Category Archives: Business

Strategies to Earn Money When You Are a Freelancer

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Freelancing has become the best alternative for the traditional jobs that most people are forced to choose at one point or another. We all need to make the ends meet, many of us have higher aspirations and standards, so there’s got to be a solution to what we need without sacrificing 8 standard hours every, single, day.

Well, in today’s post, I’m going to teach you several strategies to start your freelancing journey in the most effective and productive way. Pay attention, take some notes, and make sure that you put this useful information in implementation the moment you commit to begin working.

Treat It Like a Business

Freelancing is very similar to business. Just like businesses sell products and services, freelancers do exactly the same thing, only in a different way.  As a freelancer, you have limited time, energy, and resources, therefore you’ll have to carefully strategize your future actions, habits, and decisions.

Choose Your Niche

Like in business, you need to choose a product/service to develop and/or promote. In freelancing, the product is basically the service you’re offering. You can become a:

  • Content writer
  • SEO writer
  • Digital Assistant
  • Graphic Designer
  • Web Developer

The list could go because there are hundreds and thousands of opportunities. You need to establish what you want to do, what skills you need to develop, and what clients you’ll have to search for.

Create a Professional Website (domain, hosting)

Obviously, a professional website is necessary for a steady growth. Every successful independent contractor is already working on his/her online presence. The website is the first thing you need to consider when starting out your freelance career.

Choose a domain, select a hosting plan, and start learning how to use WordPress– it’s easy and most newbie freelancers can take advantage of it. There are a lot of tutorials on the web on how to start a website, so you should definitely take your time to learn.

Establish Your Target Audience

Who will you be targeting? This is a very important aspect that you can’t neglect. In today’s marketplace, most clients are looking for specialized freelancers. For example, if a health & wellness magazine needs extra content, they’ll look for content writers which are specialized precisely in the health & wellness field.

This means that they know the language and the lingos, they can use a language that would be perfect for the client’s audience, and it also means that the writer’s compensations will be above average.

Therefore, after choosing your niche, you need to establish your specific target audience and guide your marketing efforts in alignment with your audience’s characteristics.

Develop a Strong Online Presence 

A strong online presence is absolutely critical in today’s times. Your future clients are already searching for you online, in different places, offering different opportunities. However, for you to be accessible, and to look trustworthy and valuable to your audience, you must consistently promote your personal brand in the online medium.

Get Visible on Social Channels

Start by developing a professional presence on one or two social channels. Ideally, it should be Facebook and LinkedIn. Make it truly professional, which means that you should abide by posting anything that you believe that it won’t be suited in a formal environment.

On your social channels, curate and/or create quality content around your niche. Secondly, you may showcasea few samples of your work.

Complete your profile – add pictures, contact information, past work experiences, and everything else until you have it all. Lastly, start being active. Publish, comment, reply, mention, engage.

Build Relationships with Influencers

To improve your personal brand’s reputation, you must first make it visible. Leveraging social media influencers (people/pages with lots of followers/subscribers/likes) is a great strategy that most businesses are using today.

Develop relationships by offering free services or by simply paying for a promotion. If the results are satisfying and your return on investment is positive, you should keep promoting your services with the help of social influencers.

Network, Network, Network

In today’s digital and social environment in which communication is instant, it would be foolish not to network.Simply put, start reaching out your target audience and offer your professional services. You can develop a networking strategy that’ll help you accomplish your specific goals. For example, you may offer a 50% discount for every client who’s willing to order after your first presentation.

Sustain and Improve Your Freelance Career 

Freelancing is a long-term journey. Everything’s hard at first, and freelancing is no exception. In fact, I’d say that a freelancing career is not for the weak souls. Building highly valuable skills in a specific niche is one thing. However, preserving your work power, cultivating discipline, and maintaining your consistency are also essential aspects of a thriving freelance career.

Don’t Quit Your Job Too Fast

Don’t quit your job before you’re absolutely sure that your freelancing efforts are enough to sustain the lifestyle you want. When you go freelance, you basically take a risk. You don’t have clients yet, and your skills are barely developed. To minimize the risk, keep working your normal job until you’ve got something better.

Develop Concise Freelancing Goals

What do you want to achieve with your freelancing career? Success is extremely subjective, and each person has its own version of it. Depending on what you want to accomplish from a professional point of view, you need to specifically state your goals. Make them very concise and split them into smaller pieces, called mini-goals. Take each mini-goal on the side and work on it separately until you build the big picture.

