The black Friday and cyber Monday sales are some of the most profitable sales for businesses. If you want to make as much money as possible over the course of these sales, then you’re going to need to avoid the mistakes that we have outlined below. Take a look and you might be surprised at what tends to go wrong.
Don’t Let Cart Abandoners Go
Letting people leave when they have a full cart of your items is a huge mistake. You should have a follow up to ensure they come back and buy the items. They may change their mind at the last minute, but if you remind them and give them a gentle nudge, they are more likely to complete the purchase.
Don’t Assume Your Customers Know What They Want To Buy
A personalized shopping list with gift guide can help your customers figure out what to buy. Don’t assume your customers know what they want!
Not Preparing Your Mobile Site
Your mobile site must be ready for all of the traffic and attention come the sales. People want to easily be able to see your offers and other discounts – they shouldn’t have to scroll for miles! Mobile purchases are huge over black Friday weekend, so get things ready!
Not Having Adequate Stock Levels
$484,000,000 is lost in sales due to inadequate stock levels! Make sure you’re fully stocked and ready to go. The infographic below will help you further!
Running a company means that there’s likely to be a number of people that you are responsible for. Those people, when working in your organization, will need your support in a number of ways, and it’s up to you as the employer to help them and to also protect them. However, there should be an equal amount of protection when it comes to your business. Protecting your company and staff at the same time can sometimes have its challenges, but it is possible. So here are some tips to help you balance the two and to keep everyone happy.
A working environment needs to be functional, and it needs to work well for your staff members. If you’ve got a messy or office that isn’t clean and a staff member falls ill because of it, you may have a problem. So first and foremost, a safe working environment is essential. You can make sure this is happening in a number of ways. Firstly, you want to ensure that the cleaners within your building or work site are cleaning up efficiently after staff. All the work surfaces should be cleaned daily, and all sanitary parts of the building are equipped and working properly. Next, make sure that all your staff is keeping their own workplaces tidy and organized. It might be beneficial to have rules put in place in regards to everyone’s personal space within the workplace. Making sure everyone follows these rules is important, and there should be disciplines put in place if staff members are persistent in their mess. Make sure that there’s enough storage because anything that’s left lying around on the floor has the potential to become a tripping hazard, and any accidents in the workplace can be problematic.
Take Out Various Insurances Needed
Having insurance, whether that’s in your personal life or work life, is essential because it protects you financially and legally should anything happen that’s not your fault or is out of your control. It protects the monetary values of certain objects, and in the workplace, that could amount to tens and thousands of dollars. Each business is going to be slightly different in what it needs when it comes to insurance. Everyone needs employee liability and buildings insurance to protect the company when staff gets injured in the workplace and for any eventuality of a robbery taking place or damage occurring to the business property. There may be additional insurances for machinery and in some cases, for when you need premium insurance.
The best insurance coverage is what you need to aim for when you are buying all of your insurances. The more you can cover yourself, the less likely that there will be a significant fall out financially or personally as a business. Take your time to research the different types of insurances that are available and which ones you’re going to need. You may not be able to get all of them, but you can certainly get a good chunk of them or the ones that are the most important.
Give Proper Inductions For The Workplace
With safety, the company has the responsibility to ensure that any new staff member has been trained in detail to know about anything that may affect their safety, how the building operates and any additional training, should it be needed for machinery, etc. So with that in mind, a proper induction is certainly needed for any staff members who may not currently have had an induction or for those existing staff who need a refresh. The operations or buildings manager should be readily available to talk through everything that is needed to cover the building. From fire drill meeting points to opening up and closing down to the end of the day. Of course, they don’t need to be able to do this, but it’s important they know what they’re duties are in terms of protecting the company. Doing this is going to help avoid anyone leaving a window open by accident or doing something that compromises or causes danger to the rest of the building. At this point, you want to protect both yourself and your staff.
Employ A Health And Safety Officer
For health and safety concerns, it might be worth hiring a health and safety officer or at least have someone who comes in a few times a week to keep track of the procedures within the workplace. This isn’t always necessary for small businesses, but maybe as the company grows bigger.
If the things your staff do within the office or work site have particular dangers to them either in a safety aspect or a health one, they need to be informed of that by the officer and the officer needs to be able to relay the correct information in order to keep everyone safe. If this communication or procedure doesn’t happen, then should something terrible happen, your company may have a battle on its hands in order to come out of it unscathed. If you don’t have the funds to employ someone part-time or full-time, then you can always seek professional advice on how to proceed with getting the relevant body in to help.
