24 Jul
Blogs

11 Tips to Run your Business During the Total Lockdown in the Country: COVID-19

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic led to a total lockdown in India to safeguard the lives of the individuals from this disease.

Every day the confirmed cases of Coronavirus are increasing at a pace. Currently, there are 4,067 confirmed cases in the country. And, as per the Reuters reports, the number of cases will rapidly increase up to 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 by the mid of May, if the numbers continue to increase at their present pace.

COVID-19

All the safety measures are being taken. From quarantine, social distancing to all sorts of traveling constraints, the entire country is fighting together to get away from this pandemic outbreak!

Now, due to the lockdown and curfew, businesses are witnessing a major downfall. The business owners are still unsure about the situation. However, they are taking certain steps strictly to minimize the risk of loss in every aspect. Even the top businessman in Delhi, India is taking measures to cut down their losses, protect their customers, and retain their employees.

Therefore, listed down are beneficial 20 tips to run your business during the total lockdown period in the country due to coronavirus.

Let’s have a look!

Tip 1 – Get Digitally Transformed

It is essential to become a digital pro during the Coronavirus outbreak in India. All sorts of business activities can be conducted online through video conferencing or Zoom calls. From customer management to maintain a constant touch with your employees, digitalization is the best way to get yourself and your business transformed into this crippling situation.

Get Digitally Transformed

You can build a sturdy communication chain internally as well as externally to ensure that the workflow remains efficient. Not to mention it, just be certain that the systems should be protecting the data and can combat the cyber hacks.

Tip 2 – Add Flexibility to your Employees Timings

WORK FROM HOME

Well, due to the lockdown period, offices, schools, stores, and all other businesses are closed. So, opting out to work from home, if possible, is the best solution in this situation to mitigate the risk of losses in your business. Adding on to it, you can add some short breaks of 10 minutes to understand their situation while not overburdening them because it is “WORK FROM HOME.”

Tip 3 – Maintain Transparency with your Customers

Maintain Transparency with your Customers

As the coronavirus outbreak is a global issue now and everyone is majorly encountering the same crisis together. Therefore, it becomes important to communicate with your customers and build transparency with them. With this approach, you can retain your potential customers as they will understand your situation and what your business is currently going through!

Tip 4 – Spread the Safety Messages

Spread the Safety Messages

Another essential tip to run your business during this crisis is to spread the message of safety. Even if everyone is sharing such safety messages online, come up with something new for your audience. Besides sharing the safety tips, talk about the importance of hygiene and cleanliness equivalently but in an engaging manner.

Tip 5 – Shift your Business Strategy Online

Shift your Business Strategy Online

To avoid heavy losses in business, entrepreneurs and small business owners have shifted their business strategy online to engage the online audience throughout the lockdown period in India. Due to lockdown, if you are closing your store, find different other ways to sell your products or services using social media or e-commerce platforms to reach out to your targeted audience. Moreover, to reach new, potential leads, start working on email marketing too with a substantial business marketing strategy.

Tip 6 – Business Interruption Insurance

Business Interruption Insurance

Before we begin further, what is business interruption insurance? Well, in simple terms, it is insurance for the significant losses that you suffer from unexpected major events like the Coronavirus pandemic. The complete shutdown is undeniably a major loss for the business owners, thus Business Interruption Insurance comes to the rescue. Further, you have to ask your business insurance agent whether such events are covered or not. And, once you are aware of it, then from the next time you won’t let your business suffer from such big financial losses.

Tip 7 – Long term planning

Long term planning

Planning for the long term is essential for business owners, especially when such a crippling situation throughout the world occurs. And, of course, the impact remains for a long time. It is important that you must talk about the situation with your business partners, investors, customers, suppliers, and other local officials on a regular basis to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on your business and its revenues. Once you implement this strategy, then it would be beneficial for you to stay ahead. Doubtlessly, it will take time to get your business on track as usual.

Tip 8 – Logistics and Supply Chain

Logistics and Supply Chain

Currently, the situation due to the pandemic outbreak is unstable, especially for the logistics and supply chain businesses. Logistics and supply chains are not readily available due to the lockdown. Therefore, pre-booking is what you can opt-out of while carefully reviewing the obligations under the agreement passed by the government.

Tip 9 – Lucrative Offers and Incentives 

Apart from building connections with your customers during the coronavirus, what equally matters is to provide them with lucrative offers, discounts, or some incentives. So, when the lockdown period is finally over, they can visit your store and grab the offers right away. Also, this is one of the beneficial engagement activities that you can conduct for the customers of your brand to keep them close and updated!

Tip 10 – Conformity to Laws and Obligations

It is advised not to go against the laws and ethics that are made by the government strictly for the safety of the individuals of the country. Of course, it is imperative to adhere to the laws and ethics formulated by the government, which holds the key to tide over from this challenging situation.

Tip 11 – Businessman with Optimistic Attitude

The majority of businessman works with the survival mentality, which only adds to their pressure and further challenges them! Also, this attitude is completely negative and impacts the economy in certain ways.

The business owners should have an optimistic attitude towards their work and for that, there are several questions they need to ask themselves.

Some of the fundamental questions are:

  • What factors contribute to the growth of my business?
  • What are some essential factors that can impact my business?
  • Do I have adequate resources to run my business? If not, then how to reach out to them?
  • What is the best possible way to review my business along with the performance level?
  • What is the best approach to engage my people to take responsibility and leadership on the job?

Hence, these are some of the fundamental questions that you need to ask yourself and maintain that optimistic attitude even in this global crisis. Otherwise, you can take guidance from the top businessman in Delhi, India on how to remain positive during emergencies like situations.

CONCLUSION 

To sum it all up, the above-mentioned are some of the significant tips to run your business during the period of lockdown in India due to the coronavirus pandemic. In this global crisis, it is essential to implement such strategies to run your business successfully, even if the working procedure is slow. At least, maintain the continuity of work and keep in touch with your customers, employees, and all the local officials to mitigate the risk of losses. In the end, don’t forget to keep yourself SAFE!

