Recognizing and appreciating the efforts of employees is crucial for maintaining high morale and fostering a positive work environment. In every organization, acknowledging individual and team contributions through employee shout-outs plays a significant role. Such gestures not only lift spirits but also contribute to a culture of appreciation and kindness within the workplace. Shout-outs can take various forms, including public announcements, in-person commendations, private meetings, or even through gifts. Whether it's praising fast workers, celebrating big winners, acknowledging those who work steadily, or simply recognizing effort for no specific reason, each shout-out adds value to the team. Employers can choose from diverse methods, such as social media posts, nominations, birthday celebrations, or breakroom shout-out boards, to express gratitude. By implementing these employee shout-out ideas, organizations can enhance morale, create a positive atmosphere, and motivate their teams to achieve ongoing success.
Productivity has an important role in the progress of any business. Productive employees can complete their tasks efficiently, increase profits and competitiveness. Employee productivity is all about being efficient and effective. But to reach the point where every employee can have sufficient productivity, they must have their own strategy. We can start by motivating each employee to keep their good work, or facilitating them to achieve their best productivity. This article will discuss how to be more productive at work.
Why do people struggle to be productive at work?
Productivity is something that is difficult to maintain. Many people struggle to maintain their productivity for many reasons such as mild anxiety, depression, discomfort at work, or lack of motivation. Every employee needs to examine their problem as to why it is difficult to maintain their productivity so that it does not have a negative impact on their long-term performance.
How to stay productive all day at work?
You have to find the problem first. It's natural for every employee to experience reduced productivity at different points in their life, but it would be a problem if they were consistently unable to be productive. There are four common reasons people struggle to be productive. Technology distractions, lack of direction, boredom with tasks, or starting too late in the day.
12 Best List of Fun Morale Boosters for Employees
Tackle the problems one by one before you can stay productive all day. Until you can solve your problems, you cannot keep your good performances. After you can overcome the existing problems, you can do one of the 10 ways how to be more productive.
10 ways how to be more productive
High productivity will bring many benefits to individuals, teams and companies. Let's look at some ways to be more productive at work.
Put away your phone
Most of the distractions arise from the gadgets we have. The biggest distraction when we work is our phone. We are used to social media, games, or whatever is on our cellphones. Even though we don't have any special needs, we seem to have to hold our cell phones for a false sense of calm. When you start working, put your cellphone out of reach, for example in a locker, in a drawer, or leave it in your manager's office. This may apply only to workers who do not need telephone access while they work.
Some companies can stipulate that their employees are not allowed to hold smartphones while working, but there are still many employees who steal a little time to play with their phones. You can make your own rules, for example you will only use your phone after you have worked for at least three hours, or only during break time. Discipline yourself until you get used to not playing with your smartphone while working.
List your crucial results for the day
Crucial results are several objectives that you must complete during the day to get closer to your goals and move your projects further. Make notes to list your top 3 crucials for each day. This will help you to plan your priorities and maintain focus on the most essential tasks each day. Use a calendar or tool to schedule your day and ensure you're maintaining focus until you get crucial results.
Eat healthy foods throughout the day
The food we eat can be a major factor in our productivity throughout the day. Healthy food can ensure you get a booster for your brainpower and additional energy through the afternoon. Junk food will only affect your weight, reduce energy and productivity. Keep healthy snacks or fruit at your office to stay focused and fueled for a productive day.
Morning huddles with team
Take time every morning for 15 minutes to huddle together with your team, and discuss what they will do to achieve crucial results for the day. This helps employees to get on the same page and let coworkers know whether they need help in their work.
If you don't have time to huddle with your team, you can find a special time to sit down with individual members and discuss any lessons about the previous week. Discuss how to set your expectations and goals for the next week. You can share with coworkers to manage your time and measure your productivity.
Get out of the office
A workplace that never changes can foster boredom and reduce productivity. You can request the manager to change the layout of your work area, or if you work remotely, you can work in a cafe or place other than home. Get out of the office or home for a few minutes to refresh your mind and calm down for a moment before returning to your work. Everyone will face burnout in their workplace. You can handle this by looking for fresh air or moving the layout of your work desk.
Wake up early
Every successful person has one thing in common, namely they wake up early. You can have time to start your day right. Start by rehydrating, then have more quiet time to do things without distractions. Fill your time by reading books, eating a healthy breakfast, exercising, before you start working. Waking up early will make a huge impact on your daily life.
Listen to calming sounds while working
A bit of calming background music can enhance your focus. Studies show that music instruments work best for repetitive tasks. Choose music that describes your mood and something to make you feel good. Some examples of music that can calm your mind are the sound of rain, the sound of crickets in the wood, the sound of flowing water in a river, or the sound of a gentle breeze in spring.
Time break
Sometimes difficulties at work will cause burnout and stress. Taking a break by going to a special room to sit or having a cold drink are some things that can reduce tension. 10-15 minutes is a suitable time to recharge your mood in the break room. You can take a snack or fruit to regain your focus, then you can ask your manager or coworkers for help about the difficulties you are facing. A calm mind will be able to solve problems and maintain your productivity.
