Workplace productivity is the mainstay of organizational success and growth. Maintaining it is perhaps the most daunting challenge for organizations, regardless of the size and scale of their teams. The hybrid model makes it even harder to achieve and maintain because you cannot oversee your employees at all times. Moreover, people working in different teams across the business location or from home may fall short on communication and collaboration fronts. You can imagine the impact it can have on their overall productivity, but a business intranet can be a true savior for resolving the concern. It offers more productivity benefits than you imagine. Here are some ways it can help you build a productive team and workplace.

1. Seamless collaboration with centralized knowledge resources

Intranet software facilitates seamless collaboration between employees as they can access centralized knowledge resources in real-time, regardless of their locations. These resources are accessible to employees, managers, vendors, and partners, empowering them with all the information they need. In fact, you can even set role-based access to ensure security in a remote setup. Team members need not struggle with endless email loops and file searches, which are the worst productivity culprits. They can get exactly what they require to be their productive best at work.

2. Facilitate the onboarding process

Onboarding is a critical process for the HR team as it ramps up new employees for their new roles. The process entails training them to handle the obligations and responsibilities of their job. You may face onboarding challenges with remote hires because they can hardly connect with co-workers and seek help for tasks. A business intranet bridges this gap and enables people to give their best from the outset. You can leverage it for HR and IT setup to create new accounts for payroll and install security applications on their devices. Additionally, you can provide corporate guidelines training to help new employees to follow workflows. Finally, you can assign mentors to new hires and facilitate communication through messaging tools and integrated videos.

3. Simple communication that keeps everyone connected

Besides seamless collaboration, the business intranet helps set up simple communication between team members, regardless of where they work. None of your employees have to stress over connecting with the right manager or team member for quick feedback, discussion, or opinion, even if they are at different locations. The lack of communication is often a productivity killer, so overcoming it enables people to close tasks quickly, and without gaps and errors.

4. Break down boundaries and silos

Organizational teams often struggle to overcome boundaries and information silos imposed by location or department. The worst part is that people cannot be on the same page, which keeps them from reaching the highest productivity levels. Using intranet software is an ideal solution to break down these barriers and empower your workforce, regardless of geographic location or functional roles. Businesses that do not have internal silos are in a better place to achieve their growth goals in the long haul.

5. Quicker response to problems

Another benefit of adopting a business intranet is that it facilitates a quicker response to problems because employees have seamless access to the relevant information they require. They can handle their jobs better, close tasks on time, and avoid errors. Being able to connect with co-workers just-in-time enables them to tap into the collective intelligence that is not available in file cabinets and company emails. Accelerated information gathering speeds up the response times, so bottlenecks hardly persist for businesses relying on a connected intranet. All of these factors make your team as productive as possible.

6. Access on the go

With hybrid work becoming a norm, mobility is the mainstay of a productive workforce. Your employees should have the option to connect and work from any location and with any device. Business intranet like Powell Software’s solution provides access on the go, enabling team members to connect using cell phones, laptops, and tablets. They can work from home, on sales tours, off-site business meetings, and at networking events, so productivity is never off-track. You can make a great impression on potential clients by showcasing seamless connectivity and data access from anywhere. The best part is that workers love the flexibility that comes with remote access. Employee satisfaction gets you full marks on the retention front.

7. Minimal search time

Complex searches through files, folders, and documents are stressful and affect the productivity of workers. The more resources you have, the more complicated searches get. After all, you may have to sift through thousands of files, folders, documents, and emails to find the one you need. Using an intranet is an ideal solution, as it reduces the time-consuming search hassles for employees. They can rely on a well-structured intranet to quickly search and locate documents, photos, channels, and people. Savvy solutions even let employees utilize features like keyword search and auto-suggest for simplifying the searches further.

8. Keep all departments happy

With an intranet in place, you can boost productivity for entire teams within your organization. Most departments face repetitive, monotonous, or complex tasks every day. The team members end up feeling unhappy, which makes them less productive, even if they work hard. An intranet serves as a common area where business leaders can encourage team members to support each other by providing assistance, resources, know-how, experiences, and advice to resolve everyday issues and business-critical challenges. You can also leverage it to alleviate individual work overflows, pressure, and management. These factors go a long way in enhancing their work quality and performance.

9. Create polls and surveys

You can easily create polls and surveys within your organization by providing flexible electronic forms to them on the intranet. The process is far simpler and more economical than using tools to poll, survey, and register a large ream. Your employees can confirm attendance for events, fill up forms to vote on new ideas, and provide anonymous feedback to managers. You can crowdsource ideas for new projects and get insights on upcoming events, company policies, or employee wellness. Further, you can quickly gather feedback on employee satisfaction and rework things for the better. The intranet also speeds up the collection of data and integrates it with other data sources across the organization.

10. Speed up learning and development

Learning and development are crucial for organizational growth and productivity, as trained team members always go the extra mile. You can use a business intranet to speed up the learning and development process. The best part is that it curbs the need for in-classroom training where everyone has to be in the main office. With a robust intranet in place, you can implement a centralized LMS with training programs for remote and on-site employees. Users even have the freedom to pick their own pace for coursework, so they need not stress about keeping up with the quickest learners. Beyond the mandatory training modules, you can also provide optional learning modules for employees looking for a promotion or planning to switch to another team.

