by Emma
Seven tips to embrace your business on the web.
- Make your website a daily tool
Make your website a visited daily tool for your clients. A clear communication objective will help them look for the information they require, avoiding a phone call or waiting for a response. Your website is there to help clients everyday.
- Identify your relationship with your visitors
Why are they visiting your website, by studying your website traffic can give some clues on popularity of the different pages. This will help with building a sustainable relationship, and over time you’ll understand what works for opt-in and sales conversion.
- Make it easy for your visitor to find the right information
Visitors search for information in different ways, examples of the different search functions which should be on your website are;
- Search function toolbar
- Easy navigational menus
- Categorised content
- Uncomplicated and easy to use design flow
- Let your visitor interact with your website
Make your website the main area where clients or potential clients can contribute through comments, wikis, blogs , forums and have available open feedback tools for honest input.
- Make the content suit your visitor
By categorising the content, visitors can choose by themselves what is important. You can also adjust content after the visitors have searched on Google. By understanding their search terms, provides you with more clues on their buying patterns.
- Make your website available through multiple channels
Let your website accept traffic and leads from any other channels, like the following, different mail groups, partners and suppliers websites, e-marketing lists or RSS feeds.
- Integrate your website with your business process
Make your website become a natural part of your business processes, that way there will be no additional work required to keep your website up to date and alive.
Take your business heart to the web
For further information or if you would like to discuss your online requirements, contact Emma Puttick at Sauce Software.
P.S Keep your eyes open for the next Sauce newsletter with information about the new SauceOpen platform to be released shortly.
Emma Puttick
Tags: business, content, process, website ideas
by Emma
One of the most challenging issues facing business is cashflow management. Having run a small business for nearly 3 years now, we’ve certainly learnt some lessons. Some of the systems which we’ve implemented have reduced internal inefficients, cross purposes and miscommunication, allowing time to be a more strategically focused company.
Being able to measure the amount of money your company makes and spends during a given period can be used used as a barometer of your company’s health and worth. Understanding your cash flow lets you evaluate:
- Borrowing needs
- The timing of new hires and major purchases
- The timing of payables
Assessing Incoming Cash Flow Processes
- Your company is not a bank. It’s always a good idea to get the payment terms out on the table at the beginning of the business relationship. This allows you to get on with business of delivering the exceptional service or product, knowing the cash is flowing in.
- Staying on Top of Receivables. Don’t wait to invoice, not even a day. Any extra time to send the invoice stalls the money coming in as well as widening the cashflow gap.
- Accept credit cards. “Can I put that on credit card?” should be a common question within the business, you receive the money within 2 days. Setting up an internet merchant facility is very straight forward these days, there are a variety of different services the banks can offer for all amounts of revenue. DIY alternatives are Paypal.
- Cashflow forecasting. A simple spreadsheet which records actual receivables against a forecast can show a 3 month projection if your business is on track, or you need to notify a provider that an invoice may be paid later than usual.
Assessing Outgoing Cash Flow Processes
- Bill Paying Arrangements. If you have set payment terms, you can ask the vendors if they would consider different arrangements. For example setting up a quarterly payment schedule versus a monthly payment schedule could work better with cash inflows, or having a few extra days will help smooth out cashflow.
- Make the most of your employees. Throwing new people at a problem may not be the best solution. One of the biggest expenses is the company payroll, can additional responsibility be added to current staff? If tasks can be separated and assigned to different people that is great. Think processes, not people.
- Consider outsourcing when processes are in place. At an early stage of a business there are a lot of processes which need to be established prior to outsourcing. However any part of the business which isn’t a core part of your business like, bookkeeping, marketing, copywriting, testing, administration can all be serviced by outsourcing providers.
Tags: business, cash flow, management