How Your Business Will Benefit From A Loyalty Card Program
It seems like almost every business has jumped on the loyalty card program bandwagon. From grocery stores to pharmacies and restaurants, retailers everywhere are launching customer rewards programs.
Have you ever wondered why?
Sure, customers stand to benefit from participating in loyalty card programs. They get discounts, special offers and cash-back opportunities. But the benefits for retailers are just as great, if not better. Even with the cost of a loyalty gift card program, you still end up being a winner in the end.
If you’re considering launching a loyalty card program, here are some of the many benefits you’ll pick up along the way:
1. Better Data Tracking
Every time a customer swipes a rewards card, you’ll get a clearer picture of who is buying what. The data will allow you to examine shopping patterns and use the information to make better business decisions. For example, use the information to make better choices about product selections and inventory supply.
2. Improved Marketing
Armed with all the data you’ll collect from customers who fill out a rewards program application, you’ll be able to develop marketing campaigns tailored to specific groups. Offer customers special, personalized deals based on their age, interests or previous purchases.
3. Better Customer Retention
A few incentives go a long way in creating loyal customers. If your customers believe there’s something to gain from giving you their repeat business, they’ll come back time and time again. Simply by offering a coupon for $2 off the next purchase, you’re dramatically increasingly the likelihood that a customer will come back.
4. More Frequent Business
With a loyalty program, the more often a customer shops, the faster they can start claiming rewards. A customer who’s just $5 away from earning a $25 gift certificate might find an excuse to stop by your store. Customers who used to come in once a month might start coming twice a month or once a week.
5. Increased Product Awareness
Do you offer a valuable product that – for one reason or another – is simply sitting on the shelves? Maybe you’re a retail shop that specializes in handmade goods, but the greeting cards in the back of the store just aren’t selling. By offering items like these as incentives, you can promote items customers may not know you have.
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Are you Wasting Your Money on Mobile Emails that Don’t Work?
Email marketing is one of the most lucrative online channels. And it looks like the combination of mobile is a powerful team.
According to a recent report from HubSpot, “43% of people on mobile devices check their email over four times per day”.
That presents a huge opportunity to reach people instantly at any time, and any place. But the problem is that an email that looks great on your laptop will look terrible on a mobile device.
So you need to improve your email marketing, and make sure that what you’re sending will perform on any device. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time (and money).
1. Write a Killer Headline
The headline is the most important element of any email marketing campaign.
How important?
According to a recent study from MailChimp, average open rates are only around 10 – 30%.
That means that 70 – 90% of the people didn’t care enough about your headline to even open the email.
People today don’t have time. So they don’t read everything. They scan and only open things that look interesting. If your headline doesn’t grab their attention, then they’ll never open it. And the the first step to making more money with an email marketing campaign is by improving the open rate.
Start with Copyblogger’s guide if you need help.
2. Focus on One Goal
The screen on a mobile device is really small. You literally only have an inch or two to get your point across. So keep it really simple. Pick one goal for each email you send, and focus only on that. This will drastically improve your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) for that one element.
Most people try and put several calls-to-action in one email. They want people to click a link to their website, become their Facebook friend, and buy something all in one email. That doesn’t work on a tiny screen. And the goal of your email isn’t to sell. You just want to pique your reader’s interest enough so they click through to a landing page.
Once you have them on your mobile site, then you can worry about converting them.
About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of FixCourse.com, a blog about online customer acqusition and how to grow your traffic, generate leads, and make more sales.
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How Can You Utilize Email Services to Manage Your Online Reputation?
As a professional that conducts any type of business online, the reputation you build is crucial to how you are perceived by your audience. The comforting part in all this is that whether it is good or bad is totally up to you. Now there are quite a few methods for keeping up with one’s image, but one tool you may not have thought about for this purpose is email marketing. This article will explain how you can use email services to manage your online reputation.