24 Jul
Blogs

Why Business Reviews Are Important For Your Startup?

Hey, are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Then, you must agree with it that being an entrepreneur is not only glorious and adventurous but also challenging, particularly in its initial stages.

An entrepreneur, just like me has to manage a lot of things altogether including the human resource department, sales, marketing, team management, and what not!

Every time you have to come up with a new business strategy, which is innovative and of course creative too!

Now, why business strategies are planned? Well, not just to promote products and services, but also for building a brand, a renowned brand among its targeted audience. And, for that, an online presence in this new age technology era is absolutely essential.

Even in this digital age, if you aren’t present online, then you are definitely losing some potential customers that are waiting for you on such platforms!

On the contrary, if you are present online, then your business marketing strategy should be unique and innovative in every aspect, which doesn’t bore your audience and engage them interestingly.

One such online business strategy, especially for Startup companies is to get customer reviews on three major platforms i.e. Google Reviews, Directory Reviews, and Social Media Reviews.

importance of online reviews

Do you even realize the importance of online reviews? It’s a weapon that can build your business among your audience. Marketing strategies are Okay, but when it comes to authenticity, customers do check reviews and ratings and that’s why it is more effective than your online marketing strategies!

If you are providing premium products or services to your customers, then why not ask for a customer review? Because great customer reviews are in itself a substantial marketing approach to aware people what you are selling!

To know more about customer reviews and how they are beneficial for your business, scroll down, and read the blog to pick up some appropriate and helpful points.

Let’s get ahead!

5 Reasons Why Online Reviews are Important for your Startup Business

As mentioned above, online reviews are essential for a startup business. Therefore, here I am listing, 5 major reasons how online reviews can benefit you!

  1. They Bring SALES!

Yes, online reviews for your startup business is one significant proof that clearly influences the sales! It is because of the customer’s reviews and their ratings, you can build authenticity and become popular among your targeted audience.

Let’s take an example of ‘Seriously Silly Socks.’ Due to its 5-star ratings on their website, the brand was able to boost its sales by up to 60%. Their strategy is to encourage its customers for a review through email marketing, which also has an interesting discount coupon for them!

  1. They Bring VISIBILITY!

These days, everyone has become tech-savvy and when it comes to buying, the first step is to search it online, isn’t it? Whether it is on Google or Facebook, the majority of the audience search online for the products they are willing to buy. And, if your brand doesn’t have the visibility on such platforms, then it can hamper the growth of your startup business.

Here comes the role of customer reviews to make you visible among the audience. Customer reviews are always favored by the algorithms of Google and Facebook. your customers are reviewing your products and services, then algorithms will choose your business as the leading one, which will ultimately make your startup business a popular one!

  1. They Bring TRUSTWORTHINESS!

Have you shopped online recently? Then, did you check the reviews and ratings of the customers of the brand? Well, we all do that!

Of course, customer reviews are important in every aspect and when it comes to trustworthiness in online shopping, it can only be assessed through reviews.

For better conversion rates and increased traffic on your website, your marketing strategies must include how to encourage your customers for reviews.

  • They Bring REACH!

Reviews spread quickly, be it good or bad. Obviously, here I am not encouraged to get bad reviews, but the very fact is that they do spread quite speedily.

To increase the brand’s reach, customer reviews are absolutely significant. Moreover, when customers have something good to say about your business, then quite possibly, they will share it on popular platforms (Google My Business (GMB), Yelp, Mouthshut, FourSquare, TripAdvisor) too!

When customers have good thoughts to share, then they will make sure to share them on each and every platform including social media platforms. Therefore, for startup businesses, customer reviews are important to improve the reach!

  • They Bring CONVERSATIONS!

Now, you must be thinking about Conversations? Well, I meant healthy conversations with your customers! With the help of customer reviews, you can talk to or reply to them with a positive note.

Sometimes, thinking isn’t enough, right? Then, why not go for a coupon or a voucher code to surprise some of your customers?

Also, if there is any negative review, then you have to deal with it patiently! To respond to them in a nice manner to show that you value them! For a brand reputation, responding to customer reviews is necessary, especially to the negative ones.

Besides the above mentioned 5 major reasons why customer reviews are important, you also need to know that shoppers have become smart. Usually, individuals search online before they buy any product. In the case of services, they will try to collect more information about your business, especially if it’s a startup business before making any move. And, business reviews are beneficial in decision-making for those in dilemma.

Now, I expect that you must have understood the importance of online reviews.

CONCLUSION

To sum it all, these are some of the major reasons why business reviews are essential not just for the startup businesses but equally for the well-developed, renowned businesses.

My suggestion to you is that start implementing it to expand your business and reach among the audience of your brand. In my initial days too, I have handled multiple projects along with the large team members, which ultimately led my growth in the trading business so far!

So, if you are seeking out some of the excellent trading business ideas in Delhi for your startup business, then a simple suggestion is to keep it innovative. From trading business idea to business development strategy, you have to ensure that it’s peculiar in every aspect!

24 Jul
Blogs

What are the 5 Benefits of Networking in Business?

When asked about networking, what comes to your mind? ….. Is it Talking or Reaching out!

Well, networking is not just about that. In today’s world, networking is a very important tool if you wish to survive in the long run. There are various benefits of networking in business. Business networking is an activity where businessmen and entrepreneurs meet, get to know each other, share knowledge and ideas, discover new opportunities, and help each other. It helps you to build long-term relations and a strong reputation in society.

leading businessman

If you ask any successful businessmen out there, they all will emphasize on the importance of networking. Talking about businessmen, leading Businessman Atul Garg also lays importance on the benefits of business networking. He himself actively networks with his peers and other businessmen by taking part in various trade and commerce conferences. He shares his experiences to help the owners of the emerging business in Delhi.