Stand more
Sitting at a work bench for more than 5 hours makes you tired and loses focus. Stand up more when you feel a little sleepy, your posture starts to wane, your focus starts to become scattered, or you can't find a solution when there is a problem at work. Standing does not burn calories, but it can reduce other health risks such as cardiovascular disease, shoulder and back pain, obesity, diabetes and cancer. You can give work intervals every 90 minutes and you have to stand for a few minutes.
Organize your work environment
Employees can work more focused and productive when their work desks are clean. Sometimes employees can lose their concentration because they forget to put away some work supplies such as staples, paperclips, scissors, pens, etc. A messy workplace will reduce space for working and can increase anxiety. Declutter your work desk to waste less time searching for items or misplaced documents. Throw away unnecessary paper, some stationery that is no longer needed to see if it can help you be less distracted and increase productivity.
There are many factors that cause employee lack of productivity. But if you can overcome the problem, then you can restore focus and maintain your productivity. Some of the methods above are how to be more productive from SMEBrother. If you want to learn about how to thrive your business to the next level, or all the things needed for a small to medium business, visit the SMEBrother site and get the information you need starting from finances, leadership, to licensing.
Monitoring the team's performance and keeping them motivated and in high morale is quite a difficult task. But, it would be more difficult if we had a virtual team that worked remotely most of the time. We have to think about how to build virtual teams to focus on the same goals, and bond with coworkers even though they work in different places. We have collected several virtual team building activities that you can use to strengthen virtual team collaboration.
How do you keep a virtual team motivated?
There are several factors to ensure your team stays motivated. For employees who work in the office, it will be easier, because you can meet them directly, ask what they need, ask if there are any particular difficulties, and keep them focused on tackling challenges in no time. But it's different from a virtual team, because we have to ask questions via video call or chat, and can only discuss more during meetings.
Several important factors to keep virtual teams motivated are providing them with the right tools, using surveys to gauge motivation, talking about adaptive performance, virtual team building and employee recognition.
How do you plan a virtual team building?
It might seem overwhelming to gather a virtual team to do team building. But don't worry, we will give you some simple steps to plan virtual team building activities. It might seem overwhelming to gather a virtual team to do team building. But don't worry, we will give you some simple steps to plan virtual team building activities. First, prepare time for a virtual team building event. Notify all virtual employees to be present with a note in the group chat, or email them personally.
Second, decide what kind of activities you want to do for team building. Don't forget to have fun while strengthening communication with each other, especially looking for activities that can boost employees' morale.
Top Ways To Improve Employee Productivity
Third, if you still can't determine what activities are interesting for your employees, make a survey about what events are suitable for groups to see their excitement about team building activities.
14 virtual team building activities for remote employees
Let's take a look at some online team games & activities to boost their morale, communication, and potential for collaboration. If we missed any favorite activities that you usually do with coworkers, please let us know by commenting below.
Virtual team challenges
The virtual team challenge is to create a team from several random employees, completing several games in fun and unique ways. These challenges may include physical activities, puzzles, riddle-solving, trivia knowledge, etc. This is a fun activity because we can understand our team's strengths and weaknesses, and give them the opportunity to do something together virtually while learning about problem solving in the games they play.
Holiday themed zoom call
One of the interesting team building events is the schedule for Zoom meetings with a holiday theme. Notify all employees to prepare decorations or clothes that match the theme you choose, starting from Halloween, mid-autumn festival, New Years Eve, etc.
Don't forget to reward employees with the most unique costumes or decorations. This is a fun activity because you can change the theme according to your wishes. You can hold themed Zoom meetings every time there is a special occasion, and teach the virtual team to be together to always participate in the excitement.
Virtual recognition wall
Like the wall of fame concept, simply create a wall from social media to send out a message to your team during meetings, as a form of employee recognition for employees who excel. Coworkers can post messages, videos, photos, GIFs, memes, and all the fun ways to convey their support and recognize their peers virtually.
Doing interactive activities together
Choose several interactive activities like baking parties, art nights, cooking classes, and many more. Let the employee receive a team building kit at their home. All they need to do is bring the box and show up to a virtual meeting while doing a series of activities. This activity can provide a fun experience of doing things together even in different places, while experiencing new things like baking or cooking.
Open mic virtual icebreaker
Prepare 10 minutes before each meeting starts for one employee to take the virtual stage. Ask them to do something they want, such as reading a poem, singing a song, doing stand up comedy, or playing an instrument. Allow their teammates to snap and applaud after these glorious performances.
Dance party
Ask each employee to write down their favorite dance songs, then collect the data and prepare some of the songs to play later. During icebreaker time, tell all employees to enjoy the music and allow them to dance, sing along, or laugh together. Take special time to ask the person who entered the song choice, why they chose that song as their most favorite to know the backstory of it.
Name that emoji song title
This is a fun game that you can do virtually. Determine who goes first, and put a timer for each person to answer the questions. Other team members can only give clues by using only emojis to the title of the song. Everyone else takes turns to guess the song, until time runs out. Reveal the song, and if no one can guess correctly, you can do it for another song title.
Department quiz battle
Choose two departments that will conduct a trivia battle. Create a list of 10 trivia questions using Google Form. Send out the questions to both departments with time limits. Make 3-4 rooms of trivia, and each team records the answers on digital sheet provided by the host. You can make trivia battles more interesting by displaying answer players, such as whose answer is the funniest? Who answered the fastest? Which department has the highest points? etc.