Train Your Staff In First Aid And Fire Training
Training your staff should be up there as a priority when it comes to protecting your staff. All of your staff serve a purpose to the company, and without them, the company would be missing an important cog in the machine. Therefore, training courses like first aid and fire training are essential not only to help your staff protect each other but for you to help protect your staff from anything that should happen by mistake, a sheer accident or a consequence that’s out of your control. First Aid is handy for anyone to learn and they can use this skill in the outside world should they ever come into contact with someone who needs their help. The person you want to do First Aid will need to agree to the training as you can’t force someone to do it if they don’t want to. Ideally, you want to have a handful of staff trained, but it’s also dependant on the size of your company. Fire training is equally important, and not a lot of companies have enough fire drill tests in order to time how quickly it would take its staff to get out of a building that’s potentially on fire. Again, it’s good to have fire wardens on every floor on the workplace or on-site. This is because you’ll need these individuals to be the last ones who check everyone who has come out before leaving with the rest of the staff.
Keep On Top Of The Budgets
Being financially in control of the company is essential because a lot of livelihoods rely on their work. If companies take too many financial risks or don’t keep on top of the accounts, that could spell trouble. Make sure that your accounts team is reviewing the process of checking budgets and that each department is spending correctly and not overspending or spending on certain things that might not be needed. A review of the budget should be done on an annual basis and more regularly if the company’s profits are a little up and down. Be prepared to make cuts to the budgets in the times where it’s needed. There are always savings that can be made, but that doesn’t jeopardize the growth and development of the business.
Have An Emergency Fund Just In Case
Talking of finances, an emergency fund is good for any business or individual to have. If anything were to happen to the company tomorrow and that impacted the finances of the company significantly, an emergency fund should be there to at least pay your staff so that they don’t suddenly get made redundant and without a paycheck. An emergency fund is a great peace of mind and something that the company can contribute to every month. There’s never going to be enough in that fund to protect you fully, but having at least some money available for emergencies is going to be helpful. Start this fund from day one and continue it until the business decides to close down or perhaps get sold to someone else. At least it would be a nice bonus for everyone to receive.
Being able to balance both the company and staff members can be difficult, but it’s good to realize that both have an equal level of importance to them, and without one another, neither would survive. Continue to provide a safe working atmosphere and one that’s positive. Take out the insurances that are needed to protect both parties and dish out all the training needed. Keep on top of the budgets and ensure that a review happens regularly to be in the loop. Finally, always have that emergency fund available and ready should the company need it.
The importance of marketing is something that you cannot neglect, and for many companies, the marketing department is one of the most crucial wings of the whole enterprise. However, marketing strategies only work for so long before the public becomes resistant to it. They get bored with the constant reminders of this product or that service. Soon, your marketing strategies are just wasted resources and energy.
Some companies choose to double down and continue going with what they know, but you don’t need to be a marketing genius to see where this leads them. The companies that thrive are those who adapt, and perhaps it’s time your company did the same to save it from getting left behind.
An Online Presence
In this day and age, every business should have an online presence, and a Facebook page thick with cobwebs is not enough.
Even if your business is not something that typically engaged with the online community, it doesn’t matter. With more people spending all their time online shopping, making appointments, and communicating with friends, strangers, and businesses, it’s time you caught up.
While online marketing is the norm, for now, it’s one of those bubbles that could burst at any minute. More and more people are using ad blockers. People do everything they can to avoid being sold to online, especially if they’re trying to shut their brains off for five minutes.
With the growing unease with ads consuming most of the webpage you’re trying to view, there’s always the opportunity to go back to basics and advertise your company like they used to do before the internet took over.
Few people read newspapers anymore, so don’t waste the money taking out a page. Instead, you can focus on community-based events that show you care about the area. This helps introduce you to the people who enter your store every day and helps them put a face to a brand.
Taking a Risk
There’s also always the option to take a risk in your marketing strategy. However, beware this could backfire on your horribly.
That being said, in the current climate, it’s always worth the effort. We’ve seen it before with Wendy’s social media team calling out other companies and people Tweeting playful barbs toward them. If anything, it has enticed people further, which is the exact thing they wanted to happen.
When considering taking a risk with your marketing, still make sure you understand your audience and make sure you don’t overstep the marks of any cultural norms. Any publicity is good publicity, but you don’t want to be known as the brand that did that, do you?
No More Marketing Maladies
Inventing new marketing strategies for the modern age is not an easy thing, and it’s unlikely you’ll get it right first time. However, if you want to guarantee your business stays ahead in this fast-paced world, you need to make sure your marketing campaigns measure up to what your customers expect.