11. Reduce the load of internal emails

Employees get hundreds of business emails every week, which tends to distract them and hurt their productivity levels. Moreover, they end up losing, ignoring, or forgetting key announcements and policy updates in a sea of messages. They may also miss out on someone while sending a critical email thread. A centralized and highly visible intranet resolves the concern because it lets anyone in the team answer queries or update documents. You can imagine how the system can offload the internal email burden for your company and reduce distractions for your employees. You can reserve email only for external conversations with customers, vendors, and partners. People become more efficient when they do not have to clean their inboxes frequently. The best part is that there is hardly a chance of missing out on high-value emails.

12. Employee directory to find the right skills

A business intranet with a people directory is an excellent asset for a team that wants to go the extra mile with productivity. The directory offers information such as expertise, department, and manager for each employee on board. Team members struggling with specific tasks can easily search for a person who can offer relevant expertise to wrap it up. The benefit is immense when you have a large team working across different locations. You cannot expect people to know each other, but the people directory serves them a solution just-in-time. Moreover, managers and business leaders end up knowing their team better and segregating top performers from the rest. You can focus on their training, development, and retention to empower your business in the long haul.

Businesses are more concerned about workplace productivity than ever, specifically in the hybrid work era. While there is no magic pill to build a productive workforce, an intranet works as an ideal solution to boost productivity. Besides communication and collaboration, it empowers your team in more ways than you imagine. You can rely on it to build a productive, efficient, and happy team that pushes your company ahead toward its growth goals over time.

The New Year is the best time for business owners to assess their current positioning and invest in improvements. After all, you always want to take your operations to the next level. The start of the year is an ideal time to get the momentum going.

Manufacturers are in a good place to improve because the domain has immense scope for improvement. Something better is always around the corner when it comes to production tech. Moreover, early adopters get a competitive edge with an increase in factory output, labor productivity, and capacity utilization.

But upgrading your manufacturing business requires a strategic approach as you must consider factors such as cost, downtime, and employee buy-in. You cannot adopt a technology randomly because it can topple your budget, affect the operational workflow, and fail to gain acceptance by your workforce. However, a viable upgrade plan helps you cover all these fronts. But you can rely on these surefire strategies to embrace innovation in 2023.

1. Decide on your goals

Implementing any change in the manufacturing process can cost a fortune because the industry is inherently capital-intensive. Such critical steps require top leadership involvement from the outset. The best way to start with the initiative is to decide on the goals. For example, you may want to upgrade a specific part of the production operation or look for overall innovation with process automation. The top management should play its role by identifying long-term goals and expected ROI. The sooner they start, the better the outcomes are likely to be. So if you plan to pick innovation in the New Year, you must begin well before it dawns.

2. Identify your needs

Besides deciding on your goals, you must identify your needs to get the upgrade process on track. Employee involvement becomes crucial at this stage because they know the manufacturing system closely. So they are in a better place to understand the challenges, identify the need for changes, and recommend solutions for improvement. With the knowledge of these factors, you can pick the necessary upgrades instead of spending on unnecessary ones. Moreover, making them a part of the initiative makes buy-in easy down the road. Also, it creates a positive culture that focuses on efficiency, productivity, and safety in the long haul.

3. Choose the critical areas

Upgrading a conventional factory into a smart manufacturing unit is not a one-time change. It is a long process involving frugal resource allocation according to the goals and needs of your business. You can do it better by choosing critical areas to start the modernization process on the right foot. Avoid going too far too soon, and take an iterative approach to upgrades. For example, you can pinpoint specific areas with a high potential for improvement. It is critical to address an impending equipment breakdown that can affect the entire production chain. Likewise, you must rework a process that can enhance efficiency in the long run.

4. Automate where possible

Automation should be on top of your bucket list this New Year if you haven’t already adopted it. In fact, you can commit to automating new systems and processes if some existing ones are already in the automation mode. Think beyond having robots on your factory floor because automation is more about integrating software-driven solutions into your processes. For example, you can adopt machine learning tools to optimize production processes and predictive analytics to monitor inventory levels in real-time. Automate where possible because every step can reduce labor costs, errors, waste, and downtime. Additionally, it can increase productivity and enhance product quality and consistency.

5. Invest in design capabilities

Most manufacturers consider machinery upgrades for modernization. But things can get far better by investing in design capabilities with enhanced CAD solutions. For example, siemens solid edge is an ideal solution to speed up 3D CAD designing and editing. Its unique synchronous technology offers a unique combination of the simplicity of direct modeling and the flexibility of parametric design. You can rely on it to create new concept designs, respond to change requests, and simultaneously implement updates to multiple parts within a production assembly. The system lowers the risk of time-consuming rework, feature failures, and rebuild issues, so it is worth embracing in 2023.

