Get Your Online Business Presence Reviewed.

 

You’ve heard all the chatter about the internet and how it is the place to be for business to grow and develop new business using websites and social media marketing. 

 Have you ever wondered how you can get new business using online tools to promote your business?

It can seem daunting. Websites, SEO, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, on and on it goes.  Maybe you have a website that doesn’t seem to do anything ... and you don’t know how to tell if it is doing anything useful or not. 

You’re not alone. Many businesses have thought about using the internet and have a basic website that may have cost a little money or a lot of money at the time, but it is still a bit of a mystery as to whether it serves any purpose or not. 

“You have to be online” they tell you, but don’t tell you why, or how to judge a good website performance from a bad one. 

“My website is on page 1 on Google ... for my business name!” Oh that’s a common one. The truth? You need to be on page 1 for what you do. Not for your name. Nice to have but it is a given. Your name doesn’t count, since anyone who knows your business name and what you do, already knows how to find you.  You want your business to be found by those looking for what you do, who don’t automatically think of you. 

“I have a Twitter account ... but I never use it.” 

“I am on Facebook but I don’t really know how to use it. I’ll have to get my teenager to look into it and fix it for my business.”

Social media marketing may be social... but it is still business. And as such it deserves to be taken seriously. As a business owner you need to understand the rules of how online marketing for local business works. Even if you decide it is not for you. 

·        How to guage if your website is working as well as it should.    Sometimes it just needs a few tweaks to make it work better.  Sometimes it needs a lot of work.  Know what to look for when you are hiring web designers and what to make sure is included on your site.

·        What you need to do to have any chance to get the website to page 1 on Google for the words and phrases people look for to find what you do.

·        How to set up a social media marketing strategy. It is not just opening an account.  You need to know the right kind of account. Know which platform is going to work for your business and have a purpose and a strategy that will allow you to know how and what content to add to keep it fresh. 

·        Understand that your reputation is at risk online – even if you don’t use the internet yourself.  Your duty to your business means you need to be able to know how to manage that risk – and exploit your business opportunity. If someone is talking about you online - good or bad - you need to know about it. And know how to deal with it.

·        Learn the difference between traditional marketing (broadcasting) and social media marketing. They are not the same! What works in old media, won’t work in new media and can work against you.

I hear many business owners say that they have been to a workshop on social media but they were dissatisfied because it didn’t really give them the skills they need to know how to go about setting their business online with a way to successfully use social media for their business and in their local area. You need one-on-one help to really get to know this new world.

Others say they can’t see why they need to be on the internet because their customers are local and they know who they are already.  In reality, it isn’t about what you want. It is about what customers expect.  Even if you never use the internet (“I don’t have time!”) your customers do. And if they are looking for your business at 2am then they need and want to be able to find the solution they need for their particular problem. If you can solve it for them, you want them to find you and know that you can help them. 

The world has opened wide for local business and social media marketing brings high tech opportunities for local business to widen the scope of their marketplace beyond their front door and being at the mercy of just selling to the people who happen to walk past their door during the hours they are open.  Even a cafe can bring people in who would not normally have chosen that place to visit were it not for finding them online first.

As customers we don’t know anything about your business unless you make it known. If we are visiting your street, we look for what’s there online before we make appointments and before we head out in the car to look for what we will buy. Whether you own a cafe or are an Accountant or Zookeeper, the same applies.  Your job is to make sure we find you first.

Unfortunately some business owners think they can do this without any training. While many ‘social media gurus’ have no online footprint of their own to speak of, might be doing workshops promoting social media marketing but are only telling part of the story. They are setting up Facebook pages and Twitter accounts as though that in itself is the important part. It is like buying a car and never having a licence to drive it, and not knowing it needs fuel in the tank if you want it to get you anywhere.

Special Offer

For this reason I’m making a very special offer available so you can get some idea of where you are now and where social media marketing and your online presence can help you grow your business. This Online Business Review will be available for a single payment of $199. 

