lansing michigan Archives - Page 21 of 63

Guest Post: Foot Traffic Faltering? 5 Ways to Enhance Your Storefront

If your business is experiencing a decrease in foot traffic, there are some different tactics that you can try to increase your customer flow. One of the best ways to go about doing this is by enhancing your storefront so that it catches more people’s attention and entices them to stop inside to shop. These five simple methods for enhancing your storefront can help you increase customer foot traffic.

Add a Window Display

Window displays can spark the curiosity of onlookers and highlight businesses in a more positive light. Your window display can include mannequins, colorful decorations, and visually stunning signage to get people through your doors. It’s also a good idea to include a QR code in your window display that people can scan with their mobile phones to get instant access to your store’s website.

Set Out a Sandwich Board
Even a simple sandwich board can garner more attention for your business from passersby. This sandwich board can be placed directly outside your front door on the sidewalk for easy advertising. Your board can feature written details about any promotions or other aspects of your business that will make people want to become customers. For a custom-made sandwich board, consider ordering one from a reputable plasting moulding manufacturer.

Include Some Flowers
Beautiful flowers around your storefront will give your business a more welcoming feel. Flowers can be especially helpful for brightening people’s moods on cold and dreary days, which will shed even more positive light on your business. Roses, chrysanthemums, and tulips are always good choices. You can also include some ivy or other plants to give your floral display more greenery.

Feature Some Balloons
The sight of balloons can make a person feel like a kid again and make your store look like a more fun place to shop. Business 2 Community suggests using colors like red, blue, green, and yellow, which have been shown to increase sales. You’ll also want to make sure that these balloons stay fully inflated so that they look livelier and remove and replace any balloons that have lost air.

Try a String of Flags
This creative display simply involves a string of individual flags that attaches from a light post to your front door. You can choose to include flags that are of the same color or multiple colors that coincide well with one another. These flags can also feature the name of your business or any special sales or other offers that you’re trying to promote.

Getting more business through your door can be a reality if you take the time to improve your storefront’s appearance. The little bit of extra effort that’s needed to enhance the look of your business might pay off handsomely in the end.

Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. She went to college at The Ohio State University, where she studied communications. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors and long walks in the park with her three-year-old husky, Snowball.

Guest Post: Simplify Your Business Organization to Increase Productivity

Today’s companies need to embrace the latest disruptive technologies in order to grow and develop, and at the same time, they’re faced with an increase in customers’ needs and demands. All this means introducing a lot of new business processes, which, in turn, leads to complicating the workflow and increasing the workload. Needless to say, overhead costs grow too, while employees tend to become frustrated and disengaged. If we bear in mind that 85% of the global workforce are either not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, it’s clear that streamlining business processes and simplifying your business organization will increase productivity and boost your profit.

Reduce the number of meetings

While they are important for the flow of information, meetings can be huge time wasters and productivity killers. For example, senior executives spend more than 2 days a week while an organization spends 15% of its time in meetings. When translated into financial resources, it turns out that in the US, companies throw away $25 million a day, or a whopping $37 billion a year, on unnecessary meetings. Instead of running lengthy meetings, use email blasts, or even better, team communication tools to keep everyone informed and on the same page. Another idea is to have some quick, stand-up meetings during which only the employees directly involved in the process or task will be present. This way your employees will be aware that meetings won’t be dragged-out and tedious, which means that they’ll show up and be focused.

Leverage automation

Instead of relying on a mountain of paperwork, automate your document management and go paperless. With the help of professionals, you can implement document management solution that will improve the information flow within your company and have everything in one place where it’s easily accessible. Apart from enabling team and customer collaboration by sharing documents, you’ll also be able to speed up approval processes, prevent jams, and get things done faster by implementing electronic signature tools. Finally, given that your clients are concerned about the privacy of their sensitive information, a reliable cloud-based software will make sure that their data is absolutely protected.

Standardize processes

One of the best ways of simplifying your business is by standardizing recurrent processes. In other words, why wasting time repeating the same or similar task over and over again if you can create templates and save a lot of time? Standardization rests on finding the best way of doing things, that is, implementing the best practices. This results in better productivity and easier process improvement. In addition to that, adopting standard methods for doing things in your company will make it much easier to break in new employees and show them the ropes. Standardization is one of the key pillars of the Toyota Production System also known as Kanban, a management approach which focuses on quality and consistency.

Outsource

The advancement of new technologies has enabled a new way of outsourcing and finding the right people for the job from the global talent pool. This means that you’ve got a chance to hire various professionals who work from home as freelancers even if they don’t live in the same city, country or even on the same continent. Another way to boost the productivity of your business is by introducing a telecommuting option. If you’re having second thoughts, take your cue from Dell, as the IT giant managed to save $12 million on real estate costs only, while some estimates say that the company saved almost $40 million in total by allowing and even encouraging their employees to work from home. Besides reducing the overhead costs, Dell announced that their telecommuting employees were even more productive as they could work from the comfort of their homes and avoid numerous open-office distractions.

