Ways to Create a Happy Customer

How can you improve customer satisfaction and retain a happy customer? It happens at every stage of their customer journey, whether they are a new client or one that has enjoyed a positive customer service experience from you for years.

Here are 11 easy ways you can build customer loyalty and satisfaction, plus ways to measure customer happiness.

1. Ask for Customer Reviews Regularly

Google uses social sentiment as a ranking factor in their search results. Your prospects will use recent reviews with high ratings as an indicator of whether to buy from you. Whatever your preferred review site, such as Google Reviews, Facebook, Yelp or others, encourage your happy customers to share their positive comments. Monitor review sites so you can reply if needed and respond to unhappy customers.

Try MoreBusiness.com’s Review Builder to make getting reviews easy.

2. Measure Customer Happiness with Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Regardless of your industry, getting customer satisfaction metrics is an important part of creating a happy customer. You might be measuring CSAT, or customer satisfaction, or other metrics to gauge a happy customer.

Another, and many would say more important, metric is NPS, which stands for net promotor score. It tells you exactly where you stand with your customers.

It is a number between -100 and 100 calculated based on a customer’s response to one single question scored between 0-10 (10 being the highest):

• How likely are you to recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague?

Customers who give you 6 or below are detractors, 7 or 8 are passives, and 9 or 10 are promotors.

• NPS = % Promotors – % Detractors

So, if 60% of customers rate your business a 9 or 10 (Promotors) and 15% give a 6 or below rating (Detractors), your NPS is 45, which by the way is a solid score that indicates you have a lot of happy customers.

The higher your score, the more likely you are to retain customers, which reduces marketing costs since you will have to spend less to replace your churned customers. You should not survey any particular customer more than four times a year.

3. Acknowledge Customers Quickly

Answer phone calls right away. Response time to emails is critical – you should reply within an hour or two at most during work hours. When you are near a customer, use eye contact and say “I’ll be right with you.” Acknowledging your customers immediately goes a long way in improving customer satisfaction. Simple gestures show you care. Train your team regularly to make sure they show your company’s best side.

4. Send Birthday Offers

Know your customers. Find out their names and greet them by name whenever possible. Get birthday information and send them a special offer or treat ahead of their birthday.

Email marketing tools can automate this process for you. Just enter a happy customer’s email address and their birthday (birth year not required), set the message you want like a free offer or discount coupon, and you can drive more repeat business. This can help improve customer loyalty because they’ll know you care about them as individuals, not wallets.

5. Build Happy Customer Loyalty with a Reward Program

One proven strategy to make a happy customer is to reward them for loyalty. Many businesses have a “buy 5 – get 1 free” card or something similar. While this is good, you can also reward customers unexpectedly. After a repeat customer visits you a few times, give them a complimentary drink, an added service, or a special discount. You can also use a tool like Candy Bar which manages your loyalty program automatically – and a happy customer can use it from their phone.

6. Follow Up Proactively with Progress Updates

Customers don’t want to be made to follow up to get updates. While it may be easier for you, it’s not easy for them. If you tell a customer you are looking into an issue, follow up with a status update. A phone call or email can make the difference in a happy customer and a disgruntled one.

7. Give Special Offers to Current Customers

Use your customer contacts to offer a “members only” type of promotion to current customers. This increases customer satisfaction by making them feel valued and part of an “inside” group.

8. Keep in Touch to Increase Adoption of Your Brand and Products

Try to acquire customer contact information. Then, send regular updates via mail or email. A monthly or quarterly newsletter is a fantastic way of keeping customers informed of news and simply reminding them of your business name.

If customers don’t use your product or services, they will defect to your competitors. Keep them engaged by staying in touch. Even if they don’t respond to every email you send, many will skim through and keep you in their minds just because you took the effort to reach out.

I can personally recount many times each month that a prospect who had been getting our educational newsletter for over a year, sometimes two, would call and say “I’m ready.” They would buy our products with little resistance and become a happy customer.

9. Tell Happy Customers Why You Are Different Than the Competition

Whether you design a creative interior to your retail store or simply provide more value through exceptional customer service, you must keep customers happy by setting yourself apart from your competition.

This will be different for every business. As author Simon Sinek says, “Start with why.” What’s the reason your company exists? Do you have a mission or a set of values that’s unlike your competitors? Share your story.

