Tag Archive for: Business Growth

Most Effective Marketing Strategies: What’s Working For Small Business?

What Marketing Strategies Are Most Effective for Small Businesses? - Done Digital

Small businesses often face unique challenges when it comes to marketing. With limited budgets and resources, it’s essential to find the most effective marketing strategies that deliver results. This article will highlight the top marketing strategies that small businesses can use to attract customers, build brand awareness, and drive growth.

Creating a Website That Drives Results

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for small businesses. Start by creating a user-friendly, visually appealing website that showcases your products or services. To improve your website, consider the following tips:

Implement responsive design to ensure your website looks great on various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Improve page load speeds by optimising images, using browser caching, and minimising the use of plugins.
Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide visitors towards desired actions, such as signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or contacting you for more information.
Offer easy-to-find contact information, such as phone numbers, email addresses, and physical locations, to facilitate communication with potential customers.
Regularly update your website with fresh, high-quality content to keep visitors engaged and encourage search engines to crawl your site more frequently.

Ensure your website is optimised for search engines, as this will improve your online visibility and help attract potential customers. Research relevant keywords for your industry and incorporate them into your website’s content, meta tags, and URLs to improve search engine rankings.

Having a great website is one of the most effective marketing strategies small businesses can focus on to attract more customers and increase sales.

Building a Strong Online Presence on Social Media

Additionally, maintain active social media profiles on platforms relevant to your target audience. Each social media platform has unique features and user demographics, so tailor your content and approach accordingly:

Facebook: Share a mix of promotional and informational content, including blog posts, photos, videos, and events. Use Facebook Groups to connect with like-minded individuals and participate in community discussions.
Instagram: Focus on visually appealing images and short videos to showcase your products, services, or behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business. Utilise hashtags and Stories to increase your reach.
Twitter: Share timely updates, engage in industry conversations, and provide customer support. Use Twitter to establish your brand’s voice and participate in trending topics or hashtag campaigns.
LinkedIn: Share professional content, such as industry news, thought leadership articles, and company updates. Connect with other professionals and participate in relevant LinkedIn Groups to build your network.
Pinterest: If your business is visually oriented or targets a predominantly female audience, use Pinterest to share inspiring images, infographics, and product photos that link back to your website.

Engage with your followers by sharing valuable content, responding to comments, and building an online community. Regularly monitor and analyse your social media performance to identify what content resonates best with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Content Marketing: A Key to Success

Content marketing involves creating and sharing valuable, relevant content that resonates with your target audience. This can help establish your business as an industry authority, drive traffic to your website, and encourage customer engagement. Create various types of content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, and podcasts, to cater to different preferences. Promote your content through social media, email marketing, and other channels to reach a wider audience.

Tip: Make your content ‘evergreen‘, meaning it won’t go out of date. That way, you can repurpose it and safe yourself lots of time!

Done Digital understands that managing a successful content marketing strategy can be overwhelming for small business owners. That’s why we’re here to help you every step of the way. Our team of experts can assist with content creation, strategy development, and promotion across various channels, ensuring your marketing efforts are effective and well-coordinated. By partnering with Done Digital, you can focus on running your business while we take care of implementing the most effective marketing strategies to drive growth and engagement for your brand.

Content Marketing is a key to success when growing your small business

Leveraging Local Marketing Techniques

As a small business, targeting your local community can be a powerful marketing strategy. Focus on local SEO by optimising your website and online profiles for location-specific keywords, ensuring your business appears in local search results. Additionally, engage with your community by participating in local events, sponsoring activities, and collaborating with other local businesses. This can help increase your visibility, build trust, and attract more customers.

Email Marketing: A Cost-Effective Strategy

Despite the rise of social media, email marketing remains an effective and cost-efficient way for small businesses to communicate with customers. Start by building and maintaining an email list of current and potential customers. You can grow your email list by offering incentives, such as free resources, discounts, or exclusive content, in exchange for a subscription. Also, add opt-in forms to your website, blog, and social media profiles to make it easy for visitors to sign up.

