Money may be the king, but other options could be even better. Since the holiday season is around the corner, your search for choosing the best gifts for a family member or a loved one must have begun. More than excitement, there must be a lingering feeling of confusion, indecisiveness, and cluelessness. Choosing a gift can be a grueling process, especially if you have little or no experience.
Well, in such a case, gifting prepaid visa gift cards nestled within greeting cards can be an excellent option. It is just what you are looking for. As everyone has busy schedules, and it is hard to take out time while you are traveling or working, therefore prepaid gift cards are a win-win in circumstances such as these. Cash is like a gift that people often forget. The moment it is spent or placed into our wallets, it is over and done with. And a gift might turn out to be not useful or liked by the receiver. But something like a visa gift card is the best of both cash and a gift. However, do not be fooled, where there is a bright side to it, there are also some negatives.
Why do people buy visa gift cards?
Visa cards are purchased by people who want flexibility while making choices between how and when to redeem the gift card. Places like stores and restaurants gift closed-loop cards, which can only be used at the issuing merchants.. So the person who gives a gift card will have to make sure that they choose a location that is easier for the recipient to make a purchase. On the other hand, visa cards are redeemable and accepted at stores and restaurants. For further information click here to explore the various options available in this regard.
Many are not aware of the numerous benefits of a visa card. Not only for gifting purposes, but visa cards can also be utilized for practical use such as, if you want to co-pay on your next doctor’s visit or pay any utility bills, then visa cards can be beneficial. There are also options for popular reward cards, which are ideal for businesses. It is very cheaper for companies to issue reward cards and rebates in the form of a card.
Prepaid Visa Gift Cards:
Nothing is more upsetting than having an important event coming up and not having a clue about what to buy for a friend or a family member. In such a case, one can let them choose their own desired present by giving them a prepaid visa gift card. Prepaid cards are cards that you can transfer money onto beforehand to make a purchase or a transaction. However, it must be noted that they are not linked to a bank account.
Benefits:
You will not have to worry about finding the right item for a special occasion. Just load the card with cash, and the respective recipient will select what they want to buy.
They are easy to purchase and can be wrapped and mailed for someone who lives far away from you.
Visa cards are super convenient. All you have to do is grab a merchant card or master cards at a drugstore, retailer, or supermarket. They can also be purchased online as well and sent to your giftee via mail.
State laws often provide them with additional protection and prevent them from expiring for at least five to seven years from your purchase date.
They can be marked as a check, although a processing fee might apply.
Drawback:
They can only be used at the walk-in or online store of issuing retailers.
You might not get the full value of the card if the company is shut down permanently.
When you are sending a gift card to someone in a different country, there might be only a few convenient stores or none at all.
Scammers can copy gift card codes while they are still on display and then steal their desired amount of cash that you would have loaded onto the prepaid visa card.
Prepaid visa gift cards may not be the right choice for a friend or a relative who is sensitive about the monetary value of gifts.
Some people dislike shopping and are a fan of saving. Unfortunately, a prepaid visa card might not be a good option for them.
Prepaid Visa Gift Cards for Self:
Discussed above are some of the possible and impossible ways to make a gift purchase for your loved ones and friends. It doesn’t mean that visa gift cards are not for you. They are. As discussed below, there are some pros and cons that come along with shopping for oneself. For those who consider shopping as retail therapy, these are some of the considerations.
Benefits:
A prepaid visa gift card might not be the same as your debit card, but it surely can carry money without having to get it cashed all the time.
Visa cards are versatile, just like our standard visa debit cards. They are easy to use and sometimes even accessible via ATM’s.
There is a zero risk that your identity might be compromised if you lose your visa gift card.
Drawbacks:
You can’t add more money once you have ultimately used up your prepaid gift card. The lack of reuse leads the majority of people to switch towards reversible prepaid cards.
The money that you put into your visa card may get used up through bank fees as a result. Try finding a gift card that charges either a low fee or no activation fee at all.
Your transaction may be declined if you plan to buy something that is twice the amount of money you have loaded on that card.
Make Your Choice:
As someone who enjoys shopping or giving gifts, the prepaid visa cards, can be a great gifting option for you. They also provide a very flexible and secure way to pay for items you need while keeping your bank account protected, and the same case is with your identity.