Build connection Networking

To know more about the importance of networking scroll down and read about the benefits of networking in business: –

  1. Build connection: – Networking helps you to build long-term relationships with your contacts. Active networking will expand your reach and add more people to your contact base. Your connections can help you in times of need. Networking can also help you meet new clients and identify new opportunities for partnership or ventures.
  2. Credibility: – Only talking to your contacts over the call or social media would not help, you have to meet your contacts to maintain a good relationship. Once you start meeting more people you will develop a reputation as someone who loves to interact and help people. This will increase or credibility and as your credibility and reputation grow you will receive greater opportunities and support from others.
  3. Gaining more knowledge: – Networking enables you to interact with people who are different from you or have a different perspective. This helps you to gain new insights into things that you would not have thought of before. Networking involves the sharing of knowledge, idea,s, and experiences. By connecting with other people in your industry you get to know what is happening around you and stay current with the news.
  4. Opportunities and Career Growth: – Suppose you are looking for a new job. If you have a good network base your network can help you to land the perfect job you desire for. Networking opens up a whole new world of new opportunities for your career growth. Active networking will keep you aware as to when there is a new opening in some company, or when a new opportunity is there for you to grab it and expand your business. Networking also helps you generate referrals and get support when required. Networking provides you with a platform where you can get Business Reviews from your customers and other people directly and improve accordingly.
  5. Build Confidence: – Not everyone has a get-going attitude. People are shy and get nervous when talking to others. But in order to get rid of your nervousness, you have to put in some effort and get out and talk. Your confidence will grow as you interact more and more. Always be prepared, be aware of the news and others’ interests so that you have a few points to start a conversation, and interact with them.

To conclude, these are some of the major Benefits Of Business Networking. Many leading businessmen consider it to be an essential activity for their personal and professional growth. So go out and start networking through various social networking platforms or by attending social and business conferences and events. Networking possesses great benefits and will help you and your business to move towards success.

24 Jul
Blogs

What are Employee Recognition? 7 Ways of Employee-Recognition!

In the words of Dale Carnegie, Leadership Training Guru, “People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards.”

Of course, employees work for salaries that are get credited in your accounts every month, but it’s a joy for one day. Rather, when an employee is praised for the hardship and great work, the joy lasts long. Isn’t it?

Employee recognition is essential to boost the morale of the employees, and also, beneficial for an organization to accomplish objectives and goals quickly. The organizations who acknowledge the work of their employees can seriously tune the return on Investment (ROI) up to 50% in tandem with the 20% increase in business outcomes. Because when we all feel appreciated, the zeal to work more start developing!

employee recognition

Some employers don’t feel the need for employee recognition and treat it as an unnecessary practice. But it is definitely a good program for every company, which also helps in understanding your employees in a better way.

Ever wondered what can be the best employee recognition ideas for your organization? No? Then, you definitely need to read ahead, what employee recognition is all about in detail and what are some great tips for employee recognition.

employee recognition ideas

What is Employee Recognition? 

In the words of Pamela Stroko employee recognition is, “People want to know they matter and they want to be treated as people. That’s the new talent contract.”

Employee Recognition is basically a practice of acknowledging the employees, their work and hardships that works in alignment with the company’s objectives and goals. To keep it simple, giving the due credit of the good work done by the employees or team.

Undoubtedly, employees deserve to be respected at the workplace, and for that, employer and employee both should value the work and realize the worth. Employees too need to realize their worth and understand that they deserve recognition or appreciation of the work they do! Not only it boosts the morale, but beneficial in productivity too. Employees feel motivated and encouraged to give their best and prepare themselves for the upcoming bigger challenges.

Further, employee recognition is also necessary to give employees a sense of belongingness, which inspires them to go the extra mile at the workplace. As ‘productivity’ is the new buzzword these days among organizations, be it small scale or large scale; thus, employee recognition strategy is what they must opt for, to enhance their productivity!

Facts about Employee Recognition 

Now, let us move forward and know about some of the amazing facts about employee recognition.

Fact 1 – To boost the morale of your employees, employee recognition is the best approach and cost-effective too. To inspire them for their work and productivity, motivating employees is an essential thing to do.

Fact 2 – Those companies that frequently organize employee recognition programs can experience a positive impact at the workplace. 83% of leaders have reportedly said that their organization had a positive work culture after employee recognition programs.

Fact 3 – Employees who feel motivated and appreciated always go the extra mile the organization. If their efforts and contribution are appreciated enough, then employees definitely work harder for the organization to grow and succeed.

Fact 4 – To bridge the communications gaps and build trust among the employees and employer, recognition programs help a lot. Almost 50% of employees feel that they can improve their work and develop trust if they are appreciated by their managers and leaders.

Fact 5 – Peer-to-Peer recognition is more effective than the recognition from managers and leaders. Of course, when managers and leaders appreciate the work of the employees, they start working harder. But if there is a peer-to-peer recognition, then there is a positive increase in customer satisfaction.

The leaders across the world agreed that employee recognition programs are an effective strategy.

7 Interesting Employee Recognition ways that an Organization can Implement 

“People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.” – Dr. Bob Nelson, best-selling author and motivational speaker

The quote sums up well, isn’t it? Now, let’s step ahead to look at some interesting employee recognition ways that an organization can implement easily.

  1. Unforgettable and Personalized Recognition Award 
Unforgettable and Personalized Recognition Award

Nowadays, it is important to go for customized rewards to appreciate your employees. The personalized reward will cater to his/her individual needs, and it will be unforgettable. However, it is a challenging job for employers to deliver a meaningful and personalized recognition reward to their employees. And, in the end, we do status quo exercise, which doesn’t have any impact as you would have expected.

Unlike status quo recognition, corporate gifts or incentives drive more engagement. With cash or gift cards, employees can get a meaningful experience that they must be looking for some days or months, and they will surely remember it forever.