Snapshot virtual icebreaker
Ask everyone to take a picture of something, such as pets, kids, desk spaces, outfit, etc. Have everyone upload their pictures and create a digital collage of everyone's snapshots. Spend time to compliments the pics or asking questions about it.
Solving problems
Divide employees into groups of 3-4 people. Give a case regarding work or real-life problems. Let each group discuss about the case, and give time for each group to express their opinion and how they solved the problem. The interesting thing about this activity is that each group can share their point of view and do problem solving as a group.
Virtual comedy show
Provide memorable virtual team building by inviting famous stand up comedians in your area to inject a fun and laughter into your team. This is easy to set up, ideal for small teams, and provides relaxation time for employees. A comedy doesn't have to be work related, and tell the talent to craft the comedy as interesting as possible for the time you set.
Learning course together
For personal development, you can take online courses and watch them together with the team. Giving virtual teams time to learn together with their team is an impressive and useful experience for improving their skills as well as team bonding.
GIF wars virtual icebreaker
Set the rule for 1-2 minutes per person to reply to a gif from their coworker. Choose a theme for the GIF war each week, like dogs, cats, movies, sports, etc. To make it more interesting, every GIF sent must be relevant or create a story in it. Go around and vote for who can provide the best GIF and can create a story from the GIF wars to keep going.
Getting know each other
The host will say one of the employees' names. The coworkers are given 1-3 minutes to convey what they know about their coworkers. Do this until everyone has said what they know about, and give time for the chosen one to reveal which one matches what their friend described, and correct it if something isn't right. Do it in a professional way, without blaspheming or demeaning coworkers, as a form of respect for friends.
Virtual teams must still pay attention to their cohesiveness, because it is more difficult for you to form a team when they are in their respective workplaces. By doing team building activities, you can teach the virtual team to stay collaborative and align their goals. If you need other information about how to do team building activities, you can visit the SMEbrother site. We provide a lot of information for your business progress, leadership skills, problem solving for teams, finance, licensing, and much more.
Every organization needs leadership training to prepare its employees to be ready if one day they are chosen to become supervisors or managers. Even though they don't get a certain position, at least they can retain a lot of leadership skills that they can use in their lives. To build a leadership spirit in employees, you need to carry out leadership activities and do them regularly in the office. The activities include games, training, and challenges for employee development and building team spirit.
We have summarized the best exercises to help employees have leadership training, hone their leadership skills, and become good leaders.
What are leadership games?
Leadership games are activities and challenges that are fun but effective to help players hone leadership essential skills and improve their leadership knowledge. Becoming a good leader requires a lot of practice, theoretical knowledge and also in real-world scenarios. Sometimes learning about leadership will feel easy when we read books or listen to it from mentors, but it will be difficult if we do it in a work environment. With leadership games, employees can learn a lot about leadership in fun ways.
How do you make leadership training fun?
Creating leadership activities in fun ways is good to make it easier for employees to carry out and absorb important information. But you must be able to ensure that the activity is effective, your team is enthusiastic when doing something fun.
The most essential thing before doing leadership games or activities is to know your objectives. You must understand what you want to achieve, what learning outcomes you want your team to gain from the activities. You need to measure the progress and feedback, align the game with your leadership development strategy. Having clear objectives can help employees to focus on the game and ensure they understand what they are learning.
15 Best Management Games to Play at Work
To keep the activities fun while learning, you need to choose the right format. For example, some leadership games will be more exciting if played outside rather than in the office. You can set a special time for some activities such as weekends or work anniversaries. Ensuring employees carry out activities with enjoyment is the key to making leadership training fun.
12 fun leadership activities for workplaces
Having leadership activities can increase productivity both in participants' personal lives and at work. Below are training and challenges ideas for improving employees' leadership skills.
Flipping a rug over
This game is a challenge for teams to flip a rug over without having to leave the rug's boundaries. Perform the challenge by dividing the group into smaller groups. Prepare a rug, mat, or sheet according to the number of participants in a team. After all participants stand on their rug, ask the groups to flip over the rug to the opposite side, but if one member leaves the rug, then one team dies. The first team to successfully flip the rug over wins. This team challenge aims to teach patience, problem-solving skills, and teamwork.
Crossing the crocodile river
This fun activity requires focus, high level of balance, teamwork, and strategic planning. Each participant will learn to express their opinion to the team as a form of leadership. Play this game outside the office, find objects that can imitate a stepping stone like paper, small pieces of plywood, or discs. Provide the stepping stones depending on the number of players. Mark out two lines to indicate the start and the end of the river.
The goal is using stepping stones to cross the river without leaving any player behind. Time will be counted once a player steps stone, touches the river, od goes out of the boundaries. If one of the participants touches the river, then one team will start again.
Icebreaker trivia
Icebreaker is a great idea for fun leadership games for almost any event. Ask your team a lot of icebreaker questions like "which leader is your role model?" "What quote do you always remember?" "If you were asked to choose one superpower, what would you choose and why?" The team members will take turns answering the questions. It will be good if all participants provide their answers, and after everyone has finished submitting their answers, whoever can name more than 5 answers from their friends will get a prize.