Control Your Content
The web is the largest hub for content there is. It is everywhere, and can be created in a number of ways. Content can be generated by you or others who have something to say about you. When user generation comes into play, your online reputation is instantly put on the line. You want to control as much of your content as possible, because the more you own, the better you will be at managing your reputation. Email services are perfectly suited for the task at hand. Whether it is a monthly newsletter, weekly tips, or daily deals, using such a tool right can give you a handle of most of the content you push through the internet.
Embrace Criticism
Even if your reputation is in fairly good shape, there still may be a need to perform a little maintenance from time to time. A perfect instance would be the moment you or your organization comes under criticism. There is nothing wrong with having a mixed reaction. After all, an overwhelming number of positive reviews could look suspicious to some. However, you don’t want the negative reviews to get out of hand, so addressing them is always a smart move. Email marketing gives you the platform needed to take control of the situation as it allows you to directly communicate with your audience. Regardless of what is being said, you can make sure they know the real deal by engaging them in an intimate, one-to-one setting free of outside interference.
Address Complaints
No matter what you do, you will find that making everyone happy is impossible. Members of your audience are bound to complain about something, but when it comes to what you’re doing online, their complaints are likely tied to areas you can make changes to. Publicly announcing these changes is an effective way to combat whatever damage those complaints may have had on your reputation. You can use email services to let customers know you have addressed the slow response times, malfunctioning links, or other problems that left them uneasy. Dealing with such issues is key in managing your reputation as a whole.
Ignoring your online reputation is probably the worst thing you can do, especially if you know that it has been taking a beating. Your presence is forever embedded in the digital space so don’t just expect it to go away. Luckily, email services exist to help you manage your reputation and keep it in good shape.
About the Author: Francis Santos is a writer and blogger for Benchmark Email and also the executive editor for Geek Peeks.
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Best Ways To Stop Micromanaging And Become Even More Effective
Professionals have a commitment to getting things done right, on budget, on time, first time. You can’t do that all your self so you assign tasks to members of your team, they try their best but they can’t see your vision and they’re not necessarily going in the direction you had in mind. Perhaps you need to take over or tell them how to do it your way.
Stop there!
You don’t buy a dog and chase your neighbours cats yourself so why have a team on side if you’re just going to do their jobs for them? Let’s assume you’re working with other professionally minded people, they have the same objectives as you do, they have skills which made them suitable for the role that they’ve been tasked with so, beyond keeping an eye on things, making sure your assignment isn’t going way off track, you don’t need to keep looking over their shoulders.
What you’re looking for is accountability. If your team know that they’re accountable for their work then they will put the effort in; take too much charge and you destroy that sense of responsibility. An employee who doesn’t fee responsible for their work doesn’t care if they do a sloppy job so by micromanaging you’re not making people do a better job, you’re actually making them do it worse!
Entrepreneur magazine published a list of the best SMEs to work for last year. Employees at 90 percent of these companies said that they knew their managers trusted them without looking over their shoulders while 92 percent say that they have a lot of responsibility.
But, like a bad habit, micromanaging is a hard thing to give up once you get started. Once people know that you’re going to be hovering there, watching their every move, picking up on every misstep before they’ve even had a chance to hit the backspace key they come to expect it. Once that starts to happen people are less likely to watch out for little mistakes for themselves because they know you’ll pick it up. You’ve just created an environment where mistakes are OK and responsibility is someone else’s job.
So How Can You Step Back?
First of all, hiring the right people is the foundation to an autonomous, successful team. If you genuinely have to look over people’s shoulders to check that they’re doing their job right, you’ve got the wrong people for the job. But that’s not always a bad thing. Introduce a training programme. Good training means that you’ll see your people working in a unified manner better than they ever did before. However, if you’re starting with the right team, a gang who take full responsibility for their work, are accountable, and good at their jobs just give them the brief and let them get on with it. If they have any questions, they’ll ask you.
Add a little peer pressure. Some people react very badly to being incorporated into a team. I’m one of them. I hate the idea of being in a group where success depends not only on my activities but the efficiency of other people. Instead of team building, make people accountable to one another. Encourage your staff to review each other’s work and progress, not as a critique but as a creative dialectic. You can steer brainstorming and ‘talk it through’ sessions in a general direction where good ideas become great ideas but good ideas are elusive, trying to force them just won’t work.
