StrategyDriven Expert Contributors' Blog

Talent Acquisition: 7 Ways to Make a Job Offer More Appealing

October 1, 2019/in Talent Management/by StrategyDriven

The average job seeker spends six months or more searching for a new job. The total number of job postings they read and applications they send in can be somewhat mind-boggling. It’s up to employers to make their job posting stand out to job seekers to ensure the best candidate is found.

The question is, how can that be done? Making sure a job positing is appealing to candidates isn’t impossible, but some tips may be needed. Keep reading for some tips on how to make any job posting more appealing.

1. Keep Things Simple

Mentor programs can help anyone find a quality job. However, not everyone uses these. As a result, it’s necessary to make sure job postings are simple and easy-to-understand.

To make job postings easy to read and understand, use bullet points, paragraph breaks, numbering, italics, and boldface when appropriate. Add the company logo to make the job description appear professional. Too much information is the fastest way to lose candidates.

2. A Concise Job Title

Create a job title that is easy to understand by job seekers. Adding a specific department or product in the title only confuses candidates and makes the description less searchable. Also, spell out any search acronyms to improve the searchability of the listing.

3. Get to the Point

It’s tempting to list all the details of a job to make sure the most qualified candidates are found. However, as stated above, keeping things simple is best. Choose five to seven duties and list those using bullet points for clarity. It may be a good idea to add one or two sentence descriptions of each point.

4. Benefits of Working for the Company

When trying to sell a position, include something appealing about the company. Is there something specific that’s awesome or unique about the company? If so, be sure to include it.

If a company is willing, add the salary range or specific salary for the position. Job seekers are also going to want to know about benefits. Make sure it’s clear why this job is important and needed. An individual wants to feel needed, and like they make a difference.

5. Clear Information and Location

Make sure to specify if the position is employee or freelance and if it is full-time or part-time. By adding this information to the listing, it’s going to help the posting stand out. Make sure the location of the job is clear, too.

If it is at the headquarters of the company, add the precise city and state. If there is a remote work opportunity, list where a candidate can work from.

6. Contact Information

If the position is posted on a job board, rather than a company website, this is especially important. Be sure to list the contact information or a link for candidates who are interested to apply with ease. Add a link for the company website or social media pages.

7. Post the Job in the Right Places

Posting a job in the right place’s matters. Use social media, job boards, and the company website to achieve the desired results.

Finding the Right Candidate

Finding the right candidate for an open position takes time and effort. Keep this in mind when creating a job posting. By using the tips here, a company can find a quality candidate that meets all the requirements of the job.

The Best Safety Tips for Running an E-Commerce Business

October 1, 2019/in Risk Management/by StrategyDriven

As a growing volume of retail transactions become ‘etail’ transactions, it’s becoming even more critical that your e-commerce business takes all necessary precautions to protect your business interests, your customers’ interests, and their data.

Here are some important safety tips you should bear in mind if you’re planning to launch an e-commerce business.

Online Security

Without a secure website, there is no e-commerce business that is safe. Not only does your website have to be user-friendly, attractive and built with shopping features for the user, it must be secure. If your website is ever hacked and your data is breached, this could mean a swift end for your business as consumers will no longer trust your brand when shopping online.

An e-commerce site should be hosted by a company who offer back-ups and are operational 24/7. Criminals don’t keep to office hours and neither should your web hosting service provider. A good web host will have maximum uptime and offer data protection and detection services that can quickly detect and fix malware or breaches.

Hypertext transfer protocol secure, or HTTPS, is the secure version of HTTP which is utilised for the secure movement of information on a network. Your e-commerce website should be hosted on HTTPS to avoid hackers gaining valuable information on your website.

Before you can move your website to HTTPS, you will need an SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificate. SSL is security technology which encrypts links between a website and an internet browser. An SSL certificate can be purchased, installed, activated and updated on your website. SSL certificates do expire so ensure you renew the SSL before the expiration.

Avoid the Fraud

Unfortunately, credit card fraud on e-commerce sites is quite common. To avoid being the victim of credit card fraud, make use of AVS or Address Verification Services, which compares billing addresses supplied by the consumer to the address registered by the bank for that consumer. Add technology that can detect IP or Internet Protocol addresses which may seem bogus in relation to the shipping information as an added security process.