Grow Your Standards as You Grow Your Skills

As Mark Cursus, HR manager at Assignment Masters suggests, “The difference between successful and mediocre individuals lies in the difference of standards that people have concerning their professional life. Some freelancers would be happy to earn $10a day while others wouldn’t be able to work for less than $50.”

The best thing you can do for yourself and for your long-term future is to adopt a growth mindset. Grow your mindset, shift your attitude, and develop higher and higher standards. To support these new, high standards, you must also consistently grow your skills.

Stay Organized

Organize your personal time well and strive to become a disciplined individual. You can’t afford missing important deadlines, meetings, or other requests. Your clients depend on your availability so make sure that you don’t disappoint.

Stay Consistent

Consistency is the most important aspect of a successful freelance career. Knowledge, skills, passion – they are necessary, indeed. However, without consistent involvement and work, freelancing is not worth pursuing because it’ll never get you where you want.

Stay Persistent

Persistency, like consistency, is key to a successful progress in the freelance domain. When life gives you a lot of trouble, it’s easy to slip off and become distracted. Distractions will make your freelance work becomes inconsistent and unreliable.A persistent mindset will help you get back on feet and start going again.

Takeaways

Becoming a freelancer is easy.Becoming a successful, recognized, and truly professional individual is another totally different story. My advice would be this. Start gathering knowledge, improve your skills, build connections, be calculated, stay organized, consistent, and persistent, and never look back. I wish you the best of luck!

Keep Accurate Financial Records Simply with Bookkeeping Services Online

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Dealing with the finances of a business can be the most dreaded part of being an entrepreneur. With all of the transactions that come in and all the expenses going out, it can be difficult to keep track. Keeping track is essential though, or you may end up spending more than you make, which could lead to the demise of your business. Fortunately, there are ways to make the process of bookkeeping easier with online services.

The best way to find bookkeeping services online is to do a search with your favorite web browser. You’ll find there are hundreds, if not thousands, of bookkeeping services currently on the Internet. The next step is to choose one of them, which can take a bit of time.

Since these businesses will handle the sensitive financial matters of your business, it’s important to choose one that is reputable. Researching a company is the best way to learn whether or not it will be the best one to do your bookkeeping.

The first place to check for company information is the Better Business Bureau. This company now has listings for online businesses, which is perfect for researching bookkeeping services. It’s wise to choose a company that is listed by the BBB because of its reputation, and because you’re able to see if there are any complaints against the company. Even if there is a complaint or two, always check on what the complaint is to judge if it’s worthy of dismissing that company’s services. Many times, consumers misunderstand the circumstances that lead to the disagreement. It’s also good to read the reactions of the company to a complaint to gauge how helpful its customer service department is to its customers.

Another way to research a company is to do an extensive search of it online. Enter the company’s name into the search engine and look through the results. You’ll find many different reviews sites that may have additional information that can help you make a choice.

Scrutinize the company’s website next. The website should have an easy to use interface. In addition, check out the products available to see if there are any free trials to test them out before purchase. This can mean everything when seeking bookkeeping services because you don’t want to be stuck in a contract before you know if you like it or not.

If you have any questions about a service, do not hesitate to call them. It will be a preview to what type of support you’ll receive when you use them with your business. If you’re happy with the help they provide, it’s likely they will continue to give you the same type of usefulness ongoing.

The main benefit of online bookkeeping services is the ability to manage your business’ finances with the least amount of hassle. That means you can concentrate more on making money rather than managing it. Now that you know how to choose services, go out there on the net and find a company you can trust.

Things You Will Need When Starting a Business

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Starting a business isn’t easy. Many t’s need to be crossed and i’s dotted before a business can even open its doors.

Key components to opening a business include writing a good business plan, securing financing, finding a building and ordering inventory if it’s a retail business. New business owners must also deal with government red tape, which includes making sure the business is allowed under the zoning code, getting a business license and registering to pay income and employment taxes as well as other fees a government may impose.

None of this is much fun, but it has to be done. When it’s done, however, it’s time for a business owner to turn to things that can be considered more fun, the things that give a business its personality.

An entrepreneur needs to let people know he’s open for business. One of the first steps in this process should be to obtain a logo. A logo defines a business’s identity, so a business owner really needs to think about the message he wants his logo to convey. Once the owner has a concept, a graphic artist can turn this into reality.

Logos can be used in numerous ways: the sign on the building, advertisements, websites and printed materials including business cards and letterhead, to name a few uses.