Final Word
Visa gift cards provide a lot of benefits as they can be the perfect gift for everyone, every time. Understanding the possible advantages and disadvantages of visa cards is very important. You have to see it for yourself. Is this method convenient for you? Do you want to use this particular method of payment? If it is easy and convenient for you, then start with a low balance to try out a prepaid card experience. Although the prepaid card is not reloadable and the banks might charge a lot of activation fees. The choice is yours whether you decide to purchase it or not.
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If you are a business owner, hopefully, you are one of the people that realizes that the most important part of your business is your employees. Believe it or not, even in modern times, there are still a lot of business owners out there that put their employees at the bottom of the pile and more often than not, this comes back to haunt them.
In modern times, if you want to succeed in business, you have to not only do everything your competition is doing, you have to do it better, and for you to be able to do things better, you need the people on the front line to be working at their most productive.
Today, we are going to be looking at why your employees may not be performing at the height of their abilities, and why you may be doing things that cause this. After that, we are then going to be looking at some of the things you can do if you really want to get so much more from your team.
Why Your Employees May Be Slacking
As a business owner, we understand it’s going to be an annoyance if any of your team is underperforming, but, have you ever stopped to find out why they are doing what they are doing?
The sad truth is, while you may have an employee that is trying to get away with doing as little as possible, the chances are that the employee simply feels wasted and undervalued. While this may be difficult to comprehend, it’s actually one of the most popular reasons for an underperforming team member, and as you will see in the next section, it’s rather easy to fix.
So, if you are looking for a way to increase the overall atmosphere in your office and you also want to see your team perform at an all-time high, then maybe you will want to consider some of the tips below.
Offer A Good Benefits System
The first thing we are going to be looking at today is what you are offering to your team that makes them feel valued.
If you are one of many business owners that simply employs somebody only for them to find out that there are zero benefits and nothing to be gained from working at your company, then now is the time to consider making a change to this.
By offering things like Accuplan Benefits Services on top of medical and dental plans, you will suddenly see a change in the attitudes of your team. By giving your employees something that shows them that they are more than just a number to you, you will find that the productivity rate rises exponentially.
Offer Incentives
While we are on the subject of making the team feel valued, it may fall within your interests to offer your employees incentives for reaching certain targets.
Now, when it comes to incentives, it doesn’t really matter if it’s in monetary form or whether you offer an hour off, you will find that this is enough to increase the productivity of your team tenfold and it also promotes a little healthy competition in the office too.
While some business owners see incentives as bribery, it’s actually far from it. You have to look at things realistically when it comes to your employees and see that while you may bank most of the profits, they are only getting a very small portion of that for a lot of work.
When you offer them an incentive, it’s more a way of saying thank you for everything you do.
Nurture And Promote
The final thing we are going to look at is the opportunities that you give to your team. We understand that for some businesses it won’t be viable, but if there comes a time when you need to hire a member of staff, why not look internally and ask if a current employee would be interested in expanding their horizons.
While you may not have a team member that is qualified, there is nothing stopping you from offering them a route into a different career with you. By doing things this way, you already know how hard working the person will be, and it will also cost you less while the employee is training.
Many companies are now employing this technique, and it has been shown to not only increase productivity, but it also increases employee retention rates massively.
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People are great at coming up with completely new ideas, though far too few are able to act on their ingenuity. It’s not too hard to think of new products or inventions, but turning something like this into a reality can be much harder, and most won’t have any idea where to start. To help you out with this, this post will be going through the whole process from paper to product. Exploring each of the stages you will need to take on before you can bring a product to market, this should give you a much better idea of the path you should be taking, while also giving you the chance to get started on your dream product.
Research
The first stage in this process is going to involve some research. This will serve more than one purpose; giving you the opportunity to make sure that the idea doesn’t already exist while also ensuring that the idea will be possible in the first place. You can do all of this research online, and there are plenty of forums and communities around the web which can be used to help you to test your concept. If a lot of people think you’re onto a winner, this will be a good sign, though you should avoid giving away your idea if you think it will be a success.
Inspiration & Design
Next up, it will be time to start thinking about designing your product. This process should always start on paper, even if you aren’t very good at drawing, as this will give you an easy way to get your ideas into the real world.
