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It’s not all stress and hassle.
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7 Ways A Cloud Based Virtual Assistant Will Make You a Better Entrepreneur – Small Business Trends
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Did you know that more than half of Americans want their own personal AI assistant, and why not? Having a cloud-based virtual assistant to hand your tasks off to is like a dream; your own guy or girl Friday that can handle everything from scheduling to research, project management, and even sales.
Happily, with the rise of cloud based virtual assistants, this dream is coming true. And, for entrepreneurs, there are many benefits to using one.
What is a Cloud Based Virtual Assistant?
Before we jump into the benefits however, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page as to what a cloud based virtual assistant is.
A cloud based virtual assistant is an app that understands “natural” language text or voice commands and can complete tasks on your behalf. In other words, you can talk to the app using real, everyday words. In addition, the app can live online or on a device like your smartphone.
What we’re not talking about here is a human virtual assistant. While those folks can provide many benefits of their own, they’re not part of this conversation.
Whether online or on a device, one critical feature of a cloud based virtual assistant is its ability to connect to multiple systems and sources of data. For this reason, they are “cloud-based” because they can reach into the cloud to access what they need. As you’ll see below, this is how they get work done for you.
Cloud Based Virtual Assistant Benefits
Cloud based virtual assistants help you be a better entrepreneur by taking on the tasks that can fill your time so you can focus on higher-value work like delighting your customers and finding more of them.
Here’s a look at some of the ways you can use a virtual assistant.
Onboarding Sales Leads
You can waste a lot of time with tire-kickers, folks who download your sales materials but aren’t really interested in buying anything.
Tools like Conversica help you discover your most promising sales leads by starting a conversation that eventually leads to contact with a human. Once you’ve got them on the phone, the business is yours to win.
Meeting Scheduler
One of the most time-consuming tasks is setting up a meeting. You send the invite, they say they can’t make it and off you go with that lovely game we call “let’s see if we can find a time and place to meet in under 10 emails.”
Wouldn’t it be great to hand off that whole process to someone else? Well, thanks to the rise of virtual assistants like x.ai, you can. This tool handles all the back and forth to set up meetings and all you have to do is provide some basic input at the beginning.
Now you can spend more time actually meeting rather than trying to set the meeting up.
Meeting Facilitator
Once your meeting is set up, a virtual assistant can help you make the most of your time together. This technology is still evolving, but we get an interesting peek into the future of virtual meeting assistants in the infographic below from Cisco; a future that is starting to arrive today. The future looks pretty sweet from here.
Project Management Assistant
Project management is a key element of a well run business. Using project management helps assure that work gets done and delivered on time and as promised.
However, finding out what’s going on at any one moment can mean a lot of time spent running down updates and statuses.
Now you can get around that problem by using a virtual assistant like the one created by integrating Redbooth and Cisco Spark. This “virtual project management assistant” can run down questions like, “Where’s everyone with their tasks,” “How much time is left before this part of the project is done?”, and “How many hours should I bill my client this month?”
It’s nice to be able to spend your time working in your business rather than on your business, right?
On-Demand Info
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to get critical information on the fly just by asking a question? That’s exactly what Dickey’s Barbecue is starting to roll-out to their chain of franchise restaurants.
Laura Rea Dickey, CEO of the Dallas-based company, says franchisees can use an Amazon Echo to ask Alexa for “up-to-date data on daily sales, inventory levels, scheduled deliveries by suppliers, customer ratings, and even optimal smoking times.” And that’s all without leaving the kitchen.
Outside of the work area, folks can still access visual data as well.
Personal Assistant
Aside from scheduling, cloud based virtual assistants can make it feel like secretaries have come back in style. Some examples include:
- Providing reminders so you never miss a meeting,.
- Adding items to your to-do list,
- Reading your email to you and even replying,
- Making conference calls for you so you don’t have to remember to bring the number,
- Finding flights, lodging and restaurants for you locally or when you travel,
- Finding out the weather forecast and reporting news you’re interested in hearing.
Housekeeper
After a hard day at work, wouldn’t it be nice to come back to a comfortable home? Using cloud based connections with smart devices, a virtual assistant can make sure that the lights are on, soothing music is playing and the temperature is just right.
A well-rested and relaxed entrepreneur is an effective entrepreneur and a cloud based virtual assistant can help you enjoy your time out of the office.
Additional Resources
The links below lead to handy posts that can help you learn more and get started with a cloud based personal assistant today.
For more on how to offer AI virtual assistance as part of a larger cloud based business service, contact Meylah today.
