10 Ways to Make a Bad First Impression During Business Outreach

For people who are uncomfortable with direct sales contact, conducting business outreach might be a compelling alternative to cold-calling; however, when adopting business outreach strategies, it's crucial to take into account the impact a “strategy” may have on your brand. As an introvert, I've spent the majority of my entrepreneurial life mastering the techniques of inbound marketing. But avoiding business outreach forever isn't sustainable — especially in the early days where SEO is practically non-existent and your social-media followers primarily represent your "friends and family" circle. Research led by ValueSelling Associates, Inc reports that 48% of sales professionals are afraid… Continue Reading

8 Step-by-Step Guide To Hiring a Smart Business Assistant and Focus Only On Increasing Your Business Value

Although it can be a rewarding journey, being an entrepreneur also has its share of difficulties. You must be a jack of all trades and a master of all hats if you want to succeed in running a business. If you're managing a tiny firm, this might be a daunting undertaking. You must juggle a number of tasks, including managing finances, providing customer service, developing marketing strategies, and managing daily operations. In particular, entrepreneurs, who have just started their business, are burdened with a variety of tasks related to their enterprise, including accounting, day-to-day operations, traveling, scheduling meetings, offering basic… Continue Reading

6 KPIs Your Hire Needs to Hit to Pass the Probation Period

Regardless of whether you enforce a probationary period or not, you need to ensure that your new hire has completed the onboarding process successfully and fits the organizational culture. Even the best recruiters out there can't gauge employment efficiency during the interview cycle. And several studies, including a recent survey by Checkster Research, show that 78% of applicants misrepresent themselves. While we continuously refine and improve our recruitment process, certain metrics can't be deducted over the course of an interview or two. Speed of execution, working in a team environment, and attention to detail are some of the common denominators… Continue Reading

How to Manage Difficult People in Your Team

One of the biggest problems new managers face is juggling team management with other responsibilities. According to an analysis by the Center for Creative Leadership, about 68% of new managers struggle with this problem. In team management, managers mainly deal with managing difficult people and challenges involving underperformers, skills mismatch, slackers, and workplace conflicts. Although workplace conflicts resulting in confrontations are quite common in most companies, not all managers are adequately trained in handling such problems. This is particularly true for the 60% of new managers who have claimed that they never received any form of training in transitioning into… Continue Reading

10 Time Management Strategies for Busy Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship is both a state of mind that entails many personal and professional traits and a way of life that requires a lot of balance and time management.  Being able to launch, execute, grow, and scale a business is an intellectual exercise involving a lot of research, networking, planning, business strategy, marketing, sales, and a number of related activities. As a result, entrepreneurs have to jump between tasks, hop on calls, attend events, and be extra careful with each and every decision for their business endeavors.  (Disclaimer: This post was first published on Entrepreneur.com) Time management strategies for entrepreneurs and… Continue Reading

22 Self-Improvement Areas for Leadership Development

An HRPA study from 2016 reports that 63% of millennials complain that employers aren't fully developing their leadership skills, with 72% of those surveyed last year insisting on feedback, coaching and leadership development to remain in an organization. I have previously covered the 11 key traits that define great managers, compiled after 17 years in management. These management-specific values fit the job description, but lack the depth and value in areas of leadership that every individual can partake in and develop from a young age. In this piece, I will uncover some of the most important traits that we look… Continue Reading

10 Global Industries That Need Business Process Management the Most

To become and remain successful and rise above the competition, businesses must continuously improve and monitor their processes. Failure to do so may result in big financial losses, lower investment capital, reduced motivation in employees, and fewer satisfied customers.  This is why more and more companies worldwide are adopting business process management (BPM) applications in different flavors. BPM tools are designed to manage workflows in a consistent, repetitive model, providing an instrument for collaboration among all team members. According to the report led by Market Research Future, the BPM market is expected to grow to approximately USD $28.3 billion by… Continue Reading

WordPress Code Architecture and Maintenance

In my last post on WordPress services and pricing I've mentioned that I prefer to work on different assignments and avoid the "cloning" pattern - such as building standard 5-page business websites all the time, 20 times a month. Working and experimenting with different APIs, trying to bend a platform in a non-standard way, providing features that others were unable to implement before are the challenges that bring joy in my work. However, to be realistic in most projects, I need to rely on code snippets and patterns. I have a private GitHub repository with some of my previous projects, keeping… Continue Reading

8 Specific Tips to Work Around Business Meetings

Time is money. Time lost means money lost. Time wasted means money wasted.  One of the leading causes behind businesses losing and wasting a lot of time and money is the amount of time they spend in business meetings. Middle managers typically spend 35% of their time in meetings while those who belong to the upper management spend 50% of their time. Employees, in general, spend up to 6 hours every week just to prepare for status update meetings. According to Bain and Company, 15% of the collective time of an organization is spent in business meetings and this has… Continue Reading

Is Business Process Outsourcing Growing in 2023?

Is business process outsourcing (BPO) growing in 2023?  I'm not going to fool you or mislead you. BPO is still going to grow and is still going to expand in 2023 for multiple reasons, even though remote working is now more popular than ever.  This Market Analysis Report shows that the business process outsourcing (BPO) market stood at a staggering USD 261.9 billion. Forecasts suggest a 9.4% CAGR from 2023 to 2030. BPO services are gaining traction, not just for their cost-effectiveness but for the agility they introduce. The tech trends, especially cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), are at… Continue Reading