6. Focus on talent management

Manufacturing is a resource-intensive domain, and you cannot go slack with building a high-quality workforce. Talent management is even more crucial in the new normal, so it should be a part of your priorities in 2023 and beyond. Consider adjusting your talent management strategies with steps such as better remote working policies, online training, and virtual onboarding. A flexible process is likely to keep the workforce happy and motivated, ensuring that they stick for the long haul. Look for ways to retain existing employees through attractive compensation packages and high-value perks. At the same time, strengthen your employer’s brand to attract the best talent in a competitive landscape.

7. Begin preventive maintenance

Another strategy to upgrade your manufacturing business this New Year is to adopt preventive maintenance schedules to keep your equipment and systems in good shape. The practice proactively monitors, manages, and maintains these parts of the business instead of waiting for them to fail. It implements a schedule to inspect and test machines and devices for signs of malfunction or wear before issues relating to productivity and safety arise. You can utilize predictive analytics technology for real-time monitoring and use data for scheduling regular maintenance tasks. An optimal schedule can drive significant cost savings and lower the risk of downtime due to unexpected malfunctions. It can also increase machinery’s life expectancy in the long run.

8. Improve lean techniques

Going lean should also be a part of your New Year’s resolutions in 2023. Lean manufacturing is about minimizing resource consumption without compromising output volume and quality. Manufacturers can rely on the right information and technology to manage their operations and limit waste. Besides resource optimization, lean operations also entail continuous improvement with small changes over an extended time instead of big leaps. But going lean requires a good understanding of all production activities and their mutual interaction. It enables you to pick the areas requiring improvements, such as using fewer resources and eliminating unnecessary steps in the production process.

9. Prioritize resilience

The manufacturing sector is more complex than ever, so business owners should be ready for unexpected disruptions. Think of the crisis the industry encountered when the pandemic first hit the world. Having a strategy to address such challenges is the key to survival and resilience. Consider building resilience in 2023 by investing in sophisticated technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain platforms, and remote capabilities. You can use AI to predict potential hazards before they occur. Blockchain can strengthen your business with an immutable record of events that are easy to track over time. Remote operations are the need of the hour, and more companies already have the capabilities to handle them. But you can go the extra mile to fine-tune them this year.

10. Collaborate with experts

Collaborating with the right technology partners is the key to getting the most out of innovation. Look for an expert with specialized knowledge and skills to get the right solutions on board. Outsourcing is far better than hiring an in-house team because it costs a fraction of the model and empowers your business with the best expertise. You can also rely on seasoned partners to recommend ideal upgrades within your budgets and process constraints. They can check the existing systems and suggest low-cost improvements that deliver maximum benefits. Moreover, you can rely on their knowledge to get the latest tech for your manufacturing company.

11. Go the extra mile with sustainability

Sustainability is no longer a passing trend for the manufacturing sector, so building a sustainable operation is another surefire success strategy that manufacturers must implement in 2023. Consumers are more eco-conscious than ever and prefer working with companies going the extra mile to lower their carbon footprints and stick with sustainable practices. Consider ways to reduce your energy consumption and waste production this year. You can invest in solar installations, implement efficient processes, and utilize recycled materials to avoid unnecessary emissions and consumption. Adopting these practices can empower your business in more than one way, from reducing your power bills to enhancing your reputation. You can even get tax credits and grants from government programs.

The manufacturing sector is one of the traditional industries as it relies mainly on machinery and labor. But technology has emerged as a game-changer in the sector in recent years. Not keeping pace with the latest trends can be detrimental to your business, no matter how strong your position in the market is. Consider implementing the necessary upgrades regularly to sustain and thrive in the competitive landscape. The New Year is the best time to assess the existing systems and implement improvements where needed. The good thing about the initiative is that it is simpler than it sounds. You can rely on these actionable upgrade strategies to get your business on the right track in 2023 and beyond.

Recognition is vital for any business, but it’s especially important for companies that are targeting niche markets. If you’re not getting the credit you deserve in your target market, it can disable your efforts and hinder your growth. That’s why it’s essential to build your business in a way that makes it recognizable and credible to your target market.

The term “branding” describes how others view your business. The typical components offered by brand agencies are a logo, the name of the business, color schemes, fonts, slogans, your message, and the promotional strategies you employ. Even if your company offers top-notch customer service and high-quality goods, poor branding may result in a negative reputation for your company.

To take your business to the next level, you need to start branding it. Branding gives your business a distinctive identity that sets it apart from the competition. It can help you attract new customers, increase sales, and build a reputation that is hard to beat. So get ready to jump on the branding bandwagon! In this article, we’ll teach you how to brand your business and give tips on how to make the most of branding your business.

What is brand building?

Building a brand is defined as increasing public awareness of your company through strategies and campaigns to establish a distinctive and long-lasting reputation in the market.

This involves everything from developing an effective marketing strategy to maintaining high-quality customer service. By properly branding your business, you can create loyalty among your customers, resulting in increased sales and profitability.

Branding begins with understanding who your target market is and what their needs are. It would help if you created a unique selling proposition (USP) that speaks directly to these needs.

What are the benefits of branding your company?

Differentiate your company from competitors

Being distinctive in a market where many businesses offer comparable services or goods might take a lot of work. Branding plays a role in this. You may highlight your distinctiveness through your values, stories, brand promise, and other assets. Utilizing them to distinguish yourself from the competition may help you win business.