Be clear about what you want from the outset and don’t keep changing you mind. The best way to really irritate the people who’re working on your campaign is to constantly move the goalposts. If the objective really does have to change, talk it through in one of your progress meetings. Tell the team where they need to be directing their efforts and let them talk it out. Micromanagement is often the child of ill communication. If your role isn’t campaign based, set realistic, achievable targets for each quarter, talk to your staff about what they should be and how they are monitored and reviewed. Talking these things through not only gives your staff a clear sense of what’s expected of them and when, it gives you a chance to get a better understanding of your people’s skills and abilities meaning you can target tasks to suit individuals and see if indeed there are any skills voids which need addressing.
Wield the power of empowerment!
Like accountability and responsibility, a sense of power and control in decision making is an invaluable tool to the reformed micromanager! A direct complement to communication, empowerment makes people feel far more that they ‘own’ the campaign or project. Once they feel that it is theirs it becomes important and valuable to them. Taking votes on every decision that has to be made defies logic but making staff a part of decision making processes really is a great way of getting people committed to the company and the campaign (as do bonuses, regular pay rises and performance related prizes).
As I said above, breaking the micromanagement habit won’t be easy but trying out the suggestions one at a time will mean that you become a better manager with more time to deal with the things you should be dealing with and letting your team deal with the things they should be dealing with.
About the Author: @DanCash is a content manager and former press officer for a national environmental charity. Taking the pressure off through man-management, automation, fleet tracking and fixed asset software all makes time for you to concentrate on getting your own job done better.
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Four Benefits of Payroll Software for Small Business
In these current testing economic times many small firms will be looking to streamline their company and reduce unnecessary costs. One way to do this is to introduce new procedures into their organisations.
A key area in any company that should always be done quickly and accurately is payroll – because ensuring that employees get their wages paid on time, and correctly, can improve staff morale. It also means that the taxman is getting his fair share and reduces the likelihood of receiving a fine from HMRC for late returns.
So, what options are available? Well nowadays there are numerous software programmes that businesses can adopt and here are some of the benefits.
1) Time Saving
If a company invests in payroll software it can reduce the amount of man hours spent on this particular area – because the system is automated. This means that once a clerk inputs the initial data it will work out individual employee tax deductions automatically, until the original information is altered.
2) Recordkeeping
For firms that adopt this small business software it also means that they can keep on top of employee sick leave, holidays and personal time very efficiently. Furthermore, it means that those working in the accounts department can make reports with extremely accurate data rather than sifting through hand-written ledgers, allowing them to do their job more effectively.
3) Planning and reporting
This in turn means that company owners and managers are provided with the best data about their organisations’ funds. It also means that they can forecast labour costs that interact with budgeting and accounting programmes that allows them to make more calculated decisions on where to take the business in the future.
4) Saving money
Sometimes it’s important to save the best till last, and this is one of those instances. By adopting payroll software small firms can reduce the amount of positions needed in payroll as the system is automated – but because the technology is so efficient it means that money isn’t lost through paying the incorrect amount of tax or not paying staff on time.
It also allows businesses to streamline their procedures and processes, which can be an extremely important aspect during these troubled economic times.
About the Author: IRIS is a UK-based specialist business software provider that aims to improve the efficiency and performance of various processes for clients.
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Successful Mastermind Groups: 5 Vital Components
One would think that the shared intelligence of a group of peers should always yield exceptional outcomes, but we all know this isn’t the case. Besides Congress, an easy target, inutile groups abound. The NFL in 2011 almost torpedoed the best sports cash cow this country has ever seen. Simply assembling a group of people is NOT a prescription for Mastermind Group success.
So what are the key factors for Mastermind Groups to become exceptional?
