Archives for November 2021

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These days, temporary buildings are becoming more common. People are looking to construct more sustainable buildings at a cheaper cost. Besides, temporary structures have plenty of benefits over brick-and-mortar buildings.

However, if you’re planning to set up a temporary structure, you need to ensure that you get your planning permission approved first. Many people skip over the necessary planning and construction protocols. However, this can have some dire consequences.

In this guide, we talk about the benefits of temporary structures. We also share some handy tips on how to go about applying for planning permission.

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Benefits of Temporary Buildings

Temporary structures cost less than brick buildings. This is largely because most of the materials used for setting up temporary buildings are prefabricated. As such, the time required to construct the building from the ground up is shorter. In addition, if you’re setting up a temporary building using industrial tents, you don’t need to prep the surface.

Another benefit of temporary buildings is that they are portable. Steel beams support the structure. These are bolted to each other to form the skeleton of the building. As such, when you need to move the building to a new location, you only have to dismantle it and carry the materials to the new site.

Temporary structures from Smart-Space also have plenty of floor space and headroom. The buildings do not have support beams running through the center of the structure. The owner can therefore more easily use the structure as a warehouse or garage. They can also expand the floor space if the need arises.

Most temporary buildings are fitted with a clear roof manufactured from high-quality PVC material. The roof is capable of withstanding rough weather conditions. It also allows plenty of natural light into the building, meaning that the owners save a lot on energy expenses.

The doors and windows also fit tightly. This prevents heat loss during the cold seasons. Additionally, you can have insulation material added to the walls. This can be very important, especially if the building will be used for residential purposes.

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Applying for Planning Permission for a Temporary Building

Temporary structures can be customized as per the user’s needs. The structures can be used as indoor arenas, classrooms, warehouses, or even greenhouses. Semi-permanent structures are the ideal option, especially if you’re planning to set up a building fairly quickly.

If you’re planning to use the building for more than a month, however, you will need to apply for planning permission. If the building has a floor space of more than 100 square meters, you will also need planning permission. This is the case even if you will be using it for less than a month.

It is always advisable to obtain your planning permission a couple of weeks before you purchase the materials for constructing your temporary structure. In most cases, the planning permission can take an average of ten weeks before it is approved. This can be quite a hindrance, especially if you require the structure on short notice.

Temporary structures have plenty of advantages. Nowadays, most businesses are using temporary structures as warehouses and office spaces. Property developers are also developing temporary buildings for use as residential houses.

You need to ensure that you get your planning permission approved before setting up the structure. People often skip over this process. However, as mentioned earlier, this can have some dire consequences.

Procedure for Making Your Application

As mentioned earlier, you need to make your application before buying the temporary building. A planning permission can in some cases take up to three months before approval. However, this shouldn’t discourage you from making the application.

The long approval times are always a hindrance, especially if the owner requires the structure urgently. However, according to construction consultants, you can apply for a planning permission while the construction of the structure is ongoing. Nonetheless, you will need to show proof of why you require the temporary building urgently.

Most local authorities will approve planning permissions in a shorter time than normal if you can prove why you need the building urgently. As such, you can always consult on some of the causes that can be considered as emergency requests.

Construction consultants can help you apply for planning permissions. They will ensure that you have all of the documents ready and in order. They will also make follow ups on your behalf to make sure that the approval process is sped up. If your planning permission is denied, the construction consultants will make a follow-up and help you in the reapplication process.

Planning permission applications are vital before you begin any construction project. Failing to get the planning permission approved can result in fines. The local authority can also force you to demolish your temporary building until you have obtained approval for the planning permission.

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If you want to retain more customers, provide the best experience by using online appointment scheduling.

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Long lines in your store often indicate that your brand is in demand. When this is the case, your business can earn higher profits in a shorter period. However, from a customer’s perspective, long queues can be frustrating. This can become the reason why they might cancel their appointments, purchase products and services from your competitors, and speak negatively about your business.

If you want to retain more customers, provide the best experience by using online appointment scheduling. This tool is a godsend for businesses as it expedites and improves the scheduling process, allowing you to accommodate more people and use fewer resources.

