August, 2013 | BizSieve.com

Innovative Behaviors Small Business Owners Need In Order For Their Startup To Succeed

Innovation seems to be the hot topic of the year. From the latest Kickstarter project to new technologies, everything is being labeled innovative and world changing. However, innovation is not always about changing the world or creating the next big trend. It often starts as a simple change that might not even be noticed. This is especially common in the small business sector. Though small businesses were once thought of as rigid and less than innovative, this is far from the truth. Most flourishing startups include some level of innovation. These nine behaviors are ways to ensure that innovation drives your startup or small business to succeed.

1. Be Open to New Ways of Conducting Business

The most innovative small business owners are those that are willing to try new ideas. When you continue to do things the same way, it is easy to fall into a routine. When this happens, innovation is unlikely. From finding new ways to attract clients and customers to changing your standard workflow or business model, each method could offer new and innovative ways to push your startup to the next level.

2. Understand Your Customers

Most major innovations in the past decade were not a matter of simply creating something that others had not thought of before. It was the result of knowing the market, knowing customers and acting on their thoughts and opinions. At the end of the day, customers are what will decide the success of your startup. By truly connecting with them and getting to know them, you can improve innovation within your company and always ensure that you are aligned with the interests of your target audience. This has an added benefit of strengthening your brand as well.

3. Analyze Everything

Innovation is not always about overcoming failure. Sometimes, innovation is a product of success. A major aspect of cultivating innovation within a small business is analyzing everything. From the efficiency of payroll to employee or customer ideas on how to improve the business, considering every idea and weighing the benefits can lead to surprising results. If you are not always tracking and honing your business endeavors, you are missing golden opportunities and chances for success.

4. Create Solutions Not Products and Services

Innovation is about changing existing methods, creating new solutions and solving problems in previously unseen ways. While most small businesses focus on providing a product or service, innovative business owners are providing solutions. In many ways, this leads back to understanding your customers and market. If you see a common problem, you might be able to exploit it for short-term success. However, creating a solution will providing long-term results. This is the essence of innovation.

5. Be Proactive

Innovative businesses are not simply following business trends and keeping the business afloat. They are leading the way, charting new paths and creating tomorrow’s trends. Instead of reacting to market trends or other common issues, be proactive. Market research, trends analysis and constantly working to improve your business are great ways to ensure that you are a leader and proactive in your market.

6. Communicate Openly and Often

Innovation is often the result of looking at something differently than the competition. This means that the more angles and opinions you receive on a given issue, process or product, the greater the chance for innovation to occur. A great way to improve the number of inputs available to your business is to encourage open communication. From clients and customers to your accountant or employees, each thought that they have could be the next big step for your business. By encouraging and promoting open communication, these thoughts can be shared, adapted and applied to your business to help push it toward further success.

7. Never Settle

For the innovative entrepreneur, nothing is ever good enough. This does not mean that you should never acknowledge your own successes or should devote every second of your day to your business. It simply means that innovators realize that there is always room for improvement. When your business stops striving to improve, it also stops innovating. Experiment, communicate, analyze and use every tool that you have available to push your business forward and innovation is sure to follow.

8. Be Resourceful

Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking that innovation involves complex laboratories or massive investments. Not only is this untrue, it is actually the direct opposite of most cases. Small businesses are prime candidates for innovative discovery due to the lack of funding, size and stability that many larger businesses enjoy. This forces business owners to think of new ways to accomplish more with less. An innovative business owner does not merely invest money into problems—they invest minds as well.

9. Know Your Market and Your Competition

Sometimes innovation does not come from the inside of the business. Competitor successes and failures can be a valuable source of information for the innovative small business. Technology has made it easier than ever to keep in touch with peers, competitors and other sources of market information. Whether you are following major industry names on social media or networking at the local chamber of commerce, every piece of information you gain about the efforts of other businesses can help to spur change and innovation within your own business.

Innovation is not an event or process; it is a mindset. With the increasingly competitive nature of business in the digital world, small businesses are leading the way for innovation and driving new market trends. These 9 behaviors are ways to integrate innovation into any small business and improve your chances of success.

About the Author: Willie Pena is a freelance writer, video producer, visual artist, and music producer. He prefers the Oxford comma. In addition to writing for firms such as IBM, Colgate, Transunion, Webroot and a multitude of private clients and websites, he also shoots, directs, and edits the hit celebrity web series “Teens Wanna Know”. Catch his rare blog posts on williepena.com, and connect with him on Google+, LinkedIn.

Dual-Action Branding: 5 Branding Materials That Do Double Duty!

It is common to think brands can be boiled down to color schemes and logos. But, they are so much more. Your brand is your business. It is your public face. It is your constant relationship builder. It communicates who you are, what you do and what you stand for.

Most likely, you have spent a lot of time, energy and money developing a strong brand. Why? Because it is the message you want to communicate with clients and prospects.

While you certainly want to use this branding as the foundation for designing and decorating your business’ location, website and graphics, why stop there? By incorporating your brand into all of your business’ materials, you can maximize your return on investment (ROI). This is especially true when you utilize branded materials.