Privacy Concerns

Ensure you use secure payment gateway platforms on your site which releases security patches and provides shipping method extensions for better privacy. Doing this alone is not enough as consumers must be reminded to shop responsibly and safely. Reminders to consumers, preferably through an automated system, to use strong passwords and to change them monthly is a great way to help your consumers protect themselves too.

Never store sensitive financial information such as credit card details on your website. Hackers are particularly fond of gaining this data to commit online crimes with. To avoid this extremely serious data breach, employ the process of Tokenisation. Tokenisation identifies, removes and encrypts the sensitive information for you, such as credit card information, to prevent hackers from gaining access to this data.

Insurance for Your Delivery Service

A growing number of bricks-and-mortar businesses are launching ecommerce solutions, enabling customers to place an order through their website and then have the product couriered to their home or office. While this is a great way for offline businesses to compete in an increasingly online retail environment, it does mean you will need to take out courier insurance alongside your online safety precautions.

Courier insurance can be found through a comparison site like Quotezone.co.uk, and will protect your delivery vehicle as well as the goods that are being transported. There are greater risks attached to courier vehicles because of the potential value of the goods they are transporting, and therefore it is essential to be adequately covered when delivering or collecting goods.

Trademark

The final consideration to implement is the process of trademarking your company or brand name and logo. This will protect your website as well as your brand in the event of domain theft or duplication. Ensure your name and products are protected by trademarking them; often other companies will duplicate your entire site for profit and if you are not protected, you can lose your business. Ensure your copyright notice is clear and visible on your site and related documents.

Taking your business’s cybersecurity, insurance and brand name seriously will protect and safeguard your bottom line in the event of crime. Although the process of establishing an e-commerce website is relatively easy these days, the security and service you provide will set you apart from the competition and ensure your business thrives.

Things To Consider Before Marketing Your Brand New Business

October 1, 2019/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by StrategyDriven

Marketing your brand new business is one of the only ways you can let people know you’re out there and available to help them. However, the way you start this is so important. You will begin to build an image of your business is the heads of other people, so it needs to be the right kind of image if you’re going to experience long term success.

Below, you’ll find a few things to consider before you start marketing your brand new business:

What Are Your Brand Values?

Knowing your brand values and what you stand for is so important. When you know what’s important to your brand, you can market it this way and ensure it is being run appropriately, sending out the right message to your audience. Some good brand values to have may include:

Commitment to a high quality service
Honest
Trust
Fun
Passion

The list goes on!

The list will vary depending on what you do, but you must make sure that these are outlined and that everybody is on the same page.

What Is Your Brand Personality?

A brand personality helps you to identify with your audience. It also makes your brand far more interesting, and can help you to be more memorable. It gives a set way that you intend on interacting with your audience too, so whoever is doing the talking can’t get it wrong. A place like KW2 Madison could potentially help you to come up with a suitable brand personality. However, make sure you consider who your brand would be if it were a person. This way, you should be able to come up with your own ideas.

Who Are You Trying To Attract?

Knowing who your audience is is one of the most powerful things you can do. How old are they? Where do they live? Do they have kids? Knowing as much about them as possible will allow you to market your service to them effectively, and use the sort of voice that they are going to relate to. You can’t be everything to everyone, so knowing who you’re trying to attract is essential.

What Platforms Will You Use?

Marketing requires a business to use multiple platforms to get the best results. This means social media, a website, a blog, maybe even a youtube channel. However, you won’t be able to handle all of this yourself, which is why having a marketing company to help you is essential. If you try to do this yourself, you’ll end up lagging somewhere.

Who Will You Work Alongside?

Finally, it’s time to select the company who will help you with your marketing. It’s a good idea to:

Ask for recommendations
Look at portfolios
Read third party review sites
Have a consultation/trial

You need to be able to communicate well with the company you choose, as you will be working with them for the foreseeable. Make sure you feel comfortable doing so.

Are you ready to market your brand new business?

Preparing For That First Business Convention

September 30, 2019/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDriven

As a firm, many milestones come your way. Your first five employees show the start of something promising while surviving your first financial year shows that you have some merit behind what you’re doing. Additionally, framing the first dollar you have ever received in a revenue context can help you tremendously.

But there’s almost nothing as big as that first business convention. For many firms, this can make them as nervous as can be, almost as if the company was a shy entity preparing for its first date. This is because not only does a firm wish to impress, but they will be in the presence of industry leaders whom they may wish to network with.

