Watch our YouTube Video on YouTube on YouTube
YouTube has to be one of most underutilised platforms for small businesses. Yet it is said to be the 2nd most used search engine used by potential customers. Why do most small business owners ignore this fact and not even have a business YouTube account?
We unpack some of the ins and outs of online video in this recorded webinar on YouTube.
Take some time to go through the video (30 min) take notes and get some of these things done to help improve your online footprint in the marketplace.
If you need help, give us a shout on email or call and we will assist you with some of the difficult things.
If you have missed some of the videos in the series then pop by our Expertise community page and catch up on your Social Media learning.
From next week in October, we start a new series on Business Growth Strategies. Join us for tips, tools and techniques that will help accelerate your business before the end of the year.
Finding Balance in Performance Measurement
Last week we started a series on Performance Measurement. This week we take a peek under the hood and ask about the balance required within a business regarding performance and how to measure non-financial indicators.
Since the dawn of business science, financial performance was the exclusive yardstick of business performance. The 1980s saw companies realising the pitfalls of focusing exclusively on financial performance indicators. They realised that Financial Performance Indicators were leading to an intensive emphasis on cost reduction.
These excessive cost reductions were being achieved at the expense of long-term growth; because they resulted in low staff morale, low quality and customer dissatisfaction. Managers ignored quality, delivery, customer care & after sales service. Owners discovered, during audits that accountants were practising “window dressing”; that is making the accounts look good on the last date of the period.
Some of this myopic behaviour is still being practised today, to the detriment of business growth. Failure to invest in projects with long-term profitability; as managers aim to achieve profit now than later. Failure to invest in activities that build long-term value such as employee training, advertising & marketing; research & development etc. Cutting production costs that ensure better production quality; resulting in poor quality products and reduced market share. Reducing head-count, which may result in one employee serving several customers and thus loss of morale and poor service. Salary freezes resulting in high staff turnover, and a loss of corporate knowledge and high recruitment costs.
To address this “myopia” or shot-termism; experts came up with Non-Financial performance Indicators. Non-Financial Performance Indicators are designed to balance between financial performance and other areas of the business that foster business growth and longevity. NFPIs focus on product quality, delivery, customer satisfaction and after-sales service.
Business owners can put in place performance measurement or measures of product/service quality that ensure that managers do not cut back on these factors that sustain the business. Measures can be implemented for staff satisfaction e.g. staff turnover; to reduce cutbacks in staff-related expenditure. Non-Financial Performance indicators aim to create that balanced focus on the key areas that drive a business’ long-term growth. What are some examples of NFPIs that companies can adopt?
We will explore some of this performance measurement options next week.
YouTube: the must-have app for business
I remember when YouTube first came out in February 2005. We were all amazed at the availability of 100s of online videos that you could watch on a bunch on subjects. I sat for hours going through the different categories and watching videos, albeit somewhat frustrating with the buffering that went on using my dial up service in the office.
Then it went crazy: from 100s to millions of videos and the world exploded with video services and a multitude of spinoffs from the YouTube model. But they held market share and were bought out by Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion and video fast became the main player in online marketing.
I went out and bought a video camera, set up a home studio and began making videos. Over the next few years I made 100s of videos and learnt from other people and soon developed a knack for good, fast professional videos for the entrepreneurial market.
To date, we have over 15 online video based courses on 4 different platforms. We have created a vast number of videos for education, marketing, instructional and inspiration. We now have 2 cameras, a full set of lights and wireless sound in our own video studio.
I share this not to brag, but to inspire. If we can do this, so can anyone. It takes time to learn how to be in front and behind the camera and more time learning how to work the complex editing software but time is spent having fun and learning.
This week we will unpack some of the benefits of having videos for your business and how we have learnt to leverage YouTube as one of the most powerful online search tools and marketing platforms available to businesses.
Join us as we journey through some good, bad and ugly, but all inspirational videos and tips and tricks to build your business.
Register for the webinar on Wednesday here and read the other blogs during the week.
FaceBook Master Class
So you use FaceBook, but how well do you know what it can do for your business?
In this week’s episode of Social Media for Entrepreneurs and following on from last week’s Blogging, we unpack some of the useful elements of FaceBook.
The use of Pages, Events, Adverts and the Insights all add to making FaceBook a very useful tool to develop an active online digital footprint for your brand. It is also a great platform to chat to and engage with current and future clients.
Watch the video below (42 minutes) to get all the details.
Performance Measurement -is profit enough?
We start a new series this week with a look at some financial management issues that every business owner should be looking at on a regular cycle, well at least twice a year. Performance Management? What is it? How do we define it and even if we get the numbers, what do we do with them? Let’s start by unpacking some of the mysteries and terms related to Performance management in your business.
The bottom line…The amount of profit a business has made is a universally accepted standard for keeping score the world over. We always measure how successful a business is by the amount of profit it has made. Banks will offer more credit to more profitable entities. It does make sense because the net profit represents the true income of the business, and consequently of the owners.
The increase in sales, gross and net profit are some of the basic Financial Performance Indicators (FPIs) that any business person would keep an eye on to ensure that the business is viable. The downside, however, is that the managers or owners get caught in the rut of profit chasing at the expense of the very reason the business was set up the in the first place.
Financial Performance Indicators are vulnerable to manipulation. Managers become obsessed with reducing costs even at the expense of the organization’s long-term viability. This is because recognition, bonuses and even promotion are linked to how profitable a manager is. These cost-cutting measures may impact negatively on staff morale, quality of products or services etc. Focusing on the bottom line disregards what actually drives the profitability of the business.
Is there a solution to this myopia? Is there a way to balance the objectives of the business to ensure longevity? We explore this in the next post.