Getting customers is hard enough. Keeping customers shouldn’t be. Yet, a lot of medium and small business owners find it difficult to retain previous customers. To do that, you have to figure out how to keep them happy. That way, they keep coming back to your business for a long time. This way, your business grows and does well in the long term. It’s important because it generally costs less to keep existing customers happy than to find new ones. They are also more likely to buy from you if they’ve bought once already. Wondering how to get this kick-started for your MSME? Keep reading.

Personalize Your Communication

To do this, you’ll need to tailor each of your messages to their individual recipients. In this case, those recipients are your existing customers. Address them by their name and deliver your intent based on the preferences you’ve observed. To do this, you have to understand your customers on a deeper level. Achieving this means collecting such data as their demographic info and their history with your brand.

Don’t just fire off a single message to everyone. Instead, segment your customers into groups based on common attributes. After, craft content that resonates directly with each group’s interests which might range from blog posts to product recommendations. You’ll want to use automation tools here for delivering these personalized messages through the right channels at the right time. But of course, provide for interactions with actual customer service representatives. And in all you do, always obtain consent for using customer data. Privacy first every time.

Also read: 9 Ways to Get Customers to the Door of your Small Business

Craft Effective Loyalty Programs

A loyalty program goes beyond simply offering rewards or discounts to frequent customers. Think of it as a marketing strategy designed to keep bringing customers back by appreciating their patronage. This appreciation can be rewards, incentives, or benefits and aims to build a sense of community with your customers. That way, they are more likely to make repeat purchases. Before you start your loyalty program, remember to outline your specific goals for it.

Next, be specific with your rewards towards each group of customers. Decide exactly what type of benefit you want to offer and how you want customers to access it. Most importantly, keep the program straight to the point. Your customers shouldn’t need to be particularly tech-savvy to grasp the workings of your loyalty program. Also, make sure there’s a way of tracking customer purchases. Once you’ve done all of that, promote the program and use a signup bonus to draw members to the program.

Provide Excellent Customer Service

To do this, you need to constantly deliver excellent support to customers. And in a way that exceeds expectations too. This means ensuring that every customer interaction is very positive and they walk away satisfied. Provide relevant solutions, show empathy for their struggles, and make the experience one that leaves customers happy. But this doesn’t just happen. First, you need to create a culture that puts the customer first, especially among your employees. When hiring, take note of soft skills. Hire employees that have strong communication skills and who demonstrate empathy. Then train them on your customer service protocols.

Offer clear lines of support to customers across multiple channels. Try to respond quickly and efficiently to customer complaints and inquiries. Focus on resolving issues and complaints to the customer’s satisfaction. Empower your customer service team to make decisions that benefit the customer without unnecessary hurdles. Continuously train your customer service team and consistently try to deliver excellent customer service.

Also read: 7 Effective Customer Retention Strategies foe SaaS Companies 

Build Quality Products/Services

The best way to keep your customers coming back is to not disappoint for starters. To that end, create offerings that exceed customer expectations in terms of value and performance. This signifies that your business is dedicated to solving your customers’ problems. It’s a powerful driver for customer retention. What you need to do is;

• Pay attention to your customers’ needs
• Focus on innovation
• Have a clear value proposition
• Establish stringent quality control processes
• Train your employees on how best to use your products
• Be transparent about the limits of your offerings
• Offer warranties or service contracts as may be necessary
• Have a feedback mechanism to learn from your customers

Consistently delivering quality offerings that exceed customer expectations helps to retain customers, yes. It also helps create advocates who are more likely to refer your business to others. Quality becomes a cornerstone of your brand’s reputation. That’s a compelling reason for customers to stay loyal.

Use Emails for Follow-up, Exclusive Content, and Special Offers

Emails provide a direct line to your customers. They are generally deemed more trustworthy than social media when used right. And they have a higher rate of engagement as well. You can send follow-up emails to your customers using this channel. These should contain specific messages to be sent after particular interactions, such as an inquiry or a purchase.

It also shouldn’t be a one-off event. Rather, you should craft a continuous strategy. This will help you deliver timely content to your customers and keep them loyal. You can also use your email channel to promote exclusive content to existing customers. Think coupon codes, limited discounts or even just industry news. You might also have special offers occasionally – Black Friday, Anniversary Offers, Thanksgiving, etc. You can use your email channel to promote those. It’s also a great way to connect with customers individually. An example of this would be sending a personalized message to a customer on their birthday.

