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How to boost your PR |Small business edition

October 19, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Sales

“It’s just for PR”, “it’s a PR stunt”. Public Relations PR] sure has bad PR 😂 We can imagine most people’s idea of PR is “it’s just for show”, and that it’s how big corporations and the government spins their words and people’s perceptions using propaganda. That’s not entirely true, let’s break it down.

PR is all about reputation. Whatever has been put out there, a business/organization’s PR strategy is meant to protect its reputation. In this blog, we will help you see PR in a different light, and most importantly, how you can implement it in your small business planning.

To enlighten you. Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their public. It is NOT advertising, it is NOT marketing. The whole point of PR is to create a positive narrative of the brand, which could be of course to grow the client base, for referrals, the media, etc, with the aim to help the company achieve all its goals.

As much as PR can help bring in sales, it does not bring in sales as much as marketing efforts do. But rather, it helps proactively manage your company’s appearance online and in the media, so you can make sure that people associate your company’s name with good things. Otherwise, you could be turning away prospective customers before you ever meet them.

Here are 5 ways Small Businesses can boost their PR:

1️⃣ Treat your employees, and customers well

This might be overlooked, yet so important. It is not cliché that people remember you, for now, you treated them. So treat your employees, associates, and customers well, they will become your greatest ambassadors and recruiters.

2️⃣ Improve your online presence

This has been spoken about a lot, and we have spoken about this too in one of our blogs. Invest some time and money to polish up your website, social media, and anywhere else that people can find you online. If you need help, hire a professional like a social media manager or digital marketing strategist. If you feel this will be too much of a cost for you, consult with them at least once a month to make sure you’re doing this the best way possible.

3️⃣ Issue a press release

Write a short, interesting story that the media can pick up and run with. This could be telling an inspiring story of how your brand started, how you scaled, etc. Write it and send it to different news organizations, make sure you contact the right person. What can also help is to connect with journalists through social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter.

4️⃣ Book speaking gigs/local radio interviews

A great way is to increase your company’s reach and improve your reputation within your community. Don’t look down on local radio stations and events. Connect with event organizers or radio hosts. Don’t be afraid to approach and ask for a feature. Put yourself out there.

5️⃣ Stage a publicity stunt

Be careful with this, it can get tricky depending on your strategy. All you really have to do is something strange enough to make news, if only in a niche or local media. Be creative, smart, and weird. Here are some ideas you can learn from: https://www.liveabout.com/advertising-pr-stunts-to-get-your-brand-noticed-4139850

There are a lot of ways to boost your credibility, we just hit the tip of the iceberg. Let us know which one of these will you be trying.

How collaboration can benefit your business

October 12, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales

You have probably heard a lot about this before.. So let this be a reminder, education, or maybe just adding to what you know. We like to start our blogs with a brief explanation of the subject matter and in this case, let’s define COLLABORATION: which is basically the act of working together to produce something (desired outcome). This does not only happen between individuals, but amongst businesses too!

We’ve seen big brands successfully do this, and you know what they say… if you want to be successful, copy what successful people do. ADIDAS and YEEZY did this successfully, so did OFFWHITE and NIKE, and many more. If anything, collaboration is essentially combining efforts to produce unique products that benefit both your cash flow and customers.

Collaboration is great in that it does these two things very well:

1️⃣ Open new markets: this is beyond boosting sales ut can lead to longterm results, collabos help you grow brand awareness and followership, ultimately growing your customer case.

2️⃣ Good for PR: this gets people talking!!! Social listening will help at this point because you get to fully understand your target audience and deliver what establishes strong personal relationships with your consumers.

An underrated one:

✳️ You get to learn: there is always opportunity to learn if you are observant. Always seek that opportunity. See how the other team from the other brand works, listen attentively and observe to see what you can take from those experiences.

Final thoughts:

We have pretty much covered the important points to emphasise the importance of collaboration. You save money (as collaborative relationships split intellectual contribution, hands-on work and, sometimes, expenses). All this, while bringing in the numbers, and taking your team through a learning experience.

Have you explored the power of collaboration? Let us know in the comments how that has worked for you!

