Take time to see the big picture

August 9, 2015

Q: I was recently surprised to learn that a competitor is using new technology enabling her to provide faster service than I can. How can I keep from being caught off guard again?

A: Owners of small businesses sometimes get so bogged down in day-to-day operations that they don't find the time to see the big picture. They need to make the time to continue the kind of planning and research they did before they started up their business - so they see the new technology coming along that might impact their business.

Planning is an ongoing necessity because the environment in which your small business operates continually changes. New opportunities and challenges will arise that are different from those assessed during the startup stage.

How do you find the time to plan? Work more efficiently by prioritizing your activities, eliminating the low-value or unnecessary tasks, and delegating work to others.

Then watch your industry. In today's interconnected global economy, any change anywhere can have a ripple effect on any small business. The influences may be as far-reaching as a shift in demand, or as local as a new stoplight near your store, or as subtle as an emerging technology that could affect your business. Stay current with world and community events, and communicate with customers, suppliers and colleagues. You'll be less susceptible to surprises and better prepared to anticipate and capitalize on these changes.

Watch those numbers. Financial statements provide a window into the health of your business. Monitor and analyze trends. Your initial financial projections may be trending in an unexpected direction. Are current and projected cash flows in line with your industry and local environment? By comparing actual cash flows to projections, you can spot opportunities to improve performance.

Revisit your business plan. Your business plan shouldn't become a "trophy" of your startup success. Refer to it frequently to compare plans and estimates with current realities. Reassess your customer base, competition and marketing strategy, and adjust if necessary. Seek objective input from your key advisers like your CPA, attorney and SCORE mentor. It will improve the plan and speed up the process.

Make continuing your business education a priority. Attend topical workshops, webinars and chamber of commerce learning events to stay up-to-date and learn new skills. Monitor the SCORE workshop schedule at www.scorehouston.org to identify important educational opportunities.

Hotjar - Optimize your Site's Usability and Conversion Rate.

Hotjar is a new powerful tool that reveals the online behaviour and voice of your users. By combining both A) Analysis and B) Feedback tools, Hotjar gives you the ‘big picture’ of how to improve your site's user experience and performance. 

The Analysis tools allow you to measure and observe user behaviour while the Feedback tools allow you to hear what your users have to say.

Heatmaps

Understand what users want, care about and do on your site by visually representing their clicks, taps and scrolling behavior - which are the strongest indicators of visitor motivation and desire.

Visitor Recordings

Eliminate guesswork with recordings of real visitor behaviour on your site. By seeing your visitor's clicks, taps, mouse movements you can identify usability issues on the fly.

Conversion Funnels

Find the biggest opportunities for improvement and testing by identifying on which page and at which step most visitors are leaving your site.

Form Analytics

Improve online form completion rates by discovering which fields take too long to fill, which are left blank, and why your visitors abandon your form and page.

Feedback Polls

Improving the performance and experience of your website starts with understanding what your visitors want and what's preventing them from achieving it. Target questions to specific visitors anywhere on your web and mobile site.

 

Surveys

Build your own responsive surveys using an easy editor. Collect responses in real-time from any device. Distribute your surveys using web links, emails or invite your visitors just before they abandon your site to uncover their objections or concerns.

Recruit User Testers

Recruit the best possible participants for user research and testing directly from your site. Collect profiling information, contact details and offer a gift in exchange for their help.

Hotjar is the ideal tool for:

UX & UI Designers ,Web Developers, Product Managers, Analysts, Digital Marketers, Agencies

Here are just a few examples of how you can use Hotjar:

• Give your clients or boss proof of what works or not.
• Challenge internal misconceptions & 'best practices'.
• Overhaul forms to generate more leads.
• Impress your clients or colleagues with visual insights.
• Test what content works best above 'the fold'.
• Learn what content to move higher or lower on the page.
• Speak directly to visitors before they leave the page.
• Think like an actual visitor by understanding their mindset.
• Identify what new content needs to be added to the page.
• Confirm your hypothesis before creating new elements.
• Reveal your visitors' pattern of reading the page.
• Remove or rethink ignored content.
• See which type of imagery works best.
• Collect valuable testimonials from customers.
• Change design and content based on different traffic.
• Deploy feedback poll on pages with UX issues to get instant feedback.

Clear Goals Pave Way for Results

Q: In order to grow our business I need to set some goals. What advice can you provide on the goal-setting process?

A: Goals are important to all businesses. They help focus your employees on achieving results important to the business. Careers and compensation are often linked to the level of goal achievement. But, if goal- setting is not done right, it can undermine the best companies.