A brand increases credibility

Having a well-designed brand is just as crucial as brushing your teeth before a first date. You need to look at the part if you want people to believe you can deliver. Consider your core values and convey them to your clients in everything you do, from your language to the colours you choose.

A brand helps people remember you

In the correct way, stand out from the crowd. For your customers to discover you, they must remember you. What would a potential client find if they Googled your service? Find the aspects of your company that set it apart from the competition, and highlight them in distinctive ways.

A brand draws in more clients

Customers consider doing business with you when they know who you are and what you offer. They tell their friends about you when they love and trust you. Word of mouth is the best strategy to expand your customer base once your brand is established—request testimonials and referrals from your customers. Let them know how much you value their business.

How can Brand Agency help to Build Your Business?

A brand agency can help build your business by developing and executing a strategy complementary to your company’s goals. This might include creating new marketing materials, helping to generate leads and promote your products or services, or working on sponsorship deals.

By using effective PR techniques, engaging social media platforms, tailoring content to different audience types, and measuring results regularly, you can ensure effective branding growth for your business.

In addition, a good brand agency will also assist you in building relationships with key corporate partners and providing customer feedback surveys. As such, it can be an invaluable ally in boosting the growth of your business.

What type of branding services are offered by a brand agency?

1. Brand Name

First and foremost, choose a name for your brand. The name needs to describe the item you are marketing accurately. Additionally, it could stand in for your brand’s values, purpose, or owner. For instance, the brand McDonald’s is named after Richard and Maurice McDonald, whose hamburger business eventually became the company. Your company will be represented by your brand name and logo wherever you go and in everything you do.

2. Logo Design

Your logo creates your brand’s initial appearance. It should boost brand recognition by assisting customers in recognizing your brand and providing them with information about your company’s mission. The most well-known brands only need their logos to evoke powerful feelings in consumers. Rebranding should not be taken lightly because of this. Fans of popular brands may find it upsetting when their logos change, and some may even go so far as to criticize the company based purely on the change. A logo design company can also help with other aspects of your branding, such as choosing the right colors and fonts for your brand.

3. Brand Identity

The combination of all the components organizations utilize to provide the best possible image to clients and potential clients are known as brand identity. Even though the phrases are sometimes used interchangeably, this is distinct from a brand’s image and overall branding. Brand identity is what your audience relates with your brand as a whole and what contributes to your relationship with your clients. Brand identity may increase client loyalty and shape how people view your company.

Branding services may assist you in creating a logo that stands out, establishes a distinctive character for your company, and even communicates your core values. To establish a visual representation of the values your brand upholds, experiment with various logos, fonts, and colour schemes.

4. Website Design

Your website, which serves as the online home for your company, comes after your logo. It is where you will finally meet and conduct business with your internet audience. Because of this, your website needs to be carefully designed with your target demographic – the kinds of customers who will use your product or service – in mind.

A website requires a variety of services, including graphic designers, programmers, and content writers. The website development team is likely the most extensive in any branding agency. That’s because websites must be optimized for several things, from search engine rankings to multiple devices. The following service you will require is so that.

5. Brand Positioning

Although brand positioning is easily subsumed under brand messaging, it is significant enough to need its examination.

Brand positioning is how you differentiate yourself from competitors. What do you offer that is entirely different from what other companies in your market do? It will be challenging to persuade potential clients to choose your company over another if you don’t have a clear response to that query.

6. Marketing Materials

It might be challenging to market or advertise a small business.

Additionally, prices can quickly soar when a corporation is promoting or advertising. It would help if you went where your clients are to market your business successfully. Advertising at a trade show is useless if your firm is B2C (business to consumer). Likewise, if you sell specialized business products, you should conduct something other than a leaflet or flyer distribution.

Our typical marketing materials include the following:

• Leaflets and flyers
• Items for advertising and giveaways
• Presenting PowerPoint
• Decks of Pitch
• Brochures
• Publicity for exhibition stands

Steps to Brand your Business for Success Summary

So how do you create a unified personality and look for your company? Let’s give it a nine-step breakdown.

To better understand your audience, create a persona

Knowing your audience is essential for developing marketing messages that resonate with them, as you’ve probably heard before. A fantastic way to learn more about them? Create a buyer persona to portray your ideal consumer’s values and traits in a semi-fictional way. Personas describe the issues your customers are facing and how your company may help address them.

Establish your brand story

Using a brand story, solidify your brand’s identity. Although it will include details of your motivation for starting your firm, this is only sometimes your genesis tale.

Your brand story should aim to provide answers to the following queries:

• What values does your business maintain?
• What issues does your resolution or assistance solve?
• How does your business address those problems?
• Why did you resolve that your corporation should make those pains fade?
• What suggestion do you see your business taking?

Remember that your brand story is more than just the short explanation of your business that you provide to individuals when they inquire about it. It has to do with how and why people attach to your brand.

Create a Position for Your Brand

Being a firm that sells high-end, luxurious clothing and is also cost-effective is impossible. You must choose where you will enter the market. You can gain insight into your brand position by learning as much as you can about your target market.

