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The 5 Truths All Rental Business Owners Should Know

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Image Source: StartupStockPhotos on Pixabay

Being a rental business owner is not easy. You have to wear many hats at the same time. Whether it is damaged equipment returned by a customer, a missing product, or a scheduling conflict, everything falls on your shoulders. All these mounting responsibilities can be hard to deal with. However, they serve as a great reminder that running a rental business is no easy feat.

Let’s take a
look at five truths all rental business owners should never turn a blind eye
to.

RELATED ARTICLE: HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PAYMENT METHOD FOR YOUR BUSINESS

1. There Is No 9 to 5. You Have a Rental Business Because You Love It!

Being your own boss might sound attractive. However, it comes with its fair share of troubles. It isn’t all parties and CEO moments. The truth is there is no such thing as a 9-to-5 workday or a clock-in and clock-out for an entrepreneur. Running your own business is much more demanding than that.

For example, if something obstructs your rental operation, you can’t leave it at the risk of it hindering your business processes. Sometimes, steering this ship is an all-around-the-clock thing. You might even need to tend to a 3 am emergency.

But if you’re putting in a ton of effort, you need to make sure that it has the maximum impact. This makes your health a top priority for the health of your business. Therefore, take care of yourself. In other words, account for your energy output and health so you can always cater to tasks to the best of your abilities.

Also, always, always prioritize tasks. Moreover, delegate the ones that someone else can handle. In this way, you can maximize your output.

rental business 2

You have to put your day and night into your business.

Image source: freepik.com

2. People Don’t Just Rent. They Buy the Experience of Renting

There could be many companies in the market that offer the same product lines. While products play a crucial role, they start to lose their importance when everyone has the same offering. That’s where the importance of a wholesome rental experience kicks in. In short, it is not about what products you offer but how you offer them.

Even if most of the rental businesses in town have identical camera brands or party supplies, you can still distinguish yourself from the crowd. Provide a meaningful customer experience to stand out.

For example, offer a pleasant atmosphere, helpful customer service, hassle-free paperwork, and timely deliveries. These all play into how your customers perceive your brand. What’s more, if you focus on all these fronts, you are likely to become a customer favorite.

People are always willing to pay for a better, easier, and more satisfying experience. Therefore, make sure you make it worth their money.

3. Customers Will Not Come to You. You Will Have to Be
Both the Buyer and the
Marketer

Let’s consider this: You have a great product line to rent out. You are using cutting-edge technology and incorporating innovative strategies for better customer experience. However, you still aren’t getting any customers.

The problem is customers don’t come flocking in long queues to a new business. On the contrary, the competitive world of business requires you to aggressively market yourself. It is through consumer-driven marketing, fool-proof content strategies, and growth hacking plans that your business is going to get traction.

rental business 3

You have to spread the word by marketing yourself.

Image source: freepik.com

Therefore, be sure to study ongoing rental and marketing trends, and always try to be in the shoes of the buyer. What are they expecting and what will move them to make a purchase? Thinking like a buyer will make you a better marketer. Moreover, it will help establish a permanent spot for your business in your target audience’s mind.

4. Overnight Success Doesn’t Exist. You Can’t Do It
Without Consistency

There is no such thing as overnight success. Notably, all successful business owners will testify to the fact that getting your first 10 clients is going to be the hardest feat that you’ll accomplish in your career.

Often, another company’s hard work does not gain a lot of attention. What’s more, it might seem like certain companies made it to the top because luck was on their side. However, that’s far from the truth. In most cases, they worked day and night to get to that stage of their career.

The bottom line is that there’s no route leading to instant success. You have to put in the necessary hours. Only in this way will you establish a strong footing for your business, especially in the beginning when you’re juggling multiple tasks.

However, once you know the ins and outs of your industry and all the ongoing trends, you can grow your team and outsource tasks. Remember to keep notes on all the mistakes you made while doing every task and what you learned from them. After that, share what you’ve learned with your employees so you can help them grow as well. In a nutshell, switch from hard work to smart work.

5. Your Product Line Isn’t Exclusive. There Are
Plenty of Other Fish in the Sea

Most rental businesses offer items that are popular among renters. This makes it hard to offer innovative product lines and gives rise to cut-throat competition.

There are probably companies out there that are much better than you. That’s because they feature a greater variety of products, offer better pricing, or use marketing strategies that instantly connect with their audience.

However, there’s no reason to lose heart. Instead of being discouraged, you can use this to your advantage and try to improve yourself. In other words, turn your competition into your driving force. Use it to continually re-evaluate your strategies. Who exactly is your target audience? What are others in your field doing differently? What’s more, how can you position yourself better in the market?

In short, focusing your efforts on the right people along with the right strategies will help you grow sustainably and outrun your competition. Moreover, to automate the process and keep your data secure, you can implement online rental software across your organization.

Running Your Rental Business Can Be a Rewarding Experience

Whether your business is a furniture rental, equipment rental, or party rental, there are some downsides of being a rental business owner.

However, it’s only a problem if you see it that way. You really only need to have a thick skin and a drive to pursue excellence, and you will be able to succeed. Without these two qualities, you might give up on what could’ve been a large enterprise.

On the other hand, if you’ve committed yourself to your business, don’t let harsh realities bring you down. That’s because there is always something waiting to be created, customers waiting to be served, and opportunities waiting to be made the most of.

And YOU can
make it happen!

Author Bio

Kiran is a content writer and marketer at EZRentOut, which offers equipment rental software for SMBs, mid-sized rental businesses, enterprises and more. She is a guest writer and an MBA graduate. Kiran is enthusiastic about the way technology interacts with contemporary businesses. She is willing to explore beyond her knowledge.

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Bumble’s Austin Headquarters Is All About Good Vibes

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The dating app’s employees are big on in-office engagement and out-of-office socializing.