In Conclusion

Remember this; the effectiveness of these strategies may vary. It will depend on your specific business and target audience. As such, it’s always a good idea to test these strategies first. After, adjust your approach to find what works best for your MSME.

FAQs

• Why is customer retention so important?

Customer retention is important because keeping customers is cheaper than searching for new ones. That leads to greater profit for your MSME.

• How can I build trust with my customers?

By focusing on not just profit, but on consistently having genuine interactions. That way, they see your authenticity and grow to love it.

The post Customer Retention Strategies: Building Long-Term Relationships with Clients appeared first on SME SCOOP.

The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and most recently Twitter, Elon Musk is not just known for his financial acumen and the business leadership he has exhibited to lead the aforementioned and other companies. He is also known for his vocality in giving ideas to up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

In this article, we present to you some of the top Elon Musk business tips. We hope these tips help you re-evaluate your small business operations and see ways to improve.

1. Persistence and Preparedness to Work

It is not uncommon for business owners to “sit back and let others do the work.” That doesn’t appear to be one of the items in Elon Musk’s playbook. He believes that business owners, particularly those looking to build a global brand should be ready to “put in the work,” as much as they have employees.

In some of the interview clips posted on YouTube, Elon Musk has been quoted as saying he slept a couple of times in the Tesla factory to motivate the workers. But beyond inspiring the feeling of his being there, he also does the actual work.

He encourages business owners to:

• Be prepared to work harder and add more work time. For example, he opines that someone that adds more hours to the work-life might have a considerable edge over someone that has less, simply because more hours equal more aspects of the business’ expansion to cover.
• Persistence is an important factor and must be taken as a mindset. Even after failing at some of the businesses that he started and co-founded, Elon Musk kept persisting until he did something great with the likes of SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.

2. Building a Great Team Takes Time and Requires Excellent Decision-Making

Some business owners treat their businesses with kid gloves, especially when they leave the vision of the company out of the equation. Elon Musk believes that every team member or employee of a company should understand the company’s vision. That would help smoothen out any contrary opinions they may have.

However, Elon Musk also believes that people should be allowed to make their decisions. If the employees are not willing to see the company’s perspective of things and take steps to help bring the vision to life, it may be worth it to show them the door.

3. Communicate More

The statement “no man is an island” is one of the beliefs Elon Musk holds dear. He believes in continuous learning, which is why he encourages every businessperson to talk to people.

Doing this does not just help these persons break boundaries and learn new things, but also serves as a medium to boost communication patterns.

4. Contribute more to Society

No doubt, one of the major reasons for floating a business is to make profits. However, it is important that you create a social welfare program through which your company can give back to society. You can map out a certain percentage of your earning for Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Elon Musk thinks it is wise for people to make more positive contributions to society.

When you look around, you are bound to see some places where your help or input would be greatly appreciated. It could be by constructing drainage systems in poor neighborhoods, hosting community events or any other genuine gesture of goodwill.

Related: Sacrificial Giving and Its Benefits

5. Be Useful to the Society

Contributing to the society and being useful to it appear to be the same sides of the coin, but they have a thin line of difference. While the former has to do with contributing to the society more than one consumes, the latter has to do with doing the things that will make remarkable impacts in the society.

In his words, he says “do things that are useful to your fellow human beings, to the world.”

6. Life isn’t about Money

For a billionaire of Forbes’ recognition, a CEO of leading companies and a notable figure in the world, saying that “money isn’t everything” appears to be a statement that should be taken with a pinch of salt.

But Elon Musk seems to share a similar view as Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. Both men have a view that money should be put to good use, to help people and push for charitable causes. That is perhaps one of the motivating factors for Bill Gates’ heavy investments in healthcare and scholarships.

For Elon Musk, investing in healthcare is not his immediate concern. He hasn’t hidden his love for Mars and continually talks about exploring that space. Mr. Musk plans on spending a huge chunk of his fortune to build something remarkable on Mars, perhaps, a new habitat for people to live in. The techprenuer once donated Telsa shares worth $1.95bn to charity.