10. Ask Customers for Their Opinions

Do you really know what your customers want? It never hurts to ask customers about their experience and what improvements they would like. This can provide valuable information on how you can improve products and your service delivery. In addition to asking the NPS question above, send a post-sale survey to a Google Form or SurveyMonkey survey that asks:

• What would you change about our product to make you want to buy it?

This simple yet very powerful question goes to the heart of whether a customer would take out their wallet and invest their hard-earned money in a product or service you offer.

Resist the urge to respond with clarifications. The best customer dialog is unfiltered. Just listen. Your ears are more powerful than your mouth, especially when it comes to creating a happy customer.

11. Give Away Product Samples

Do you have a new product? Current customers can be a good source of market research. Give free samples to existing customers and ask their valued opinion.

Keeping your existing happy customer satisfied is the best way to maintain your company’s revenues. Also, a happy customer will naturally spread the word about your business. Going the extra mile to care how your customer feels about your products and services. Loyal customers are the core of your long-term growth.

Reproduced from: https://www.morebusiness.com/happy-customer/

Photo by Todd Trapani on Pexels.com

By  Faye Ferris

For every success you have in growing your market share, another business or other businesses will inevitably lose ground.

Here are 11 quick and easy business tips to gain a competitive advantage over your rivals and insulate yourself from the threat of new entrants in the market.

1. Focus on leads, not sales

Of course, we all want to spark business growth and increase revenue. But the way you do this in a sustainable way is to focus instead on the building of a loyal database of avid fans.

Content marketing, paired with optimized website forms and intelligent email automation follow-up is critical to business success. This approach builds trust by giving away free value before asking for someone’s hard-earned money.

Not an expert in creating optimized lead generation pages on a website? No worries, use a trusted tool like Leadpages to make it happen.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Leadpages here. 

2. Don’t sell products, provide solutions

Like it or not, folks out there aren’t searching for your brand, they’re just looking to solve a problem or find a particular type of product (unless you run Starbucks or Adidas!)

Don’t list all the benefits your product brings. Focus on the solutions. Explain to the customer in simple, straightforward terms how or why your product can help them or assist in the attainment of their goals.

Consider FedEx’s iconic slogan: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. This was a clear example of addressing widely-spread anxiety about the reliability of delivery services.

Run through some market research to profile your target customer. How does your product or service – and your delivery and and price point – solve other people’s problems and make their lives easier or more pleasurable?

3. Always optimize your pricing

Dropping prices doesn’t necessarily raise sales, for instance (though it will definitely squeeze margins). If you position yourself as a premium brand, then your customers aren’t necessarily value-driven in the first place, and cutting prices could even tarnish your brand.

Consider this case study from Robert Cialdini’s seminal book ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’: a jeweller sold out of turquoise jewelry after accidentally doubling, instead of halving, the price. The inflated price tag lent the product an unwarranted cachet!

If you are a premium brand, there are ways to optimize your pricing without lowering prices. For example, offer the quality-conscious customer an ‘exclusive’ benefit that your rivals do not or cannot provide.

If you are at the value-driven end of the market, on the other hand, don’t assume slashing prices means incurring a loss. Low pricing can help you rapidly onboard a heap of new customers who may also buy other items in your shop and return again.

Context also counts for a lot with pricing. The best way to sell a $5,000 watch, for instance, could be by putting it next to a $10,000 watch. Think strategically when it comes to deciding any price point.

4. Hire friendly customer-facing staff

Yes, it sounds obvious, but it’s so very important! Whether consciously or not, people are more likely to buy a product if they like the sales assistant who’s attending to them.

While the employee’s personality obviously has no bearing on the price or your product’s ability to serve their needs is irrelevant. Friendly customer-facing staff will always attract more sales.

Be rigorous in hiring people who are genuinely cheerful, friendly and outgoing. Make sure your training program teaches them to adopt a consistently friendly approach that puts customers at ease and feel like a priority.

5. Stay open even longer

Say you’re a bricks-and-mortar store and you’re getting a rush of customers as closing time approaches… why not close up an hour later?

While this may cause disgruntlement among staff, solve this issue by getting creative with rosters. Monitor customer footfall throughout the day and week to identify your busiest periods, and staff people accordingly.