Leadership
Every productive Mastermind Group has a successful leader, frequently called a facilitator, who helps to guide things, create process and protocol, fixes agendas, provide vision, and individually coach members outside of the group arena. Most Mastermind Groups develop with 3rd party facilitators, what members pay for, whose single purpose is the functioning of the group and not expanding his or her own company, although he or she may have one. Depending on the size of the group, usually no more than 12-15 member companies, a member leader may arise in any group atmosphere. This person complements the facilitator with the collective voice of the group. The most remarkable Mastermind Groups mature to the point where the facilitator directs meetings of the group and focuses on function, interchange, and private consultation while the group leads agenda, goals, self-charter and policing of members for contribution and commitment.
Diversity of Members
The whole point of mining collective intelligence is that it offers different perspectives and backgrounds than that of any individual member. Excellent Mastermind Groups make an effort to mix membership from a range of different industry verticals surrounding the like purpose of having top responsibility for the business. Competitors cannot be allowed without specific disclaimers because it will add to the dis-function and reticence of individual members and the group will be affected. If you research world business history, many of the most revolutionary achievements in a given industry stemmed from influences outside that industry that could bring added perspective, not shadowed by the poison knowledge of what cannot be done. This applies to the group facilitator also. The more diverse the background, leadership roles held, industries touched, and businesses worked for the better. This will nearly always top the Harvard MBA who has spent 20 years in one company with one job.
Member Dedication & Engagement
A great group is an active group with no wallflowers. Each member finds her own voice and best skill for contributing to the group and resolving other member issues. Members commit to the process, their own advancement, and the transcendence of the group into a productive body. They seek out chances to add to group tasks rather than hiding beneath their desks, with too many volunteers being the success problem the facilitator must manage. High-functioning groups police against member dedication and can vote to thin their ranks of those members just along for the ride without adequate devotion and contribution. Group meeting sessions are agreed upon beforehand and mandatory for members to be there and get involved.
Advanced Mastermind Groups also are constantly striving to improve themselves with high-performing members, and as such, each member of the group frequently serves as an evangelist and passionate recruiter of others in his or her business circle that would enhance the overall makeup of the group.
Hi-Value Opportunities
Involvement in a Mastermind Group costs real money. In exchange for that members need to receive minimally double the value in opportunities and results. This applies to education where the expertise applied far exceeds the financial investment, personal coaching that leads to actions for the member that drive high profits, and group interactions and connections that can have direct and indirect value as seen by the member. Any organized Mastermind Group should be affordably priced so it isn’t an impediment to entry, however still offers the financing to run the group with competent facilitators, technology and other sources to guarantee successful experiences. Cost of entry versus perceived value is frequently the reason more business executives and managers are NOT involved with any sort of Mastermind Group.
Typical business Mastermind Groups sponsored by large companies can call for a 5 figure plus annual expenditure for associates. This can eclipse the budget of eager but cash-strapped small businesses or entrepreneurial firms, each of which has the ability for large expansion and development in the Mastermind setting. Virtual-Mastermind.com has established a model that is FAR more reasonable for members to limit this barrier to entry.
Easy Involvement
The most significant barrier to involvement in Mastermind Groups is not financial. It is the luxury of time. The loss of time, as in time away from the chaotic, demanding office while working on the business with the group, tends to keep powerful business owners and CEOs away from Mastermind involvement. This time can be multiplied by travel time. For example, groups started by Vistage International must be situated near a major metropolitan area in order to validate a given market penetration. That often adds 2-4 hours of driving time to an already long day outside the office, and can turn what should be an enjoyable, beneficial event into one that has the pain of nuisance connected with it. That’s counter-productive. The most successful Mastermind Groups find ways to tackle problems such as this, eliminating pain and guilt of participation for members and leveraging time to provide great value in relaxed settings.
Your Own Group
If you’re considering participating or even launching a Mastermind Group, b sure that you care for the 5 key components: strong, broad-based leadership; associate diversity; member dedication; offering hi-value opportunities; and making it easy to participate for as many qualified business leaders as your group needs.
About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness. He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop. Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now.