Add “no” to your vocabulary

Sometimes entrepreneurs and managers tend to bite off more than they can chew and pile up tasks and responsibilities. It’s only logical to always be looking for business opportunities, but if non-selectively applied, this idea can only lead to wasting your time, energy, and resources on things that aren’t your top priority. Instead of that, it’s essential to assess every situation separately and ask yourself “What’s in it for me and my business?” Learning to say no to things that aren’t exactly profitable can significantly increase your productivity. When it comes to making promises, make sure that you do that only when you know that you can deliver. Now that the multitasking myth has been busted and that research studies have shown that the practice of doing several things at the same time only reduces our productivity, it’s time to come to terms with our own limitations. A day has only 24 hours and the best way to be productive and get things done is to be 100% focused on every individual task.

These straightforward tips can help you simplify your business and boost your and your employees’ productivity.

Emma Worden is a startup funding consultant from Sydney. She enjoys reading and writing on different aspects of entrepreneurship, usually finance and marketing. If you want to read more of her work, you can find it at https://bizzmarkblog.com/

New Video: Parables – Our Sunday Evening Worship

Parables is a ministry within a ministry as they provide a worship space within the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Chelsea, Michigan for those who feel left behind or on the outside of “regular” church-going worship.
Parables provides a space for those who are developmentally and cognitively disabled or who feel marginalized in participating in traditional worship spaces and gives them the freedom to not only worship Christ where they are, but to participate.
We were honored to be approached by this special ministry to tell this amazing story of what they do and the church that gives them a house to praise in.

For more on the Parables Ministry: http://www.chelseafcc.com/parables.html

Guest Post: Need Extra Motivation? 4 Ways to Update Your Work Space

Working from home has its advantages and disadvantages. For one, pants are optional. And two, you don’t have to deal with annoying coworkers. But working from home can also mean that you sometimes find that you don’t always have the motivation to get work done—a hazard of not having your boss standing over your shoulder. However, there are ways to find the motivation you need. Overhauling your home office can have a positive effect on your mood, workflow, and overall efficiency.

Ergonomic Overhaul

One of the biggest factors for low productivity is that your body wears out sitting at your desk all day. You will want to make sure that you have a comfortable chair with lots of support. And if you feel as if you’re sitting too much, a stand-up desk can do wonders for making sure that you get up, stretch, and get your energy flow moving.

A Room with A View

Perhaps the best way to update your home work space is to move to a different room in your house or revamp the view in front of you. Your mood and productivity can be greatly affected by the space you work in, so if you’ve stuck yourself in a dark, cave-like room, then you’re at a disadvantage already. If possible, try moving your office to a room that has a nice window. Not only will the natural light have a positive impact on your mind set, but everyone needs a little distraction in the form of nature. If you can’t move your office, think about hanging a nice picture or piece of art in front of your desk and also invest in good lighting.

Complete Makeover

Another way to update your workspace is to give it a complete makeover. A new coat of paint can do wonders. If you want a more soothing vibe, try cool blues, greys, and greens. Or if you need a pop of cheer, go with reds or yellows. Depending on where your home office is, you could also invest in concrete repairs of your floors.

Green Your Space

Just because you have a home office doesn’t mean that you have to make it look like an old, drab 9-5 office. Adding some real plants to your workspace can invigorate you and your senses. Certain plants, such as the spider plant, areca palm, and common ivy, actually act as air purifies.

Working from home has always been your dream, but sometimes it can be a drag. With these helpful hints, you can update your home office and find the motivation you need.

Anica is a professional content and copywriter from San Francisco, California. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she’s used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110201410531526652293

Guest Post: Proactive Business: How to Self-Audit Your Company to Stay Ahead of the Market

Business today is more competitive than ever before. With the innovations taking place in every industry of today, you need to be sure that your company is staying ahead of the curve. By checking up on your company’s performance, you won’t have to worry that you’ll fall behind the market and lose out on customers, followers, and sales. Learn how to self-audit via the tips and tricks below so you can experience more growth and profit in your market:

Getting Financial Assessments Done

Finances are the lifeblood of any business. Without knowing your cash flow, projected expenses, and revenue numbers, you are not able to plan for the future. That is why it essential to get key insights into how your financial department is running and ensure that you’re hitting the benchmarks that your company needs to keep running. If you are in the tri-state area, for instance, you might consider utilizing an NJ financial benchmarking service, whether from sites such as rmrwealth.com or other popular financial management and advisory services to get a better picture of your financial realities. Keep an eye on your number trends and utilize the insight of professionals to make sure that your revenue is maintaining the right trends to growing your business.

