April 2021 - Local Business Hacks

Top 8 SaaS tools for your local business

Almost all businesses rely heavily on SaaS (Software as a Service), and if you’re not already maximizing its capability, you don’t want to be left behind. But the SaaS market has so many products and services today that it can feel overwhelming to choose one.

Top 8 SaaS tools on this list will greatly benefit any small business. Best of all, some of them work together, so you have a complete system at your hands. By utilizing them, you will increase your productivity and boost your revenue.

Slack

Best all-in-one team collaboration and chat tools for any business.

You may have heard of Slack. Audio, video calls, chat integrations, integration integrations and bots; Slack offers it all. Businesses already using Dropbox and Google Drive will find that Slack works with them, a feature that makes it the perfect solution for communication and file-sharing.

Slack is also popular – used worldwide by large corporations including Lyft and NASA. However, the free plan only allows you to integrate 10 services, so choose wisely.

Connecteam

Handle the scheduling of your team members with ease.

You can manage employee communications and collaboration with ease with Connecteam, a leading cloud-based collaboration tool for the modern workplace.

It will help you manage your employees, communicate with them, execute their tasks, and train them. You can do this with its suite of features including employee records, time tracking, scheduling, and internal processes. It lets users chat in private conversations or hold group conversations. You can even create searchable libraries and quizzes.

Asana

Keep up with projects and tasks with this popular task management tool.

Asana is well known for being a well-renown task management tool for small businesses. The interface is pleasant, colorful, and good for new users. Integrations like Slack, Dropbox, and Asana make it easy to manage tasks & tasks on hand. Their free plan includes unlimited projects, tasks, and messaging and is made for any project of any size.

10to8

Set up appointments easily with clients with an automated reminder system.

If you’re a small business owner interested in communicating with your customers at every chance, 10to8 offers an additional way to gather valuable feedback.

10to8 provides an automated reminder system for setting up appointments. You can also reply to customer messages directly from your 10to8 dashboard, SMS, email, Facebook, Slack, or chat. 10to8 is also great for recording activities, tracking payments, and helping your sales staff organize a meeting. It would work well for small businesses because of its user-friendly interface and features.

Gusto

Simple, straightforward solution for all your HR needs.

With payroll as its core functionality, Gusto is a good fit for small businesses that find the most time-consuming aspect of managing HR as payroll and might also wish to add a few other services.

With a seamless stream of online payroll processing and a straightforward interface, Gusto does an outstanding job at keeping your business compliant. If the biggest headache is administering payroll, Gusto’s system is a solid choice.

Xero

Take accounting on the go with this useful accounting tool.

You’ll find accounting software for just about every kind of business. If you’re always on the go, Xero makes your life simpler with reports sent right to your inbox and integrating your bank account so you can connect your bank with your finances.

With Xero, you can integrate with Gusto for a complete HR and accounting solution. It connects with a wide range of apps like HubSpot as well.

Hubspot CRM

Free CRM tool for up to 1 million contacts and companies.

HubSpot CRM is a great option for small businesses looking for the one of the most comprehensive CRM tools around. This CRM lets you store as many as 1 million contacts and companies. It has plenty of features, including a free core and incredibly easy-to-use website forms and Meetings calendar booking tool, making it incredibly simple to handle sales pipeline and stay on top of company contact information.

If you need access to sales, marketing, customer service, and content management hubs, additional costs apply.

Referrizer

The most efficient email marketing and referral marketing tool to take referrals to the next level.

Referrizer is an automated email and referral marketing software that focuses on getting more referrals from existing customer bases. All you need to do is to put together your referral program, make sure your current customers know about your product and service, and thank the loyal and outspoken customers who have referred others to you.

You could make the best decision ever that you can to opt for automatic referral tracking for your business. It keeps you on top of business activities like phone call tracking and text auto-responders. You can personalize all your messages with just one click. It lets you keep track of everything in one place like customer notes, emails, and SMS. This is the easiest and most efficient method of reaching consumers and communicating with them, all in one marketing tool and receiving reviews.

Referrizer can integrate with many tools, including with their partner, Fork N Knife POS. It is designed for seamless integration into restaurant systems and includes all the features you find from a high-end POS system.