4 min read

This story appears in the
January 2019
issue of
Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Bumble’s got good buzz. The dating app — which gives women the power to make the first move — launched in 2014 and has since expanded to help users meet new friends and make professional connections, too. CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd originally worked at Tinder but left and alleged that its cofounders engaged in sexual harassment and discrimination. She in turn created Bumble, a company obsessively focused on its culture. Its Austin, Tex., headquarters is known as the Beehive and promotes a cheery sense of community, bolstered by sunshine-yellow walls, playful decor (signs that say bee kind), and plenty of happy hours, volunteer sessions, and even some parades. 

Related: Anheuser-Busch’s New York Office is Home to the Workplace Brewery of Your Dreams

Caitlin Sullivan / Senior manager, people and culture 

“For reviews, every employee comes up with a proposal for how their responsibilities, compensation, and title should change based on the impact they’ve made. This gives our female employees — who’ve been socialized to not speak about compensation and career growth — the tools to negotiate their salaries.”

Anh Dang / Senior merchandise manager 

“When the city of Austin was celebrating Pride, most of the office met up, fully decked out in Pride merch, and walked the parade. With other companies, it can be like pulling teeth to get your coworkers to go out together on the weekend, but we’re all for it here.”

Elizabeth Monteleone / Legal counsel

“[My colleague] Caitlin Sullivan and I actually met on Bumble BFF in May. We went on some friend hangouts, and she mentioned this role was available. She asked if I’d be interested, and I said, ‘Absolutely!’ We’re a real Bumble success story.”

Related: I Visited the Bumble Hive to See What All the Buzz Is About

Kyra Seay / Special projects coordinator 

“I had the pleasure of starting at Bumble about a week ago. ‘Beekeepers’ are employees who volunteer to welcome the new folks. A beekeeper is assigned to a new hire, gives them a personalized tour, gets to know them, and on the company’s dime, you can go get a smoothie or a coffee. I chose both.”

Courtney Moreau / Curator of vibes 

“When I saw the job listing for ‘curator of vibes,’ a little voice of intuition whispered to me, This is you. My job is to make sure everyone has what they need inside the office and to help celebrate special moments with our team, whether that’s a company Friendsgiving or planning for employee birthdays.” 

Tareen Alam / Creative content manager 

“A lot of my meetings are in response to current events. If something’s happening related to feminism, empowerment, or leadership — it’s been an interesting time with #MeToo and #BelieveWomen — the edit team will get on a call to talk about how we can speak to it.” 

Related: Snowboard Giant Burton’s Headquarters Are Big on Dogs, Gardening and Snow Days

Justin Balanon / Influencer marketing manager

“My job is to help negotiate contracts with talent from the influencer community. We want them to join our mission to make the world a kinder place. I used to sell influencer marketing, and it was about products. This is more about asking people, ‘Do you want to be a part of this movement to make gender equality a reality?’”

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Image Credit: Adam Friedberg

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10 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Office Culture

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10 Ways to Improve Your Office Culture

The numbers speak for themselves—having a work environment that engages employees is just as important as good sales numbers and loyal customers.

How to Improve Office Culture

Here’s 10 ways you can make your company’s office culture better.

Be Transparent  

A company that wants to build an office culture where everyone feels engaged needs to be open and transparent. Making sure that your office is positioned for growth means spotting and fixing problems before they knock everyone off course.

Being transparent means sharing the lessons from any failures or mistakes. When you hide shortcomings from employees, you’re only maintaining an office and not fostering a culture.

One quick way to get this ball rolling is to let employees submit anonymous questions that get answered by management at scheduled meetings.

Stop the Burnout Cycle  

It’s important for business leaders to understand that a healthy work environment means long term growth. Burning people out so the company succeeds has always been a bad idea, more so now when skilled people are in short supply.

Scheduling the week’s work in advance can make all the difference. There’s lots of software on the market that can help you and your team take the needless hustle out of your office like this offering from Zoho.

Dress Appropriately

Working in an office means that you need to be respectful of your clients and fellow co workers. Common sense needs to prevail. Even though many dress codes are more relaxed these days, you still need to be mindful of how you represent your employer by what you wear.

Align Your Office Culture with the Bigger Picture

When you’re looking to shape an office culture, you need to be sure you’re designing something that can fold into the bigger company picture.  Do your teams work together toward clearly defined goals or do you foster competition to boost sales numbers?

You might need to brainstorm across several departments here to get input.

Foster Collaboration  

This needs to come from the top down so it spreads through your small business. Hosting a social team event is a great way to break barriers down so everyone gets to know each other on a personal level.

Define the Mission  

If you want everyone to work together and be on the same page, you need to tell them clearly what’s on it. Start by tackling the tough questions like what people can expect from working in your office and what values are front and center for your business.

Don’t Come to Work Sick  

You might fall behind on a project or two if you’re sick and stay a home to recoup. However, coming in when you’ve got a bug can give the whole office the sniffles.

Use Technology  

Everyone needs to be on the same page for your staff to stay motivated. There’s a variety of digital tools to get that done like Alexa For Business. This is a great way to alert everyone quickly when there’s a meeting or big announcement.

Maintain Office Equipment 

Motivating people to do great work is at least partially about giving them the right tools to work with. Preferably ones that are well maintained. Slow computers that crash a lot can actually be an unnecessary anchor on your office atmosphere and production both.

Keep the Atmosphere Bright  

The right lighting makes a big difference.  Natural light and plenty of windows actually improves the energy level and motivation.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “10 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Office Culture” was first published on Small Business Trends



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Workplace Flexibility Helps Entrepreneurs Attract Top Talent

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Executive search firm Inkwell connects brands with seasoned employees who need flexible schedules.