7. Taking Risks is a Must

The business ecosystem is war-like, with many brands trying to outshine the others and knock them out of business. This tends to cause cold feet for some entrepreneurs who lack the guts to play in such systems.

For these persons, Elon Muskhas the following words for them, “everyone’s trying to optimize their ass-covering” due tothe “tremendous bias against taking risks.”

Elon Musk opines that risk-taking is an important element in running a business and should not be shied away from.

Related: How to Know If You Are Meant to Be An Entrepreneur

8. Interviewing is an Important Decision-Making Process for Hiring Employees

Elon Musk believes that getting applications for open roles in any of his companies is just the simplest part. The hardest part is getting the right candidates. For this, he believes that asking “meaty questions” during the interviewing process can make all the difference.

He has been quoted as saying the following, “Tell me the story of your life and the decisions that you made along the way and why you made them. And also tell me about some of the things you worked on and how you solved them.” This question is aimed at helping him pick the candidates that are a better fit for the job.

When asked why he does this, he says that “People that really solved the problem, they know exactly how they solved it — they know the little details.”

Related: 5 Marketing Lessons Business Owners Can Learn From Elon Musk

Final Thoughts

The best business ideas and strategies are better learned from the businesspeople that have excelled in that area. The Elon Musk business tips in this article are a few from the exhaustive list of techniques the CEO has talked about in different interviews.

The other business tips from Mr. Musk include having a vision for the business, being passionate about what you do and ignoring critics.

The post Top 8 Elon Musk Business Tips appeared first on SME SCOOP.

Little wonder that AIBees, in a December 2022 publication, mentioned that women make up to 82.5% of the total population of solopreneurs. Interestingly, this budding interest in entrepreneurship or running a private business might not always be profitable in the first couple of years because of some factors.

Females tend to suffer the indecision of choosing between their new careers and balancing their roles in the home. They also tend to lack support from mentors and their partners and have little capital to start the business.

Despite these challenges, there is optimism that women would make better solopreneurs. In light of this, we have come up with a list of the top business tips for women looking to venture into entrepreneurship.

1. Business is War; Entrepreneurship is a Battlefield

Generally, running a business requires a combination of industry mastery/knowledge and being good at execution. The competition is always there ready to take away your share of the market if you are not tactical about it.

As much as you are playing in an industry that may be dominated by the male-folk, it shouldn’t force you to give up.

Now that you understand that “business is war,” here are some of the things you can do to be a better “general”:

• Understudy the market to know what works and what doesn’t.
• Do not take your competitors for granted. Always come up with better services to remain a step ahead.
• Be confident in yourself and always remain resolute to keep the business running, despite all odds.

2. Connect with Other Solo Entrepreneurs

“No (wo)man is an island,” they say. You don’t want to stay alone when you could have networked with other business owners. Consider finding a tribe among other women entrepreneurs.

Other ways to connect with entrepreneurs include:

• Reaching out to other business owners (preferably in your niche).
• Joining professional organizations and being an active member.

3. Change Your Mindset and Approach

It is possible that you have been approaching the market as a “woman in business.” That gives off the aura that you want the market to patronize you because you are probably the first woman to venture into that line of business.

If that has been your mindset, it is time to change it. The best way to get more market share is to approach it as a businessperson. Find the opportunities and seize them. There’s no need to be sentimental about it.

4. Be a Solution-Provider

Why are you in business? Do you want to prove that women can start businesses and scale the same? Or do you want to make profits? If the latter is the case, you have to become a solution provider.

Before starting a business, you have possibly understood the market challenges, including the services that were missing. That is a “perfect” opportunity for you to step in and meet those needs.

5. Don’t Hide

One thing some women entrepreneurs may be forced into doing is to “duck behind” or stay away from publicity. The modern-day business environment favors entrepreneurs that are the “face of the brand.”

People want to know and connect with you. So, seize every opportunity you can to talk about your business and the mission it has. Use social media, grant interviews, and give keynote speeches when possible.

6. Build a Strong Team

Except you are looking to be a solopreneur, it makes sense to build a strong team. The employees or the people working for you have a role to play in the business’s success.

