Local Branding

How to choose the right front door lock

Your front door is the primary target for anyone who may try to violate your home. In addition to choosing a heavy, solid door, you need to put extra care into your choice of front door lock. The wrong lock could leave you open to burglaries, vandalism, or a home invasion. The right lock will help you to sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge that your door has the proper protection. Your skilled locksmith can help you to narrow down the best choice for you. First, consider your possibilities for a front door lock. 

Think About Embracing Technology 

Thanks to advances in technology, you may want to consider an electronic option for your front door lock. You may want to choose a lock that is opened through the use of a keypad or a touch screen. Another alternative is a blue tooth door lock that is opened through the use of your smart phone, tablet, or other electronic device. A biometric lock will only open by the use of an authorized fingerprint. Radio frequency identification is another option that allows access through the use of a key fob. You can have a traditional key access for your front door as well in case technology fails. 

Try a More Traditional Approach 

You may prefer to go with a more traditional front door lock. Whether you go with a round knob or a handle that simply pushes down or pulls up, you need to remember one important rule of thumb. Always include a deadbolt with this type of lock. Locks in your doorknob or handle can be broken in order to allow unwanted strangers into your home. You don’t want to make it easy for anyone to go through your front door. At the same time, don’t choose a system that needs a key to open the door from the inside. Otherwise, you could be trapped during an emergency. 

Turn to Your Trusted Locksmith as Your Go-To Resource for the Right Front Door Lock 

Your experienced locksmith has a wealth of knowledge about front door locks and what works best. Consult with your locksmith during a home visit to choose the next lock for your door. Your locksmith will perform a thorough inspection of your current lock to determine any improvements that should be made. If you have a lock that is damaged, always call your locksmith to determine if your lock can be repaired of if it needs to be replaced. Once your locksmith has assessed your needs, you can discuss the best front door lock that will give you peace of mind. Whether you are away, sound asleep, or enjoying the privacy of your home, you should not have to worry about intruders coming through your door. You can choose a traditional lock in your door knob combined with a deadbolt or choose a modern approach. Your locksmith is a great resource to keep you up to date on your choices for a door lock.

Digital Branding

Ways Social Media listening can help your Business

With the use of a shared count, it is possible to see how much your target audience are in tune with your content, but you can always do more.

Social media listening is simply about searching the internet and specifically the social media space to see what is being said about your business or brand, your competitors and other topics of interest, and with a little time and creativity, you can go beyond just monitoring your brand. You can employ the use of social listening to enhance content marketing, business development, product management, human resources and customer support.

If you are thinking of trying out social media listening, here are 5 ways in which this technique can be beneficial to your business:

Improved customer service

Today, more people are starting to use social media as the place to make public complaints, find solutions to their problems, and commend brands on good service.

Instead of relying on onsite calls or physically waiting for customers to show up in your workspace, social media as the go-to tool for responding and reacting to customers who encounter problems. Social media monitoring can improve the quality of your customer service through digital channels so that people no longer have to wait to receive a response.

Discover where your community is

Social listening enables you to find out where your potential and current community members carry on important conversations, for example, the hashtags on Twitter can lead you towards their areas of interests and what they often enjoy doing.

It is a good technique for identifying a target audience that would befit your brand, but more so for better niching your messages to befit their interests and reach out to their circles as well.

Track down the comments and shares on social media to lead you to the places they like to visit and the kind of content they would rather consume.

Build links with advocates and influencers

Influencer marketing is growing huge today and has continued to draw attention. The importance is that the influencer marketers ensure that people are talking about you and your brand, and when you are a conversation on social media, search engines and other users will definitely know who you are.

After a big product launch or update, track the link to or the title for press release you shared to see who else is sharing it. This information will help you identify influencers in your industry. Reach out to them to start building relationships.

Focus not only on the users with a big following, but also on the important fans of your brand that may not necessarily have a huge following, but are likely to convert to your advocates more than influencers can.