The first step is to collect and analyze key data that relates directly to your customers. Learn from your past performance. Do your market research. Clearly state your needs and ensure everyone agrees that these really are needs. For instance, your need might be to fill some key, specific, open positions in your sales group.

Goals should inspire and guide action. If they are not clear and accurate, their purpose becomes blurred and they cease to be something you want to accomplish. Define them so well that employees know where the start and finish lines are located.

The specifics must be measurable. If not, you will not know where you are or whether you have finished. Your goal might be to hire 10 experienced sales employees between now and the end of the year.

Are your goals doable? They can be a stretch but employees need to know the reasons a goal is achievable.

The building blocks of goal-setting need to be logical and understandable.

Business owners should realize that not everyone may share their level of extreme commitment. Sure, top performers are often inspired by stretch goals. But goals that are clearly beyond a reasonable expectation of success are even worse than too-easy goals - they can actually damage your company's energy.

Goals need to be consistent with other current or envisioned goals. If not, retool before setting your goals in concrete. For instance, you might have a goal of increasing sales by 25 percent, and that's why you need the goal of increasing your sales staff.

Make goals your servants and not your master. It's important to strive to reach your company's goals, but if obstacles occur, treat them as learning opportunities and then make adjustments. Expect learning to be a major benefit of working to achieve goals.

Bitrix24 - complete suite for Small Business management

Bitrix24 - A complete suite of social collaboration, communication and management tools for organizations. It combines a social intranet system with CRM tools that include contact tracking, sales funnel management, messaging, activity planning and calendars, all of which enable your team to quickly manage important pieces of information from within a central program.

If you've been thinking that you could really use an Intranet site for your small business, but you're worried about the costs associated with building and maintaining one yourself, you might want to take a look at Bitrix24. Easy to use and even easier to set up. Bitrix24 provides united, social format for business tools, allowing its users to communicate with colleagues, brainstorm problems, manage projects, keep track of contracts, etc. And, of course, they could also use the site to actually socialize, maybe share some personal photos or hobbies, rant on about their pet peeves, or plan company outings.

Features

Sales

Sell more with Bitrix24's CRM and sales team management. From customer database to email marketing and automatic lead assignment – it’s all there.

HR

Human resources management system comes with an employee directory, absence chart, self service portal, time management, work reports, knowledge base and 20+ other HR tools.

Social network

An internal social network lets you collaborate easier, faster and more efficiently. Get instant feedback, share ideas, create workgroups and engage your employees.

Tasks and projects

From personal ToDos and simple tasks to complex projects – Bitrix24 helps delegate and coordinate, making sure the job is done properly and on time. Learn More

Group chat and video

Your business can’t wait, so use real time communication tools from videoconferencing to group chat available in Bitrix24 absolutely free.

Document management

Secure online document storage, online multi-user editing and custom document approval workflows are just a few advantages of Bitrix24's document management system.

Bitrix24.Drive

Share files and folders easily with your co-workers, access your data on any device and get rid of your old file server, because you no longer need it.

Calendar and Planning

Invite your colleagues to a meeting, schedule appointments with clients directly from the CRM, create private and shared calendars for yourself, workgroups, or entire company

Email

Email is not dead – far from it. If you work with email daily, you are sure to appreciate ability to access it directly from your Bitrix24 account.

Telephony

Make phone calls to your clients and co-workers from your portal with one click. Log and record phone calls directly inside the CRM. Yes, you can use Bitrix24 as a virtual call center.

Mobile

Yes, it works on your iPhone, iPad or Android too. You can take your Bitrix24 account with your phone or tablet and it will always be only one tap away

More, Lots More

Bitrix24 - has eLearning, helpdesk, records management, Company Pulse, Bitrix24.Network, Marketplace, API and even our own content management system.

About Bitrix, Inc.

Bitrix24 - ['bɪtrɪks] 24 - is an initiative of Bitrix, Inc., a privately-owned company owned and managed by its founders. The Bitrix24 service is the final evolutionary stage of Bitrix Intranet and Extranet solutions (Bitrix, Inc. products) and was launched as a beta cloud-based service in April, 2012. Bitrix takes pride in serving customers ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small organizations, including well-known enterprises like Xerox, Samsung, Volkswagen, KIA, Gazprom, Vogue and PC Magazine.

Advice for setting your prices

Advice for setting your prices
Published in the July 5, 2015  in  

Q: My prices don't seem to be competitive. What should I do?
 
A: Setting prices for products and services should be simple - cover costs, make a profit and appeal to customers. But there are more variables to the pricing formula than many small-business owners may realize.