If you are not sure of how to go about it, here are tips on how to pick the best team:

• Business Structure: Start drafting an organogram, stating the different tiers in the business and who is responsible for what.
• Create Departments: You are launching a startup, which means playing in an industry or market with established brands. Creating departments for the respective business operations will help the employees to focus on what moves the needle in the different departments. You can have a sales, digital marketing, and financial department.

7. Be Hungry for Knowledge

Nobody knows it all and the person who is starting a new business doesn’t know much. With many “big players” already in the market, you probably have little chance of breaking into the market.

It is for this reason that you have to submit to learning. Be inquisitive. Be hungry for knowledge. The following tips should help you get more information about how to run your business:

• Ask for help from professionals in the industry.
• Seek mentors in your field and get them to guide you.
• Always keep an open mind and be willing to learn new things.

8. Take Branding Seriously

No doubt, your business has a good product but it might remain the “best-kept secret” if no one knows about it.

Get a branding team to help brand the business and give off the vibes that you want it to be associated with.

While working on the branding, also step-up on the product and service offering so you don’t end up offering a brand that doesn’t have any market acceptance for the products and services.

Also read: The Importance of Color in Marketing and Branding

9. Don’t Submit to Stereotypes

It won’t be long before you start getting a barrage of unsolicited advice and calls for you to take it slowly on how you run the business.

These are stereotyped ways of thinking, whereby the general belief is that a woman wouldn’t succeed in business.

Do not let the general submissions, stereotypes, and negative opinions hold you back from running the business to the highest heights possible.

10. Become a Financial Guru

Sometimes, a business crumbles not just because of poor management, but also because of the absence of financial education.

Although you may have financial experts working for you, it would also be nice if you had a bit of information on how to manage the finances of a business – especially that of a startup.

Here are the things you want to learn:

• Financial Projection: How much do you anticipate your business to make? What are the plans you have in place to meet that financial projection?
• Learn how to track the business’ cashflow, including the income, profit margin, and expenses.

Final Words

It might not be easy running a business as a woman, but it is doable. Whether you are already running a business or looking to start one soon, having an idea of the market you are venturing into should help you plan ahead.

Above all, your conviction should be your propelling force. Have an audacious goal to run one of the most successful brands, put in the efforts and you could just hit the mark.

The post Top 10 Business Tips for Women Venturing into Entrepreneurship this Year appeared first on SME SCOOP.

However, not all customer service applicants would be hired – for some reasons. If you want to increase your chances of being hired, it is time you cultivated some of the relevant customer service skills.

Who is a Customer Service Representative?

This is the person that helps the company make more sales by convincing the prospective customers on why they need to buy a product or get a service.

Investopedia defines customer service as the “direct one-on-one interaction between a consumer making a purchase and a representative of the company that is selling it.”

Below are some of the customer service skills, which if presented in your Curriculum Vitae, can help you land a job:

Customer Service Skills That Can Help You Get A Job

1. Communication Skills

As a customer service representative, you will be doing more of communicating with new and existing customers. Therefore, it is expedient for you to possess clear communication skills.

Interestingly, communication in this sense is not limited to verbal communication skills. It also includes how you make gestures, your reading and speaking skills.

Here are some of the communication skills that employers look for:

Lucid Communication

Can you hold a conversation? Do you know how to use certain direct questions to find out what the customers might be trying to express?

Platform-Specific Context

Some companies now include social media management in their job descriptions. If you are a customer service personnel, you are expected to interface between the brand and the customers on social media.

In light of this, employers expect customer service representatives to understand the platform usage and how best to handle complaints on such platforms.

In addition, customer representatives also need to understand the underlying meanings of the different emojis so they don’t end up using an inappropriate one.

2. Excellent Conversational Patterns

The language we use to communicate might not be as powerful as the way we communicate with it. The way you say something might have a positive or a negative effective effect on the listener.

Companies are looking to win over more customers and make more sales. If your customer service skill doesn’t include knowing how to use the right conversational patterns or positive statements, there is a chance that you wouldn’t be hired.

Here is an example: a customer is looking to place an order for a product but it has been exhausted. Interestingly, the product has been available for a couple of weeks and the customer has received a series of promotional emails on the same but took no action until then.