What are Branded Materials?

Branded materials are any item (physical or digital) which is decorated with your company logo (aka branding stamp). While some of these, such as a sign above your door, simply mark your location, others are products your business uses on a regular basis.

By branding products you, your employees, and your customers will use anyways, you can:

Instantly create additional advertising for your business
Enjoy lower costs for materials (when you buy in bulk)
Develop brand recognition among consumers
Foster strong customer relationships linked closely to your brand

Brand Products that do Double Duty

Business cards are wonderful, and stationery is great. Both of these necessary business items should be branded. But, both of these items really only serve one purpose – sending/handing to a client or prospect.

These five branded materials provide more than one function for your business:

1. Pens

No matter how techy your business is, it’s nearly impossible to function without pens. Sometimes, you just need to write things down on real paper. Whether you and your employees are in the office or on the go, branded pens are a great way to continue sharing your message. They also make great, lasting, leave-behinds as people are likely to keep using them for some time.

2. Coasters

Coasters are one of those small, branded touches which help your business continue to communicate its brand while also keeping your space clean.

3. Cups, Mugs and To-Go Coffee Cups

Nearly everyone drinks coffee or some sort of warm beverage. Cups, mugs and to-go coffee cups are an excellent way to keep your brand visibly in your employees’ hands at all times.

4. iPhone Cases

Even though pens are a necessity, the digital, smartphone age is taking over. Going somewhere without your handheld device is often compared to walking around in your birthday suit. Supplying your employees with an attractively branded iPhone case will help you stay front and center. (Added love goes to the boss who also supplies their employees with an iPhone.)

5. Printed Shade Cloths

Shade cloths help control dust and debris in a variety of situations such as construction sites, large events and outdoor lunch gatherings. They can be attached to fending, scaffolding and buildings. While plain shade cloths can be attained, branded shade cloths maximize your business’ exposure and give it a professional look and feel.

About the Author: Nicole is a branding and marketing expert, and has been helping businesses brand their companies for years. In her experience, Site Shade offers the best printed shades she could find.

Three Reasons Why Instagram Is Good For Your Business

Instagram is an application for mobile devices that let you take photos and upload them instantly to social networking sites. This is one of the fastest growing social media networks at this time and it is growing daily. Many users say that Instagram is addictive and nearly all iPhone and Android users are using it more and more. The savvy business owner knows that when a social media platform hits these heights that they need to take advantage of it. The following are just three reasons why Instagram is good for your business and why need to get on board today.

The Instantaneous Uploads

One of the top reasons for using Instagram is that the uploads are instantaneous so you don’t have to wait to post the pictures. When you use a digital camera does not offer the instant uploads because you have to attach the camera or media card to a computer in order to upload them. With Instagram, all you need to do is take the picture, make your edits to the photo or add your filters and you can instantly upload it to all of your social networking sites. This allows you to share your brand with your viewers and fans immediately.

You can Make Your Brand More Interesting

They main point of using Instagram is to promote your business and your products. When you take pictures that are interesting to your fans there is a higher chance that they will share and like these photos. The more likes and shares you get the higher you go into the search engine rankings and that’s never a bad thing. You can also give your brand a personality that they would lack otherwise and you can also offer your fans candid moments of your employees. But more than anything, Instagram makes your products and services look cool and everyone likes that.

Get Followers Easily

You cannot post any types of links on Instagram so your followers don’t feel as if they are being advertised to. It also keeps them from feeling like that are being spammed if they want to follow your business page. An added benefit to this is that when you are uploading photos that are interesting people are more likely to want to follow you. You can build your brand presence much easier on this site than other social media network. You can also associate your Instagram account with other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. This allows you to upload one picture to all your social media sites that are supported. Instagram is a great marketing tool if it is used properly and search engines like Google are now targeting these sites for SEO purposes. You have the ability to make instantaneous uploads of your photos and you can also make your brand more interesting to your followers. Also, because there are no links allowed, it is much easier to get people to follow you than it would be on other sites. Ryan Leeds has had an interest in social media since he started his blog ten years ago and has been activity writing on the topic.

Increasing small business profit with recession proof marketing plan – top concerns

Sales in small business are usually all that keeps the lifeblood of the entire set up going and hence it’s no big deal to conclude that the marketing plans are nearly the soul of every business strategy making. When the strategy goes wrong – everything goes wrong and when the real damage has been made, there is hardly any ‘good fix’ available for the solution to make a comeback. Though it may seem to be a little boring to some entrepreneurs but they are required to invest some portion of their quality time to develop a market plan that is not just operative but also recession proof.

Marketing plans should be made to ensure business success in the long run but there are various factors that might affect the entire setup and one of them is recession. However, when you know you have taken time to get back to the basics and walked on the path you were expected to, even recession fails to hamper your business productivity. Curious to know what they are? Very quickly, we will tell you about the pointers you should keep in mind while designing your small business marketing plan that would also help you boost your small business profits.

So who is your target market?