This will teach employees to actively listen, observe, while respecting others for differences in answers and opinions.
30 seconds experience
This is a short fun activity before you start meetings or events. Each team member will convey their happy experience or best experience in life in just 30 seconds. Other team members must be able to understand what their friends are saying, and find out why the experience means a lot to the narrator.
The 30 seconds experience teaches employees to summarize a story and convey it directly and clearly, while learning about time management and being productive in a short time.
Debate
Debate is a leadership training activity that helps employees communicate with one another. Divide the team into two or more groups. Each debate topic will be carried out by two groups against each other. The leader of the group chooses to be pro or con on the debate topic. You can choose the topic about work-related or non-work related.
Give the groups several minutes to have a private discussion to prepare possible arguments. Set the time limit for each group to present their argument. After the time runs out, other groups will defend their arguments or come up with new arguments. The debaters will keep rotating to speak until the final time runs out.
Silver lining
This activity promotes the motivation and the leadership skills of positivity. Break the participants into two groups and explain that they are doing a project together. The first group will talk about the negative experience they had on a particular project, while the other group will talk about the positive aspects of the same project.
If they take turns conveying their aspects, the two groups swap roles to convey the positive and negative aspects of the other project. This activity will teach about motivating their team members, and team bonding.
It’s our ideas
Make several groups with each group containing employees from different departments. Each employee in the group needs to write down what activities they want to do for self or team development. Collect papers from the group, and choose the 2 best activities from the ideas written down.
Give each group time to convey their ideas and why their group chose that. This activity teaches how to choose the best ideas from the team and if one team can do it without problems. It is hoped that each group will carry out according to what they wrote for their development.
Marathon eating challenge
Prepare some food and drinks and arrange them on the table. Each group contains 4 or five people. Make sure the food and drinks you prepare are different in type and taste. For example, you can put the first table with sweet foods, the second table with savory foods, the third table with can foods, etc.
Each group member must finish the food in front of him before other team members can start eating their food or drinking their drinks in sequence. Each team has 5 minutes to determine who eats what. The team with the fastest time is entitled to a prize.
Complimenting team members
This is a fun activity because it gives each employee the opportunity to convey the good work of their coworkers and their strengths. Each employee is required to convey one or more strengths to the person in front of them. Do this alternately until each employee has complimented all of the coworkers.
Defend the ducklings
Break employees into several groups, gather all groups in one place. Each group will line up, holding their friends' hips in front of them. The leading person is the mother duck, and is tasked with protecting their ducklings. The game is simple, each mother duck can take ducklings from other groups, but can only take those at the very back.
Continue the game until a large line is formed. Give a time limit of 10 minutes, and the group with the most ducklings is the winner.
Complete the sentences
This activity teaches teams active listening, concentration, and the ability to remember information. All employees sit in a circle. Starting with one employee who starts a sentence with one word, followed by another word from the person next to him. If one of the members forgets the order of the words in the sentence, then go back to the first person. To be fair between one another, the first person must change position randomly after successfully saying the sentence.
Leadership retreat
Every leader also needs time to relax and take a break from leadership pressures. Give free time to leaders and employees to boost their morale. Invite employees to have dinner, karaoke night, or any activity funded by the office outside of work matters. After giving free time to leaders and employees, assign them to make the next full schedule and re-address their next challenges.
Leadership skills can be obtained by every employee by training and carrying out activities to boost individual or team skills. Every leadership game and activity can be done in a fun way but still has to be effective. By improving leadership skills, it is hoped that employees can increase their productivity, prepare to be good leaders, and boost their morale.
That's all about fun leadership activities. If you want other information on leadership skills or progressing your business, visit the SMEbrother site. We prepare various information about finance, licensing, and tips to advance your business.
Discover effective sales coaching tips for 2023 that can elevate your team's performance. Learn how to build trust, use data insights, personalize approaches, and provide ongoing motivation to drive sales success. Find expert guidance and resources at SMEBrother to empower your small or medium-sized business.
Scaling a business must have strong fundamentals and have the ability to see it through. Expanding business takes lots of effort and a lot to learn. It means we have to learn about sales, marketing, taxes, or corporate compliance. Many business owners feel that they are struggling to expand their business, and don't know what to do.
There is always a way for you to succeed in your business. Let's try to clear our own mind, look at things in perspective, and try to identify what steps we can take to expand our business. This article will discuss several business growth strategies quickly and efficiently. Stay till the end.
Why is expanding a business important?
The main reason of business expansion is the opportunity to get potential customers in a wider range. Expanding business can help you to become the top level in market niches. You can get new geographic markets, provide next level of service, and acquire more customers.
Expansion can be an impression of growing financial viability. When your business goes according to plan and gets a lot of revenue, it's time for you to introduce your brand to a wider environment and try to compete at the top level.
What is the indicators that it's time to expand your business?
There are several following factors that become a reference for you to expand your business. When viewed from the customer factor, you have a loyal customer base, customers ask you to grow, customers give positive or negative feedback for the progress of your business.