Craft compelling email campaigns that include personalised content, exclusive promotions, and valuable information. To create engaging emails, consider the following tips:

Write attention-grabbing subject lines to encourage recipients to open your emails.
Use a conversational tone and address recipients by their first name to create a more personal connection.
Include visually appealing images, but don’t forget to add descriptive alt-text for those using screen readers or with slow internet connections.
Add clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to guide subscribers towards a specific action, such as making a purchase, reading a blog post, or signing up for an event.
Test different email formats, designs, and content types to identify what resonates best with your audience.

Remember to segment your email list based on customer preferences, demographics, or past interactions with your business, ensuring you deliver relevant content to each subscriber. This can lead to higher open and click-through rates, ultimately resulting in increased engagement and conversions.

Use automation tools to set up targeted email campaigns based on specific triggers, such as abandoned carts, website activity, or recent purchases. By employing these actionable tips, you can make the most of your email marketing efforts and effectively communicate with your customers.

Unlock Growth Opportunities Using The Power of Networking and Strategic Partnerships

Building professional relationships within your industry can be instrumental in growing your small business. Attend networking events, conferences, and trade shows to connect with like-minded professionals, potential customers, and industry influencers. Foster strategic partnerships with complementary businesses to cross-promote your products or services, share resources, and expand your reach.

Now it’s time to embark on a thrilling adventure to grow your business!

By identifying the most effective marketing strategies for your business, you can unlock the growth and success you’ve always dreamed of. Focus on building a rock-solid online presence, captivating your audience with content marketing, charming your local community, mastering the art of email marketing, and forging powerful networking and partnerships.

Small businesses that effectively attract customers and drive growth know that adaptability is key, so remember to regularly analyse your marketing efforts and fine-tune your strategies to keep the momentum going.

Ready for a game-changing move? Book a free strategy call with the superstar team at Done Digital!

We’re here to help you navigate the marketing landscape and create a winning plan tailored to your business. Let’s join forces and conquer the world of small business marketing together. Claim your free strategy call now!

by Kryzel Fernandez

Digital Marketing, Technology

Will You be Using The Power of AI in Your Business and What Happens if Your Don’t?

Done Digital

Written by David Lee-Schneider, CEO of Done Digital

As the world of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at breakneck speed, it’s becoming increasingly clear that small businesses will have to adapt or risk being left behind. Embracing AI is no longer an option but a necessity for staying competitive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.

While for many business owners, these latest advancements may be scary, for those who are willing to invest time and resources into understanding and implementing AI technologies, an ocean of new opportunities awaits. By incorporating AI-driven tools and strategies into their marketing and operations, small business owners can make data-driven decisions, better understand customer preferences, and create more targeted campaigns, ultimately increasing sales and growing their businesses.

The rise of AI has made it more important than ever for small businesses to prioritise their marketing efforts. By leveraging AI-powered tools, businesses can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time and resources to focus on more strategic initiatives. Moreover, AI-driven marketing platforms allow for more precise targeting, enabling businesses to reach their ideal audience and maximise return on investment (ROI).

One of the key benefits of AI for small businesses is the ability to analyse large amounts of data quickly and accurately. This allows businesses to uncover patterns and trends that can inform marketing strategies, optimise pricing, and improve customer experiences. By harnessing AI-driven analytics, small businesses can gain insights that were previously reserved for large corporations with access to more resources. Now, businesses of any size can benefit from highly intelligent tools and software.

Another powerful advantage of AI is personalisation. Today’s consumers expect highly personalised experiences, and AI enables small businesses to deliver just that. By analysing user behavior and preferences, AI can help businesses tailor their content and offers to individual customers, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates.

Of course, adopting AI is not without its challenges. Small businesses need to be proactive in learning about the various AI tools and technologies available, and understanding which ones are best suited for their specific needs. Additionally, small business owners must be prepared to invest in training and upskilling their teams to ensure they are equipped to make the most of these new technologies. The output we get from AI tools is only as good as the input we provide. So, understanding how to effectively use these tools is crucial to successful implementation.

Ultimately, the decision to embrace AI comes down to choice. As Charles Darwin once said,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most responsive to change.”