Here are seven business benefits of using online appointment scheduling:

1. Online Appointment Scheduling Is a Straightforward Process

The traditional way of making appointments is time-consuming and requires a lot of resources. Normally, a customer will call your business and inquire if there are any vacant slots. If you have an appointment time available that’s convenient for them, they will book an appointment. This process requires the company to hire additional staff, resulting in more expenses.

Making appointments traditionally also increases the risk of miscommunication and errors in the process. Listing customers’ information by hand is daunting. Employees need to exert a lot of effort to contact them again if they need to follow up or discuss additional details.

But online appointment scheduling is a straightforward process. With this tool, customers can book an appointment by themselves online. They can choose their preferred service, branch, and staff. Nearing the appointment date, customers will receive a reminder through email or text.

2. It Will Save Your Staff Time and Increase Their Productivity

Hiring the best talents in the industry won’t do any good for your business if they must take calls and list appointments. These tasks are mundane. They can even prevent your best talents from showcasing their skills.

Using online appointment scheduling can save your employees a lot of time. Since online appointment booking is automated, you don’t need to assign any employees to take calls and accommodate bookings. This will allow them to contribute to bigger, more important projects necessary to the business’s growth.

If you’re running a barbershop, for example, simply inform your target audience that you have barbershop software with online appointment scheduling features. In this way, your customers can easily book an appointment without relying on any of your staff.

3. It’s an “Always On” Service

Most businesses use telephones to accommodate bookings. Although this is a cheaper option for the business, telephones aren’t always convenient for customers because many have difficulty making appointments by phone during office hours.

By using online scheduling, your business can accommodate bookings 24/7. This means that regardless of how busy your customers are during the day, there are still available platforms where they can book your services. Over time, this can result in more customers and better branding.

4. Online Appointment Scheduling Will Help You Grow and Increase Revenue

The lifespan of your business depends on the amount of revenue you earn for a certain period. If you’re spending more money than you earn, you might end up having to close your business mere months after opening it.

Being able to earn more revenue is another benefit you can get when you use online appointment scheduling for your business. In fact, this tool can significantly increase the financial health of your business in a variety of ways. For example:

• Since you can now accommodate bookings around the clock every day, you’ll eventually earn more profits. Around-the-clock booking means more customers, resulting in more profits.
• Online appointment scheduling will also help your business make more money. This is because your best employees will become more productive. They won’t have to take on a routine of answering calls, listing customers’ information, and booking appointments.
• This tool can also come with an online pay feature where customers can pay online right after they book an appointment. Depending on your business policies, you can even automatically charge customers for no-shows or late cancellations.

5. Online Appointment Scheduling Fosters Healthy Relationships with Customers

In today’s business arena, it’s not enough to convince customers to patronize your products and services only one time. For your business to succeed in the industry, you need to foster healthy relationships with them. This will open the opportunity for your business to generate customer loyalty for your brand.

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Using online appointment scheduling is a great way to foster healthy relationships with your customers. This might seem counterintuitive, but this tool can actually provide a better experience to your customers, making it easier for them to trust your brand.

With online appointment scheduling, customers can book within minutes and access the list of your services on various devices. If you offer next-day or same-day appointments, online appointment scheduling will allow clients to book a session once their schedule opens up.

The ability of online appointment scheduling to provide accessibility and convenience to customers will surely help you win their trust and loyalty.

6. You Can Learn More About Your Customers

Using online appointment scheduling can help you to learn more about your customers. Before a customer can book an appointment, they need to submit some of their information online. For example, they will need to provide their full name, email address, and contact number. You might even require them to indicate their gender, marital status, and employment details.

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When you know your customers’ demographics, it will be easier for your business to develop products and services appealing to them. Having access to your customers’ contact information can also help with your marketing strategies.

Are you offering discounts on weekdays? Send an SMS informing your customers about these new deals. Is your business about to launch a newsletter? Invite your customers to subscribe by sending them an email.

7. It Reduces No-Shows and Cancellations

Customers who repeatedly cancel their appointments or decide to be a no-show can hurt your business in many ways. When a customer books an appointment, you won’t receive any walk-ins for that time slot. So when a customer decides to cancel at the last minute, you’ll lose the opportunity to earn money during that time.