The sketches you make don’t need to be perfect, but will serve to make it much easier to come up with the form and style of your product. Most designers will look for inspiration at this stage, using sites like Pinterest to look at other products to fuel their creativity.
Once you have a good idea of how you’d like your product to look and work, you can begin to create a 3D model of it. Tools like Solidworks are perfect for this, though they can be tricky to use and you may need to watch some YouTube videos before you’re able to make beautiful models with it. This sort of model will enable you to make the product very easily, as you will already have a CAD design for it, but it will also give you the chance to get an idea of what it will look like when it is made.
Most modern products involve some sort of electronics, and this is something you may have to design at the same time as the physical form of your product. Designing a PCB isn’t easy, and you may need to use a microcontroller, like an Arduino, to get started with this. Once you’ve managed to make a circuit and script which works, you can start to think about designing a dedicated PCB for it, though you may need to hire someone to help you with this.
Prototyping
With a 3D design made, the next stage in this process will involve some prototyping. This stage is crucial, as it will ensure that you are creating something which people will want to use, while also giving you a chance to test your concept before you spend loads of money on getting it made. Of course, though, you have to use the right tools for something like this, or you will end up wasting a lot of resources.
Companies like rapidpsi.com can offer rapid manufacturing services which will make it much easier to prototype your ideas. Using 3D printers, rather than regular CNC machines, companies like this are able to make products extremely quickly without having to invest money in special tools for the job. This gives you the chance to make a range of different prototypes without having to wait for months each time you make an improvement to your designs.
Testing will also be a big part of this stage. You can handle this largely by yourself, though it can be worth getting other people to put your products through hell to make sure that they work properly. Prototypes are usually more fragile than a finished product, but you will still have the opportunity to make sure that they function well, while also establishing the weak points of each product to make sure that they don’t break when they are used by customers.
The Manufacturing
After you’ve done some testing and are happy with the prototype you’ve made, it will finally be time to get one with manufacturing your product. This can be an expensive process, and there are quite a few different ways to handle it. Some people will want to make their product themselves, and will buy the machinery and tools they need to do it from home. For larger operations, looking to countries like China can be a good idea, as there are a lot of businesses in this part of the world which specialize in manufacturing for other companies.
In some cases, you may be able to get another company to buy your product from you. This can be trickier, and you won’t get the chance to work on your product anymore, but it can also make the whole thing far more cost-effective. Most people will be happy to see their product on the market, and it won’t matter how it got there as long as you’ve been paid fairly for it. Of course, though, this will be a last resort for a lot of people.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of bringing your product ideas into the real world. This process can be a difficult one, but the results will almost always be worth it. Even if your product isn’t successful, not many people can say that they’ve achieved something like this, and this makes it well worth all the work.
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Outsourcing different aspects of your business can help you save time, money and focus. You can send your books to an accountant, your calls to an answering service and your intelligence technology management to an IT firm, while you concentrate on the core projects and tasks that build your company up. Some of the benefits you will see from outsourcing your answering and receptionist services include being able to extend your customer service hours, save money and focus your efforts.
Extend Your Call Hours
Many answering services offer call-in hours around the clock and on all days, with the phones being answered by real people instead of an automated system. This gives your customers the opportunity to talk to someone and resolve issues outside of your normal operating hours without you having to keep employees working at all hours. You can even find mobile apps from these services to help you keep track of messages and leads in one place. This can lead to better customer retention and higher profits.
Save Money
Outsourcing can save you money both in terms of salaries and in terms of space needed for the extra personnel. You will not have to hire and train employees to answer the phones and then dedicate a place in your building for them. An outsourced receptionist service will have many clients to help cover their costs as well as the beefed-up phone plans to keep up with everything. Many will offer personalized call scripts so your brand’s voice and culture will be presented to the customer when they call just as it will be when they walk in your office.
Focus on Core Activities
When you do not have to pay for a dedicated employee to answer your phones, you can more closely focus on the core activities that make your company great. For example, if you own a catering business, then having another company answer your phones will give you more time to develop new recipes and finish orders without worrying about the calls coming in.