Small businesses that choose to adapt and leverage AI will be better positioned for growth, to win customers, and to increase sales, while those that resist change may find themselves struggling to stay afloat in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Embracing AI and making marketing a priority will not only help small businesses stay ahead of the game but also enable them to reach new heights. The future is in our hands – let’s choose wisely, and let the power of AI propel our businesses to success.

What are your thoughts on the impact of AI on small businesses? Let me know in the comments below!

by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Marketing, Productivity

4 Smart (Not So Obvious) Ways To Grow Your Business

In essence, there are only three ways to increase your sales:

Increase the number of customers
Increase your customers’ purchase frequency, and
Increase your average transaction value

However, there are a number of not so obvious ways to grow your business and increase profitability. Here are four ideas to help you scale without putting the focus on sales. Ready? Then let’s dive in!

1. Automate processes to increase efficiency and reduce cost

Today, there are thousands of tools out there to help you automate repetitive business processes. Simply automating a few things can help you significantly reduce wages and free up valuable time. When looking for ways to grow our business, we often overlook areas that don’t directly contribute to your profit. Here are a few things you can automate quickly and easily that could put money back in your pocket.

Social Media Posts
Invoicing
Email Marketing
Online Advertising
Lead Generation
Sales Processes & Follow Up
Internal Task Management
Review Management

Tools like Zapier and Make can help you connect various services and software platforms to make processes even more efficient.

Some examples:

When you have a new lead -> automatically add a contact to a list in your email marketing software -> then send a follow-up sequence until they take the desired action
After a customer makes a purchase for the second time -> send them an invitation to write a Google review
When a purchase is made on your website -> automatically raise an invoice in Xero to match with the imported trasnaction

These are just some basic examples, but the possibilities are endless, and so is the time you will safe by automating these tasks!

2. Launch a re-targeting ad campaign

Many business owners already use ads to attract new customers and generate new business. However, if you only run direct ads, you are missing out on a huge chunk of potential customers by ignoring this simple strategy. Re-targeting ads are a powerful tool that allows you to show specific ads to people who have already interacted with your content in the past, adding continuity to your customer experience and significantly increasing the chances of turning them into customers.

Se if you can offer them something of value in relation to certain pages or blog posts they have visited on your website.

Example: A yoga studio might show a re-targeting ad for a free yoga pass to people in their area who have read blog posts on the benefits of yoga on their website. When people see the ad, they can enter their email address to claim the free yoga pass and automatically be subscribed to an evergreen campaign. (See next point)

3. Stop focusing on once-off promos and develop an “evergreen” marketing strategy instead

The majority of business owners think of marketing and promotions in terms of once-off activities. It might look something like this:

January -> Promotion #1
February -> Promotion #2
March -> Promotion #3

While this might work well, it also requires you to constantly come up with new promotions, which can be exhausting and feel like you’re never quite catching up.

Instead, focus on implementing an evergreen marketing strategy that sends new leads or customers a series of pre-designed offers from the moment they join your list. Then keep adding new offers to that sequence. Over time, this strategy allows you to develop a marketing machine that continuously produces sales without ever having to worry about what your next promotion is going to be. You just need to make sure that offers in that sequence are timeless and not seasonal.

All you need is a good email automation tool, like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign, and there are many more options available.

4. Make Partnerships evergreen, too

Partnerships and joint ventures with other businesses that complement yours is a powerful strategy. You might have already partnered with another business in the past to run a one-off campaign promoting your products or services. Maybe you’ve asked the other business to hand out vouchers to all their customers.

See if you can turn this strategy into an evergreen campaign, too, like in the previous example. Look for businesses that already have an evergreen funnel and see if they are happy to plug your offer right into it, while you can do the same for them.

Example: One of my clients owns a massage clinic, while another owned a yoga studio. I got both of them to add an email to their existing evergreen sequences promoting the other business. Now, everyone who receives a massage at the massage clinic also receives a complimentary gift card for a yoga class, while everyone who joins the yoga studio receives a voucher for a massage a a few weeks later.

It’s a win-win and once implemented, this strategy will continue to work for years to come.

There you have it. Four (not so obvious) ways to grow your business. All four strategies are what I call “set and forget” strategies that you only have to set up once and will benefit from forever.

