Do you sound like a robot? Is your personality shining through in most — if not all — of your social media updates?
Are you sharing your industry opinions and expertise on a regular basis?
Are you sharing useful content, whether from you or other people, on a regular basis?
Are you balancing being proactive with not being too broadcast-y?
And last but not least, do you have an accurate way to track your social media results? (If not, set one up today!)
About the Author
Michelle Nickolaisen is a freelance writer/biz owner that lives in Austin, TX. When she's not writing (typically about business or productivity related topics), she's watching Buffy, Doctor Who, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When she is writing, Spotify is her best friend. She's been freelancing since 2008 and blogging since the wee age of 13 when a teacher encouraged her to start a daily writing practice. You can snag more free content on growing your freelance business here.
Building Company Culture (On A Budget)
By David D. Chait
For any young company, building a strong company culture that reflects your core values is essential to a quality product, happy employees, and subsequent sustainable growth.
As a young startup, my company Travefy – an online group travel planner – has focused on building a culture that rewards hard work, while also emphasizing a fun environment. Based on our successes (and failures) here are key tips for building a strong company culture on a startup budget.
1. Share your vision!
As a young startup, chances are your team didn’t join your company for a huge salary, company car, and other wild perks. Most likely, they joined your company because they believe in what you’re building and what your company can accomplish.
Knowing this, as a leader, you must continuously share your long-term vision with your team. This understanding of the path ahead and subsequent buy-in from your team puts everyone on the same page and allows for meaningful leaps forward together.
2. Provide high impact benefits.
A common misconception is that providing benefits has to be expensive. Firstly, there are a significant number of lower-cost and high-impact benefits startups can provide. Additionally, one should never forget that the ROI – or return on investment – of benefits almost always outweighs the cost as happy and valued employees work harder. As such, benefits are a key way to build a culture of dedication and appreciation.
The most important benefit one can provide is equity. Equity – through an employee stock options plan – aligns interests by giving your team true company ownership and is a huge motivator. Healthcare too – even through a lower cost HRA – provides a powerful show of commitment to employees (and hey, don’t you want them to be healthy!).
Beyond these, there are several low-cost, high-impact benefits startups can provide to create a fun culture. These include:
Food perks. Provide free snacks, a weekly team meal or even an allowance for working late. Food keeps your team alert, boosts productivity, and can be low cost (if you’re a smart shopper).
Remove face-time. Be flexible with your team and let them work from home or coffee shops at times. This lets people work in their preferred environments and demonstrates trust, which is essential to startup culture.
3. Take time to celebrate wins.
Be a force of positive reinforcement and celebrate team wins and milestones. From big product releases to personal “firsts”, take the time to celebrate, which gives the team a perspective on progress (which can be difficult to gauge from the trenches) as well as a sense of pride in their work.
At Travefy, we celebrate big milestones and also have our Travefy “Team Awesome” award given out weekly for doing something new, great, or high impact the week before.
4. Get out of the office!
Another great way to build office culture is to all interact on a personal (and non-work) level. To best do this, get out of the office!
It’s easy to plan budget friendly non-work team events like a video-game night, beach outing, or really anything that would be enticing your team. This provides everyone time to relax and build lasting bonds.
5. Take hiring seriously.
Lastly, one of the biggest things that can impact – positively or negatively – the company culture you’ve so delicately built is new employees. As a result, hiring – from a culture perspective – must be taken extremely seriously.
At Travefy we balance for this by ensuring all team members meet potential new hires at the final stage to gauge their opinions and ensure buy-in.
About the Author
David D. Chait is Co-Founder and CEO of Travefy – the easiest online and mobile group travel planner – as well as a regular contributor to Entrepreneur.
Insider Tip: How to Give Away FREE Stuff and Make Money in the Process
By Assia Salikhova
Hate it or love it, the magic of FREE stuff appeals to everyone.
Whether you are a consumer or a government department, the smallest home based business or a multinational corporation, a FREE offers work over and over again. Some cynics are able to pretend to resist by asking "What is the catch?", but if there is a good explanation, even cynics are open to the opportunity.
Personally, just like you, I prefer to be paid for what we do. Just like you, I do not like discounting or giving away our products and services. When it comes to someone else’s, just like you, I like free, discounted and special offers.
Amazing! We all like to be paid in full for what we do, and yet prefer to get everything for free or as cheap as possible. Every time I spot this (happens often!) I wonder how an economy can survive if everyone is focused on selling high and buying...sorry, getting everything free.