4 min read

This story appears in the
January 2019
issue of
Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

So you’ve got to hire a CFO. The traditional path would be to find someone who shows up early every day and cranks indefinitely. But what if your new CFO was a young mom who works remotely one or two days a week, or comes in from noon to 8 pm, or maybe even works part-time? She comes with the high-level experience you covet, but she wants flexibility — and to get it, she’s ready to deal.

That’s the idea championed by Manon DeFelice, founder of an executive search firm called Inkwell. After having her third child, DeFelice was struck by how hard it was to work a traditional job structure around family life, and saw she wasn’t alone: Research has shown that career women who leave the workforce for three years or more will lose up to 46 percent of their earning power. They’re full of ambition, but they can’t manage a 9-to-5. “I wanted to catch these women before they dropped out,” DeFelice says. 

Related: 3 Ways to Balance Your Business, Family and Everything Else

Inkwell has been placing these candidates in flexible roles for the past five years (the company takes 25 percent of the first-year salary), and though 80 percent of the company’s 4,000-candidate community is female, men are coming aboard, too. Not every company is immediately comfortable with the trade-off, though. Here are three case studies of startups that hired flexibly.

Image credit:

Courtesy of Wetransfer

Benefit: Part-Time Execs

Case Study: WeTransfer

WeTransfer is a file-sharing service based in Amsterdam, where workplace flexibility is common practice. When president Damian Bradfield was hiring to staff the company’s tiny Los Angeles office, however, he didn’t think to offer much flexibility simply because it’s less common here. But there was a snag: WeTransfer wanted senior-level people part-time. “If I can hire a really good heavyweight executive a few days a week to make an impact on our business until we get to a place where we can afford them full-time,” says Bradfield, “that’s great for us, and even better if it works for both parties.” Through Inkwell, he found a mother with 12 years of experience to head up U.S. brand partnerships, and a man with a consulting firm who would double as VP of business development. Both started part-time and now work five days a week — with the option to do it remotely. 

Related: A Family-Friendly Work Environment Is a Powerful Recruiting and Retention Tool

Image credit:

Weston Wells

Benefit: Affordable Salaries

Case Study: Paddle8

In its early days, the online auction platform Paddle8 had 25 employees and was looking to scale, but it didn’t have the budget for heavy hitters. Cofounder Osman Khan says he liked the idea of “finding talent that was willing to take a haircut to their market rate” — and decided to try Inkwell. The first person he hired was his head of HR. She was a former head of HR at Gucci, where she’d made $500,000. At Paddle8, she made $125,000 — but could work at home two days a week. “Once I saw the success of that [hire], I drank the Kool-Aid pretty hard,” Khan says. He then filled several other key positions through Inkwell — a CFO, controller, a general counsel, accounting and marketing roles. “There’s a lot of people who assume that flexible work equals less work,” says Khan. “But productivity was through the roof. You just have to create a company culture that embraces that model.”

Image credit:

Courtesy of Crunchbase

Benefit: Diversification

Case Study: Crunchbase

In 2017, Crunchbase CEO Jager McConnell was at a conference speaking about diversifying executive teams. Afterward, Inkwell’s DeFelice came up to him to explain her platform. He was intrigued, although concerned about the impact it would have on company culture. “But I was also super excited because I was looking to make my own team more diverse,” he says. McConnell hired his new head of people through Inkwell as a test case. He found a young mother who’d run HR departments for nearly 10 years and was willing to take the job so long as she could work from home on Thursdays. That hire turned out so well that McConnell engaged Inkwell to search for a head of finance. As for the culture? “When Crunchbase acknowledges that family life is important, we not only get better output from employees, we retain them longer.”

Related: 9 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Spend Their Weekends

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Reasons Working Too Hard at Your Business is a Waste of Time

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Why Working Too Hard Will Stop Your Business from Scaling

As the leader of a small business, you’re bent on driving growth. You are willing to put in the work that’s needed to achieve that, but paradoxically, working too hard could create unexpected obstacles to your business growth.

If you’re working hard and putting in long hours but your business has hit a plateau, it’s possible that your hard work is the problem.

Here are some of the ways that working too hard could be holding your business back from realizing its growth potential.

Working Too Hard Stops You from Delegating Effectively

When you work too hard, you end up micromanaging your own employees. This undermines their dedication to the business and sends a silent message that you don’t trust them to meet your expectations. That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, generating resentment and an unhealthy work atmosphere.

“As a CEO and Entrepreneur, your success will directly correlate to how well you can assemble the best team and then bring out the best in those people,” notes Mark Moses, the CEO of CEO Coaching International. “Micromanagers should never be CEOs of large or growing companies. This is because they are simply too complex to micromanage. Being involved at every level and not delegating to your team creates a bottleneck that essentially strangles an organization.”

Indeed, in order for your business to really scale, you need talented employees who are experts in their areas of specialty. If you’re working too hard, you are probably carrying out tasks which don’t draw on your real strengths. When you hire experts, they can carry out the work in less time, thanks to their training and experience, and you can free yourself up to focus on those strategic tasks which no one else can do.

Working Too Hard Stops You From Building Scalable Business Systems

No matter how hard you work, there is a limit to what a single person can achieve. For a business to scale successfully, it needs to be based on smart systems that can expand beyond your own capabilities. When you focus on completing task after task at all costs, instead of building a scalable business process that will do it for you, you’re stunting your business growth.

“Yes, your talents and skills were the reason that it was able to get up and running, but they will not be the tools that allow it to reach future success,” says Ken Marshall, founder of Doorbell Digital Marketing. “Now don’t get me wrong, working hard and getting things done is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, when your company is in its infancy, you’re going to be doing most of the work. But at some point you’re going to have to figure out ways to remove yourself from all of the repetitive or non essential tasks, take a step back, and look at where the ship is headed.”

Working too hard can create an overdependence on you. If your employees are constantly interrupting you to ask for decisions that they should be capable of reaching on their own, it prevents you from focusing on your more important core responsibilities, and holds them back from potential growth in their own roles.