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The Research Process in Logo Designing
What is Logo?
A logo is what makes your brand distinguished from others. Hence it is essential, to first recognize the main purpose of having a logo and then proceed towards its designing process. The finalized design process must aspire to make the logo instantly recognizable, stimulating trust, appreciation, reliability and an indirect dominance.
Significance of Having Logo
The logo is one facet of a company’s commercial brand or monetary entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images typically are noticeably special from competitor’s logos for capturing the market position. Logos play an active role for building your identity.
Value of Research for Effective Logo
It is recommended to carry out research on the industry for which you as a professional will be designing the logo. Study about the company’s history and its competitors. Problem-solve first and then proceed towards design phase. Some speculate what’s so tricky about creating a good logo. Looking at a glance a logo may seem to you as small and easy to do thing. But it is the end result which you are viewing and overlook the designer’s efforts which made it stunning. See, the first thing that you have to comprehend is that when you do some research to form your logo design, you don’t countenance any restrictions. If you generate one without any research your ideas will be very constricted or they can even be obsolete. So, it is essential to do some research earlier and discover new ideas for your own brainstorming session.
Inspirational Research
Perform research on logo Design that have been victorious and are designed using the existing styles and trends that may inter-relate to the design brief. It is suggested not to follow trends solely and forget the underlying theme. Research and design logo for completing client’s requirements rather than getting inspired and lost and remember longevity in logo designing is the key for having a great logo. Develop the logo design templates on the basis of your research. This is the solitary most imperative part of the design process. Moreover, it has been suggested by professionals to take breaks during the designing process. This assists your ideas in getting matured, replenishes your passion and allows you to seek feedback. It also gives you a brand new perception which will ultimately leads towards having the best logo design at the end of the day.
About the Author: Post submitted by Logoonlinepros
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Photo Credit: eriwst
An Introduction to Color Theory and Web Design
Color Theory, or in our case Color Psychology, is a field dedicated to unraveling the relationships between pure colors and their meaning to us. Its use has become widely spread throughout the design industry in everything ranging from photography to web design. If you’ve ever noticed how fast food restaurants are almost always red and yellow themed then you’ve begun to notice some color theory at work. Although you don’t need to be a color theory professional to design a web page correctly; knowing some of the basics is sure to help.
The first “rule” of color theory is that there aren’t any absolutes in term of color relationships. The emotions associated with any particular color or combination is subjective. While typical Westerners will think of white as a symbol of purity or innocence, it can also be perceived as a color for mourning in many Eastern countries.
When considering your web page’s color scheme and layout, it’s often best to consider what kind of feeling you wish to create from your audience. Do you want them to feel calm and secure, excited and energetic, confident, trusting, etc.? Determining which of these attributes you wish your website to exude is the first step in laying out your color pallet.
The “Big 4” Groups
Cool Colors – Blue, Green, White, Grey
Cool colors tend to have a calming effect and set off a tone of relaxation most often. Obviously not a website related example, but if you walk into a spa you’re most likely to see these colors because of the calming connotation they carry. Blue, in its various shades, is used very often as a color for corporations trying to relax a customer and make them feel at ease about the company at hand. Blue can also send a message of confidence depending on the vibrancy of it. If you were looking to associate your website’s feel with a vibrant, young, youthful premise then you might use a brighter blue. However, for an older, experienced feel you might consider using either a pale blue or a dark blue. Case and point from the 2008 election. Mr. Obama’s blue was used as a message to say that his campaign and consequently he himself are vibrant and full of change. Mr. McCain’s blue was chosen as a dark blue to say to voters that he is the time tested, experienced candidate that is capable of the job.
Warm Colors – Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow
The counterpart of cool colors, the warm variety, is usually used to excite a particular emotion or rouse a response. Most often a use of red is meant to draw your attention to a particular point that is trying to be made in plain sight, such as a discount or special sale. Because red easily overpowers cool colors, on the whole it isn’t used very widely in web design. A great example of the use of red is found at chromebagstore.com. It is the only color on the page and it is used specifically to create a sense of vibrancy for their product and direct your attention to particular areas on the site.