If you want to proceed on your own then, you can do so with some understanding of where you are going and steps you can take to get there. If you want help going forward then that’s available too.

If you would like to get your business online working and would like a review of your online presence, a report on what could be fixed and a 2 hour consultation on where you can go from here then contact me today to arrange your Online Business Review.

Here’s to your success – Online and Offline!

Related Blogs
 How-To: Developing A Social Media Strategy For Marketing
Quick & Dirty Business Review
Test Your Website For Roadworthiness
What You Should Know About Social Media For Business
 How To Get Your Business Found Online

Lindy Asimus
Business Coach
Mobile: 61 + 403 365855
lindyasimus@gmail.com
www.designbusinessengineering.com

Australia's Marketing Mentor

Contact Me
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Stop Theft In Your Business With Good Systems.

It’s common for business owners to underestimate the potential for theft by their own staff.  The reality is that the loss to a business though employee theft can be a real drain on profits and can undermine the stability of the business. Where this happens, the whole culture within the business can suffer.


As this recent article shows where 43% of small business employees admit giving freebies or discounts to friends and family. Some won't even see that when they do this, it is theft. It's up to you to teach them the values that apply in your business. And some will be knowingly stealing whatever they can get their hands on. 


How To Spot It

Those who are stealing from the business can be very keen to keep their activities hidden and be attached to keeping the status quo with regard to their duties and function.  They won't like change and will actively discourage good systems from being put in place that help you manage effectively.


 Mix It Up

Changing the employees' functions from time to time can help with this but for many business that is difficult because often the roles are not well described and it can happen that management is less than sure what an employee even does in their role!

Where staff are stuck on keeping things as they are, that’s a bad sign and to prevent that happening, the business needs good systems, well-defined roles and descriptions for the position – not the person in the role.  People can be moved and everyone be very clear on what they have to do and how they do it, when this is well documented.

That process for managing roles and responsibilities also makes for easy performance management, recruiting and can ensure that the knowledge in the business is shared and kept, even when key staff leave or are reassigned to new responsibilities.

In your business now, make sure you have put in place:

•  A clearly identified and written chain of command so people know who they report to and who they are supposed to be supervising. 
• Written position descriptions for each role in the business
• Tasks written down in full for each of the positions. 
• Induction training for new employees into the business so they know from Day 1 where everything is and what's expected of them, and the culture and values of the business.
• Performance management system to monitor progress, catch any training gaps and fix problems at the time they show up and catch your people doing good work.

 Lead From The Front. 

Your role as a leader in your business means that this is one of your responsibilities to ensure good governance and effective practices are in place. This raises productivity, makes for more engaged workers and lets you keep good control over your business affairs.

Someone from outside the business can often help you identify issues like these and more that can keep you on track and out of the rut that comes from having no systems in place.

Guarantee

Policies and good management alone won't guarantee there is no theft from a business. But you are guaranteed that without those procedures and good culture in the workplace, you are actively encouraging every kind of bad activity to flourish.


Your business loses money when you have theft but also when you have high staff turnover, low standards of training in the business and no good systems to manage the people and assets in the business. When you improve these areas, it is like money in the bank.

Related:
Remember to build your mailing list
What to do next when you feel like giving up
Send cards for marketing and friends automatically using this Cloud app
Step up in your business - Here's how to improve performance

How to get your business found online

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Good Records Management Is Good Business

 

Government departments can be a good source of information for business on how to stay compliant with the legal obligations in the local jurisdiction and in this example below, it shows clearly the kinds of documentation that needs to be maintained and managed well. These documents are essential to your businesses well being and need to be managed effectively. Some will need updating at the right time and this can easily be overlooked. 

I was at a networking luncheon recently and heard about a great example of where the right documentation being overlooked can result in ongoing issues that can threaten the complete operations of the business – sometimes without the owner being aware that it even happened. In this case the real estate license had expired and not renewed as it was due. To cover this, the administrations person had ‘doctored’ a certificate with the new dates on it to cover the fact that it was not done in time and of course once this had happened the first time, then they maintained this the following year. When this came to light, the real estate agent had effectively been without a current license for a period of 3 years.  This could have been catastrophic to that business. 

