There are many types of managers but it takes a certain skill set for a manager to consistently lead their team to long-term success. While skills can definitely be taught (growth mindset), exceptional team leadership requires abilities and characteristics that do not come naturally to everyone.
Why are leadership skills so important? Quite simply, they set the mold for ‘the way we do things around here’, which has a huge impact on the culture and success of an organisation.
Think you have what it takes? Want to know what distinguishes great team leaders from mediocre ones? Here are 7 skills all exceptional team leaders naturally possess.
Effective communication
To be an effective team leader, communication is key. Good communication is an essential component of achieving goals and contributes hugely to positive working relationships. Conflict at some point in any team is inevitable, but an exceptional leader has the expertise to ensure everybody has a voice and feels heard. They are able to quickly diffuse any conflict.
Good communication skills involve really listening, keeping it short, asking questions, noticing body language and repeating back a summary of what has been discussed. Active listening is often seen as a soft skill, but it is fundamental to being a great leader and drives employee engagement.
Communication is becoming increasingly difficult when it comes to managing remote workers in the digital age. But great leaders always make time for small talk with everyone and use video technology to communicate with the remote members of their team.
Transparent and trustworthy
Good leadership is built on a foundation of trust, which requires a certain level of transparency. Being transparent doesn’t mean sharing everything on the google drive or divulging everyone’s salary (though some businesses operate with more openness than others).
Broadly speaking, good leaders will share information and not keep facts secret to build up their own sense of power. There are many good reasons team leaders should practise transparency, but most importantly it helps to foster better relationships with staff. Along with effective communication it encourages employees to share their ideas too and this is essential for innovation.
Ultimately, the sharing of information is essential for employees to make better informed decisions.
Knowledgeable and confident
A leader must be able to motivate and inspire others to achieve common goals. They must also be able to communicate effectively and manage conflict. While there are many different leadership styles, all influential leaders share one crucial trait: they are continually learning and growing. One way to ensure that leaders have the skills they need to be successful is through trainer certification. By becoming certified, leaders gain access to the latest research and best practices in team development. In addition, trainer certification provides leaders with an opportunity to network with other professionals and learn from their experiences. Trainer certification by Langevin is one of the most respected in the industry, and it can help leaders take their skills to the next level. With trainer certification, leaders can build exceptional teams to succeed.
To be a credible leader you have to be able to support your team and problem-solve. Knowledge and confidence are just two of the attributes required to foster respect from your employees. People like to work with leaders who are confident and know what they are talking about.
Effective delegating
Great leaders know they need to delegate in order to get work done, but also understand the importance of delegation in relation to improving opportunities and staff development. Delegating isn’t about dumping the work you don’t fancy doing onto someone else.
To be an effective leader you’ll need to demonstrate your ability to roll up your sleeves and pitch in with the workload. You also need to be mindful not to hold onto your work. Motivating and inspiring team members relies on effective delegation and this means delegating authority, as well as tasks.
Exceptional team leaders aren’t afraid of succession planning and will delegate responsibilities to help build the careers of their team members. Great managers surround themselves with highly successful people.
Energise employees to achieve
One of the key skills and competencies requested by those recruiting for team leaders is the ability to motivate themselves and members of their team. Employees can have all the expertise in the world, but if they’re not motivated, then productivity and business success won’t come easily and employees won’t achieve their potential.
Every team member will have different motivators. A great team leader knows this and works with individuals to understand what these are and successfully motivate them.
Give continuous feedback
Giving and receiving feedback on a continuous basis is key to engaging people and keeping them on track. The annual appraisal is an outdated management tool and by its nature is often an event dreaded by employees who feel a whole year of ‘constructive criticism’ is about to be dumped upon them.
Great leaders give feedback on a continuous basis to address issues and guide employees, as well as to give positive feedback which helps to boost confidence and ability. Good leaders are able to deliver difficult feedback constructively and effectively with the right intention (to help employees improve what they aren’t doing so well). For employees to be receptive to feedback it needs to be delivered frequently with care.