Outsourcing can help startups survive the first few years of business with less overhead and can streamline operations for huge corporations. When you outsource your call answering with a receptionist service, you can see increased customer service and retention as well as lowered costs. This gives you more time to focus on other aspects of your company such as making new products. You can also extend your customer service hours outside of your office hours and help clients around the clock without paying overtime.
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Every single business in the world will have at least three to four changing of the guards in each century. Out with the old and in with the new. Leaders have to be changed and replaced. Bringing in the next generation of managers, C-suite and other senior positions, is a daunting and even scary task. What’s at stake? Your company culture is by far the most important thing that is in the crosshairs. You need to maintain a solid culture that transcends time and generational gaps. It’s what makes your business unique and special in the industry. You will also need to bring in leaders that have the type of temperament you need to make tough decisions that ultimately allow your business to thrive and in some cases, survive.
Young incumbents and mentors
Every new leader that is brought into their position, must be given a mentor. This is a lot easier said than done as you may not be able to keep around the previous leader, long enough to show them the ropes. That’s why it’s beneficial to have a transitional phase, whereby the incumbent leader is taken under the wing of the outgoing leader. The outgoing leader will have overall authority but more and more of it will be passed to the incumbent.
The mentor will stick close to the young new leader, whether it’s a manager or a senior in a department. Make sure the incumbent is asking as many questions as possible so that small issues are nipped in the bud before problems arise. It’s general practice to keep it this way for about 12 months, but in some cases and depending on the role, it can be 18-24 months.
On shaky ground
Many young leaders will feel like they’re on shaky ground. It’s a good idea to provide them with seminars and content about leadership, so their knowledge of different techniques and mental toughness can expand. Providing them with a Keynote Speaker regarding leadership motivation is highly recommended. This type of speaker lives and breathes, supporting new leaders to become comfortable in the role and thrive on the additional responsibilities and pressure. Some of your leaders will be plagued with self-doubt and they will allow themselves to feel overwhelmed despite being great at their jobs. Don’t allow a spark to fade when you have the opportunity to fan the spark into a flame. Some of the best leaders in the world, started off not believing in themselves and weren’t able to handle the pressures at first.
Making tough recalls
As the boss, you have to make the toughest decisions. Sometimes it will involve demoting an incumbent leader because it’s either not the right role for them or, it’s too soon. Even if an employee passed all the managerial training, they might not perform well in the actual role. Give them time to get used to it, but if several months down the line you still see them making mistakes, you need to recall them from that role.
It’s quite a tense time when you are training, selecting and evaluating new leaders. But every business must go through this changing of the guard, so make sure you do it right.
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Pros and cons of prepaid visa gift cards
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenWell, in such a case, gifting prepaid visa gift cards nestled within greeting cards can be an excellent option. It is just what you are looking for. As everyone has busy schedules, and it is hard to take out time while you are traveling or working, therefore prepaid gift cards are a win-win in circumstances such as these. Cash is like a gift that people often forget. The moment it is spent or placed into our wallets, it is over and done with. And a gift might turn out to be not useful or liked by the receiver. But something like a visa gift card is the best of both cash and a gift. However, do not be fooled, where there is a bright side to it, there are also some negatives.
Why do people buy visa gift cards?
Visa cards are purchased by people who want flexibility while making choices between how and when to redeem the gift card. Places like stores and restaurants gift closed-loop cards, which can only be used at the issuing merchants.. So the person who gives a gift card will have to make sure that they choose a location that is easier for the recipient to make a purchase. On the other hand, visa cards are redeemable and accepted at stores and restaurants. For further information click here to explore the various options available in this regard.
Many are not aware of the numerous benefits of a visa card. Not only for gifting purposes, but visa cards can also be utilized for practical use such as, if you want to co-pay on your next doctor’s visit or pay any utility bills, then visa cards can be beneficial. There are also options for popular reward cards, which are ideal for businesses. It is very cheaper for companies to issue reward cards and rebates in the form of a card.
Prepaid Visa Gift Cards:
Nothing is more upsetting than having an important event coming up and not having a clue about what to buy for a friend or a family member. In such a case, one can let them choose their own desired present by giving them a prepaid visa gift card. Prepaid cards are cards that you can transfer money onto beforehand to make a purchase or a transaction. However, it must be noted that they are not linked to a bank account.
