2-1-2 Small Business Sense

Converting a Hobby to Business

It is the safest way of making money as one has good understanding over owns hobby hence one does not hunt a business idea also. Lots of interest on the hobby will keep one in business for a longer time, which is one of the success strategies to hold the business as long as possible to make profit. It does not need huge capital to start as it is converted from a hobby to commercial business.

Starting a Liking Business

One might be hanging around many businesses for a long time; it’s not tough to pick one out of a bunch of business ideas. It’s safe to start a business where you have your interest because you might have followed it over the time and gathered a lot of information. The research you have done on the business will make your life easy while starting and running the same.

Starting a Business by Hiring Professional to Run it

It’s the most unsafe and risky as a person has low understanding over the business and the market strategy but it will be run by a person who has proved his success over the time. It’s more likely to say the money is invested on the person rather than the business. It is advisable to make more consultations before you make a move on these kinds of businesses.

Advices
Never start a business which you don’t understand. If you have lesser expertise then roll your investment phase by phase in order to save your money by learning from your mistakes. Keep a low expectation when you start a business out of your hobby. It will take time to catch the market so make it a part time business. While hiring a professional to run your company, make sure you don’t mix emotions and make an unprofessional decision. Person hired should have a good credential to prove his position in your business. Believe and trust on employees should be measured in equal intervals as embezzling is very common in a business.

By: Janaki Patro

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Good customer service has to be championed as much by the business owner as each and every employee of the company. With competition increasing in every sector of the business world, a critical differentiator for any customer can be the way that they feel they have been treated when they contact or interact with the company.

That doesn’t just mean when they buy something but it relates to every possible touching point that they might have including any office staff, telephone help desks, letters or websites.

The business owner can set the right tone by employing people with the right aptitude and attitude. But further training and continual development of the basic skills will ensure that all staff members are equipped to know what is required of them.

Measuring customer service can sometimes be a difficult thing to do. In order to meet and exceed the customers` expectations you have to put yourself into their shoes. That means that you must experience what they do either through eliciting their feedback or by conducting mystery shopping research. It is important that this research is done blind and from a customer’s perspective since employees may be tempted to treat anyone they know differently from the norm.

Usually, it is the little things that make such a difference to customer service. Politeness and enthusiasm as well as a ‘can do’ attitude will go a long way to winning many customers over.

Some companies also introduce reward schemes for employees who demonstrate good customer service. This can either be done subjectively (through observation and/or staff nomination) or by survey feedback. Either way, once staff see that their efforts will be rewarded (other than by getting more customers to return) the culture will be reinforced as most seek recognition.

The results of good customer service can usually be measured gauging the level of customer delight, whether their needs were met or exceeded, whether their problems were satisfactorily solved, whether they return for subsequent purchases and by the referrals to others to buy from you. Simple data collection techniques can gather that information – but key is the right recruitment procedures and ongoing training and development of staff.

One of the most recent developments is applying the concept of partnering with your customer. This is best applied in the IT world but has applications elsewhere. A typical plan may be to share on-line documents, collaborate on product or service testing, bring customers into your business through feedback groups at all levels and consider letting customers do more of your order processing and chasing by giving them access to your systems. Not all ideas may be appropriate, but some lateral thinking on how to improve your service with your customers may go a long way to improving their satisfaction with you and your products and services.

There are numerous organisations that offer appropriate Business & Marketing Courses to help you develop a stronger offering. Amongst the better known are the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Institute of Directors. For free background advices on business matters look up the government website http://www.businesslink.co.uk where they have a number of useful information guides sections on Sales and Marketing.

By: Alan Searing

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