Interact with users

Largely, social media exists to foster relationship building, which is the one thing social media listening can help your brand with. For a business or brand, it can be overwhelming to track down comments and posts that might be relevant to you unless through social media listening.

Once you are keen on what your target audience is discussing and the trending issues in your industry, it is much easier to interact with your users then.

Be sure to keep your response times, intelligent, and humorous yet consistent with your brand image.

Actionable insights for brand improvement

Blindly running a business on social media can be detrimental to the productivity and success of your brand, which is the key reason you require to gather actionable insights for your brand management.

Since social media allows for open feedback, it is quite easy to receive negativity and criticism that might threaten the successful running of your brand, but with proper management, can scale your brand to greater heights.

Consider the feedback you receive as insights to help you in adjusting your business.

Social media is such a powerful tool, and with a little keenness in social listening, watch your business bloom this year!

Promote your workplace brand
Digital Branding

5 Tips to Branding Your Workspace

With the right presentation, you can make any business successful. The way you keep your office says a lot about you and your business. The moment someone enters your office, they’re going to notice everything: the color of the walls, the furniture, the way you arrange your furniture, the whole ambiance of the place makes the first impression. Branding is not an easy task. You might need some professional advice sometimes. If you have decided to do this all on your own, here are some tips that you will require to get everything just right.

Choose clean, functional design

Tips For Branding Your Workspace

1. Get Opinions  

Branding your workspace is a big step. It can either make your company more prominent, or it will take it down. Never make this decision single-handedly.  One-person shows are not advisable when planning office layout; ask other people that you trust about their opinions and suggestions. Seek help from the people from various departments who might have a better vision than you since they know the workflow better than you . Remember that your target involves the public too. You are not going to impress every person that walks in these doors by just using your ideas. Check the ambiance of other offices also. Look for new furniture options. Choose unique designs of office chairs, tables, sofas, etc.  An outsider should remember it for a long time.

2. Focus On Advertisement

Advertising is the key. Sometimes even if your product is not good enough, you can still make it look worthy with the right representation. Focus on the whole look of your website. When people are searching it, they should be able to easily find what they want.. Your site should have a separate opportunity for every service that you provide.

Have a distinctive logo

3. Logo

No matter what your business=, always try to maintain your individuality. Logos do this work for you. Make your logo so unique and impressive that if a person looks at it, he should know what about your company. Take the example of the Apple iPhone where their company logo in such a way, that no matter where you are from, you will recognize the company at a glance.

The same goes for the mottos and signs. Your office should be an accurate depiction of what your company does, your goals, your work, current projects you are working on. Let’s suppose; you are a commercial builder. Your office should contain the detail of what kind of work you have already done, your achievements, etc. If you have been a part of a major project or have been awarded some distinction, get the certificates framed and hang them up on the wall.

Maintain great office organization

4. Organization  

It is not essential to have extraordinary furniture; if you have a small budget, you can still make your place stand out from the rest. Place the ordinary things in an extraordinary way. The whole theme of the site usually depends on the type of work your company is doing. If you are doing creative works, you have a wide range of things that you can do with your place as you have more latitude than an accounting firm or bank..You have to maintain the decorum of the whole place.You should also keep the place well-lit and ventilated.

5. The Color Schemes

Again, if you are doing creative works, you can quickly get away with vibrant colors but if your office does more traditional professional look, you will have to go with light colors like grey or merely white will do. It is not recommended to go with vibrant colors as it might not correctly promote your brand.

Choose pleasing color and style

Digital Branding

Six Ways Hiring a Business Coach Can Take your Company to the Next Level

When running your own business, it is important to take advantage of every resource available to you such as getting a translation company to help provide accurate and proper business lingo on your website. Planned Ascent, Business Coaching and Consulting is a tool that can help you run your company at a much higher level. From your top level executives down to your lower level employees, business coaches can help your organization run much more smoothly. Here are six ways hiring a business coach can take your company to the next level. 