To accomplish this, creating a positioning statement is the simplest method. Your brand’s positioning statement might read, for instance, “We are a cosmetics company selling organic beauty items to customers in [region].” You can use one or two lines like this to introduce yourself and what you do.

Choose a company name

Your brand positioning and target market are both known to you. The crucial brand name selection is now up to you.

All the information your customers require about you should be condensed into one word in the perfect name.

Design a brand logo and tagline

Create a brand logo and tagline to represent your company in all your marketing materials if you want to expand your brand successfully. It’s advised that you work with a design agency or a member of your staff who you know to be very creative to develop a powerful logo and tagline.

Create a brand purpose and vision statement

Have you thought about the mission and vision of your brand? You’ll need to state your company’s core principles concisely. This is a physical representation of the reason you wake up every morning.

Before you can create a brand that your target demand would trust, you must understand the value your firm gives.

The vision for your brand is what you hope to accomplish in the far-off future. Imagine your brand’s future objectives, including who it wants to be and its impact on the environment, ten years from now.

Decide on your brand’s appearance

You should consider your brand design, including your color scheme and typography, once you’ve fixed on a name for your corporation. This will be helpful when you start to create your own website using a website builder.

Why Should You Hire a Brand Agency to Grow Your Business?

1. Extensive Knowledge

Businesses are frequently too preoccupied to manage other crucial areas of their operations, such as production, lead generation, client management, and income generation. Branding comes last for them. You can handle all of your branding operations and alleviate yourself of that burden by working with an agency. An agency ensures that your message is correctly presented by knowing the best ways to produce and distribute it. They aid in grabbing the interest of your target audience and are knowledgeable on how to build a great brand without passing up any untapped branding opportunities.

2. Brand Integrity

In the modern corporate environment, brand consistency is crucial. A powerful brand distinguishes you from your rivals and is quickly recognizable. Please make sure you deal with a skilled brand agency that will ensure all of your brandings is consistent and on-brand because your brand is everything and what people will see when they first encounter your company.

An online social media agency can be a fantastic method for businesses of all sizes to engage in social media marketing. Still, it cannot replace more conventional forms of advertising like print or radio commercials.

3. Greater Access to Information

At a branding agency, branding and rebranding are routine tasks. When dealing with a branding firm, you can be sure that their knowledge is current because several reasons are working on the task at once to make the most effective results.

4. Agency Offer Concentrated Creativity

Whether you already have an internal marketing team or not, there’s no denying that your staff has a lot of daily obligations to stay on top of. The ability to balance your to-do list and do things to a high degree can get harder over time.

Using a branding agency might relieve some of the stress. It will ensure that your company gains from a team entirely committed to advancing the success of your brand. A branding agency can provide your staff more time to work on other crucial business activities because of their creative expertise and commitment to delivering outcomes.

5. Innovative Marketing Strategies

Your marketing strategy is your plan of action for handling brand promotion and product development. A marketing plan is crucial since it considers where you want to take your branding initiatives and what you’re prepared to do to get there. Your industry, your product and service offerings, your goals, the research you’ve done on other companies in related fields, and who your target market is will all influence how you build your marketing plan. If you determine that working with an agency makes sense for you, a digital brand agency may assist with all of these aspects.

6. Industry-Crossing Experience

Most branding agencies have substantial expertise working in a range of industries. Years of these learning experiences are brought with them and continue to be adjusted along the road. Your branding efforts will only be successful if you hire a freelance graphic designer. When you engage with an agency, you also work with a group of gifted and seasoned experts who collaborate to deliver the finest outcomes. Many brands can only successfully stand out from competitors in the market thanks to these coordinated efforts.

7. Return on Investment, Effective

Any business must devote enough time and resources to branding its goods and services. Hiring a branding agency will go beyond the staff’s skill set and provide new opportunities to expand the company and increase income.

Conclusion:

Your business will stand out with the help of DesignerPeople’s assistance in creating a logo, website, social media profiles, and more. Our team of specialists is enthusiastic about branding and knows what it brings to make your firm stand out.

With DesignerPeople, you get a whole branding package that will aid in expanding your company, not simply a logo design. We have everything you need to grow your business, including website design, social media marketing, and logo creation.

To see how we can assist you in gaining more recognition in your target market, contact us today for a free consultation!

There is no denying that a robust finance and sales department helps entrepreneurs in attaining their set goals. If any of the two departments lack, it will directly impact the profit margins and revenue.

However, many budding entrepreneurs fail to understand the interdependence of these departments. Consequently, they focus on the finance department and put sales on the black burner.

It is critical to understand that if the sales department ceases to achieve its goals, the financial goals will go down the drain. Similarly, all the efforts made for business success will be void. Using technology to avail real-time data, analyze and strategize the accounts, and forecast is creating a hitch in sales performance.

Barriers Between Finance And Sales Departments

The finance and sales department are like two pieces of a puzzle. However, how the money needs to be spent often causes disputes between the two departments. The company’s expectations from the sales department are often high, but the budget assigned to them is limited. This creates chaos between the teams and affects the company’s goals.

