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How Prepared Is Your Business For the Future?

As business owners, we know we live in tremulous times. New industries – such as cryptocurrency – are being created overnight. Jobs are disappearing. Companies are switching industries. Tech companies continue to push the boundaries of automation through deep learning and artificial intelligence.

As modern technology pushes forward into our traditional businesses, the question for many of us is, how prepared are our businesses for the future?

Machines Are Taking Over

Businesses that fail to adapt won’t stand a chance in today’s fast-changing industry. People are now being replaced by robotics and automation for quite a number of reasons. People can only do one task at a time. They get distracted, make mistakes, and buckle under pressure; machines rarely make mistakes, they don’t take breaks, and are incredibly efficient at multi-tasking.

Technology enabled businesses to grow faster than ever, and it only gets better with time. As people put more resources in technology, production costs go down, giving more room to invest in better technologies. Back then, long distance phone calls cost 25 cents per minute or around 2 dollars overseas. Nowadays, we can talk to someone from half a world away through the internet for just a fraction of the cost. (Imagine what this would do to traditional phone industry.)

Soon, nearly every task will be automated. This implies two things: first, most manual jobs that don’t require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity are in danger of being taken away by automation. Industries will continue to downsize and low-paying jobs might soon be gone. White-collar jobs aren’t safe from the onslaught of automation. Neural networks might soon replace analysts, accountants, and personal assistants, as A.I. and deep learning continues to evolve.

Second, companies that rely on traditional methods could soon go out of business, unless they keep up with the times and stay relevant with modern-day customers. Amazon and online shopping will always be a threat to traditional retail businesses, and telecom companies are in dire need of a solution against the growing popularity of internet calls.

Uber and Airbnb have redefined travel and accommodation, challenging long-established companies within the industry. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is a growing threat to our financial sector with its permissionless, secure, peer-to-peer payment system. Innovation is no longer just an option for a lot of businesses. As a matter of fact, it’s the only way for businesses to survive in this day and age.

Fortunately, some jobs are more resilient than others, particularly those that have to do with complex human emotions. So-called soft skills and out-of-the-box thinking will be more important than ever for businesses.

The World Has Changed, and So Will be Our Businesses

History is littered with the remains of old industries that fell out of use as better technologies emerge. You’d be lucky to find relics of the past in people’s attics like the portable cassette player, VHS, film camera, and encyclopaedias. Yet they remind us of the bygone era when they became a booming business in the late 80s and 90s.

Fast-forward to the present, people do things a lot differently. We spend more time on the Internet and consume online content more than from traditional media. Over 2 billion people connect with each other using handheld gadgets many times faster and more powerful than the NASA computers of the first moon landing. Our world today is vastly different, and so will be our businesses.

Conclusion

Businesses have evolved over the years alongside modern technology. Sooner or later, they’d have to come up with something fresh, something which has never been tried before. It could take the form of a much better technology, a new concept, a better strategy, or a business opportunity. Who knows what the next disruption will be?

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

The High Cost of Burnout and How Companies Can Avoid It

Working in a highly competitive space can push your employees to the limit. Part of our job as business owners is to identify the root cause of employee burnout and prevent setbacks that can affect productivity in the workplace.

Worse than Stress

Burnout is when your stress becomes unmanageable and like a computer short-circuiting, your brain just stops functioning. In fact, some symptoms of burnout are strikingly similar to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

According to survey, burnout is affecting 95 percent of businesses and is attributed for nearly half of employee turnovers.

Loss of employee due to burnout can have enormous financial consequences. The average cost of finding a replacement is more or less half of the employee’s annual salary. Hiring a bad fit will cost the company twice as much. If left unfilled, it can result in a domino effect due to increased workload and more workers suffering from it.

How It All Starts

Burnout usually starts when employees fail to meet their goals, company standards, and expectations, which in turn forces them to work longer hours. Ironically, the more effort they put into it, the less work they’re able to do. Not having enough rest greatly affects their ability to concentrate, which makes them prone to commit errors and make poor decisions. This results in further loss of productivity.

Anger, frustration, and panic attacks sets in. Performance deteriorate despite working longer hours. They’re caught in a vicious cycle they can’t escape from. They start dreading the prospect of yet another tiresome and unrewarding day at work. It’s only a matter of time before they reach the breaking point – a full-on employee burnout.

Recovering from burnout can take weeks, months, or even a year. Burnout doesn’t go away on its own and might need appropriate medical intervention.

Stopping Burnout on its Tracks

As an employer, you need to check on your staff for stress, ensuring you apply enough pressure to get things done, but not too much that it affects business and your employees’ health. It’s a fine balancing act that can be difficult to gauge at times.