How to gain a competitive advantage amid load-shedding

October 5, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales

Eskom has warned us about load-shedding likely to be here for longer than we had anticipated and this is something we should be prepared for. A few things businesses are suffering due to load-shedding include but are not limited to spoilage of cold storage items, compromised [hysical security, and unhappy customers. Only businesses who make loadshedding work for them will gain a competitive edge, this will of course depend on what type of business you’re running.

Here are a few things you can invest in:

Power bank: this is one of the most affordable and sustainable ways to keep your devices charged/on, including smartphones and card machines. This means you can still keep marketing and communicating with prospective customers, as well as accept card payments for those who don’t carry cash.

Dongles and routers: an affordable and reliable option for mobile internet connection yet! You can connect multiple users at a time (e.g. your employees/digital marketing team), These devices use cellular data though, you can consult with your internet service provider to find out about affordable data costs.

Generator: this can be a big cost for some businesses, but buying one can be intimidating. However, we have a few ideas that might help! Just like most things, you don’t have to totally buy a new one. You can either buy a second-hand generator from online markets and other avenues, or you can ease one. Just make sure you do your research here so you can get value for your money, calculate the numbers first and see if it makes sense.

Other ways to stay ahead of the competition:

Give clients no excuses. Even though we’re all affected by load-shedding, no one really likes to hear “we can’t, we have load-shedding”. Give clients no reason to want to take business elsewhere but hurl their money at you!

Keep marketing so customers will never forget about you. You can do a month’s worth of work in just a few hours and schedule/automate. We wrote a full blog on this, take something from this:

Business Doesn’t Have To Be Hard. Read These 7 Tips

Get donors to invest in your NPO in 3 ways

September 21, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales Tax

Keeping donors and finding new donors is challenging, considering South Africa’s economy. We touched on storytelling a while back in one of our blogs, where we mentioned the touch of emotion when posting for your target audience. Storytelling builds emotional connections, strengthens donor relationships, and demonstrates the effectiveness of its mission.

One of the obvious things is to set a goal, this also helps your organization, employees, and volunteers focus and direction, helping you work smarter with the available resources. Be clear with what you’re trying to achieve, then incorporate storytelling to connect with donors on an emotional level.

Attract donors in 3 ways:

1️⃣ Storytelling

For a relationship to work, you have to have an emotional connection, and so it does in this instance. For people generally, to help you actualize your vision, they have to first know it, understand it, and it has to matter for them. As much as it matters to you. How do you get strangers to do this? Build an emotional connection with them. You can do this through storytelling.

One way to tell powerful stories:

Visuals deliver home a message faster than text. Share powerful images that grab attention and highlight your mission, such as pictures of the people you help, or even the work that goes on behind the scenes, such as staff and volunteers teaming up to plant trees or build houses.

2️⃣ Data and metrics

This is the part that gets a bit technical… but more than anything, it’s just to strengthen your story and back it with data. As mentioned, you cannot measure what you don’t know, so the more you tell stories, the more you can track and measure your performance towards your goals.

A practical example is if you are on a mission to upskill the youth and give them opportunities, you can report on the number of young people you managed to teach skills, and the number of learners you managed to get internships for. If you run a pad drive, you might measure the number of pads donated per week, cost per package, and the demographics of people that need help.

Tracking the metrics shows transparency while also providing the proof and accountability that donors expect from you.

3️⃣ Marketing

While marketing can assist you in attracting more/potential donors, keeping in touch with your current donors, highlighting your accomplishments, and taking the time to cultivate relationships with important donors can all assist in making sure that your organization is at the top of its minds when they plan their charitable giving.

Donors care deeply about supporting organizations that share their interests and beliefs, and they’ll want to see proof of efficient financial management and successful mission execution. Continue to share tales.

It’s crucial that the foundation of your marketing plan is your messaging and branding, and that your website, social media accounts, and other communications accurately reflect your brand and objective.

Data provides a better understanding of your organization and mission and can take your NPO storytelling to the next level.

If you are running an NPO, let us know in the comments how you attract donors and how you nurture relationships with them.

Do you need a blog for your business?

September 15, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales

Without assuming you know, a blog (short for weblog) is a regularly updated web page that can either be used for personal use or to fulfill a business need. Regardless of your objective for your blog, a blog is a great tool to increase the visibility of your business online and communicate with existing and potential customers. Common uses are: to create an online presence or to drive traffic to your existing website.