Photo via Shutterstock
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7 Strategies You Can Use to Improve Your Memory
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In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Brian Tracy breaks down seven simple techniques you can use to improve your memory. Whether you just want to make sure you nail your next presentation or need to have a long-term system, these techniques can help you have the most important information in your hip pocket when you need it most.
All of the techniques Tracy cites to improve memory are fairly simple, but many of them require dedication in order to be effective.
For example, Tracy’s first piece of advice on how to improve your memory is to over-learn the material. If you are overprepared, then even if you forget tangential points, you will have such a firm grasp on the fundamentals that you won’t need to worry about remembering.
You can also revise your study techniques by finding ways to make the information meaningful. If it applies to you or your current circumstances, you will be more motivated to learn the material. You can also recite the material, or develop a study system that works for you. You can even start using four-color pens, and assign a specific meaning to each color. Or, if you really want to improve your memory, you could use all of these ideas together.
Click play to learn more.
Related: 6 Reasons You Might Actually Be Afraid of Success
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2 New Tools from Vimeo Help Businesses Share Content with More Viewers – Small Business Trends
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Two new distribution tools for social media from Vimeo will help creators streamline their workflow so they can be more efficient and reach a wider audience.
New Vimeo Social Distribution Features
Simulcast and Publish to Social bring other online channels into the Vimeo platform so creators can deliver their content without additional tools and compatibility issues. This seamless integration gives creators on Vimeo access to hundreds of millions of users on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and Periscope.
For small businesses and creators on Vimeo, the access to more channels means using a single platform from creation to distribution. And when it comes to marketing, it will also be just as effective because of the access it offers for two of the biggest video consuming platforms, YouTube and Facebook.
Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo, explained the benefits of having a distribution system in a press release. He said, “As ad-supported platforms become increasingly walled off to keep content on their sites, we are building new ways to be an agnostic distribution hub, so creators don’t have to choose. Our new social distribution tools will give Vimeo creators a wider audience, deeper engagement and a fundamentally simplified distribution process.”
Simulcast
With Simulcast, you can start streaming live events from Vimeo on sites enabled with Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP). This includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Periscope and others. The simulcast can be streamed to multiple destinations from your website to the social pages of your audience.
One of the benefits of using a single input stream is you won’t have to use separate streams for each destination, which will save you bandwidth costs. This process and the automated archiving on Vimeo simplifies your workflow so you can manage, review and share post-event videos.
Publish to Social
As the name implies, creators can now publish their videos natively to social platforms directly from Vimeo. And the entire distribution process takes place in a single location and with just one click. This means not having to upload your video to each social media channel one at a time.
In addition to the new level of efficiency, the videos will be loaded natively to each platform. This is important because some companies favor native uploads. Once it is uploaded, you can see comparison stats for each platform with plays, likes, and comments metrics for tracking the performance of your videos.
Workflow Efficiency
As the digital presence of your small business continues to increase, you have to streamline your workflow for managing your content. The new features from Vimeo make this possible by delivering a one-stop video creation, distribution and management platform.
You can try the new features now.
Images: Vimeo
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Is Work-Life Balance Even Possible? (Infographic)
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With email, social media and today’s technology, it can be hard to separate life inside and outside the office. Sometimes it even feels like achieving work-life balance isn’t even possible, especially if you’re working upwards of 50 hours a week.
Related: 5 Secrets to Achieving and Maintaining Work-Life Balance
A recent study by Family Living Today and Now Sourcing uncovered surprising stats about work-life balance across the country. Right now, the United States ranks 30th out of 38 countries who have positive work-life balance. Maybe that’s because, according to the research, more than 11 percent of American workers say they work 50 or more hours a week. In fact, many people (33 percent) even find themselves working weekends or holidays too.
Related: How the Side Hustler Life Is Redefining ‘Work-Life’ Balance
While work is extremely important, so are other things, such as getting enough sleep, taking care of yourself, eating and spending time with friends and family. So, how much time do Americans spend on activities outside of the office? On average, people spend nine and a half hours a day on “personal care” and that includes everything from sleep to showering. After work and personal care, that leaves few hours in the day for people to get other things done such as eating and drinking (1.17 hours a day), caring for family members (0.52 hours) and doing even more work (3.61 hours).
Related: Adopt These 12 Habits for a Better Work-Life Balance
Some of the biggest factors impacting work-life balance are bad and overbearing bosses, too much work, inflexible schedules, bad co-workers and long commutes. Unfortunately, if people don’t get a handle on some of these things, they could be setting themselves up for challenges in the future. In the long-term, work-life imbalance can lead to higher stress levels, higher risks of heart disease and depression and anxiety.