Business coaches can help you go outside your comfort zone 

Some entrepreneurs need help expanding themselves and their personalities. Online business owners can be especially introverted due to their lack of face to face communications. This can be very detrimental to a career as a business owner. However, a business coach can help you learn communication skills that can take your personality and business to a whole new level. The Everest Academy is a great example of a team of coaching professionals that can help you get out of your comfort zone

Have someone to be accountable to 

If you have ever tried to stick to a workout routine or diet, you will know that it is much easier to stay consistent when you have someone to stay accountable to. A business coach will act as an individual who will keep you accountable during your pathway to business success. They will help you set captivating goals and check on your progress toward those goals. 

Develop more self-confidence 

As a business owner, your self-confidence is key. You will not be able to take the proper action if you are not confident in your business. Business coaches train in the art of teaching self-confidence to their clients. 

Find someone who isn’t afraid of calling you out

There are many times that you can be operating inside of a bubble as a business owner. None of your employees will want to tell you that your ideas are bad. Your friends who look up to you as an entrepreneur may always be praising your new ideas simply because they admire the fact that you run your own company. A business coach will be able to tell you if an idea is a good or bad one. They will call you out on your mistakes and help you fix them. It is good to have someone on your team who will actually give you constructive criticism. 

Increase your productivity 

A business coach will be able to help you determine where you are wasting your time. This will be key to increasing your productivity. Everyone only has a certain time during the day in which they can get their work done. If you are effectively using this time, you will be much more productive with the growth of your business. 

Finally, increase your revenues, profits, and income 

After working with a business coach for an extended period of time, you will see that your revenues, profits, and income will increase. This will help you feel more accomplished in your business and make the expansions that you need.

Digital Branding

How to Recognize The Top Digital Marketing Agency for Your Brand

Raising brand awareness is one of the primary goals of digital marketing. However, not every company has the time and resources to do all the necessary work that goes into promoting a brand. One way to address this issue is to outsource branding to a third-party, such as a digital marketing agency.

Choosing the right agency for your businesses is not an easy task. If you hire the wrong people, chances are high that you won’t be getting the ROI you wanted. To prevent this from happening, you need to take steps to ensure that a given agency is the right fit for your branding needs.

To help you in this task, we have compiled a list of points you ought to consider while looking for an option that works for you.

Specify Your Branding Needs

Before reaching out to a digital marketing agency, you first need to be clear on what you want to accomplish in doing so. Branding is an undertaking that involves a whole scope of different processes, decisions, and objectives, some of which might be more important to your company than others.

The first thing you need to take into account is your budget. In general, the more you spend on branding, the better the results will be. Just bear in mind that digital marketing is a scalable affair, so you can get a good ROI even for smaller budgets.

Next, you need to choose which digital marketing services you need. Digital marketing agencies usually offer some or all of the following:

  • website design and development
  • content creation
  • search engine optimization
  • social media marketing
  • marketing analytics

Finally, you should be clear on the specific goals that you wish to accomplish. Think in terms of metrics – “raising brand awareness” is a goal that is difficult to measure, whereas “increase traffic by 25% in 3 months” is something you can work with.

Conduct Market Research

Once you have settled on the kind of service you need, it is time to begin browsing online for an agency that fulfills your requirements. Google is a good place to start with your search – just type in the relevant search terms and check the resulting websites.

The about page of a website should be the first place you visit. It should give you some clue as to what you can expect from working with the company in question. Be on the lookout for information regarding their staff, certifications, and technologies they use.

Examine their services next, paying special attention to the pricing model they use. Some companies charge per hour, whereas others set a price for the entire project. If no pricing information is available, you probably move on to your next candidate.

Pay attention to the website itself. A digital marketing agency with a poorly-designed website has no business doing branding work for other people. Be aware that the opposite is not necessarily true – a good-looking site is no guarantee that the services being offered are on par.