However, blogging does require time, which can steer you away from the normal day-to-day running of your business. When managed correctly though, your return on investment will be far greater. In this blog, we will look at some of the benefits of blogging that can improve your business.

A blog can help your business in this way:

Create an online presence and community

You don’t have to have a coding background or be tech-savvy for this, or you can just pay someone to do it for you. There are many blogging platforms you can choose from that make it easy for you to write and publish your content ideas. A blog gives you an online presence and creates a community outside of social media.

Gives your business a human voice

Blogs are generally known for sharing information, OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS, EXPERIENCES, and likes. In this way, it can open up a conversation, people get to relate as it is personalized and shows personality. One other thing is that people get to understand your brand. Blogs are a great method to share your small company’s voice, foster trust, and increase its likeability.

Drive traffic to your website

If you already have a website, a blog is a great tool to complement it and drive traffic. Sometimes people search random topics on the internet, and with the right use of keywords, they can stumble upon your blog…thus learn more about your business. More visitors to your website implies more opportunities to market your goods and services and draw in new clients.

Improve your search engine optimization

With search engines like Google, it’s a keywords game. The higher your website’s ranking, the more clicks you get. By increasing the number of pages that search engines index from your domain with each blog post, a small business blog is a terrific strategy to raise the ranking of your website in search results.

Does your business have a blog? Let us know how it has worked for your business!

What you need to know about eCommerce Accounting

September 8, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales Tax

Technology has undeniably made our daily lives easy. Not only at home, but at work too. To start off with the basics. E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of goods and services over an electronic network, primarily the internet.

Online shopping has become firmly established in South Africa: you can now buy food on Uber Eats, Mr. Delivery app, etc, from your favourite restaurant and get it delivered to your home, you can buy clothes online, and you can ever deliver a parcel to anyone via the Uber app! On the other hand, e-commerce accounting is the practice of recording, organizing, and managing all of the financial data and transactions relevant to the operation of the company.

Ecommerce accounting, like all accounting for businesses, entails both fundamental bookkeeping duties (such as maintaining invoices, payroll, and balance sheets) and more intricate planning and reporting duties (like preparing financial statements and creating a strategic tax plan).

In this blog, we will only focus on only 2 of the major areas i.e. Bookkeeping and Tax management.

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping includes tracking and categorizing income and expenses, inventory management, and reviewing balance sheets, as well as tracking customer returns. If not done well, one return can throw off your sales, inventory, expenses, and sales tax records all at once.

An e-commerce accounting system should take into account customer returns and allow you to accept returns without throwing off your financial reports.

Tax management

Ecommerce tax management includes tracking and setting aside all applicable taxes, calculating and filing quarterly estimated taxes, etc. Determining when an e-commerce seller must charge sales tax can be complicated. On a general note, if a seller has a significant business, that seller is responsible for collecting and remitting taxes for any purchase.

Whether you hire a bookkeeper, or an account, or not, the choice is yours. Many operators of online stores rely exclusively on accounting software. As a result, a significant portion of bookkeeping work can be automated while also lowering the risk of human error. These services can interface directly with your e-commerce platform and bank account. Assisting with tasks like transaction categorization, invoice creation and mailing, and account reconciliation to ensure accuracy, an online bookkeeper can also help you use tax and accounting software.

Your balance sheet will surely become more complex as your company expands. Without a plan, what could initially appear to be a straightforward DIY project can turn into a nightmare of miscategorized transactions, missing monies, and unreconcilable accounts.

Save yourself a headache and hire a registered accountant/tax practitioner, or set up an accounting system tailor-made for an e-commerce business as soon as possible!

Reasons why businesses go bankrupt

August 30, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Money Talks

A shocker: according to Trading Economics, 132 businesses filed for bankruptcy or were declared bankrupt in June 2021, down from 191 in May 2021. Additionally, given the high rates of unemployment in South Africa, our economy is far from rosy.

Note that a company does not need to have assets to be declared bankrupt. If the liabilities exceed its assets and it is unable to pay debts when these become due, the business must liquidate, according to the Companies Act. Liquidation is the process of bringing a business to an end and distributing its assets to claimants, which occurs when a company becomes insolvent (a financial state of affairs wherein the individual/business’s income is insufficient to pay its monthly expenses and debt). This is also known as “winding–up”.