A website is a good way to tell the world about a business, and a wonderful place for that new logo. A business owner can find lots of free or inexpensive templates to use for designing simple websites. She can also turn to a website designer for a site that is more sophisticated and may include animated graphics or an online store. Finding the right web host also is important.

A public relations campaign is part of the new business process. Besides a website, a business owner may want to advertise in the media such as magazines, newspapers and broadcast stations, and send out news releases to local media. A 21st century media campaign also utilizes social networking to spread the message.

Logos can be turned into computer graphics, so a business owner can easily insert one into templates for items such as letterhead stationery, invoices, fax transmittal sheets and purchase orders.

The business owner also needs to establish a checking account to pay business expenses, including payroll. While a logo and business name can be put on personal checks, nothing conveys professionalism better than business checks. While designs may not be as wildly colorful as personal checks, business checks send a message that this business is to be taken seriously, that it conducts business in a trustworthy, professional manner. Computer-generated checks add to this level of professionalism.

In addition to regular business checks, a business owner may want to consider business payroll checks, which make it easy for employees to see what has been deducted from their paychecks.

7 Things to Consider Before Pursuing a Career in Finance

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If you want to major in finance as your major during college, you will require a particular range of skills, or should I say abilities, in order to be successful. Too many financially savvy college students enter into the finance business simply because of the allure of the financial business and the prospect of big salaries only.

However, if you do not have the aptitudes necessary to not only apply for, but to actually be employed at a corporate finance job, you will have a very hard time finishing your studies or finding a position when and if you do graduate from college.

But we are here to help you here today. Here are some of the top aptitudes that every finance student should have if they wish to pursue a career in the finance industry.

You Like Competition

The finance sector is a highly competitive one, and a healthy love of competition is most certainly necessary in order to make it in this business. However, you should not become so engrossed with competition to the point of failing to be a team player.

Too many people take MBA jobs in finance thinking that their associates are so called “competitors” that should be vanquished at any cost so they can further their chances for advancement. Unfortunately, these people never do prosper because they do not use their strength for the good of the team.

You Have Resilience

Employers value employees who are resilient and can overcome challenges in a hurry. With corporate finance jobs, you will be burdened with lots of responsibilities and there will be good and bad days like everyone has. Staying optimistic is therefore important and you should not be bogged down by stress or negativity when your investment decisions don’t happen to pan out.

You Are A Quick Learner

When you work in finance, things do move very fast and you have to be a quick learner if you want to survive. Your approach towards learning is what will set you apart and give you a better chance of succeeding. Be sure you are able to learn on the go if you want to pursue a career in the financial services industry.

You Have Superb Communication Skills

When you hold financial discussions with clients, things can get really complicated very very fast. It is for this exact reason that you need superb communications skills in the workplace and an ability to vulgarize very complicated concepts on the go. I can’t stress just how important it is to properly communicate with your clients when dealing with financial issues.

You Are Calm Under Pressure

How do you handle a rough situation that happens in your personal life? Do you freak out? Or do you stay calm and assess the situation carefully? How you answer this question determine whether or not you have what it takes to turn to the finance world for a life long career.

The financial world can be a chaotic place, and you need to be capable of staying calm under difficult situations. When the stock markets plunge, some might fall prey to panic, but your ability to stay calm under the storm will set you apart from the competition.

You Focus On Details

In some sectors, a small typo may not be such a bad thing; but a decimal placed wrongly or an additional zero in a financial report can land you in hot legal water. This is why an attention to detail is capital if you want to succeed in the financial field.

You Solve Problems

Being good at solving problems is a great skill for anybody to have. But it is of utmost important for any finance major. From negotiating deals to providing solutions to clients, you will stand head and shoulders above the rest if you can handle complicated situations without breaking a sweat.

From the above descriptions, it is clear to see that majoring in finance isn’t for everyone. You need a certain set of skills in order to succeed in the finance world. But if you can make maximum use of your natural skills and abilities, you will have tons of success in the financial sector.

Help Your Small Business Survive In Bad Economic Times

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In today’s economy, it can seem overwhelming and challenging to continue to successfully run and manage a business. If you want to help your business survive in bad economic times, there are a few options and methods available that can keep you generating an income and providing the services or products you do for your customers, regardless of the global or local economy at hand.

Understanding Your Customers:

It is important to have a clear understanding of your customers and the needs they have when it comes to shopping for your products, merchandise or the services that you provide. Knowing the target demographic, the locations of your customers and even the age group and gender can help you to create the best possible marketing and advertising campaigns to help turn your business around, even when you are trying to survive bad economic times.