Naturally, you want to yell at the customer and ask what he or she had been doing all those while. But that would result in losing the sale. Instead, you want to speak nicely to the customer and say how sorry you are the order wasn’t placed earlier. You can then offer to make an order for the product for the customer as soon as it is available.

Between the two scenarios above, you can tell that the second makes a better impression.

3. Service and Product Knowledge

We have seen some customer service representatives only focusing on how best to talk to the customers to buy a product or use a service. But how possible would that be when you don’t understand what you are even trying to encourage them to take advantage of?

It is therefore imperative for you as a customer service personnel to have considerable knowledge of the service or product of the company you represent.

That way, you can answer questions, make recommendations and even help the customers maximize the product or the service.

4. Patience

Being a customer service representative is beyond speaking, listening, and taking notes. You also need to be patient – like a vulture. What does being patient have to do with this type of job?

Patience is an abstract customer service skill that helps the customer service representative to attend to queries and resolve complaints without bursting out in anger.

It is imperative to have this customer service skill because you will most likely attend to “problematic” and “angry” customers who will try all they can to get you worked up.

Therefore, being patient or having considerable control over your temperament helps you to manage the situation better.

5. Time Management is a Good Customer Service Skill to Have

Are you good at managing time? We don’t mean knowing how to read the hands of the clock or literally working round the clock to justify your pay.

Can you manage your time? Depending on the type of company you work for, timing is of the essence. Sometimes, callers or emails will be queued because there is little or no time to attend to them.

Therefore, you must be good at allotting time and managing it effectively. Try to resolve any complaints over the phone as soon as possible.

If you are handling the emails, be proactive and send out new emails, reply to the incoming emails and schedule new emails to make the job faster.

Also read: Top Professional Negotiation Skills you Need to Succeed in Business

6. Problem-Solving Skills

You need to be a problem-solver, even though the company’s product or service is designed to solve one or more problems.

Your problem-solving customer service skill comes in handy when helping the customers tackle some of the challenges or issues they might have encountered when using a service or product.

The following should help you become a better problem-solver:

• Understanding the fundamentals of the problem, including whether the problem emanated from the company or from the user/customer.
• Evaluate the extent of the problem to see if it is something that can be handled immediately. The evaluation also helps you determine if you are the right person to attend to it or if a higher authority should take it up.

Final Words

Having the right customer service skills place you many steps ahead of other applicants for a customer representative job opening.

What customer service skills do you possess and how do you intend using it to improve the growth of your employer’s business?

The post What Customer Service Skills Do I Need to Get Employed? appeared first on SME SCOOP.

In this article, you will discover expert tips for selling an unprofitable business.

Selling an Unprofitable Business: When to Consider Selling

What could make a business unprofitable? It could be making lower sales, spending more money than it makes or having more competitors to share the market with your business.

According to Entrepreneur.com, it may not be worth it to sell off your business. By looking at important factors like expenses, paying more attention to customers’ feedback, and making better offers, you may be able to salvage the business.

But when all those don’t work, here are some of the best tips to selling off your unprofitable business:

1. Prepare for Due Diligence

The fact that you have declared the business for sale attracts many prospective buyers. They are not just coming to buy the business. They also want to know what went wrong to see if it is something they can salvage once they are at the helm of affairs.

Preparing ahead of time helps you to put all these factors into consideration. To point you in the right direction, here are some of the questions you should be prepared to give answers to once your unprofitable business buyers start calling:

• Why is the business failing? Did you do anything wrong along the way?
• What market share does the business currently hold? Does the target market trust the brand well enough to allow it to change hands?
• How does the business function?
• What is the current legal standing? Is the business bankrupt? Has a case in the law court?
• How long have you been running the business and what is the average yearly turnover like?

Being prepared for these questions helps you to be confident to answer them when asked. With the right answers and a bit of coercion, you can encourage the prospective buyer to give it a shot. Maybe, a change of administration is what the business needs afterall!

2. Consider Leasing the Business and Its Components

Sometimes, your business needs a change of administrator – but not permanently. You want to lease out the company and its equipment, including the office if required.

Allow “new owners” to run it for a while until it bounces back. Only after the leasing attempt fails to bring in the desired results can you consider selling off.

3. Make a Contrast of the Business’ Strengths and Weaknesses

Where have you fared so well in running the now “unprofitable” business and where do you need to improve?