The number of no-shows and cancellations can decrease when you use online appointment scheduling. As mentioned, this tool will send reminders to customers days before their appointments to ensure they won’t forget.

Online appointment scheduling also allows customers to reschedule their reservations on their own instead of doing everything over the phone. This can reduce no-shows and cancellations. This is because customers can still proceed with their appointments even if something urgent comes up.

Use the Best Online Appointment Scheduling for Your Business

Customers are the lifeblood of your business, which is why it’s important to keep them happy. Online appointment scheduling can help you achieve this goal and produce satisfied customers. This in turn brings a plethora of benefits to your business.

Featured image by Didecs

Picture this. Your salon business is fully booked most of the time. You’ve got an array of amazing reviews from loyal customers. And you’re running out of room for new hires in your current salon space.

It’s a dream situation many salon owners would love to find themselves in. And once they get there, most salon owners don’t have a clue about what their next step should be.

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Scaling your business is not easy. It requires careful planning and keen commercial instincts. If you scale too quickly, you risk not being able to cover your overheads. But if you don’t scale quickly enough, you risk not being able to take advantage of your position. In this blog, we look at six ways you can grow your salon business for success.

1.   Add Additional Services to Your Menu

Perhaps the simplest way to grow your salon business is to add extra services to your menu. This could mean expanding into trending treatments or offering more color services. You could also widen the selection beyond hair treatments and look into spa, skincare, and beauty treatments. Ask your customers what they want to see on your treatment menu if you need some insight.

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2.   Grow Your Team

Adding more faces to your team is a great way to increase your capacity. For example, hiring up-and-coming stylists and offering them training is a great way to ensure they develop a style that fits perfectly with your salon aesthetic.

You could also offer more experienced stylists, as they will likely bring their roster of clients with them. Remember there is a big difference between renting a chair to an independent contractor and hiring an employee. Although your customers won’t know the difference; it only affects the profit potential of your salon business.

3.   Open a Second Site

5.   Sell Your Own Products

Nexo, a blockchain environment for crypto lending, has gained popularity in recent years. But how good are its services, and can you trust it? Find the answers in our review.

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What Is Nexo?

Advantages of Nexo Loans

Easy Accessibility

As Nexo does not perform credit checks, anyone who registers an account and deposits collateral with Nexo may access the loans. However, borrowing fiat requires basic and advanced verification.

Caveats

Is Nexo Safe?

Featured image by Bangkok Click Studio

Are you ready to make your small business stand out from the crowd? Specialized stickers that you print in house will do the trick!

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Maybe your home-based business started slowly over time. Perhaps you just knew you enjoyed making quilts, for instance, or painting with oils, creating sheets of fun stickers for kids, or making jewelry. At first, you crafted these handmade items only one or two at a time. You gave them to friends or just made them for your own family and your own home.

You Were Doing What You Love…

But then, friends began to request your handiwork to use as gifts for their friends and family members. They offered to pay you, but you always exclaimed, “Oh no! I make these because I enjoy making them.”

And so, you kept giving them away, week after week, month after month, until you finally decided to accept payment. But that was only because the cost of materials gave you a regular jolt of sticker shock.

Before long, though, demand began to exceed your wildest expectations. Requests soon came in from well beyond your small circle of family and friends. Then, and only then, did you decide to make your crafting and artistic skills the basis for your new home-based business.

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…And It Became a Small Business

As your dream took form, you dove head first into learning how to set a business up. You talked with an attorney about the legal aspects of setting up a company. You discussed the ins and outs of small business finances with an accountant.

Next you looked around online and in your local community and realized the world was your oyster! There were opportunities galore. There were online forums where other small-business owners shared their expertise. And there were other resources aplenty.

Best of all, you found platforms such as Etsy where you could set up a profile. At last, you could showcase your stickers for kiddos, your paintings, or your handmade sweaters, of which you had a full storeroom by now.