Of course, the public visibility of such an event is often something that holds additional merit, because we wish to show everyone that we have what it takes to stand with the big boys. To that end, let us consider how to appropriately prepare for your first business convention. With the following words, you’re sure to hit it out of the park:

Hire A Visible Lot

When it comes to booking your expo space, most event halls will ask that you hire an allotment of space. Within this, you may be assigned a booth, or you may be allowed to construct your own display feature yourself. It’s important that you invest in one that will be visible and also gain traffic from passers-by walking the event. In some cases, larger space is preferable to visible traction, and vice versa depending on your goals.

For product demonstrations, it might be worth erecting a large indoor tent for people to walk in and engage with your demonstration rather than watching it behind a large crowd. Additionally, if engagement and ensuring people sign up to follow your social media accounts is your goal, a smaller space may be preferable. It all depends on what you hope to achieve, and if you think that’s a realistic goal or not.

Regardless, it’s essential to consider what your needs are before booking the space, because you need to understand what your budget is going to look like. Additionally, hiring out space on a main stage for a large product demonstration may cost a little more. It’s important to be on top of your planning for this and plan your presence to a T.

Promote Your Attendance

It’s important to promote your attendance thoroughly if you hope for people to come and visit. You might not be a massive attraction at this stage, so it can be worthwhile to promote the event above all things. This is an easier sell, because it shows potential visitors that they have the chance to come, maybe see you, but also have a great day or weekend at said show. Using the event’s social media kit, you may align your marketing with theirs. But if you hope to use their licensed work for anything you may need to discuss this with the event organizers and gain express permission for this. If it’s solely to benefit the event, there may be some room for negotiations.

Craft Your Merchandise

Merchandise is an essential part of running a competent trade show event. If you cater to this carefully, you can market yourself with considerable weight. Consider the practical items you may give out as freebies. For example, if it’s in the middle of summer, a branded baseball cap can be a great idea. If you book an event space near the entrance of the convention center and you hand out a branded tote bag to each visitor, you have managed to give said visitors a place to store all of their other belongings and merch they are given when walking around the event. When all of the competition’s branded merch is hidden within your large branded bag, you can see who the victor of the public imaging war will be.

Merch is a great way to help those who do not know of your presence come to check out your stall, especially if you’re giving away great items such as hooded sweatshirts for engaging with a product demonstration. Everyone likes free stuff, and if the first memory a potential expo-goer has of your firm is something quality, practical and complimentary? You can be sure they’re going to give you that second look later on down the line.

With this advice, you’re certain to prepare well for that first business convention.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 3 – An Interview with Forrest Breyfogle, author of Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics

September 28, 2019/in Business Performance Assessment Program/by StrategyDriven

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag posts on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 3 – An Interview with Forrest Breyfogle, author of Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics explores how to achieve organizational performance improvements through the use of the Integrated Enterprise Excellence system. During our discussion, Forrest Breyfogle, author of Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics: Golfing Buddies Go Beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard and CEO of Smarter Solutions, a global management coaching and consulting firm specializing in the design and application of innovative enterprise-wide performance measures and business solutions, shares his insights regarding:

the importance of an integrated approach to organizational performance improvement
how using the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC) model at the enterprise and project levels can drive performance improvement
acquisition of critical option value insights through the use of the Design of Experiments (DOE) approach
how other business management approaches such as Total Quality Management (TQM), the Theory of Constraints (TOC), SMART goals, and ISO 9000 are related to the Integrated Enterprise Excellence system

Additional Information

Complimenting the outstanding insights Forrest shares in Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics and this special edition podcast, are the organizational performance improvement materials and resources found on his website, Smarter Solutions (www.SmarterSolutions.com). Forrest also offers free one-day seminars throughout the United States. For additional information regarding these seminars, click here.

As mentioned in the podcast, Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics, is just one of four books in the Integrated Enterprise Excellence series which includes:

About the Author

Forrest W. Breyfogle III, author of Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume I – The Basics, is CEO of Smarter Solutions, a global management coaching and consulting firm specializing in the design and application of innovative enterprise-wide performance measures and business solutions. For over 15 years, Forrest has advised company leaders and their teams on how to improve their organization’s performance through the use of his Integrated Enterprise Excellence system. In 2004, Forrest received the prestigious Crosby Medal from the American Society for Quality for his earlier book, Implementing Six Sigma. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the University of Texas Center for Performance Excellence. To read Forrest’s full biography, click here.