Conclusion

When looking for the right SaaS solution for you, make sure you evaluate your needs, read reviews on G2 and Capterra, and speak with your network about what works for them. This will help you identify the right tools for your business and your customers.

7 tips for delegating successfully

Your to-do list seems endless, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. But delegation can help.

Although delegation may seem easy, it takes trust, patience, and transparency. This is especially true during the current pandemic when working remotely requires many of us to do more on our own.

Many leaders don’t know how to delegate effectively unless they’re under absolute pressure to do so. If you want to delegate more, you can make a tremendous impact and accomplish great things.

Why Can’t Leaders Delegate?

One of the most troubling things for most leaders is that they don’t trust others with top-level responsibilities. Do you think any of these thoughts?

It would be better for me to do the work myself than to show my team what to do.
After being promoted recently, I’m struggling. I’m not sure how to spend less time doing and more time delegating.
Since I’ve been doing this task for years, I don’t think my team will complete the task the right way.
I don’t want to burden my team with more work.
In my leadership position, I don’t like to appear vulnerable by asking for help.
I fear losing control of tasks and projects.
Defining myself is important. What’s my worth then if I can’t do all the work myself?

Trying to do it all yourself is draining. The more you delegate tasks, the less you’ll be tied to them over time, letting you concentrate on the most important parts of your position as a leader.

Delegating Tasks Successfully: A Step-by-Step Guide

The most efficient way to delegate tasks is to trust the members of your team and make the most of their strengths. Here are seven useful tips that can help leaders share the workload productively.

1.Make a list of the tasks you can give to your team

Delegation can daunt anyone, especially when you’re new to it. Not everything can be delegated, such as performance reviews and hiring decisions.

Career and business strategist, Jenny Blake, suggests doing a task audit to list the tasks you can delegate to others per the following rules:

Tiny tasks—Minor tasks that add up such as scheduling meetings.
Tedious tasks—Tasks that are easy to finish and need little skill.
Time-consuming tasks—More complex tasks like research that require some oversight but take up too much time.
Teachable tasks—Tasks that anyone can learn from you so long as they don’t need the skills only you know.
Terrible-at tasks—Tasks you have trouble with and can be assigned to team members who are better qualified to do the tasks.
Time-sensitive tasks—If you have a lot to do, delegate some tasks of a time-sensitive project to other members of your team.

2.Choose the right person for a task

A leader needs a strong understanding of their team members’ skills, strengths, and weaknesses so they can recognize who is a good fit for the job.

The best way to build trust is to let team members choose the tasks. Likewise, if team members want to improve certain skills, then let them handle tasks to prove themselves capable.

Also, be mindful of the workload of your team. You don’t want to overwhelm a team member with more tasks when they have so much already to do.

3.Share your reasons with the teammate

Explain your reasoning behind why you picked them from the beginning. This will help both parties understand each other and simplify the task at hand.

You can promote a culture of trust by showing your team you support their professional development. When they know you care about their professional growth, they will see every task you give them as an opportunity to learn new skills and take on extra responsibilities.

4.Define clear objectives and expectations for the project

Provide specific details on what you need and by when. It’s helpful to coordinate project milestones and set due dates with a calendar. If team members are stalling on certain tasks, they can still correct themselves before the final deadline.

Clear goals and expectations give your team members a sense of purpose and direction they need to be successful.

5.Offer training and resources as needed

Make sure the team member has what they need to perform the task and let them come up with new ideas and processes when they can. Would they need more training? What other resources can they refer to while working on the task?

Using top-rated project management software such as Asana or Basecamp to provide top-quality collaboration can help team leaders, team members, and even clients. They provide features for managing tasks, tracking results, and making collaboration easier on the team. Delegating tasks efficiently to your team members can be made easier with these features.

6.Check in now and then (but avoid micromanaging!)

Meet regularly to make sure everything is progressing smoothly. Provide positive reinforcement and support as necessary.

This way, you can trust the team member in charge is on task, but you still monitor the overall project. Also, remember that delegating effectively begins with letting go.

7.Give feedback to each other

Let your team member know what went well and what didn’t, and brainstorm how to do better in the future together.