Have you automated any processes in your business? What marketing strategies have worked well for you? Let me know in the comments below!

19 Comments/by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Marketing

3 Simple Metrics With The Power To Transform Your Business (And How To Track Them)

Today, it’s easier than ever to collect vast amounts of data in our business. There are many low-cost POS (point of sale) systems out there with some fantastic reporting features that you can take advantage of to help you grow your business and make better management decisions.

And if you think data and metrics are boring, I want to encourage you to reconsider. Because once we know what to look for, these numbers can become very exciting!

For small business owners, every dollar counts, which is why it’s so important to track our progress and keep an eye on various metrics. Of course, there are countless metrics we can measure, some more important than others depending on the type of business you are operating.

But let’s keep it simple for now with these three metrics that have the power to completely transform your business. If you know you could do better when it comes to numbers, they will provide a great starting point.

Average Transaction Value (ATV)

The average transaction value (ATV) is pretty self-explanatory. It gives you the average of how much your customers spent per transaction on average. Simply by focusing on increasing our ATV, we can change the entire course of our business.

How to calculate Average Transaction Value

Simply divide your total sales on any given day by the total number of transactions on the same day.

Example:
$5000 turnover / 100 Transactions = $50 ATV

We can increase our ATV through:

Upsells (“Would you like to make that a large?”) and
Cross-sells (“Would you like a camera bag to protect your new camera?”

No matter what business you’re in, there is always something extra you can offer your customers. Let’s take the above example and assume we trade for 340 days per year. If we increased our ATV by just 5% (i.e. by $2.50), our daily turnover would go from $5000 to $5250.

Doesn’t sound like much, right? Well, by the end of 340 trading days, we would have increased our turnover by $85,000. Not a bad result with a few upsells.

What upsells, cross-sells and package deals could you offer in your business?

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The Customer Lifetime Value indicates how much the average customer is worth to our business over the course of their patronage. It’s a simple metric with big implications and one that’s often overlooked by small business owners.

Knowing the lifetime value of a customer is a crucial part of understanding how much is reasonable to spend on acquiring a new customer. Measuring CLV is also a good way to determine whether your business is taking full advantage of its customer relationships.

In many, if not most cases, it costs less money to increase revenue from existing customers than it does to acquire new ones. Still, most business owners are more focused on acquisition than retention.

How to calculate Customer Lifetime Value

CLV = Average Transaction Value * Customer Frequency * Average Customer Lifespan

Example:
$50 Average Transaction Value * 1 purchase per month * 12 months average retention = $600 CLV

Your CLV will determine how much we can afford to spend on acquiring a new customer and subsequently, which marketing channels make sense for our business.

How much is a customer worth to you? How much do they spend each time? How often do they visit? And how long do they stay your customer? Improving each of these 3 variables will have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC)

What does it cost you to acquire a new customer? While the importance of knowing the cost of acquiring a new customer is obvious, surprisingly a lot of business owners don’t pay as much attention to this metric as you’d expect them to. Keeping customer acquisition costs top of mind can benefit your business in numerous ways.

For starters, many companies spend more than they estimate on customer acquisition, and in many cases, they continue to invest in marketing channels that make little sense given the lifetime value of their customers.

How to calculate Cost of Customer Acquisition

CAC = Total Ad Spend / Number of New Customers

Example:
$500 Facebook Ad Spend / 50 New Customers = $10

If our Customer Lifetime Value is $600, it makes sense to spend $10 to acquire a new customer. However, if our CLV would only be $20 we might need to look for a new strategy to acquire new customers or first focus on increasing your Average Transaction Value, Purchase Frequency and Retention Rate.

What metrics have you tracked that have helped you grow your business and make better decisions in your marketing?

11 Comments/by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Mindset, Productivity

10 Changes You Can Make to Improve Your Business Dramatically

Every business owner wants their business to thrive. But to Improve your business, you can’t just rely on sheer luck. There are certain fundamentals of running a business that simply can’t be skipped. Here are a few changes you can make to running your business to dramatically improve performance and push you to the top of the pack.

