Tag Archives: CBS-CBS.com

Designing a Traditional Business Model

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“Business model” is an oft thrown around the term, but what is the most efficient and perfect way to go about designing one? A clear and concise business model is useful for not only the business owner, but it is also immensely helpful when searching for a line of credit and even when one is looking to sell his or her business.

The business plan is the document that will keep you grounded and on track as you plan, finance, and develop your firm moving forward. In addition to your vision, having a clear business model can be extremely helpful when looking for lines of credit such as small business loans or microloans. Investors will want to see a defined path to turning a profit, and banks will want to know that you have a, organized plan in mind before offering you any sort of financing.

Business plans can come in many forms. What’s important is that it fits the needs of your particular industry and concept. Traditional business plans will involve multiple sections, going into detail of funding, price points, supply chains, and employment planning. These pages can be multiple pages long, but a large amount of work upfront can save a great deal of trouble later.

The traditional format can be useful to individuals who are very meticulous and prefer to start with a truly clear plan of attack. This format is also preferred by potential investors and banks who need to know exactly what they are getting into.

The traditional model begins with an executive summary, briefly describing the company’s overall goals and why it is a worthy venture. Entrepreneurs will essentially want to give investors a brief description of every aspect of their business.

The company description and market analysis will describe the service or product that the company will supply and how it will help consumers. The market analysis will then show why a similar product or service is currently lacking in the market and why your business will supply something that is missing from the modern economy.

The next section should typically include a description of the organization of your company’s employees. This overview of your chain of command will make it clear which employees will cover which roles. This employment overview will make it clear to investors and financiers that you understand how best to distribute your employees to maximize their talents and efficiencies.

A section on how you plan to market or advertise your goods can prove useful. While this often varies greatly between industries, it can let others know that you have a vision for the future and are developing a plan to expand your enterprise.

Business models that are made to request funding should include a section detailing how any investment funds will be spent. Entrepreneurs who are pitching to investors should be extremely specific in how much money is necessary for their project and where it will be gave. This helps the business owner to be certain how much funds he or she needs so that they are not gaining any unnecessary debt. It also makes it clear to potential financiers that there is a definitive plan for how the money will be spent.

A business model is particularly useful for both entrepreneurs personally and as a means of attracting financiers. Potential business owners who cannot fill out a detailed business plan should think twice before diving head-first into any given project. Corporate Business Solutions is dedicated to helping you with all aspects of the business planning process to help you both in obtaining a clear vision of your business and establishing a coherent plan for potential investors.

 

Improving Employee Relations

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As a business owner, employee relations are one of the most important aspects of your company. Without good employee relations, it can be difficult to keep your business running like a well-oiled machine.

One of the best ways to enhance employee relations in your business is by preventing burnout. Stress is inevitable in any job but minimizing it in your company will help improve your employee relations and even save you some money.

The American Institute of Stress has found that job stress costs U.S. companies over $300 billion annually due to absenteeism, accidents, workers’ compensation, reduced productivity, employee turnover, and direct medical, legal, and insurance costs.

It is safe to say that reducing stress and preventing burnout is one of the best ways to improve employee relations and keep your business thriving. Thankfully, there are a variety of ways that you can reduce job-related stress for your employees.

How to Prevent Burnout

  • Implement Work/Life Balance 

One of the best ways to prevent burnout is by promoting and implementing a work-life balance for your employees. This can be done by closing around the holidays or accommodating individual schedules. Allowing employees time out of work for family, self-care, and other personal tasks that they need to do will help them show up fully when they are in the office and decrease distractions.

  • Encourage Using Vacation Time 

Numerous studies have found that a significant percentage of employees do not use their vacation time. This may be due to a fear of being able to get the time off without risking their job or putting more work onto their colleagues while they are gone. Encouraging the use of vacation time is a wonderful way to emphasize the importance of taking time off to avoid burnout. Make sure you have systems in place for coverage while an employee is gone so that they can easily get time off when needed.

  • Promote Wellness in the Workplace 

Promoting overall wellness is a fantastic way to prevent burnout and should be done inside and outside of the workplace itself. Offering calm spaces to take a break, free healthy snacks, and even workout classes within the office on certain days can help encourage overall wellness. In doing so, you may be eliminating a few extra tasks for the day such as going to the gym or grabbing a bite to eat. These simple steps can help employees avoid burnout and easily take care of themselves as an individual.

  • Introduce Remote Working Options 

Remote working is becoming increasingly popular. While some may prefer working in the office, others may find that working at home is more accessible. Working at home saves commuting time and transportation money. Even if you cannot go fully remote, offering work to complete at home can help employees feel more balanced and less overwhelmed.