Check Your Client’s Reputation

After taking a good look at how a company presents itself, you should see what others have to say as well. Reliable digital marketing agencies won’t hesitate to display customer reviews, testimonials and comments on their own site, but you should broaden the scope of your search just in case.

Do some scouting on social media first. Be on the lookout for influencers that create branding-related content. These individuals will clue you in on who the major players are in the business, in addition to providing valuable advice free of charge.

Next, try getting in touch with your businesses associates, and ask them who they would recommend. If they happen to be clients of the company you are considering to hire, ask them how they feel about the results they got.

It would also be a good idea to ask for a portfolio of some of the branding work the company has done. You can then come to your own conclusion whether what’s on display is worth paying for. If a company refuses to provide a portfolio, that is usually a sign that you should take your business elsewhere.

Watch for Red Flags During Communication

Once you feel you have done enough research, proceed to contact your digital marketing agency of choice. The resulting exchange should tell you all you need to know in order to determine whether this is a company you should do business with. Pay attention to the following red flags while you communicate, as they are clear indicators that something might go wrong down the line.

If they promise to email you supplementary material but fail to do so, this means they are not taking you seriously as a client.

If they use vague or generic answer when responding to your questions, this means that they are not technically proficient to do the work they promised.

If they take too long to respond to your emails, this means that they don’t see you as a priority client, and will not give you the attention you need.

Conclusion

We hope that this guide has shed some light on what is at stake when choosing a digital marketing agency for your branding needs. There are many aspects you need to consider before reaching a final decision, but with enough research and a vigilant attitude, you are certain to find a company that will provide exactly what you are looking for.

Legal Branding

5 Ways Product Labels Can Help Your Branding

Labelling is an essential part of your business process. In fact, it is a part of your product and brand. Labelling pronounces a host of conveniences during a number of core business activities such as logistics, warehousing, and showroom displaying. Not only the efforts of your staff reduce, but also the cost and time involved in the management and sorting the products repress considerably with right labelling practices.

Did you know, that more than 60% of consumers make buying decision-based on the packaging and labelling of a product?

Did you also know that 65% of products go unseen in supermarkets owing to the chaos in shelves and sections?

These facts make enough sense why a business should be focusing on adding more elements to the visual appeal of their product, packaging and labels. How to build his brand’s recognition in the market is one of the first strategies a forward-looking entrepreneur develops. When it comes to branding, quality is not the only factor that a business should be looking at. Quality without a doubt should be the focal point of any success-hungry brand. It is something that you never have to compromise on. It helps you retain your customers.

But, your packaging and labelling are two key add-ons that support your brand building efforts among your audience. If your product looks good and your label shows useful and valuable information, the customer will most likely see it, pick it, read it, and might give it a try.

Spread the word

The consumer base of an infant brand solidifies swiftly with word-of-mouth marketing done by its first-time consumers. The WOM marketing is effectively free of cost and a brand does not have to invest a single penny on this. However, there certainly are some investments required to add quality to your product and some appeal to your labelling.

Quality in your product will give you returning customers. They will then spread the word about your quality and suggest their loved ones to use your product. Here comes the application of your product packaging and labelling. Your logo or your unique label will help the ones convinced through word of the mouth find or demand your product.

Almost all brands, whether emerging or established, invest in quality and look of their product, just to ascertain that their products catch the attention of consumers at the very first glance. It is, in reality, one of their core strategies.

Increase on-shelf visibility

Not seen not bought. To be seen in the market, your product needs to look good and most importantly, “unique”.

There is a direct connection between your sales and visibility! The more you are seen, the more you are sold. There is no denying that shelf placement also plays a crucial role in your sales.

For a newly-established business, gaining visibility in the market which already is packed with countless similar brands, is among the top challenges. However, if you have got your labels designed and printed by a professional service for custom labels, things will be easier for you.

For better visibility, it is imperative that you design your product’s appeal rigorously; get the first draft printed and quality checked; and then, the final draft printed and distributed.

