“The buck stops here.”
~ Harry S. Truman
By now you’ve probably heard about the importance of making a quarterly plan for your business, and you may well have a beautifully laid-out document ready to implement. You’ve probably asked yourself what assets your business has and examined the best ways to leverage those assets.
The calendar year may be slowly winding down, but that doesn’t mean your business is. Your year has probably seen its share of ups and downs, where certain aspects of the plans you laid out back in January have exceeded your wildest expectations, while other things… well, they didn’t quite go the way you imagined.
Now that Q4 is drawing near, you’ll want to finish the year strong. How will you do that? You need a plan. More specifically, you need a great one that includes certain key elements.
It’s no secret that Q4 is rapidly approaching. What that means to you and to your business will vary depending on what industry you’re in, but regardless of how important Q4 is to you, there’s no point in letting an entire quarter of the year go to waste. Even if it’s not normally a time for huge sales and a major marketing push, it doesn’t mean you have to go into your shell. Here are some things you should be doing before Q4 lands in your lap.
Communication is something we do so instinctively that we often take it for granted. We shouldn’t. One of the keys to being successful in business is not only communicating, but communicating effectively. That’s doubly true when it comes to your employees. You’ll find all sorts of books and articles on what to say to them, but just as important is what you DON’T say.
Effective leaders come in all shapes and sizes. There are loud, bold leaders who make headlines seemingly on a daily basis and there are quiet leaders who are content to let others bask in the limelight. Despite their differences in approach, one thing many of these effective leaders have in common is a set of behaviors that help them achieve success and then sustain it no matter what path they walk. Here are 7 of those behaviors:
Many people say seven is a lucky number. There were seven wonders of the ancient world and there are seven rows on the periodic table. Even ladybugs have gotten into the act with seven spots on their backs. Seven is also a great number when it comes to communication, which is the focus of our series for July (the seventh month, by the way). To kick things off, we’ll take a look at your employees, more specifically, how to keep them happy.
Look around the Internet and you’re sure to find plenty of tips on how to master social media. There’s a good reason. Many entrepreneurs have used social media to launch incredibly successful business careers in ways that wouldn’t have been possible a generation ago. Yet, this new media is also a fickle critter that can turn on you if you’re not careful. In the last of our series on social media, we’ll turn our attention to what NOT to do when it comes to using this powerful tool.
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A good plan starts around a very basic idea. It says: “I’m going to accomplish this goal in this amount of time.” For a business, this plan might mean you want to increase sales in the next quarter. However without a comprehensive plan that details what you’re going to do to get those sales, you run the risk of never reaching your goal. A good plan should also include a timetable and milestones so you know you’re heading in the right direction.
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Do you want to be more productive? Sure, who wouldn’t? It’s not just a nice goal either. It’s a matter of survival. Like many small businesses owners, you don’t have the luxury of unlimited resources, so you have to maximize what assets you do have if you want to stay competitive.
You have to be willing to put in the work, of course. Boosts in productivity don’t come without a little sweat. But you have to work smarter, not just harder. Here are 7 ways to get more for your efforts.
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You really can’t talk about social media without talking about Facebook. Sure, many people think tweeting is more hip and LinkedIn might seem more professional, but outside of email no platform can beat Facebook for sheer accessibility. There are tons of people who firmly believe that tweeting is best left for the birds, but they won’t go far without their trusty Facebook feed. Before you rush out to make use of this powerful tool, here are 6 things to understand about it: