#SmallBizSmartz

[ntuitively]

Discover Your Pot of Gold: Client Feedback is Client Intel

Do you know what your customer or client is saying about you? When is the last time you “Googled” your organization? Why are these actions important?

Instead of jumping on the defensive about what your customers or clients are saying about you, take that information and convert it into intelligence for your business. Feedback can help you hone in on your organization’s flaws. You then have the opportunity to create a framework for feedback to stay ahead of your competitors. 

Here are a few ways you can exploit your weaknesses and make them strengths:

Creating a process within your organization to receive customer feedback

Use social media in your data collection process

After data validation, convert customer feedback into your organizations process 

Build best practices and lessons learned into your process to assess improvements

As part of your process make sure to notify your customer of your improvements through a feedback loop

Train your employees to look for client opportunities and feedback

Creating avenues for client intelligence through feedback can catapult your business ahead of your competitors.  Successful organizations make it a priority to not only establish customer feedback and track the progress, but also implement recommendations and close the loop by informing customers of their changes. Are you sitting on a pot of gold?

[ntuitively]

Healthy Mind in Business

1.       30 min Morning

As entrepreneur, we all have to face the next grueling day. Take 30 minutes every morning to stretch, meditate, or just be still.

2.Day Prep

Prepare the day’s to do’s the night before. You should create your ‘to do’ task lists in the evening. You can fully maximize your daytime by preparing the night before.

3.Disconnect

Your busy business life can take over your busy home life. Have a designated time every night to shut down. Take up a hobby that does not include electronics.

4.Physical Time

You should be at a minimum doing 30 minutes of physical activity every day. Get your blood flowing and move your whole body, circulation is always a good thing.

5.Mentor Someone

There is nothing like the feeling of being a mentor and giving of yourself. Try to make yourself available to share your knowledge with others that may enjoy what you have to give.

[ntuitively]

7 Reasons Your Business Doesn't Stand Out

Many organizations attempt to differentiate themselves in their industry but often fail. Have you ever thought to yourself, I have a great product/service, but I can’t seem get the right kind of attention? Well consider the following 7 habits many business owners fall into and discover why your business isn’t the prettiest rock in the pond.

1.      You are copying marketing strategies from your competitor 2.      Your business doesn't convey value to a potential customer 3.      You have decided Social Media is "not" for you 4.      Your elevator pitch is generic and forgettable 5.      Your marketing material does not include corporate discriminators 6.      Your website is too generic and uninspiring 7.      You have no networking strategy

It is vital that your organization learn ways to successfully stand out from your competitor. Don’t be afraid to be a game changer in your industry. Usually those companies that not only understand their value proposition but also can articulate the value to potential buyers usually end up rising above the fray.

[ntuitively]

Be Prepared To Tell the World Who You Are

Why is it that many organizations have a difficult time setting themselves apart from their competition? Are your products/services easy to obtain? Is your market over saturated with vendors that look just like you? Are you not articulating your value to the customer? Are you talking to the wrong crowd?

It is essential that your organization understand factors that differentiate you from your competitors. Your organization should clearly be able to articulate what makes your company exceptional. Could your “it” factor be your unique product, celebrity status, capability, or expertise?

Once you have a clear understanding as to what differentiates you from your competitors and you are speaking to the “right” audience, do not forget to effectively communicate your “it” to your potential buyers. Create a value proposition that makes potential customer want to come to you. Try these three ways to discover your true value proposition:

1.       Know you customer- Offer a beneficial solution to your potential buyer problems

2.       Know your products and services – Potential buyers want to know how your organization will help them gain, save, or improve

3.       Know your competitors- Understand how their products, services or idea create value

As your organization explore new options for gaining new business, always remember to be concise and consistent when marketing your organization. Practice your message to perfection so you are always ready.

Preparation is KEY.

[ntuitively]

Corporate Discriminators

This month I challenge you to re-examine and refresh your corporate discriminators by the numbers. So many times our corporate discriminators are so common that they no longer function as discriminators. How many times have you seen “minority ownership” as a corporate discriminator? Being minority-owned is hardly a discriminator in the Washington DC area, as a matter of fact it’s hardly a discriminator elsewhere!

