Continuous Improvement Makes a Difference – Even For Chicago
Even one of the worlds largest cities can benefit form basic continuous improvement! Even the city of Chicago’s clerk’s office is learning the same principles used by The 1 Percent Difference as demonstrated in a recent article. Continuous Improvement 101 indicates that you identify the KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for any organization as a starting point, and then you begin to measure your performance against those indicators. The very fact that you are paying attention and measuring performance will be noticeable and performance will improve to some degree. This is The 1 Percent Difference in action.
One an organization has identified how tasks are currently performed, then KPI’s are set and standards are determined for each function in that task. The last part is developing the reporting necessary to measure performance against the established standards. It doesn’t have to be time consuming to be effective and The 1 Percent Difference always takes into account the size of the organization and the need to get work done when designing such programs.
Entrepreneurs businesses respond the same way to these principles. Small business improvement can be modeled in a much simpler way yet the principles of identify and measure, make adjustments, then measure again are the same no matter what type of size of business you have. Business for entrepreneurs has often done without continuous improvement benefits that larger companies take advantage of. This may be the lack of understanding or skill sets by business owners, but more importantly by the lack of a continuous improvement service offering by small business consultants.
The 1 Percent Difference places continuous improvement principles at the top of the priority list during the delivery of services for its CSS (Customer Service Savvy), Executive Coaching, and Dashboard Development programs.
Let The 1 Percent Difference help design your continuous improvement program TODAY! Complete the form to the right for a free consultation.
Essential Business Skills… Never Stop Learning… and Do It For Free
The Internet – Greatest Source of Skills to Manage a Business
I love the internet!!! It is one of the greatest inventions of all time because you can learn almost anything by finding it there and study it at your convenience and at your own pace. If you are a student of learning like I am, this untapped resource is rich in content in many forms from text to webinars to video. Take your pick and learn the way that suits you.
As entrepreneurs who are always short of time and resources, this is a godsend. Whatever part of your business you want to learn about is at your fingertips and companies abound who will offer free material to put themselves and their products and services in front of you. If you want to learn how to blog, there are millions of sources for that. If you want to learn to do keyword search, the answer is there for you instantly on a Google search.
An Untapped Business Resource
Business strengths are built through small business skills developed a little at a time. Online learning, like all learning, is done in small building blocks over time. It takes a baby much learning and many attempts to even take their first step. We have an advantage in that we can determine what we want to learn and accelerate the learning at whatever pace we want.
Think about what a huge advantage this is over your small and even larger business competitors if we take advantage of it. It is one of those skills for success people never talk about. This tip can be more that The 1 Percent Difference for you.
Just as you set aside books to read at night or on weekends, why not identify a business skill you’d like to learn about. Then set aside a similar amount of time each week to learn about it and develop it. Remember that information and knowledge is power. Blow Away Your Competition TODAY by expanding what you KNOW that they don’t.
Let us show you some of the FREE resources available to you. Contact us for your FREE Consultation TODAY! Complete the form at the right.
Social Media: Little Participation = Big results
Why Add Social Media To Your Weekly Routine?
The world and the entrepreneur can certainly be overwhelming!
Besides being actively involved with managing employees, generating sales, and keeping customers happy; somewhere in the middle one has to find time to do a little marketing to generate new clients and and replace lost ones. Adding social media management to the list of things to do can definitely put you over the top with calendar management.
Consider two key points to keep this in perspective:
- A little involvement in these activities can generate big payoffs
- Your business owner competitors have the same time challenges you do
Improve Your Chances To Obtain New Customers
This is one instance where remembering The 1% Difference is of paramount importance. You don’t have to be a social media guru or participate in all social media channels to be successful. A little engagement in some social media activity can yield big results especially if your competitors aren’t involved in social media and can’t be found there. This improves your chances of gaining new customers exponentially.
That top social media brands of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is a great place to start and take just a few minutes each week for participation. To start of course, one needs in a page on each of these social media networks. Once established, you learn how to use social networking sites for business by simply providing a little information or good content to those connected to you each week to let them know what’s going on with your business.
Obviously, there is much more you can do on these networks if you have time. Our objective however, is just to participate and be present to create awareness about your brand and our business when most of our competitors are not doing this. A simple step, not a lot of work, to create the 1% difference between us and our competitors in the social media space.
Not sure how to get started?
If you want to learn how to use social media in your business, just complete the contact form at the right NOW for your free consultation so we can show you how.