Fair, ethical and honest
Being honest, fair and ethical are crucial character traits of an exceptional team leader. Acting with integrity and not engaging in behaviour in the workplace that is toxic will impact positively on how you are regarded by employees in your team and across the entire organisation.
Being fair, you don’t have favourites and you abide by the same rules you impose upon your team. Importantly, exceptional leaders will always question whether they have personal bias to ensure that they don’t subconsciously develop any.
While these are all management skills that can be learned, the truly best leaders will find all of this comes naturally.
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By their very nature, businesses are unpredictable, as a sudden demand for a product or service could arise, thus calling for a quick response. Maybe you run a hotel and there will be an event in the city where the hotel is based, for example a conference, and you have two weeks to a month to prepare for the big business of conference facilities and other services. Also, you could be in a field that necessitates constant relocation, for example the construction business, and you need an office onsite. Such situations can be sorted out by making use of portable office buildings.
Here are various types of portable office buildings depending on your space restrictions and needs:
In-plant office space
There are several businesses that have an already established plant for manufacturing or a huge warehouse, but they may need some office space. Instead of considering putting up a conventional, permanent office that may be a bit costly, it would be better to consider having portable office buildings, which are quick to build and will save on costs. Pre-fab modular office solutions can offer world-class offices—be they for industrial or commercial set-ups—in record time.
Storied offices
Space in urban or commercial areas is so scarce and can thus cost an arm and a leg. If a business intends to make the most of its limited floor space, a two-story office structure or any other multi-level structure that employs portable office buildings is a nice idea. They are designed to be strong, stable, and appealing to the eyes while still meeting all the needs of an office space.
Movable offices
Some businesses—like construction, mining, and data collection—involve constant office relocation. In such cases, it is best to have movable office buildings that allow easy relocation without damaging the materials. Such businesses can save a lot on renting office spaces in every area where they work. They should acquire the most cost-effective and easiest-to-implement solution by buying portable office buildings from reliable service providers, such as Smart Space Buildings.
Mezzanine office
Does your work area have high ceilings and thus lots of space that could be put to good use, therefore adding extra square feet without losing the current floor space? Well, you can consider using a portable office building system to put up a mezzanine office and thus create more space for conferences, offices, break rooms, and even storage.
Temporary sales office
Your business may need to put up a short-term sales office or a retail outlet to meet prospective customers, and to do so in a presentable way. The best solution is to set up a portable office building, which could even come with ticket booths that are easy to assemble, thus helping to manage the traffic.
Conclusion
Portable office buildings offer all the solutions for office space, storage, and any space-related need that businesses face. They are quick to put up, cost-effective, easy to move, and offer high-quality solutions. Also, they can enable businesses to have offices offsite and in remote places.
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I present to a variety of audiences around the country — university-based, family business centers, industry groups and professional groups. Invariably I’m asked, “What’s the one thing a family business should do to be successful?” I always respond that good communication is the most important thing to achieve, and family business meetings are the best way to achieve that. There are the obvious benefits, but there’s another incredibly valuable but hidden benefit you probably don’t know about.
First, let’s discuss communication. With good communication, family businesses can make it, and with bad communication they fail. Why? Businesses is about making a profit. The one who sells the most for the lowest cost, is better than the competitors, keeps all dealings within the boundaries of the law and keeps customers happy wins. And, everyone in the business wins. It’s a blend of hierarchy and teamwork, with everyone marching to the same objectives.
Families are about unconditional love and support. What happens when you throw a bunch of family members into a business environment? Conflicting feelings can crop up everywhere. Family members get their feelings hurt when they’re reprimanded or held accountable. So other family members will hold back their true thoughts in order not to create hurt feelings. Until they blow up.
A good system of communication fosters an environment where business issues can be stated to family members without feelings getting hurt.