So now, it’s full steam ahead. Your business is rocking along at nearly breakneck speed. You’ve purchased most of the equipment you need to smooth out the workflow. What’s more, you’re even looking at whether you could afford to hire someone else to help you with the workload.

But the Sticky Business of Creating Stickers and Such Got out of Control

But you’re still doing almost everything by hand, by yourself. And this is where the business of a small business gets tedious. Wrapping packages for shipping and filling out address stickers by hand can take hours. The process is teaching you, in a very real way, that time truly is money.

You need solutions, and you need them now.

Solutions Are at Hand

Well, here’s one: With a Munbyn thermal label printer, sticker labels, and shipping labels, you will be able to print the labels you so sorely need every day. Additionally, you can also print some colorful stickers to delight your customers and promote your business.

Munbyn’s thermal label printers come in white, pink, green, or gray to match your branding or coordinate with your office décor. You’ll find a range of accessories for your business’s printing needs at the Munbyn site, too, including stickers and labels for mailing.

Now You Can Print Some Holiday Stickers to Promote Your Small Business

So whether you need a thermal printer and some shipping labels or you’re ready to promote your small business with some cheerful stickers for the holiday season, check out the Munbyn site. You’ll find solutions there that will take your small business far beyond your current goals.

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About the Author

Carrol Strain is a Top Rated Premium copywriter on Upwork. She is also an editor and on-call writer for the Business Opportunities blog.

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When you’re starting your first small business as an entrepreneur, a crucial aspect of success is identifying the market demographic for your niche. And the more specific you can be, the better.

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Starting a small business is one of the toughest periods in an entrepreneur’s career. Not only are margins for revenue razor-thin in the first five years, but a healthy open market also means there’s plenty of competition in most sectors, down to the most niche interests.

Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for success and innovation. Whether providing a service like dog grooming or a product like a food delivery app, one crucial aspect of success is identifying a market demographic. And the more specific you can be, the better.

Businesses need to cater to their specific demographic on all levels. Moreover, understanding their ideal consumers will also help a business build its own goals in relation to market data. In other words, success will be closely related to what’s possible in a specific market.

This information is standard knowledge to most new start-ups, but the devil is in the details. Here are five key benefits from nailing down a granular demographic from the very first days of registering a business.

1. Understanding Your Demographic Allows for Granular Marketing

As mentioned above, getting “granular” with market demographic details will paint a fuller picture for a business. Not only does it help a company identify the characteristics, expectations, and needs of a target group, but it will also inform other elements such as communication and marketing strategies. The more specific you can be, the clearer your goals.

For example, sportsbooks face a hyper-competitive market where attracting newcomers is the name of the game. One Michigan free bets page highlights the diversity of options for newcomers, as well as the challenges for sportsbooks. Each company will use the information on their granular target demographic to advertise deals that are specifically right for them.

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2. Know Your Target Audience and You Can Tailor the Customer’s Experience

As dictated above, nailing down a target audience at the granular level (even within a specific sector, such as sports betting) will help a company stand out from competitors. Successful companies will do this at every single level, tailoring their customer experience to their target audience.

For example, a cleaning company that uses eco-friendly ingredients will use branding techniques to make its website attractive to a specific demographic. They’ll use specific language in their mission statement. They will also highlight eco-friendly manufacturing methods and even provide blog content to cater to the interests and needs of their perfect consumer.

3. Awareness About Your Market Demographic Lets You Set a Realistic Budget

This concept is very straightforward. In identifying a specific target demographic, start-ups can set up realistic financial expectations. Today, it’s easy to get reliable market research from any economic sector. Businesses that have nailed down their ideal customer can access financial information which will help them gauge their own success, failures, and margins for expansion in terms of revenue, losses, and growth.

4. Learn About Your Audience and You’ll Simplify Innovation

In many cases, it’s easier for a company to innovate when working with a target demographic. In other words, by working to serve a smaller group of people, a business will learn key information about their sector along the way. Savvy business owners will eventually see areas where they’d be able to make improvements.

For example, though Amazon is now a multi-billion-dollar business, it began as an online bookstore. The company’s early niche work turned out to be popular. This led Amazon to open its Kindle Store, which led to a boom in eBooks in the late 2000s. By focusing on a certain demographic, Amazon was able to innovate according to consumer interest.