Display brand information

How would a customer know it is your product if there will be no information about you on your product’s label? Almost every brand makes an effective use of labelling for this very purpose.

You are trying to establish yourself in the market. The best way is to advertise on different media. Another great way is to do it through your uniquely designed labels. You can write about the brand message, in addition to your promise regarding the quality of your product, your post-sale service, or anything persuasive.

The logo also gets a place on your label, and that is how your product gets your identity. It would now become easier for your customers to find and recognize your products.

Promote your offers

What else you can do through labels is to let your audience know about your ongoing promotional offers. This is a very common practice in stores, where each shelf or section has its own label displaying the very offer applicable for that particular shelf or section.

You can get custom labels designed and printed in bulk for each of your upcoming discount-offering deals. And as per the strategically chosen time, paste or distribute those labels in the store to avoid delays.

Promoting your seasonal offers is a great way to promote your brand. Giving your customers freebies such as coffee mugs with a custom printed message along with your logo or brand name can help you establish your brand.

Product Information

So, we have talked about how labelling speeds up the effectiveness of your promotional offers, promotional messages, brand information, on-shelf visibility and consumer base. But, here is something unavoidable.

In many states and countries, the law abides businesses to give all relevant and necessary information about the product on its label. Pertinent inputs including ingredients, how to and how not to use the product, conditions, and other ins and outs about the product should get a mention of the packaging label.

Additionally, the date of manufacturing, the date of expiry, production batch number, weight, and rate should be there on the label. All such pieces of information can be codified into a barcode pattern, which has become a trend these days; plus it brings your customers to your website.

So, never ever miss giving product information on your packaging. Without that, your product might be rejected authoritatively.

Here is an informative piece that explains the step-by-step process of creating product labels.

Bottom Line

There you go. Labelling delivers noteworthy benefits. It helps you establish your brand in multiple ways. Effectively-designed and timely-distributed labels allow you to gain momentum in the market influenced by brands of the same nature. However, what is essential is putting the right label on the right product (at the right time, if it is a part of your seasonal promotional event).

Not just your products, but also your labels and packaging – everything needs to be tested for quality stepwise. It is vital because you would never want your labels to have misleading or textually or grammatically incorrect information. One single misrepresentation can put a mark on your brand image. If you are making efforts to establish your brand, then such blunders can toughen your way significantly.

To transform into a real professional, consider Amazon FBA courses to get the best training available.

Legal Branding

Data Breaches are Soaring

2017 was a high-profile year for cyber attacks. Hundreds of millions of Americans were exposed to massive breaches at Equifax, Yahoo, and others. But while a few instances may have dominated headlines, the story of 2017 was how data breaches soared overall.

Data released by the non-profit Theft Resource Center brings the issue into stark relief. In 2017 there were 1,300 significant breaches at US organizations including businesses and government agencies. In 2005 there were less than 200 comparable instances.

The researchers are careful to point out that the numbers may not be as stark as they seem. Companies are now required or compelled to report breaches, which would inflate numbers over a decade ago. Unfortunately, there is plenty of other evidence to suggest that data breaches are becoming more common and more frequent.

The New Definition of Massive

We are used to hearing about data breaches that affect millions of consumers and involve huge amounts of stolen data. But since these massive attacks are so common, it’s hard to notice that they’re growing as well.

The cybersecurity firm Gemalto estimates that 2.6 billion records were stolen over the course of 2017, which is an 88 percent increase over the previous year. That means hackers have multiple personal records on most people in the country.

The Gemalto data also highlights that theft isn’t the only troubling issue. The firm estimates that 1.9 billion records were lost accidentally. This could be due to improper disposal, misconfigured databases, or basic human error. Regardless, the total is 580 percent higher than the previous year. Hackers are troubling, but even simple mistakes can have huge consequences.

The New Definition of Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity was already an urgent issue headed into 2017. It’s not like companies were caught off-guard by the problem and suffered larger breaches as a result. The troubling fact is that companies invested a ton of time, energy, and money in cybersecurity. Yet breaches still skyrocketed.