Fortunately for you and me and everyone else - there is a solution. There is a solution which is beneficial for everyone, is completely ethical, involves no mysterious games and has a positive impact on the economy by creating more sales, cash flow and new jobs.
Are you ready to know what the solution is? Well ... you are about to discover and experience it for yourself. I'll give you a hint, just two words to help you uncover this wonderful universal solution for yourself: added value.
Every business has something that costs little, has a high margin and can add extra value. While we are all familiar with the “Would you like fries with that?”, are we offering fries to our customers? And it may not even be an object; it could be extra service or extra information.
Consultants, suppliers of large items, and many others often complain: “We don’t have anything small like fries and we can’t (don’t want to) give anything away. “
Imagine if offering extra value can help you close the deal. Would you then reconsider? In fact, there is no question about it – offering extra value definitely helps you close a deal. All you need to do is look around – every single company has something to offer. All you have to do is find it, ‘package’ it with words and make a big deal out of it.
Here are three questions you can ask to find this magical free item in your business:
1. Is there an item you already have, which is easy to reproduce (much like fries)? For example you may have electronic books or products, or a product with a high margin that you can easily get in bulk. It may be a promotional product related to your business.
2. Is there relevant valuable knowledge on-line or off-line you can share? For example if you run seminars you can offer all past participants to come again at no cost.
3. Can you produce vouchers for your store? Or even negotiate vouchers to some other place, which can offset the cost of vouchers as their marketing cost … that leads to another fascinating strategy, which deserves a whole new article.
If you’ve got the idea – now is the time to use it for the benefit of your business.
And if you don’t – it never hurts to ask for help.
About the Author
Assia Salikhova is a fo
under of marketing agency E-ideas Limited and strongly believes in the common sense approach to business and marketing. From a Human Genome project to her own label in fashion design, from IT to communication; Assia's diverse past allows her to bring ideas across disciplines and create a bigger vision, greater value and leverage them with an array of inspiring strategies for businesses in any industry. Connect with her at + 64 4 977 7877 or [email protected].
4 Programs Every Startup Founder Should Know About
By Tabitha Jean Naylor
Every startup founder can use a hand when it comes to developing software and finding a way to focus on your customers rather than the nitty-gritty of your business.
It’s easy to get caught up in the technicalities of running a business and lose sight of what matters the most to your company: the customers.
There are four programs and websites that are strictly for assisting startups in using software and finding customers with their huge databases.
Salesforce for Startups
Salesforce for Startups is a program started by the well-known company Salesforce.com. The program will allow startups to focus on customers and will help you in the beginning of your journey to success, including helping startups utilize new technologies such as Service SOS or Journey Builder for Apps.
Features of Salesforce for Startups:
* Allows your startup to grow with free CRM and customer service tools for a year
* Provides you with a place to publish your apps to over 100,000+ customers
* Gives its members free access to the Salesforce1 Platform
* The program has adopted the 1-1-1 model so entrepreneurs can have a chance to give back to their communities
* Use of the service cloud, which allows you to respond to customers from anywhere at any time
Benefits of Salesforce for Startups:
* Helps businesses find new customers and continue to grow
* Offers a community for entrepreneurs to learn from other successful entrepreneurs and Salesforce professionals
* Manage your business from any device
* Stay in the know regarding startup events and other opportunities available for startup founders
* Improve your customer service
Amazon’s Cloud for Startups
Amazon also offers Web Services for startups. This includes free tools for your cloud so you can access servers, storage and databases for your business. With a new AWS account, you can receive 12 months of free access to the features for Amazon’s Cloud program.
Features of the AWS:
* 12 months of free tier; after that, only pay for what you actually use
* Free accounts include the AWS basic support which includes customer service and more
* Provides data storage which you can access at any time
* The free tier, Amazon S3, is 5GB’s of storage
* Free storage gateway after you activate your first virtual gateway appliance – it then connects software with cloud-based storage
* Free tier offers 30 GB of Elastic Block Storage (EBS)
Benefits of AWS:
* Storage offers backup options for disaster recovery and archiving
* Many of the products you pay for as you use and have no upfront costs
* Access as much or as little as you need, so your capacity is always known
* Auto scale your Amazon capacity yourself
* Focus more on your customers
Google’s Cloud for Startups
Google’s Cloud for startups is specifically designed to help startup founders focus on the things that are the most important to them. Google will manage the details so you don’t have to.