  1. Peer Recognition Rewards 
Peer Recognition Rewards

Peer recognition is equally essential for the employees just like manager-recognition! An organization must have a scalable and accessible work culture recognition from everyone, be it peers, managers, or leaders. To empower your team to do better on job, peer-recognition rewards are pivotal. There are many platforms for the employees where they can send some small rewards and bonus points to their peers to appreciate them for their work and success. For instance, BONUSLY is a platform where they can send small and public bonuses to each other every day. Then, they can redeem the bonus points for gift cards, prizes and donations. Platforms like Bonusly enriches the culture of an organization, improve the engagement and reduces the turnover.

  1. Recognize them on Social Media Platforms  
Recognize them on Social Media Platforms

Social recognition of employees is important and a great way to share how proud you are of your employees, but it also helps build your employer brand by putting your culture and values on display for the world to see. Take to your company’s Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn social media platforms to recognize your employees in a public setting. Moreover, the employees who get social recognition likely to share social recognition posts with their followers, creating brand ambassadors that represent your organization well.

When recognizing employees on your social channels, highlight who they are, their job role, what they’ve done to deserve recognition, and how it impacted the organization. Be sure employees are aware of what you’re planning to share and are comfortable being recognized publicly first. Not everyone wants a place in the public spotlight!

  1. Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day  
Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day

National Employee Appreciation Day is celebrated on the first Friday of March each year. It’s an ideal chance to show your employees how much you meant to them. When organizing Employee Appreciation Day, you have to make sure that you consider all of their accomplishments and years of service. You can even extend it to the entire week where you can organize other activities like contests, team-building activities, food stalls and other wellness activities. Also, you can align the activities according to the company’s culture and employees’ interests. You have to take care of both of them!

For instance, Facebook celebrates “Faceaversaries” throughout the year with balloons and of course, some amazing posts too! For employee recognition, especially for the long-term employees, Q&A sessions are organized, and they are asked to share their favourite memory from their time working at Facebook!

So, you can also organize Q&A sessions with your employees to know them better and give them a platform to share their thoughts and ideas about the organization.

  1. Employees Wall of Frame 
Employees Wall of Frame

What about the employees’ wall of frame idea to give due recognition of your hard-working employees? Sometimes words are not enough, and thus, you can appreciate your employee’s hard work and accomplishments with a wall frame. Also, this is something funny to look at it!

To highlight the accomplishments of your employees and team members, you can put a wall frame on display for all to see. Snap photos of your employee’s accomplishments or take candid shots of them hard at work. Encourage other employees to post notes of gratitude for featured employees around their photos. You can also use the wall to highlight team wins with photos of the team and any major projects they’ve completed together.

  1. Offer Professional Development Opportunity 
Offer Professional Development Opportunity

You have to understand your employee’s strengths and weakness as a leader, which is beneficial in an organization’s development too. According to a survey conducted, 71% of employees believe that if their managers name their strengths, they feel engaged and energized on work!

Hence, identifying your employee’s strengths is helpful in letting them pick out an upcoming special project to work on. It shows that you trust them to keep accountable for their responsibilities and continue to grow. Another great way to do this is by asking them to serve on a Culture Committee or to mentor a new employee. These all serve as professional development opportunities where workers get to try new things and build their skills.

  1. Appreciate their Efforts with a Surprise Treat  
Appreciate their Efforts with a Surprise Treat

Everyone loves to be surprised with a form of gratitude. And sometimes gratitude in the form of food is the best way to go! After an employee has left for the day, stick a candy bar, their favourite snack, or treat in their desk drawer. They’ll be excited to start their day off on the right foot after they’ve found their tasty surprise.

You can be more creative and fun while appreciating your employees!

CONCLUSION  

So now, you must be aware of what is employee recognitions and what are some interesting ideas and ways to do it! At Oddy Uniwraps, I make sure to organize employee recognition activities to boost their morale and productivity. Some of the Tips Mentioned Above For Employee Recognition is what you can opt for your organization too! Because employee recognition activities should be planned and practised in every organization to motivate and encourage them for their constant hard work! To know more about the employee recognition ideas, get in touch with the Expert Businessman, Atul Garg!

24 Jul
Blogs, Extraordinary Team

Build Trust & Create More Opportunities

Which skill is required to sustain any relationship whether it is with your employees, co-workers, customers or your own family members? The answer is simple, TRUST. Trust is a belief in someone’s character, truth or strength. It is a building block to foster any relationship. 

For any company to be successful, it is imperative to have trustworthy employees and loyal clients. To achieve this, the company has to build trust and loyalty in the hearts of people. However, building trust is not a one-time transaction. It is built over a period of time with a lot of effort and patience. 

And once the trust is built, opportunities for an entrepreneur are endless so let’s understand the ‘mantra’ to achieve success. 

Ways to build trust at the workplace 

  • Create a connection

It is very important to build a personal connection with your employees.  An entrepreneur should emphasize common strengths amongst employers and employees and motivate them to align their goals with that of the organization.  He should understand the challenges faced by the workforce and help them to overcome the problems. A leader should always encourage the people under them and give them opportunities to grow. He should incentivize and motivate his employees to achieve their targets and be part of their celebration of achieving success. 

  • Support your team

A leader should always be honest and transparent with his people. As per Oddy India CEO –Mr. Atul Garg, ‘If an entrepreneur is honest with his people, a positive culture will flourish in the organization’. The employee will take the feedback positively and work towards improving themselves. At the same time, employers should also be sensitive and support the team. 

  • Protect your employees

Another way to build trust in a workplace is to respect team members and give them credit for all the good work. Many employers blame their workforce if something goes wrong. This is a very ill practice as your employee will lose their confidence says, Mr. Garg. The manager should always protect his team and should take accountability. 

  • Keep promises

One of the easiest ways to build trust is to keep your promise. It is one of the most important leadership skills. If you have promised something to your employees, keep your word. If you fail to do that, your employees will never trust you. There might be circumstances, where you are not able to fulfill, in that case, you should be honest with your people. 