Cases abound where employees either by intention or by lack of understanding can cause problems for a business. Good management of the records in the business should keep a check and good oversight to the operations and administrative issues in a business. Compliance can be a trial for business to manage, but as well as keeping the business ‘legal’ – you can use the need for good record keeping to your advantage too. 

Trying to manage this with files and bits of paper is a nightmare – and puts business at risk of things being missed, potential fines and court actions and more. But this need to be compliant is a perfect excuse to put in place systems to manage your information in a streamlined way,  one that covers your obligations, but also lets you manage more effectively, reduce risk and create a relaxed environment where employees are able to know exactly what they are expected to do, alerts to remind them when things are due so they don’t need to rely on memory or bits of paper, and can be confident that they are clear on what is expected of them and how to do their work successfully.

How do you manage your records now? 

http://www.business.vic.gov.au/BUSVIC/STANDARD/PC_50296.html

Records Management

Record keeping isn't just good business practice, it's a legal requirement. You are required by the Australian Taxation Office to keep business records for a minimum of five years, in plain English and in a way the tax office can access if they need it.
 
Business record keeping

In addition to your ATO financial records requirements other government departments require you to keep records relating to your business and employees. 

When setting up your record keeping system you should also file records such as: 

• contracts, insurance agreements and other legal documents
• your lease if you're renting 
• licences and permits
• employee records including time sheets, copies of pay slips etc
• safety records e.g. risk assessment for occupational health and safety 
• any other records which are 'business activity' specific and required by law for the operation of your business e.g. for a café your food safety plan

Tip: Write down the method you use for filing so if someone has to do it for you they know how to. As your business grows, this is a job you could give someone else to do. 

	Checklist: Business records and how long to keep them (PDF 85Kb)
	A checklist of business records and how long to keep them, including financial and employment records.

Related:
Remember to build your mailing list
What to do next when you feel like giving up
Send cards for marketing and friends automatically using this Cloud app
Step up in your business - Here's how to improve performance

How to get your business found online

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Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

Check Your Website For Roadworthiness

The world is governed more by appearances than by realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.  -- Daniel Webster

Your business has cars that you check on each of them for safety before you assign it to be driven, right? You have made sure that it is fit to be on the road, that it is reliable to get from point A to point B and that the tyres are not worn out and the pressure is correct. There is oil and fuel in the tank and the registration is up to date and the seatbelts all operating as they should.

Your Website Vehicle 

Well we talk about traffic online and this is the currency of business.
How much traffic is there? How much of that traffic converts to sales?
That's what keeps businesses going and that is the beginning and the end of what any business owner in any field should want to know about their business whether it is online or offline or hopefully, both.

So since we are talking traffic terminology it makes sense to think of the vehicle by which the traffic is generated.

It is clear that many businesses who have a website do not maintain them as they would their fleet of vehicles and since the website has the potential to bring in new business, this is rather hard to understand why it is so.

Let's just investigate how a business might undergo a Roadworthy test with this checklist. The answers to these questions, should be known without hesitation by the owner of the business. No exceptions.

So here's your pop quiz! Now these do not represent an in depth list of questions that you should be monitoring but it is a very quick and dirty method of seeing if your website needs a service.


Your Website Roadworthiness Checklist

How do you measure your traffic to the website?

What are the top keywords people are using in search that brings them to your business?

Do you have a conversion system for your website?

What description about your business is Google picking up?

How are you using local search for growing your share of sales in the local area?

What pages are most visited on your site?
What websites are linking to you?
Which external websites are sending you traffic?

What percentage of your business comes from web compared to offline sales?

What is the turnaround time for enquiries to your website?

What facility is on the website for people to buy from you today?

If you have a shopping cart system, what is the dropout rate for those shoppers who don't complete a purchase?