Working Too Hard Prevents You from Thinking Creatively

For your business to scale, you need to feel passionate about it. But when you work too hard, your drive and passion get drowned out by petty tasks that should be delegated to someone else.

You could end up focusing too narrowly on the minutiae of the business, making it difficult to see the big picture and create an effective business strategy. At the same time, rushing so fast from one task to the next prevents you from focusing fully on any one aspect of the business, which will also prevent you from maintaining perspective with a holistic growth plan.

A study by Stanford University designed to measure cognitive load found that people who were told to remember a seven-digit number made far poorer decisions than those told to remember a single-digit number. When you’re stressed out by your unreasonably large workload, it hampers your ability to think creatively. It maxes out your cognitive load with minor issues, leaving you with no capacity to make difficult business decisions or react to important growth opportunities.

How to Avoid Being a Bottleneck at your Own Company

Changing the habit of working too hard is easier said than done. Simply working less isn’t a viable solution. There’s a good chance that vital business processes grew up around your habit of overwork; if you suddenly reduce the amount of work you’re doing, you could cause the whole business to fall apart.

An important first step is to reflect on what is causing you to work too hard. Identifying the cause could give you the insight you need to change your work habits.

Sometimes, CEOs end up working too hard because there isn’t enough money to hire more employees. If this is the case, then the solution is simple – get out there and find a way to add an employee or two. A business loan could give you the working capital you need to make some new hires.

Often, the habit of working too hard springs up because you are the one who established all the key business processes. You never transmitted them to others, so no one else knows what to do. By sharing core business processes, contacts and passwords with selected executives and employees, you can withdraw your personal involvement in every business issue.

Having trouble accepting that someone else can do a task as well as you can is especially common among CEOs who’ve nursed a company from its startup days. If you’ve always been the one to do this task, it’s easy to think that no one else can replace you. But no one is irreplaceable. Learning to step back a little and show some trust in your employees is the path to a better work atmosphere, as well as improved business growth.

Occasionally, CEOs overwork themselves simply out of ignorance that there is a better way. It’s not easy to pause the whirlwind, but investing time to develop more sustainable, growth-friendly business practices is a worthy investment.

Are You a Roadblock or a Catapult?

As the CEO, you could work hard in ways that hold the company back from reaching its full growth potential, or you could work smart in ways that make you the source of its success. Working too hard can creep up on you without you realizing.

With a little perspective, you can gain insight into the causes of your behavior, and learn how to change it to enable your business to scale successfully.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “Reasons Working Too Hard at Your Business is a Waste of Time” was first published on Small Business Trends



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20 Types of YouTube Videos You Can Use to Promote Your Business

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20 Types of YouTube Videos You Can Use to Promote Your Business

You can’t ignore YouTube if you’re looking to promote any type of business these days. There are 1.9 billion monthly users and over 30 million daily users. With numbers like that, you’ll want to know about the 20 types of YouTube videos you can use to promote your business.

Types of YouTube Videos

Testimonials

These have a great impact but you need to be careful. Stay away from just having a talking head in the video. It’s best if you can show a customer using your product while they talk about it.

Store Tours

These are made better when you can get the owner to provide helpful tips along the way about the goods and services. The added personal touch builds engagement.

Reviews

Everyone likes customer reviews. They are a lot like the client testimonial versions but you need to make them more realistic. Get opinions on the street to make them even more authentic.

Demonstrations

You need to understand the problem you’re solving for the prospect here. Using a “day in the life”  series of demos gets them to relate.

Unboxing Videos

These are one of the latest ways to engage your audience. People love to watch someone else unwrap something new and these are a great vehicle for influencer marketing.

How To’s

It’s important to be specific with these ones so you’ll attract the right target market to your video. For example, “How To Use This Screwdriver” won’t be as effective as “ “How To Use This Screwdriver On Drywall.”

Shopping Sprees

Not only are these one of the most popular kinds of YouTube videos, but they work well with small business products if you can find an influencer who will highlight your goods.

An Introduction to Your Business

This works especially well if you’re a sole proprietor in a service industry like accounting. These also work best when they’re not overly scripted.

Explainer Videos

Animation is a great way to capture your target market’s attention . These are a popular way for your small business to explain what they do because they’re fun.

Offers

If you use the right keywords in the description , you’ll get people flocking to these types of videos. Limited time promotions are one of the best versions to use.  Remember to put the url in your description.

Behind The Scenes Videos

These really foster engagement. People love when they get to peek behind the curtain and see what goes on when folks are relaxed in a work setting.  These are great for personalizing your business and giving it a face.

Live Webcasts

If you’re really confident in the way things are running at your business, you can go live with a behind the scenes video. Promoting these for certain times and dates when you know your target market is online requires a little research that pays off.

A Series of Video Tips

These do well because they position you as an expert and put a face to what you’ve got to sell.  Remember a constant stream of content works best.

Interviews

These are a little different than testimonials. They can be in a newsy style with the interviewer off camera for an added touch. Asking folks on the street in front of your store what they think about your goods and services works. Don’t forget to include a call to action in your description.

Webinars

These are generally high value and they don’t cost a lot. Creating a slide show to add to the mix is a good idea. You can go live with one of these on YouTube so you’ll need energetic presenters.

Narrated Powerpoints

These are simple and visual—two of the cornerstones of making a great sale. Just put one of these presentations together, talk over the visual and upload it.

Educational Videos

These are popular for small business owners that want to stress their expertise. If you can fill a room of interested people, these are even more popular and credible when you present from the front.

Comparison Videos

You might be tempted to get long winded here but don’t. The small business videos that get the best responses are three minutes or under.

Staff Videos

YouTube Analytics is a great tool that will tell you how these are going over with your target market. Having your staff talk about why they like working in your shop makes for a feel good video that attracts clients.