Doing these assessments helps you to come up with a definite plan of how best to scale the business when it is sold. With the blueprint, new owners will sure have a foundation from which to start rebuilding the business.

4. Analyze the Business Worth

Your business may not be making as much profits as it used to, but you have a considerable number of contracts that can spin a magic in the next couple of years.

Evaluate your business and take stock of its current stock. Here are some of the things you want to analyze:

• The cost of equipment available to the business.
• Business vehicles and offices.
• The number of active contracts.

5. Sell to a Sister-Business

Business is war; sometimes, you want to accept that your competitors know better than you do. When your business makes less profit, you may consider selling an unprofitable business to a “sister-business” or competing brand.

This strategy works best if your business dominates a market the competitors would like to have. With this in mind, making an offer becomes easier.

6. Give it Time

By going through past financial records, you will notice when the revenue began to drop. In a couple of months, you have moved from a flourishing business to a near-bankrupt company.

As much as you want to sell at this point, it may be worth it to sit it out for a while. Probably, the business strategy or market appeal waned for some time. In a few months, you may be back in profits again.

7. Do not be Intimidated

The keyword is “negotiate from a place of strength.” When you give off the impression that you are selling an unprofitable business to clear out, you will receive belittling offers. But when you lay the offer on the table and stick to it, you will likely get a better buyer.

Here is how to negotiate the sale of your unprofitable business without feeling intimidated:

• Calculate and be sure of your business’ current worth.
• Highlight the strengths of the business.
• Keep a good financial record.

Doing all that helps put you in charge of the offer than your prospective buyers.

8. Pick the Best Offer

Prospective investors will make you several offers, from a one-time payment to taking the business on lease. Do not be in a hurry to accept any of the offers. Evaluate the pros and cons before deciding on one.

For emphasis, choosing a one-time payment may not be advised, because you may be required to pay tax for it.

9. Sell the Business and Keep it “Alive”

It is possible that you built the business to be a worthwhile venture, but along the line, it stopped making profits.

Choosing someone, preferably an investor who shares a similar vision as you do helps you keep the business’ aims going, even when you aren’t the one running it.

10. Talk to a Professional before Selling an Unprofitable Business

Seek help from a financial advisor who puts you through the process of selling the business. The professional can also help you follow the right procedures to listing the business for sale.

Bonus Tip: Have a Future Investment in Mind

That your current business doesn’t make profits any longer doesn’t mean that another wouldn’t. If you are bent on selling your unprofitable business, be prepared as well to venture into a new business.

The goal is to put the funds you raised from the sale into good use and build a better business in the next couple of years.

Conclusion

Selling an unprofitable business may seem impossible but you can make some money even though the profits haven’t been coming all this while. By talking to a professional, evaluating the business assets’ and reinvesting into another business, you can pick up from where you stopped and continue building a great business.

The post 10 Factors to Consider before Selling an Unprofitable Business appeared first on SME SCOOP.

From losing a client’s products to not being able to renew the existing contract, you want to learn how to deliver bad news to clients.

It can be as simple as calling the customer and relaying the message. But if you want to be professional and tactical at the same time, it is high time you followed the tips we share.

How to Deliver Bad News to Clients in 6 Steps

We have made a list of the top six (6) strategies you want to follow when looking for a better way to deliver bad news.

Here are the exact things you want to do:

1. Get Right to It and Don’t Beat Around the Bush

Understandably, you are looking to use an effective communication strategy when delivering a negative message. More often than not, you want to stick to using impersonal statements to break the ice.

However, coming “clean” sometimes might just be a better way to deliver bad news to clients. Give it to them directly. Tell them why the expected results didn’t pan out and what could have been done differently.

If you made a mistake, acknowledge it and ask the client to forgive your error. By being frank about the whole thing, the client will more likely appreciate your honesty and try to see reasons with you.

Note that this strategy can sometimes be tricky. You want to be sure the client is in a good mood and understands the efforts you have made so far.

2. Prepare Ahead of Time

Those who fail to plan tend to fail at the end of the day. Take as much time as you can to prepare ahead of telling your client about what went wrong.