Reassessing Your Finances and Budget:

Reassessing your current budget and financial situation can allow you to gain insight into the type of spending habits you have and whether or not you can afford to cut back on spending to tide your business over during down months or an economy which is not producing as much business or sales as you would like. Reviewing your own finances and understanding how much you are paying for all services that are currently keeping your business running will give you more insight into the operations of your business while also keeping you informed so you can make changes or any necessary cuts to keep your company running as long as possible.

Opportunities and value services:

Opportunities that arise in the market are many and one of the best means to survive during bad economic times. Being smart at grabbing such opportunities makes that difference and making the most would be if you add value to your services or products to reach consumer satisfaction. Innovation can be part of such smart strategy. You can also make use of effective and customer-oriented marketing strategies that doesn’t cost much to execute a good plan.

Using PPI Claims:

If you have taken out a loan or borrowed any amount of money that you are no longer able to pay back, having PPI claims filed (Payment Protection Insurance) can help you to ensure you will not be personally responsible for the debt that you may owe. PPI claims can help you to save time and get back on your feet financially without the stress and burden of understanding how you will go about repaying loans or any type of money that has been borrowed that you can no longer afford. PPI claims are ideal if the borrower has passed away, lost a job or has even filed for bankruptcy or recently been diagnosed with an illness or disease. Using PPI claims can help to relieve from your debt if you are truly unable to pay it back as required.

How Financial Management Can Help You Get a Business Loan

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Your track record of sound financial management demonstrates that your company is a good risk to potential lenders. Find out what this means so you can get the business loan you need to grow your organization.

No matter how inspired they are by your business ideas and the mission and vision of your company, prospective lenders want to know that if they approve your business loan, you will be able to repay within a specified time frame. They will make this determination based on a variety of factors, including your business plan, financial reports (cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements), assessed credit risk and revenue and sales projections; ultimately, they will be looking for reassurances that the money they invest in your business will be well-managed.

Proving that you understand and practice good financial management in your business can increase its attractiveness to lenders and investors of all kinds; but what does this mean? Financial management might be best-described in relationship to its goals. The goals of financial management in a business are to:

Maximize Profits

Maximizing profit isn’t about increasing sales, it’s about increasing the amount of each sale that you get to keep or reinvest in your business, over and above the cost of goods or services sold. There are three types of profit margins to consider:

  • Gross profit (sales minus the cost of goods sold)
  • Operating profit (earnings before interest and taxes vs. sales)
  • Net profit (earnings that remain after all business expenses and taxes have been deducted)

In order to maximize profits, you first need to know which of your goods or services actually produce the most profit compared to all the costs that go into running your business. Then you need a marketing strategy to promote these identified profit centers (sometimes called “cash cows”) so that you focus most of your marketing resources on promoting those goods and services which produce the most profit.

Your ROI (return-on-investment) on individual goods and services should not only drive the way you invest marketing resources, but should also drive other marketing decisions. For instance, a low ROI on a given product or service might indicate the need to raise prices, source lower-cost inventory or remove it from your customer offerings altogether.

Minimize Costs

If lenders perceive that you are not actively managing your business’ expenses and working to reduce costs, they might worry that money invested in your company will not be used to maximum benefit. Some business owners love paying attention to the details and finding ways to cut costs while for others – not so much. However, the more efficiently you spend money in your business, the better return you will have on each dollar spent.

Minimizing costs can be done in nearly every area of your business. For instance, reducing the cost of goods sold by sourcing lower-cost products, inventory, raw materials, vendors or suppliers can help increase profit margins on goods and services. Outsourcing non-core activities such as marketing, bookkeeping, cleaning, etc. may be less expensive than hiring staff when payroll, taxes and benefits are taken into consideration (and vice versa). Using platforms that make data analysis more efficient or allow you to see your company’s data at a glance could minimize the time and resources that must be invested to produce the same results.

Even the cost of financing can be minimized by opting for business loans, micro loans and other working capital financing tools in lieu of maxing out high-interest company and personal credit cards. Every dollar that you don’t have to spend has the potential to be invested in some area of your business that produces a return on investment (like marketing) instead of being written off permanently as an expense.

Minimizing costs and cutting costs are not always the same thing. For instance, you might cut costs by eliminating an essential staff member or program that actually makes your business less efficient or less effective. What’s important is getting the most value from each dollar spent in running your business and eliminating unnecessary expenses whenever possible and practical.

Maximize Market Share

Market share refers to the amount of the market your business has captured compared to the total size of the potential market (geographical and industry) it could have. Maximizing market share often depends on having not only a good business plan, but a good marketing plan that works effectively (and continually) to increase the size of your customer base.