Marketing Practices

If you are not marketing appropriately, then you are missing out on opportunities to grow your company. Marketing is what brings in new customers, as well as develops brand loyalty among retained customers. With the technological innovations in social media and other internet-related marketing opportunities, you need to do regular audits to stay ahead of the trends. You don’t want to expend resources into a marketing campaign that is using outdated methods, or you’ll risk losing out on the majority of consumer access. Make sure to have A/B testing and other marketing automation software in place so you can audit yourself easily.

Workplace Structure

You might feel like you have a great workplace culture. However, this is a very hard thing to monitor from the manager’s seat if you aren’t working to see things from within the day of the average employee. If you want to audit this part of your business and ensure you are producing the kind of culture that makes employees happy, you should consider bringing in a consultant. A professional is key if you want to understand where your culture is at, where it needs to be, and how to get there. This is important to avoid excessive turnover in your employee retention.

Communication Methods

In today’s day and age, you need to communicate clearly, effectively, and with lightning speed. This means keeping close contact with investors, maintaining ease of communication between internal departments, and ensuring that your customers have the access they need to your sales, marketing, and customer service. However, if you have certain blocks in your communication, it is hard to tell without auditing. One way to review your progress in this fashion is to set up communication channels that track your metrics like time of response, customer resolutions, and other key performance points. Many firms will run free audits on your customer contact methods while promoting their own sales software, whereas other professionals can be hired to run regular audits and provide solutions.

If you want to be successful in the business today, it requires a lot more than wishful thinking. You are no longer just competing with the company around the corner. Not only are you competing with other companies in your local market, but all around the world. Keeping track of where your company is and where it needs to be is important if you want to stay at the top of your industry, and audits should be conducted yearly to accomplish this.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here.

Guest Post: Fundamentals of Amazon Marketing

If you are in business and want to start selling on Amazon, the very first fundamental task to complete will be to align your customer with your product. Most of the time we would refer to this as being keyword research. However more appropriately we will refer to it as aligning searcher intent with products. If you have a great product that solves an issue no matter how small, the end result should be a satisfied customer. It seems simple to align the right customer with the right product however it takes a lot of effort and is incredibly important. Many times we see a company have a great product but they are simply targeting the wrong market.

As Amazon is so big we of course see a lot of customers finding the correct products. We also see the converse of this happening. This is why finding out what your own personalized image should be for the customers that are looking for your product. Think about the customers themselves. What would they choose to enter when thinking about what search terms they would use when looking for a product?. Your keyword research effectiveness is determined also by how well you adapt to the change in market conditions. Products may start to appear in different search terms so you need to be on top of the change rather than be reacting to it.

Ask yourself what the searchers intent would be when searching for specific terms. Are these terms used by mostly window shoppers?. It is going to be important to begin split testing your keywords and develope ways to record conversions based on changing things such as images and page titles, bullet points etc. Target the correct words without being too broad. Segmenting customers in Amazon is very important. We want to have all the most widely used and direct keywords as possible, but not if we are going to end up losing ranking later on down the line. The tactic used by a lot of people these days is to keyword stuff your titles and bullet points as possible. This can be a fair tactic however only if you want to reach a broad spectrum of customers. If you have a very specific target audience you want to make sure that other audiences are not being included in the descriptions.

Once you are finished doing your keyword research you will now need to move on to your product listing optimization. Starting with an analysis of your competition you’ll want to basically take some of the same steps as your competition. Looking at keywords, body of content, features and special extras of your most profitable of competitors you will see what you need to replicate. This method is utilized by business to business Amazon marketing companies and independent Amazon startups . You are essentially cutting the queue when you copy the biggest competitors techniques as they have already been split tested and key word researched. Repeat these techniques of their core concepts and you can profit in the same way.

To increase your organic rankings and take a foothold in the niche you need to see what your competitor is doing and do it better. Ofcourse looking at what keywords they have used and reverse engineering the steps they took is one way to do this. Another way is to look at the aspects of the ads themselves. Look at things such as relevance of search term, visibility of product and the conversion rate. Dissect what each section of the ad is doing. For example the product title plays a big role for search query relevance however pictures are what drive conversions.

Once you have selected your keywords and have started your Amazon marketing campaigns you will need to track the progress of your keyword rankings. The only way to do this is by using a good Amazon tracking tool. Be sure to read reviews and make sure that your Amazon tracking tool is a true means to measure rankings in Amazon. These tools are not always available when social media marketing which make its utility even more important. Being able to see how each keyword is ranked and how it has fluctuated over time will be essential. Your first priority should be to get your most important keywords to the first page of the search results. Once there you will see an increase in organic searches and conversions. If your product is quality then your brand will start to grow at the same time. Steps such as these are just a few of the many ways to create an Amazon marketing campaign. Starting simple and at the bottom is a great place to learn the best techniques ahead of time and implement them into the strategies need to make your business successful.

