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5 Points to Remember When Growing Your Small Business

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When you start a business, what is one of the main things you plan to accomplish? Most likely, your answer is along the lines of growth.

Without growth, many businesses will not survive. Growth is essential to keep you operational, make ends meet, and ensure you have something to work towards. Simply put – growth is part of business success.

If you’re ready to start growing your small business, then Corporate Business Solutions has five points worth remembering.

Quality Customer Service is Key

We’ve likely all experienced it at some point – poor customer service. How does that leave you feeling when the customer service is disappointing? Likely mad, frustrated, and not wanting to go back.

It’s easy to underestimate the power of good customer service because it’s part of their everyday duties for many companies. However, don’t forget how important it is and let it start to slide. Your customer service level could be the key to your growth or the beginning of a downward spiral of your company.

Use Social Media to Your Advantage

If you’re not using social media already, you’re missing out on an excellent growth opportunity. To start, you’ll be hard-pressed to talk to someone who doesn’t use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and now TikTok.

Social media is a way for you to reach a wider audience than other forms of advertisement. Plus, it’s free to use. Just remember – when using social media, interact with your followers and post quality content. Keep your selling to a minimum and show the value of your services.

Show Community Support

Another excellent way to grow your business is by supporting your local community. Doing this does two things: first, it helps develop brand awareness. If you’re sponsoring local events, non-profit organizations, or even small giveaways, it helps get your business out into the community (which means more eyes on you).

Showing community support also helps boost the image of your business. In today’s world, there is a strong push for supporting local initiatives. If people see your brand supporting their local community, it makes your image look even better.

Don’t Skimp on the Hires

Who you hire plays a significant role in the growth of your business. Adding new team members to your team costs money before the person starts to make the business money. So, if you’re frequently hiring new staff members to replace people who have quit or were let go, you’ll get caught in a costly cycle.

Take time during the hiring process. You want to find someone who is the best candidate for the job and is also the right fit for the company culture. Having a solid team to rely on will do wonders for business growth.

Be Flexible

Growing your business is not a straight upward line. It’s a rollercoaster that requires flexibility on your part. Not every plan you have will work. In fact, some ideas may do the opposite of what you had in mind. Being flexible means you can adjust on the go when needed and understand that good growth takes time.

It’s important to remember that trying to grow your business too quickly can hinder what you currently have. Ensure that where your business is at right now is steady enough that growing is the only other option you have now.

4 Tips to Help Boost the Comfort Level of Your Office

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How comfortable are you working at your office? We’re talking about your surroundings and the items you frequently use. From the chair, you sit at to how your office functions, various things affect your office’s comfort level.

When you feel more comfortable, you’re more likely to stay there and be more productive. Those who work at a desk that leaves them feeling stiff and sore after would likely rather be anywhere else.

Help your productivity levels by making sure you’re working out of a comfortable environment. Your Corporate Business Solutions Consultants have four tips that can boost the comfort level in your office.

Focus on Ergonomics

Is your office set up in a way that is ergonomically correct for you? If not, keep reading.

Ergonomics is when you design the job to fit the worker. Rather than sitting at a desk crunched over due to lack of back support, the desk and chair used would suit the person using it for proper position.

Focusing on ergonomics is essential to help reduce the stress on your body. Frequently performing an uncomfortable task for your body can lead to pain and discomfort in your muscles and joints and even lead to musculoskeletal disorders. Instead, purchase a chair that gives you proper body support, has your desk at a comfortable level for your arms and shoulders, and even ensures the temperature is at a comfortable level.

Incorporate Plants

Plants serve many purposes in life besides being aesthetically pleasing. They actually can be beneficial to our health by removing toxins from the air (which allows you to breathe better), give your surroundings a humidity boost (less dryness in the air), and add a pop of color.

Try adding in a few plants that are excellent for office décor to get the added benefits. Just make sure the ones you pick are ones you can take care of easily.

Use Headphones to Quiet Distractions

Do you work in a setting with multiple people having meetings or phone calls? Sometimes background noise can be a good thing. However, if the background noise is other people’s conversations, it can make it quite challenging to concentrate on your work.

Investing in a good and comfortable set of headphones is one way to tune out distractions. Whether you plug them in for music or not, they can quiet the environment around you so you can focus more on your work. Plus, if you struggle with coworkers interrupting you, headphones are like a universal symbol that tells people you don’t want to be disrupted right now.

Stay Clean and Organized

A cluttered desk may look like you’ve been busy and have lots on the go, but the mess can actually be distracting. You may not even realize it is happening, but the clutter around you does catch your attention. The more you have in your surroundings, the more draining it becomes on you.