If you look at the company, you have a solid team to support expansion, the business has been profitable for more than a year, steady and positive cash flow. Sometimes expanding business can be seen from your business needing related products or services, and you are running out of room.
10 strategies for quickly expanding business in 2023
If several indicators have been seen in your business, then you need strategies to direct your business to the next level. Let's take a look for some quick business strategies in 2023.
Research the competitors
You have to know who you are competing with. Do research about the product or service that you are going to market, and how your competitors are doing it in the market. You can use the platform to uncover what competitors are doing for their online strategy. Find a way that has a plus value in your product or service compared to your competitors.
10 Excellent Tips to Grow Business Quickly
Don't hesitate to enter the market, and increase brand awareness while improving your product or service so that you get positive feedback.
Identify opportunities
First, you must understand your business demographic. Align with customer demand and look for opportunities to add products or services. Do market research and ask current customers for opinions on what offerings they would like to see in your business and what they are willing to pay for you. But be careful, don't let the pivot get too far from your core business. The key to opportunities is to diversify your offerings that can complement your product or service.
Optimize existing market
Sometimes a marketing strategy doesn't have to be to attract new customers. You can focus on selling more to your existing customers by offering other services that they might need, or other products that can complement what your customers buy. To start with, you need to segment the market and identify what customers buy from you.
The analysis can be divided into several criteria, such as location, gender, age, and buying history. After you find which part is the most profitable in your market, focus your sales and marketing strategy on that segment.
Claim a niche market
It's a method to grow a business by narrowing down the market to very specific types of customers. The niche market only focuses on a specific subset of the market with products or services that focus on that market.
The function of focusing on niche markets is less competition, and only requires fewer resources. You can experience higher word-of-mouth growth and higher brand loyalty.
Create a loyal customer program
Create specific ideas to focus on existing customers and provide certain features when they order your product or services again. For example, for the third purchase, you will get free merchandise or a price discount. Or you can create a membership with a cheaper selling price or provide special benefits to member owners.
If you calculate aqcuiring new customers by selling something to existing customers, the marketing strategy costs 3x more to new customers. Creating a loyalty program including great ways to increase sales, and customers will be more interested in buying your product or service.
Online sales channels
Online method is a must. Make your product available to buy online to extend your market reach. You can choose between creating a business website using an e-commerce website, or using digital advertising to support a broader market. Another option is to sell your items on e-commerce marketplaces like eBay or Amazon, or special websites that can discover your services.
Don't forget to always update your products and services on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest for brand awareness.
Franchise model
If you see your business growing rapidly, consider franchising it. You can start calculating the fees for the franchise and how the permits are. Learn about the franchise model and marketing knowledge, because this is one quick step to raise your business level.
Having a new market
Moving into a new market by selling your existing products or services. The new market is a different location and a different market segment, but not far from your existing location. It means opening up a branch and focusing your marketing efforts for locations and new customers.
The cost involved is quite high, but it can introduce your products and services to a new location. If you have succeeded in the existing location, you can achieve the same achievement in the new location, it's only a matter of time.
Seek referals
Seeking out customer referrals will help you gain brand awareness and expand your business even better. A personal recommendation is a powerful weapon in a marketing strategy, because referred customers are easier to buy than non-referred customers. A suitable way to increase word-of-mouth marketing is to create a customer referral program.
Strategic partnerships
Partnering with other businesses will pave your way into new markets. Choose the right partner by contacting them, and propose opportunities to collaborate. Find a partner who can complement your business and different fields. You and your partner can benefit each other and can get new customers simultaneously.
Growing a business requires lots of efforts as well as costs. If you're looking for a reliable source of information and resources for small and medium-sized businesses, look no further than smebrother.com. Our website offers a wide range of articles, guides, and services to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses and overcome challenges.
Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, our team of experts is here to support you every step of the way. Check out smebrother.com today and see how we can help your business thrive.
Every business model needs marketing to promote its business. Marketing is like a vehicle for companies to drive leads and sales. There are several types of marketing that can be used in every business, such as traditional marketing, digital marketing, field marketing, and others. Even though each type of marketing provides the same results, each company has its own steps to choose which type, and match it with the type of business.
This time, SMEBrothers will discuss what you need to know about field marketing, and how to implement it in your business.
What is field marketing?
Field marketing is a number of activities sought out by marketers to build brands, lead generation, and customer relationships for a company or client. The method uses a measurable process, and involves face-to-face interactions with customers and other leads.
Some examples of field marketing activities are direct sales promotions, product demonstrations, roadshows, events, and webinars. The goal is to influence, inform, persuade and educate customers to buy the services or products offered.
Types of field marketing campaigns
There are several common methods that are often used for campaigns by field marketers. Some of these things can be done according to business needs, or just a few of them can be done.
Product demos
The most common activity by field marketers is by giving free samples, product giveaways, and hands-on experiences. Its use is to introduce products or services directly. Often used by big brands in providing new product variants.
Guerilla marketing
Field marketers are being more creative with their approach by selecting an atypical location, a unique method that they want to develop themselves, with the element of surprise. The tactics are unconventional, and depend on plenty of imagination and energy.
Retail audits
Field marketers visit stores to collect data about promotional materials, signage, products, etc., to determine whether retailer partnerships meet the needs or need to be improved.