  • Be a role model

You should continuously motivate and inspire your employees to achieve the company’s goals and missions, says Oddy India CEO – Atul Garg. To set the right expectation, it is imperative to set yourself as an example so your employees can follow you. For that, you need to constantly improve yourself and learn. Being a role model for others is one of the important leadership skills to earn trust in the workplace. If you don’t have this skill, people will never be inclined to work for your organization. 

  • No favouritism

This is the worst way to lose trust by favoring one over another. You should avoid doing this at any cost if you have to develop trust with your workforce. 

Once you build trust with your own workforce and they are aligned with you to achieve the company’s goal. It is time to shift your gears and think about another facet of the coin i.e. customers. Building trust with your customer is equally important as it generates endless opportunities for a company.  Let us understand a few ways to build trustworthy and loyal customers. 

Ways to Build Trust with Clients

  • Excellent customer service

Thousands of brands are competing for the same product in the market but what makes your brand unique and reliable is excellent customer service. Helpful or prompt service is always remembered by a customer. This helps in building trust in the brand whereas bad customer service leads to bad word of mouth which can tarnish a brand’s image. Nowadays Companies are available on chat and social media and promptly respond to customer’s grievances. 

  • Make the sure customer feel safe

It is very important that customers feel safe when using your product or service. Customer data should be kept safe and secured at any cost. The company should publish testimonials and reviews of its product and company on their website and such information should be correct, updated, and readily available. 

  • Ask for Inputs / Feedbacks

Taking inputs and feedback from customers helps in constant engagement. You should always be honest with your customer in terms of product and processes and acknowledge the error proactively. It is said that you should ‘under promise and over deliver’ as this helps in gaining your customer’s confidence. Customers always appreciate people who are ready to listen to their grievances and go out of their way to solve them. 

  • Customer’s first

The customer-centric atmosphere is very crucial for any organization’s success. The employees should be focused on the customer’s needs rather than pushing the company’s product on them. Customer care should be prompt and helpful to the customer and all the information about the product and company should be available and updated on the website. This approach where customers are treated first helps in building customer satisfaction and loyalty in the long run. 

  • Loyalty program

Nowadays, companies are investing huge amounts in loyalty programs. This in turn helps in customer retention as well as increasing product per customer (PPC). Attractive Loyalty programs can also lead to new sales or leads. 

  • Make your brand personal

Rather than spending money only on advertisement and marketing, a brand should also focus on providing a human touch. Employees should interact constantly with existing customers and build good relationships with them. Your customer will feel more connected with you than your competition. 

Conclusion

Once you are able to build trust amongst employees and clients, you will reap many benefits such as increased productivity amongst employees, improved morale within the workforce, improved employee efficiency and collaboration. It will increase the willingness to stay with the brand either by customers or employees. Customers will also refer your company to their friends and family which will further increase the profitability of your organization.  

24 Jul
Blogs, Leadership

10 Resources that’ll Make You Better at Leadership

Leadership is an important managerial quality that guides or inspires a set of people or an organization towards a goal of creating something new. A successful leader knows how, when, and where to use its resources. However, everyone is not born with this quality. You must continuously learn and evolve to become a good leader. Here is a list of 10 resources that are easily accessible and will help you become a successful leader –

  • Online Courses and Certifications

There are many online courses and certifications available to acquire leadership skills. The best part of these online courses is that you can learn about staying at home and at your own comfortable pace. These courses are quite affordable as compared to joining a business school. Some of the courses are free as well. Also, you can enroll in many courses at the same time and get lifetime access. Generally, these courses are affiliated with a university or known college and you receive certification at the end of the course which will add value to your resume. The known online resources you can get started with are –

  • Coursera
  • LinkedIn
  • Udemy
  • MIT OpenCourseWare
  • Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  • Cornell Online Executive Leadership 

Advice and Quotes from real people

It is not only books or courses that will give you an insight into leadership skills. You can also get it from a mentor or advisor who can help you to think out of the box. Mentors can be any person. He can be a college professor, a business owner, or an expert from an online platform. There are many online platforms and apps which provide a great leadership opportunity to connect with like-minded people and discuss ideas and knowledge. Real talk and Mara mentor are such apps that connect you to a vast list of professionals at different career stages which can help you to share their knowledge and experience. These apps support both iOS and Android users. 

Advisors on the other hand are individuals whom we know and share deeper bonds. These sets of people know their strengths and weaknesses and accordingly coach us to improve in areas where we lag. You can even hire a consultant which is specially hired to develop leadership skills in you and boost your confidence to become a successful leader. 

Business Schools

Another valuable resource that can sow the seeds of leadership in you is business school. It is a traditional way to gain knowledge and experience and is popular amongst those who want to change their career path or are fresh out of school. It is definitely expensive, time-consuming, and doesn’t guarantee any return. You might have to prepare and qualify for a written exam or an interview to get through. However, you tend to make a lot of contacts during a business school program. 

There are many business schools around the globe –

  • Columbia Business School
  • IMD Business School
  • IESE Business School, Spain
  • Insead Business School, France
  • London Business School, UK
  • Stanford Graduate School of Business, USA
  • Centre for creative leadership, USA

Real-time Feedback

Feedback is a great tool for a leader as it gives him a chance to change and evolve himself. The leader is self-aware of what changes he needs to do to improve on his skill and learn from his mistakes. However, it is difficult to find people in your workplace who can give genuine feedback and guide you on how to improve on it. 

Books

Reading is one of the most valuable ways to acquire any skill. It helps us gain knowledge about the subject and also about other’s experiences in that field. There are tons of books and resources available in the market on leadership. 

Blogs and Websites

Apart from online courses and certifications, you can get access to vast data available on websites and blogs related to your area of expertise. These blogs and websites give valuable and latest information available in your field. This information can be used to brush your skills and learn new insight which you cannot get in books or schools. 