Family business meetings are a great way to accomplish good communication. At the start of each of my presentations, I say to audience members: “Before we start, I’d like to ask everyone to pull out your phones and go to your calendar, then create a meeting at the beginning of the next quarter for one hour. Call it ‘Family Business Meeting,’ and have it repeat every quarter, forever. And when you’re done, please silence your phones.” People always ask what they’re supposed to talk about at a family business meeting, and I tell them to start every meeting with the same statement: “We are a family in business together, and that’s a hard thing to do. What are some of the things we need to talk about in order to run the business well and make sure the family is in harmony?” The rest will mostly take care of itself.
By doing this, these natural questions will come up:
How do other family businesses do it?
When is dad retiring?
Who’s going to lead the business in the future?
How do we get paid?
How will ownership be divided?
How do we deal with a family member who’s not performing at work?
Do we need a buy/sell agreement?
This is all really good stuff. If you’re meeting every 90 days for at least 60 minutes to talk about family business issues, you’ll be uncovering the important questions and be able to work on them over time to a mutually agreeable resolution. Remember, these are family business meetings, not business meetings or family meetings.
Huge potential benefits may also be gained from family business meetings in which you invite the whole family. Here’s the reason: In order to live your life, you must work to make money to have food and shelter, pay bills and so on. You may also get a sense of accomplishment though your work. However, when you’re faced with life questions or big decisions, or find yourself at a crossroads in life, who do you turn to? Typically it’s a family member — a parent, a sibling or your spouse. Now why would you want to bring another family member without any ownership into the family business meeting? The reason is that they’ve heard about what’s going on in the business for quite some time and have a clear perspective of how the other family members feel.
Imagine a family business with a father, two sons and a daughter. Imagine them meeting. Now imagine a family business meeting with the mother, spouses of the three kids and the fourth sibling who doesn’t work in the business. And now ask the question: “What are the things we need to be talking about and working on to have a good business and harmonious family?” By getting the perspective of the family members who don’t work in the business, the information can take you to places you never realized. It will also give you much greater insight into the unvoiced thoughts and perspectives of the family members who do work in the business.
Bringing all family members — including those who don’t work in the business — into a family business meeting one or two times each year can help uncover thoughts, concerns and perspectives of which you were previously and completely unaware. With this added information, you can ensure that you’re on the right track moving forward to continue building a healthy business and a happy family.
About the Author
Henry Hutcheson has 25 years of experience in business management and global family business consulting across a range of industries, and is a veteran of a family business himself. He is a frequent corporate and university speaker, as well as a columnist and writer for the News & Observer, Charlotte Observer, Nursery Retailer, The State, and Family Business Magazine.He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Crain’s, and other business and trade magazines. His new book is Dirty Little Secrets of Family Business (3rd edition): Ensuring Success from One Generation to the Next. Learn more at www.familybusinessusa.com
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As digital is taking over the lives of pretty much everyone, SEO and SEM are becoming a more competitive and intricate industry. As everyone is competing for the same ‘prize’ with many different approaches to going about winning. One of the biggest advantages to SEO and SEM is that the size of a business doesn’t determine how well it ranks in organic rankings. This is decided by its relevance, content and the trust Google has that the site provides a near perfect answer for the search term.
For those building the digital face of their business having decided to take on the challenge alone, here is some information from a SEO marketing agency that should help make this feel a lot easier.
What is a keyword research and why should you do it?
A keyword research is the term used for undertaking research in finding out what words and phrases people use most often when searching in Google and looking for specific items/services/pages etc. Understanding these keywords will give those trying to rank higher and reach more customers a better idea of which words are being used by their target audience, how often these words are being used and how hard it will be to rank highly for these words. Combining this knowledge with a solid strategy will enable you to compete for those selected keywords in the organic search results.
What do I need to run a keyword research?