  • Focus on Opportunities for Employee Growth

One reason that employees may feel burnt out in a company is if there is no room for growth. Being transparent with a company’s future growth and the employment opportunities that will come is an effective way to avoid turnover. Employees who feel they can have a career with a certain company that offers more money and opportunity as time goes on are more likely to stick around longer.

Corporate Business Solutions Reviews can help you map out your company’s future as well as your employees.

5 Reasons a Co-working Space is Great for Small Businesses

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Whether you’re working on a series of freelance projects or running a small business, a co-working space can benefit you greatly. As your business begins to grow beyond just yourself, it is crucial to make a space in your office to accommodate your team. Co-working spaces are a great way to positively impact your business’ growth.

Corporate Business Solutions has put together five interesting reasons that a co-working space is great for small businesses.

The Benefits of Co-working Spaces for Small Businesses

A co-working space is an ideal environment that provides people within the office with meeting spaces, desks, internet access, and other things such as coffee machines. In the co-working space, everyone can work beside one another to create a welcoming and creative space.

Now, let’s look at the benefits of these working spaces.

  1. Co-working spaces save time

As a small business owner, you can never have too much time on your hands. Saving time is so important if you already have enough on your plate. As a small business owner, you are responsible for dealing with customers, managing employees, and the day-to-day operations of your business.

These responsibilities can soon pile up which leaves you with many challenges along the way. This is where co-working spaces come into play.

  1. Co-working spaces save money

If you’re not into the idea of spending lots of money to deck out your space or hire lots of employees, a co-working space is what you need. Co-working spaces provide a cost-effective workspace for everyone to come together. Co-working spaces work for everybody from freelancers who need a quiet space to teams who are running projects.

Co-working spaces also offer small businesses a low-cost option for getting out of the house while still maintaining privacy.

  1. Co-working spaces save space

Co-working spaces easily offer both the privacy of a private office as well as the collaborative environment of an open floor plan. It also doesn’t take up too much space. It keeps your home and works life separate while adding comfort.

  1. Co-working spaces improve productivity

Small businesses can easily boost productivity with co-working spaces. If you have ever felt your creativity being stifled, co-working spaces can put the hop back in your step. If you’ve been looking for interesting ways to boost your creativity, a co-working space is a way to do it.

  1. Co-working spaces encourage collaboration

Shared spaces are the perfect way to encourage collaboration between coworkers. In these spaces, coworkers can easily bounce ideas off each other and tackle hard problems via face-to-face interaction.

Co-working spaces provide an affordable, collaborative, and easy-going space for small businesses to work in the best way possible. As small businesses grow, it is common to outgrow your co-working spaces. However, you can always find another location to level up your space again! If you’ve been looking for a space to collaborate and grow with your team, try a co-working space!

 

 

4 Competitive Advantages Small Businesses Have Over Big Companies

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One thing that many small businesses don’t realize is that they have many advantages over large companies. While it may seem disheartening at times to only be a small business, the reality of it is that sometimes you are far luckier. Often, when small business owners are made aware of how truly lucky, they are, their outlook changes completely.

Check out these four competitive advantages that small businesses have over big companies from your Corporate Business Solutions Consultants to learn more.

  1. Faster decision making

Being a small business isn’t always a bad thing. It does come with a unique set of advantages. One of the biggest advantages is the quick turnaround for making decisions. While you may have a smaller number of employees, you can make decisions and be quicker in process innovation far easier.

To keep your small business afloat, you must be able to adapt, grow, and change. It can be harder to make those decisions when you’re surrounded by red tape and other voices.

  1. Targeting niche markets

It can sometimes feel overwhelming to be a small business surrounded by larger businesses. However, you should never forget your competitive advantages when it comes to your target niche market. By developing and maintaining a focused strategy, you can easily home in on and target your niche market.

This gives you leverage and power that big companies simply do not have.

  1. Empowering and developing your team

A strong and loyal team makes all the difference to business operations. Smaller teams can get the one-on-one attention that is needed for a team to thrive. Having a smaller team allows individualized attention that large companies simply cannot gain access to within their operations.

To make the most of empowering and developing your team, ensure that your employees can have their say in the direction of where the business is going. Leadership should also be accessible to all employees to address their concerns and questions. Ensure that time is also set aside to discuss personal development with each team member.

By implementing these practices, small businesses can grow and create an environment where each employee feels valued and listened to.