Make tidying your desk a routine habit before you finish your workday. Put away papers, throw away garbage and organize your priorities for the following day. Not only that, weekly dusting is a way to stay on top of allergens that can add to the discomfort, especially if you have allergies.

Making your office surroundings more comfortable doesn’t mean an extensive renovation. Even the smallest changes listed above can have a drastic impact on your comfort levels each day.

Impress Your Clients With These 5 Tips

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No matter who it is, when you have a client that steps foot into your office, you want to wow them. Whether it be their first visit or they come once a week, impressing your clients is part of the method of keeping them happy and keeping their business.

Impressing your clients doesn’t have to involve significant changes or plans put in place. Sometimes, the simplest thing like having the receptionist walk the client to your office can make a huge difference. The goal is all the same – impress your client, and they’ll stick by your side.

If you have many clients that come to your office, then you’ll want to use some of the following five tips from CBS-CBS.com to impress them.

Have a Welcoming Entrance

The entrance to your office is the first thing your client sees. With that, keeping your entrance clean and welcoming is crucial. If you walked into a building and the main entrance was cluttered, dirty, and nothing there explaining where you are, chances are your initial reaction wouldn’t be positive.

If you don’t have a receptionist, then having a sign or a lobby board will help to tell people where they are. Keep the entrance clean, open, and bright for that welcoming feeling.

Have an Employee Policy

Impressing your clients is more than how the office looks. It also includes how your employees interact. If you want your client to feel like he or she is part of your team, then the best way to do that is by having your employees act like it. When someone walks through the office, train your employees to acknowledge the visitor, ask if there is anything they can help with, and simply say hello.

Keep the Office Clean

There are many reasons for keeping your office clean. A clean office helps keep employees focused, it’s better for everyone’s health, and it just looks nice. Not only that though, but a clean office is a crucial way to wow any clients that pop in for a visit.

Maintaining a clean building shows that you take care of things and value organization, which is something that most clients will want to see.

Offer Refreshments and Snacks

A little gesture that can go a long way is to offer snacks and refreshments to the client. Especially if you have someone that’s traveled a long way to visit, having a cup of coffee and a granola bar available can really make someone happy. Just make sure that what you offer is visible to the client.

Be On Time

If there’s one thing to note that will help impress your visiting client, it is for you to be on time. Even if your client is late, you should be ready for him or her. When a client has to wait on you for the scheduled appointment, it doesn’t reflect very well on your time management and organization skills. So, when you know you have a visitor coming, ensure that you are completely ready for the moment they arrive.

Impressing your visiting clients is essential to keeping their business. You want to show them why you are the best choice over your competitors, and one way of doing that is by impressing them the moment they step foot through the door. Spend some time coming up with ways to keep your client happy with every visit.

9 Business Lessons You Should Follow

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Every entrepreneur goes through a moment where they think, “I wish I would have done things differently.” Having this thought is normal. When you’re an entrepreneur, you can do all the research in the world to prepare you. However, there will still be lessons you learn along your way.

Corporate Business Solutions Reviews came up with a list of nine business lessons that are common, and something you should follow.

Learn to Market, It’s Essential

Marketing is something you can’t ignore, especially in today’s world. If you want your business to grow and get the word out there, you need to have a solid marketing plan. Don’t put this on the backburner. Spend some time thinking about what would grab your audience’s attention.

Stop Waiting

How often do you find yourself saying that you’ll do something when the time is right? In the business world, you won’t find the “right” time very often. Instead of waiting (and procrastinating), take on a challenge right now.

Honor Your Commitments

If you made a commitment, honor it. Don’t make excuses as to why you can’t make a meeting or why your payment is late. When you honor your commitment, you become known as a person of your word, which means everything in the business world.

Be Honest

Honesty can slip through the cracks in the business world. However, we shouldn’t let that happen. If you miss something important or a payment, be honest with the person as to why. If people find out that you lie, that will haunt you while you run your business.

Customer Service is Extremely Important

Customer service means everything for a business. You could have the best product or service in the world, but if your customer service is poor, people will go to your competitors. Keep your clientele around by having the best customer service on the market.

The Customer Isn’t Always Right

With that being said, as important as customer service is, it’s important to remember that the customer isn’t always right (contrary to what people like to say). Each situation is different. Sometimes you’ll have to swallow your pride and acknowledge that the customer is right. Other times though, you will need to stand your ground and back up your company or an employee.