You can also reduce headcount during quieter periods to offset the higher costs and longer working hours created by your extended opening hours.

It’s a win-win!

6. Don’t make customers dig deep for a phone number

Even in the digital age, some customers will always prefer to contact you by phone rather than email or Facebook. While many online companies with tight margins eschew manned phone lines altogether, it’s worth giving customers the option of having a voice-to-voice conversation with your brand.

By all means, slash the time and cost spent responding to queries by funnelling customers to standardized, pre-existing responses on your webpage (i.e., FAQs).

But if their query isn’t listed in the drop-down menu of FAQs, then don’t make them click more than once more to find your phone number.

Put it front and center on your web page, particularly if you’re a retail offering.

‘Live chat’ bots are an inexpensive way of offering real-time communication, too.

7. Give something for nothing (or very little)

Why not give your happy customers a voucher with their purchase to redeem on your products and services? If they love what you do already, they’re only going to love you more for this.

It’s good for you because:

• It guarantees they will return to your store again. People hate to waste freebies!
• When they return to your store to redeem their voucher, they may buy other items, too. If your business operates online, then the freebie could be strategically timed to coincide with a special sale.

Oh, and guess what? Chances are customers who have received vouchers or freebies won’t stay quiet about it either, so you could enjoy some positive buzz on social media.

8. Support your local community

Local businesses can arguably connect with their unique communities with much greater authority than any global chain.

A local retailer, hair salon or gardening company can sponsor a kid’s sports team and offer deep discounts for OAPs at the same time.

Some cinemas feature special ‘sensory’ screenings where parents can bring kids with autism (who would normally be overwhelmed by busy, noisy environments) to enjoy a movie in a relaxed, stress-free atmosphere. This reflects well on them and also guarantees them a loyal customer niche.

Whatever you choose to do to support your community, make sure it authentically fits with your brand offering and business journey to date.

9. Use social media smartly

Social media is a great medium through which to build a solid relationship with customers – just don’t forget what ‘social’ actually means! Soul-less corporate shop-talk won’t work on Twitter.

Try to give your brand some ‘personality’ when you write updates or posts. This can bring its own risks, of course. But if you get it right, the benefits can be immense.

Develop a tone of voice that aligns well with your brand identity. Seek to inform, help, entertain or amuse.

And most importantly – given the dire PR consequences – don’t patronize, try too hard to be funny, or tweet after a few alcoholic drinks!

10. Own your niche

Sometimes it’s better to be a master of one discipline than a jack of all trades. Admittedly, multiple revenue streams do spread your risk: if one falters, others can take up the slack.

Nevertheless, consumers often associate ‘specialists’ with higher quality products or services than generalists. And with good reason, too: specialists typically invest all their resources into perfecting a single product or service.

So what should you specialize in? To state the obvious, it should be something in which you excel.

You could also pick something with rising or recession-proof demand which is resilient to technological change in which you possess a competitive advantage over your rivals or where there’s an obvious gap in your local market.

Own it, whatever you do.

11. Be humble

Don’t ever get too satisfied with your business. You can always improve – and improve you must!

Don’t get me wrong: without the odd moment of smug satisfaction, what’s the point? Do relish in the successful launch of a game-changing product or take pleasure in positive customer feedback. But don’t let your customers hear you banging on about it time after time!

Be alert to the common element that has led to the downfall of countless hitherto thriving brands: complacency. Imaginative, nimble and innovative start-ups often do better than big market leaders that just got lazy.

You may be the disruptive innovator today, but tomorrow you could be the complacent market leader with a tired business model.

So try to be humble and always strive to improve. Seek inspiration from other entrepreneurs, from books and from seminars. The moment you think ‘mission accomplished’ is the same moment you become vulnerable to being usurped.

Wrapping up

There are lots of ways in which you can improve your business, and not all of them are complicated!

Try out the above business tips or integrate them with your existing strategies, and let me know how you go in the comments below.

Copied from: https://www.jeffbullas.com/business-tips/

BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD

Do you know that happy employees are the most significant factor when you think about raising work productivity and creating happy, satisfied customers? Not all managers get this simple fact.

When you see a manager scream at their employees, nit-pick over every document, and give performance reviews that bring up errors from eight months earlier, you may think that they believe a miserable employee is the best employee.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When your employees are happy, life is better for everyone—including your customers. Here’s how happy employees make your business more productive.