Using customer service as a discriminator is great if you are truly providing customer service that is above and beyond what your competitors provide. Take the time to look at any customer service metric in your industry and crunch the data to see if you’re truly beating that metric or are you just meeting a high industry standard. 

Look around and you’ll see examples of corporate discriminators that are really just companies “doing their job”. Make sure that your corporate discriminators are do more than just their job!!

For more information on this month's Small Biz Buzz theme “Establishing Corporate Discriminators” follow us on twitter at @smbizsmartz or visit our website for daily tips, insight, blogs, and interviews.

[ntuitively]

Client Intelligence – Don’t’ Stand So Close to Me

Client intelligence is a term that’s too often bandied about....”Do we have enough intel?” “Let’s do a data call” or even “let’s mindmap”. Too often, we hide behind the term client intelligence as a means of avoiding direct (and potentially rejecting) interactions and conversations with our targets and clients. Intelligence is out there and it is useful…but it is also a bit creepy. I admire a vendor that takes the time find out the basics of my company and presents a reasonable and solid proposition. I don’t do business with the vendor that not only knows my business, but also knows that I garden, my birthday is in August, and that I don’t like oysters. There is no single bit of data or “client intelligence” that you’re ever going to receive that will suddenly unlock a client and have them fall into your books. Taking the time to speak with your clients in a focused manner in order to build (or even expand upon) a relationship will provide you with intelligence and understanding uniquely shaped to your relationship.

We don’t do business with the person who knows us like no other, we do business with the person who has the give and take to build a relationship and just a shovel to mine data.

[ntuitively]

Operational Excellence Interview (Part 1 of 2)

nTuitive nGen would like to thank Walter Swindell of Optimization Solutions Consulting for contributing to this month's theme of Operational Excellence. Optimization Solutions Consulting is a provider of  helping organizations achieve improved results by identifying those things that are out of alignment with their strategic plan and therefore working against the success of the organization.  Optimization Solutions Consulting is on the cusp of improving small business operations.  Take a look..                   

1)      There are many definitions of Operational Excellence, ranging from the purely theoretical to the completely practical.  What is your definition of Operational Excellence and what school of thought is your definition based upon?

A: Operational Excellence is when all aspects of the organization are aligned and working towards the achievement of the vision and mission of the organization.  My Operational Excellence school of thought comes from the belief that if an organization does not create and communicate a vision that incorporates its core ideology and envisioned future, it is highly unlikely that the organization will achieve Operational Excellence.

2) What are some critical factors in reaching Operational Excellence?  Does this change for companies that are in manufacturing versus non-manufacturers. 

A: Key factors in achieving Operational Excellence are  having clear and establish goals, objectives, and standards for performance. To achieve Operational Excellence  it is  essential that each individual in the organization has a clear understanding of how Operational Excellence is defined for  their accountabilities. It is as equally important l that each functional area of the organization clearly understands the strategic objectives of the organization and the cross functional dependency of the organization. Operational Excellence will never be achieved if functional areas perform their duties and responsibilities in isolation.  These principles hold true for all organization  whether or not they are a  manufacturing  or non-manufacturers company.

3) How can a small business establish a baseline in order to implement measures that will increase Operational Excellence?

A: Step 1- Establish a clear understanding of the critical success factors that are essential to achieving organization goals.  An organization that does not establish performance metrics will never know if it is on a pathway to success. 

Step 2-Establish standards for measuring each critical success factor.Standards of performance must be established for each operational function that is linked to the critical success factors. Achieving Operational Excellence will not occur unless it is managed

Step 3- Implement management information systems to capture data to report on each critical success factor.  The organizations that achieve Operational Excellence have a disciplined process for capturing, reporting, and analyzing results.

[ntuitively]

8 Tips For Planning Your Small Business’ 2014 Marketing Strategy (Part 1 of 3)

While the holiday season is undoubtedly a busy period for small business owners, it’s important to set aside time to plan your marketing strategy for the year ahead. How will you continue to maintain and grow your business in 2014? What plans do you have to keep your business on track and stay ahead of the competition?

Issues related to marketing are top-of-mind for small business owners going into the New Year. In fact, according to Yodle‘s recently released First Annual Small Business Sentiment Survey, 42% of small business owners said they are worried about finding new customers, making it their #1 overall concern. Additionally, 33% of small business owners surveyed said that keeping their current customers is a concern (#3 overall), while 21% of owners cited their competition as something they worry about (#6 overall).

