5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Hire Non-Vetted Freelancers
Recruiting freelancers for your business can be a headache, especially when you’re trying to fill and manage positions you’re not always familiar with yourself. For Sales Renewal’s JointSourcing Solution, we routinely need to find and manage subcontractors (freelancers and other marketing agencies) as we assemble our client’s virtual marketing departments staff, and over the years we’ve gotten pretty good at vetting, verifying, and managing them. Here are some tips on how to carefully vet freelancers to prevent missed deadlines, communication issues, security breaches, and more.
Of course, we’d still be happy to help you not only build, but also manage, an outsourced marketing department that’s perfect for your business!
Read the full article at: www.smallbizdaily.com
Seize These Big Opportunities for Smaller Brands to Make More Money
In the past, high-powered marketing agencies have always come with high-powered price tags, creating expensive gatekeepers that have barred small businesses from gaining the marketing benefits of agencies that can truly move the needle.
This article explores the pros and cons of various informal approaches to assembling your own experienced marketing team. We’re certainly biased, but we think they left the best, most effective type off their list: a complete, outsourced marketing department including a CMO & VP of Marketing (learn more about the JointSourcing Solution).
Read the full article at: www.entrepreneur.com
Six Ways Going “Green” Can Boost Your Bottom Line
We’ve heard it over and over again: it’s important for the environment to work “green” or eco-friendly initiatives into our lives whenever we can. For individuals, the path to a greener lifestyle is simpler, but for businesses, an eco-conscious approach may seem difficult to integrate at first. We think there are plenty of green initiatives your small business can adopt – and they’ll also be great for your bottom, and sometimes top, lines.
1. Grow your business by marketing your eco-friendly products, services and expertise
In every industry, there’s a largely untapped segment of buyers that values and is willing to pay for green products, services and expertise. Metro Sign & Awning (a Sales Renewal JointSourcing client), for example, wanted to cultivate new Partners who’d recommend their signage products and services in the Partners’ new construction projects. With our help, Metro created a series of white papers that helped Architects and Property Developers become more knowledgeable about green signage. The idea was that by making these prospective partners more knowledgeable about something Metro was expert at (eco-friendly signage), the partners would come off as more knowledgeable in front of their customers. This brought more business back to Metro as well, creating a clever – and successful – marketing campaign that not only built their own business, but also enhanced their partnerships while doing double duty for sustainability.
2. Share the knowledge.
Do your products and services have a long-term environmental impact? Let your customers know how working with you can impact THEIR green initiatives and bottom line! Outline both the financial and ecological ROI on a sustainable product. Generate content that discusses how your eco-friendly products can reduce your customers’ carbon footprint or eliminate their waste over time. By leveraging your own environmental consciousness into a marketing campaign, you’ll encourage your customers to invest in your products and services, while also doing double duty for sustainability! You can also grow your partners’ businesses by sharing your own green expertise, helping your partners win more customers through the wisdom you’ve passed to them.
3. Think outside the (recycling) box.
Green initiatives at your company aren’t limited to benefitting ONLY your company. Get creative with your business’ approach to environmental friendly decision making. Understand your carbon footprint and consider participating in carbon offset programs to supplement and enhance any company policies you have already implemented. Use your business voice to align with policy initiatives that align with your company’s values. Customers in the modern era are heavily attracted to purpose-driven businesses that publicly share – and take action on – their values. You’ll not only be doing the earth a favor, but you’ll be gaining favor with and growing your customer base!
4. Assess your energy needs.
Are you leaving equipment or lighting on overnight? Are you heating a conference room you only use once per week? Minimizing wasted energy sources will not only help the environment, but will also put a nice dent into your energy bills. Switch to LED lighting in place of incandescent bulbs, and put your lights on motion sensors to ensure lights are turned off when not in use. Set computers and other office equipment to hibernate or switch into sleep mode during periods of inactivity. Consider switching to laptops, which are more energy-efficient than desktops, whenever possible. You may also be eligible for rebates on your energy costs if you’re upgrading to eco-friendly equipment, so contact your energy supplier to see what incentives they may offer!
5. Assess your physical office needs.
Your business’ office footprint is your own piece of the environment, and needs as much care and consideration as the great outdoors. Find an office that is the right size for your needs to prevent wasted energy from heating and lighting spaces that are unused. When upgrading equipment or furnishing your office or workspaces, shop secondhand when possible (something Covid has made a lot easier with all the office downsizing going on now). Look for energy efficient machinery, or for sustainably built furniture that will outlast other construction. Or, consider eliminating your rent bill completely by allowing your employees to work remotely! Remote offices reduce pollution from commuting to and from the office, and reduce your employees’ gas and wear & tear expenses, so it’s a win all around!
6. Assess your paper needs.
Printing and paper use is a prime target for small businesses to make an impact with a few simple changes. Printing on both sides of each sheet will cut both your paper waste and your paper cost in half instantly. Or, use the back side of printed papers as scratch paper for note taking instead of purchasing sticky notes or other notepads. Or, consider going paperless completely! With the proliferation of cloud computing, records storage and document sharing can be done without a single sheet of paper; marketing can be managed online through email campaigns, social media, and websites; even sales and accounting can be migrated to online payment programs and bookkeeping software. Never buy another ream, nor another clunky printer or copier, again!
Going green dramatically benefits businesses – it should be central to their coronavirus recovery strategy
While the overall benefits of “going green” are readily apparent, we found it interesting to see these added suggestions for furthering your business’ green initiatives as the world economy continues to cautiously reopen after the Coronavirus impact of 2020. Try these four “greening” methods as your company ramps back up in the post-pandemic world:
- Go after smaller markets that embrace green practices
- Motivate your employees to adopt green initiatives in their work and daily habits
- Investe and engage in sustainability programs
- Focus on energy efficiency with your equipment, buildings, and vehicles.
