Top 5 Best Posting Practices For Tradespeople Using Social Media

It’s important to take note that the key to success on social media is not just about having accounts…its about utilising them correctly! In order to have a system in place thats attracts new customers, via social media sites such as Facebook, there are a few key components that every tradesman should take on board.

1. Engaging, Valuable Content

The first step is to produce good quality content. You must use social media for the right reason! These reasons could be to connect with customers and create strong relationships with them or provide them with useful information to fulfil their needs. Some pages that are on social media are often displaying content which isn’t relevant to their target market. If it looks like you only care about trying to make money, people are going to be not interested.

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1. Image Heavy Content

One tip for tradesmen posting on social media should be to post many photos which are relevant to their business and their target market. The reason for this, is the fact it engages customers and gives exposure to them for the message or service you are wanting to carry out. As a tradesman, you might consider posting pictures or short videos of your completed projects.

My experience of this has been for my landscaping business. I have got into the routine of uploading photos of each job that has been completed each week.

For example here’s a picture of a driveway we had done at one time.

When a customer visits a social media page and sees that it hasn’t been used in months, they probably aren’t going to consider that company for any work. As a tradesman, it is essential that you regularly post to your social media accounts. Posting on a weekly basis is a great starting point. It will both engage your clients and help you rank higher in the search engine results.

1. Interact With Customers

Social media was originally designed with personal interaction in mind, not simply advertising. Tradesmen should use their social media pages to interact with people in your community rather than simply sell to them.

A good way of putting this into practice is making sure your response times are quick whenever somebody posts a comment on your page. Interacting with viewers not only enhances the reputation in their eyes but to all the people that visit your page.

1. Interact With Other Tradesmen

One of the most underrated ways of using social media is influencer marketing. This type of marketing involves linking up with another person or business that is influential and popular in your industry. You can establish a relationship with this person through guest posting. Create content for their popular blog or social page…Think of any friends you’ve got now who are involved in a similar trade

For example if you’re a plasterer and one of your mates is an established decorator within your area, and has a Facebook page, why not put a message on his wall? It doesn’t pose as a threat to their business and it might present your business to new customers.

1. Stay Professional

Another important element, for any business and not just tradesmen involved in using social media is to remain professional at all times. Your social media account represents your business, so treat it with respect and use it to your benefit.

Don’t post any content that isn’t professional. Don’t post negative responses to comments (even if the comments themselves are negative). Finally, proofread every post – no matter how short. Spelling and grammar errors might seem like minor mistakes, but they will make a huge difference to the people searching for services. There is a balance of trying to appear ‘human’ and informal. Trust your instinct when its time to act serious.

1. Bonus TIP: Keep it simple

Too many options may as well be no options. If your audience isn’t on a certain network, why would you promote that sharing option on your content? Reflect on your audience and match up your offerings with their behaviours.

How to deal with difficult customers

Dealing with difficult customers may not be the most enjoyable part of being a small business owner, but it’s a necessary one. Knowing how to handle complaints appropriately takes practice and professionalism. Here are some tips on how to deal with difficult customers.

Stay calm and in control

While it can be hard to stay calm when someone is criticising you or your business, it’s important you that do. Try not to take it personally. Getting frustrated may provoke an argument and is not likely to produce a positive outcome for you or the customer.

Speak to the customer in a quiet and polite manner, stay professional and in control. This will help you manage the situation. Counter their aggression with calm.

Listen

Give the customer your attention and listen – really listen – to what they have to say.

Don’t interrupt or talk over them. Find out what they are unhappy about and what outcome they are seeking. Quite often anger can stem from feeling like you are not being heard, so give the customer the opportunity to vent their frustrations.

That said, make it clear to the customer that bad language, personal attacks and threats of violence will not be tolerated. If, for example, the customer is swearing, firmly and politely ask them to stop. If they keep doing it, warn them that you will finish the conversation if they continue.

Negotiate

Try to empathise and consider the situation of the customer. Tell the customer clearly and respectfully what you can and can’t offer them in the way of solutions. Where possible, give them options. For example, if a customer is unhappy with a meal they have been served in your restaurant you may choose:

• To offer them a replacement meal
• To offer an alternate meal choice
• To provide some kind of added extra, like a complimentary glass of wine
• To not charge them for the meal
• Some combination of the above.

Ensure you and your team are aware of the rights of the consumer, and your obligations as a business owner under Australian Consumer Law. It may help leave a copy of the guidelines in the staffroom so your team can refer to when dealing with customer complaints.