Corporate Videos

Production value matters here. When you’re on this level, you should be looking at hiring professionals. Don’t rush into these. A carefully designed plan works best.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “20 Types of YouTube Videos You Can Use to Promote Your Business” was first published on Small Business Trends



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Successful Freelancers Have Learned How to Make More Money

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Photo by Fancycrave.com from Pexels

Working for yourself is a long-held dream for many. The day you finally get to claim your place among full-time successful freelancers is one you’ll never forget. Moreover, there are few who would wish to return to the rat race once they’ve glimpsed the freedom of self-employment.

That said, freelancers don’t always have it easy. It be difficult to make ends meet, especially in the early days. What’s more, there are major downsides when it comes to sick pay, holiday pay, and maternity leave.

This means that in order for freelancers to earn their monthly bread and butter and still be able to take the occasional break, their overall turnover has to have a little extra included to set aside for a rainy day. 

So, are you one of the world’s growing number of freelancers? As such, are you looking for a few simple ways to make more? Then here’s what we suggest.

Successful Freelancers Learn How to Spend Less

freelancers
Source: Pixabay

For successful freelancers, having more in the bank is not entirely reliant on an increased monthly income. Spending less can also contribute toward your goal.

That’s why we recommend learning how to budget, both in your professional and everyday lives. Keep an eye on your overheads, cut out unnecessary expenses, and do your best to master the art of savvy shopping. It’s the little things that will make the biggest difference, such as knowing where to find the most economical offers around.

Those who enjoy an online flutter, for example, might want to click here to find the best real money mobile casino deals. On the other hand, freelancers who enjoy the occasional spa day may wish to head on over to Groupon to save some dollars on their chosen indulgence.

RELATED ARTICLE: WANT TO BE YOUR OWN BOSS? SOME BASIC TAX TIPS FOR FREELANCERS

Look for Collaborators 

Spending less will inarguably leave you with some extra funds each month. However, you’d no doubt like to increase your income, too. One of the best ways to do this is by looking for collaborators. That is, look for websites, agencies, or other related companies who can send some business your way.

There are plenty of these to be found online, from sites such as People Per Hour to agencies that advertise for freelance talent via job websites. The important thing is to be proactive. Therefore, whether it’s attending networking events to meet others in your field or spending a few hours on the Internet each evening, try to build a web of professionals who need successful freelancers like you.

Grow Your Talents 

freelancers 2
Source: Pixabay

Last but not least, it’s a good idea to consider how you can expand your professional appeal. We’re not saying you should make forays into a different field entirely. However, the more strings you have to your bow, the more in-demand you will be.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a copywriter. Although your grasp of punctuation and prose may be impressive, would it not also be helpful to be able to perform basic HTML for your more technologically challenged clients? If so, see if you can teach yourself. Adding this sort of small accomplishment to your portfolio can only be helpful in increasing your appeal to those on the hunt for a specialist professional such as yourself. After all, the more boxes you can tick, the more sought-after you’ll be. 

Isn’t
it time to make your business earnings the very best they can be? If so, you
know exactly where to start. 

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5 Basic Elements of a Successful Franchise Marketing Plan

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Franchising is a great way to grow a business and generate meaningful income. But having a successful franchise marketing plan can be challenging.

A successful franchise marketing plan ensures that you deliver the right message to the right audience. It’s rare to see a franchise being sold out of coincidence. In other words, you don’t normally see clients coming in to buy a franchise just because they want to.

On the contrary, franchise sales are usually a byproduct of a series of well-executed franchise marketing strategies.

However, if you don’t have a plan in place yet and you’re looking into franchising, you’re in luck! Here is a list of the five basic elements of a successful franchise marketing plan.

#1 Buyer
Persona

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal buyer in a particular market. There’s no sense in having the best franchising system in the world when you can’t market it to the right buyer. Successful franchise marketing is all about knowing who your target audience is.

Therefore, before launching ads or doing content marketing, it’s crucial that you know who you’re talking to. Understanding your buyers will mean that you can maximize the return on investment on your ads and the content you create.

RELATED ARTICLE: THE BEST WAYS TO DELIVER YOUR BRAND MESSAGE TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

To create your buyer persona, do the following:

Research

If you’re new to franchising, you may not have an existing client to talk to who can help you with your research. What you can do instead is to find your direct competitors and look at their existing clients. Use services like Similar Web to help you find out where their online traffic is coming from.

Additionally, visit their blogs and look at the people leaving them comments. Look at their profiles and learn about who they are. At this stage, get as much detail as you can.

Find
Similarities

After doing your research, find something in common from the things you’ve gathered. Doing so will help you narrow down the specifics for creating your buyer persona. Here are some details you can look into:

  • What are their ages?
  • Where do they live?
  • What is their occupation or level of
    income?
  • What are their interests?
  • What challenges do they have?

Refine

Once you’ve figured out the core qualities of your buyer persona, create separate categories for each type. For example, a male customer in his 40’s will have different financial goals when compared to male customers in their 60’s. Moreover, create names for each persona you create. Doing so will help you refine your message more easily. This will help you to create content for a specific buyer persona.

Your buyer personas will change as
you learn more things about your target market. Be sure to revisit them and
update their information when needed. Your buyer persona is the cornerstone of
your marketing plan.

#2 Branding

Most people buy a franchise because they’re familiar with the brand and feel an affinity for it. For this reason, it’s your job as a company to shape how people react and relate to your brand. For example, brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Google all have one thing in common: They all have a high brand value.

franchise marketing plan

Why Is
Branding Important to Customers?

Your brand value may be intangible. However, a strong brand will benefit from high customer awareness and credibility. Moreover, franchise buyers want to make sure that they’re putting their money in the right investment. A conscious buyer is willing to look for additional value through the following methods:

Online Research

A customer’s buying journey usually
starts online. Customers will try to research everything and anything there is
to know about your business.