Let’s look at the major causes of employee burnout, and then come up with proactive solutions and strategies to keep them motivated.

Job mismatch. Employees are at risk of burnout when there’s a disconnect between their work experiences, qualifications and their occupation. Some factors include high unemployment rate and stiff competition in the job market. Job seekers are often left with no better option but to settle for low-paying jobs despite being overqualified, or take jobs which don’t fit with their own personality, educational background and work experience. Consider each hire as an investment where you acquire new assets to help grow your business. Spend some time identifying roles your company needs and creating job descriptions that match their work experiences and qualifications when looking for new hires.

Insufficient time and resource. Employees will experience burnout if they are given tasks without the wherewithal to accomplish them. Time is one of the overlooked factors when assigning tasks. Some employers give additional tasks but failed to consider the time element necessary to accomplish them. Each additional task will eat up some of the time intended for work and puts them at risk of falling behind schedule. Employers need to free up some of their time by investing in technology and innovation to help accomplish their tasks much faster, or, they can hire additional personnel. For growing businesses, this is more of a necessity than an option. Investing and communicating with new hires is far better than having to look for replacements to your employees who left their jobs due to burnout.

Inability to adjust to new circumstances. Changing times means your employees must be capable of adapting to modern ways of accomplishing their tasks and acquire 21^st century skills. Training and seminars for employees can help attune your business to the recent changes in the industry, particularly with the use of modern technology. Some employees are reluctant to change and find it difficult to adjust to these new circumstances. As an employer, we might be faced with a hard decision of letting them go, or having other co-workers pick up their slack. This brings up the idea of hiring the best people for the job. Flexibility and willingness to adapt should be among the list of characteristics to look for when looking for new hires as they are more resilient to stress and are less likely to suffer burnout.

Lack of time management and work-life balance. One of the most obvious reason for burnout is overwork. The best solution has always been to manage their time well. Time management is one of the skill sets your employees should have to function optimally. Workers who constantly fall behind schedule could be in need of some help on managing their own time. It might be caused by several factors such as work overload, distractions from work, or difficulties adapting to new technology. Addressing these problems may help your employees to stay on task and be able to separate work from leisure.

Job Environment. Sometimes biggest cause of employee burnout isn’t the job or the the boss, but co-workers. If you don’t get along with the people in your office then it can be very difficult. It can be a personality clash, a lack of defined work rolls, a power struggle, or any number of issues.

Conclusion

Often stress leading to employee burnout can be fixed by having open communication with your employees and a willingness to problem solve. Taking time to understand them and where they’re coming from will allow your employees feel better while lowering their stress level.

Automating your day to day tasks can make work a lot easier for your employees and decrease workload and overall stress. Having the right knowledge and skills on the use of modern business applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is your first line of defence against employee burnout in a fast-paced environment.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

The Key To Successful Business Innovations To Beat Your Competition

We live in a world where innovation is no longer an option. In fact, it’s the only way for businesses to survive in this day and age. More people, including millennials, professionals and employees, are starting their own businesses to improve their lives. As a result, competition will be more fierce than ever.

Innovation is important in helping businesses thrive, and stay one step ahead of the competition. It makes businesses stand out and gain a decisive advantage in the market.

Dealing with Hindrances to Innovation

Trying out something new is like throwing a wager on a business idea. It may or may not work. Mistakes are inevitable; but on the one hand, it can also be a game changer. It happened to many successful businesses who were not afraid to take some risks in exchange for a much bigger payout.

People who are too cautious are not eager to innovate. They take the same old route and go through the motions. One of the keys to innovation is to embrace the fact that you might not be able to get it right 100% of the time.

Companies who stop innovating will – slowly but surely – lose ground to their competitors. Ignoring the competition is fatal to any business, no matter how big it is. Some known industry leaders of the past have now been left behind by much younger companies whose innovations captured the hearts and minds of a much greater audience (think Amazon).

Different Views about Innovation

There are different views to innovation, particularly as something which is distinct from invention. Innovation focuses on improving an already existing technology, while invention aims at creating an entirely new technology that supersedes an old one. Smartphones, Android and IOS devices are the 21^st century innovations of the mobile phone, while automobiles are inventions that replaced horse-drawn vehicles.

Innovations can reach a point of stagnation, where each innovation is just an iteration of the previous one – just slightly better. Portable transistor radios reached its peak in Sony’s Walkman. However, when the first MP3 player (MPMan) came out in 1998, further improvements to the portable cassette player was rather pointless.