Read the full article at: theconversation.com
Green Marketing To Grow A Reseller Channel
“Going green” is an oft-used phrase, but many small businesses have difficulty working environmentally conscious practices into their operations – especially in the services industry. Determining how your customers can use your green services to meet their business goals, however, is a clever approach to eco-marketing (where you, your customers, and the environment all win) that we’d love to see more often!Metro Sign & Awning, a Sales Renewal client, wanted to increase referrals from architect and general contractor partners, so they created a content marketing campaign around white papers that explained the benefits of environmentally-friendly, energy-saving business signage to the customers of architects and general contractors. By helping their partners attract customers interested in green signage, Metro was able to grow its referrals from them and deliver many more environmentally beneficial signs.
Read the sample white paper at: www.metrosignandawning.com
SBA launches free online digital learning platform for female entrepreneurs
Starting your small business can be hard for anyone, but women especially struggle in the entrepreneurial field, which has traditionally been male-dominated. The SBA is working to level the playing field with a new platform that offers FREE educational resources to women
Read the full article at: www.kold.com
Benefits of Gender Diversity
With International Women’s Day happening this month, you may have seen your news feeds filled with appreciation, support, and celebration of women everywhere. Though that hasn’t always been the case for women in the workplace, the gender gap is rapidly closing – and the economic benefits of gender diversity has become readily apparent. Study after study has proven that the inclusion of women in business environments has direct and indirect financial benefits. In the US alone, gender equality practices and policies could inject over $4 trillion into the economy in the next five years, with gender-diverse businesses in some sectors showing up to 14% higher average revenue and up to 19% higher average quarterly net profit than less-diverse counterparts.
Why does gender diversity return such large economic benefits? One reason is that prioritizing gender diversity within the workplace allows businesses to draw from a much wider talent pool. With women typically obtaining college degrees at a higher rate than their male counterparts, this opens the door to more hiring options with a wider variety of experiences and viewpoints, while still maintaining a high level of knowledge and ability. Inclusivity has been flagged as an important employment decision factor by 85% of women, so not only does gender diversity grow the available hiring pool, it also actively attracts those highly capable workers away from other companies, giving your business the marketplace advantage when seeking talent. Increased diversity of opinions and viewpoints also enhances your business’ opportunity to think outside the box while simultaneously providing a better internal representation of your external market.
Once women are on board, incorporating gender diverse policies further increases creativity, retention, productivity, and loyalty. A culture of inclusivity boosts morale and promises greater opportunities for advancement and overall job satisfaction. Women are more likely to feel heard and able to safely communicate their ideas and feedback, making them more likely to stay invested in their work with a positive mindset. Additionally, gender diverse policies addressing issues like family leave and affordable childcare can facilitate a fusion and balance of family and career (which benefits men too); under such policies, women have experienced lower stress levels during pregnancy, were up to 93% more likely to return back to the workforce within one year of giving birth, and were more likely to increase their working time by up to 17% within three years. Building a more inclusive workplace keeps your talented employees working at higher efficiency and output rates for longer, while staying happier and more loyal, contributing greater long-term ROIs on your hiring practices.
Inclusivity in the workplace has been proven to provide businesses with clear, measurable advantages and successes over less inclusive organizations. Companies are more likely to hit financial goals, generate innovations, be considered high-performing, and experience better business outcomes when diversity is present and embraced through company culture and policy. Creating a gender-diverse environment in the workplace has also demonstrated large-scale economic boosts in many ways, as well, documented in a 2016 report from the United Nations. When plotted against the gender inequality index, data consistently shows the most gender-equal countries are the most developed, have the highest income per capita, are associated with faster economic growth, and experience stronger national competitiveness. Gender diversity and inclusivity are key building blocks to business success and directly impact your business’ bottom line.
Assess your company’s diversity and inclusion levels, and learn how to enhance your current office culture and policies to produce greater business benefits, with this simple checklist from Glassdoor.
10 Strategies to Get More Reviews and Compete in SERPs
Reviews have been an important for online businesses since the beginning, but they're even more important now.
Consider:
- Consumers require an average 40 online reviews before believing a business’s star rating is accurate (up from 34 in 2017)
- 85% of consumers think that online reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant
The authors propose mulitple strategies to use to get more reviews for your business, here are their best:
1. Deliver an Outstanding Customer Experience (if you're not, don't bother with getting reviews)
2. Ask Every Customer
3. Respond to Positive and Negative Reviews
4. People Have their Preferences, Select Sites Customers Use
5. Make Leaving A Review Simple
6. Time Your Request
7. Automate Requests
8. Play the Long GameAnd finally, when creating an online reputation management program, it's important to understand the important difference between 1st and 3rd party reviews
- 1st-Party Review: Feedback or testimonial given directly to your business by a customer. The business owns the content.
- 3rd-Party Review: Feedback given to a 3rd-party review site like Google or Trip Advisor. The site owns the content.
Read the full article at: gatherup.com
Meet the Woman Who Made Studying the Multicultural Consumer a Priority
Research is a cornerstone of any marketing plan – just ask one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, Cheryl Grace. Her commitment to using multicultural consumer segment data has helped propel her beauty brands forward with informed marketing strategies that speak to a much broader audience than her competitors. Find out what data types can be relevant to your business, and how to leverage that data in your own marketing strategy, in the full article.
Read the full article at: beautymatter.com
‘Thumb-Stopping,’ ‘Humaning,’ ‘B4H’: The Strange Language of Modern Marketing. – The New York Times
How up-to-date are you on marketing buzzwords? Check this collection out to see.
Our fav: Thumb-Stopping!
Read the full article at: www.nytimes.com