That is leading many to rethink the shortsighted nature of cybersecurity. Historically it has focused on prevention and deflection, basically keeping threats out of networks. But after years of failed efforts, companies are considering the other half of the equation. Understanding that incidents are inevitable, responding to problems and mitigating damage are new priorities.

That is leading companies to create detailed response plans, organize emergency IT teams, and practice crisis PR. They are also taking out cyber policy insurance in order to insulate themselves from fines, penalties, and lawsuits. Companies increasingly understand that even if they can’t avoid cyber incidents, they can avoid the worst of the damage.

By the end of 2018, we will likely have recorded some new lows in cybersecurity. Hacking is a lucrative enterprise, which is why cyber criminals are more motivated than ever. Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect data breaches to decline next year or anytime in the near future.

Investing more in protection is the only practical and prudent way to respond. The key thing is not to invest short-shortsightedly. Protecting against threats is important, but so is recovering from them on sound and stable footing.

SaaS Branding

5 SaaS Product Trial Strategies to Put in Place

Guest author: Molly Gibson Kirby

You know your SaaS company has a really good free trial, but are enough people converting to paying customers after the trial?

Probably not.

Typical trial conversion rates from a visitor to a customer in SaaS are 2%. This means if you have 10,000 web visitors, 200 will become free trial users and 30 of those users will become paying customers. Increasing these numbers are one of the biggest pain points for SaaS marketing departments.

In order to get your trial users to become paying customers, you need to make your free demo something these prospects can’t live without.

If you want to better your SaaS free trial, you need to change your strategy. It is possible to upgrade your conversion rate from 2% and that’s where this article comes into play.

In this article, we’re sharing 5 effective SaaS product trial strategies you can start using today to acquire more paying customers.

Two Types of SaaS Trials

For the majority of software products, the question isn’t – should I have a free trial? The question is – what sort of free trial should I have?

When creating a SaaS product trial, it’s important to note which type of trial your company is offering. Below are the two different types to decide between.

Opt-out Free

Opt-out trials are the free trials that require a credit card to begin. The free trial will turn over into a subscription at the end of the trial if the prospect does not opt-out.  If a free trial requires a credit card, the average visitor to retained customer conversion rate is around 0.6%.

This type of trial needs to have hard work behind it in order to get people to give out their credit card information before the trial even begins.

Opt-in Free

The Opt-in trials are the free trials that can be started without a credit card. Prospects will need to opt-in to a subscription by providing payment details during or after the trial is finished.

According to Totango, if a credit card is not required, the visitor to retained customer conversion rate increases to approximately 1.2%.

This type of trial needs to have hard work behind it to get people to become customers once the trial is up.

Now that you understand the types of free SaaS product trials, let’s get started on the strategies we know that help boost product trial ROI.

Make Sign Up Simple

The fewer barriers that you put in the way, the more likely it is that people will sign up and opt-in for your SaaS trial.

Consider what information your SaaS company needs for the free trial. This goes back to the two types of trial sign-ups. Are you going to do an opt-in or an opt-out free demo? This will determine if credit card information is needed in the form.

Keep the signup short, don’t ask for a separate username, simply use their email as a username.

Also, consider using social logins for account creation. This has become a popular feature for many SaaS companies and makes it easier for people to get started on their free trial without wasting time inputting all their information.

Create Engaging Content

In addition to having a free trial, creating content that relates to the SaaS demo is pivotal.

Users may have questions or concerns about the trial. Having the content that answers these questions will allow them to feel like your SaaS company is credible and authoritative. Start by creating a landing page for your free trial. Include an FAQ section on this page and a how-to guide on using the software, so people see it right when they sign up. Then make sure you have content regarding the free trial and how it can solve a customer’s problem on your blog.

Once you have these key pieces of content, get creative and begin to think of other ways to add valuable and educational content where it fits.