What are the key words for which you want your business to come up, when people search?

In what way are you incorporating social media with your website and offline to generate traffic?

You have a process for monitoring your reputation online so you know what is being said about you and the business online.



In Summary

If you don't know the answer to these questions, then you need to get the report on these from your employees to you right now.

If you can't manage to get the report to you in short time, then this indicates you have issues that go beyond the website that need to be reviewed too.

These are just some of the obvious things that a business owner needs to be managing in the business. There are many more that you should know especially if you are paying for adwords and the like as well as issues of a more technical nature that can and should be measured in addition to these.  And it is a good idea to get these monitored by someone outside the business  from time to time - at leaste once a year, to ensure that you are getting the best advice from those inside the business whose job it is to oversee your web presence.

There are many ways to tweak a website for better performance and some of these can be done very easily and quickly.

So how did you go?

Happy with the result you achieved on this test?

If you are less than happy and would like a review of the rest of your website contact me now and let's investigate before there is any more damage.

Related posts

How To Set Goals - And Reach Them

The Dirty Secrets Business Needs To Know About Social Media

Why You Need To Build Your Mailing List And How To Do It

How To Get Your Local Business Found Online



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How To Start Making Good Decisions In Your Business

In the planning stages right now for release of a new product that will be available soon to help businesses to easily manage their information around compliance for employees and actually manage the information simply and with the least amount of misery as possible. I was really drawn to this idea when I first heard about it because it is part of the cluster of issues that comes up again and again, when working with business owners and which gets them stuck and unable to work effectively in the business.

In recent days, we've had articles on the fiasco at Commonwealth Bank and their Big Brother approach of their social media policy and the Heat Company winning their costs for a harassment case that they have been stuck defending for four years. Can you imagine the time and disruption this would create, even apart from any costs directly related to the case?

How Would You Cope?

If you were called to defend your workers against some accusation of wrongdoing in the workplace where would you start? How do you prove something didn't happen?

How many have good reporting in the business even for logging the things that DO happen?

Not many.

There are so many things that should happen in business that don't that it isn't funny.

These stories in the media go with other stories I've run into lately of business owners telling me they don't have issues in their business covered that need to be and at some level they want to be covered. Where they are exposed to risk by not having them covered and yet they go on and continue to put the things that expose them to risk in the "do later" pile and never get around to them. They have not bothered to get them done in the past, so it is a pretty safe bet that they will not get to them in the future either.

So what are some of the things that don't get done in small and medium business?

Things Not Done In Business

1. No written policies and procedures which are always up-to-date, complete and accessible easily
2. No real process for recruiting the right people
3. No induction process for new hires to help them hit the ground running
4. No real system to monitor and track performance and training 
5. No business plan with an outline of priorities for this next period (and no 'in your head' doesn't count)
6. No training process to keep employees improving their skills 
7. No marketing plan to incorporate their online marketing
8. No checks and monitoring of the business on the web

 
So what are the possible results that can happen to a business as a result?

What Happens When These Things In Business Aren't Done?

Some examples would be (and I'm sure you can think of more of your own)

• Wasted time and energy by employees not following the set standards
• Frustration for customers 
• Opportunities not taken 
• Sales lost
• Crisis when a new person is needed to be hired 
• Wrong people hired who are a poor fit and don't have the right skills or attitude
• Poor performance from employees
• Lack of interest and initiative in the workplace
• Employees stagnating and not developing
• Vital issues in the business not dealt with 
• Resources (money) allocated to things that don't return value
• Resources (money) not allocated to things that will return value
• Value of the business reduced as a result of poor efficiencies 
• Value of the business reduced as a result of poor management
• Opportunities to grow customer base restricted
• Lack of sales that could be made without increasing fixed costs
• No data to analyze to improve business output
• Opportunities for business to grow are hidden and not able to be activated. 

I don't know why a business owner would want that.