Benefits:
You will not have to worry about finding the right item for a special occasion. Just load the card with cash, and the respective recipient will select what they want to buy.
They are easy to purchase and can be wrapped and mailed for someone who lives far away from you.
Visa cards are super convenient. All you have to do is grab a merchant card or master cards at a drugstore, retailer, or supermarket. They can also be purchased online as well and sent to your giftee via mail.
State laws often provide them with additional protection and prevent them from expiring for at least five to seven years from your purchase date.
They can be marked as a check, although a processing fee might apply.
Drawback:
They can only be used at the walk-in or online store of issuing retailers.
You might not get the full value of the card if the company is shut down permanently.
When you are sending a gift card to someone in a different country, there might be only a few convenient stores or none at all.
Scammers can copy gift card codes while they are still on display and then steal their desired amount of cash that you would have loaded onto the prepaid visa card.
Prepaid visa gift cards may not be the right choice for a friend or a relative who is sensitive about the monetary value of gifts.
Some people dislike shopping and are a fan of saving. Unfortunately, a prepaid visa card might not be a good option for them.
Prepaid Visa Gift Cards for Self:
Discussed above are some of the possible and impossible ways to make a gift purchase for your loved ones and friends. It doesn’t mean that visa gift cards are not for you. They are. As discussed below, there are some pros and cons that come along with shopping for oneself. For those who consider shopping as retail therapy, these are some of the considerations.
Benefits:
A prepaid visa gift card might not be the same as your debit card, but it surely can carry money without having to get it cashed all the time.
Visa cards are versatile, just like our standard visa debit cards. They are easy to use and sometimes even accessible via ATM’s.
There is a zero risk that your identity might be compromised if you lose your visa gift card.
Drawbacks:
You can’t add more money once you have ultimately used up your prepaid gift card. The lack of reuse leads the majority of people to switch towards reversible prepaid cards.
The money that you put into your visa card may get used up through bank fees as a result. Try finding a gift card that charges either a low fee or no activation fee at all.
Your transaction may be declined if you plan to buy something that is twice the amount of money you have loaded on that card.
Make Your Choice:
As someone who enjoys shopping or giving gifts, the prepaid visa cards, can be a great gifting option for you. They also provide a very flexible and secure way to pay for items you need while keeping your bank account protected, and the same case is with your identity.
Final Word
Visa gift cards provide a lot of benefits as they can be the perfect gift for everyone, every time. Understanding the possible advantages and disadvantages of visa cards is very important. You have to see it for yourself. Is this method convenient for you? Do you want to use this particular method of payment? If it is easy and convenient for you, then start with a low balance to try out a prepaid card experience. Although the prepaid card is not reloadable and the banks might charge a lot of activation fees. The choice is yours whether you decide to purchase it or not.
How To Keep Your Employees Happy & Driven
/in Managing Your People/by StrategyDrivenIn modern times, if you want to succeed in business, you have to not only do everything your competition is doing, you have to do it better, and for you to be able to do things better, you need the people on the front line to be working at their most productive.
Today, we are going to be looking at why your employees may not be performing at the height of their abilities, and why you may be doing things that cause this. After that, we are then going to be looking at some of the things you can do if you really want to get so much more from your team.
Why Your Employees May Be Slacking
As a business owner, we understand it’s going to be an annoyance if any of your team is underperforming, but, have you ever stopped to find out why they are doing what they are doing?
The sad truth is, while you may have an employee that is trying to get away with doing as little as possible, the chances are that the employee simply feels wasted and undervalued. While this may be difficult to comprehend, it’s actually one of the most popular reasons for an underperforming team member, and as you will see in the next section, it’s rather easy to fix.
So, if you are looking for a way to increase the overall atmosphere in your office and you also want to see your team perform at an all-time high, then maybe you will want to consider some of the tips below.
Offer A Good Benefits System
The first thing we are going to be looking at today is what you are offering to your team that makes them feel valued.
If you are one of many business owners that simply employs somebody only for them to find out that there are zero benefits and nothing to be gained from working at your company, then now is the time to consider making a change to this.
By offering things like Accuplan Benefits Services on top of medical and dental plans, you will suddenly see a change in the attitudes of your team. By giving your employees something that shows them that they are more than just a number to you, you will find that the productivity rate rises exponentially.