Team and workspace

A leader or an entrepreneur should be an expert in his field and ready to gain information from any resource. Knowledge doesn’t come in a single day but it is a continuous journey. A leader has to learn each day and share the ideas and thoughts with his team. It is not necessary that he will have all the answers. Rather he should be ready to tap knowledge from his team and create a culture of learning amongst them. He should be ready to take critical feedback from his team and workspace and improve on it. 

Conferences and workshops

Conferences are a great way to meet and learn from leaders. It helps us to gain the latest information in that field and how we can apply it in our life. There is also an opportunity to network with like-minded people. There are many workshops and training sessions organized during the conference which help in gaining hands-on experience. It helps in changing your perspective when you meet people during workshops or conferences. 

Failures

You might think about how a failure can be a leadership opportunity? However, it is a proven fact that all the Stalwarts have faced many failures in their life but they didn’t succumb to these failures. Instead, use these failures as a learning tool and grow strong to become successful leaders. A failure teaches us gratitude and makes us mentally tough. It gives us new challenges and helps us to learn from our mistakes and evolve as a leader. So next time when you fail, don’t get disheartened. Treat it as a part of your journey, learn from it and leave it behind. 

Volunteering

Another leadership opportunity which you can gain is through volunteering. It is a great way to give back to your society and cultivate a leader in you. Volunteering helps to elevate your spirits, increase your network and help in building leadership skills. You are able to improve on your ability to solve problems and soft skills too. In addition, volunteering also helps in boosting your confidence and prepares you for your future challenges. 

Conclusion

Leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders – a true quote by Tom Peters, who is a co-author of the bestselling book ‘In search of excellence’. Leadership is a continuous process that improves our thinking by continuously practicing, learning, and preparing ourselves for the next challenges. Hope our list of resources will motivate you to self-learn and cultivate the quality of leadership in you.

24 Jul
Blogs, Leadership

11 Powerful Traits of a Successful Leader

Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Bob Iger, Reed Hastings, Mary Barra, and the list is endless… What made these people successful leaders? Were they born to be successful or was it something else? Can these traits be acquired? If you want to know answers to all these questions, you are reading the right article. 

Someone has rightly said,

 “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.” 

With the passing of time, companies come and go but some companies last for ages and the secret behind these companies is great leadership. Great leaders have the ability to motivate their employees and help them to visualize their goals and sync them with that of the organization. They have the charisma to hold the employees, investors, and consumers together and build a company with a clear vision. Tim Cook, the CEO of APPLE, Sheryl Sandberg the COO of Facebook, Iger the executive chairman and former CEO of Disney, Hastings the cofounder of Netflix, Mary Barra, the CEO of GM motors are all examples of great leaders and visionaries. Not all of these leaders were born leaders but they acquired these leadership traits with passing time. There is no fixed path that they took, which leads to success but what is common amongst them are these 11 traits, which help them achieve what they want. 

So let’s have a look at these 11 powerful traits behind successful leadership –

  • Effective Communicator

Successful leaders are effective communicators and they know when to talk, how to talk, and when to listen. They can clearly explain the goals of the organization or special tasks to their employees in an effective manner. The leaders must clearly explain the task to the employees and set an expectation for them. The communication should happen at all levels – one to one, with the entire department or staff via direct, email, phone, or social media. 

A leader should be approachable and should involve people from all levels. He should be a good listener and help people to fix their problems whether professional or personal level. 

  • Goal Setter

The leader sets clear goals for their team and organization and motivates and influences the team to achieve them. He will never give up on things easily and always find ways or solutions to achieve his goals. 

  • Accountable and Responsible

Good leaders hold themselves responsible for any mistake or failure. They set an example for the entire team to follow him/her if they have committed a mistake. They support their team members and encourage them to experiment and innovate even if they fail. 

  • Visionary

A visionary is a person who knows the future and makes concrete goals that will benefit the organization. He knows how to strike a balance between stability and growth and how much to take the risk. He foresees the change around him and takes the necessary steps and approaches to adapt to the change. The leader has to be strong in making necessary decisions but not rigid in case there is a better possibility available. 

  • Fostering Creativity and Innovation

Just like Darwin’s theory of evolution, you have to continuously adapt and evolve over time and if you will fail to evolve, you will perish. The same rule is applicable to organizations. If a company is rigid about its own ideology and does not evolve or create things that the market wants, it will soon perish. A leader has to foster creativity and innovation in its employees and constantly train them with new technologies. When the team will grow, the leader will grow and so will the company. 

  • Effective Relationship

Building relationships is not restricted to the professional level. A true leader shares a personal relationship with the employee. The relationship should be so strong that an employee can depend on his boss for anything. 

  • Influencer

A leader influences and inspires their employees to work towards the company’s mission and goals. It encourages people to become self-driven towards the company’s vision. It empowers people with goals and motivates them continuously to strive to achieve them. This is a true leadership trait. But it cannot be achieved just by communicating. The leaders must lead by example. He should set examples for his team so they can follow. 

  • Empathy

Another vital leadership competency is empathy. A leader understands the needs of his team and is aware of their feelings and thoughts. With this quality, he can understand his team members well and bring the best out of them. A leader should empathize and support their team members in need. A leader can understand the root cause of poor performance and can help the employee improve and excel. It also gives a chance to grow the relationship between employer and employee. 

  • Integrity

Integrity refers to trust, reliability, and honesty. This is a very important trait required to be successful in any field. You need to be trustworthy and you need to be surrounded by people who are trustworthy. Once you build this trait within and around yourself, you function as a strong team and no one can stop you from achieving your goals. 

Leaders with integrity take accountability for any mistake done by them or by their team. They try to understand why mistakes happened, learn from them, and make new paths to achieve their targets rather than blaming others. They need to drive their team and organization with integrity and carve proper practices, methodologies, and values to create a good working environment for the organization. 