To come back to the compliance issues and we know that the regulations and requirements for business to be accountable for legal obligations is not going away. We can probably feel safe in assuming that the red tape is going to get worse rather than better, into the future.

"Too busy to get to it" is not a very good excuse when something goes wrong and the business owner has to show that they have done the right thing.

No good decisions come from a place of being "too busy". If you are "too busy" to get to these issues, then you can be confident that whatever other decisions you are making in your business are likely to be ill-considered.

There are few guarantees in life but here's one. Where the things that should be done are not and only the crises that you manage day-to-day get attention... any decisions made from this position, will be bad for your business.

How To Start Making Good Decisions

Take an objective look at your business.

Work out:

1. What are the areas that have been neglected and need work?
2. What do you need to do to fix this now?
3. Do you have the knowledge and resources to fix this?
4. Do you know where to find help for the things you don't know how to do?

 If you'd like a worksheet to use to start reviewing your business send me an email with your story and I'll send you one.



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It Didn't Work So Just Give Up?

The start of a new year is a time for many to set resolutions and revisit the previous year and see what worked and what didn't. Sometimes we set resolutions without resolve and without a clear How-To to support them. These are unlikely to work and when they don't work we can easily internalise that as evidence that we "can't do" it "doesn't work" and this then sets as the belief "I can never do it". It may be a belief that you have had evidence of from many such experiences. But here's the thing.

"It didn't work" is really a short version "It didn't work this time, this way."

Think the message through fully. No short versions. Think it through and be specific on what didn't work. The short version cuts the context and removes important information we need to learn from the experience.

Because it didn't work this way, this time, could mean any number of things.

For example:

You didn't prepare adequately.
You need a different way to get to where you want to be.
You gave up too soon.
You didn't have the tools you needed to help you do it.
You didn't have the knowledge you needed to do it.
You didn't follow through on it
You didn't know how.
You didn't have a plan that allowed you to follow through to do it.
You allowed other things to be more important than doing it.
You didn't really want to do it.
Not doing it pays off in some other way.
You didn’t believe yourself when you said you were going to do it.
Your intention and your actions were not aligned.

Whatever the reason - and there may be a combination of these, or others, it isn't simply "It didn't work."

"It didn't work", is the start, not the finish.

Consider something you attempted to do that didn't work.
Revisit that thing that didn't work and review the reasons that may have been present in it not working and get to know what the blocks are that you need to overcome in order to do it.

This can be hard to do alone.
Seek help from someone if you need to.
That's a positive step that you can see as evidence that you are indeed ready to make positive improvement in your life.

And by the way. The start of the year is just like any other time.

Start Now.
Whenever that is.





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Social Media No Use For Your Business? Think Again.

Many business owners still think that they don't need to know about online tools to promote their business and protect their brand.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here's why.

It doesn't matter if you are online with your business, people can still talk about you, can still complain about you and what you are doing offline, and still rubbish you without you being online to see it happen. Understand, you can go online and add new revenue streams to your business, or you can stay with your face against the glass in your shop waiting for people to wander past and hope some of them find themselves inside your store. Hopefully to buy something you have for sale.

Either way, that's another issue and doesn't alter the fact that you can monitor your brand reputation online with or without a website.  Whether or not you like to use the computer or social media. Whether or not you think that the internet is ruining lives and is not for you.

Here's a classic case that just came across my desk.

How Harvey Norman Avoids PR Disaster Using Social Media

 The world is changing and if the market doesn't like what you're doing in your business, or in your marketing, you can forget the focus groups - they will let you know without thinking twice about it.

So what are you doing to monitor your brand online?

How will you get to know how to navigate this strange new environment?

Are you prepared to step-up and learn some new things or are you going to just plod along pretending things are like they were before the world got wired and the customers had a way to express their feelings about Everything?

Related Posts

How To Set Goals - And Reach Them
The Dirty Secrets Business Needs To Know About Social Media
Why You Need To Build Your Mailing List And How To Do It
How To Get Your Local Business Found Online



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