Direct selling
After doing product demos, sometimes field marketers must be ready if there are actual sales, and every filed marketer must be ready with a stock of items that are ready and sold right away.
Tradeshows
Businesses have time to showcase their products and services to potential partners or prospective customers.
Conferences
The company provides an educational experience to attract B2B audiences to your brand by holding events.
What does field marketer do?
Field marketers have more roles in sales, making it feel more like a salesperson than a marketing one. Simply put, field marketers can be the best in both sales and marketing. A field marketer helps to reach sales and marketing goals by offering samples, meeting with prospects, and building relationships.
Three common field marketers activities are improving brand awareness, boosting sales while on location, and increasing engagement at targeted locations. You will often see field marketers in the field at local networking events, and carry out activities such as offering samples and making direct sales to customers and prospects.
What Is Affiliate Marketing, And What Are The Benefits?
There is a slight difference between B2C and B2B field marketing. B2C field marketers are more common in local venues, such as restaurants, shopping malls, gyms, marathons, street corners, and other similar events. While B2B field marketers engage with clients in various touchpoints, such as webinars, events, trade shows, conferences, and meetings.
Responsibilities of field marketers
Field marketers are skilled both in marketing and sales. When viewed from the two things that must be mastered, they have quite a lot of responsibilities. Field marketers must make plans and complete the field marketing campaigns, after making previous preparations by conducting preliminary research.
Every field marketer must have in-depth knowledge of product lines and services, ready to answer any questions prospects or customers have about services or products at any level. During field marketing events, field marketers produce various signage, marketing collateral, literature, merchandise, etc. They need to maintain relationships with retailers, third-party vendors and venues.
If there are competitors in the same location, field marketers must monitor and analyze how competitors offer their products and services, and always learn new things about industry trends. Not only expert in offline marketing and sales, but also managing social media for field marketing campaigns.
Field marketers must come to relevant conferences, trade shows, and other events to share customer and lead intel with the sales team. After everything is done, field marketers create reports for any activities and results.
Benefits of field marketing
With many responsibilities as field marketers, we can expect many benefits to be gained. Field marketers are specially trained for meeting and meeting the needs of the target audience, as well as being perfect in knowing the brand's values, goals and inner workings. Let's take a look at some of the benefits of field marketing.
Improve brand perception
Brand perception is a positive light for every business. Customers are starting to see your brand as something to consider or buy. If field marketers can be successful in bringing the target audience to see our brand, then you can build a reputation and gain their trust from people who only see your brand to prospective customers.
Getting out your brand into the field can help you to improve brand perception. This is better than placing banner ads, because not many people see banner ads and focus on them. In contrast to the existence of field marketers who can directly interact with prospective buyers and introduce your product directly.
Handles customers
It is natural for customers to be skeptical with a new brand or a brand they have not known before. One way to introduce them is with field marketing. By having a special person who is directly in the field, your brand has wider opportunities to answer what customers say about your company or products, up to answering any hard or harsh questions about anything related to your business.
Field marketers are trained to answer any questions regarding brands and product demonstrations directly in front of their customers. If done right, this can change the outlook for customers who were initially skeptical, to become convinced of your brand.
Accurate targeting
Face-to-face activity by field marketers has many opportunities to learn about what customers like and don't like in certain products. If you combine quantitative data with information obtained from the fields, you can target your audience in more detail. Field marketing that has got the right location and understands what customers want will find it easier to get leads and sales.
Builds relationship with customers
Field marketers have the opportunity to create memorable experiences with customers by giving samples, explaining products or services in detail, or talking a lot about your product until these customers feel connected. This leaves positive impressions for your prospects, and can be a great opportunity for future sales.
Do you understand what you can get from field marketing? Immediately negotiate with the team and start looking for the right field marketers to level up your business. If you're looking for a reliable source of information and resources for small and medium-sized businesses, look no further than smebrother.com.
Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, our team of experts is here to support you every step of the way. Check out smebrother.com today and see how we can help your business thrive.
One of the ways to advance the company is through employee training. Having employees who just stay without progress in the last few years can also be a burden for the company, especially if you let them go and find new people and need some time to teach new employees. The best thing that the company does is having corporate training programs for benefit both business owners and employees. Employee training can add several years of experience to a person's skill set, and accelerate the growth of individuals and companies.
Every company definitely needs employees who are growing better at their jobs, and adding internal talent with a growing marketing strategy, as well as saving recruiting costs and time. Let's learn why we need training programs for employees.
What is the corporate training?
Corporate training is special training provided by the company to increase the skills and knowledge of employees. Training employees can use a system of activities that can educate employees and adjust to business objectives and align with the company goals.
The main objective of corporate training is improving various aspects of employees, starting from expanding their knowledge, adding experience, and performing their jobs at a high level.
What are benefits of corporate training for employees?
Corporate training programs provide a lot of company-wide benefits. The corporate training is one way to boost company-wide competencies to facilitate progress toward business goals. These programs can target any level of performance you want to hit, whether you want to complete challenges or meet stretch objectives.
The programs can save companies from a lot of money which might be wasteful for turnover. Besides, if there is a company that provides professional development opportunities, of course employees will not waste it.