Apart from time and an enthusiastic approach to hard work, you will need a tool that will help provide you with the details to understand each keyword. Moz, one of the most trusted sources in this industry, has their own tool called Keyword Explorer that will enable you to get a good initial idea of you websites keyword needs. There are plenty of other tools out there that with paid subscriptions can provide you with detail that you could spend an eternity looking at.
Where do I start?
All keyword research projects begin with a single word/idea/experience. If you have worked in your industry for a long time and frequently answer the same questions, look for a word that continually pops-up in these conversations. From this individual word you can begin to evolve your search around it finding similar combinations and variations of this search word. Do this for however many individual key terms you come across until you feel you have a good “seed” list. From here you will use your selected tool to find out how popular a term is, the perceived difficulty to rank for this and other similar keywords that might provide better results.
1. Run a keyword research for your website
By running a keyword research for you site you will find an idea of your strengths and weaknesses in terms of rankings. Be sure to know that your website meets the needs of potential customers. Furthermore, think about splitting the keyword you find between where a customer is in their journey, are they just finding out about a product, are they doing further research, or are they now looking specifically for you or a provider of this product. Use tools similar to keyword explorer, such as SEMrush, to understand their volume, your positioning etc.
2. Identify your competitors
Who your competitors are online may differ greatly to those offline. You are suddenly competing on a larger scale with business across the county, region and country. You can find these competitors by simply searching for the keyword terms you are ranking for and those you want to be ranking for. Your competitors are all those in the top 20. To understand more than simply keywords about a competitor it is useful to look at the ‘strength’ of their domain. This agency believes Trust Flow is the best metric and provides a better understanding of a website than DA can provide. If you need to know more, this article explaining Trust Flow is fairly thorough.
Beyond these other measures, of which there are a few, you’ll need to decide whether you have the capacity or budget to invest in going after these top ranking spots or will be happy with appearing between 10-20
3. Compare competitors to find keyword gaps
Thankfully there are tools for this task, as there seems to be for everything, that allows you to find keywords that your competitors aren’t ranking for that could be fruitful for you. After these tools provide a list there is still a fair bit of analysis to be done by you.
4. Decide on the keywords you want to focus on
Taking your potentially long list of good potential keywords, you now need to cut it down to those you will be able to focus on. You need to understand if you are able to rank for each individual keyword through website strength, content building and backlinks.
As mentioned above, cutting these groups into categories based on the users journey will help you cut down your list. Once this list is in place, create a content strategy that covers these keywords and their topics completely. Once again, Moz has a very good guide on keyword clustering that should help.
5. Start ranking for the chosen keywords
It sounds much simpler than it really is, but if the right steps have been taken you’ll begin to see vast improvements in your rankings, and even if the improvements are small you know you have begun to do something right and that you are able to start positive change in your digital business.
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It’s a brave new world out there. As always, technology is having a profound effect on the world around us and the way we navigate through life. Who would have thought 20 years ago we would be walking around with miniature computers in our pockets? That these devices would be able to connect to the other side of the world in mere seconds? That these devices would not be restricted sending across voices but would include rich video as well? And that these devices would become more than ‘just’ communication devices? That we would use them for reading news, our entertainment, to shop online, to order food, to book a cab, and to take care of more serious business, such as authentication and finances?
The latter has really found an accelerant in mobile devices and app development. The so-called Fintech industry has been made possible by the widespread ownership of smartphones and always-on connectivity. Driven by the question ‘why’ things are the way they are, Fintech is challenging the status quo, namely traditional banks, on ‘business as usual’. Why do you need a physical branch, why do you need paper statements, why do you need to deal with an organisation that is built around handling cash? These are some of the fundamental questions that Fintech businesses start with, which expose that the banking industry is woefully behind on the times. It’s nearly impossible to have multiple savings pots with a traditional bank, whereas this with app-focused Fintech companies is as easy as creating a folder on your computer.
