One of the biggest challenges facing small business owners is “How do I distinguish myself from my competitors?”
The answer is simple, and so, there is no shortage of people toiling to make it complicated.
To stand out, dedicate yourself to your customers. Care more about helping them than you do about making money. The company that cares more will understand more. And the company that understands the customer’s world will think up ideas that will impact their world. In other words, they will stand out.
If you really care, you will even ask questions that risk making you look bad, because it serves the greater purpose of helping your customers.…
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So you benchmark your company against others in your industry. Maybe you look at maximizing revenue per full-time employee, increasing first call resolution in your contact center or IT expense as a percent of revenue. How do you compare to your competitors? Is that the right comparison?
Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching, and whether you personally view it as the most romantic day of the year, filled with love and hope, or an annual ordeal splashed with tacky red and pink décor, there’s no question it can have a positive effect on many small businesses.
Maybe you’re working the tradeshow at the industry’s big annual convention for the next four days. Perhaps it’s a long-planned romantic vacation to an exotic resort in the Caribbean. Or maybe you’re just calling it a night and are heading home for the evening. No matter what your situation, there’s likely to be a time when you aren’t at the office, but you need to access something that’s on your office computer.
Happy New Year! Wouldn’t it be great if this year you could buy extra hours on Ebay or Overstock.com? It would also be great to win the lottery but that’s not going to happen (at least not today). While I can’t give you more hours in the day, I can give you some tips for saving time.
A simple social experiment, IGotAnEnvelope.com, demonstrates that not all social-networking needs to begin on-line and how to successfully integrate traditional marketing with new media.
Small businesses are never too small or large, to execute the most vital part of business, face -to- face communication. Having discussed aspects of communication here before, this aspect of communication involves having company meetings, not department meetings, to hear the company news from the owner/operator.
Even as we’re starting to see the early stages of an economic recovery, businesses and individuals continue to trudge through the ugly legal fallout of deals-gone-bad. Countless lawsuits have resulted from soured joint ventures, alleged breaches of contract, and plain old disputes over who owed what to whom. These lawsuits can be costly, time-consuming, and counterproductive. Worst of all, they can distract you from what’s truly important: tending to your business’s current needs and helping it survive-and thrive-for the future.
The small business world is collectively holding their breathe in anticipation for what could possibly happen with the health care reform bill. Till that time comes to pass, it is all about communications.