To learn more about work-life balance, check out the infographic below.
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55 Must-Know SEO Tricks for Business Websites (Infographic)
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For any business, it’s more important than ever to have an online presence — and that goes beyond just having a website. In order to get your company out there and traffic to your website, you’ve got to have some stellar SEO practices in place.
Related: These 9 SEO Tips Are All You’ll Ever Need to Rank in Google
While the idea might sound daunting, it’s easier than you think. But first, do some research and know exactly what’s in store when it comes to search engine optimization. According to recent research from graphic design firm Milkwhale, Google is likely your best bet when choosing which search engine to focus on. Google accounts for 81 percent of desktop search traffic worldwide, getting an average 57,000 clicks per second, 100 billion searches a month and 2 trillion searches per year. That’s a lot of opportunity.
Related: SEO Tutorial: 12 Immutable Laws For Dominating Google’s Search
Great SEO practices are incredibly important to your business because according to recent research, 89 percent of customers start their buying processes through a search engine, with as little as 20 percent actually scrolling down the search results page. That means you want your website to populate as high on the search results as possible.
SEO is not only good for getting traffic to your website, but you’ll likely get more customers into your doors and more followers on your social media accounts. Nearly three-quarters of consumers who do a local search online end up actually visiting the store if it’s within five miles of them. And when it comes to social media, sites such as Facebook help lead customers to your pages. Facebook produced 61 percent of all website visits from social sites in 2016, so it’s no wonder a majority of businesses incorporate social media in their SEO strategies.
Related: How to Pick Your First SEO Keywords
For more, check out the infographic below.
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Amazon Considering New Shipping Service, New Payment Features Announced – Small Business Trends
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Amazon has already gained popularity with small businesses as a platform for selling goods to online shoppers. But the ecommerce giant is also now reportedly testing its own shipping service that could benefit third party sellers.
In addition, a couple of new payment and billing services from Xero and SoverPay could impact the way small businesses get paid. Read about these updates and more in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
Small Business Operations
New Amazon Shipping Service Could Benefit Third-Party Sellers
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is considering a shipping service of its own. Why? Last year alone, Amazon spent $21.7 billion shipping products sold on its site to its customers. Many of those customers weren’t charged. According to several reports, Amazon is going to be rolling out Shipping with Amazon in Los Angeles.
Xero Adds Stripe ACH Bank Transfer Payments to Benefit Small Business Customers
An online accounting software firm is providing a new payment gateway to small businesses that can get them paid up to 10 days faster with smaller transaction fees. As part of the next phase of its partnership with Stripe, an online payment software company, Xero (NZE:XRO) customers will be able to accept Automated Clearing House (ACH) bank transfers.
Small Businesses Lose 500 Hours a Year Managing Freight Shipments
Managing freight shipments tends to be an afterthought for a lot of businesses that import and export goods. But the inefficiencies in this sector can lead to a lot of wasted time for small businesses. A recent survey from logistics company Freightos found that small businesses spend about 500 hours annually managing freight shipments.
SoverPay Claims to Simplify Billing Thus Getting Contractors Paid Faster
More than 70 percent of self-employed individuals have difficulty getting paid. Needless to say, invoices being paid late can have crippling effects on small businesses. SoverPay is a new online platform that aims to overcome the issue of delayed payments.
Economy
79% of Service Companies Say Competition Is Heating Up
The second annual Mavenlink State of the Services Economy report for 2018 finds almost 4 in 5 or 79 percent of service companies are facing increased competition. This rivalry is coming from new entrants who are pushing established businesses to work much harder to find new customers and keep existing ones.
Employment
Small Business Demand for Restaurant Food Workers Up 355% Over 2014
The food and hospitality industries are feeling the effects of the economic good times in the U.S. And many of the companies in these areas are small businesses. According to Indeed.com, there’s been a sharp uptick in the number of job listings at small businesses in the food and hospitality industries.
You Can Thank Us Later – 5 Things You MUST Know About Office Romance After #MeToo
More than half of all employees have engaged in a workplace romance at some point, according to a 2017 survey from Vault. So even for small businesses, romance is likely to be an issue that comes up at some point. And when it does, you should have policies in place to make sure that everyone acts appropriately and it doesn’t have a negative impact on your business.