As we can all attest, 2013 was a year in which consumers increasingly adopted new technology, search and review tools and social media channels to help drive their path to purchase. This was also a year in which a variety of new marketing tools were introduced that make it easier for small businesses to reach and convert consumers in the places where they are increasingly searching.

[ntuitively]

Operational Excellence Principles to Grow your Business

Is your organization having a hard time reaching successful operational excellence? Here are three key principles to reaching Operational Excellence:

1.      Have employees involved

Understand how important it is to value all employees- Ensure all employees involved in the workflow process uphold and increase the overall level of performance using established continuous tools for customer satisfaction to prevent abnormal flow. These tools are often put in place to make sure customer follow ups, relations, and guidelines are met. 

2.      Create processes to deal with irregularities 

Although ALL employees are trained to maintain successful operational processes, sometimes things fall through due to outliers, or irregularities. Therefore, it is key is to implement a course of action that employees can follow before calling a supervisor. Creating standard processes for outliers and irregularities ensures that organization continues operations even if the supervisors are not available.

3.      Make employees more accountable

It is vital that your organization has a clear understanding that Operational Excellence is about business growth. Laying out all employees’ roles and responsibilities will ensure that each person carries their weight within the organization. This will not only help with determining the weak links within the organization, but also allows management to stop running day-to-day operations of the organization and put their efforts to actually growing the business.

Achieving operational excellence is a process and it is important that an organization have a thought out operational strategy for reaching operational excellence. A smart operational strategy regarding operational excellence ensures that ALL employees understand that operational excellence is a process that never ends and continuously allows an organization to improve.

[ntuitively]

Four Structure Implementations for Operational Excellence

Operational excellence allows room for all businesses to constantly enhance in all areas of performance, whether it is in the area of decision-making, sales, productivity, and customer relations. Successful operational excellence processes and structures should drive better operational effectiveness and proficiency. Are you unsure of structure implementations your company can use to promote operational excellence? Below, are four essential structural pillars you can implement for building your business;

1.       Envision Vital Operational Methods. Identify key processes. While identifying your companies operational processes are sure to recognize those things that generate value, evolution, and improvement. Once you have a clear understanding of your company’s key operational processes construct a pictorial model that illustrates and identifies all the connectors both internal and external to your organization.  That includes your customers, merchants, and associates.

2.       Monitor Constant Progress. As your operations endure expansion,  adjust your business strategy, procedures, and processes to increase progressive  structural performance. Your operational processes should always be aligned with your business structure.

3.       Develop Metrics. Establish procedures for standard operating workflows and improved business systems that report all workflow dimensions. Implementing workflow reports ensure that you keep up with unusual ranges within business operational metrics. You are then able to evaluate and make changes if necessary.

4.       Design Workflow. Establishing workflow structures for each key process, action, asset, and employee ensure all components of the organization are aligned.

[ntuitively]

Operational Excellence Interview (Part 2 of 2)

4)     What is the role of different employees in establishing Operational Excellence?

A: Senior Management of the organization need to have a clear understanding of the economical, social, cultural, demographic, environmental, political, governmental, legal, technological and competitive factors that influence the success of the organization. Through this understanding, senior leadership will establish the strategic direction of the organization. Senior leaders must also communicate the strategic direction  to  all levels of the organization. It is very important that senior leader’s involve all levels of the organization in the strategy formulation process.

It is essential for Managers to establish goals and objectives  that are essential for  executing the strategic plan of the organization. This includes ensuring that policies; procedures, systems, rewards  and f staff are all focused on  Operational Excellence.

All members of the staff must be trained, motivated and committed to achieving the highest level of performance on a consistent basis if the organization is going to achieve sustained excellence.

5) How can a small business on a budget successfully use outside consultants and resources to positively promote and sustain Operational Excellence?

A: This depends largely on the competency’s that exist within the small business.  Leadership must understand what competencies it can and cannot afford to create within its organization as a result of budget constraints. If it is determined that some of the essential competencies are lacking the organization must bring in external resources to fill in the gaps.  In making this decision the organization must have a clear understanding of how these resources will help to overcome strategic imperatives and what is the desired return on investment.  The use of outside consultants should be viewed as an investment and not an expense.