Somewhere down the roard, small business will have to choose one over the other, i.e. improving on what they’re already good at or come up with a new business idea. Samsung started out as a small convenience store that sells merchandise. Today, it is one of the biggest industry leaders in manufacturing, consumer electronics, communications, home appliances, heavy equipment, as well as research and development.

Keys to Successful Innovations

Prepare to make the necessary change. Every so often, we need to implement some changes on how we conduct our businesses as well as the type of products and services we give to our customers. Change keeps our businesses from stagnation, moves the company forward, not to mention helps us stay ahead of the competition.

Identify problems and create solutions. Some innovation could run off-course if we’re just trying to make arbitrary changes within the system or create products and services which don’t address a need or solve a particular problem. Customers always think of our products and services in terms of value, like how they will improve people’s lives or what will be the advantages of using them.

Choose a selling point for your business. There are plenty of ways you can improve on your business depending on which customer preference you want to emphasize – also known as your unique selling proposition. Do you want to be more appealing to low budget customers, or do you want sell to high-end clients? Is customer service and customer experience more important to you than anything else? Whatever it is, it should give you a distinct advantage over your competitors.

Listen to your customers. Customer surveys and are some of the time-tested methods to stay relevant with customers. CRMs and sales and marketing automation works great in maintaining customer relationships through customer feedback, customer database, customer acquisition, sales funnel, and auto-responders.

Learn from your mistakes. Innovation has opened the door for new opportunities and important lessons on how to run a successful business. Today’s leading industries and business has had many failed attempts before getting it right. But innovate, they must. Fortune favours the brave. The only way for your business to stand out and cut through the noise is to make a difference.

Be Flexible. Small business owners must be open for opportunities and step out of their comfort zones. It’s one of the biggest challenges in business because as humans, we tend to avoid risk and be comfortable with what we’re already used to. Be willing to try and even fail. It can be scary at first, but it’s important to keep the end goal in sight.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

Creating Systems for Your Business – Grow Your Business by Working ON It

“Work on your business, not just in your business.” We’re all familiar with the phrase. But what does it really mean?

Getting your business off the ground is no easy task. As a business owner, you need to be able to transform your business from a fledgling startup to a more stable, self-sustaining source of income.

What it means to work ON your business

If you’re in the habit of checking on your employees and micromanaging every single task, you’re working IN your business. However, if you devote most of your time planning and implementing changes to maximize your profitability, then you’re working ON your business.

Small businesses usually start off by working in their business during the first two years, but ultimately, they should be able to work on their businesses on a strategic level. We can tell if a business has already matured if the CEO spends most of the time growing the company instead of getting invovled in the day to day operations.

To put another way, if you can take a month off on a holiday without fear of losing your business, then you’ve already succeeded working on it. As simple as it sounds, the process of getting there doesn’t come easy. Most business owners start out working in the business before getting off the ground.

The Two Levels of Leadership

There are generally two levels every CEO must lead and manage his or her employees. The first is necessary but the CEO should strive to spend most of his or her time on the strategic level.

Operational Level – deals with routine tasks such as maintenance and upkeep, customer engagement, production, distribution, and sale of goods and services.
Strategic Level – deals with the higher level of managing your business with some long-term planning. Strategic level planning usually includes such activities as marketing strategies, customer acquisition, customer retention, brand awareness, promotion, ads, allocating resources, and acquiring new assets, all of which are geared towards expansion or getting ahead of the competition.

Steps on how to start working on your business

Some of the best practices to ensure your business is successful include hiring the right people, delegating tasks, creating systems for your business, managing cash flows, and using technology and innovation to fast-track your business and keep up with a constantly changing environment.

Hiring and training the right people. Getting the right people on board can be very difficult and costly, particularly during the initial stages. You’ll probably start off with just a handful of inexperienced undergrads doing mostly clerical jobs and other minor tasks at minimum rates. Some start-ups cut the cost even further by outsourcing some of these tasks offshore, usually from developing countries. As your business gains momentum, you can start hiring and training the big guns and take bigger steps onwards.

Delegating and managing tasks using the 80/20 rule. Business owners are often amazed at how much tasks they can get rid of using a simple technique also known as the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle). List down all the tasks in your daily routine and cross out the ones that can be done by people other than you. In most cases, you’d be left with only 20%, or less, of all the tasks, usually the ones you alone can do. Identifying these tasks is the first step in delegating and managing most of your routine activities. Hiring and training the right people will take up all of the tasks you’ve left out.

Creating systems for your business. Standardizing your business process in such a way that anyone can run the business in your absence is the real essence of working on your business. Your systems serve as the “blueprint” on how to properly run your business. Think of it like a franchise where licensed owners can run the business using the company’s playbook.