Note, preparation has to be in line with the factors leading up to the mistake. You want to put the pieces together and get yourself emotionally prepared for whatever response the client may have.

Here are some of the things you want to do when preparing to deliver bad news to your client:

• Put yourself in the client’s position and try to understand how he or she would feel. That makes it a lot easier for you to be strategic with how you approach the issue.
• Show empathy by letting the client know that you understand how it all feels and you would be willing to help remedy the situation.
• Use statements like “I’m sorry”, “Please accept my sincerest apologies” to start the conversation.
• Don’t forget to tell the truth.

3. Don’t “Point a Finger” at the Client

We don’t mean pointing one of your fingers at the client; we rather mean literally. Even if the (bad) outcome was a fault of the clients’, you don’t want to make it obvious. You are not massaging their ego either, but you are trying to prevent an emotional response to the whole issue.

The client is hurting already and the last thing you want is to get the anger vetted on you. Here is a better way to approach the issue and deliver bad news to clients who made a slip:

• Be prepared to give a detailed breakdown of what went wrong (not exonerating the clients’ role of course). That way, you wouldn’t be “lying down” and taking all the blame, when the clients have some to take too.
• Focus on the issue alone and try not to paint a picture of the clients making a mistake.
• If possible, proffer a way out of the situation.
• Have a grip on your emotions. Don’t react out of anger.

4. Learn to Pay Attention

Okay, you’ve laid the cards on the table. The clients know what went wrong and the role everyone played to make it all wrong.

Now is the time to listen. What do the clients have to say? Are they all worked up? Not ready to commit further? Perhaps, the clients want to go through it all again and see if something can be done.

Whatever their decision is or whatever they are saying, it is your responsibility to pay attention. Listen to what they have to say and if there is any point to add, don’t hesitate to do that.

Also read: Professional Negotiation Skills You Need to Succeed in Business

5. Be Strategic with How You Deliver the News – Telephone First, Email Second, In-Person Third

Perhaps, you have wanted to drive down to the clients’ office or house and break the bad news. While that may seem a sensible thing to do (it is anyway), now is not the right time for it.

The rule of thumb is to telephone the clients first. Provide as much detail as possible. Second, you want to send an email, detailing the step-by-step laydown of what happened. Most times, you get an invite to come over and that’s when you conclude the whole thing.

Of course, these processes rely on how close your communication has been with the clients. If you have been doing more of email exchanges, it may be wise to send an email before meeting in person.

“The easiest ways to break bad news to your clients are going straight to the point, preparing before you contact them, avoiding blame-trading, listening to the clients’ response, choosing the best medium to relay the news and offering to help.”

6. Proffer Solutions and not Just be a News Breaker

Finding a fault is one thing and fixing it is another. Now that you have delivered the bad news to the clients, do you just sit there and wait for them to make all the decisions?

Since you are a part of the problem – or you were unable to prevent the problem, you may as well be a part of the solution.

Offer advice on how to navigate out of the situation. By explaining yourself and providing a viable solution, you make the clients believe that you are still interested in fixing the situation. That is how you win trust back and when trust is there, you have yourself a deal.

Also read: The Biggest Enemies of Success and How to Conquer Them

Conclusion: Break Bad News to Clients in 6 Ways

The easiest ways to break bad news to your clients are going straight to the point, preparing before you contact them, avoiding blame-trading, listening to the clients’ response, choosing the best medium to relay the news and offering to help.

In addition, you want to keep in touch with the clients until the situation is over and avoid doing anything that will cause another. That way, you fix the situation, win your clients’ trust back and continue doing business like it never happened.

The post How to Deliver Bad News to Clients appeared first on SME SCOOP.

In Blogging, there is what is called search volume and search traffic. Search volume determines the rate at which a keyword is searched. Sometimes, the search volume for a particular keyword might reach up to 8000+ in an hour. Search traffic on the other hand deals with how many people actually click on a website to view information about the query they searched for.

Because of the way Google and other popular search engines work, it provides snippets of answers for a particular keyword when it is searched. This at times prevent searchers from diving furthermore into the topic. A word, sentence or phrase might have up to 1k+ search queries/demand in a day but only a search traffic of 20 in a month.

While writing a page, the title should be chosen in the form of keywords that has search traffic. A number of key factors can determine your web traffic and some of the factors are explained below. Be patient and read through.