On the flip side, the finance department complains that even if the conversion rate is high and sales are increasing, the amount spent to achieve these sales is high. So the actual revenue earned by the organization is pretty less considered to expectations.

This brings the question- how can you ensure that the finance department is working in close relation with sales? Let’s learn!

1. Explain The Value Of Sales Conversion

The sales department works on the principle of “volume is king.”

While it is indeed the driving force behind conversion and high sales, it restricts the staff from looking beyond the sphere of volume. For them, higher sales are equal to higher revenue despite the possible financial ramifications.

You need to make departments understand that uncertain circumstances such as inflation, poor supply chain, irregular demand pattern, and pandemic affect the total sales volume. It will make them understand the true value of sales conversion.

But how will it benefit the business?

Well, when sales are made, prioritizing the volume, the products or services are offered to ease the trade. It neglects the RoI of transactions. On the other hand, when the team focuses on value, they will consider the customer experience, profitability, and objectives. It will facilitate transactions by attracting more customers and building a loyal base.

The finance department can play a significant role here by providing the appropriate and accurate data to other departments related to existing customers’ demanded products and forecasting the sales trends.

Thereby, using data, companies can turn your product into a want.

2. Build A Bridge Between Growth And Profit

If a company makes high profits, it does not necessarily mean it is growing at the anticipated rate. As a matter of supreme fact, many CFOs prefer the middle market to prioritize top-line growth instead of margin growth.

Nevertheless, for this strategy to work seamlessly, the growth equitation needs to include the sales value. Only then will corporations be able to accelerate profits.

In simple terms, teams need to focus on profitable growth by finding a balance between earning revenue and deploying resources. Certainly, building this bridge will be challenging, but that’s where teamwork and department understanding comes into the picture.

The sales team needs to report accurate figures and become accountable and transparent for their efforts. In addition, they need to be vigilant about possible sales opportunities. It will ensure that your company is ready to close the deals and earn RoI. Of course, they need to work with finance to create an effective strategy and forecast.

3. Train Your Staff

Finance and sales teams often recruit new people with better skills and practical knowledge. However, every organization has its own working style and culture. Making the new hirees well versed with the fresh environment and procedures is critical to ensure that the overall efficiency of the team improves. It further facilitates the company’s goal accomplishment.

In essence, you should train your new employees. The training could be via technology support, wealth advisor support, or investment support. It will maximize the company’s performance by having dedicated support for different functions.

Not to mention from practice management and back-office support to the deployment of technology and financial plan creation. Such training and support will help the team to put their best foot forward toward growth.

It will make certain that the team spends more time on their operations- making sales and improving the company’s wealth and less time discovering the loopholes and enhancing them.

4. Integrate CRM With ERP System

A prime reason that affects finance and sales is disparate data recorded in different systems. Studies have shown that CFOs tend to reduce the sales department’s forecast by 25% per month for numerous causes.

The reason behind the poor forecast is incomplete data on the CRM (Customer relationship management) system.

The same is the scenario in the sales department as they complain about a lack of insights from the ERP (Enterprise resource planning) system.

Stating the obvious, both systems are critical for the business to plan its goal and evaluate its progress. So how can you deal with the lack of appropriate data issues?

The practical approach is to integrate CRM Software with ERP. It’ll ensure that all the necessary data is available in a single system, that’ll save the employee time. Moreover, it will access more data to drive accurate conclusions and provide teams with the opportunity to work effectively.

Note: You can invest in the CRM ERP module for the same purpose. It will make it effortless to share customer information, tap into new opportunities and address customer service issues. Thereby, customer service will improve, and sales will boost.

5. Understand The Goal Of Different Departments

Last but not least, both departments need to understand each other’s objectives. Otherwise, modifying the team priorities will become daunting. As a result, the company’s revenue and growth will get hampered.

Similarly, the financial team needs to learn about the sales target to accurately forecast the demand rather than setting unrealistic expectations from the sales personnel.

Lacking this mutual understanding affects the coordination between the teams, hence the growth strategy. So, it would be best for the CFOs and financial advisors to meet the sales department frequently and ask questions relevant to the data, market-share growth, strategy effectiveness, and growth beyond the core operations.

The answers to all these questions will provide necessary insights to both departments that they can use to enhance the team’s performance.

Pro Tip: The key to a healthy and successful relationship in finance and sales is having a practical and flexible approach. Listen to the queries and concerns of the department genuinely. If there are ideas that can potentially improve the workflow, be open to adapting them or investing in them. The CFOs need not be gatekeepers. Instead, they need to be facilitators.

To Sum It All Up

When the sales and finance department works in a synchronized manner, it will aid the accomplishment of business goals. However, to ensure that the coordination stays firm and effective, make sure to learn about the needs of both departments. Make efforts to address the possible issues to streamline the company workflow.

Hey, I’m Michael Culp, and today, I’m going to show you 10 Facebook ads strategies that will help you grow your business.

First of all, why should you advertise your business on Facebook?

The answer is pretty simple. Facebook has 1.96 billion daily active users and 82.4 billion ad revenue every single year. The daily user data show that you have an extreme potential pool of customers which you can reach. And the ad revenue demonstrates that a lot of companies are using Facebook for advertising, which means that it’s profitable.