We’ve been told ‘the customer is always right,’ but this isn’t always the case. As a business owner, try to assess the circumstances of each customer’s complaint on a case-by-case basis. Negotiate with them in the hope of reaching a fair outcome that everyone is satisfied with. Don’t leave emails, phone calls, or messages on social media unaddressed. Aim to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Delays may further aggravate the situation.

Poor online reviews and complaints

Respond quickly and politely. Don’t repeat back the negative element of the review, instead repeat back any positive elements. Apologise that your customer had a bad experience and thank them for letting you know. Reach out to them to provide an email address or go to a messaging platform so you can take your discussion onto a private platform.  Then send them an email asking for the best number to call them on and a time to call, or for more details about their issue so you can address it. Try to resolve their issue in such a way they end up being a raving fan and are willing to change their online review of their own accord.  When it comes to online complaints, ensure your staff are aware of an escalation process and don’t respond unless you’re confident they know how to handle a complaint effectively.

Have systems in place

Dealing with difficult customers is something all businesses face. Having systems in place to deal with them will help you to achieve better outcomes. This should include guidelines on what steps staff should follow. Staff should be aware of what actions are approved, what resolutions are available, and who to escalate a complaint to if appropriate. The manager on a shift may be the person who deals with all complaints. When the manager isn’t there, the assistant manager may step in to oversee a difficult customer, instead of the casual staff.

Your systems should also be supported with training, for example, try role playing so your team can practice handling difficult customers. Staff that are educated, informed and supported by management will be more confident in dealing with difficult customers than those who aren’t.

Consider what can be learned from the situation

While dealing with difficult customers can be stressful, it can also be an opportunity to learn. Consider what the customer’s issue was, and how it was handled and resolved. Was there anything that was done well? Could you do anything better? These learnings can be discussed as a team, brainstorming ways to better manage the experience for all customers in the future.

Want to grow your business or manage your cash flow? Talk to Australia’s leading online lender to small business, ClickCapital, about a business loan.

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How to Create a Budget

How to create a small business budget

Budgeting might seem like a bore, especially for time-poor tradies and small business owners, it is crucial in ensuring long-term success. Here are five key steps to getting started with a simple budget for your business.

1. Getting started.

Managing your money smartly is the key to growing a successful business.

The simplest place to start is by going back over your monthly sales and expenses.

Looking through your monthly sales and expenses will help work out which are your strongest and weakest months and when you have the highest costs. Break down the following:

• Your labour costs (Employed staff and outsourced labour)
• Office expenses (This might include equipment like computers)
• Other recurring costs (Utilities, rent etc.)

The next step is to subtract these expenses from your revenue. Consider how this figure compares to your financial goals – are you on track or will you need to think about cutting back expenses?

If you’re just starting up, you’ll be forced to make estimates, but speak to your financial adviser and do some research on comparable businesses to determine typical costs and revenues. Don’t just guess!

2. Know your income sources.

It’s important to know where your money is coming from. Organise this by breaking down your income into two main streams, recurring income and one-offs (like a government grant). If you’ve taken out a business loan, be sure to also add the repayments to your expenses list in step 3.

The following is a simple example:

This step focuses on separating fixed costs, such as insurance and rent, from variable costs like office supplies, employee costs and marketing expenditure.3. Determine variable and fixed costs.

Write down all of these expenses and create a monthly and annual cost table, as shown below:

4. Review and determine profit.

The fourth step is to determine how much profit you expect to make during the financial year.

For small business owners who are managing their own expenses, simply deduct the total annual cost of expenses from your annual income total.

In the example given, total income of $283,400 exceeds total expenses of $207,400, leaving a healthy annual profit of $76,000.

The whole premise of budgeting is to help ensure that your income consistently outperforms your expenses. Having a budget will help you improve this by identifying the biggest costs and revenues. It is generally recommended to build in a safety margin of between 10 and 20 per cent around revenues, to account for unpredictable events.

5. Update.

The final step is to update the budget on a monthly basis as things change – and as any small business owner knows, that is very likely.

Creating a budget for your small business is essential to determine where your money is going, and to achieve your financial goals. And if you need extra funds for expansion, talk to Clickcapital about a business loan just right for your needs.

5 ways to market your small business

Regardless of whether your small business is a new or established one, marketing can play an important role in its success. Marketing can help you grow and retain your customer base, increase awareness and strengthen your brand. Here are five easy ways to market your business.

1. Get on Google My Business

When it comes to being found online, Google is the place to be. So make sure that you create a free listing on Google My Business. The listing includes your business name, address, phone number, trading hours, photos and directions. When someone searches for your business, your listing will appear at the top of the search. It will provide people with all the details they need to find, contact or visit you, making your business more discoverable to new customers.