If anything, Fintech is putting the customer central again. It tries to remove the hoops that consumers must jump through, just to be a client. A wider movement is noticeable beyond just online-only (app-based) banks, which can be seen in how people can get mortgages and loans. Take Credit Culture, for example, which helps you take out a loan as easy and responsible as it can be, fully automated and online. The human assessment element, which can be time-consuming and costly, is taken away and replaced with algorithms and machine learning, being able to offer better rates which are more customised to an individual’s situation. It’s this customer-centric approach the general audience is responding to and younger generations, millennials and Gen Z in particular, are flocking to these types of solutions, rather than going to a traditional bank. This hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Over the last few years, the traditional banks have started responding to this trend in the market and bringing their own Fintech-esque solutions. This is happening with varying degrees of success. The problem that traditional banks really have is that they still are held to the restrictions that make them a traditional bank in the first place. This means the capital expenditures they have (physical assets such as costly buildings), staff that needs to be paid, shareholders that need to be kept happy and much more.
And this is the core of Fintech and why it is transforming and disrupting how we will handle our finances today and in the future. It challenges the very heart of traditional banks, not in how the exterior looks, but in the way, it’s built, brick by brick, pixel by pixel.
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7 Skills Required For Exceptional Team Teadership
/in Management & Leadership/by StrategyDrivenWhy are leadership skills so important? Quite simply, they set the mold for ‘the way we do things around here’, which has a huge impact on the culture and success of an organisation.
Think you have what it takes? Want to know what distinguishes great team leaders from mediocre ones? Here are 7 skills all exceptional team leaders naturally possess.
Effective communication
To be an effective team leader, communication is key. Good communication is an essential component of achieving goals and contributes hugely to positive working relationships. Conflict at some point in any team is inevitable, but an exceptional leader has the expertise to ensure everybody has a voice and feels heard. They are able to quickly diffuse any conflict.
Good communication skills involve really listening, keeping it short, asking questions, noticing body language and repeating back a summary of what has been discussed. Active listening is often seen as a soft skill, but it is fundamental to being a great leader and drives employee engagement.
Communication is becoming increasingly difficult when it comes to managing remote workers in the digital age. But great leaders always make time for small talk with everyone and use video technology to communicate with the remote members of their team.
Transparent and trustworthy
Good leadership is built on a foundation of trust, which requires a certain level of transparency. Being transparent doesn’t mean sharing everything on the google drive or divulging everyone’s salary (though some businesses operate with more openness than others).
Broadly speaking, good leaders will share information and not keep facts secret to build up their own sense of power. There are many good reasons team leaders should practise transparency, but most importantly it helps to foster better relationships with staff. Along with effective communication it encourages employees to share their ideas too and this is essential for innovation.
Ultimately, the sharing of information is essential for employees to make better informed decisions.
Knowledgeable and confident
A leader must be able to motivate and inspire others to achieve common goals. They must also be able to communicate effectively and manage conflict. While there are many different leadership styles, all influential leaders share one crucial trait: they are continually learning and growing. One way to ensure that leaders have the skills they need to be successful is through trainer certification. By becoming certified, leaders gain access to the latest research and best practices in team development. In addition, trainer certification provides leaders with an opportunity to network with other professionals and learn from their experiences. Trainer certification by Langevin is one of the most respected in the industry, and it can help leaders take their skills to the next level. With trainer certification, leaders can build exceptional teams to succeed.
To be a credible leader you have to be able to support your team and problem-solve. Knowledge and confidence are just two of the attributes required to foster respect from your employees. People like to work with leaders who are confident and know what they are talking about.
Effective delegating
Great leaders know they need to delegate in order to get work done, but also understand the importance of delegation in relation to improving opportunities and staff development. Delegating isn’t about dumping the work you don’t fancy doing onto someone else.
To be an effective leader you’ll need to demonstrate your ability to roll up your sleeves and pitch in with the workload. You also need to be mindful not to hold onto your work. Motivating and inspiring team members relies on effective delegation and this means delegating authority, as well as tasks.