"When you're starting out, you may not have a good handle on all the costs you'll incur," observes Janet Attard, founder and owner of BusinessKnowhow.com. "Unless you have previous experience estimating jobs in the same industry, you may have difficulty making accurate estimates of the time and/or materials needed to complete jobs. You also may not account for non-billable hours - the time you spend marketing and Other costs of doing business may also be overlooked, until you have to pay them. These include payroll and self-employment taxes, fees for accepting credit cards, health insurance and other benefits, and a variety of overhead expenses.

Yet even after all those costs are accounted for, a seemingly fair price may not gain traction with customers.

"Prices are market-driven, not cost-driven," former executive and veteran SCORE Houston mentor Raj Mashruwala explains. "It doesn't matter what your costs are because the market doesn't care. What matters is if you can make a profit at a price the market will bear."

Mashruwala also recommends researching online industry benchmarks for gross profit margins. He also cautions new entrepreneurs to avoid the frequent mistake of underpricing their products and services in order to lure customers.

"Rather than getting a toehold in your business, you're actually giving competitors an advantage, because there's no way you can survive for the long term and meet your clients' expectations by pricing under the market," he says.

Attard also says, "Discounting can lower the perceived value of the product or service, or make the customer think you lack the experience or resources to do the job. If you underestimate costs, or overestimate sales volume, the outcome will be reduced profits or a loss."

Once you do establish a reasonable pricing structure, make it a point to review it several times a year. Customers and competitors are watching pricing trends, so don't risk being left behind.

A good place to go for more information on product and service pricing is www.score.org, click on the Marketing tab and then Price Strategy, where you will find online webinars presented by SCORE volunteers with expertise in this area..

Engage employees to keep them creative

Q: How can I get my employees to be more creative in improving our business?

A: To ensure success, a small business needs to have its employees fully engaged and committed to the owner's vision from the beginning. The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts, and one employee's creativity is sure to stimulate new ideas among others. It's a self-sustaining cycle that only gets better and adds value with time.

Creative environments are particularly important to millennials, the 80 million people born between 1980 and 1995 who soon will dominate the workforce. Millennials already have an edge over their elders in terms of their savviness with technology, cultural trends and connecting with their peers (who are your current and future customers). There are ways you can foster a creative environment to get the most from your employees, regardless of age.

Be flexible. Not all people do their best work between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Whenever possible, allow employees some leeway in their work hours. This also includes allowing them to work from home or elsewhere during the week. They also must be willing to show flexibility, however, such as being available for meetings when necessary.

Communicate early and often. Employees are more willing to give 100 percent when they know and believe in the reason for doing it. Regularly share what's going on in the business and the market. You can't always tell employees everything, but honesty from the boss goes a long way toward building trust. Encourage employees to contribute ideas and insights. If an idea sounds promising, let the employee who offered it take the lead if possible - or at least explain why not gently, and ask the worker to keep those ideas coming.

Be a coach, not a supervisor. This is particularly important for younger workers, who are experiencing many aspects of the working world for the first time. Give them the training they need to feel comfortable about doing their jobs and confident in taking the initiative. Sure, they'll make mistakes. By fostering a regular dialogue with your employees, you'll know better what happened and why, and what they can do to improve.

Keep resources up to date. Without investing in every technology, stay as current as possible so that employees will have the best tools available to do their jobs. Your millennial employees may be ideally suited to investigate new technologies and help determine whether it's better to upgrade or wait for something better.

F.E.A.R.

Making the transition toward doing more of what you love will involve change. Small or large, insignificant or dramatic – it doesn’t really matter – you will underestimate the difficulty involved in changing. This almost always due to the simple fact that change is unsettling and being unsettled instills fear – anything from discomfort to outright terror.

As part of our biological make up, we all have an amygdula – also known as the ‘lizard brain’. This is the evolutionary carry over from when many living organisms needed the ‘fight or flight’ warning system to survive. We still have one and every time we feel threatened, the amygdula triggers a survival response.

Once a survival response is triggered, we instinctively develop a ‘survival strategy’. Unfortunately our survival strategy is often informed by our past experiences and related beliefs – and not all beliefs are positive. As Henry Ford once said “If you believe you can or you believe you can’t – either way you are right”. When we create a strategy around the reasons we can’t accomplish something, the beliefs that support that strategy are called self limiting beliefs.

We all have them. The key is whether we will act on them. I like to refer to the acronym F.E.A.R – False Evidence Appearing Real. Your ability to confront your inner critic – your self limiting beliefs – will directly impact your power to change. And, if you are not able to manage change, it is unlikely you will be successful in executing your plan to do more of what you love.