Both employees and companies will get their respective benefits, such as employees will develop communication, higher soft skills, collaboration skills, and increasing productivity. With higher-performing sales teams, companies can increase profits and expand their business even faster.
Basically, corporate training will motivate employees to perform better, and help companies to have internal talent specially trained to be experts in each specific role.
Best corporate training programs that your employee should be provided with
Now let's find out what forms of training are suitable for your employees, and align them with your business goals.
Communication skills training
In a working environment, communication is the main thing. We all communicate with each other in work by talking, using body language, and understand each other both consciously and unconsciously. A strong communication skill set is a foundation for business success.
Employees will be able to master conflict resolution, improve their ability to convey ideas and receive other ideas, sending clear messages through verbal or emails. While the company will get a stronger form of team building. Companies will get employees who can problem-solve, better engagement, and teams will be working effectively together.
Mindfulness training
The corporate world must think about employees' wellness from a physical and mental perspective. Paying attention to employees is one of the best ways to retain staff. This corporate training will enable employees to make better decisions in their organizations by observing clearly every situation, always being objective in every matter, and cultivating a rational mind.
Top Ways To Improve Employee Productivity
The mindfulness training will make employees understand how to reduce stress, anxiety, and tension. Employees can rebound more easily from conflict, failure, and adversity because they are calmer and wiser in solving all kinds of problems. Overall, this training will gain health and wellness for every employee.
Delegation skill training
For managers and higher ups, delegation skills is needed. You don't need to be brilliant at everything, because every task needs to be delegated so that it can be completed faster and on target. Knowing how to delegate and understanding the capabilities of team members is the key to success.
For this reason, delegation skills training is a must, because managers and higher ups must identify team members' talents and skills, how to delegate tasks effectively and efficiently, as well as proper training for following up on tasks and when you can provide proper support right on target.
Collaborative team dynamic training
Team dynamic training will provide courses on navigating the complexities of team interactions, and giving groups the skills and knowledge they need to. This training is perfect for fostering teams and giving them space to collaborate, communicate, and work better together. Employees will feel how exciting it is to work with a team, and also feel part of a team. They will build trust with each other, and begin to understand the communication styles that each member has.
The benefit for the company is that there is no need for intervention for dysfunctional teams, and there is no need for trial and error. Let the corporate training be the initial incestment, and see how the team can work well together.
Active listening skills training
As team members, listening to managers or other members is essential. Active listening skills training includes straightforward short courses but can produce great results. Miscommunication and conflict in the workplace can be minimized after employees can understand the simple act of listening properly.
Employees will get a number of fun activities to improve their listening skills which can have a positive impact on their work. In the end of the day, paying more attention to what other people are saying is more useful than simply listening to it, because that can lead to misunderstanding and incorrect information.
Conflict management training
Resolving conflict is something that is needed in every company. Did you know that there are methods and techniques for dealing with conflicts when they arise? It would be a good idea to provide this corporate training to managers, sales staff, team leaders, human resources staff and customer care employees.
The training will focus on providing a scenario of how the team deals with conflict. Employees must be able to find solutions together, and not be preoccupied with each other's arguments, while collaborating to resolve conflicts with a calm mind.
Presentation skills training
Practicing vocal modulation with presentations is a good step to improve the soft skills of employees. Not everyone can speak in front of a crowd, but that doesn't mean they can't be learned. Presentation skills are all about how to convey presentation material well with eye contact, a loud voice, clear delivery, and confidence.
Employees will find ways to gain their confidence when they are up on stage, and ways to convey presentation points in a straightforward and clear manner. However, companies will rest easy because they have employees who are ready to present their products or services with charm and grace to attract collaborators, funders, and clients.
Confident decision making
One of the great courses to start is decision making training. It has in-depth mental modeling that can improve the process of making decisions and how to take reliable steps to make the right call. Sometimes employees will be faced with bad calls or negative feedback from their decisions. But through this training, employees will be in a safe environment to carry out games with the concept of choosing the right decision and pinpointing the right problem.
Companies that have employees with the right decision making, they will have higher trust. It is because the results of employee choices are in accordance with logic, and good informed decisions will make it easier for companies to delegate tasks.
Time management training
Time is a very valuable commodity in every workplace. Having corporate training on time management is useful for increasing productivity and completing any deadline without being late. Managing time will be useful for all employees, because they can handle any tasks from minor to major tasks, and know how to prioritize tasks.
Companies will get a lot of benefits when their employees really appreciate working time, and don't spend time on things that have nothing to do with work.
Emotional intelligence
EQ or Emotional intelligence has been an individual's interpersonal success for years. EQ is a critical driver of career performance, and can influence job success. EQ training will teach employees to be self-awareness, understanding what they should improve by regulating their own behaviors. Employees will be calmer after having emotional intelligence, to work with their optimal performance.
Have you chosen which corporate training programs are suitable for employees and company needs? Immediately find corporate training that can add to the skills of each employee, and will optimize the ability of each team member to pursue goals and success.
If you need other information about small and medium-sized business, our website offers a wide range of articles, guides, and tools to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses and overcome challenges. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, our team of experts is here to support you every step of the way. Check out smebrother.com today and see how we can help your business thrive.