GrubHub Ruling Good News for All Businesses Using Contractors
The judge a lawsuit against online and mobile food delivery service GrubHub has ruled Raef Lawson, who made deliveries for the company, was an independent contractor and not an employee. The Lawson v. Grubhub decision comes as several gig-economy companies grapple with the status of their employees and the associated costs of misclassification.
Retail Trends
What are the Most Purchased Items for Valentine’s Day this Year?
According to Mastercard data, spending on air and train travel has been on the increase while purchases of flowers and jewelry are on the decline in recent years Valentine’s Day. This suggests couples may be more focused on experiences rather than gifts for the holiday and small businesses, particularly those in destination locations,may want to plan accordingly.
Is the New York City Small Business Scene Really Vanishing?
The streets of New York City today look quite different than they did decades ago — or even, in some cases, just a few years ago. This is due, at least in part, to what Jeremiah Moss calls “the plight of Mom and Pop.” Moss is the author of Vanishing New York and one of the main voices behind the crowdsourced #SaveNYC movement.
Sales
Nimble Mobile 3.0 Introduced for Teams on the Go
Nimble has just released its new mobile app, Nimble Mobile 3.0. Nimble Mobile 3.0 works on the same premise as the desktop version of the platform. But instead of being tethered to your desk computer, the app goes with you wherever you or your team goes.
Small Biz Spotlight
Spotlight: Dibia DREAM Creates Business out of Teaching STEM through Sports
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And the focus on these disciplines has been making a huge mark on the education world. There are also plenty of after-school programs focused on sports and recreation. But Dibia DREAM is a program — and a business — that aims to mix those two concepts to help underserved kids in a really unique way.
Small Business Loans
5 Quick Ways to Increase Your Credit Score and Secure a Small Business Loan
Anyone seeking to secure small business financing knows — or will quickly find out — how important past credit history is to the decision-making process for bank underwriters. Lenders are primarily interested in whether or not the small business borrower will be able to replay to loan with interest.
Social Media
Survey: 26% of Small Businesses Lack Financial and Human Resources to Make Social Media Work
New data shows 26 percent of social media managers say human and financial resources are their biggest roadblocks. And by that, of course, they mean there aren’t enough of either. A total of 344 social media managers responded to the survey conducted by researchers from The Manifest, a site launched by Clutch. Human and financial resources were identified as the top challenges.
Startup
Women in Cloud Network Hopes to Empower Female Entrepreneurs in Tech
A new movement is afoot in the tech industry. A group of women in leadership roles in companies like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Meylah have banded together to form the Women in Cloud network, a group dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs and professionals in the tech space through a number of different initiatives.
Fiverr Introduces Business Tools to Track Your Projects and Purchases
The global online tasks and services marketplace Fiverr has launched a new feature, Fiverr Business Tools. The Business Tools feature is designed to help small businesses and teams who work on Fiverr manage their purchases and projects on the platform with greater transparency and efficiency.
Taxes
How Trump Tax Cuts Could Impact Your Small Business – For Real
The recent passage of a new tax bill has a lot of small businesses excited — and rightfully so. But before you go about investing a tax refund you have yet to receive or changing the structure of your business to get a more favorable rate, it can help to get some expert insights.
Technology Trends
78% of Video Content to be Screened Via Mobile Devices, Marketing Study Predicts
In the first-ever report of its kind from eMarketer, a global digital video forecast predicts 78.4 percent of viewers will use their mobile phones to watch digitally streamed content in 2018. The report says close to a quarter of the population of the world will watch video over their mobile phones in 2018.
Zoho Sites Tweak Enables Easy Customization for Small Business Websites
Small businesses looking for a DIY online presence can now have pre-built website sections that don’t skimp on customizable features like video and parallax images creating an illusion of depth. Zoho recently launched some additional features on its DIY website builder, Zoho Sites.
Amazon Polly WordPress Plugin Turns Business’s Printed Content Into Spoken Word
The launch of the Amazon Polly plug-in for WordPress is going to turn blog posts into spoken audio or podcasts. And it will do this in 47 female and male voices and 30 languages. By integrating Amazon Polly with WordPress, the technology will be available to a much wider audience – many of them small business owners.
Image: Shutterstock
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10 of the Most Successful African-American Entrepreneurs
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From Oprah Winfrey to Daymond John, celebrate the accomplishments of some of the nation’s most prominent black founders.
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3 Major Industries in Which Blockchain Technology Is Changing Life As We Know It
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“Blockchain” is one of two “B” words that are all the rage lately — the other being “Bitcoin.” While Bitcoin is grabbing most of the headlines, many people are mistakenly lumping “cryptocurrency” into the same category as “Blockchain.” category. True, the two are certainly related, but they’re not one in the same.