Be Nice to Everyone

Niceness is another characteristic that can get lost in the business world. Because of how competitive some industries are, we get into that competitive mode and lose what it means to be nice to people. When you’re nice to people, they will likely be nice back to you, which can make your life a little easier.

Work Hard

Never stop working hard. That isn’t to say don’t take breaks. You should take those breaks when you know you need them. When it’s time to work, though, work hard. Be dedicated to your business so that it will flourish.

Take Care of Yourself

As important as it is for your business to succeed, it shouldn’t come at the cost of your health. If you can’t stay healthy enough to run your business, how will it succeed then? Take care of your health, both mentally and physically.

5 Tips to Help You Conduct an Interview

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Whether you’re the one conducting the interview or on the other side and being interviewed, sitting across the table for one another can be nerve-wracking. Even if you’ve done many interviews over the years, at some point, you would have likely been nervous for your first one.

As a business grows, it will need more employees to help keep the doors open. The manager wouldn’t simply hire someone without talking to them and ensuring they are qualified for the job. That is why you interview potential candidates.

Here at Corporate Business Solutions, we know just how important an interview is. Here are five tips to help you conduct the best interview.

Be Prepared

No one likes it when people enter a meeting not prepared. The same goes for an interview. You should have a list of questions prepared for the candidate to help you stay on track.

Make sure you spend some time going through the persons resume. If you end up asking questions that are easily answered on the resume, for starters, it shows you’re not prepared. Not only that, it could give off a wrong first impression to the candidate.

Start Slow and Safe

If you go with your hardest questions right out of the gate, be prepared to intimidate your candidate and make him or her nervous. Instead, start off with simple personable questions. Ask where he or she grew up. Get to know what their schooling was like. Think of questions that are easy to answer and will help relax the candidate. You may be surprised what you learn.

Incorporate Open-Ended Questions

To get some of the best answers, rather than a simple yes, no, or one-word answer, ask open-ended questions. These are the ones that the candidate has to elaborate one. For starters, it gets the candidate talking. It also leads to valuable information that you can use later on.

You may find the answers could wander and lead the interview to get off topic a little bit. Allow the interviewee to wonder when talking, but not too much. If you find the conversation is completely irrelevant, start to steer it back to where you want it.

Ask Questions Related to the Resume

The resume is a quick snapshot of what the interviewee is like and has accomplished throughout life. Use that to your advantage when trying to form questions. You can ask them about their time at a particular job, school, or an award they’ve won. These questions help you get a better insight into what the candidate is like.

Avoid Cliché Questions

How often have you gone to an interview and been asked what you’re good at and what your weaknesses are? Those can be tough to answer, and you never know how truthful of an answer you’ll get.

Instead of asking what someone’s weaknesses are, present an issue and see how they would handle a real-life situation. Ask them for examples of previous issues in the workplace and how they resolved them. That way, you get a glimpse of their problem-solving techniques and what they are like under pressure.

These are only a few interviewing techniques you can bring with you when you start to look for employees. Keeping the interview like a conversation and personable will help keep everyone involved relaxed. Trying to talk and be on your top game while highly stressed is never a good combination.

4 Email Marketing Phrases to Avoid

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Marketing professionals have to be prudent when generating emails to avoid having them be marked as spam. Marketers should send out bulk emails on a consistent basis to leads, opportunities, and customers in an effort to show people why their business’ products/services matter.

Corporate Business Solutions experts break down the following top four spam trigger words to avoid in your emails.

Multi-level Marketing

MLM refers to the practice where businesses hire people to go around and try and sell someone a product, then have that person recommend the product to others. At times this is a legitimate practice. Most of the time, however, it’s comparable to a pyramid scheme. Any business practice connected to a pyramid scheme should be avoided like the plague. Even searching “multi-level marketing” brings up suspect results, so it makes sense that any emails with the term in it will be triggered as spam.

Increase Sales

This is both surprising and not surprising. It’s hard to picture a business-to-business marketing team generating an email for thousands of potential clients and not using this phrase. However, that’s exactly why it’s often noted as spam in the first place. Context DOES matter here. This phrase will eventually come up in an email, but there are ways around it. For example, don’t use the phrase in the subject line. Also, steer clear of trying to look spammy and try these techniques instead to increase sales.

Web Traffic

If you received an email with “Web Traffic” in the subject line, would you think it’s legitimate? Increasing web traffic for an online business is absolutely critical for the success of that business. Ultimately, the more traffic your website garners, the more likely you’ll convert that traffic into sales. Spammers and scammers exploit this term because it’s something all online businesses are researching.