Liquidation of a business/company, according to SARS may happen:

When a business/company is unable to pay its debts
As a result of a legal court process
By application of the creditors
Voluntary, i.e. applied for by members of a Close Corporation (CC)
When the business owner decides to do something different, or even perhaps retires for a well-earned rest.

There are two distinct types of insolvency: factual insolvency and commercial insolvency. When a company’s liabilities outweigh its assets, it is said to be in fact insolvent since it is unable to make payments on its debts when they become due. Even though the company has more assets than obligations, commercial insolvency happens when there is not enough cash on hand to fulfill the bills.

One of the benefits of being a shareholder is the protection limited liability provides. When a corporation is liquidated, the majority of the time the remaining debts are wiped off, and the shareholders are not held personally responsible for the firm’s debts. However, a court may rule that the directors and stockholders may be held personally accountable if it is discovered that the business was running when it actually should have filed for liquidation.

Apart from liquidation, another way is for a business to deregister. When a company voluntarily deregisters with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), it implies the business/company is no longer registered and has no legal standing since it’s not doing any business nor has assets or liabilities.

Once a business/company receives confirmation from CIPC that they have been deregistered, the registered representative should visit their nearest SARS branch and make sure the business or company is deregistered for all the various types of tax.

Helpful links:

Employers – Guide for employers in respect of Employees’ Tax

Micro Businesses – Turnover Tax (TT)

Vendors – Cancellation of VAT registration.

Source: SARS

How to protect yourself from Occupational Fraud

August 13, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips

“Every company must have a deliberate plan to prevent and detect fraud, and must never underestimate the potential of an attack from within.”

We couldn’t have found a better way to start off this article! Truth is, you never see it coming. Never think your employees will ever do that to you, especially since South Africa is a country with high crime rates. It’s good to trust your employees, however, do not be naive. As they say, our enemies are people around you, they know enough to hurt you, and in this case, your business.

According to the Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey, 41% of economic crimes in South Africa were committed by employees, in comparison to the 36% of fraud committed by external sources and 21% was collusion between the two.

Understanding Fraud:

Let’s first unpack this, FRAUD is a common law offense – it is a wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

To understand how to prevent your business from fraud, business leaders must first understand the types of fraud they’re most likely to encounter.

Types/Common Corporate Fraud(s)?

Payroll Fraud Schemes

Payroll fraud can appear in a variety of ways, particularly if a company manages its payroll function internally and is normally handled by a single person.

Types of payroll fraud:

“Ghost” employees – when a “trusted” employee manipulates the payroll process, in order to get an additional paycheque for a non-existent employee.
Falsified wages – when an employee or employees falsifies their wage rate or lies about their sales numbers for increased commission.
Expense and reimbursement fraud – when an employee logs a false reimbursement request or gets an expense claim approved for activities that did not receive the proper attention and valuation initially.

Asset Misappropriation and Skimming Fraud Schemes

The term “asset misappropriation” refers to a broad range of employee-based fraud schemes that fall into two broad categories: cash and noncash.

Types of asset misappropriation:

Cheque tampering – when an employee alters the amount, recipient, and other details on the cheque to transfer funds into their account instead of the original recipient.
Inventory theft – when an employee redirects deliveries of products from vendors to an alternate address – with the intention of keeping or reselling on the company’s dime.
Misuse of assets: When an employee utilizes company property, such as company vehicles, company computers, or company credit cards for unauthorized personal activities.

Financial Statement Fraud Schemes

Financial fraud occurs when a worker purposefully lies or omits crucial financial data—such as sales, revenues, assets, and liabilities—in order to deceive others.

Financial statement fraud red flags to look out for:

Accounting anomalies – when an employee falsifies the company’s revenue numbers to indicate increased income generated by the sale of products or services.
Falsified growth reports – when employees, managers, or executives, intentionally, misrepresent the company’s sales figures and financial growth in order for the company earnings to look healthier.
Falsify the value of an asset: Then is when an employee, manager, or executive purposefully alters the value of an asset to make it appear more valuable than it actually is.

There is no distinction between corporate or business fraud. Under common law, a case of fraud must be supported by the evidence of the following factors:

Misrepresentation.
Unlawfulness.
Actual or potential prejudice.
Intention.

When should you take action?

An employer must act as soon as any severe allegations of wrongdoing are known or suspected to exist against a particular employee.