Show Your Value

However good your SaaS product is, the simple truth is that no-one will buy it if they don’t believe they need it. You need to show people what your product can do for them.

Articulate your value proposition on your website, landing page, content and in all marketing campaigns. Once you do that, any visitor should be able to tell what you offer, who needs it, what they will gain having it and finally, why they should choose your company.

Take Salesforce for example.

On their 30-day free trial landing page, they provide everything we just mentioned above.

Value Proposition: Sell Faster. Sell Smarter. Sell the way you want.

What’s offered: Sales Cloud

Who needs it: Canadian companies with a focus on sales managers

What they gain: lead management, opportunity management, sales forecasting and a mobile sales office.

Why choose Salesforce: Trusted by thousands of Canadian customers.

Salesforce does an incredible job at showing their value without sounding too preachy. When creating your SaaS free trial landing page, be sure to include these five sections we just mentioned.

Fix Your CTA

The effectiveness of your Call to Action (CTA) can make or break your marketing. It is the one piece that actually gets your visitors to take action – hence the name. A CTA should make visitors want your product, it should create an urgency for signing up and it should be an easy-to-use form!

Make your CTA visible on the homepage. This allows new visitors to see the CTA, hook them into thinking they need to try the free trial and have them easily sign up right then and there.

Exit Survey

On the same note as engagement, it’s imperative that you conduct an exit survey once someone is finished their free SaaS trial. If a user doesn’t move to a paid plan, it’s valuable to know why. After a week of not upgrading, an email should be sent out to ask why they cancelled.

Sometimes they leave because it wasn’t what they were looking for, but sometimes they’re not fans of a specific part of the trial/software. The latter reason usually can be fixed with needed changes or upgrades to the software.

As you may have noticed, user feedback is key when bettering your SaaS trial.

In the End

In the end, if you apply these strategies and tips, your SaaS trial should perform better. It’s possible for the conversion rate from a trial user to a paying customer to increase from 2%. It will just take time, commitment, user feedback and a handful of a/b tests.

Are you ready to better your SaaS product Trial ROI?

 

Author’s Bio 

Molly Gibson Kirby is a writer and marketing strategist at Roketto, an inbound marketing agency in British Columbia. She dives deep into the world of inbound marketing on a daily basis and writes about this fundamental shift in business on Roketto’s blog. When not writing, she’s either on her yoga mat or getting lost in a new book.

Local Branding

How to manage Your Rebranding

Rebranding your company can be a very important but very stressful process. If you are currently going through this process, then you have probably spent the last few months in the planning stage, trying to figure out how to go about it in the best way. It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the amounts of things that need to be done during the rebranding process which is why we have written this article to give you some tips on how to manage it. Keep reading if you’d like to find out more about this.

Plan Carefully

Before you get started on your rebrand, you need to plan carefully. You need to know why you are rebranding and what you are trying to change. If you don’t do your research properly then you might find that your rebrand will be a waste of time and you would have been better off sticking with the same branding. Plan accordingly and establish a clear strategy of how you want everything to happen. Don’t let yourself get carried away with rebranding before thinking through the consequences of your decision.

Manage Tasks

If you are rebranding a large company, you might find that there are a lot of things that need to be changed and a lot of things that need to be organized. For a company with a large team of people, it can be difficult to ensure that all tasks have been completed in time for the rebranding launch date. This is why you should consider making use of a workflow system like a Kanban board. So, what is a Kanban board? Well, a Kanban board uses different columns to organize tasks into things that need to be done, things that are in progress and others that have been completed. Make sure to do some more research about how a Kanban board works before getting started.

Create A Timeline

If you are going to rebrand your company, then you need to make sure that you create a timeline of how you want everything to go. You’ll need to make sure that you get all of your tasks completed on time and creating a timeline will help you to organize your tasks. Make to create a realistic timeline as if you try to rush things you might find that your rebranding does not go as well as you’d like. If you need some extra help with this, you could download some software that can take you through the steps in order to complete a good timeline that is easy to follow. Make sure to share your timeline with everyone who needs it in order to keep everyone on the same page with what needs to be done first.