Feature of Google Cloud:
* App Engine where you can begin developing and building a new app
* Build Cloud Platform solutions through their templates or your own designs
* Cloud storage so you can manage data and access from anywhere at any time
* Startup a virtual machine or set up your own web server
Benefits of Google Cloud:
* Up to $100,000 free in Cloud Platform Credits for 1 year, which can be applied to all Cloud Platform products
* 24/7 support if you need assistance
* Eligible for startups which include people who have never received Cloud credits, have less than $5 million in funding or make less than $500,000 in annual revenue
Microsoft’s BizSpark for Startups
Last but certainly not least, is Microsoft’s BizSpark for startups. Microsoft has created a program called BizSpark, which offers support and software for startups so that they can succeed.
Features of BizSpark:
* Access to software and development tools you need to build software applications
* You will gain access to advisors and investors to help you begin and run your business successfully
* Find and obtain financing through BizSpark for your startup
* Free monthly benefits that will help startups build and develop Web applications
* Free one-year Windows Store and Windows Phone developer accounts
Benefits of BizSpark:
* With your Windows Store and Windows Phone accounts, you will have the ability to distribute your apps all over the world
* A network of over 100,000 startups, 5 years of experience and in over 165 countries
* Promote your apps through the BizSpark website
* Startups qualify if they are less than five-years-old or make less than $1 million annually
8 Simple Ways to Reward Employees on a Budget
By Rhett Power
You want to reward your employees, but your business may not be able to afford to give costly raises, bonuses or extravagant gifts but it can still be done on a budget.
It's management 101 but as entrepreneurs and managers we often forget to reward people for a job well done. Even if you are just starting out or if your business can't afford to give costly raises, bonuses or extravagant gifts. Let's take a look at some ways you can show your employees that you care.
Show Appreciation
You can reward your employees by simply showing your appreciation for them and all they do.
1. Paid Time Off
Give your hard working employee an unexpected paid day off work.
2. Parking Space
If you are able, allocate parking spots to those who deserve a reward.
3. Personal Note
Leave a handwritten note on your employee's desk telling them what a good job they have been doing and how much you appreciate it.
Rewards for everyone in the office can include:
4. Fun Time and Team Building
Take a few hours a week and allot them to having fun. Playing games can be a great stress reliever in addition to being a rewarding break.
5. Food
Bring donuts or a more healthy alternative to the office, buy pizza for lunch, or maybe stock the kitchen once a week with snacks for everyone. Use office time whenever possible. Some employees don't want to use their time off to celebrate their business successes.
Recognition
One way to reward your employees is by recognizing them. Some ways to do this are:
6. Write Up
Acknowledge employees who have done exemplary work by writing up a small article about them in the company newsletter, blog or on social media.
7. Employee of the Month
Put an employee of the month policy in place. You can reward someone once a month with a particular parking place or putting their picture on the wall.
8. Simple Gifts
The key to rewarding someone with a gift is knowing them well enough to present them with something that is meaningful. Giving a gift that shows you have paid attention to your employee is often more impressive than something that costs a lot of money.
With these ideas, you can see it's possible to reward employees without breaking the bank. The reward and the payoff
make it worth every penny that you spend building morale.
About the Author
Rhett Power co-founded Wild Creations in 2007 and quickly built the company into the fastest-growing business in South Carolina. Learn more at rhettpower.com.
3 Key Factors to Creating Your Customer Experience Strategy
By Alan See
Did you know that early phone books included detailed directions on how to use the telephone? For example, a New York City telephone directory from 1885 gave the following instructions:
To Call
Press in the button and turn the crank once only; unhook the listening telephone (receiver) and put it close to your ear, when Central Office will enquire: “What number?” Give Central Office and number of person wanted, and upon receiving the answer “All right,” hang up the receiver, and wait until your bell rings, then place the receiver to your ear and address person called. If you do not immediately hear his voice, the delay – except in rare cases – is owing to his failure to promptly answer the call. Therefore, hang up the receiver, press in the button and ring twice, then put the receiver again to your ear. Speak in a moderate, clear tone, with mouth three or four inches from transmitter. Loud speaking jars the mechanism of the instrument and produces a confused sound. When through do not fail to hang up the receiver, and call off, pressing in button and turning crank once. If you wish to call for a subscriber before disconnection is made, hang up your receiver, press in button, and turn crank once; then immediately place receiver to your ear and Central Office will answer.
If subscribers will respond quickly when their bells are rung the service will be much improved.
If bell rings once pay no attention – you are not wanted. If it rings twice you are wanted. Unhook receiver and speak immediately. The receiver, except when at your ear, must be always on the hook.
Successful Startup 101 Magazine - Issue 9 Page 5