Leaders should provide thoughtful feedback; acknowledge success by showing empathy and point out shortcomings on a task. Ask your team for feedback about your delegation–whether you are assigning the right tasks to the right people and whether you are providing them with enough resources and training.

Be an effective leader in delegation

A leader must master delegation sooner rather than later to maximize their time and energy. You can delegate efficiently, so you can build trust and commitment with your team, increase productivity, and assign tasks to the people with the best abilities.

How to scale social media to gain partnerships, clients & engagement

Your social media content is more versatile than you may realize. It’s not only about targeting your customers. It’s a new way to reach new audiences and gain exposure for your business.

You can use your content to extend your reach and increase your engagement through partnership marketing.

What is partner marketing?

Partnership marketing involves companies or individuals with significant personal brands working together to achieve mutual goals. They achieve greater brand awareness, expand into new markets, and generate more leads.

Partnership marketing can be a powerful tool to help any business succeed, as long as the partnership is carefully crafted. Let’s look at the steps needed for a successful partnership.

Steps for a Successful Partnership for Social Media

1. Choose the best partner for your business

Getting a partnership right entails creating one that works for both businesses with these criteria:

Choose a business that appeals to a similar audience to yours but isn’t a direct competitor. While it isn’t always easy to find the right audience fit, especially if you’re trying to reach new demographics, any overlap between those audiences is good.

Find out what your potential partner will need to be successful. Likewise, find out what benefits you will receive. If the balance of a relationship is off, especially in a potential deal where one business gets a greater portion than the other, the excitement and interest in the partnership may wane.

Align your brand with a business that has a similar image and values. The audience won’t hold you in high regard if they learn you’re going to work with a business notorious for doing shady business with their clients.

You and your potential partner should specify what you offer each other that neither of you can come up with on your own. Before formalizing the partnership, agree on any relevant mutual goals.

2. Establish tangible goals for the partnership and measure them

Set attainable goals for your partnership gives you a reliable way to check on how your partnership is performing.

Here are some metrics you can use depending on your business needs:

X% increase in website traffic from social media
X% increase in social media engagement levels (shares, saves, likes, etc.)
X% amount of revenue in a month, quarter, or year
X% qualified leads from a specific audience in a month, quarter, or year

Develop mutual goals and KPIs so you and your partner stay on track for success. A written contract can help reduce conflicts later, especially when you and your partner are not in doubt about what is expected of them.

3. Use social media to scale and increase engagement

A partnership doesn’t have to break the bank. Instead of going big at first, decide what content and channels are going to work best for your audiences. Then move on to more complex projects.

Increasing your engagement through social media is highly effective and can be done at little or no cost:

Facebook

Asking questions, going on Facebook Live, and making specific content for your audience to share or save will generate engagement. When appropriate, make sure your Facebook content uses humor that speaks directly to your target audience and you almost guarantee engagement.

Instagram

Take advantage of Instagram Guides to create content featuring eCommerce products from your business and highlighting your partner’s services. You can even create your own FAQs section with Instagram Guides. Other than Instagram Guides, educational content such as how-to’s will generate traffic as well because people often search for solutions on social media. This type of content is more likely to get views, likes, saves, and shares.

TikTok

TikTok leverages trends, which lets you show your personalities, get more exposure, and take advantage of what’s fun with the app. Check out the Discover page to see what’s trending. Create your video with your partner and don’t worry if it doesn’t trend. Just like your other social media accounts, focus on creating quality, authentic content.

By partnering with one another, businesses generate greater brand awareness and create beneficial experiences for customers. Keep in mind though, that not every partnership will be a good fit for your business and your audience.

4.Listen to your audience’s feedback

Audiences react strongly to the best social media campaigns. If you can get excited talking about a potential partnership, your followers may feel the same way. If the concept seems boring to you, it’s likely that they will agree.

If your followers-especially those who have been engaging with your social media accounts for a while-disapprove of the content from your new partner, it might be a sign you should work with other businesses. However, if the response is positive, you have more opportunities to grow your partnership.

5.Share your progress with your partner

If all goes well, you can go even further in your partnership. Talk with your partner about how your businesses could partner up to create a new competitive advantage for your markets.

