Kategorie: Business

Today I’m excited to share something I’ve be working on since I joined Zoom to lead Product integrations. At our annual conference Zoomtopia, we launched Zapps — which enables 3rd party developers to create and distribute apps that enrich the Zoom experience and enhance the meeting workflow to increase productivity before, during and after a meeting.

Over 35 launch partners are building Zapps, including Asana, Atlassian, Box, Cameo, Coda, Coursera, Chorus, Docket, Dot Collector, Dropbox, Exer, Gong, Hubspot, Kahoot, Kaltura, LoomieLive, LucidSpark, Miro, Mural, PagerDuty, Pitch, Remix Labs, Rev, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Slido, Superhuman, SurveyMonkey, Thrive Global, Unsplash, Woven, Wrike, WW and Zendesk.

I wanted to take a moment and mark this occasion by sharing why I believe this is important. As avid readers know (all three of you), I’m a long time startup founder. These days consumer and SaaS startups need to ride platforms to win. And there’s some important details in how we designed Zapps that provide exactly what I’d look for in a platform as an entrepreneur.

A Flexible Canvas for the Full Meeting Workflow

Zapps are web views that run in the Zoom experience. This provides a flexible expressive canvas, with the ability to iterate faster. And we made it so they don’t just run in a Zoom Meeting or Webinar (which is in and of itself a feat), but in the Client Home. That means people can use it independently from meetings, and is critical for supporting the full meeting workflow — before, during and after.

App Store, Word of Mouth and Viral Distribution

Distribution is everything for app developers, and what makes for a great platform opportunity. We literally stuck an App Store where 300M people are paying attention each day — in Zoom meetings. Discovering Zapps can happen before, during or after a meeting. And especially during.

One of the key platform features is one click to Share a Zapp as a screen share in a meeting. This is perfect for using something like Pitch.com for a presentation. But it’s also word-of-mouth distribution where you show-and-tell.

You can also Send a Zapp. This actually sends a deep link to a page within the Zapp, so you can get your team on the same editable page in a meeting. And if they haven’t Added the Zapp yet, they do so on the fly, and then join everyone on that page. Sending works outside the meeting through chat notifications, so you can spread a Zapp across your network of contacts.

What’s Next

Our next step is to build and ship the first Zapps this year, and then open it up. Enabling developer to create new meeting experiences and enhance the meeting workflow will product apps the likes before we’ve never seen. And I believe this not just a platform opportunity, but a new model for SaaS distribution. Where apps are social objects — for discovery, adoption and engagement.

Today the world works on Zoom. And tomorrow it will be a platform that makes the world work better.

Disclaimer: opinions expressed here are my own.

Introducing Zapps, The Platform for Apps on Zoom is copyrighted by Ross Mayfield. If you are reading this outside your feed reader or email, you are likely witnessing illegal content theft.

Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

German version here. We talk a lot about making HR processes more engaging and improving the employee experience. Software for employee engagement has grown, in the space of a few years, to more than a billion euro market.  Making HR processes easier and simpler is a big business.

Also in the last few years we have seen HR leaders take a public role in promoting the employer brand.  We hear a lot about purpose these days. Awards for best employer, best employee brand etc have become a booming industry in their own right. HR is trying hard to shed its image as a bureaucracy, and in many cases it has succeeded in simplifying and speeding up processes, whether in recruitment, learning, performance management or even payroll. My linkedin feed is well populated with HR leaders extolling their digital transformation projects, D&I initiatives and how well they have helped their organizations transition to work from home. This is laudable. HR needs to market what it does more effectively, so having HR leaders communicating with a broader, external audience is a good thing. HR famous is okay, but business famous is better.

But until this weekend, I‘d never seen an HR leader look to fundamentally transform the employment contract. They were always complex serious legal documents, filled with mighty words and long sentences with many commas, even in english. Getting the contract assembled and signed has always been the weak link in the onboarding process. It is when the slick recruiting process meets the legal 10 point font. Ordnung muss sein means lots of paperwork.
I was totally thrilled to see this contract from the Dutch Chocolate maker, Tony‘s Chocolonely. Yes this is the actual employment contract-

Kristel Moedt, the Head of People and Culture posted it on LinkedIn with these words.

“Did you ever think to join a cool, informal company until you got your new employment contract under your nose? At least 8 pages with some very useful things in it and a lot of formal clauses you had to stick to? We did pretty well at Tony’s Chocolonely  but thought we could raise the bar
Together with Bruggink & Van der Velden  and employment lawyer Daniël Maats we created our 1-page contract. We laid down the most important things and for the rest, we rely on mutual trust and common sense. And okay, there is a 2nd page with our values and promises we make to the new Tony.
Proud of this ‘ticket of trust’. Thank you Daniël Maats  for your help and of course Tony’s Arno Bleeker for the cool design.

The comments are also worth a read. She notes they are working on a German version too.
This is the most impressive example of HR process re.design I‘ve seen ages. It is quite remarkable on several levels.

1.  Profound simplicity and attention to detail
2. It amplifies the company brand. Check out their website and marketing. This aligns perfectly.
3. It shows that almost anything can be improved through thoughtful design
4. It will make Tony‘s a very popular chocolate with HR departments.
5. if you can do this to the employment contract, you can do it to pretty much any process.

I really like the “Ticket of Trust“ term. It encapsulates the employment brand promise of the company and the employee obligation to the company brilliantly.  The company brand focuses strongly on slave-free chocolate and social justice, so this reflects and amplifies that.

Well done to the HR team, the designer and the employment lawyer. This is genius. Time to buy some Tonychocolonely chocolate I think.