Related: 9 Blockchain Influencers for You to Follow — Who All Happen to Be Female
Blockchain is defined as a digitized, decentralized ledger that logs all cryptocurrency transactions. A blockchain records every digital transaction and exchange of goods, services and value — or private data — exactly as it occurs. To make it simple, picture a global spreadsheet running on millions of computers. Everyone can see all transactions being made, since it’s a peer-to-peer system, and they’re all conducted without middle men.
The main benefactors of this technology? Big banks and tech giants. And that’s no surprise because we all know that big businesses drive innovation. By 2022, in fact, it’s predicted (by researcher Markets and Markets) that the market for Blockchain-related products and services will reach $7.7 billion, up $242 million from last year’s preduction.
These figures are helping to breathe new life into older companies like IBM. By adopting Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) the tech giant is investing in enterprise systems that leverage cloud infrastructure. The launch of this service in February of 2016 helped create opportunities for IBM to transition to cloud services and to use them to build custom blockchains for its customers.
Related: Just What the Heck Is Blockchain? Watch This Explainer Video.
Initially, Bockchain caused a stir, mainly within the tech sector, but it has branched out to other sectors. More and more, industries are testing out this technology in order to run a more efficient, transparent and secure system — not to mention remaining current and competitive.
Here are how three major industries are now using Blockchain technology.
Health care
In 2014, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act required all public, private and otherwise eligible healthcare professionals to adopt (or at least demonstrate) “meaningful use” of electronic medical records (EMR).
The Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”) also said that doctors and hospitals needed to implement electronic health records (EHRs) and provided $28 billion in federal stimulus money to implement these changes. Despite these efforts, no clear protocol emerged about the sharing of that data across providers.
What this means is that plenty of opportunities are out there to disrupt the system — not just with medical records, but supply chains, smart contracts for payment distribution and more.
An example: MedRec, an MIT-backed initiative designed to be a digital family history of medical records, uses Blockchain to create for patients a family medical history that can be passed down from generation to generation. MedRec was implemented using Ethereum blockchain and uses that technology’s smart contracts to execute scripts on the blockchain.
Smart contracts are “conflict-free” ways to exchange money, property and shares or anything of value via Blockchain. These contracts define the rules and penalties for each agreement and also enforce obligations automatically.
Still, in this era of rampant fraud and identity theft, how safe is this system?
For starters, MedRec doesn’t store information in the way we’re familiar with. Instead, metadata is encoded but still allows records to be accessed securely by patients across providers. The metadata protects the integrity of the data being requested.
This process is still in its infancy, but the federal government has taken notice. Back in September 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the winners of its “HHS Blockchain Challenge,” which consisted of submissions of academic papers on Blockchain usage pertaining to health IT and health-related research.
Certainly health care is a very complicated industry, in more ways than one. But it’s ripe with disruption opportunities. Blockchain might be a nifty way to revamp and simplify, the industry as whole.
Music
In the 1990s and early 2000s, music streaming took the industry by storm. Users were able to download any song they wanted, some without paying a cent. The music industry cracked down on this illegal streaming, but along the way suffered financially, leaving artists, record labels and everyone else involved feeling angry and shortchanged.
Enter Imogene Heap. She’s a British songwriter and musician and the founder of Myceria, a “collective of creatives, professionals and lovers of music.” The group’s mission is to “empower a fair, sustainable and vibrant music industry ecosystem involving all online music interaction services.”
Myceria’s Blockchain-based platform has created a way for musicians to push smart contracts for the sharing of free-trade music, ensuring that profits go back to the artists. These contracts allow artists to sell directly to consumers without the need for labels, lawyers or accountants; and royalties are paid out automatically.
Another company, SingularDTV, a Blockchain-based entertainment studio, is looking to lay the foundation for a decentralized entertainment industry. By developing an entertainment-app ecosystem on Ethereum, the studio’s hope is to empower artists and help rewrite the rules of the music and creative industries here in the United States.
Hip hop and electronic artist Gramatik was the first musician to sign on to the tokenization program. Having such a system, Gramatik says, whereby artists can create music on their own terms, without bureaucracy “getting in the way,” is why he decided to join this platform.
As entrepreneurs, we can identify with wanting to do our own thing without interference from corporate (or industry) politics.
Human resources
HR professionals spend a great deal of time verifying the potential employees’ identities, backgrounds and employment histories. According to this infographic, HR professionals spend the majority of their time performing three tasks: meetings with senior staff and business partners (22 percent), employee relations and engagement (15 percent) and meetings with employees (14 percent).
