It’s 2018. Are you sure you are keeping up with the times?
In a fast-paced world of online business, it’s easy to fall behind, and to not even realize that it happened. Then, the next thing you know, your business is declining and your competition is way ahead of you. You don’t want that, do you?
Don’t worry. All you have to do is to spend a little bit of time every now and then to keep up with the current business trends. Here are 9 ways that will help you catch up with everyone and optimize your business for 2018…
#1 Use new marketing channels.
Everyone is using messaging apps now. So why aren’t you going where your customers are? A simple chatbot that can answer basic questions about your products and services can save you quite a bit of time on customer support. Plus, your customers will appreciate being able to get answers via messaging apps. And don’t worry, you don’t need to know any programming, Botsify can show you how to create a chatbot without any coding.
#2 Make sure your design is up to date
Does your website look like it’s a time-capsule from the late 90s? You have to understand that poor web design is extremely damaging to your business. Think about it. When you visit a website that looks bad, do you stay and look around, or do you leave immediately? Well, guess what, your customers do the same! So make sure your website is up to date and unique (you can easily add custom elements like fonts with design bundles).
#3 Get your invoices in order
Bookkeeping might be boring, and you might hate it, but you still have to do it, otherwise your business will turn into a complete mess! It’s best to use one tool to track time spent on client work and to issue the invoices so that everything would be in one place. I recommend Invoice Ninja, an open source platform that is used by small business owners all over the world.
#4 Qualify leads
You know how sometimes you get messages from people who want to work with you yet have a budget that’s barely enough for a meal at McDonald’s? These emails are a waste of both their time and yours. That can easily be avoided by qualifying leads in advance. Simply add a wordpress form to your website and make your potential customers answer a few questions about their project. That way, you will immediately know the situation once they reach out to you, which will save you a lot of time.
#5 Answer popular pre-sales questions on the homepage
You should also do your best to avoid answering the same questions repeatedly. For example, how many times has someone asked you about your rate, only to lose interest once you answered? Interactions like that should be avoided. You can do that by adding a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section to your website with this WordPress FAQ Plugin.
#6 Reduce the amount of steps required to buy from you
Want to make more sales? Then stop putting barriers between the customer and the purchase! Customers shouldn’t need to contact you and negotiate with you to buy your products and services. It makes much more sense to have a Simple Shopping Cart on your website that allows people to buy from you immediately.
#7 Improve your hiring process
Hiring people is one of the toughest things to do when running a business. Are you picky enough? For example, when you look at the resumes, do you pay attention whether your applicants have bothered to use resume templates or not? Little details like that can tell you a lot about a person. So make sure to pay attention not only to how well they look “on paper” but also to various cues that indicate what kind of people they are.
#8 Improve your homepage, blog, landing pages designs
Web design can make or break a business. Take a good look at your website. Do your homepage, blog, and landing pages look good? You can use Elementor WordPress Theme Builder to improve them if you think they need some polishing. Remember, content is king, but no one is going to read your content if your website looks horrible!
#9 Optimize length of your texts
Many people don’t pay attention to the length of their texts and end up with weird looking social media updates, Google snippets, and websites. This is bad. Do you think your clients will trust you to take care of their businesses if you can’t even take care of your own online presence? Make sure that your texts on social media and on Google fit the limits. You can use Lorem Ipsum plugin to easily generate lorem ipsum placeholder text to see how the text would look on your website or social media.
Conclusion
You can’t be complacent if you want to get ahead in business. Always make sure that you have your fingers on the pulse of your industry. What’s new? What are the latest trends? What are your competitors doing? Only then you’ll stand a chance of not only surviving, but thriving. Never allow yourself to fall behind!