Collaborate on a useful product or service, or create a revenue-sharing agreement to share customers and opportunities. Establishing a formal relationship could prove worthwhile.

The secret to success is not to go at it alone

Getting your business out there means getting your content in front of people who matter. Partnerships can help companies attain marketing goals more effectively. With the right partnership, you may just get the extra traction you’ve been searching for on social media.

5 leadership strategies that will make your employees happy & business profitable

As a small business owner, you do everything you can to encourage teamwork and promote cooperation. Sometimes, though, an uninspired and unmotivated culture creeps in. When dealing with an unstable cash flow, low lead generation, and your daily realities of expanding a small business, disagreement happens, and your team feels divided and uncommunicative.

Even though everyone knows everyone can achieve results with the right communication, you aren’t getting the results you expected. Growing a small business involves other challenges that cannot be easily resolved simply by holding meetings to discuss goals and responsibilities.

So get into leadership mode and use these strategies to help your employees be happier and grow your business.

1.Show up as a leader by example

All of us have had a boss who wanted us to do something we rarely did, such as helping them plan for a flight that they were supposed to fly by dawn, and then they were late for the flight. Being too domineering doesn’t earn you respect from your team either.

As a leader, you need to lead by example. If you expect your team to be transparent about their work, then you should do the same. By practicing what you preach, you earn the respect and loyalty of your team, and you’ll see your team following in your footsteps before too long.

2.Recognize everyone’s strengths

Leaders who lead more effectively need to develop employees’ strengths or unique skills through training, teaching, or company-wide recognition. With none of these, the company cannot achieve its goals.

A leader can have a positive impact on everyone involved in the team because they recognize and work with everyone’s strengths. Leaders can recognize them with a shout-out during a meeting, in the internal company newsletter, or through email. Employees will feel valued and recognized as strategic partners to the success of the team. Leaders can harness the strengths of employees to overcome barriers and bridge gaps by leveraging those strengths into power.

3.Encourage a positive work-life blend, not balance

Make unrealistic demands on your employees and you could create a toxic company culture. If they work so hard that they are overwhelmed, they may feel they have failed themselves and everyone else, especially if they can’t spend more time with the people they love.

You should first assure your employees that their wellbeing matters first, and you care about them taking time to recharge. There will always be more things to do, more people to call, more meetings to attend, and more appointments to schedule, no matter what the time of the year.

Let employees take some personal time off. Avoid passing judgment if they seem distracted or distraught and check with them to make sure they’re okay. Keep in mind that employees are human beings with families, friends, and shortcomings, and it is important to be open about life outside of work.

Group activities, after-work socials, and one-on-one conversations that don’t always involve work-related topics are all ways to help you and your team bond. By learning about each other’s day-to-day lives, you can create meaningful bonds that carry into work.

4.Less email, more face time

Think about how many times you wrote long email chains that could have been done over a short phone call or texted in the middle of a meeting. Does this sound like a leader who is present and willing to listen to their employees?

In order to establish a healthy pattern of clear communication, transparency, and follow-up, switch up your method of communication and meet with your team regularly, whether it is via video call or by meeting in person.

Taking the time to see employees face-to-face helps encourage continuity of investment, ownership, and accountability — all of which are important to the success of the company.

5.Be confident and assertive

Sometimes a leader is forced to venture into unknown territory, which means taking risks and breaking rules.

An effective leader cannot back down from such a challenge. Leaders must be confident to speak up about the things which really matter. They should be open about the standards they expect their employees to meet and a trustworthy leader who everyone can count on during tough times.

Many people are naturally confident, but you can learn to be more confident. Knowing you’re not dependent on others’ acceptance, proving you have the competencies and skills to be an effective leader, and leading the team to a common goal, are all important aspects of confidence.

Work hard to be the leader your employees want you to be

It is important for small business owners to realize that they affect the workplace through their everyday behavior—whether positive or negative. An outstanding leader develops solid relationships with their employees and is trustworthy, motivating everyone to bring their A-game. This type of leadership motivates everyone to work together as a team and deliver outstanding performance.