  1. Personalized customer service

Ranking high on Google, being a top market player, and having a large customer base is great. However, it all comes down to your customer service. Having a real and unique connection with your customers instantly makes you a flag-bearing business.

The problem many big companies make is in their one size fits all approach. Luckily, small businesses have the leverage, and capacity, to be able to listen to what each customer has to say. Then, they can customize everything accordingly. All small businesses should take advantage of this.

As you can see, small businesses have many great advantages that large companies could never dream of having. To get the most out of your business, use these advantages in your favor.

 

 

 

 

3 Small Business Marketing Tactics You Need to Know About

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Whether you are planning to begin your small business venture, or you already have a small business, its success will depend entirely on how you decide to market it. In the United States alone, thirty million businesses are competing to become successful in their chosen industry.

Even if you do not have an overly large budget, there is so much more that small businesses can do to attract their target audience and maintain their customer base. In turn, it is quite easy to focus on marketing strategies that boost your business.

Check out the tactics from CBS-CBS.com to learn about marketing your business in the best way possible.

  1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the unique and intelligent process of optimizing your business website to make it easier for search engines to find your business online. For example, if you rank high on Google, there is a far higher chance that your business will attract customers.

SEO is one of the most impactful ways to generate new leads as well as grow a business audience. As of now, only around 49% of small businesses are investing in their SEO. Here are some of the best ways to implement SEO:

  • High-quality backlinks
  • Creating a Google My Business account
  • Creating blog posts and videos that your local community relates to
  • Re-question reviews from customers
  • Optimizing your website with local keywords
  • Using location pages
  1. Social Media Marketing to Nurture and Engage Customers

If you are not using social media as a form of marketing to nurture and engage customers, you are not doing it right. Social media marketing is the perfect way to reach a larger audience and boost your business at the same time. On average, people spend 2.5 hours on social media each day.

That is why it is so easy to reach a large audience via social media. It is also very inexpensive. You can use platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even Pinterest depending on your target audience.

Here are some great ways to use social media marketing to grow your business:

  • Provide quick responses to your customer’s queries and questions
  • Create high-quality content that triggers an emotional response
  • Create contests to get your followers to tag their networks
  • Create user-generated content using hashtags
  • Collaborate with influencers to establish brand trust
  1. Content Marketing to Improve Branding

Did you know that over 91% of businesses use content marketing to improve their branding? Studies show that over 70% of consumers learn about businesses through articles! Content Marketing focuses on being able to create and deliver valuable, consistent, and relevant information.

Eventually, it also drives profitable consumer action. Building a sufficient relationship with your customers as well as search engines can be time-consuming with this technique. However, if you do it correctly, it can make your business an industry leader!

Small businesses can grow significantly when following proven business marketing techniques and practices. It is also important to evaluate your results to identify which strategies work best for your business.

 

 

 

How to Use Color Psychology When Marketing Your Small Business

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Have you noticed the way different colors can make you feel? When you’re standing in a lush green field surrounded by blue skies, you feel complete serenity. Perhaps you have even noticed that the color red can make you feel slightly alarmed.

No matter the color that popped into your mind when you read the first sentence of this post, it is likely that you have fallen victim to color psychology. As crazy as it may sound, colors have a huge effect on the human psyche.

It is all part of color psychology. Check out this little guide from CBS-CBS.com to learn more about color psychology.

What is Color psychology? 

Color psychology is the way different colors determine or affect human behavior. You can readily use color psychology in advertising and marketing to evoke and change emotional reactions to what you are advertising. While that sounds simple enough, there is plenty to know about color psychology.

How do colors influence people? 

Color meaning and color psychology can easily and powerfully change the way people behave and make decisions. Within only a few minutes, people can make subconscious judgments about a person, product, or environment. With the right colors, you can impact people’s initial impression of you and your business.

As a business promoting your brand, you should know all about tints, hues, colors, and shades to evoke emotion and promote action. Through specific color choices in logos, signage, packaging, and advertising, brands can easily influence consumers to buy on impulse or choose their product over another.

For example, when you think about your favorite brands, think about how they make you feel. Do their logos stand out because of their bright colors or do you prefer black and white? That is color psychology in its finest form.

How colors can make people feel…

Here are some colors and how they may make people feel:

  • Red- Red often creates a sense of urgency. That is what makes it perfect for clearance sales or breaking news. It is also frequently used by fast-food chains as it often makes people hungry. People may often associate red with passion, movement, power, and excitement.
  • Green- Green is most often associated with health, wellness, and general wellbeing. It is clean, clear, and brings a sense of nature into your brand. The color green can also create a feeling of harmony and encourage decisions.
  • Purple- Usually, the color purple is associated with wisdom, royalty, and respect. It greatly stimulates creativity.
  • Blue- Funnily enough, men prefer the color blue in advertising and marketing over any other. It is associated with reliability, peace, tranquility, and water. The color blue also promotes trust in a brand.
  • Yellow and orange- Both colors are cheerful and promote optimism. However, used incorrectly they can make people cautious.