  • Quick learner

True leaders are quick observers who can perceive the problem, quick thinkers to understand what caused the problem, and quick in finding solutions. They have good analytical and critical thinking skills and they adapt well to new technology or uncertainties. Their constant curiosity to know sets them apart from the crowd. They always desire to learn new and implement them quickly in the current scenario. 

  • Team builder

The ability to create and lead a successful team is vital for any leader. The performance of any leader is determined by the performance of the team. A leader should constantly fuel his team to achieve the set goals and should celebrate every little success of the team. Even if the team fails, he should take accountability for the failure and never blame his team member. Also, building the same culture within the team is also very important for the success of the organization. Practicing integrity and empathy within a team will always help a leader to achieve a strong and reliable team. 

Conclusion

There is no fixed path or road to success. But to achieve the success you need to practice these traits consistently. You need to hold people together and you need to build teams in order to achieve your mission. You need to learn from mistakes and evolve from them. You need to be ready for future challenges and that will define – who you are.

21 Jun
Blogs, Extraordinary Team

Building Extraordinary Teams of Ordinary People

As we all know, the value of a well-integrated, high-performance team is critical to improving business performance. Although all companies from multinational organizations to small and medium-sized enterprises face unique challenges, there are fundamental similarities in building efficient teams. It is very important and desirable to create and maintain a team culture in a corporate environment. Thanks to the people involved for their great commitment. The collective efforts of people who work together to achieve a common goal make you win. The combination of great talents generates energy and proves to be very efficient. When you have the right people, who are willing to share your dreams and are determined to realize them, the path to success becomes much easier. 

Here are 5 simple but more effective tips to help you create a great team culture: –

Provide Team Resources

Without the right and sufficient resources, no task in this world can be solved. Therefore, an effective team culture also requires some basic resources-a specific regular meeting place where you can review the entire innovation process and discuss ideas. The most basic requirement of a successful team is to give your team enough space to make it clear that sometimes it is okay to fail, which can greatly improve the morale of your team. The pressure of high expectations requires continuous use of your creativity and teamwork to support them, rather than the pursuit of excellence. These are some of the simplest but most valuable intangible resources you can provide the team to obtain effective results.

Clearly define responsibilities & objectives

Most professionals experience overlap in individual roles and team functions at some point, which can sometimes lead to confusion and frustration. Clearly defined responsibilities and goals at the individual and team levels are the keys to employee engagement and motivation. Start by creating an appropriate job description and additional daily responsibilities. It is also important to define how to measure productivity to keep team members motivated.

Provide varied and interesting work

Diversified and interesting work can make employees and the team more engaged. In order to make the work interesting, it is important to give full importance to the individual talents of the team members, give full play to their strengths, and share the tasks that they lack preparation for. Regular reviews/updates are also important to assess whether employees need to take on more or fewer responsibilities to maintain engagement.

Organize regular informal team meetings

A rigid structure or subordination to management is not always helpful, but employees should be encouraged to form teams, understand their tasks, and make appropriate decisions are very effective for informal teams and formal teams. Too much pressure on teams that they need to work hard, and teams that need leadership in some areas, often prevent the team from developing and realizing its true potential. Informal communication inside and outside the team makes a significant contribution to the performance of any team. You can organize regular informal team meetings so that the team can express themselves, their thoughts, emotions, and their vision for a specific project completely and freely to ensure that the team works effectively.

Implement mentoring programs

When you have too many instant reports and no time to meet with them regularly, the leader’s ability to support and guide team members is considered one of the most valuable qualities in the eyes of employees. We recommend implementing a mentoring plan to ensure that all employees receive the support they need. A mentor can be a role model for anyone and can share knowledge and advice to help other employees improve their careers. Mentoring provides a satisfactory and more positive working environment for instructors and trainees.

28 May
Blogs, Leadership

5 Roles and Responsibilities of a Team Leader

In the present super-competitive business environment, the managers, executives, and chiefs must have different leadership skills to promote a healthy work environment in the organization. After learning comprehensive leadership skills and get trained for the specific, incorporating them in the workplace is a must. 

With leadership skills, you can work on resolving the conflicts between peers, you can utilize techniques that will help in improving the productivity of employees, you can drive activities that can enhance their work performance, you can lead the changes in the organization, and whatnot. 

There are some key roles and responsibilities of a team leader that will help them define their job and organize the work structure. Some of the major roles and responsibilities of a team leader are mentioned below: 

1. Managing the Admin & Operational Work 

From all the paperwork to emails, meetings, performance monitoring to reporting, a team leader role falls under such category. It is crucial to take responsibility for the teamwork, and their achievements. Of course, a team won’t be handling such a work part, but it’s just that team should strictly adhere to the process, follow the time-management technique and ease your workload as much as possible.

2. Motivate the Team

Despite the fact that you lead and motivate the team, there are substantial leadership skills and qualities that can drive performance as well. They are:

– Training and tutoring 

– Conveying objectives and targets 

– Setting targets 

– Timely feedback

– Team meetings 

– Working on Personal Development Plans

– Sharing ideas through Presentations & reports 

– Supporting social and well-being exercises 

– Rewards & Incentives 

Your team will possibly meet their objectives when they feel motivated & supported by team leaders. You need a strong handle on their individual targets, how well they’re performing and giving them feedback, and then providing the right coaching accordingly. There are some team members who’ll need more support from you as a leader in comparison to others. Just make sure you fulfill all those requirements and motivate them to do better. 

3. Manage Performance 

As a team leader, your roles and responsibilities include performance management. Basically, it’s two-fold:

– You have to praise your team members interpersonal skills and analyze their job, work, and how they perform throughout. 

– It is important to keep a close check on the quality of their work, what exactly they are delivering and how it’s making an impact in the organization. 

Performance management is pivotal. Hence, make sure that as a team leader, your approach towards it should be clear and precise. And, when you are keeping a close check on their performance, you’ll be able to justify your role and what could be improved. 