Why you are not Getting Enough Web Traffic and How to Fix them

1. Using Random Titles

As much as it is fun to write about titles you want to, you need to do your math. What is the point of writing for titles that nobody will search for or read?

You should make good research to identify if the titles you use has any search traffic. A good tool you can use for this is Ahrefs keyword research tool.

They let you search for keywords that have search traffic using their keyword explorer. It allows you to see up to 10 listings of a particular keyword and analyze the SEO metrics like volume, traffic, domain rating etc.

2. Searcher intent

Does your blog post satisfy searcher intent? Searcher intent is the reason behind a particular word, phrase or sentence that a person types into a search tool for example Google.

When a person searches a phrase like dog feeds, they are hoping to find different types of feeds for their dogs. A page that has this keyword as its title should include different types of dogs and the variety of meals they can feed on. That is how you satisfy a searcher’s intent. The title can also be crafted in a way to tell the searcher that you understand what they are searching for, and you have the answer to their query.

Satisfying searcher intent plays a big role to determine if your web page will get much traffic.

3. Use Keywords with business potential

When working with keywords, those that have a business potential will always get maximum traffic.

A business potential keyword is one that you can get the user to make a purchase by suggesting products or services suitable for their need.

When you craft your post in a way that informs your reader, they will automatically trust you with a lot of decisions that once you tell them that this is better based on facts and statistics, they will go for it. This side of blogs is very beneficial to affiliate marketers as it helps them drive traffic and make gains from the traffic.

4. Use Interlinks

To help Google better find, index and crawl your page, always add interlinks. These interlinks will help readers find useful information about what they are searching for. A good example of this is adding links to pages with helpful information about what they are looking for.

Always link from a page on your site to another page on your site that talks about a similar thing. For example, you can make a post about different breeds for pet dogs, and another about dog feeds. The former should link to the latter at a certain part in the page. Doing this will let Google crawl your page better.

This is an example of an internal link. Linking out to external pages that clarify your point also helps in your SEO.

5. Make use of Images

One good way to increase your rank on Google is to use images. When you use images, it helps to illustrate the information to the reader (like the image below) and helps them understand the information being passed better. Google uses this as a metric in ranking pages, although you shouldn’t just add images. You should also add alt tags that describes these images.

6. Disorganized headers

One way Google ranks a page is through headers for each title. Your blog post title should have a font size different from other titles and it should be the biggest.

Most preferably, your blog post title should be the size of an H1 tag, and the rest should be in decreasing order.

See image sample below.

Using this method will help google to appropriately understand how your web page is structured,

7. Make use of subtopics

Most pages ranking on google do not rank for a particular keyword but for multiple keywords. The goal of every blogger should be to write web articles that rank for different keywords and the most common way to do that is using subtopics.

With subtopics, you make it easier to rank for those subtopics as well, but to achieve that, you also need to play your cards well.

Also Read:

• Top Side Gigs That Can Make You More Money Than Full-Time Job
• What are the Biggest Enemies of Success and How to Conquer Them?
• Best Marketing Tips for Content Creators

8. Focus on quality content not keyword quantity

One mistake most people make is using a predefined quantity of words to rank. There are multiple sites that use less words than others but are ranking because of the quality of the content. Most especially when most guest posters or writers are given a word count of maybe 2000 or more, when the writer gets short of quality words, they try to write meaningless things in order to make up count.

This is a very wrong idea, what makes a page rank on Google and drive traffic is the quality of the blog post and nothing more.

9. Your page is slow to load

When people click on a site and it takes more than 3 seconds to load, most visitors will abandon the webpage and move on to another. You can test your web page speed here. There are a number of things to do to customize your web page to load faster, click here to see them.

Ranking on Google is equivalent to getting more views/traffic. When you do the necessary things, your page will rank and get traffic.

10. Plagiarism

One of the things you should watch out for while writing is that you do not plagiarize a content knowingly or unknowingly. Plagiarism can be a key feature in not driving any traffic, and it might cause a lot of red light on your site. Original content that provides solution to searcher’s problem will always be king.

The post 11 Pro Tips to Increase your Webpage Traffic this Year appeared first on SME SCOOP.