While some business owners see marketing as an expense, it should be viewed as an investment. Marketing is one of the few business expense line items with the potential to produce a return far in excess of the amount expended. Sound financial management requires that you are able to tie results to your marketing efforts in order to increase profit margins, ensure good value for the money spent and increase market share.

The amount of money lenders are willing to extend to your company in the form of a business loan comes down to much more than its credit score or sales history. You can prove the worth of your business to potential investors by demonstrating your understanding and mastery of financial management.

Bill Gates £41 Billion

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Bill Gates is the second richest man in the world, but the most generous person and he has given away $28 billion (currency converter: £17.4bn) to charities so far. Gates is a business magnate and philanthropist, who has made his wealth as a chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft. Microsoft is the world’s largest personal computer software company, of which he owns 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has been one of the wealthiest people for years. From 1995 to 2009 he has been the number one and in 2008 he was ranked third. Since last year he has been the runner up after Carlos Slim Helu.

Gates has been criticised for his arguably anti-competitive business tactics. In some cases the court has agreed with this opinion. In 2000 he established the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, with which he started to donate large amounts of money to scientific research and charities. In the same year he stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft, but remained as chairman. In 2006 he started to work part time for Microsoft but full time for his foundation. In 2008 he had his last working day at Microsoft where he remains as non-executive chairman.

With his foundation he battles against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, two of the world’s biggest killers. His wife Melinda went public and gave $1.1 billion to spread access to contraceptives worldwide. Together with his friend and number three in the list of richest people in the world, Warren Buffet, he recruits new members to their Giving Pledge. Members of this foundation promise to give away half of their net worth, or more, during their lifetime or after they die.

Bill Gates is 57 years old and lives in Medina, Washington where he lives with his wife Melinda Gates. They have three children.

How to Deal with a Business Credit Card?

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It’s often not simple to decide whether you should use a business or a personal credit card. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and, as with all cards, there are always people who tend to treat them like quick no credit check loans which have to be repaid sometimes in a very, very distant future – so any expense can be charged today, without worries. Obviously, this is not the case, and making a wrong decision will have severe consequences.

Business Credit Cards for Employees

Some companies ask their employees to open a business credit card for business-related expenses – particularly when the jobs require a lot of traveling. This should be a straightforward case, as the employee should use the card only for expenses incurred on the job, and the company should pay everything, making sure that no balance is carried over at the end of the month.

Unfortunately, things are not always perfect. When you apply for such a card, it will be put in your name, so the lender will check your credit score, and establish the interest rates accordingly. If the employer fails to make a payment on time, this will go on your record. To make things even worse, many such business credit cards are not reported to the credit bureaus, so they will not help your credit score – but they will cause significant damage if somebody in accounting makes a mistake and the card defaults.

If you are not satisfied with the employer’s policies, you may want to avoid the business card. Offer to use your personal card instead, and to bring proof of all expenses separately. Alternatively, you can take the business card, but keep an eye on the debt accumulating on it, making sure it remains within reasonable limits – so that you can pay it off in case of an emergency, and ask the company for a reimbursement later.

Business Credit Cards for Small Business Owners

For small business owners, a business credit card is a great tool to help insure that personal and business expenses do not mix. However, if you’ve agreed to personal liability when you applied for the card, any case of late payment will go on your personal credit report. This is almost always the case for start-ups, as lenders are quite reluctant to provide a card without personal liability when the company is new and does not have any credit history.

In addition, business credit cards follow different rules than personal ones. The most important difference is that the lender does not have to give you an advance notice when fees change, or a 21-days grace period, so you may end up with a more expensive card than initially anticipated.

Business cards also have higher limits – for example, if you’d qualify for a limit of $500 on a personal card, you can hope to obtain $5,000 on the business card. Of course, this also means that there’s a high risk of piling up debt without even noticing, particularly when the business is new, and you don’t know exactly how to budget your expenses. It’s very easy to max out all the cards, take a few personal loans, switch to payday loans and other no credit check loans when you can’t make ends meet, and end up close to bankruptcy before you even know it.

Disaster Management – Planning Is the Only Way Out

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There is no set time for a disaster to strike a business. Businesses can get seriously affected by all types of natural calamities and a human can do nothing about it. Fires and explosions have the power to fully devastate buildings in spite of their location. Your business office building may very well be the target of attack by anti-social elements which can never be predicted by anyone.