Social Proof

Some customers will also look for
social evidence from customer reviews and social media profiles.

Identity

Franchise buyers will buy from companies who share their values. Without a strong brand identity
baked into your marketing plan, how will you expect people to know about you
and relate to your business?

Your branding journey starts with focusing on creating a strong brand message and logo. You also have to think about the tone of voice to use when talking to your target audience. Additionally, think about your color schemes, font types, and sizes. All of these things are important. That’s because you want every marketing material you use to be associated with your brand.

Be
Consistent with Your Branding

There’s no sense in creating a strong brand identity when you’re not strict about its usage. As a franchisor, you need to ensure consistency with all your franchises. Create strict guidelines for your franchisees to follow when they market their products across different channels.

The bottom line is to create a
strong brand identity that’s incorporated into your marketing strategy. Strong
brand identity will help set you apart from the competition.

#3 Budget

Your budget is one of the most critical elements of your marketing plan. Budget allocation will depend on your goals and your available resources. More often than not, there’s not enough budget for you to do everything. Therefore, you learn how to be more strategic. Just as when you’re handling your personal finances, a marketing budget will require you to think creatively about how to use your marketing budget.

Most franchising companies make the mistake of limiting their marketing budget to ads and promotional materials. However, a realistic marketing budget covers all aspects of your business. For example, consider the following:

Market Research

You need to conduct market research to figure out what the marketplace needs. You can’t create a product without first knowing if there’s a need for it. Therefore, allot budget for focus group discussions. Additionally, you’ll want to bench mark the competition. You’ll also need to conduct surveys and hire consultants. Finally, you’ll need to test market your franchising system.

Product Development

This includes payment for design, prototyping, and paying for other services that relate to your product. For example, if you have a food business that you plan to franchise, you need to pay for a culinary expert to optimize your recipe. Moreover, you’ll need to make it competitive against other food franchises.

Advertising

This includes your media plan to get your product out there. The cost consists of copywriting and designing. Additionally, it includes the purchase of advertising spaces for offline marketing efforts.

Public Relations

Public relations take into account how you spread awareness among your market. This includes attending trade shows and sponsoring events.

The costs of marketing aren’t always apparent. Whether doing an email marketing campaign or launching an ad on social media, your goals should be to increase brand recognition and establish a relationship with your customers.

Your marketing budget may seem significant at first, and that’s natural. As you learn what marketing strategies work for different types of audiences, you will be better able to optimize your marketing efforts. In other words, as you become more experienced, you’ll be able to create a more realistic budget.

#3 Sales
Funnel

Your success in sales depends on your numbers. In other words, the more money you spend on your franchise marketing plan, the more of your franchise you can sell. That’s because the money you spend on your franchise marketing generates leads. In turn, these leads fill out applications. Then, a portion of those customers who filled out the form will set a meeting. Finally, a percentage of those who went for a meeting will translate into your selling a franchise. This is what marketers call a sales funnel.

A sales funnel is a representation of a customer’s journey from awareness of the product to purchase. A sales funnel has one single purpose. That is, its function is to drive sales. When you’ve figured out who your target audience is, you can start targeting them and begin to guide them through your sales funnel.

4 Stages of a
Sales Funnel

Prospecting
Stage

This is also called the lead generation stage. This stage is where you identify the right customers for your franchising opportunity. When you’re looking for buyers, it’s crucial to keep an open mind and try to fill your funnel with a lot of leads. You can generate leads for franchise marketing through the following:

  • Referrals
  • Networking
  • Website opt-in data
  • Participating in trade shows and
    organizations

Your marketing team should always be generating leads for your franchise business. The more leads you have, the more chances you have of closing a sale in the future. It’s also vital for you to gauge the spending capability of your leads at this stage. You don’t want to be spending time and resources on a lead that can’t buy your franchise.

Cultivating
Stage

At this stage, you’ve already established a relationship with your lead. Now, you can consider calling them a client. This stage usually takes the longest. That’s because people want to do business with people they trust. Moreover, at this stage, they’re still undecided about whether you’re a reliable business.

What’s more, cultivating relationships is a two-way street. More than showing off what your business can provide, you have to listen to your client so you can meet their needs. Follow through on whatever you promised, whether it’s to get back to them regarding additional information or just to follow up on their decision. Doing so will help build trust and make the buying decision easier.

Positioning
Stage

The positioning stage is the part where you explicitly tell your customers what you can do and how you will do it. You’ve almost closed the sale but the customer needs a bit more push.

There are various strategies that you can employ to seal the deal. For example, you can use videos to influence their buying decision. You can send your customer a video about how your franchising system works and how you’ve spent time refining the processes. Additionally, you can include stories and testimonials of other franchisees who have succeeded with your business.

Closing

Closing is the easiest part of the funnel. There’s no extra work needed. All you have to do is seal the deal with payment. Your marketing effort has paid off at this point. You were able to find out what the customer needs. And they were able to see that doing business with you is a good fit. All that’s left to do is maintain that level of relationship between you and the franchisee.

#5 Timing

Your timing will play a significant role in your marketing efforts. Franchise businesses that don’t take into account the season of the year can optimize their marketing efforts by spending more money at specific times of the year.

For example, people aren’t usually keen on buying franchises or making any substantial investments during November and December. During this time of the year, most people aren’t focused on making life-changing decisions. That’s because, generally, people are occupied with the holiday season.

Likewise, during the summer season, people are more focused on spending more time with the family and splurging on vacations.

Therefore, the first quarter of the year is the best season to generate leads for your franchise business. For example, January is the best month to target potential franchise buyers. That’s because people are generally in a reflective state at the beginning of the year.

A franchise buying decision usually takes about 12 weeks so. Therefore, be sure to factor that in when timing your marketing efforts.