Now that you know the potential you have with Facebook ads, let’s dive into how you can best use it to grow your business!

1. Technical Skills and Ad Copy

In the past, to be successful with Facebook ads, the main thing you had to know was how to use the platform. But things have changed for the better, and most of the campaigns are now automated and simple to set up.

Because of that, the critical factor to success isn’t how to use the platform anymore. Now your success is tied to how good of a copywriter you are. Copywriting is a form of persuasive language that influences the potential buyer to take some action.

When it comes to applying copywriting to your ads, you need to pay attention to how your words, images, and videos are working together to present your offer to your audience.

2. Data

Data is the most important aspect to make your ads profitable. Most Facebook advertisers fail because they don’t know how to leverage data. Keep in mind that Facebook advertising is a game of data. The more data you have the lower your cost for acquiring a new client will be.

The reason why Facebook is such a powerful advertising tool is that it allows you to target users based on data. You can target them based on their age, gender, interests, behavior, and so on.

This sounds like a great opportunity, right? Yes, but…

Interests and behavior are very weak ways to advertise your business. The basic targeting available in Facebook ads will not be the most profitable way to run your campaigns.

The best way is to leverage Lookalike audiences and retargeting.

Lookalike audiences are audiences within Facebook that look like your customers. You have the option to import your customer list into Facebook, and Facebook will find targets that are very similar to them. The more customers you import, the more effective the targeting will be.

But if you have no customers, to begin with, you need to start with a cold interest audience.

3. Cold Interest Audience

Cold interest audiences are important to test and include because they allow you to tap into an almost unlimited amount of potential leads, customers, and sales. The goal of this campaign is to leverage the data that Facebook has collected from its users.

The cold part means that these are people who have never heard about you before. Interest means that you’re going to be targeting them based on their specific interests.

To target this audience based on their interests, you must have an ideal customer avatar. Your customer avatar is a representation of the main characteristics that most people who compose your audience have in common. You need to think about their demographics, their geographics, and psychographic characteristics.

What is their age? Income level? What do they desire? What are their hobbies? What are the things they aspire to? What are their fears and frustration?

Based on all these common characteristics you can set up the interests you want Facebook to target.

For example, let’s assume that you have an eCommerce store that sells athletic shoes. You’d target 18-29-year-old males, who follow athletes and influencers, are loyal to one or two sports brands and don’t have a high-paying job.

If you can generate some purchases, email leads, and website traffic, you can use this data to leverage lookalike audiences. Milking this data is where you’re going to see the best results.

4. Look-Alike Audience

The lookalike is a term for an audience of people who have similar characteristics to another audience. The other audience can be your email list or your customer list.

There isn’t much to say here. You just need to import this list to Facebook, so the Facebook algorithm can target similar audiences to the list you have imported.

5. Warm Custom Audience

Warm means that these people have seen your stuff sometimes and in some place before. The custom means that they are specific to you and your business. It’s common to create warm audiences based on how people have interacted with your business off Facebook such as visiting your website, your email list, or your Youtube channel.

You can also create warm audiences based on somebody who interacted with some of your content on Facebook, such as watching a certain percentage of your videos or clicking a lead form for example.

6. Omnipresent Advertising Strategy

Based on these audiences that you’ve created, you can create an omnipresent advertising strategy to expand your reach. This will allow you to show up to more people, more often, and for less money. Your goal is to increase touchpoints and interactions with your audience.

In marketing, there is a psychological phenomenon called the mere exposure effect. This means that the more often you show up to someone, the more likely they are to trust you.

Similar to that, there’s the marketing rule of 7, which says that it takes on average 7 interactions with your brand, before people buy your product. 7 is just a rule of thumb and based on your offer it can take more or fewer interactions.

So, keep in mind that frequency equals trust. The more often we see something, the more we like it. Showing up more often, in front of the same people, is a great strategy.

To create an effective omnipresent strategy, keep reading the next tips!

7. Retargeting Campaign

You need to compile and combine all retargeting audiences you have to compose your omnipresent strategy. Our goal here is to show up in front of as many warm people as possible.

The first audience you should be targeting is your email list or your customer list. Here you just need to upload these lists to Facebook.

Your next audiences will come from meta sources. The meta source includes people who opened one of your lead forms in the past months and people who watched a certain percentage of one of your videos. You can also target people who engaged with your Instagram account and with your Facebook page in the past months.

When setting up your campaign, Facebook settings will come with a box called “advantage custom audience” marked. You must uncheck this box, because leaving it checked will expand your warm audience with cold audiences, and it will end up ruining your campaigns.

Next, as a campaign objective, you need to choose an awareness campaign. Also, make sure to check the box “advantage campaign budget” off. You don’t want Facebook optimizing things for you here.

Then, you need to create different ad sets, each one containing different ads and set up the budget for $1 or $2 for each ad. When it comes to impressions, you need to set up 1 impression every 4 days.

Your options are many when it comes to creating different ads. You can create video and image ads. No matter which you choose, you need to make sure that the image and the video is great.