Thanks again, Walter S. Swindell, II: Optimization Solutions Consulting  for contributing to this month’s theme of Operational Excellence.                                                                            

[ntuitively]

Part 3 of 3 Podcast with nTuitive nGen Kim Watters discussing the final rule and implications of the Small Business Jobs Act as related to small businesses teaming with large primes, set-asides,  size standards and contract bundling/ acquisition consolidation.

[ntuitively]

Part 2 of 3 Podcast with nTuitive nGen Kim Watters discussing the final rule and implications of the Small Business Jobs Act as related to small businesses teaming with large primes, set-asides,  size standards and contract bundling/ acquisition consolidation.

[ntuitively]

Part 1 of 3 Podcast with nTuitive nGen Kim Watters discussing the final rule and implications of the Small Business Jobs Act as related to small businesses teaming with large primes, set-asides,  size standards and contract bundling/ acquisition consolidation.

[ntuitively]

8 Tips For Planning Your Small Business’ 2014 Marketing Strategy (Part 3 of 3)

5.  Successfully Manage Negative Online Reviews

Online reviews are playing an increasingly central role in driving consumers’ purchasing behavior. Similar to word-of-mouth, consumers place high trust in the accuracy of online reviews. In fact, a recent Nielsen online study of 29,000 consumers across 58 countries found that about 70% of consumers trust online reviews – making them the third-most trusted form of advertising. Another recent study from Harvard Business School showed that something as simple as a one-star improvement in a Yelp business listing can deliver a noticeable increase in a restaurant’s revenue.

With the stakes so high, it’s important for small businesses to develop procedures for locating and responding to online reviews. Small business owners should spend time mapping out or improving their response plan for online reviews – especially those that place their business in a negative light.

When developing your online review plan, consider the following:

Attempt To Prevent Customers From Writing Negative Reviews In The First Place: You should try to stop the problem before it starts by creating an environment where your customers are kept satisfied and that issues are dealt with quickly and professionally. This means ensuring that customers can reach your business directly and that you have policies in place for dealing with common problems related to your offerings.

Monitor Review Sites On An Ongoing Basis: Set up a regular monitoring schedule for the leading review websites, and a process for who will review and respond to negative reviews. 

Keep Positive & Respond Directly: It’s easy to get upset by a negative review, since often your business has a difference of opinion with the customer over what took place. That said, ensure that your core response messages are professional and focus on ways to remedy the problem. As a first step, always try to contact the negative reviewer directly to see if you can remedy the problem.

Determine When To Respond Publicly: Set a policy for what red lines must be crossed in order for you to respond to a negative review publicly. Perhaps your first course of action is to ask the customer to take down their negative review. If they don’t, then perhaps the next step is to respond to the review publicly by noting exactly what your business did to address the problem. The course you take depends on the nature of the review and your business’ personality, but having set guidelines in place will help you to remain consistent.

Encourage Happy Customers To Leave Positive Reviews: Setup a strategy for encouraging satisfied customers to post positive reviews on the sites most important to you. This can be as simple as sending the customer an email after the transaction that asks them to leave feedback on a specific review website.

6.Build An Engaging Social Media Presence

Consumers today spend a considerable amount of time on social media interacting not only with family and friends, but increasingly with brands as well. Businesses in a variety of categories — ranging from retailers to restaurants — are successfully building social media channels to generate loyalty and engagement with their customers and potential customers. In fact, Facebook recently announced that 24 million small businesses maintain active pages on their site.

In developing or improving your social media for 2014, take the following into account:

Determine Which Social Media Channels Work Best For Your Business: Facebook and Twitter provide strong platforms to reach the vast majority of consumers with business updates, sales and promotions, new products and services and the like. They also offer the ability to engage in one-on-one conversations with consumers regarding questions, concerns and complaints. Specialized social media sites also provide their own benefits. Pinterest, for example, enables businesses to share visually appealing offerings like clothing, furniture, art and landscaping with a like-minded audience. And sites like YouTube enable small businesses such as a DJ to post videos of their latest parties, or a local bakery to share how they make their favorite bread. As a starting point, spend some time mapping out which channels you want to use for your business and why.