A lot of budding entrepreneurs, especially young ones, are attracted to the prospect of starting a business due to the glitz and the glamour of the end result. With the advent of social media over the past few years, that kind of thinking has increased even more so. We’re inundated with images, videos, and stories of the successes. We barely ever see the hard work and the bad times. Those bad times do exist, and they’re all part of the journey towards creating a successful empire.
In order to get a business up and running, you need to get a few things right. You then need to make sure these things are stuck to all along the way. Business, for the most part, is nowhere near as sexy as social media and other outlets portray it – you need to constantly be switched on and concentrated if you’re to keep everything flowing smoothly. What kinds of things do you have to do? Well, there are lots because a business has so many facets to it. Here are five for you right now, though:
Stick To Your Plan
When you first begin, you write up a business plan that covers absolutely everything. Every single little idea you have will be included in the plan. You’ll then tighten it up a little and make sure there are no holes in it. You’ll use the plan as a guide in terms of starting up, and you’ll show it off when pitching to potential investors.
You won’t be done at this stage, however. Your business plan will be like religious scripture to you. You’ll follow along with it throughout the business’s lifetime. The plan will be like a roadmap that takes you all the way to the top.
Have Money Saved
Business is basically all about making money. There are lots of other factors and reasons as to why someone would get into it, but the main point is about financial gain. In this world, you need to spend a little money in order to make more of it – if you throw too much away without getting any back, then you’re in trouble. That’s why you should have a big sum saved up for a rainy day. A rainy day may come one day, so you’re going to need that net to fall back on. Your business will want it, and you will need it personally.
Know Who To Contact
You won’t be doing it all on your own. You and your employees might be able to get through a lot, but there are people out there that know so much more than you about specific jobs. You’re going to need contacts from all over. For instance, if you’re in the business of manufacturing certain products, you might need suppliers like WES ltd. If you need a great website, then you might need the services of a skilled web designer. Need a great marketing campaign, but haven’t the faintest clue where to start? Well, a marketing agency will be available for you.
You may have heard of underutilized office space that is costing businesses billions a year. This is not necessarily about empty desks or wings of an office building earmarked for an expansion that just never seems to come around.
This is about that meeting room that has been booked out but never used or that desk of that colleague that is heavily involved with new business pitches and therefore, only is occupied 1 day out of the 5 in a working week. Or its that desk of that colleague that works from home 2 days in the week, or that colleague that has gone on a sabbatical to travel the world.
There are numerous reasons why businesses are bad in managing their spaces, and for something that comes at a premium price, office space, it’s of major financial impact. Having a large office is reduced to having a Ferrari to drive on country roads only.
Flexible Workplaces
One of the ways businesses can reduce this problem is by embracing flexible workplaces. Meaning that people don’t get a desk anymore but at most a laptop and mobile chest of drawers to be able to sit anywhere they like. This way, you offer a viable solution for everyone to sit anywhere they like, in the most flexible way. This is all contingent on the work being able to be done via cloud services and stable VPN connections and having to handle as little paper documents as possible. Next to being more efficient with the available workspace, flexible working might also help improving communication between people who would normally not sit together in a predefined seating arrangement.
Anti-Flex
But even with the best laptops and cloud facilities, you will find people flex-working in the same place each day. There is something about having your ‘own’ spot at the office. A tell-tell sign is the appearance of more personal items at one’s desk, such as notebooks, a mug, and framed photographs. The framed photograph is probably the equivalent of leaving your coat on a seat to ‘reserve’ it for your friends who are still to arrive. This confronts businesses with another issue altogether: “do you enforce flexible workplaces?”
Wouldn’t that be the same as creating a predefined seating arrangement, with the only difference it changes quite frequently? For most companies, the answer is that flexible workplaces are a gradual (and slow) process. Some companies would do away with traditional desks altogether and offer bar-style and conference table workspaces. In promoting flexible workplaces, the philosophy can be to turn away from desks altogether.
Breaking Away From Traditional Planning
This thinking breaks away from the traditional office planning approach, with almost every room getting a function of bringing people together and/or as inspirational areas. Some locations are for focus, some are for creativity, some are for dialogue. As long as there are power points, strong WIFI, and a water and coffee machine, you can make it work. And what about the unused spaces in the office? That open space with the big windows, which gets too hot too quickly, with the right commercial window tint, can be the perfect large flexible working space! If the underutilization of office space tells us one thing, it’s this: think outside of the box!
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