7 Facebook advertising tips that will increase your conversions

With Facebook, businesses can reach more than 2 billion people every month with a variety of formats. The platform lets businesses target audiences with self-serve tools and gives analytical reports.

To take full advantage of Facebook advertising for your local small business, it’s a matter of persevering and understanding how it works with these seven tips.

Figure out your goals before planning your Facebook ad budget

You may be wondering: How much should I spend on Facebook ads? This may be the appropriate question but it’s not the right one.

Defining your goals ahead of time helps you understand how many sales you will need to reach your revenue targets. What are you looking to achieve: an increase in Facebook fans, more product sales, or new email subscribers?

Only then can you generate the Facebook advertising spend needed to reach your goals and generate profits from Facebook ads.

To make one sale, say your conversion rate is 1%, you need at least 100 visitors. If it slows down to 0.5%, you’ll need 200 visitors. This logic applies to every product you want to test.

There are a lot of tools out there that can help you figure out exactly how much to spend on Facebook ad campaigns. You can quickly calculate your budget if you know what your goals are, just be sure to set them beforehand.

Use geo-targeting with your ads

For brick-and-mortar businesses, geo-targeting is a great way to reach specific audiences within a geographical area. Your audience is more likely to convert if the ad is more relevant to them.

Geo-targeting works that way because it allows you to target specific audiences in specific places.

You can target ads based on country, state, city, congressional district, radius, and zip code. Your Facebook ads can even target audiences based on what they’re doing in your area, and if they were just visiting an area, which may be relevant to what you’re selling.

Taking advantage of custom lists is an option if you know your ideal customer’s geographic location. If you want to sell your products and services to multiple zip codes based on your targeting criteria, you can target them accordingly.

Create Facebook ad funnels based on your email marketing funnels

If you’re using email marketing, you can create a sequence of Facebook ads based on your emails that can be automatically delivered on corresponding days. Do you refer to customer testimonials or promote webinars in your emails? You can repurpose them in a Facebook ad.

From there, you can expand brand awareness and sales funnels with ads, depending on the size of your Facebook following. If you have a sizable following of people you engage with regularly and share useful content with, you can create your campaigns based on webinars and testimonials. This funnel will optimize your Facebook advertising results.

Get more eyeballs on your page by engaging with your community

Facebook’s content ranking algorithm is more relevant to your content when the page’s engagement rate is higher. If the engagement rate is high, it will improve your post’s relevance.

By interacting with comments on your post, you can boost the conversion. Facebook will start showing your page content to their friends and family just for responding to your post.

Use analytics tools to see your ROI

Optimize your Facebook campaigns with Google Analytics and other analytics tools. Facebook Analytics is a powerful tool that improves user engagement by breaking down advanced goal paths and sales funnels. Google Data Studio reports and visualizes your social media campaigns.

These tools are designed to gather insights about your site visitors and where they came from and then apply it to Facebook ads, so you can track your return on investment for your ads.

Make your ads even more creative

You know who you’re targeting. You know the best Facebook ad types to use. You’ve even got a rough picture of your budget. But that’s not all there is to it.

Ad fatigue is mostly caused by not updating your creative assets. Even well-targeted ads that have clever messaging will fail if they use a generic template that was created in a matter of minutes.

Use photos that are high-quality, have the right colors and are cropped correctly. Videos and still images are only as good as the story you tell behind them. What really makes an impact is the story on screen and a great message.

Think broadly and be sure to create captivating ads that your audience will want to engage with.

Test everything in your ads

The last step is to test everything. There are plenty of wonderful best practices to get you started, but some will perform better for you than others. Videos may perform better in some circumstances, while carousel ads may perform better in others.

Then see which Facebook ads are most effective and scalable for the best results with the lowest cost. Test images vs videos, different messaging, different photos and test those on the same audience.

Don’t give up on your Facebook ads

Don’t give up on experimentation if your campaigns aren’t achieving the results you wanted. If they aren’t resulting in as much traffic as you thought, perhaps it’s time to reflect on what’s not working.

Test your Facebook advertising by scaling the successful campaigns and pivoting those that don’t perform. Get feedback about your campaigns from others. As you keep going with your Facebook ads, you’ll be more confident in using Facebook more effectively.