Develop An Editorial Calendar To Remain Engaged: If you create a page for your business on a social media network, it’s imperative that you remain engaged and not let the page sit idle. Consumers today expect businesses to update their social media channels several times a week with relevant information. In order to keep a steady flow of updates, develop an editorial calendar in advance so you can map out content and coordinate your efforts. Incorporate compelling photos, videos and other visual content and provide incentives to those following your pages to stay connected.

Respond Promptly To Consumer Questions: Consumers view your social media channels as an extension of your digital presence and expect you to respond to questions, comments and other inquiries they share there. So setting up a process for monitoring your business’ pages is key.

Share Your Deeds!: Once your channels are established, share your information wherever you can: through posters and flyers, advertisements, your business’ website, etc. Explain to customers why it’s worth it for them to follow you.

7.  Take Advantage Of Automated Scheduling & E-Commerce Tools

In 2013, we saw a lot of strong activity on the automated scheduling and e-commerce front. Yet despite the promise of these new offerings, many small businesses have remained on the sidelines. For example, only 39% of small business owners rely on automated appointment booking and scheduling technology, according to the Yodle survey.

In 2014, take the opportunity to reevaluate the benefits of these new tools:

Popular local websites such as Yelp, along with local vertical websites such as OpenTable, Seamless and GrubHub introduced new offerings that make it easier for consumers to seamlessly purchase products or schedule appointments at businesses from wherever they are. And these offerings are expanding beyond just restaurants to also include everything from doctor appointments to home repairs services.

Sites like Amazon, eBay and Etsy continued to improve their offerings for digital storefronts that enable consumers to easily shop and purchase from businesses via their desktop, smartphone or tablet.

While there are fees are associated with each of these e-commerce offerings, small businesses benefit from avoiding start-up and maintenance costs to build these systems on their own. The tools also increase efficiency (cutting down on labor costs) and provide great platforms for increased visibility in online search.

8.Use Results Reporting To Inform Your Strategy

The Yodle survey found that more than half (56%) of small business owners do not measure results from their marketing. This means that those small business owners have no baseline to determine how well their marketing is doing or how to set priorities for what else they can or should be doing.

As you head into 2014, develop a simple reporting structure — perhaps a monthly report that you dedicate yourself to doing — that will enable you to clearly see how all of your marketing activities are doing and their resulting impact on your business.

It’s my hope that once you see the benefits of your business’ marketing dollars at work, you will begin to feel differently than the majority of small business owners by being excited — and not worried — about your ability to retain and attract customers in the future.

[ntuitively]

8 Tips For Planning Your Small Business’ 2014 Marketing Strategy (Part 2 of 3)

Yet, despite small business owners’ concerns about effectively marketing their businesses, many are not making the necessary investments to adapt to today’s fast-paced and changing environment. While the consequences of inaction may seem small now, they will only become greater in the future, threatening the stability and growth of small business owners’ operations.

As you plan for 2014, make your New Year’s resolution to review the 8 simple tips below for building a better marketing strategy for your business — one that puts your customers first and your business second-to-none.

1.       Develop A Realistic Forward-Looking Marketing Budget

It’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Small business owners today cite customer attraction and retention as two of their most pressing concerns, but many set aside minimal budgets for marketing.

In fact, 1 in 4 small business owners report that they don’t spend any money on marketing, while just over half (56%) spend less than $500 a month. In other words, only about a quarter of business owners spend more than $500 per month on marketing.

Make this the year that you corner off a larger, more flexible budget to tackle new marketing opportunities to better adapt to today’s fast-changing marketplace. I’m not saying you should break the bank allocating funds to marketing. What I do recommend is that you make strategic investments on marketing offerings that better position your business in places where consumers are increasingly going to research products or services and make purchases.

Return-on-investment should be the key factor by which you measure your marketing efforts. However, be sure to give your business the flexibility to try out new marketing opportunities and ideas to see if they stick.

There’s no doubt in my mind that any business keeping with a status quo of limited marketing in today’s changing environment will only hurt their bottom line — and not just in the short run. Small businesses should be making smart investments so they are well-positioned to attract consumers now and in the future.