An organization’s capacity to gather important evidence may be impacted by how quickly it responds to any allegations of fraud. When an offense is committed, there is a wealth of evidence that is easily accessible to investigators.

Sure, you can never see it coming. Here are some red flags to look out for internally:

living beyond their means
unusually close association with vendor/customer
financial difficulties
wheeler-dealer attitude
control, issues, unwillingness to share duties
divorce/family problems

Freemium Model

July 26, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Marketing Money Talks Sales

Have you ever heard of the Freemium business model? You’ve probably had this occur to you without knowing. First things first, FREEMIUM is a business model in which a company offers basic or limited features to users at no cost, and then charges a premium for advanced or additional features.

This goes without saying, people love free things, discounts, or paying less for things – even if they are of high value. Moreover, consumers like to know the value they stand to get from a product or service before making a buying decision. It forces companies to spend a lot of money on advertising, sales demonstrations, and other marketing initiatives to provide clients with the knowledge they need.

To avoid any confusion, this is not your typical ”15 days free trial”, free trials often only lasts a week or so, giving the customer a firm deadline by which they need to decide if they want to pay for the product or not.

With Freemium though, the basic premise of the freemium model means a company offers a product, often software, with basic features at no cost.

“The easiest way to get one million people paying is to get one billion people using.” ~ Phil Libin, Evernote

However, there are some restrictions on this product, which occasionally makes the consumer demand more from the service. Giving away the entry-level goods for free makes it simpler to entice people and build a clientele.

The freemium business model offers the advantage of allowing potential customers to try out a product without feeling pressured to buy it.

The needs of your users can be scaled using freemium. A customer may not require full functionality when they first join up, but as they develop, their demands will change. Additionally, it may be more difficult to transfer to another product and start over as needs change since your product is already incorporated into consumers’ typical workflow.

Some everyday examples of Freemium businesses:

LinkedIn

Connecting to people, recruiters companies? FREE.

Publishing posts and articles? FREE

To get access to insights about profile visitors, finding leads and targets, and many other functionalities, it will cost you.

YouTube

Free music streaming, watch videos and download SOME video, although WITH interruptive ads. For ad-free streaming of videos and music, as well as unlimited download, you have to pay a fee.

Spotify

Free music streaming; paid subscription required for offline, ad-free listening.

Mailchimp

Free newsletter service with a little monthly cost if you wish to send more newsletters.

Dropbox

Data sharing and storage are both free; extra storage capacity costs money each month.

How to reinvent your business in 3 ways

July 18, 2022

by Karabo with No Comment Business Tips Money Talks Sales

If you’re planning to stay in business for a long haul, it’s important that you keep reinvesting in your business. Understand that this goes beyond money: it includes, but not limited to operations, skills, and relationships. In this blog, we will share practical ways you can try to reinvest in your business.

3 things you can try to reinvest I’m your business:

1: Explore your strengths 👇

The first thing is to identify which assets you have that you can use as building blocks to grow your business.

Write a comprehensive list of your readily available assets to add/grow in your business.

As mentioned, this goes beyond your money. Here, we’re talking on things like:

✅ A skilled and/ proactive team

✅ Personal – professional skills

✅ Savings/investments you can use to to purchase new/better equipment

2: identify new markets/consumer needs

Try this: identify how the world around you has changed, and is changing people’s behaviours and needs. You can even get this information from your customers through surveys, questionnaires, etc.

Identify if this is a need that your current customers have, or if your customers would change if you created an offer to fulfil this need.

To do this, you can create a survey/questionnaire and encourage your customer to take it and note the following:

✅ Are they satisfied with your products/services

✅ How can you improve/make their lives easier

✅ What would they like to see more of, from you

Those kinds of questions that will make you grow. It’s through this survey, that you can realize which areas need improvement, or where you need to focus more on.

3: Brainstorm a new offer

This is one of the most important ones because whatever you decide to go for in the end, will either make or break your business. Of course, this is where you come up with 100 ideas, review and select the ones that stand out. It’s quality over quality here.

You don’t have to try every idea, that will throw off your customers. Take the big range of ideas, clustered and ready to be selected and refined. You will have to up your marketing game 💯

How to boost your PR |Small business edition

How collaboration can benefit your business

How to gain a competitive advantage amid load-shedding