Seasonal
Franchises

Things may be a bit difficult when you have a seasonal franchise. For example, if you’re a lawn maintenance company, you’ll have to shut the business down during the winter. Moreover, perceptive franchisors will be hesitant to offer franchises during the off-season. That’s because they don’t want franchises to struggle until the market picks up. Likewise, they won’t want to offer the franchise business in the middle of the season when franchisees can get overwhelmed.

Seasonal franchisors with a successful franchise marketing plan work backward from the ideal opening time. For bigger franchises, this could mean working backward from the grand opening. They would take into account the build-out stage as well as training and the sales process.

This is of course not a hard rule. Some franchisors will still accommodate buyers during the off season as long as the franchisee is prepared for it.

Develop a Robust Franchise Marketing Plan

Every successful franchise marketing plan starts with an ideal customer in mind. Knowing who your customers are, where you can find them, and how you can relate to them is the most critical step.

Thereafter, create a brand that people can recognize no matter where they are. This builds brand recognition and generates profit for your franchises. Finally, figure out how you can guide your customers through your sales funnel while taking critical timing into consideration.

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Innovating Your Product Distribution Is As Important As Innovating Your Marketing

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Discovering a new distribution channel can do wonders for you. Imagine if you’d been one of the first apps in the Apple Store!


7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Great! You’ve just spent months (or years) figuring out a fantastic product in a new category, but now comes your next big challenge: getting that product into the hands of users who don’t yet know it exists.

Related: What’s the Best Way to Monitor Your Distribution System?

In other words, you need to innovate in the distribution process the same way you innovated in the product-development stage.

Developing a winning product and creating a viable distribution framework are more ideologically similar than you’d think. When you develop a product, you look for gaps in the market and perform experiments to solve those problems. As you do that, you build confidence in your product, because your experiments are drawing feedback from early adopters.

Creating a distribution framework is no different: With marketing, you can’t rely just on existing techniques or assume you know the right niche for your product — unless you experiment. With product distribution, you’re again testing out-of-the-box ideas to find the the very best one.

Apply the lessons learned from your marketing strategy to your distribution strategy. 

If you relied on traditional channels to market a new invention, you most likely found them expensive and ineffective. Why? Because you were competing with established products that already had your customers’ attention. “Who is the person suffering from the problem that my product addresses?” you had to ask yourself.

Hopefully, you discovered who that person was, and the pain of the problem he or she was experiencing. What was the precise point where your product became a priority for this person? How were your would-be customers finding existing solutions? At least initially, you probably avoided the marketing channels that established products already used.

Related: 5 Steps for Getting Your Product into Stores

A case study: AirBnB

One of the hosting company’s most famous growth hacks was its controversial “integration” with Craigslist. Another AirbBnB strategy that I found interesting, and applicable for any startup, was that the company looked for untapped demand: For instance, it launched during the Democratic Convention of 2008, when its founders knew that hotels would sell out and their company could capture the excess demand.

Now, how about applying these same marketing lessons to finding the right distribution solution for your own product/service? Consider these steps:

1. Determine if your product is a primary or complementary product.

In order to hone in on an appropriate distribution plan, first determine if your product is a primary or complementary solution. Is it a primary thing people want? For instance, a movie ticket fulfills someone’s desire to see a film, while a steakhouse satisfies a person’s craving for a steak. So, both the movie ticket and the steak are primary products.

Complementary products, on the other hand, are those that a customer purchases only after signing on to the primary product. Nobody goes to a movie theater just to eat popcorn and drink soda, but plenty of people buy those snacks once they’ve purchased a movie ticket. You have to think about where your product fits in, because that affects your distribution. 

Case study: Zapier

Zapier is a great example of a complementary product for the modern era. It helps connect common business apps (i.e., Dropbox, Trello, Hubspot) to one other so that information can flow automatically between them. 

Zapier further automates and simplifies your workflow with no coding required. However, initially it was challenging to market because its service focused on other companies’ apps. In response, Zapier came up with a very powerful SEO strategy to raise awareness of its product.

It created content so that when potential customers Googled for ways to integrate two apps, a page explaining how to connect the two with Zapier appeared. The company created thousands of these pages. This distribution strategy helped it reach $35 million in ARR in 2017.

2. Determine your customer triggers: When do they need your product most?

With my own SEO software company, RankSense, our main triggers are big website changes that can result in the loss of SEO traffic. These are typically website migrations and redesigns.  

We research sites that recently migrated and lost traffic, and offer them free SEO monitoring and reports that can help them recover quickly. Curious that we have pinpointed their painful problem, these sites then often reach out to learn more about our product.

3. Determine if you’re in the (nonscalable) product-validation phase or (scalable) product- distribution phase.

A mistake many businesses make is assuming that they’re ready to scale their product when they are not. If you’re in this position, determine whether you’re still validating your product or if it’s ready for massive distribution.  

During the validation phase, it is unwise to scale because your product might not be the ideal solution for your customers.

Moreover, when you’re scaling, big distribution channels will want some evidence of success before they take your product on. You have to bring value to potential partners. If it is only your company that benefits from the partnership, you’ll find it harder to build lasting distribution opportunities.

4. Pinpoint the optimal SaaS and app partnerships in your marketplace.

If you are in the SaaS business, integrating with complementary apps can be an effective distribution strategy. Take the example of Paypal. Paypal owes most of its early growth to piggybacking off of eBay. In the early days of eBay, buyers had to mail a physical check to a seller. The seller would wait for the check to clear,  then ship the item.

With this system credit card companies had difficulty dealing with fraudulent orders. Paypal was able to streamline the process for payment and find ways to minimize the risk of fraud. This led to Paypal’s growth into the household name  it is today. 

Determining which app or SaaS is most complementary to your product allows you to scale quickly. Nevertheless, SaaS partnering in app distribution must solve real problems in order for it to work.