Mixed Warm and Cools – Purple, some Greens, Lavender, Turquoise
Mixed Warm and Cools can be the hardest colors to implement because their feeling is particularly ambiguous most of the time unless used in conjunction with other colors to solidify their meaning. These colors can easily take on the role of excitation of relaxation and it’s mostly dependent on the amount of colors that go into the mix. If for example a green had much more blue in it than yellow, as a forest green, this would be a good color to use both on a website that wanted a “natural” feel and to varying degrees for use in a calming setting. Its counterpart, a more yellow tinted green like “neon green” is explicitly an excitation type of color. Unfortunately, it rarely shows up in web design because as you move towards the yellow end of this color combination it becomes harder and harder to look at such a vibrant color on the screen.
Neutrals – White, Black, Brown, Beige, Ivory, Grey
If the previous three sets of colors are used to set various moods, the neutrals are the colors that pull the whole package together. Neutrals are best used as a unifying color to tie your entire color palette together and the majority of your site will be set in neutrals. In street terms it is simply annoying to look at a site splashed with color everywhere, but in all reality it is annoying because there is too much information being given to a user when too many colors populate a page. Some times, such is the case with Apple’s site; no colors are used in the layout of the site itself. This choice is coherent with their product’s zen-like minimalist aesthetic and makes for a consistent company image; however that is a topic for another time.
In practical terms, white, ivory and grey are often used to dictate the majority of web layouts because we are most familiar with reading black text on a white background. Some particular schools of thought suggest using grey text instead of black on white to break the contrast between the two and make the text softer on the eyes. Either way, this is more a product of our upbringing rather than explicit color theory itself.
What to choose?
While this article has attempted to give you an introduction to color theory, it is certainly not an end all be all of articles on the topic. Colors being as subjective as they are will evoke emotions from various crowds in ways you might not have imagined. When in doubt about the color palette you want to choose for your website, it’s not a bad idea to check out other websites that you like the color of and modify on a “theme” from there.
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About the Author: Jesse Funk is a long-time artist, designer, teacher and student of many things art. He currently is working on helping people design websites with a video series found at www.scholastechinstitute.com
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Reach Success: 5 Easy Ways to Increase Your Clientele
Establishing a solid customer-base is crucial for any start up or small business owner—after all, without any customers/clients, you make no money and without any money your small business will crash and burn. While hiring a strong marketing team can help you acquire a good number of costumers, this route can be pretty expensive. And naturally with any small business owner, funds are tight. But there are few things you can do on your own to help build your number of customers that is relatively cheap or even better, free. To learn how you can increase your clientele and help ensure the success of your business, continue reading below.
1. Do Research
First and foremost you need to get in touch with the needs of your target audience. You could be selling the most innovative product or service known to man but if you don’t know how to appeal and relate to your target audience’s wants and needs, your campaign may fall flat. For example, could your audience be hesitant about taking a chance on you because they are hard up for cash? If this is the case you need to directly state how your product or service is beneficial to your customer despite their economic hardship, which leads us to out next tip—
2. Offer Exclusive Deals
The truth of the matter is that consumers are always looking for a good bargain, especially now (during the holidays). To appeal to the masses, offer some discounts and exclusive deals to new customers or offer a promotional limited time-only offer to people already on your email list serve for example. You can offer an immediate discount or a next-purchase discount, you can offer a 2-for-1 deal, offer free shipping and handling, or even offer a free consultation or an introductory class. The goal is to find a way to persuade new costumers to try your product or service because the deal is irresistible (and of course superior than your competitors.)
3. Get on the Social Media Map
This is crucial. If you do not know how to use popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to self-market your business it’s time you learn now. Right now. The power of social medial isn’t going to dwindle anytime soon and these free tools are a great way to reach your target audience and establish your brand free of cost. In fact, even those that refused to give-in to social media in the past will be jumping on the bandwagon come the New Year. According to statistics, 40 % of surveyed small business owners said they finally plan on using social media in 2012.