Attention to detail is key, from job descriptions, assigned roles, workflow, timetables, product specifications, the whole nine yards – everything must be properly documented and serve as your company’s operations manual.

Managing your cash flow. Careful use of resources is vital to business growth and survival. Most businesses, even the big ones, go out of business for putting their money in the wrong places. Cash flow management should be part of your business plan at the outset, and continuously work on it as you grow your business. As a general rule, you should aim at speeding up the inflow while slowing down on your outflow. Running out of cash can quickly put you out of business.

Using technology and innovation. Technology enabled businesses to automate most of their routine tasks, hence cutting labour costs and speeding up the process dramatically. In today’s highly competitive environment, it’s the only way you can have hope of growing your business. Much have already changed on how we do business nowadays, and we need to innovate our strategies more often.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

How To Inspire People to Work for You

Running a successful business is easy. It relies on only two things: a leader who inspires people to achieve greater heights, and a dependable workforce who share the same aspiration and enthusiasm as their leader. Sounds simple, right?

As you’ve probably guessed by now. It’s not that simple. The ability to inspire people and bring out the best in them is one of the greatest challenges. Let’s begin by having a clearer understanding of what makes a good leader.

Starting off the right foot: hiring the right people

Rome wasn’t built in a day, let alone by one person. In business, you need a strong, dependable workforce who can carry out your company goals. It all starts by getting the right people on the bus, so to speak – or as others put it, “getting the right people on the bus, getting the wrong people off the bus, and giving the right seats to the right people on the bus.”

These tasks usually fall under the human resource department. But for business start-ups, owners might have to do the work by themselves. Qualifications for hiring new employees can be roughly divided into two aspects: personal and professional attributes.

Employees must have the right balance of good personality traits and technical competence to fulfill their assigned roles, and have the potential to grow professionally. This saves your company a lot of time and money dealing with disruptive behaviour, picking up the slack of unproductive workers, and re-training your employees.

Virgin Group is renowned for spending a lot of time and effort finding the right people. For instance, Virgin America hires 1 out of 100 people who apply to the company. It’s not surprising why their workforce is among the best in terms of personal and professional attributes, one of the secrets to Sir Richard Branson’s multi-billion business.

On the flip side, getting the wrong people can set you up for a gruelling task of micromanaging every single work of your employees, while time and again trying to hold your teams together. Best case scenario, this leads to a bad work environment, and worst case scenario it can cause a business to go bankrupt.

Keeping your best employees aboard

The need to inspire and motivate your employees on a regular basis comes down to two things. First of all, hiring takes time and money – a lot of money. Hence, you need to make each hire count. Every time you fire a person you’ve basically thrown all your efforts and resources hiring that person out of the window. In case of a bad hire, you’ll just have to take this lesser evil.

Another reason for keeping your best employees aboard is they provide great value to your company. Your seasoned employees are your best assets because they help generate more income for your company. You want to make sure they stay with you the whole time.

Losing one of your seniors or your best man for the job would be a double whammy for the company. Aside from the momentary loss, and co-workers doubling their efforts to pick up the slack, you’ll have to spend time and resources to find another one – possibly not as good as your first hire.

Your worst nightmare as a business owner is when you lose your most efficient and highly productive employees, only to find them on the other side working for your competitors, possibly taking with them some of the skills they learned from your company, as well as valuable information such as customer data.

Bottom line – take time to inspire and motivate your employees. They are your most prized assets because they are the ones who set your business in motion with your guidance and direction.

Ways to keep your employees’ spirits high

Set clear goals and let them know how they fit into your company. This gives your employees a sense of purpose and direction. They want to know what impact they will give to the company for fulfilling their assigned roles, and what the consequences are for not doing what they ought to do. Be realistic with your expectations, making sure they are neither too high that it puts a lot of strain or too low that they begin to slack off.
Let your employees feel they belong to the company. This goes beyond treating your employees like cogs in the wheel, and instead treating them more like family. Zappos.com has been featured in blog posts, articles, and short documentaries for their exemplary way of treating every member of the company. The joy and excitement felt by every member goes out to each customer when taking phone calls, customer concerns, and placing their orders.
Remember the triple A’s – Appreciation, Approval, and Attention. Your employees need an occasional tap on their backs for a job well-done. Coming from a person who runs the entire business, this would certainly mean a lot to them. Even just a simple “Thank you!,” or “Good job!” can take away a lot of stress from work, re-assures them how important they are to the company, and that they’re moving on the right track. As a business owner, you have to be genuinely appreciative of all the good things they have done for your company.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.