Happy Employees Mean Happy Customers

No matter how great your product, or how brilliant your idea, if no one is buying it, your business will fail. A study of a pharmaceutical company found that customer’s loyalty increased when employees were happy and engaged

Think about how you feel when you must meet with a person who is unhappy and doesn’t like their job. This attitude makes the meeting tedious and unpleasant. If the salesperson or account manager is genuinely cheerful and pleasant, you may find that you are looking forward to the meeting. When a customer wants to work with your business, you will find that they are more likely to purchase your products

While Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi had a line out the door, that doesn’t happen for most people who treat their customers poorly. If you’re treated poorly, you’re not likely to go back. If employees are unhappy with their job or their workplace, they are more likely to treat your customers poorly. The result certainly won’t be a line of people waiting for you to serve them.

Happy Employees Perform at a Higher Level

In another study, participants were given “happiness shocks.” While this may sound awful, the happiness shocks were actually ten-minute comedy videos or the receiving of drinks and snacks. The study checked that these methods made the subjects happier (they do) and then went on to show that these individuals had “approximately 12% greater productivity than a control group” who received nothing.

Participants who watched these videos and then completed tasks performed at a higher and more accurate level. Not a bad exchange for watching 10 minutes of comedy or snacking. This demonstrates that having the right, positive frame of mind can affect your work performance. Unhappy employees are more likely to have poor attendance and experience more burnout and stress.

Think about your own life. When you get up late, spill coffee on your blouse, and have to drive around the block for 10 minutes seeking a parking space, you don’t bounce into work ready to do your best. Your employees are human, just as you are, and being in a lousy mood affects their performance. While you can’t control their coffee spills, you can control the work environment they experience.

Happy Employees Mean More Money for the Business

An older study looked at companies that made it onto the Fortune Top 100 Companies to Work list from 1998 to 2005 and found that companies on the list saw a 14% increase in stock price, compared to an average of 6% for companies overall.

That’s a tremendous difference. And, while the data is older, there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t apply today. Unlike many other employee surveys, this one isn’t done by just asking HR to answer a bunch of questions—they survey actual employees. You don’t get on the Top 100 list without having happy employees.

The tremendous difference in stock price indicates the companies actually perform better. “When employees feel that the company takes their interest to heart, then the employees will take company interests to heart,” says Dr. Noelle Nelson, a clinical psychologist and author of “Make More Money by Making Your Employees Happy.”

Changes To Make So Your Employees Are Happy

If you’re the CEO, you can do just about anything the budget allows, but if you are a line manager or an HR manager, you may be bound by the choices of your bosses. That doesn’t mean you can’t make changes. Here are five differences that you can make to increase your employees’ happiness at work:

• Put an end to bullying: Don’t be scared of bullies—you need to manage them right out the door if they cause problems for your employees. One bully can severely damage happiness in your department.

• Pay the employees fairly: Sure, you can’t change the company’s pay structure, but you have some control over your department’s budget and what you pay employees. If your employees all sat down and shared their salaries, would some experience hurt feelings? If so, take a look at your compensation and work to fix it.

• Provide feedback—positive and negative—with constructive advice: Sometimes managers, who want happy employees, are hesitant to say anything negative, but that doesn’t bring employees happiness. That brings frustration. Employees seriously want to know how they are doing. As long as you point out the good and bad performance and give suggestions about how they can do better, your employees will welcome the feedback and will work to become better. No one likes feeling incompetent in their job.

• Reward good work with promotions: Some managers worry more about their own careers than that of their employees. You want your employees to grow and shine. Helping them obtain promotions can help motivate your current staff and, as a bonus, you gain a positive reputation for training and developing people.

• Remain courteous, professional and pleasant: This seems basic, but so many managers neglect this. “I’m just surly—it’s my personality.” Fine, but your employees interpret that as you’re being a jerk. Treat people nicely. Solve problems and don’t put up with bad behavior, absolutely, but make sure that your overall personality is nice, pleasant, and approachable.

 

From: thebalancecareers.com/with-happy-employees-your-business-is-more-productive-4177442

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

• Advertisers use sexual imagery to attract sales of products as diverse as perfume and cheeseburgers.
• While using sexy ads might seem like a risky choice, studies show that it works.
• Sex sells because it immediately grabs attention.