Trevor Leighy is an online writer and and digital marketing consultant. He found ways to optimise various social media marketing channels and enjoys creating new efficient systems of data extraction and analysis for larger companies. When not working online he likes tower defence based games and enjoys researching the latest trends in communication technology.

NEW VIDEO: Check In Michigan – A Township Supervisor Weighs in on Short Term Rentals

In Part 4 of this 5 part series on short term rental legislation, John Nash, the supervisor of Spring Lake Township, talks about how they have handled short term rentals and why they did it the way they did.

For more on the Short Term Rental Legislation: www.airbnbwatch/michigan

For more on Check In Michigan: https://www.checkinmichigan.org/

#BetterCallPaul – Work For Hire

Who owns the stuff we create?

Guest Post: Moves to Make when Stepping into Entrepreneurship

We live in an entrepreneurial world, a world where technology has made it possible for everyone with an interesting idea and a sound growth plan to become a successful leader in the industry, and pave the road to long-term success and solvency. However, even though this opportune environment opens many doors for professional prosperity, that doesn’t mean that the road to entrepreneurial superstardom is not laden with obstacles and possibly crippling challenges.

Assuming that you have already developed an idea for your brand that will catch the eye of the consumer market, now is the time to tend to some crucial steps that will define the future of your company. Here are the key moves every aspiring entrepreneur should make.

It all starts with a business plan

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the most successful CEOs and entrepreneurs in the world started out with nothing more but a dream and a broken-down garage, because the fact of the matter is that they would never achieve the success they enjoy today if they didn’t have comprehensive business plan on their side. Because without it, your idea has no foundation and no reason to become anything more than a dream that never saw the light of day.

This exhaustive document should hold within its pages everything you and your team members need to know about your own brand, the market, the competition, and most importantly, the financial management methods needed to keep the ship afloat and even reach solvency. It might not sound like a lot of fun, spending weeks and months crafting such a document, but it will nonetheless be a crucial step that will define your future.

Building your network and client pool

A business that doesn’t have a pool of potential clients in its pocket is bound to have a difficult time getting off the ground, or reaching solvency within the first three years. In fact, you should not only have a pool of potential clients at the ready before you launch, but you should also secure clients for your company well-before you step into the competitive market. Networking and client acquisition is a difficult and time-consuming task, though, even for an established business.

The first thing you need to do is to find adequate help in terms of staff and software that will allow you to automate and outsource menial tasks so that you can focus on acquiring clients for your business. Next, you’ll need to get the word out that an amazing new brand is about to hit the market. You can visit networking events and get potential clients on the line to discuss your business and get them on your side before you launch. When you finally open the doors, you will already have established a stable income stream.

Ensure longevity in the entrepreneurial world

In all the chaos and stress of entrepreneurial life, many aspiring business leaders forget about the most important element of a successful career – their health and longevity. This point cannot be stressed enough: you need to get your personal life in order and ensure long-term health if you are to stay in the game for the long haul, and build the success you deserve.

The most important steps for an entrepreneur are eating healthy, banishing stress, and obtaining adequate coverage. Acquiring a comprehensive better life insurance is an important element of success, for instance, as it allows you to prepare for all contingencies, and ensure your loved ones, team members, and business are taken care of. There is no telling what could happen on the road to business success, and a real entrepreneur will plan for every scenario in order to prevent it or manage the situation as best as they can.

Invest in education and specialization

There is no greater education than one that is self-driven. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the leading astrophysicists of the modern era said that, and no other aphorism could better portray the importance of constant education for a modern entrepreneur. As a future business leader, you should have the thirst for never-ending growth and knowledge that will fuel your passion, drive innovation, and allow you to always stay one step ahead of the competition.

Not only should you learn how to manage your cash flow better, and how to market your business for maximum engagement, but you should also learn how to be a leader in order to inspire your employees and elevate their productivity as well. Under the wings of a devoted and passionate workforce, your business will have nowhere to go but up.

A parting word or two

The time is better than ever to put your business idea out there and transform it into a lucrative business the customers will love, and the rest of the business world will envy. However, there are several crucial steps you should take beforehand in order to ensure your success and pave the road to a long, thriving future as a 21^st-century entrepreneur.

#BetterCallPaul – Giving Thanks

Our Creative Video Strategist went through a difficult month for him and his family, but the UnoDeuce team and clients held it together when he couldn’t be there. So, this is his message for them.

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