1. Giving Back to Improve Your Business

While this may sound a little counterintuitive, one thing you can do to improve your business is to give back. Ensure you have a life mission reflecting your need to make a difference in the lives of others. Money should not be the main motivation because it’s usually a non-monetary purpose that will help you keep going during challenging times and bring you the self-satisfaction, and happiness that you are looking for. Giving back to your local community will also increase support for your business. What are some ways in which you can give back? Can you contribute to a good cause? Donate products or services? Provide guidance to other local businesses?

2. Practice Physical Activity

This may not seem business-related, however, engaging in physical activity is one of the best ways to improve your quality of sleep, boost brain chemistry, become more creative, and clear your mind. It also helps to boost your longevity, happiness, and health. This will have a direct effect on how you think and operate your business, so you can be more productive in growing your business.

3. Self-coaching

When we think of coaching, we usually think of being coached by someone else. But becoming your own coach and maintaining a positive inner dialogue can be one of the most significant changes you’ll ever make in your life. It’s easy to slip into negative self-talk and go down the slippery slope of self-blame and self-pity. But if we want our business to be successful, then we need to develop a positive outlook on things, become our own best friend and coach ourselves through the tough times.

4. Be Willing to Do What It Takes

True success rarely comes without sacrifices. So, make it a habit to show up every day. Commit to the long haul and be willing to devote your energy and time to work toward your goals. Identify time-consuming distractions that take your focus away from your business and life. Do at least one thing every day to move you closer to your goals. Of course, in order to do so, we need to first get clear on what our goals are. Click here to learn how to write a business vision to gain clarity and motivation.

5. Love What You Do

I’ve found that the most successful business owners I work with have dedicated their lives and businesses to what they do best and love most. As a result, they create wonderful businesses that bring joy and add value to their customers. Are you creating a business that you truly love or are you merely focused on making an income? The good news is, it’s possible to do both!

6. Start a Journal

Another thing you can do to improve your business is to start journaling. Regularly write down your thoughts and ideas, so you can translate them into tangible form. Writing offers us a different perspective on our desires, our current state, our goals and helps us reflect on our mistakes. Don’t just get busy going down the wrong path. Make time to reflect and redirect your efforts to ensure you arrive at a place you actually love.

7. Improve your Business by Making Lists

Lists are amazing. They help us capture goals we want to accomplish and stay on track when we feel a little lost. Learn to work with different lists for the upcoming day, week, month, and year. Be sure to prioritise the items on your lists, so you can allocate your time and effort to what’s most important to you at any given time. When we write down our dreams and desires we turn them into goals, which significantly increases our chances of actually achieving them.

8. Learn to Listen

Listening is an important skill in business. Whether it’s our customers, partners or the people we work with, actively listening will offer us a deeper understanding to ultimately make better decisions. Regularly collect honest customer feedback to truly understand their needs and tweak your business accordingly. Learn to use their language, rather than jargon. No one wants to buy from someone they don’t understand.

9. Practice Clearing Your Mind

As business owners, we often have to wear multiple hats, which can become quite overwhelming at times. It’s important to make time to clear our minds every now and then to stay focused. Learn to make quick decisions that are conclusive to avoid cluttering your mind with unfinished business. The habit of constantly delaying our decision-making can have a huge impact on our well-being. While it may not always possible, try to make it a habit to never leave work without a clear mind. Lots of small unfinished decisions can quickly build up and prevent us from focusing our energy and headspace on the truly important ones.

10. Find Ways to Leverage Your Time

Lastly, find ways to make better use of your own time. Just because you do something better than anyone else, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best use of your time. Today, many business and marketing processes can be completely automated. In his book ‘The Four Hour Work Week‘, Tim Ferris suggests we delegate any tasks we can to free up our own time and headspace. But before delegating any tasks, we should see if it’s possible to automate them instead. Automation allows us to save vast amounts of time and significantly reduce operating costs. Automation not only helps us simplify running our business but also be more profitable.

As a marketing consultant, I help business owners to automate all of their marketing activities, so they can focus on running their business without worrying about where new customers are going to come from. If you would like to have a chat about how you can grow your business faster and more effectively, book a free strategy call with me here.