By Business News Daily Editor, Expert

Sex still sells:  A study from the University of Georgia looked at sexual ads that have appeared in magazines over the 30 years and found that the numbers are going up.

Why is sex important in sales?

Sex attracts attention. Though it’s often a taboo subject, advertisers that use sex in their marketing often create effective and memorable campaigns. Brands such as Victoria’s Secret and GoDaddy.com have created ads that might not even talk about the product but simply gain viewers’ attention. In sales, gaining the attention of clients and potential buyers is often half the battle.

“Advertisers use sex because it can be very effective,” said Tom Reichert, a professor and head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and one of the study researchers. “Sex sells because it attracts attention. People are hardwired to notice sexually relevant information, so ads with sexual content get noticed.”

People also succumb to the “buy this, get this” imagery used in ads, he said. “Some young men actually think Axe body spray will drive women crazy,” Reichert said. “But brand impressions are shaped by images in advertising, too. Arguably, Calvin Klein and Victoria’s Secret are not much different than Hanes or Vassarette, but perception studies show those brands are perceived as ‘sexy,’ and some customers want that.”

The researchers looked at 3,232 full-page ads published in 1983, 1993 and 2003 in the popular magazines Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Esquire, Playboy, Newsweek and Time. They found sexual imagery in 20% of the ads overall. The use of sex to sell everything from alcohol to banking services increased over the years: 15% of the

The ads were categorized based on the models’ clothing, or lack thereof, and physical contact between models.

“Our findings show that the increase in visual sexual imagery over the three decades of analysis is attributable to products already featuring sexual content in ads, not necessarily widespread adoption by other product categories,” Reichert said. “Specifically, alcohol, entertainment and beauty ads are responsible for much of the increase.”

The study showed that sex is used primarily to sell impulse purchases.

“Sex is not as effective when selling high-risk, informational products such as banking services, appliances and utility trucks,” he said.

Much of the growth was seen in alcohol, entertainment and beauty advertising. Out of 18 product categories, the ones that most often used sexual imagery in advertising were health and hygiene (38%), beauty (36%), drugs and medicine (29%), clothing (27%), travel (23%) and entertainment (21%).

“In almost every study I’ve seen, sexual content gives a purchase advantage in such instances,” Reichert said.

Advertisers that did not use sex in their ads included charitable organizations and computer companies.

What types of companies use sex in their advertisements?

Many kinds of companies use sex in their advertisements. Some might use sexual imagery to display a product like lingerie or underwear; others might use it to discuss a medical product like prescription medication or condoms. But some companies use sex solely to gain viewers’ attention. For example, an advertisement for Hardee’s created controversy when it featured Kate Upton seductively eating a cheeseburger. While many people were discussing how the approach had nothing to do with the quality of the cheeseburger, this approach gained quite a bit of publicity.

How is sex used in advertising?

Advertisers use a variety of methods to incorporate sex. From Old Spice to Axe, these products supposedly will make men more desirable, according to their commercials. In perfume ads, only the most attractive women use the perfume, insinuating that if you use that type of perfume, you will also be beautiful. Sex is used to sell magazines with only the “sexiest men alive” being featured. Sports Illustrated sells a year subscription to many users who want it only for the swimsuit edition.

Women are used to sell products most often when pitching sex. In ads sampled from 2003, 92% of beauty ads featured female models. Just under half of the ads did not contain models.

With the exception of entertainment advertising, women overwhelmingly occupy the pages of sex-selling advertisements. Of the 38% of provocative health and hygiene advertisements that featured models, 31% were female and 7% were male.

“Perhaps more important, this analysis shows that the proportion for alcohol ads in 2003 increased to about one sexual ad for every three ads (37% ),” Reichert said.

Reichert said this upward trend in erotic ads is a reflection of society.

“It takes more explicitness to grab our attention and arouse us than before,” he said. “In the early 1900s, exposed arms and ankles of female models generated the same level of arousal as partially nude models do today. We can see during our lifetimes the changes in sexually explicit content on television, movies, books and other forms of media beyond just advertising.”

The results of the study were published in the Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. Leonard Reid, a professor of advertising at UGA Grady College, and Courtney Carpenter Childers, an assistant professor in the School of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are co-authors of the study.

Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com