Free Consultation

Not many things in today’s world are actually free. Thus, this phrase immediately jumps out to just about everyone. Even if the consultation is free, there’s always a catch, and if there’s a catch, that means your marketing team isn’t being transparent to its targeted audience. Unless you’re truly offering a free consultation for potential buyers, do not advertise it as free. Plain and simple, to avoid being marked as spam, don’t put “Free Consultation” in the subject line.

To learn more, visit CBS-CBS.com.

8 Ways to Get Your Content Found

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Content marketing can be a tough strategy for small businesses to master. Not only do you need to create effective content, but you also need to push that content out to potential customers. SEO and social media can both be effective strategies in this area. Corporate Business Solutions experts recommend the following eight ways to get your content found online.

1-Use Instagram Hashtags for Business

Once you create content on Instagram, hashtags can effectively help you get it in front of more potential customers. Having said that, it’s imperative to have a logical strategy in place so you actually get found by relevant people.

2-Understand LinkedIn Hashtags

LinkedIn recently added an update that includes the ability to add hashtags. The new feature is in beta mode and could potentially help you reach more users.

3-Save Time on Content Curation and Collaboration

Collaborating with others in your content strategy is a great way to get your message in front of new eyes. While curating content and collaborating with others can be time-consuming, there are some tools out there to help you save time. Take time to do some research in this area.

4-Overcome Link Building Blockers

When it comes to building links to your content, there are some routine challenges and mistakes keeping content creators from making as strong of an impact. Do some research to understand these link-building blockers in addition to how to overcome them.

5-Remain Authentic

Sure, it can be difficult for a lot of marketers to find a healthy balance between creating authentic content and creating a performance that gets results. Having said that, it’s critical for your business to remain as authentic as possible.

6-Drive Sales With Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

The overarching goal of your content marketing strategy should be to boost sales for your business (both directly and indirectly). Make sure you are effectively using Instagram to increase sales for your company.

7-Learn the New Ins and Outs of Facebook

Part of using social platforms like Facebook to gain visibility for your content is keeping up with novel features. Since Facebook is constantly evolving, you want to make sure that you are always learning.

8-Use Mentoring to Increase Your Odds of Small Business Survival

According to research, mentoring can help small businesses survive for longer. Don’t be afraid to find mentors and use them as a helpful resource.

To learn more, visit CBS-CBS.com.

What Small Businesses Need to Know about Facebook’s “ Engagement Bait” Crackdown

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Facebook very recently announced that it’s cracking down on posts that are “fishing” for shares and likes. The social network calls this behavior “engagement baiting.” The announcement comes as the year ends so businesses can expect the crackdown to be in full swing by early next year. What exactly is engagement baiting and how will the Facebook ban affect small business social media campaigns on the platform? Read below for answers from Corporate Business Solutions based on information currently available:

What is Engagement Baiting?

It’s simply the term Facebook is using for certain spam-like tactics that some people use to game the social network’s algorithm. Facebook not so long ago began a crackdown on clickbait. Engagement baiting is a form of clickbait. It refers to those posts that desperately try to get people to like, share, comment, or tag their friends. For example, posts that urge users to “like if you are a cat person, share if you are a dog person,” or “tag a friend to get a chance to win a Mercedes” are considered engagement baiting. Some marketers use such tactics to drive engagement because of Facebook rewards posts with the most reach.

Facebook has updated its algorithm to demote Pages or users who try engagement baiting tactics. Facebook will punish violators by reducing the total reach on all posts, not just the offending post.

Good Engagement Baiting and Bad Engagement Baiting

Facebook does understand that sometimes users and Pages ask for likes and shares for legitimate reasons. The company is offering exemptions for posts that raise money for legitimate causes, reporting a missing child or are requesting travel tips.

The company is also offering a way for first-time engagement baiters to reform their ways. If offenders “behave good,” as in replace clickbait with high-quality content, then they will get the original reach back.

How Small Businesses Should Respond

The aim of the engagement bait crackdown is to reduce the amount of spam on Facebook, such as posts linking back to websites full of ads. It’s also aiming to stifle the spread of misinformation on the social network. Small businesses should keep these facts in mind when trying to drive engagement on Facebook from now on.

Brands and companies should produce high-quality content for Facebook that genuinely makes the target audience interested in liking or sharing. Do not beg for likes or shares as shown in the examples above. Instead, use catchy headlines or interesting commentary to drive engagement. Using influencers to share or like posts is a good way to drive engagement without risking engagement baiting. However, these are generic recommendations. Request one of our Corporate Business Solutions Reviews to learn more about how to specifically improve your company’s social media reach.