SWOT: Your Business Health Check

Transcription

1 gyb 2013 IN THIS ISSUE: SWOT: Your Business Health Check Answering the Call Rev Up Your Search Engines Save Money in the Clouds

2 SWOT: Your Business Health Check A strong, healthy business strategy is necessary to build a successful company, but what makes a business strategy vital? One of the most effective ways of analyzing the health of your business strategy is to utilize the SWOT matrix. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats analysis of these interior and exterior factors create an audit of your business strategy and the position of your firm in the market. Think of the SWOT as a yearly medical check-up: blood tests, chest exams and measuring cholesterol levels help identify the areas that need attention and those that are trucking along healthfully. Strengths and weaknesses are controllable variables- you can influence and change them. Opportunities and threats represent variables that are out of your direct control. Together they work to identify the best way forward - that will best align your resources and capabilities to ensure the best chance of a thriving firm. Start with identifying strengths. These can be internal, procedural, operational, personnel or team related, tangible or intangible. Strengths are the driving qualities that allow the business mission to be carried out. SWOT provides security, stability and early detection of problems. Strengths should reflect the areas in which your business is most successful and can therefore be leveraged to achieve your objectives. Conversely, weaknesses are the qualities standing in the way of accomplishing goals and achieving success. Weaknesses are a liability that may continue to build roadblocks on the path to success. They should be minimized or eliminated. Opportunities can be tricky- learning how to recognize them and deciding which opportunities may prove the most profitable is a critical aspect of moving your business forward. Opportunities may show themselves in the form of competition, industry, the marketplace or even technology. Threats endanger the stability and survival of a business. Much like a family history of heart disease can act as an early detection tool, recognizing threats early on is the most effective way of tackling them. The SWOT analysis is best used as a guide, not a direct prescription. It can provide security and stability and provide early detection of developing problems to allow them to be tackled immediately. Long term, the SWOT analysis is what will keep the business heart beating. By the way, we use a tried and tested process to cost-effectively complete a SWOT analysis with you. 1

3 Answering the Call In this digital world it is easy to let phone etiquette slip through the cracks phones? They re always with us and often ring at the most inconvenient of times. Most of your marketing expenditure is encouraging people to call. So it makes sense to have a system in place to convert those calls into sales. And a voice through the phone can be almost as effective as an in-person meeting and can never be replaced by an or text. Train your team to focus on their telephone manner and watch this underutilized skill pull in the results. Start with a smile. No, literally! Putting on a smile before answering the phone automatically changes the tone of the voice and avoids sounding grumpy or too busy from the get-go. Make it a mission to answer ON the second ring. Challenge your team members, create an incentive to have them push harder to get to the phone faster. The client will feel important to the business (which they are), starting things off on a positive note. Give an immediate timely greeting (good morning, afternoon, etc.) and introduction. Letting the client know immediately that they have reached the person/place they are looking for creates the right dynamic for a positive interaction. Provide your full name, each and every time. It creates a sense of authority. First name, speaking suggests there may be someone else the caller would like to speak to. The caller can clearly hear you are speaking, they don t need to be reminded that you are. Be pleasant, engage in the obligatory small talk when necessary but always try to keep things brief (without sounding impatient). Brevity combined with politeness is most effective in showing the client their time is valuable. Think before shooting off an automatic response. If the person the caller is after is not in, ask if there is something you can do in the meantime. X is out to lunch, X is on holiday and can I take a message are not useful responses for your customer, who most likely expects their needs to be addressed immediately. End the call by offering additional help or information. Asking if there is anything else you can do or offering a solid means of followup implies that the listener has been attentive, knowledgeable and reliable - Reflecting your brand. 2

4 Rev Up Your Search Engines Set up a website and sit back and watch the money roll in, right? Wrong. A website is not magic, it cannot simply exist and create traffic, clients and profits. A website is hard work, work that must be maintained, updated and serviced regularly. Websites are dug up from the depths of the Internet and offered up for consumption through the powerful tool that is the search engine. SEO (search engine optimization) is no longer a newfangled trend- its par for the course when it comes to hosting a successful website. Already taken care of that? Think again, SEO has to be revved up and oiled every once and a while, in order to drive traffic to the site. A small business with an online presence can only hope to get customers through powerful SEO techniques, and the introduction of SEM (search engine marketing). Consumers have upped their expectations these days. Competing with the big guys is an uphill battle for small business owners. So start with an assessment of the keywords being used. Hire a freelance copywriter to rev up the copy. Outsourcing using sites like Elance.com or Guru.com is affordable and reliable. Landing pages and squeeze pages are most effective in promoting sales, however the formula for writing the code is complicated- consider outsourcing this as well. Tracking stats daily can allow you to make quick and effective changes in a timely fashion. SEO is all about (fresh, relevant, and informative) content. To raise a ranking, a site must provide valuable and exciting content as well as cross-linking to high-ranking sites. Large businesses are stressing the quality over quantity method when it comes to content. Utilize organic traffic, but cultivating a strong social media presence is just as important. Speak the language of your target market- know what the ideal client is looking for and provide it, in a way they want to consume it. Search ranking is a trial and error methodology, don t be afraid to take risks and try new methods VALUE OF FUN IN WORKPLACE The equation is simple: happy employees + energetic atmosphere = productive and motivated team members. Companies like Google made waves when their corporate culture shocked other giants of the industry fun at work? Sounds like an oxymoron. But Google s employee satisfaction and retention rates are high and they were ranked the number 1 company to work for in 2012, so they must be doing something right! CEO s are picking up on the message and making small workplace changes to bring a little old-fashioned fun to the table. 3

5 Dealing with Client Complaints There may have been a time when business owners were feeling iffy about cloud storage. Its intangibility reeked of instability and a lack of security. Plus, what is that saying about keeping your head out of the clouds? But times have changed, attitudes have evolved and these days cloud storage is providing the most secure and affordable data storage method for small businesses. Cloud has financial benefits and time-andspace saving advantages. Space-consuming on-site storage and the grumpy never-available-when-you-needthem IT techs who manage them are no longer necessary. Store tax information, client data, supplier invoices, contact data, personnel records - all in one place. Data is safe and accessible throughout your office network- and the added advantage is that it s also there for you when you are on the go. This is some of what cloud storage brings to the table. Damage to servers, computer crashes, security breaches and theft are costly, sometimes devastating, in a small business and have the capability of setting your business back significantly in time and money. With cloud storage, these threats are virtually eliminated. When choosing a business storage service evaluate the following features: Storage capacity- usually, a simple analysis can be provided based on the number of employees Special features- initial transition to the cloud, levels of encrypted security, automatic back-up, automatic reduplication, etc. Collaboration capabilities- remote access options, syncing, branding tools, etc. Help and support- customer service availability and options Switching to the cloud has financial benefits, time-and-space saving advantages and staffing reduction solutions. When used effectively, it can also increase productivity and enhance collaborative projects. Allowing employees to work remotely can also increase motivation and provide a more flexible path to task completion, improving morale. When files can be shared through the network, printing is reduced by leaps and bounds. Cutting down on paper and printing costs can leave extra room in the budget of a small business. Initially, making the switch to cloud storage may seem like a costly investment, but in the long run this investment has a worthy return across the board. 4

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