Every business owner who launches their business for the first time will focus on establishing their brand and start growing. Not a few business owners want to know how to grow a business quickly and easily, without researching that growth is an ongoing process that requires patience, hard work and dedication.
There is no special recipe or secret way to grow business and achieve immediate success. However, there are proven ways from small business leaders who share their tips to accelerate growth. Let's take a look in this article.
How do you describe business growth?
Business growth can be seen when a business reaches a point where it needs to expand and requires more avenues to generate any profit. Grow business can happen from many factors, such as increasing the amount of production or service, increasing consumer demand, increasing company revenue, and expanding the customer base.
The majority of business views growth as the main objective. Every business decision will be reviewed whether it contributes to the company's growth and overall success. The growth is seen continuously and not just in one moment. Every business owner hopes that the company's growth will escalate quickly with minimal obstacles. But every business will experience its own challenges, and they need to overcome them.
How to measure business growth?
The growth rate can be calculated by dividing the difference between the current period value and the previous one. A percentage of the difference will appear, and you can see whether this month is better than before, or vice versa. Indicators for company growth are sales growth, high gross profit growth rate, good cash flow, and improved customer retention rate.
If a business refers to the national growth rate, then try to make sure that the percentage of the company's growth rate is slightly higher than the national rate.
10 tips to grow business quickly
There's a lot you can do to accelerate growth. These tips are steps that have been taken by some small business owners and the methods they've used to scale up, for businesses in any field.
Hire qualified employee
Company's growth can be seen from how your team performs. Good team performance can be obtained from having solid staff who focus on goals. Hiring the best people with perfect qualifications can be a major factor to ensure fast growth.
Top Ways To Improve Employee Productivity
Imagine you have employees who are dedicated to the company's success, are hard workers, and can collaborate with their team. You can delegate tasks and focus on important work without having to waste a lot of time and energy, allowing you and your team to perform at your best and achieve goals as fast as possible.
Reduce business risks
Every business that is launched will have its own risks. It's impossible for every owner to control everything, but there are still many things that can be prevented or researched to reduce risk. You need to have resources for business insurance providers.
Small businesses need to find insurance products to help them cover online data breaches, and cover the cost of remediation and lawsuits. When business growth has begun to show, business owners need to review the policy to ensure they get the right coverage for their expansion.
Always adapt
Adapting to changes in the market and looking for current marketing strategies is one of the steps to growing a business in an efficient way. With adaptations and quick changes, you can do trial and error to find what is the best step.
In this digital era, every product or service will be more easily known through the internet. Business owners must be able to adapt to new things and adjust their product or service according to what is currently trending.
Research your competitors
Analyze the competition by seeing how competitors do their business. Ask yourself who your competitors are, what are the good things about them, and what are your plus points. You can get answers on which parts need to be improved so that you are not inferior to your competitors.
Although this step is not elicit immediate growth, by looking at your competitors you can better recognize how your products and services compare to theirs, and what you should do to introspect and try to be better.
Customer experience is important
Small businesses need to respond to their customer needs. Engaging with customers is crucial because you strengthen the relationship with them and understand what they want. Customer's perception is also the key to the rapid development of a business, because the more they are satisfied with your product or service, they will not hesitate to offer it to their friends, family or co-workers.
But if you can't deliver the best, customers can break your business with their bad comments. Ensure you get praise from customers and make your current or your potential customers happy.
Providing excellent customer service
Customers will be more loyal to your products and services if you exceed their expectations. You can appreciate customers by providing excellent service, such as offering discounts, additional services, or free products after several purchases.
Sometimes customers feel relieved when there is a follow up from the company to ensure a client was satisfied or not with your service or product. They feel heard and trust you back if there is something they don't like. Ensure you have a customer service team that can listen to what customers want or have to say.
Plan your next step
Planning the next step is a step to anticipate all scenarios that might occur. Thinking ahead can be done by means of comparing rates, reviewing all ongoing contracts, research for better negotiate deals, or further ideas for new products and services. Thinking about possible problems can be your benchmark in making a decision.
Social media platforms
Having a website alone is not enough to introduce your product or service. Add it by creating profiles on all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The active profile helps you to communicate with customers and interact with more potential customers.
Update regularly on several social media platforms so as to increase the potential for new people to see your brand.
Go to networking events
Connect with new people in networking events. Many people have insights and unique perspectives that can help you grow your business. The relationships and connections can be forged when you attend networking events, and can be beneficial for years to come.
You can learn many things from others, starting from facing the same problems, to the possibility of future cooperation and offers a wealth of opportunities.
Invest early
First, determine which parts of your business need attention. Do you need more employees? expand the marketing efforts? or securing additional funding? If you find a crucial area that requires fast completion, then invest in it to accelerate growth.
You can start financial support from your own money, because the early stages of every business are no profit or very lean profit margin. Any money that you can get can be an investment to help your business grow.
Hope these 10 tips can be your steps to accelerate your success. Don't forget to balance the business growth with auditing. If you need professional auditors who can help you with the financial condition of your business up to the next business steps, SMEbrother is the answer. Check our website for your reliable source of information and resources for small and medium-sized businesses. Check out SMEbrother now for auditing or accounting purposes, or anything that can help your business thrive.