8. Types of Ads

In this section, I’m going to show you the 6 main types of ads that you can use in your campaigns.

• Core Ad: this ad revolves around your core philosophy, what your company believes and why. This ad will attract people who believe in what you do.
• Contrary Ad: the goal of this ad is to challenge industry norms and dogma. For example, if you sell a weight loss program based on the keto diet. You can attack the traditional advice that teaches people to eat carbs and count calories. Polarizing is a great way to stand out in your marketing communications.
• How to Ad: this type of ad allows you to provide value to your potential customers and establish authority, credibility, and expertise. The goal is to prove to people that you can actually help them.
• Case Study Ad: case study ad highlights testimonials, interviews, reports, or case studies. You can base your ad on any kind of social proof that comes from your customers. A pro tip here is to try to collect video testimonials from your customers.
• Conversation Ad: the goal here is to start a conversation or an interaction with your audience. This type of ad will also help you to understand more about your market, gain feedback, and insights, and relate more to your audience. The goal is to ask a question or create some type of content that triggers a response.
• Conversion Ad: the conversion ad is an ad designed specifically to make someone take an action. This can be making a purchase, signing up for an email list, or signing up a form with their phone number, the options are many. It’s extremely important to make a strong call to action in this type of ad.

9. Generate Leads

To be successful you need to collect the user’s information so that you can follow up with them. The most common thing to do here is to collect the user’s email information. This is known as lead generation. Most people are doing these lead generation campaigns, but a high percentage of them are doing it in the wrong way.

Getting a lead isn’t a difficult job. You just need to make an irresistible offer that your customers can’t refuse. This is very common in giveaway campaigns in which businesses offer an iPad, free money, and even a car sometimes.

The problem with this is that people opt-in to your list just because they want the chance of winning the gift. They have no interest in buying from you in the future.

The secret to generating the kind of leads that will buy from you comes down to focusing on acquiring quality leads. A quality lead is someone relevant to your offer, is motivated to take an action, and has the buying power to make the purchase.

So, to attract these quality leads you need to build a great lead magnet. A lead magnet is a piece of content that you’ll offer your audience in exchange for their email address. The lead magnet must be a very actionable piece of information that will help them solve a problem.

After you have a lead, you can start to follow up with them to build trust and promote your offers. Another important step to increase sales is setting up a conversion mechanism, which is actually your funnel.

10. Build a Funnel

The goal of your funnel is to turn your leads into customers. The best way to set up your funnel is by leveraging the automation that software allows you to build. Automation is a process designed to constantly follow up with new leads.

A great way to start an interaction is to send specific questions for them, asking about something directly related to the lead magnet they signed up for. It’s important to ask something other than a yes or no question. The goal is to initiate a conversation and get them to talk about themselves and their goals.

When it comes specifically to your ads, if you start running Facebook ads without a funnel in place, your chances of failing are much higher. When it comes to your funnel, the first thing you need to think about is where your funnels are going, where is the destination of your ads, and where’s your audience landing.

A great way to build a high-converting funnel is by using some software. There are a lot of great options in the market such as Clickfunnels, GoHighLevel, Groovefunnels, and Instapage. I made a review detailing GoHighLevel Pricing.

Most of the time, people run ads directly to the product page. And if your product isn’t an impulse purchase type of product, chances are high that you’re going to lose money.

Usually, the more expensive your products are, the more resistance people will show before buying them. Because of that, you need to put some steps in place, between the time someone sees your ad, and the time you ask them to purchase your product.

A great way to set up your campaign is to start with simple ads, intending to just engage people. This first ad has the goal of just helping people, providing an informational piece of content that will help them solve a problem. What will happen is that even if they’re not looking for your product, they can look at the content just for curiosity. The goal of this ad is to move people from awareness to engagement.

It’s important to build your funnel with engaged leads before you start thinking about sales. And once you have an engaged lead, your goal should be to make them interested in your product or service.

In this next stage, you can start introducing your product or service. Since they are already engaged with you, they will be more willing to listen to what you have to say. The best strategy here is to leverage the email list you’re building and set up another type of ad.

So, you’re going to build an ad that’s going to sell the product or service, but the people you’re going to target are people who engaged with your brand by watching a video, visiting your website, leaving a comment or a like, and things like that. Any action that someone took on your ad can be considered a form of engagement.

The next type of ad is to advertise to your hottest audience. These are people who visited the shopping page on your website, added stuff to the cart without purchasing, or spent a lot of time on your website. This is the type of ad that will have the highest conversion rate.

To summarize, your funnel consists of three main steps: engage, build interest, and sell.

Conclusion

Facebook advertising gives you many benefits, including increasing sales by sending people to your website to purchase. Lead generation by collecting names, emails, and phone numbers from your target customers. And distribution of content to maximize your reach.

Today, you learned how you can leverage Facebook ads with 10 strategies. To recap:

• Technical Skills and Ad Copy
• Data
• Cold Interest Audience
• Lookalike Audience
• Warm Custom Audience
• Omnipresent Advertising Strategy
• Retargeting Campaign
• Types of Ads
• Generate Leads
• Build a Funnel