7 Comments/by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Mindset, Productivity

Seven Things to Emulate from Successful Entrepreneurs

Done Digital

Have you ever wondered how some entrepreneurs get so much work done in a single day? It can even leave you wondering what it is you are doing wrong when apparently we all have the same 24 hours as Richard Branson or Oprah. For starters, working smarter and harder may not be the formula for success after all, which leaves you wondering what is. Here are 7 ways in which successful entrepreneurs do so well to make sure they get to the top.

1. Successful Entrepreneurs Love Their Work

A smart and successful entrepreneur is in his or her element when doing work they are passionate about. Inspiration and passion are very powerful when combined and the only way you can do excellent work is if you love what you do. Find something you are passionate about and stick with it regardless of distractions or being sidetracked.

2. Successful Entrepreneurs are Focused

Smart entrepreneurs know to stay focused and have a clear vision of what they want, which helps to actualize this vision. Visualization is quite powerful because it is not simply about seeing what you want but also about feeling them. Smart entrepreneurs feel what it is like to be at the top and not the journey it will take to reach there. They view their journey as one that embodies greatness while transporting them towards their destiny. Smart entrepreneurs connect with their visions daily through meditation, quiet walks, mantras, or vision boards, whatever works.

3. Successful Entrepreneurs Set Realistic Goals

It is great to have big goals but they can be harder to achieve. Smart and successful entrepreneurs accept their current position and start with smaller steps while maintaining focus on the ultimate vision. It is easier to achieve your goals when they are broken down into workable phases such as weekly goals or 3-month challenges. Establish daily activities that are relevant to taking you closer to your goals.

4. Successful Entrepreneurs Have a Deep Desire to Succeed

Smart entrepreneurs have the drive to achieve their goals and succeed at what they do. It is what sets successful entrepreneurs apart from the rest of the crowd. This hunger fuels them and keeps them energized to push their businesses to the top.

5. Successful Entrepreneurs Keep Learning

Successful entrepreneurs rarely stay the same as they were when they started out. It is important to invest in developing your business and yourself so you can become a successful entrepreneur. Their passion to grow, expand their businesses, and learn, is naturally in their blood. You can learn through seminars, summits, coaching, books, programs, or furthering your education. You can also learn from entrepreneurs who have gone before you on ways to develop and grow your business to help you also become a source of inspiration.

6. Successful Entrepreneurs Have Mastered Their Minds

Mastering your mind is perhaps the most important way to keep growing. You will not be able to flourish and expand until you become comfortable doing things that challenge you. Your thoughts have the power to become a reality as long as you gain some perspective on them and speak positively to yourself. Face your fears head on so you can move on to greater things.

7. Successful Entrepreneurs Network with Like-Minded People

Smart entrepreneurs choose their company very carefully and they have great support from like-minded people who offer inspiration and keep them accountable. Surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals is a surefire way to drive your business towards greater heights.

If you are looking to join a network of like-minded entrepreneurs, check out Entrepreneur Network Australia – a website that features hundreds of helpful articles with tips on how to better grow and operate your business. Be sure to join their Facebook group to join the conversation!

2 Comments/by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Marketing, Mindset, Productivity

Five Things That Your Business is Overspending on (and How to Fix It)

Every coin you waste in your business is precious and can be directed towards improving services and products, or reaching more customers. Most companies face the problem of funneling their money towards irrelevant expenses and often it is because they do not take time to reassess their way of “doing things”. If you keep doing the same things over time simply because you have been doing them this way, you could be wasting a significant amount of money. Here are some of the areas in which businesses spend too much money and how you can fix it.

1. Hiring More Employees than Necessary

Today’s era is one of independent contractors and virtual assistants, so businesses do not need to hire salaried full-time staff to deal with daily tasks. Businesses can outsource these duties to freelancers who can work on a per-project or hourly basis. Your business needs to monitor their salaried workers constantly to make sure their positions genuinely require a full-time employee and only add new positions when the workload calls for it.

2. Indirect Marketing Campaigns

Data analytics have come to play a significant role in everything that businesses do and any company that fails to measure its marketing efforts can find itself left behind. Before purchasing paid advertising or posting on social media, ensure you monitor how your efforts are faring on first. The results of your current email blast could affect your decisions on future marketing campaigns for a long time so it may be worth it. Each dollar you spend could bring in more money for your business.