Market Research

Before your rebranding gets underway, you should ensure that you are going in the right direction. If you are able to do extensive market research before the process begins, you can trust that you will have a successful project. You should also ensure that you conduct more research as the process goes on. Talk to your clients, find out if they will continue to use your services after the rebrand and find a good middle ground. Working with others on the rebrand will ensure that you are happy with your end result and you won’t have to do it all over again anytime soon. If you do your research properly then you’ll be able to manage your rebrand a lot easier.

Establish A Clear Budget

If you don’t set yourself a budget before the rebrand then you might find that you spend a lot more than you need to on the project. You need to set yourself a budget and try to stick to it where you can. This will help you to manage the whole project a lot easier and you can ensure that you will be happy with the process that you have undergone. When you are setting yourself a budget you should also remember that not everything goes to plan,and you should account for any issues that might arise in the rebranding process. Try your best to stick to the budget to ensure that you don’t end up spending more than you’ll make back over this whole process.

Final Thoughts

Deciding to rebrand your company is not a something which should be taken lightly. You need to make sure that you know exactly what you are getting yourself in to and you need to know what you need to change about your company. Don’t let yourself get carried away with the whole process, stick to your timeline and you’ll soon have your company back up and run. Organise yourself and your team effectively and your rebranding will be a success.

Local Branding

5 Business Risks You Take When You Become a Sole Proprietor

As a sole proprietor, you take on many inherent risks alone. There is nobody else to share the responsibilities, and any results of economic rewards or challenges would be only yours. It’s not easy to run a solo enterprise, but Gov Doc Filing makes it easier by providing the forms needed to apply for an entity and offer fast, simple, and secure processing through their simplified sole proprietor, S-Corp, C-Corp, and LLC forms online. They also provide forms to apply for an Employer Identification Number if needed.

Top Risks of a Sole Proprietor

  1. Limited Earnings – There are only you and a limited number of hours in a day. You also need to eat and rest. Even with hired help, the majority of the work lands on you. Your earnings are limited on how much you are able to accomplish each day. It is common for people with financial problems not to be clear about what they are pursuing (absence of goals) and, if they have them, they are vague, unrealistic or incompatible with their budget. What is not measured is not controlled.
  2. Poor Credit – When deciding to extend credit as a sole proprietor, lenders take your personal finances into account. All your personal spending habits have an impact on your ability to gain credit. It is important that you maintain an excellent credit rating as a sole business owner. It is associated with the possibility of defaults occurring in the established time and manner, which may involve loss of principal and interest, a decrease of cash flow, generation of expenses associated with the recovery processes, etc.
  3. Financial Errors – In addition to completing work for your business, you must also carefully monitor your finances. As a sole proprietor, managing your own books can be risky. Consider hiring an accountant or make it a habit to enter your income and expenses in a daily log or spreadsheet.
  4. Being Sued – A great benefit of incorporating your business is the layer of protection it provides. It is possible to lose all your personal property if you are sued.
  5. High Tax Bills – Although most expenses related to your business can be deducted on your income taxes, your tax burden may be increased from the self-employment taxes you must pay. Your habit of saving is deficient or nonexistent, you do not pay your credit cards, pay loans, understand how normal to acquire everything on credit, as well as paying delinquencies for overdrafts and late payments.

Before wanting to make any comment about it, it is necessary to know the variable and the risk concept with which we live in a day-to-day in a financial institution. In very simple terms there is risk in any situation where we do not know exactly what will happen in the future. Elsewhere Risk is synonymous with Uncertainty, it is the difficulty of being able to predict what will happen. Risk is part of life itself, it is up to us to manage it by becoming aware of the situations that lead us to it and applying the corrective measures to avoid them, as long as it is within our reach.