Exceptional team leaders aren’t afraid of succession planning and will delegate responsibilities to help build the careers of their team members. Great managers surround themselves with highly successful people.
Energise employees to achieve
One of the key skills and competencies requested by those recruiting for team leaders is the ability to motivate themselves and members of their team. Employees can have all the expertise in the world, but if they’re not motivated, then productivity and business success won’t come easily and employees won’t achieve their potential.
Every team member will have different motivators. A great team leader knows this and works with individuals to understand what these are and successfully motivate them.
Give continuous feedback
Giving and receiving feedback on a continuous basis is key to engaging people and keeping them on track. The annual appraisal is an outdated management tool and by its nature is often an event dreaded by employees who feel a whole year of ‘constructive criticism’ is about to be dumped upon them.
Great leaders give feedback on a continuous basis to address issues and guide employees, as well as to give positive feedback which helps to boost confidence and ability. Good leaders are able to deliver difficult feedback constructively and effectively with the right intention (to help employees improve what they aren’t doing so well). For employees to be receptive to feedback it needs to be delivered frequently with care.
Fair, ethical and honest
Being honest, fair and ethical are crucial character traits of an exceptional team leader. Acting with integrity and not engaging in behaviour in the workplace that is toxic will impact positively on how you are regarded by employees in your team and across the entire organisation.
Being fair, you don’t have favourites and you abide by the same rules you impose upon your team. Importantly, exceptional leaders will always question whether they have personal bias to ensure that they don’t subconsciously develop any.
While these are all management skills that can be learned, the truly best leaders will find all of this comes naturally.
Portable Office Buildings Provide Everything a Business Needs
/in Entrepreneurship/by StrategyDrivenHere are various types of portable office buildings depending on your space restrictions and needs:
In-plant office space
There are several businesses that have an already established plant for manufacturing or a huge warehouse, but they may need some office space. Instead of considering putting up a conventional, permanent office that may be a bit costly, it would be better to consider having portable office buildings, which are quick to build and will save on costs. Pre-fab modular office solutions can offer world-class offices—be they for industrial or commercial set-ups—in record time.
Storied offices
Space in urban or commercial areas is so scarce and can thus cost an arm and a leg. If a business intends to make the most of its limited floor space, a two-story office structure or any other multi-level structure that employs portable office buildings is a nice idea. They are designed to be strong, stable, and appealing to the eyes while still meeting all the needs of an office space.
Movable offices
Some businesses—like construction, mining, and data collection—involve constant office relocation. In such cases, it is best to have movable office buildings that allow easy relocation without damaging the materials. Such businesses can save a lot on renting office spaces in every area where they work. They should acquire the most cost-effective and easiest-to-implement solution by buying portable office buildings from reliable service providers, such as Smart Space Buildings.
Mezzanine office
Does your work area have high ceilings and thus lots of space that could be put to good use, therefore adding extra square feet without losing the current floor space? Well, you can consider using a portable office building system to put up a mezzanine office and thus create more space for conferences, offices, break rooms, and even storage.
Temporary sales office
Your business may need to put up a short-term sales office or a retail outlet to meet prospective customers, and to do so in a presentable way. The best solution is to set up a portable office building, which could even come with ticket booths that are easy to assemble, thus helping to manage the traffic.
Conclusion
Portable office buildings offer all the solutions for office space, storage, and any space-related need that businesses face. They are quick to put up, cost-effective, easy to move, and offer high-quality solutions. Also, they can enable businesses to have offices offsite and in remote places.
The Hidden Gem in Family Business Meetings
/in Entrepreneurship/by Henry HutchesonFirst, let’s discuss communication. With good communication, family businesses can make it, and with bad communication they fail. Why? Businesses is about making a profit. The one who sells the most for the lowest cost, is better than the competitors, keeps all dealings within the boundaries of the law and keeps customers happy wins. And, everyone in the business wins. It’s a blend of hierarchy and teamwork, with everyone marching to the same objectives.