Evaluate and analyze

After such a disastrous event, evaluating and properly analyzing all the damage done to your business facility quickly and accurately is a must. This is required for the insurance recovery functions to help you get back to your business operations in no time.

Therefore you must do the bulk of the important stuff before any kind of disaster happens. You should start with identifying the things that needs the most protection. This is easier for small business while it gets a little complicated with bigger business with operations in many countries. Your business facility may be in an earthquake-prone area or even a hurricane-prone area. Such businesses should be prepared for any situation, should the bad time strike.

Better be prepared than be left sorry

Once something happens, you will have no time to discuss and allot roles so this should be covered in your pre-disaster preparations to succeed. You must have a list with names ready to fill every role. You should even have a written communication set up for reaching those members with different roles with all of their phone numbers (both land lines and cellular), emergency contact information as well as their e-mail addresses.

You must have all the important documents that are related with your business ready at hand. The business needs to store its documents in many locations and media with necessary backups. Each and every aspect of the business needs to be properly analyzed with all its strengths and vulnerabilities.

The next step

After a disaster happens, you have to take steps to contact every member of the group and organize for coping with the disaster as soon as possible. You may not be ready to enter the building due to safety concerns. But you can assess the extent of the damage done, determine the unsafe areas, and have an approx idea of the level of damage done what your insurance coverage can take care of. This is where your pre-planning will come in handy.

Then comes, the stage where you have to prepare a report where your damage is assessed which will be very helpful for the insurance company and the government authorities. Planning well ahead before the disaster strikes is the only way out. Lack of planning will only make things worse and result in more loss than profit.

The final word

Business owners need resources to assist with disaster preparation and this is where the insurance coverage comes in the picture. Insurance corporations have loss management departments that provide valuable help. A business owner has the sole power to survive a disaster. With some careful planning and evaluation, your business can survive any worst-case scenario.

How Smiles Can Help Your Start-up Business Succeed

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Establishing an emotional connection with your customers is one of the key qualities of great customer service. Here are a few reasons why:

Smile and Connect with Your Customers

Most hotels, malls, restaurants, and other customer service-related businesses require their employees to smile. A smiling clerk or sales officer looks more accommodating to customers. Customers, then, are more likely to spend money in the shop rather than if they were faced with an unsmiling, acerbic, snooty clerk.

Sometimes, most customers don’t even have a plan to buy anything but because the shop’s clerk is gracious, polite and essentially all the good things that a shop clerk or assistant should be, some pick up an item or two. Just because, that’s the power of a smile.

Sometimes, you don’t even have to be smart or beautiful. All you need to do to build your start-up business is smile and something as simple and as little as that could turn things around, could induce a tightwad to splurge on a bag or shirt, or a budget-conscious shopper to buy that pink carousel or elephant doorstopper in the corner. Just because in most times, warranties and promos and discounts don’t even come into it.

This is how a smile could improve your start-up business. Smiling is an easy way to brighten the mood of your customers, to give them, and everybody else on your team, that much-needed pick-me-up in the day so they feel happy to shop and your team feels motivated, energised and happy to work. That’s results to positive vibes at the workplace.

A Smile is a Viral Communication Strategy

Smiling is a universally known gesture that goes beyond all cultures and languages. A scientist named Andrew Newberg concluded that smiling—as a gesture—carries the highest positive emotional content.

That’s why some BPO companies train their agents to verbalise and smile in front of a mirror. Smiling while talking affects the way a person speaks. Agents are asked to have a mirror in front of them while taking a call—talking to somebody on the telephone while smiling provides them with a more positive intonation. Customers think they are conversing with a cheerful person on the other line because smiling helps people project an enthusiastic personality. Calls of this sort often yield higher customer satisfaction.

Start and End with a Smile

Smiling can be a powerful strategy. It’s highly important that you and your employees always remember to smile when you face your customers. Smiling shows courteousness and makes customers think you and the company you represent, value great customer service. That, at the core, is of course what you want people to believe in—one that leads to greater levels of customer satisfaction.

So, if you want to increase the number of your customers, why don’t you try going about it the old-fashioned way? Active social media channels are all well and good, but that personal, one-on-one contact is still the best. And a smile is one of the best personal gestures around.

You don’t need to spend too much money on expensive marketing campaigns and metrics just to gain customers. If you’re a hands-on entrepreneur, promoting your products or service with an endearing smile will definitely attract consumers.

About the author:

Gilbert Bermudez a finance blogger contributing for CompareHero, A Malaysian bank card comparison website.You can follow his activity on his Google+.