4. Be Mobile and Tablet Compatible
If you’ve created a website or blog to get your name out there that’s a great start but it isn’t enough—it’s the age of the smartphone and the tablet and consumers must be able to access your website/blog through these devices. Your site has to be compatible. While some platforms will automatically convert, others do not and you may need to download a special plug-in like WpTap to make your blog compatible. And you’re going to want to make your site convert. After all, some experts predict smartphones and tablets will replace the laptop one day and since the latest figures say one-third of the U.S. population owns a smartphone and uses it for its remote mobile access, you don’t want to risk missing out on a pool of smartphone/tablet- using costumers.
5. Hire Ambassadors
Lastly you can hire someone to utilize the traditional “word-of-mouth” marketing technique by hiring someone closely related to your target audience. For example, if you created a product that is specifically tailored to college-aged students, then you can hire a few students at the campus nearest to you and get them to tell their friends and other students how great your products or service is. You wouldn’t have to pay them much (or you could offer free merchandise instead for example), but it’s a great way to dig in deeper and go straight to the source.
Of course these aren’t the only things you can do to expand your costumer-base, but it’s a start. Do some research and investigate all of the other resources that are available to you to ensure that you find costumers and keep them coming back.
About the Author: This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes for online universities blog. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
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4 Free Tools for Managing Your Small Business Finances
Every small business dream begins with the simple idea of making money while providing a needed product or service. As businesses evolve, their proprietors quickly learn that the product or service isn’t where all the effort is; tracking, managing, and even getting the money all take their fair share of work as well. While financial management can (ironically) be costly if you don’t have the right tools, there are plenty of free resources to help organize your business’s income, saving time and money. Keep your business on the right track (and out of debt) by taking advantage of these 4 free tools:
Mint
One of the most popular free finance tools is Mint.com, an online application that allows you to manage all of your financial accounts in one place. The clean, streamlined interface makes it easy to use, giving this tool major brownie points. Mint works automatically, pulling information from your checking, savings, investment, and retirement accounts, and displaying it visually with handy graphs and charts.
Beyond account monitoring, this tool helps you set a budget and financial goals, making it a valuable asset for any small business. The icing on the cake is Mint’s mobile device support and integration, enabling finance tracking on-the-go.
Sage Billing Boss
Who said invoicing had to be complicated (or costly)? This feature-rich invoicing system allows you to organize customers, track payments, and even collect money. You might be expecting a customer limit or an upgrade fee hidden somewhere, but all of Sage Billing Boss’s features—including unlimited invoices and customers—are completely free.
Built especially for small businesses, this tool integrates handy options like recurring invoicing, online payment tracking and quotes. If you’re looking to get organized and save time on small business invoicing, Sage Billing Boss might be all you need!
Google Wallet
Previously Google Checkout, this tool serves as a virtual wallet that securely holds your payment information for faster purchasing and better tracking. Google Wallet helps make light work of online purchases, storing your credit card and billing information for easy access when you pay through a merchant’s Google Checkout button. It offers fraud protection and even helps keep your email address confidential, keeping unwanted emails at bay.
Google Wallet’s latest feature is the ability to make purchases in-store using its mobile app; just tap the phone on participating credit card devices (at the time of this writing it only works with the Nexus S 4G phone).
Moneytrackin’
The key to staying organized is keeping relevant information together in one simplified location. That’s what Moneytrackin’ promises to do with its free online app. Keep tabs on income and expenses on all of your accounts, tagging transactions for easier grouping. If more than one person is involved with your business’s finances, you’ll appreciate the collaborative working capabilities this tool offers, including budget-sharing. This may not be as robust as Mint’s application, but it offers a clean-cut solution to organizing and keep track of your company’s finances.
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About the Author: Chris Turberville-Tully is a marketing strategist for Personal Touch Debt Solutions, a debt management company providing personal security, debt payment plans, expert advice and more.
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