5. You Can More Effectively Plan for Expansion When You Know Your Market Demographic

A business can only meet the expectations of consumers by delivering on a specific need in a timely and satisfactory manner. Still, as demonstrated in the examples above, a business’s true goal is to innovate within a specific industry.

Sportsbooks leverage welcome deals to stand out. Meanwhile, a cleaning product will use branding to hook newcomers. Amazon, on the other hand, helped popularize a whole new way to experience their products. Clearly, innovation is a requisite for expansion. And having a solid grasp of the target demographic is the only way a company can create something truly new and exciting for consumers.

Do you want to learn more about how to promote your small business? Bookmark our blog and stay up-to-date with the latest trends in marketing.

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In today’s world, social media is not just a tool meant for leisure and entertainment. It’s also, in fact, an integral part of running a successful business and measuring your business’s performance metrics. It has become a vital marketing tool that raises brand awareness, generates interest, and as such helps increase sales and revenue for a business. 

To harness its power and potential, you need to build a solid social media strategy aligned with your business goals. However, this is not where you should stop. You need to track your social media efforts and see whether they are translating into business success. How you do this is by using specific key performance indicators or social media metrics. 

This article will talk about important metrics to monitor the ROI and performance of your social media campaigns. 

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Audience Growth Rate 

The audience growth rate is a metric to measure the change in the number of followers your brand has on different social media platforms. If you are devising and measuring the success of your social media strategy, this will be a crucial indicator in understanding the rate of increase or decrease in following at the end of a campaign cycle. 

Your aim should always be to keep increasing your follower count. Although this is not an easy task, there are solutions available to increase these metrics. For example, if your Instagram growth is stagnant, you can use Instagram growth tools, such as Kicksta or any of its alternatives, to boost the number of your followers. 

Engagement 

Once you have established a healthy follower count for your business, you need to measure your content’s engagement metrics. The engagement rate measures how your audience is interacting with the content on your social media accounts and how effective it is. Typically engagement occurs via likes, comments, shares, retweets, replies, favorites, and more. 

As a brand, you can measure a total sum of such interactions. You can also have more than one type of metric that is measuring engagement. A high level of engagement is positive for your brand. Even if you have a large number of followers and a high reach, if they are not stopping to interact with your posts, the content is not effective enough to stop a user from scrolling and tapping the like or share button. This should serve as a sign that you need to rethink your branding and content. 

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Post Reach and Impressions 

Is the goal of your strategy is to increase perception and brand awareness? Then, post reach and impressions are important metrics to track. Post impression refers to the number of times your content appears on your audience’s screens. Post reach means the number of unique views that your content receives. Both are important to understand whether you are reaching the right number of audiences. They also both assess if you are posting at an optimal time of the day. 

Also, it can help you check whether or not you are using the right keywords and hashtags to increase reach. These should be used in combination with engagement metrics to get the whole picture.

For example, if a post has achieved a high engagement rate along with a high reach number, this means that it is performing exceptionally well. However, if a post has a high impression count but low engagement number or rate, it means that while the post reached your desired audience, it was not effective enough in getting them to interact. 

Brand Mentions 

Brand mentions are powerful social media metrics to assess how well your business is doing in terms of creating buzz, brand awareness, and gauging the sentiment around it. If you are being mentioned positively on social media with tags, mentions, and comments, you will know that the brand is doing well and the campaigns are generating a lot of buzz. 

As more and more people talk positively of your brand, this will also serve as referrals for new users to take notice and engage with your channels. On the other hand, you can also use this metric to discover negative sentiments. For example, you can identify negative reviews and experiences and use that as a catalyst for improvement. Measuring brand mentions as a metric can be done by using a hashtag analytics tool or a social media listening tool. 

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Conclusion 

Social media is an optimal platform to leverage when it comes to promoting your business. However, only if you utilize its full potential. Having the right strategy is essential, but it is equally and more important to measure the outcomes. 

There are many key metrics available, including the ones we have listed to help you understand whether or not your social media posts and campaigns are performing as per your business goals.

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