This is one of the concerns that may be sounding obviously noticeable but unfortunately not many prefer to have an eye for detail on this one. If you are not thinking on this one at an early stage, you are probably going to spend a lot of your time and energy sometime soon. You are wasting a lot of your budget, time and effort when you are not figuring out your target market. Here are a few more pointers that can help you with this

It is always better to design immensely great and effective marketing campaigns which are also designed keeping in mind the much smaller audience than targeting wider audience poorly
It is not always possible to offer and be everything for every group or market; it is rather advisable to focus entirely on a smaller section that is your target audience and work in that direction
Look for the other businesses in the same sector and find out how and what they are marketing and to whom. You can also join their online communities and learn a few things from them but don’t plainly imitate

How are you going to reach your prospects?

Now when you have explored your target audience, the next obvious concern in line should be – how you are going to get your message delivered to them. A lot of entrepreneurs feel that keeping their active feet on social networking websites is going to serve the purpose completely – this is a prevailing myth! You can choose to focus on your local market first, particularly when you are a local small business. Your presence in some much notable industry trade show should do the needful. A good telecommunication campaign should also be capable of serving the purpose.

You will actually require a good mix of the marketing channels in order to reach to your target market rather than chasing every ‘looks to be promising’ networking channel without identifying your goals.

Are you going to keep your marketing strategy ‘agile’?

This is going to be one of the toughest calls – full of challenges. It is extremely important for you to ensure that your business has adopted agile marketing approach to the strategy in place. Since the modern and the digital marketplace are well known to change at the blink of an eye, it becomes important to position your business in a way such that it is open to marketing strategies. This will ensure that your business remains recession proof which means adaptability is the key.

Make sure that you analyse and also measure your marketing strategy from time to time rather than looking through it after months. Don’t forget that it is equally important to have a good deal of flexibility in your small business marketing plan. This would also help you in smartly adapting to the changing customer requirements and the shifting markets. This would further ensure that your small business can not only generate the desirable leads but is also capable of bringing on the new prospects even during the most unpredictable times! Face the recession and challenge the market with your recession proof strategy and by now you know that it’s possible!

About the Author: Colin Boykins is a passionate blogger and social media addict. He is currently associated with a UK based supplier of platform trucks – Flatbed-Truck.co.uk.

Do You Have What It Takes To Become A Medical Transcriptionist?

Medical transcription services are an important part of keeping the healthcare industry organized and documented. The medical transcriptionists that are in charge of putting together each detailed and accurate patient report are trained to have specific skills that will make them successful in their field. Transcribing the illegible handwritten notes or hasty audio recordings of a physician into precise records that document patient visits, diagnoses, treatments, procedures, medications, etc. can be a challenging task. However, the expertise and abilities of a medical transcriptionist will allow for getting an efficient job done that all healthcare professionals and patients can rely on.

Knowledge of Medical Terminology and Research Practices

Even though transcriptionists aren’t required to go through years and years of med school, they are still expected to be versed in terminology that is commonly used in the healthcare industry. This will allow a medical transcriptionist to do their job in a more timely fashion if they aren’t having to look up every other word. Doctors are known for using abbreviations and codes in their notes, and it will be up to the transcriber to translate those correctly. Advancements in the medical field are constantly being made, so it’s important for transcriptionists to hone their research skills and keep up on the latest terms and technologies and be able to find hospital and physician names quickly.

Proficient in Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation

An accurate report largely depends on its grammar, spelling and punctuation. Without these skills and a good command of the English language, a transcriptionist can’t expect to flourish in their career choice. Having a dictionary on hand can be useful, but it shouldn’t be relied on so heavily that it takes time away from typing up the necessary documents.

Advanced Typing Skills

Healthcare facilities needing medical transcription services are looking for someone that can get the job done flawlessly in a short period of time. They often require a very quick turnaround, and slow typing speeds won’t cut it. A medical transcriptionist must be able to type at higher speeds while maintaining an error-free document.

Concern for Detail and Accuracy

Medical transcriptionists cannot get away with playing the guessing game. They have to understand how important their job is to the healthcare process and uphold a professional level of responsibility that will ensure accuracy in every report. Typos or neglecting to verify unfamiliar terminology could result in misguided care of a patient.

Capability to Maintain Focus Without Guidance

Many physicians and healthcare facilities are choosing to outsource their transcription needs to save on overhead costs. This means it’s possible for a medical transcriptionist to take advantage of the perks of working from home, but it also takes a lot of self-discipline and focus. Deadlines must still be met no matter where reports are being put together, and it can take a great deal of motivation to stay on top of the job when you’re left to your own devices. Transcriptionists can’t let distractions get the better of them because this is where many mistakes can be made.

Jobs in the healthcare industry are always in demand, but it is vital for a medical transcriptionist to possess all of these skills if they are looking to have a truly rewarding and accomplished career in the medical field.

About the Author: Tiffany Olson makes her home in Northern California and loves to blog on career related topics, especially those in the healthcare field. When she’s not writing you’ll usually find her at the library reading or in the kitchen cooking.