These efforts take more time than low-priority tasks, like on-boarding new employees and carrying out personnel management; and tare only one reason Blockchain can help revolutionize the music ndustry.
It can also help simplify payroll, certification and digital-process management.
As businesses continue to expand globally, they’re finding it more expensive to send payrolls overseas. Paying people abroad can also take longer to process, due to third parties and banks with different sets of rules. What Blockchain can do is simplify the process and eliminate these middle men, making investment in the technology attractive.
Consider the example of San Francisco-based company, Bitwage. Bitwage operates on a Blockchain-based payroll system to facilitate cross-border payments through Bitcoin. This allows the company to pay employees, contractors, even vendors, worldwide in their preferred currencies. In fact Blockchain can handle the required conversion from bitcoins to whatever the local currency may be.
Finally, human resources and hiring managers spend a lot of time verifying the information of potential candidates — from job histories, to references, to background checks. A survey by Careerbuilder showed that 58 percent of employers surveyed had caught a lie on a resume. Another report, by HireRight,showed that 86 percent of employers surveyed had uncovered lies or misrepresentations on resumes.
Alternately, using blockchain technology could increase transparency and make it easier to spot fraud in employee credentials.
Related: 8 Benefits of Blockchain to Industries Beyond Cryptocurrency
So, get ready: Whatever your industry is, Blockchain will likely have a role to play, if it doesn’t already. Learn as much as you can about the technology, embrace itschanges and learn to play with the big dogs (even if you yourself are not a big dog . . . yet).
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Nimble Mobile 3.0 Introduced for Teams on the Go – Small Business Trends
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Nimble has just released its new mobile app, Nimble Mobile 3.0.
Nimble Mobile 3.0 works on the same premise as the desktop version of the platform. But instead of being tethered to your desk computer, the app goes with you wherever you or your team goes.
“We designed Nimble Mobile as your personal CRM that you can take with you everywhere you work, so you’re better prepared to manage personal business relationships at scale and take appropriate steps to evolve opportunities to help you grow,” says Nimble CEO Jon Ferrara.
More often, you’re on the road meeting clients and potential new clients to grow your business. And while you’re on the go, the chances of losing files, contact names, phone numbers, emails and other information vital to the future of your relationship with that client hangs in the balance … or maybe it’s tucked under the seat of your car … or you accidentally washed it with the laundry because it was in your back pocket.
“Many professionals lose deals because they either fail to understand prospective buyers’ needs or neglect to deliver a timely, relevant response,” explains Ferrara. “We designed Nimble Mobile to enable people to cultivate relationships and close deals more effectively by unifying critical contact records and conversation histories into a single, easy-to-access system of record that helps you make authentic connections and organize follow-up and follow-through at every stage of the deal pipeline.”
No more, if the new Nimble Mobile 3.0 app does its job properly for you.
Here’s what is new in the app:
No App Flipping
Nimble Mobile 3.0 works inside many of the apps you already use for your business. That means you don’t have to flip back and forth between Nimble and the apps you use every day when you’re on the go. It’ll work wherever the iOS Share menu is supported.
Scan Business Cards
There are plenty of apps to scan business cards you receive but few are smart enough to log that info right into your other apps. Nimble Mobile 3.0 will create a new CRM profile for a new contact by scanning the card and locating all their pertinent information.
Know Your Contacts Right Away
If you’re in another app or using your mobile browser, tap Nimble in the iOS Share menu to discover information about the people you meet. It’ll show you their social profiles, where they’re influential, their job title, and more.
Syncing
All the conversations your team has with contacts is ready right away from Nimble Mobile 3.0. The app syncs the data and conversations you or your team has with a contact. If someone is at their desk or at the office and you’re on the go, you’ll have updated records with you right away via the Nimble app.
Email Templates and Tracking
You can load in email templates to send messages fast right from Nimble Mobile 3.0. The app also allows you to track those conversations as they’re updated.
Manage Deals
The app allows users to track sales deals across several different pipelines. It also receives voice commands to add notes to a client’s record. You can also add tasks for other team members or yourself to follow-up with a contact later.
Nimble Mobile 3.0 is available on the Apple App Store right now and the company says it’ll be available for Office 365 and GSuite users on Android this Spring. The app is free to use for Nimble Business subscribers. If you’re using Nimble Contact, you’ll need to upgrade to Nimble Business to use the mobile app.
Images: Nimble
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