2.       Build A Simple & Effective Website

The website is the central component of any business’ digital strategy; it’s how your current and potential customers can most easily find and connect with you. Given its key role, it’s astonishing that more than half of small businesses owners (52%) said their business does not have a website, according to the Yodle survey.

Make your website a priority this year. Whether you’re just building your website now or looking to improve the one you have, keep these key things in mind moving forward:

Make Contact Information Visible & Consistent: Incorporate your business’ contact information (phone number, address, email address, etc.) throughout your site, not just in your About Us or Contact Me section. Ensure that your contact information is consistent with what you have included on online business listing websites.

Design An Appealing, Easy-To-Use Interface: Invest in a contemporary website with a visually appealing color scheme and straightforward navigation. It will not only make your website more attractive and seamless to navigate, but will also reflect on the professionalism of your business. Be careful about using features such as Flash which may negatively impact your site’s search ranking potential and which don’t load on some smartphones.

Use Defining & Searchable Keywords On The Front & Backend: In drafting content for your website, be sure to incorporate keywords that consumers will most likely use when searching for your products and services. Ensure that your web designer incorporates these keywords into anchor text in page URL links and adds keyword-specific titles, descriptions and tags to videos posted on your website.

Keep Current By Regularly Updating Content: In order to stay relevant to those visiting your site (including search engine crawlers) be sure to update your website content on a consistent basis. Develop an editorial calendar to update your site in conjunction with big promotions and sales, events, and other notable activities, or when you introduce new products or services.

Monitor Website Analytics: Pay close attention to where your website visitors are coming from, how they’re finding you, and what they’re doing while on your website, so you can consistently update and improve their experiences through tweaks to your site’s navigation and content.

3.       Ensure Your Website Is Mobile-Optimized

As consumers increasingly turn to smartphones and tablets to search for local business information and to shop products and services, it’s essential that your website is properly optimized for those experiences. 

A recent Google/Nielsen study found that 59% of consumers visit a business’ website when conducting a mobile search. However, the vast majority of small business owners — 9 out of 10 — said their websites aren’t optimized for mobile, according to the Yodle survey. This represents a clear gap in small business’ ability to provide on-the-go consumers with a proper website experience, thus threatening their chances for securing business from those visitors.

This is the year to bring your business website into the mobile era. Here’s how to get started:

Conduct A Mobile Audit: Develop an audit of your current website to determine what types of mobile consumers are visiting your website, and what they’re generally looking for when they’re there. 

Build A Mobile-Specific Website: Taking into account the findings from your audit, create a mobile-specific website that represents a slimmed down version of your desktop website. This mobile site should showcase the key topics that mobile users are generally looking for when they visit your site, so it’s easier to find them. For example, if you run a restaurant, you may consider creating a site that highlights the menu, reservations and contact information – and removes other information available on the desktop site that is less important.

 Ensure Mobile Users Know What They Can Do On The Website: Use call-to-action messaging to make clear what consumers can accomplish via the mobile website. For example, if consumers can schedule appointments or purchase products directly from the mobile site, make that as clear as possible through bold text, buttons and other eye-catching graphics.

4.       Build A Complete & Accurate Listings Presence

 Whether it’s Google, Bing, Yelp, YP.com, Yellowbook.com or SuperPages.com, small businesses appear on a variety of business listing websites. Ensuring that your business’ listing is complete and accurate plays an important role in determining whether consumers reviewing your listing can move forward with contacting you and making a purchase.

It may be surprising, but a notable share of business listing information is inaccurate. In fact, a ConstantContact survey of more than 350 SMBs earlier this year found that 50% of SMBs have come across inaccurate listings for their businesses. Despite this, nearly half (49%) of those surveyed said they’ve never updated their business listings online.

Spend time in 2014 getting your business’ listings up-to-speed with correct information:

Check Up On Your Listings: Certify that your business is listed — and accurately — with services like Localeze, Axiom, SinglePlatform, Yext and Universal Business Listing, since they are the primary listings providers for local websites and apps.

Make Your Listings As Complete As Possible: Take a close look at your business’ listings on each of the major local websites to ensure that your information is accurate. Then build out your business listings on each of these sites with any missing information, such as your website address, social media channel addresses, business photos, menus or offerings and the like. This will ensure that your consumers viewing your listings have as much information as they need to make a decision before contacting you.