Looking for inspiration to help your small business develop and move in the right direction?  You might not have thought it at first, but television show ‘The Voice’ could be that inspiration and here we look at what you can learn from the show to help improve your small business. Offer something different…but not too different The basis of The Voice is it’s a talent show. [...]

We’re fast moving to a more digital, online based world. As consumers, we’ve been able to shop online for years, but technologies that are developed on what seems like an almost continual basis are allowing for businesses to benefit in various commercial ways, with having completely remote, home based staff one of them. But just because you’re able to have home based staff, does that [...]

As a small business owner, it’s highly likely you think of your small business as a baby. You’ve brought it into this world, cared for it, nurtured it and dedicated what seems like every waking hour of your life to it to ensure it develops. It’s because of this why, understandably, you can become very overprotective of it, something that becomes all that more apparent when you look [...]

A few weeks ago, I talked about customer complaints and how to deal with them, limiting the problems often associated with complaints from customers. Today, I want to provide an insight into how any small business can take advantage of a complaining customer, whether they’ve passed on a slightly negative comment while being served or they’ve raised a formal complaint after an experience [...]

Every organisation around the world has to contend with increasing outgoing costs on a regular basis.  Some outgoings they can reduce, others they can remove completely and there are some that unfortunately, have to simply be put up with. Although these three communication outgoings are all necessary for a small business, there’s no need to just sit back and accept an increased cost with any [...]

Being a small business is great for many reasons, but it also brings with it a certain stigma – very often, both customers and other businesses will favour larger businesses over smaller ones, as they believe because they’re more established, they’re more reliable, professional and they’ll generally receive a better service. This obviously isn’t the case, but it’s [...]

For many small businesses, their primary aim is to develop and expand to the extent that there is such a need for their products or services that they have to employ a number of staff across the globe. From manufacturers through to sales teams, there’s no doubt that the expansion for any business is always in their sights – it’s a great indicator that you’re doing well and providing [...]

It’s a feeling that everyone around the world is likely to have felt at one point in their lives – heading up to bed on a Sunday night while feeling slightly anxious and worrying a little about going back to work on Monday morning. And although it can seem like small business owners wouldn’t get this feeling, as they’re working in a role they should, in theory, love, the truth [...]

Earlier in the month, I talked about how best to deal with complaints from your customers (‘How To Effectively Deal With Customer Complaints‘). As all complaints aren’t simple and straightforward to resolve, today I want to look more closely at how you can prevent a lot of the problems that are associated with customer complaints, as an unresolved complaint can easily escalate into [...]

Although to discontinue a product might seem as though it shouldn’t require any more than simply removing it from your small business’s shelves, whether they’re physical or electronic, the truth is discontinuing a product requires more thought than most believe. Requiring for you to take into account various factors, this information looks at exactly what it is you need to do before [...]