Hungry for more information? Click here to get more details about social media and other marketing tactics.
Facebook Pages… Don’t Just Set It and Forget It!
Wanted: Facebook Tips
Facebook pages for business are a hot topic these days. We are inundated with information about how to create them and why you should have one. What is generally lacking are Facebook tips about how to manage your Facebook page, generate Facebook likes for your page, and how to turn all of this into Facebook sales.
Why Facebook Review
Almost 60% of Facebook brand followers are interested in hearing about offers, coupons, and news from those companies they follow and nearly 80% read everything you post about your company. Thats HUGE!!! On top of that, about 75% of followers who like a brand don’t “unlike” that brand so once you get customers who like you it is hard to lose them.
The data is in and the message is clear, build a strong Facebook page, work at getting people to “like” your page and then provide them with helpful content and interesting offers and they will remain loyal to your business or brand and your sales will increase.
Get Engaged to Drive Facebook Sales
The number 1 thing people don’t understand about Facebook is that it’s all about conversation with your network. You have to stay connected and engage your audience which means you need to check it every day. This kind of involvement is critical to Facebook success to keep your audience interested. Remember, they’re hungry for content and offers, so stay in touch on Facebook and give it to them. They will reward you with more likes and more sales.
More Facebook Help
Review the video attached for more great tips on how one company has grown their Facebook network.
Share Your Successes
There is no single tactic that works successfully on Facebook. We would love to hear from people about how they are using Facebook to drive their business through Facebook sales.
Free Consultation
Don’t forget to complete the form to the right to learn more about how we can help you create “The 1 Percent Difference” in your business so you can blow away YOUR competition.
Blogs Lead to Sales
I was reviewing the clients blog statistics the other day and it reminded me how far we’ve come from the days before he had the blog. That review reminded me it was time to revisit the multiple benefits and blogs, the reasons people don’t blog, and the alternatives to doing it yourself.
Why blog?
The best description I’ve found of blog use is to think of it as constantly adding small pages to your website as an important subject comes to mind. Remember, the search engines love content! So when you continually add new content which includes keywords people use to search on google, your website ranking will improve over time. In fact, many times the specific blog post can rank higher on google than a page from your website.
The second benefit and providing this content is that it provides clients or prospects with valuable information about your products and services, creates some awareness for your business or brand, and generates interest in your blog itself which will encourage them to return for further information from future blog posts.
The third and most important reason to blog is to generate more leads which you can turn leads to sales and new business by attaching an offer to a specific blog post.
So why don’t people do it?
The myriad of excuses ranges from lack of time, lack of understanding, shortage of content, and amount of work to maintain a blog. The reality is that we all do things and find time and motivation for those activities of which benefit us. So the bottom line use understanding and seeing the connection between blogging an increased revenue and having the self discipline to do it regularly.
Have someone do it for you
Often the easiest solution and frequently the most cost effective, use to find someone to blog for you who understands the process, knows how to find content, can optimize loan posts, create offers, and track statistics for you, now you focus on your core business and do what you do best.
This is a service that we provide to our clients as part of the 1% difference strategy.
For more information on this service and are 90 day no risk trial offer click here.
Opportunity Abounds in Bloomberg Article
A recent Bloomberg Business article was focused on how small business (under 50 employees) were more severely affected by the economic downturn compared to medium and larger companies. The article identified 2 major reasons why small business in San Diego and around the country was impacted so dramatically. Small business is often concentrated in service industries and the entrepreneurs who start them often finance them using the equity in their homes. The drop in home prices would have a severe impact on the available cash to borrow for many small business owners.
The principal of wisely running a business of any size in a down economy remains the same, run lean and conserve cash so that you remain profitable and can take advantage of opportunities. What the article didn’t say is that many company owners, especially small business types don’t understand these principals so succumb to the pressure and don’t survive. This eliminates many competitors and their customers have to find new service providers. That’s where the opportunity is.
Having a small business consultant on your team can be a critical part of the strategy to identify such opportunities and have a plan in place to take advantage of them. The right consultant can help you alter your business plan, and do the financial planning and analysis necessary to get you ready for opportunities when they present themselves. This can include making sure your marketing and web strategy is creative and enticing to attract those customers who can no longer find their previous service provider.
Remember if 10% of the economy isn’t working, that means 90% is STILL working. We can’t do anything about the 10% so forget about it… and focus on getting a greater share of the 90%.