Families are about unconditional love and support. What happens when you throw a bunch of family members into a business environment? Conflicting feelings can crop up everywhere. Family members get their feelings hurt when they’re reprimanded or held accountable. So other family members will hold back their true thoughts in order not to create hurt feelings. Until they blow up.
A good system of communication fosters an environment where business issues can be stated to family members without feelings getting hurt.
Family business meetings are a great way to accomplish good communication. At the start of each of my presentations, I say to audience members: “Before we start, I’d like to ask everyone to pull out your phones and go to your calendar, then create a meeting at the beginning of the next quarter for one hour. Call it ‘Family Business Meeting,’ and have it repeat every quarter, forever. And when you’re done, please silence your phones.” People always ask what they’re supposed to talk about at a family business meeting, and I tell them to start every meeting with the same statement: “We are a family in business together, and that’s a hard thing to do. What are some of the things we need to talk about in order to run the business well and make sure the family is in harmony?” The rest will mostly take care of itself.
By doing this, these natural questions will come up:
This is all really good stuff. If you’re meeting every 90 days for at least 60 minutes to talk about family business issues, you’ll be uncovering the important questions and be able to work on them over time to a mutually agreeable resolution. Remember, these are family business meetings, not business meetings or family meetings.
Huge potential benefits may also be gained from family business meetings in which you invite the whole family. Here’s the reason: In order to live your life, you must work to make money to have food and shelter, pay bills and so on. You may also get a sense of accomplishment though your work. However, when you’re faced with life questions or big decisions, or find yourself at a crossroads in life, who do you turn to? Typically it’s a family member — a parent, a sibling or your spouse. Now why would you want to bring another family member without any ownership into the family business meeting? The reason is that they’ve heard about what’s going on in the business for quite some time and have a clear perspective of how the other family members feel.
Imagine a family business with a father, two sons and a daughter. Imagine them meeting. Now imagine a family business meeting with the mother, spouses of the three kids and the fourth sibling who doesn’t work in the business. And now ask the question: “What are the things we need to be talking about and working on to have a good business and harmonious family?” By getting the perspective of the family members who don’t work in the business, the information can take you to places you never realized. It will also give you much greater insight into the unvoiced thoughts and perspectives of the family members who do work in the business.
Bringing all family members — including those who don’t work in the business — into a family business meeting one or two times each year can help uncover thoughts, concerns and perspectives of which you were previously and completely unaware. With this added information, you can ensure that you’re on the right track moving forward to continue building a healthy business and a happy family.
About the Author
Keyword Research for Small Business
/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by StrategyDrivenFor those building the digital face of their business having decided to take on the challenge alone, here is some information from a SEO marketing agency that should help make this feel a lot easier.
What is a keyword research and why should you do it?
A keyword research is the term used for undertaking research in finding out what words and phrases people use most often when searching in Google and looking for specific items/services/pages etc. Understanding these keywords will give those trying to rank higher and reach more customers a better idea of which words are being used by their target audience, how often these words are being used and how hard it will be to rank highly for these words. Combining this knowledge with a solid strategy will enable you to compete for those selected keywords in the organic search results.
What do I need to run a keyword research?
Apart from time and an enthusiastic approach to hard work, you will need a tool that will help provide you with the details to understand each keyword. Moz, one of the most trusted sources in this industry, has their own tool called Keyword Explorer that will enable you to get a good initial idea of you websites keyword needs. There are plenty of other tools out there that with paid subscriptions can provide you with detail that you could spend an eternity looking at.
Where do I start?
All keyword research projects begin with a single word/idea/experience. If you have worked in your industry for a long time and frequently answer the same questions, look for a word that continually pops-up in these conversations. From this individual word you can begin to evolve your search around it finding similar combinations and variations of this search word. Do this for however many individual key terms you come across until you feel you have a good “seed” list. From here you will use your selected tool to find out how popular a term is, the perceived difficulty to rank for this and other similar keywords that might provide better results.