Offer Incentives
While we are on the subject of making the team feel valued, it may fall within your interests to offer your employees incentives for reaching certain targets.
Now, when it comes to incentives, it doesn’t really matter if it’s in monetary form or whether you offer an hour off, you will find that this is enough to increase the productivity of your team tenfold and it also promotes a little healthy competition in the office too.
While some business owners see incentives as bribery, it’s actually far from it. You have to look at things realistically when it comes to your employees and see that while you may bank most of the profits, they are only getting a very small portion of that for a lot of work.
When you offer them an incentive, it’s more a way of saying thank you for everything you do.
Nurture And Promote
The final thing we are going to look at is the opportunities that you give to your team. We understand that for some businesses it won’t be viable, but if there comes a time when you need to hire a member of staff, why not look internally and ask if a current employee would be interested in expanding their horizons.
While you may not have a team member that is qualified, there is nothing stopping you from offering them a route into a different career with you. By doing things this way, you already know how hard working the person will be, and it will also cost you less while the employee is training.
Many companies are now employing this technique, and it has been shown to not only increase productivity, but it also increases employee retention rates massively.
Paper To Product: Bringing Your Ideas Into The Real World
/in Starting Your Business/by StrategyDrivenResearch
The first stage in this process is going to involve some research. This will serve more than one purpose; giving you the opportunity to make sure that the idea doesn’t already exist while also ensuring that the idea will be possible in the first place. You can do all of this research online, and there are plenty of forums and communities around the web which can be used to help you to test your concept. If a lot of people think you’re onto a winner, this will be a good sign, though you should avoid giving away your idea if you think it will be a success.
Inspiration & Design
Next up, it will be time to start thinking about designing your product. This process should always start on paper, even if you aren’t very good at drawing, as this will give you an easy way to get your ideas into the real world.
The sketches you make don’t need to be perfect, but will serve to make it much easier to come up with the form and style of your product. Most designers will look for inspiration at this stage, using sites like Pinterest to look at other products to fuel their creativity.
Once you have a good idea of how you’d like your product to look and work, you can begin to create a 3D model of it. Tools like Solidworks are perfect for this, though they can be tricky to use and you may need to watch some YouTube videos before you’re able to make beautiful models with it. This sort of model will enable you to make the product very easily, as you will already have a CAD design for it, but it will also give you the chance to get an idea of what it will look like when it is made.
Most modern products involve some sort of electronics, and this is something you may have to design at the same time as the physical form of your product. Designing a PCB isn’t easy, and you may need to use a microcontroller, like an Arduino, to get started with this. Once you’ve managed to make a circuit and script which works, you can start to think about designing a dedicated PCB for it, though you may need to hire someone to help you with this.
Prototyping
With a 3D design made, the next stage in this process will involve some prototyping. This stage is crucial, as it will ensure that you are creating something which people will want to use, while also giving you a chance to test your concept before you spend loads of money on getting it made. Of course, though, you have to use the right tools for something like this, or you will end up wasting a lot of resources.
Companies like rapidpsi.com can offer rapid manufacturing services which will make it much easier to prototype your ideas. Using 3D printers, rather than regular CNC machines, companies like this are able to make products extremely quickly without having to invest money in special tools for the job. This gives you the chance to make a range of different prototypes without having to wait for months each time you make an improvement to your designs.
Testing will also be a big part of this stage. You can handle this largely by yourself, though it can be worth getting other people to put your products through hell to make sure that they work properly. Prototypes are usually more fragile than a finished product, but you will still have the opportunity to make sure that they function well, while also establishing the weak points of each product to make sure that they don’t break when they are used by customers.
The Manufacturing
After you’ve done some testing and are happy with the prototype you’ve made, it will finally be time to get one with manufacturing your product. This can be an expensive process, and there are quite a few different ways to handle it. Some people will want to make their product themselves, and will buy the machinery and tools they need to do it from home. For larger operations, looking to countries like China can be a good idea, as there are a lot of businesses in this part of the world which specialize in manufacturing for other companies.