4. Problem-Solving Skill 

Basically, it’s more of a people management skill. Solving conflicts, finding the cause of the problem, uniting different personalities, that’s what real art is. It is important to empathize with both sides and solve the problems among the team members. 

Rather than punishments and sorry games, you can try different techniques to solve the conflicts. Some of them are mentioned below: 

– Introduce some new rules of working together 

– Separate tasks to avoid any sort of clash or conflict 

– Try to incorporate meditation in the daily schedule 

– Work on Improving team building activities 

5. Welfare of the People 

Being a team leader, it is vital to take care of the people in your team. Hence, take care of the atmosphere, environment, work balance, and compliance. 

– Health & safety training 

– Safeguarding the team against bullying 

– Control working hours 

– Compliance with the company’s laws & regulations for employees 

– Safeguarding the team against any abuse  

Conclusion

So, these are the roles and responsibilities of a team leader. You have to make sure that you fulfill all of these to be a great leader and an idol for your team members – in terms of growth, progress, ethics, work management, and performance.

01 May
Blogs, Quality Game

The Game of Quality: Step-by-step guide to productivity

According to the father of the Kaizen philosophy Masaaki Imai, our working life, social life, and even our home life deserve to be continuously improved. The term “Kaizen” is made of two terms- ‘Kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘zen’ means ‘for the better. 

The history of this miraculous technique can be traced back to Toyota Industries after World War II. Later, this technique was made popular by the works of Masaaki Imai who wrote two books on the subject namely- “Kaizen: Japanese spirit of improvement” (1985) and “Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management” (1997). This made this concept eminent in the West. Masaaki Imai also founded the Kaizen Institute in 1985 which provides training and certifications for the same. In India, Tata Motors has successfully implemented the Kaizen technique.

The Core of Kaizen: Pure Improvement for everyone, everywhere and every day

  • Knowing one’s customers and their interests to enhance their experience (Know Your Customer)
  • Targeting Zero Waste by aiming to create value and eliminating waste (Let it flow)
  • Following the action by going where things happen and creating value there( Go to GEMBA)
  • Empowering people by an organization or team. The same goals should be set for the teams and they should be provided with the systems and tools to reach them. (Empower People)
  • Transparency is the key. Speak with real data. An organization’s performances and improvements must be tangible and visible. (Be transparent)

How to do it?

  • Discovering the potential for improvement
  • Evaluating the existing methods 
  • Generate original ideas
  • Development of implementation plan
  • Implementing the plan
  • Evaluating the new method

PDCA: The golden cycle for Kaizen

The PDCA cycle is a great complementary technique for enhancing the achievements of implementing Kaizen-

  • Plan– Planning needs to be done to establish the goals and counter steps. For planning, both the future endeavors and the past performance of the organization are taken into consideration. 
  • Do- This step involves implementing the measures and countermeasures deliberated above.
  • Check- This step is to measure the achievements or the effectiveness of the measures taken in the preceding procedures. This also helps in identifying the gaps between the actual and the expected outcomes. 
  • Act- In this procedure, analysis is done of the causes of the gaps identified. This stage also deliberates necessary actions to improve the changes. 

Benefits of implementing Kaizen:

  1. Waste Reduction- Kaizen plays a key role in waste reduction and elimination of overproduction. This, in turn, leads to significant improvement in the quality of the products, saves time, and reduces efforts in doing unnecessary activities. Thus, the organization is successfully able to transform its potential losses into profits. Another Japanese technique that helps in waste reduction while implementing Kaizen is Muda, which means waste and refers to activities that do not add value to the organization. Rather such wastes increase cost and prolong the time taken to complete important tasks at hand. 
  2. Customer Satisfaction- Knowing your customers and their issues help the organization know what needs to be improvised. The necessary steps are then taken and the PDCA cycle can be used to do so. High customer satisfaction can also be attributed to the reduced prices and improved quality of the products. 
  3. Improved Productivity-Elimination of waste while implementing Kaizen leads to enhanced productivity. While Kaizen is not an overnight process, it does facilitate the environment that allows for continuous improvement. It also helps in the standardization of products.
  4. Improved Communication-Implementation of Kaizen leads to good communication between the management and the employees. Many organizations that have implemented this technique have observed that employees begin to feel empowered and confident to talk to their management. Moreover, the management also becomes more interactive to know and implement the changes required.
  5. Better Safety– Safety is ensured with this technique which focuses on clean up and organization of the workplace. This provides a better control mechanism to the employees and they are also encouraged to make suggestions regarding their safety. This helps in mitigating accidents and injuries.
  6. Improved teamwork- Kaizen is an improvement-oriented approach with its foundational pillar being teamwork. It builds team spirit as the employees are required to work inside and outside their respective departments. This also enables employees from various departments to come together and solve their problems by cooperating.

Leadership Skills- In the Kaizen model, it is desirable for every time involved to have a leader. This motivates the employees to improve themselves, take up the role of a leader, and emerge as a winner. 

Disadvantages of Kaizen

  1. Employee Discomfort: One major disadvantage observed by the organizations that implemented this technique is the discomfort of employees to the change. The employees become accustomed and comfortable to the old ways of functioning and hence find it difficult to be productive with changes introduced as a result of the implementation of Kaizen. 
  2. Hence, the major challenge lies in involving the employees and making it easier for them to adapt to the changes. The transformation was done for cost reduction and waste elimination would go waste if the employees are unhappy with it and fail to adopt it.
     
  3. Training requirement – Since Kaizen is both a philosophy and an action plan, proper implantation of its methodology requires training staff and management to understand the same. This implies culling out time out of daily tasks by the employees to undergo the training. This may or may not interest them and they may find it tedious to implement a concept they are unfamiliar with. Moreover, such pieces of training increase the cost of the organization. 
  4. Difficulty with existing systems- The organization may realize that it is difficult to alter the entire management system of a business. It may be easier to implement in organizations that do not have existing management systems.