1. Run a keyword research for your website
By running a keyword research for you site you will find an idea of your strengths and weaknesses in terms of rankings. Be sure to know that your website meets the needs of potential customers. Furthermore, think about splitting the keyword you find between where a customer is in their journey, are they just finding out about a product, are they doing further research, or are they now looking specifically for you or a provider of this product. Use tools similar to keyword explorer, such as SEMrush, to understand their volume, your positioning etc.
2. Identify your competitors
Who your competitors are online may differ greatly to those offline. You are suddenly competing on a larger scale with business across the county, region and country. You can find these competitors by simply searching for the keyword terms you are ranking for and those you want to be ranking for. Your competitors are all those in the top 20. To understand more than simply keywords about a competitor it is useful to look at the ‘strength’ of their domain. This agency believes Trust Flow is the best metric and provides a better understanding of a website than DA can provide. If you need to know more, this article explaining Trust Flow is fairly thorough.
Beyond these other measures, of which there are a few, you’ll need to decide whether you have the capacity or budget to invest in going after these top ranking spots or will be happy with appearing between 10-20
3. Compare competitors to find keyword gaps
Thankfully there are tools for this task, as there seems to be for everything, that allows you to find keywords that your competitors aren’t ranking for that could be fruitful for you. After these tools provide a list there is still a fair bit of analysis to be done by you.
4. Decide on the keywords you want to focus on
Taking your potentially long list of good potential keywords, you now need to cut it down to those you will be able to focus on. You need to understand if you are able to rank for each individual keyword through website strength, content building and backlinks.
As mentioned above, cutting these groups into categories based on the users journey will help you cut down your list. Once this list is in place, create a content strategy that covers these keywords and their topics completely. Once again, Moz has a very good guide on keyword clustering that should help.
5. Start ranking for the chosen keywords
It sounds much simpler than it really is, but if the right steps have been taken you’ll begin to see vast improvements in your rankings, and even if the improvements are small you know you have begun to do something right and that you are able to start positive change in your digital business.
Why Fintech Will be The End of Traditional Banking
/in StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective/by StrategyDrivenThe latter has really found an accelerant in mobile devices and app development. The so-called Fintech industry has been made possible by the widespread ownership of smartphones and always-on connectivity. Driven by the question ‘why’ things are the way they are, Fintech is challenging the status quo, namely traditional banks, on ‘business as usual’. Why do you need a physical branch, why do you need paper statements, why do you need to deal with an organisation that is built around handling cash? These are some of the fundamental questions that Fintech businesses start with, which expose that the banking industry is woefully behind on the times. It’s nearly impossible to have multiple savings pots with a traditional bank, whereas this with app-focused Fintech companies is as easy as creating a folder on your computer.
If anything, Fintech is putting the customer central again. It tries to remove the hoops that consumers must jump through, just to be a client. A wider movement is noticeable beyond just online-only (app-based) banks, which can be seen in how people can get mortgages and loans. Take Credit Culture, for example, which helps you take out a loan as easy and responsible as it can be, fully automated and online. The human assessment element, which can be time-consuming and costly, is taken away and replaced with algorithms and machine learning, being able to offer better rates which are more customised to an individual’s situation. It’s this customer-centric approach the general audience is responding to and younger generations, millennials and Gen Z in particular, are flocking to these types of solutions, rather than going to a traditional bank. This hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Over the last few years, the traditional banks have started responding to this trend in the market and bringing their own Fintech-esque solutions. This is happening with varying degrees of success. The problem that traditional banks really have is that they still are held to the restrictions that make them a traditional bank in the first place. This means the capital expenditures they have (physical assets such as costly buildings), staff that needs to be paid, shareholders that need to be kept happy and much more.
And this is the core of Fintech and why it is transforming and disrupting how we will handle our finances today and in the future. It challenges the very heart of traditional banks, not in how the exterior looks, but in the way, it’s built, brick by brick, pixel by pixel.