Color psychology is a powerful stimulator when it comes to how people view your brand. How you incorporate color into your brand will essentially say everything about your business. While there are no “best” marketing colors, there are colors that impact people better than others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 Ways to Make Your Small Business Better

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Starting a small business is amazing. Watching it grow is arguably even better. However, sometimes you can feel like your small business is lacking. It can be easy to get caught up in all the things you have to do to successfully run your business. Though, it is important to simply take a step back and make sure you’re doing everything possible to grow your business.

If you feel like your business needs a boost, check out these four ways to make your small business better from your Corporate Business Solution Consultants.

  1. Get a Mentor

There is not a single person in the world that is perfect at every aspect of running a business. Perhaps you know a lot about your chosen industry, but the accounting side is confusing for you. Maybe you love the behind-the-scenes action but find customer interaction difficult.

Having a successful mentor will help you in any of the areas where you fall short. Networking is the perfect way to meet people who can help you. In any industry, having a mentor by your side can make the biggest difference.

  1. Motivate your Team

Staff needs motivation. It is a well-known fact that even the best team requires firing up sometimes. Make sure that in these teams you work with your team as a leader and a friend. Keep your team dedicated to your company by providing fun activities where they can bond as a group. Allow them a space to be passionate and creative. Even the best employees may find it difficult at times.

Be there for them during these times to let them know everything is okay. Communication and motivation never die.

  1. Recharge your Batteries

If you must wait for a time where you have nothing to do, you will never take a break. It is incredibly easy to become so enthralled in your business life that you neglect your breaks altogether. Soon enough you will find that all you do is check your emails and make calls.

When you don’t take time off, you end up losing sight of the big picture as well as your dreams. You will also find that you become less productive and less creative. Be the best you by taking some time off.

  1. Make Quality a Priority

If your product isn’t good, all the marketing materials and high-quality staff in the world won’t save you. Make sure that your business is doing great work and delivering something you’re extremely proud of.

If your product isn’t good, neither is your business.

The Bottom Line 

You should always be trying to better your business. Then, and only then, is it easy to see just how beneficial everyone is toward the common goals of your small business. You need to remember that your whole team is in this together.

If your business needs a boost or is feeling a little stale, it may be time to change things up!

 

Does Your Small Business Need Live Chat?

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Live chat is becoming a quintessential part of small businesses globally. It is much like an immediate interactive mail-in design. The job of live chat is to sit at the bottom corner of your website waiting for customers who need help.

Live chat supports your customers who need help instantly. Live chat can also increase your sales drastically. When people can gain immediate access to an answer, they are far more likely to buy the product in question.

Many small businesses love it for closing sales and increasing revenue. Perhaps you have seen the possibilities of live chat, but you don’t have the staff count to warrant it. However, live chat doesn’t always need staff 24/7 to work.

Find out how live chat can help your business and whether you need it or not with this article from Reviews for Corporate Business Solutions.

Does your small business need live chat?

When it comes to live chats, you need to decide if your small business needs live chat. Here are some great examples of small businesses that can use live chat:

  • Hospitality and medical- A business that takes bookings or reservations like hotels or restaurants
  • Online retailers- A business that sells products online
  • Consultants and service providers- A business that offers business services 

If you run one of the aforementioned businesses, live chat is a great tool. However, if you get very little website traffic, life chat likely isn’t the best thing for your business. If you’re unsure, many businesses are offering free live chat trials. You have nothing to lose.

Set specific hours

If you run a smaller team, manage your customers’ expectations by setting specific hours for your live chat. Unless you run a large eCommerce store, people don’t expect small businesses to run 24/7. However, they don’t want to open a live chat only to be left with no response.

To ensure your customers aren’t disappointed, post your live chat business hours on the live chat as well as your website. You can ask the person to leave a message for you to reply to later. While this may defeat the real purpose of live chat, it is still a helpful business tool.

Either way, you’re making it easy for your customers to get in contact. This is far quicker than composing an email or trying to find your contact details. Just make sure that you reply to the message as soon as possible.

Create a FAQ page or knowledge base

Once you have been running your business for a while, you will develop an understanding of the types of questions people ask. If you can’t have a 24/7 live chat, give your customers a FAQ page or knowledge base to consult if they are confused.