3. Failing to Monitor Business Expenses

Wining and dining your prospects or clients can be essential for a growing business but you should watch out for those fancy eateries (yep, I know). You could be spending more money than you need to in this area if you do not pay close attention to things. There are various expense- monitoring apps available to help you keep track of your business expenditure. If you are using professional accounting software, like Xero, you can also pull reports at different intervals to show you where exactly your money goes.

4. Is Your Business Overpaying?

If you do not hone your negotiation skills, you may end up spending more money than is required on equipment, supplies, office space leases, manufacturing, and other resources you use to run your business. Learn how to negotiate with your vendors so that you can save money which can be directed toward business growth. You probably spend a lot of time negotiating with your clients to make sure you get the best prices for your services or products, so why not use the same skills on your budget expenditure? Use the 80/20 rule to identify which 20% of your business expenses have the biggest impact on your overall expenditure.

5. New Technology

Businesses usually feel that they should invest in the most up-to-date technology, be it operation management software or devices to help them utilize this software. In addition to spending too much money on software and devices, you could also be investing in building a better marketing foundation and building systems that will allow you to scale your business.

As an independent marketing consultant, I help business owners to design and implement cost-effective marketing strategies that more than pay for themselves. If you are looking for a way to scale your business reliably, using proven strategies, I look forward to having a chat.

To your success,

by David Lee-Schneider

Business Growth Hacks, Marketing, Mindset

6 Lessons About Growing Your Business You’ll Learn From Superheroes

Can superheroes really teach you any valuable lessons about growing your business?

The world has been blessed with a stream of several top superheroes over the years. From Wonder Woman to Iron Man, Firestorm, Superman, Spiderman, and Thor, there is a long list of superheroes to choose from. There are many lessons we can learn from your childhood idols

They entertain us. They also help us to understand more about ourselves. They remind us of some wonderful lessons regarding humanity that we may have forgotten due to the pressures of life.

However, superheroes can also teach us some valuable lessons about growing our businesses.

Here are 6 lessons about growing your business you can learn from superheroes

1. Staying true to our aspirations and beliefs

We are likely to forget or abandon our aspirations and beliefs from time to time. However, a close look at these superheroes shows us that we don’t have to go down that route. Pursue what is right for the business until the end, even if nobody else has the same belief in it.

2. Take your power seriously

Superheroes have a lot of power. They also have a lot of responsibilities hanging over their shoulders. Remarkably, they show an uncanny ability to use their power well. They take what they do seriously and so should we while running and growing our businesses.

3. Be ready to make difficult decisions

A close look at any superhero shows that they struggle to make decisions. The weigh each decision’s pros and cons. Sometimes they fail and other times they succeed. What they are very good at though is the ability and willingness to make difficult decisions.

Any person who desires to run a business needs to be prepared to make some uncomfortable decisions, too.

More importantly, making difficult decisions helps us to know our values better! We can all learn from this Harvard Business Review article about making tough decisions.

4. Never be afraid of asking for what you want

Anyone who runs a business also does a lot of asking. We ask for information. We ask for data. We ask clients to give us feedback. We ask clients to buy our products and services. Superheroes are never afraid of asking.

Never be afraid to use marketing automation apps to help the business expand.

We can’t grow any business if we are afraid of asking for help or stating what we want.

5. Stay focused on the most important tasks

Superheroes assume a new aura when pursuing specific goals. They allow nothing to distract them. Entrepreneurs also have to develop such an attitude. It’s important that we stay focused on the areas of our businesses that perform exceedingly well while ignoring distractions. This is just one of the lessons about growing your business you can learn from them.

6. Don’t wait until you feel ready, start now

It’s normal for us to wait until we feel ready to do what we ought to do. That may not be an effective way of growing a business. Superheroes never wait until all conditions are perfect to do something. They get up and do whatever is required now.

There’s no perfect time. Do whatever has to be done NOW!

If it’s digital marketing, embark on it right away! I’ll help you. Let’s have a chat to find out where you’re at and what you need to transform your marketing.

What lessons about growing your business have you learned? Let me know in the comments below.