2. Run a competition

There’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned competition to attract new customers (and email addresses for your e-newsletter database). The prize should ideally be products or services from your business to showcase your offering. The competition can be promoted in-store, on your website, in a blog, and on social media, with the winner being featured in subsequent coverage.

3. Use social media

Previously, businesses were told they should be on every social media platform. Today, the focus is on mastering the most suitable social media channels to market your business. For a fashion retailer, this may be Instagram or Pinterest so they can take advantage of the visual, inspirational nature of the platforms. On the other end of the spectrum, an accountant may benefit from using LinkedIn to widen their business networks or position themselves as a thought leader by posting regular articles. Facebook works well for businesses that want to create active communities or promote regular special offers.

Regardless of the platform, invest time in asking and answering questions and starting conversations. The key to mastering social media is being social. Sharing both curated and original quality content will help market your product to customers and, more importantly, engage with them.

4. Form partnerships

Aligning yourself with other small businesses that you know and respect is a good way to market yourself and grow your network. For example, if you run a fine dining restaurant that regularly hosts occasions like weddings, think of complementary businesses to partner with. You may want to approach a local florist, patisserie, and winery to create a referral network.

5. Advertise

Advertising may be the traditional approach to marketing your business, but when done through the right channels it can truly pay off. Consider an ad in a local newspaper, a Google Adwords campaign, targeted display advertising on your preferred social media platform, or listing your business in a local or online directory. It’s important to consider your specific target audience and think about how (and if) the ad will reach them; and always measure results to determine if the ROI is worth the spend.

Need some extra funds to help market your business? A small business loan from ClickCapital could help. Call 03 93984862 or apply online.

How do I recover a business debt?

Outstanding debts can stifle a business’ cash flow. However, spending time chasing unpaid invoices can distract business owners from their core functions. Generally, terms and conditions of trade will include a clause addressing payment, unpaid invoices and debt recovery costs. In this article, we will clarify the best way for you recover money owed to your business for goods or services provided to customers.

Speak with the debtor

The most cost-effective strategy is to try and resolve the matter with the other side directly. In this day and age of online communication, people tend to forget that the best way to get an instant response is to pick up the telephone. This way you may find out that there is a reason (whether bona fide or otherwise) that the customer has not paid you. If this doesn’t elicit a helpful response, you may need to send a letter of demand.

Letter of Demand

A letter of demand is a formal way to claim an outstanding debt and is the final letter given to a party before commencing legal action. The letter should:

• clearly state that it is a letter of demand;
• set out the exact amount of money owed and how is it calculated;
• state that if the debt isn’t paid by a certain date, you may commence legal action; and
• provide a way for the debtor to pay the debt (e.g. business bank account details).

Mediation

If parties have a genuine dispute in regards to unpaid invoices, they should consider mediation. The process may involve the parties sitting down to resolve the matter or alternatively, they may wish to hire a 3rd party mediator to assist by recommending an outcome, which the parties can choose to accept. If mediation is unsuccessful or the debtor will not attend, a business owner should consider consulting lawyers.

Legal Action

Before commencing litigation, lawyers will generally recommend that a final letter of demand be sent to the other party by the law firm. If this does not drive the matter towards a successful outcome, the lawyer may recommend litigation as a means of debt recovery.

Litigation is a time consuming and costly way to resolve a dispute that parties should use only as a last resort. To commence proceedings, your lawyer will assist you to prepare and file a statement of claim which asks the court to order the remedy you seek. If the defendant (the debtor) admits to the debt or doesn’t file a notice of defence, then the court can require them to repay costs and the matter will be resolved at that point. If a notice of defence is filed, the following outcomes are possible:

1. the case will settle at court-ordered mediation or through informal settlement discussions between the parties; or
2. the case will go to a hearing where the court decides on the facts whether a debt is owed.

If the debtor is a company

If a debtor is a company and the debt is over $2,000, a creditor can issue a statutory demand. A statutory demand is a formal document a creditor can issue under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) to require a debtor company to pay its debt within 21 days. If the debtor company fails to pay the debt (or come up with a suitable arrangement) within that period, the company is presumed insolvent. The creditor can then commence proceedings to wind up the company and prove its debt in the liquidation of the debtor company.

However, a debtor company can apply to have the court set the statutory demand if there is a genuine dispute as to the existence or amount of the debt. If successful, the debtor may be entitled to recover its legal costs of that application.

Debt Recovery Checklist

If you are chasing unpaid invoices, ask yourself the following questions before resorting to litigation:

• Have you called the debtor to discuss the outstanding invoice?
• Have you sent a letter of demand?
• If there is a genuine dispute as to the debt, have you met with the debtor to resolve it?

If the answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’, then it may be worth contacting a lawyer to assist you in recovering your business debt.

