Tag: Business Tips

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Helping Others to Succeed

Put the pieces together to help your team be effective.
Put the pieces together to help your team be effective.

As an incredibly strong scheduler of my own time, it makes it very difficult for me sometimes to understand that not everyone else’s lives revolve around Outlook.

I’ve found that there are types like me who are strong on the details and their are other who are strong on the creative side instead. Finding the balance to help those who work for you to be effective and enjoy their job with you is crucial for business growth.

I’ve found that not every great creative person is a good match for my business. There may be some terrific writers out there, but if they can’t make a deadline so your business gets paid they may not be the best match for your needs. On the other hand others who are highly creative but can be worked with to perform within somewhat flexible guidelines may be strong business partners in the long run.

This is what I’ve found. There are some things that you as a business owner can be flexible with and other things that you simply cannot be flexible with.

Maybe you can be flexible about when a contractor sends their invoice to you.

But maybe you can’t be flexible about a contractor missing a client’s deadline.

Maybe you can be flexible about the time of day a project is turned in.

But maybe you can’t be flexible when other people are waiting to work on this same project.

Working with others is a balance. By trying to create an environment where others that work with you have a degree of input and you yourself show flexibility for their needs, you develop loyalty and trust. It can be a win-win for workers and bosses.

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Customer Feedback Forms – What They Are Saying Behind Your Back

The adage you won’t know if you don’t ask, still holds true in today’s high tech business world. Even with our global and high tech world, what people think about your business may still be veiled from your eyes. There’s no better way to find out what people really think about your services than to ask.

We ask our clients regularly about our services, their experience with us, and to rate our blog writers. We do this via online forms; allowing the client to tell us what they think about us without the discomfort of telling us face to face. Although not every client we ask will take the time to use our form to rate our services, the ones that do help us to adjust, fine tune, and improve our customer service and offerings.

I’ve had some clients tell me that they don’t want to set up review forms for their own business as they don’t want to deal with negative findings. My suggestion is that even a negative rating can make you stronger. Negative ratings should be considered as constructive criticism. Yes, negative reviews can be hard to take, but if you use them to improve your services and programs, the input is invaluable.

I’ve found that sometimes when it comes to your own business, you may be the very last to know what customers may be saying behind your back until you see sales dropping. If this happens to you, there is no better time than to create a review program, evaluate the results, make important changes, offer incentives for performance to employees, and move forward strongly as you monitor your team closely.

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EchoSign for Fast Online Contract Signatures

I lost a project with a client last week as the client said that signing a contract and faxing his copy was too archaic and troublesome for him as he is totally digital. I hate to lose any project for any reason and I thought “hmm, maybe the client has a point?” With our firm serving clients worldwide it can be troublesome for some to fax long distance, some clients may not have a scanner to send a copy by email, so I started looking for alternatives.

Here are two sources that I have found that you may want to check out too if you are faced with the same issue:

EchoSign
This is the site that I will be using as I am allowed to use the service free for a set number of signatures a month. Once I find out I like it and use it, I may move to the basic paid program of $14.95 per month. (The will pay me a commission if you click my link and buy, but that is not why I am mentioning them to you.)

I like the interface, it is super easy to use and works fast and sends you and the signer copies that can be printed when the signing process is completed. If you sign up for the free account, you can get five signatures a month free. This allows you to try it out send a few to yourself as tests. If you connect your Twitter account to the application to shout out when you close a contract, you get ten more free signatures to use. I think that this is the perfect solution for my sometime situation.

RightSignature
I really liked the look and feel of this application, but for me on a free trial the document would not load. Never moved past 10% loaded with a Word document or PDF file. If they get this kind worked out, this one could be good.

DocuSign
I really liked this application and if I do a lot of online signing, I will most likely move to this application but with a fee of $24.95 a month it was too rich for me to use when I am not sure I will use it frequently. What I liked was the ability to add a phone number verification before the client could open the document. This makes knowing who you are dealing with much better. Although the interface is much more complicated to use, it seemed more secure, allowed for mouse signature signing (you write your signature by moving your mouse), and just overall seemed more robust and a good match for lawyers and real estate agents.

I don’t want to ever lose another sale by making our sign up process too complicated. You may want to consider this as an alternative for your contract signing process too.

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Did You Review Your Year End Results with Peachtree?

The year is just over and I myself poured over my 2010 financial results. I find that the bigger your company is the more strategic you become in regards to goal setting and working to manage profitability. I have make reviewing my business results easy by letting Peachtree Accounting Software do all the work. I invested in Peachtree Premium Accounting 2011 this past year.

Peachtree was able to allow me to compare my results this past year with those of 2009. I found some very interesting sales anomalies that have newly directed my business direction for early this year. I am great at statistical review, but no accountant by any means. By investing in software that keeps my books accurate, I am freeing up time to focus on creating goals and selling strategies that I will be enacting this month.

If I have not taken the time to do a careful financial review, I would not be addressing one of the biggest challenges in my business so far and would have been focused on growth but not profitable growth.

Please note I am not paid by Peachtree for this blog post, I just use and love the product.