LeadsBridge is a SaaS startup that takes this tactic to the extreme with great success. LeadsBridge transfers leads from Facebook campaigns to hundreds of content-management systems. It even offers to build new custom integrations for free.

5. Nail the timing of distribution.

Timing is critical for distribution. Being among the first to discover a new distribution channel can improve your scalability. For instance, consider the value you would have realized had you been one of the first apps in the Apple Store after the iPhone came out: You would have been on the cutting edge of a new distribution channel!

For a more recent example, take Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a content delivery network which powers more than 12 million sites, speeding them up and making them more secure.

Cloudflare includes built-in apps to protect you from malicious attacks. The company recently announced an app marketplace that opens the doors to a new generation of third-party business apps that can add complementary value to the millions of domains in the platform. This provides an opportunity for third-party companies to get in on the ground floor and “piggyback” on Cloudflare’s distribution.

Related: Would a Promotional Product Be Effective at Helping You Market Your Startup?

With your own company, don’t assume that a distribution channel that worked in the past or worked for another company will be the best one for your product. You need to investigate and you especially need to innovate, to seize upon the optimal timing — and run with it.



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How to Integrate Chatbots Into Your Conversion Strategy

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Adding a chatbot to your website to guide shoppers through the buyer’s journey is actually not difficult.


6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Have you landed on a website lately and been greeted by a little box popping up in the corner to say “Hello”? You probably have because that’s a chatbot — and they’re everywhere.

Related: 4 Uses for a Chatbot That Will Transform Your Business

Maybe you’ve never interacted with a chatbot before and don’t exactly understand the need for them. But the truth is that that helpful little box isn’t there only to welcome you to a website, it can actually be used to improve your customer experience and increase conversions.  

Increase conversions? Maybe that makes your ears perk up! Suddenly you’re interested in this chatbot trend.

And the good news is that adding a chatbot to your website that can communicate with and guide shoppers through the buyer’s journey in a personable, human-like way isn’t difficult, What’s more, there are a number of tools available that make it incredibly easy: You just plug in some information about your company and your customers, and your chatbot is all set to skyrocket your conversions.

If you’re ready to start making sales day and night, here are the leading ways to integrate chatbots into your conversion strategy.

Improve customer service.

Even if you don’t implement chatbots for any other reason, you need to implement them for customer service. Consumers these days are used to instant gratification; with the advanced technology that’s available to them 24/7, they’re accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it.

So, your customer service needs to be available  at all times. Furthermore, according to research in the Harvard Business Review, people are willing to pay higher prices for faster customer service. In the study, customers who received customer service in five minutes or less were willing to pay almost $20 more for the same service.,

To underestand this motivation, imagine this scenario: Consumers interested in your software product, for example, typically have many questions about the product before being ready to buy.

They might want to know if your software is the right solution for their business, if it has certain features, if it will work with the current software they’re using, etc. With a chatbot, consumers can get all those questions answered immediately, eliminating their hesitations regarding taking the plunge and making a purchase.

And that’s the advantage: Customer-service chatbots aren’t just for keeping your current customers happy; they can be used to boost your conversions too.

Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business

Give product recommendations.

Instead of having users search through your online store trying to find the perfect item, you can bring those coveted items straight to them, using chatbots. Bots can speak to customers to find out exactly what they’re looking for and provide them with options that meet their needs; it’s like giving them their very own personal shopper.

As the example below from MVMT illustrates, a user can tell the chatbot that he or she is looking for a men’s watch and can even provide the style preferred, like a leather band. The chatbot will then curate the best products, along with a link to purchase. The company doesn’t have to stop there either; it can also easily upsell and cross-sell items with a chatbot.

Chatbot example

Image credit: Shopify

Using chatbots to give product recommendations is like placing your hottest products in the hands of online shoppers and virtually walking them to the checkout.

Qualify leads.

Since some of your site visitors may not be the right fit for your product or services, especially in B2B industries, you need to qualify your leads in order to determine if you should be spending your valuable time trying to convert them, or if you should move on to a visitor who’s more likely to buy. Luckily, you can use chatbots to qualify leads for you.

Chatbots can be set up to automatically interact with visitors to your site, welcome those visitors,  then ask them lead-qualifying questions that you’ve pre-determined, such as:

  • What brought you to our website today/What problems are you looking to solve?

  • What is your budget for this project?

  • Who is the decision-maker at your company?

  • What other solutions are you evaluating?

Having your chatbot qualify leads for you will weed out those visitors who aren’t worth your time, so you can focus on the ones who do. You’ll also have gotten all the information you need to help you make the sale.

Engage users on social media.

What if users didn’t even have to visit your website to make a purchase? That’s a reality with chatbots.

A lot of people prefer to interact on social media — they’re already there most of the day anyway and might not want to take the extra step of finding their way over to your website. In fact, according to studies from Michigan State University featured by the American Marketing Association, chatbots provide a better mobile experience for users.

In the MSU experiment, only 35 percent of respondents completed a web-based survey on their smartphones, while 76 percent completed the same survey via a Facebook messenger chatbot. This indicates that you can capture more customers on social media using chatbots.

Many companies are already taking advantage: For instance, Domino’s Pizza launched its own Facebook Messenger chatbot whereby customers can order a pizza straight from the social media platform:

Domino’s Facebook Messenger

Image credit: IPG Media Lab 

With chatbots, you can add an even more convenient way for consumers to make a purchase from your business. Users can bust out their credit cards and place an order right from their favorite social media app.

Over to you

Welcome to the new world of online shopping. There’s no need to miss out on sales during after-hours because your chatbot can convert shoppers into customers any day, any time, and guide visitors from their initial interaction or welcome all the way through becoming a repeat, loyal customer.

Related: The Definitive Guide to Chatbots: These Bots Are Here to Serve.

So, clearly, integrating chatbots into you conversion strategy is something to consider very, very carefully.

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