In some cases, you may be able to get another company to buy your product from you. This can be trickier, and you won’t get the chance to work on your product anymore, but it can also make the whole thing far more cost-effective. Most people will be happy to see their product on the market, and it won’t matter how it got there as long as you’ve been paid fairly for it. Of course, though, this will be a last resort for a lot of people.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of bringing your product ideas into the real world. This process can be a difficult one, but the results will almost always be worth it. Even if your product isn’t successful, not many people can say that they’ve achieved something like this, and this makes it well worth all the work.
Advantages of Outsourced Answering Services
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenExtend Your Call Hours
Many answering services offer call-in hours around the clock and on all days, with the phones being answered by real people instead of an automated system. This gives your customers the opportunity to talk to someone and resolve issues outside of your normal operating hours without you having to keep employees working at all hours. You can even find mobile apps from these services to help you keep track of messages and leads in one place. This can lead to better customer retention and higher profits.
Save Money
Outsourcing can save you money both in terms of salaries and in terms of space needed for the extra personnel. You will not have to hire and train employees to answer the phones and then dedicate a place in your building for them. An outsourced receptionist service will have many clients to help cover their costs as well as the beefed-up phone plans to keep up with everything. Many will offer personalized call scripts so your brand’s voice and culture will be presented to the customer when they call just as it will be when they walk in your office.
Focus on Core Activities
When you do not have to pay for a dedicated employee to answer your phones, you can more closely focus on the core activities that make your company great. For example, if you own a catering business, then having another company answer your phones will give you more time to develop new recipes and finish orders without worrying about the calls coming in.
Outsourcing can help startups survive the first few years of business with less overhead and can streamline operations for huge corporations. When you outsource your call answering with a receptionist service, you can see increased customer service and retention as well as lowered costs. This gives you more time to focus on other aspects of your company such as making new products. You can also extend your customer service hours outside of your office hours and help clients around the clock without paying overtime.
The Scary Journey Of Selecting New Leaders
/in General, Succession & Succession Planning/by StrategyDrivenEvery single business in the world will have at least three to four changing of the guards in each century. Out with the old and in with the new. Leaders have to be changed and replaced. Bringing in the next generation of managers, C-suite and other senior positions, is a daunting and even scary task. What’s at stake? Your company culture is by far the most important thing that is in the crosshairs. You need to maintain a solid culture that transcends time and generational gaps. It’s what makes your business unique and special in the industry. You will also need to bring in leaders that have the type of temperament you need to make tough decisions that ultimately allow your business to thrive and in some cases, survive.
Young incumbents and mentors
Every new leader that is brought into their position, must be given a mentor. This is a lot easier said than done as you may not be able to keep around the previous leader, long enough to show them the ropes. That’s why it’s beneficial to have a transitional phase, whereby the incumbent leader is taken under the wing of the outgoing leader. The outgoing leader will have overall authority but more and more of it will be passed to the incumbent.
The mentor will stick close to the young new leader, whether it’s a manager or a senior in a department. Make sure the incumbent is asking as many questions as possible so that small issues are nipped in the bud before problems arise. It’s general practice to keep it this way for about 12 months, but in some cases and depending on the role, it can be 18-24 months.
On shaky ground
Many young leaders will feel like they’re on shaky ground. It’s a good idea to provide them with seminars and content about leadership, so their knowledge of different techniques and mental toughness can expand. Providing them with a Keynote Speaker regarding leadership motivation is highly recommended. This type of speaker lives and breathes, supporting new leaders to become comfortable in the role and thrive on the additional responsibilities and pressure. Some of your leaders will be plagued with self-doubt and they will allow themselves to feel overwhelmed despite being great at their jobs. Don’t allow a spark to fade when you have the opportunity to fan the spark into a flame. Some of the best leaders in the world, started off not believing in themselves and weren’t able to handle the pressures at first.
Making tough recalls
As the boss, you have to make the toughest decisions. Sometimes it will involve demoting an incumbent leader because it’s either not the right role for them or, it’s too soon. Even if an employee passed all the managerial training, they might not perform well in the actual role. Give them time to get used to it, but if several months down the line you still see them making mistakes, you need to recall them from that role.
It’s quite a tense time when you are training, selecting and evaluating new leaders. But every business must go through this changing of the guard, so make sure you do it right.