If they are stuck, they can then message you on the live chat.

Live chat can be a great tool for small businesses to harness. There are no downsides. If customer service matters to you, live chat is a great next step to take. 

 

 

 

 

How to Save Time on Social Media While Running A Small Business

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If you want to see the best out of your business, using social media as a form of marketing is your best bet. Smart business owners all over the world are leveraging the use of social media to give their business the boost it needs. If you aren’t using social media, you are doing your business a disservice.

A social media marketing system is crucial in every business. Without one, you could be wasting your time and money with no reward. Before you know it, you could be running at a loss due to poor marketing efforts.

If you want to save time on social media, check out these hot tips from your Corporate Business Solutions Consultants. Put these tips into play to get the best out of your social media efforts.

Create a calendar

Making time for social media is important. However, getting into a routine with your social media can be hard. Without organization, you begin to lose afternoons, mornings, and nights to the endless cycle.

By creating a social media calendar and planning a strategy, you can bring order to your social media schedule. It is a simple way to put your activities into place and limit the time invested. You can choose how you want to implement this.

You can be as detailed or as broad as you like. If your social content is planned out, it will be a breeze. You will also regain your time to develop consistency.

Always revisit your strategy

Always revisit your social media strategy to ensure that it is working. There is nothing worse than continuing with activities that don’t work for your business. Just because someone claims that it works, that doesn’t mean it will work for your business.

Social media is constantly evolving. That is why nothing is worse than remaining stagnant with your social media strategy. It always pays to experiment and try brand new approaches. To try something new by adding pictures to your posts or creating videos.

You could even try using hashtags or links. If you plan to change up your strategy, change only one thing at a time. That way, you can identify what is working and what isn’t. After you have identified that, double down on what works and drop what doesn’t.

Be consistent

Social media is all about quality. While some people will say it is better to post more than less, it comes down to more than that. People do want to hear from you. However, they would prefer high-quality content over low-quality content.

For example, you could post four photos per week that are low quality and get little engagement. On the other hand, you could post once or twice per week with great content and get a lot of engagement.

Don’t be pressured into posting too much.

Social media is a wonderful tool to use for your small business when used properly. If you’re looking for good results for free, social media is the way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Motivate Your Employees Through Goal Setting

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In any business, big or small, there will always be days where everyone is feeling a little down. Sometimes a lack of motivation strikes, and everyone is lacking the drive they need to get through the day. However, there are steps you can take to deal with this.

If you’re noticing a lack of motivation in your employees, you must make them feel passionate about their work environment and efforts. Positive employee engagement is the perfect way to motivate your employees. Motivating your employees doesn’t have to be a challenge.

Motivating your employees through goal setting is proving to be a great mood booster. Corporate Business Solutions has put together some of the ways to motivate your employees through goal setting.

Set challenging yet achievable goals

When setting goals for your employees, you want to ensure that they are challenging yet still achievable. They must be practical and realistic, as well. By blindly setting a goal, you will be setting your employees up for failure.

Even if they can achieve it, it will take far longer than a well-thought-out goal. By setting unrealistic goals, you will cause your employees to hit a wall. That means you will be achieving the exact opposite of what you wanted.

Set long – and short-term goals

When people can see their achievements, they become more motivated. By setting both short- and long-term goals, your employees will be able to see their achievements coming to fruition. They will then become more excited about their future goals.

Setting both long- and short-term goals will build experience, confidence, and skillsets for future projects.

Reward your employees

When your employees accomplish their goals, reward them for all their hard work. Their reward could be as simple as a round of applause. Perhaps you could even throw an office party. By recognizing your teams’ achievements, they will become even more motivated for their next project.

Give feedback

Being able to provide feedback to your employees is of the utmost importance. Feedback also helps to create a more transparent process. By providing your employees with feedback, you will notice fewer hiccups throughout the project.

If someone’s performance is not easily quantifiable, make sure to provide them with feedback.

Be flexible

Employees will always face challenges when trying to complete goals. After all, expect the unexpected, right? For the sake of your employees, make sure you are flexible enough to meet their hurdles with a kind mindset. This will show them that you believe in their abilities.

It will also teach your employees that they can trust you even when things aren’t ideal. Have enough flexibility to maneuver and move forward when things don’t go to plan.

Achieving goals is a great way to feel worthy. That is why setting them can improve motivation in the workplace. By following the steps above, you can ensure that motivation in the workplace will be soaring in no time.

If you’ve noticed your employees lacking motivation, try goal setting to get them back on track.