Feature Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash
The good news? You’ve opened a small business. The bad news? You now have to figure out how to run it profitably. We are going to let you in on secrets that larger companies know and use in order to maintain their productivity and profit margins. Here are tools you should be using to boost small business profitability, whether you’re completely new to business ownership or have been operating a company for years.
Optimize Your Office Suite
Chances are, you use at least some of the Microsoft Office Suite products. They’re generally user-friendly and are adaptable to almost any operating system. However, you might not be getting your money’s worth out of these products; especially Microsoft Excel.
In order to use this spreadsheet tool as productively as possible, you should consider contacting an Excel consultant. A consulting company that specializes in Excel (and the other Office Suite products) can help your company streamline your team’s workflow and accurately log data or products to ensure all needed information is at your fingertips within minutes, no matter where you might be working from!
Additionally, a consultant will help you properly train employees on how to use the program and how to apply that knowledge to your business. This means that workers will get more done, ultimately increasing profits and decreasing wasted time. Productive employees boost small business profits.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Voice over Internet Protocol is a service that allows you to make phone calls to anywhere in the world through a computer or any device that connects to the internet. If you happen to have clients, partners, distributors, or manufacturers in other areas of the world, VoIP helps avoid international calling rates.
Finding the right VoIP service for your business can be difficult. So, use a VoIP phone service buyer’s guide to find a perfect match. By thoroughly researching your options, you can decide which aspects are most important to you. Consequently, you won’t overpay for VoIP features you don’t need, want, or won’t use.
Small Business Sales Proposals
It’s exciting when a potential client wants to know more about your business and what you have to offer. Although you can type up a well-worded business proposal, unless something about it completely wows them, you could lose the sale. So, instead of walking into a sales meeting with a mundane offer, use proposal software to enhance your proposal. By generating professional-looking offers, you can increase positive responses and boost small business profits.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The first page of Google search results captures anywhere between 71-92% of traffic. Therefore, if your website isn’t listed on the first page of results, your potential customers may not find you. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. While the algorithms of search engines are complex, they have one main commonality. They return websites via keywords.
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Finding out which keywords are best to use for your site can be difficult to do on your own but it isn’t impossible. Google AdWords provides a free method of setting and testing keywords. However, companies exist that specialize in finding the keywords that are relevant to your business and including them in content that is created especially for you.
Also, in addition to utilizing keywords to improve Google ranking, posting interesting and timely content to social media outlets boosts site traffic. When informative content is shared on social media, people tend to share it with their friends. This helps drive traffic to your site (which obviously helps your search engine ranking) and allows for exposure to people who might not otherwise see your website.
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Small Business Virtual Private Networks
A virtual private network (VPN) allows you to connect to the internet or to your business’ network securely. Using a VPN can help make sure that the data you send and receive is encrypted. This prevents prying eyes from gaining access to things they shouldn’t. Opting to use this type of network keeps you and your customers safe from data breaches. Such security will boost small business profits by retaining customers.
Team Communication
Communicating among team members is incredibly important to the success of your business. As technology has improved, many business owners utilize the convenience of text messaging to reach team members quickly. However, assigning tasks and communicating in giant group text messages can become unwieldy and annoying.
Instead of trying to keep up with group texts or long email exchanges, team chat apps are the way of the future. These apps allow you to direct message colleagues about a project or ask your entire team for a solution to an ongoing problem. This type of app can build a positive office culture even for those team members that work in remote areas of the world.
Small Business, Big Impact
It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have their small business take off and be successful. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have risked starting the company. Taking the time to determine what tools work for you helps run your business efficiently and profitably.
Even if you don’t intend for your business to be a Forbes 500 company, the smooth daily operation is a must for your sanity and pocketbook. Use these tools to reach your goals and boost your small business profits.