This article was provided by Noam Greenberger of Legal Vision.

4 questions to ask yourself before a website redesign

According to Google’s Consumer Barometer, the internet is a key resource for finding local businesses. 80 per cent of Australians go straight to a search engine to look for a local business, and 55% use a website as their main research tool even if they go on to buy in store. If your business is not online it needs to be! If you are, it’s important that your website offers potential customers the best possible introduction to your business. If the site is hard to use, poorly designed or looks outdated, it’s time for a redesign. Here are four questions to consider in preparing your business website for a redesign.

What is my strategy?

Start with a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Once you have this, then working out how to redesign your website is much easier. For example, do you want to use the website to generate awareness, leads or for sales? Is it mainly a corporate brochure with contact details, or an important source of revenue?  Do you need to simply refresh your online presence so customers can learn more about your products/services or finding how to contact you. Or, for example, if you are a mortgage broker, your primary focus may be to use the site to generate leads and grow your database.

Undertake your own research on what your competitors are doing online, and also look at websites belonging to brands whose business models you admire. Make a note of the types of sites that appeal to you and are in line with what you’d hope to achieve. Note down what you like about each – such as ease of use, content, design, layout and functionality – and consider how you could apply these elements to your own website.

Start your planning by looking at how things are currently working. Look at your Google Analytics (GA) numbers and document some of the key stats.

• Number of visits/visitors/unique visitors (monthly average)
• Bounce rate (monthly average)
• Time on site (monthly average)
• Top-performing keywords (in terms of rank, traffic, and lead generation)
• Total number of new leads/form submissions (per month)
• Total amount of sales generated (per month)

If you don’t have access to this data, then add GA to your site. You want to understand current benchmarks and later you can compare these to the new site, so you know whether your investment is delivering value.

You also need to look at other stats that are relevant. For example:

• number of leads generated by the website
• newsletter registrations
• number of sales generated by the website
• $ value of sales generated by the website
• contact us inquiries
• Links from or to social media.

Using this data you enable you to set new goals for the revamped website, and these goals will help you (or your developer) to prioritise requirements and create the optimal solution.   For example, if your number one goal is to increase the $ value of sales on your website, then functionality that cross-sells additional product to customers who are already in buying mode would take priority. If you wanted to increase your social media following, then featuring calls to action to follow you might take priority.

What are the essential functions and features my new website should have?

Top of the list should be mobile responsiveness. This means that your website responds and adapts to size of the type of device it is being viewed on: desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile.

According to the Deloitte’s 2015 Mobile Consumer Survey (Australia), 79 per cent of Australians own a smartphone and on average they check them more than 30 times a day. With 65 per cent of respondents saying they have browsed shopping websites on their smartphone, a responsive site is an essential inclusion in your website redesign.

Other website features may depend on the nature of your business. For example, if you want to operate an online store, it would require e-commerce functionality. Or if you run a restaurant and would like the ability to take online reservations, a booking system and calendar would appeal. For a business that uses content as a key part of its marketing strategy, a site with an inbuilt blog may be a priority.

Does my current website need a quick update or a complete overhaul?

Consider your current website, and analyse exactly what isn’t working. For example, if your current site delivers the functionality you need, but you just don’t like how it looks, you can simply refresh of images, some content, colours and fonts. On the other hand, if your current website isn’t mobile responsive or doesn’t showcase your business as well as it could, it may require a more comprehensive redesign.

Take a hair salon owner who has added manicures, pedicures and waxing to their service offering. They will need to redesign their website architecture to provide information about these new services, along with updating images. Or a travel agent who has only ever promoted tours and relied on phone bookings –  but now wants to be able to take online bookings and deposits for customized small group tours, and allow customers to upload tour photos and articles.

Do I want to undertake the website design myself or hire someone to do it?

Depending on the complexity of the website you’d like to build, your own tech skills and your budget, you may choose to undertake the website redesign yourself. Some popular website builders  to explore include WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace, Wix and Weebly. Please don’t underestimate how much work is involved in building your own website. You will need to get your head around installing a CMS, finding and re-sizing the right images, writing content that helps your customers and also helps your SEO and much more. The more sophisticated your requirements, the better off you may be using a professional web developer to help you.

Seek out referrals from friends and peers and chat to a freelance web developers about their approach. Once you’ve written a good set of specs for what you want, it’s worth posting your project on sites like freelancer.com.au or approaching a few freelance web developers to get estimates and testimonials you can compare. Finding someone you can work with easily, even if it’s always on a remote basis, is very important to getting the results you want.

If you need help funding your website project, talk to ClickCapital about how a small business loan could help.