Melting HR bureaucracy is copyrighted by Thomas Otter. If you are reading this outside your feed reader or email, you are likely witnessing illegal content theft.

Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

Warning: long, rambling metaphor. Readers of my blog and twitter feed will have seen that I have an interest in music. One of my favourite albums is the first Stone Roses Album, The Stone Roses. I play this record a lot. Here is the song, Waterfall, from the album.

The wikipedia entry is worth a scan, But have a listen to the album ,or, better, buy it from your local record stone. There is an interesting back-story about album cover. The band’s second album was not nearly so successful, it failed for a number of reasons. It was way late, the market had shifted with Oasis and other britpop bands , massive expectations, band stress, maybe arrogance, record company pressure and so on. It probably didn’t deserve the level of criticism it received, and the band didn’t survive the fall out.

As the Guardian noted,

This is the acme of Difficult Second Albums. Over five years after their epochal debut, the Stone Roses emerged from tortuous recording sessions, sounding like a baggy Led Zeppelin, to find that fellow Mancunians Oasis had stolen their thunder. There was no second chance either; they hated each other so much that they split up before they could record another note. In retrospect, the title’s inferred comparison to the resurrection of Jesus, however ironically meant, was perhaps unwise. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/sep/19/3

The first album’s influence remains massive, nevertheless.

The difficult second album syndrome is well known in the music industry, but there are many exceptions to the rule. Some bands have a second album that is better than their first, some lurk in obscurity for ages, and then have breakthrough. Radiohead’s first album, Pablo Honey , had one massive hit, Creep. With the second album, Bends, they changed style dramatically, becoming far less grudge like, and pioneering more complex electronic music. They have since become one of the most successful bands of the last 25 years, commercially and critically. Some second albums build on the success of the first, driving new sales of the first album too, and establishing and expanding a loyal fan base, who then buy the third/ fourth album. With Elbow, I heard one of their later albums, and then bought the back catalogue. Tears for Fears was that band I liked before most my friends had heard of them, and then when Songs from the Big Chair came out, I kept telling people how great the first album was. This was probably quite irritating.

But the second album is a challenging endeavor.

When you have a successful niche product, you eventually need to make decisions about what to do next. Perhaps the niche product alone isn’t enough to sustain the expectations of the investors or the market, so you think about additional products. Sometimes the innovation of the first product begins to be duplicated by larger vendors, and is eventually subsumed into a suite offering. Increasingly, there is the option/temptation of being acquired by a larger vendor too, or perhaps to make your own acquisitions. You and your team may also be brimming with ideas of new products you could be building. Maybe you have vision and ambition to grow from being a niche vendor into some sort of suite.

There are a couple of good videos on SaaStr about this challenge.

I’d urge you to watch them.

Before you charge off and build an additional product, I suggest you ponder the following.

1. Why are you doing it? Have you identified a real market gap, or are you just copying what others are doing?
2. Is the new product derivative or is a radical departure from what you have done before? (McKinsey Horizon 2 v Horizon 3).
3. Do you need to build or should you acquire?
4. Can your product and engineering cope with the prioritization of two products, what changes will you need to make to the organization?
5. You aren’t an unknown start up anymore, so customers will have different expectations of MVP.
6. Are you prepared to disrupt your existing product and its positioning?
7. Will your salesforce and marketing function be able to position two or more products?
8. Are you building additional features on top of your existing product and commercializing them, or are you really building a new product?
9. Are there obvious cross-sell opportunities?
10. Will the new product expand the addressable market for the current product?
11. In 2 years time do you expect the new product to have a bigger ARR than the current product?
12. Will this be the first of several new products?
13. How will this disrupt existing partnerships, alliances and integrations?

You have a bunch of advantages building a second product

1. You have existing customers you can ask. This is especially effective if you plan to build a product that sells to the same, or an adjacent buying centre.
2. You have funding, or easier access to it. If you don’t then you have a different set of problems.
3. You can find early adopters easily.
4. You have engineers and product managers that have HRTECH competence (security, data model etc)
5. You have platform features you can leverage.
6. You have a marketing function with established HRTECH channels, analyst relations, mailing lists, influencers etc. You have brand.
7. You have partners, for instance SIs, that can help drive sales and adoption.

You have some risks.

1. You take your eye off the product that has made you successful so far, and alienate those customers.
2. You over-assume the team that built the first product is capable of building the next. In musical parlance, do you need a new producer?
3. You replace the original team with too many “enterprise” hires, losing your original spark.
4. Your first success makes you arrogant, and you underestimate the competition and customer expectations.
5. You spend too long in analysis paralysis, and over think the MVP, arriving too late, and distant from genuine customer need.
6. You build on the older, familiar stack, but you add to your technical debt.
7. You don’t figure out how to communicate that the combination of your first and second product together makes a more compelling offering. Your marketing can’t navigate the niche to portfolio transition.
8. Your sales folks are less comfortable leading with the new product, and lurk in nostalgia mode.
9. Selling to a new buying centre is not always easy.
10. You damage existing partnerships with other vendors

I’d also urge you to read Anshu’s stack fallacy post. I see this playing out in HRTECH too. ATS vendors think it is easy to build candidate engagement. Learning vendors think performance management is theirs for the taking, and payroll vendors think that building HR is really simple because they know payroll and payroll is complicated. Core HR vendors tack on a survey tool, and they reckon they have employee engagement nailed. Talent management vendors think core HR is straight-forward. Everyone seems to think they can do internal mobility solutions.

So building additional products requires you to develop a new set of skills, and your ability to prioritize will need to step up dramatically, and it will change your company far more than you imagine. Don’t do it just because your VC reckons you should. For many niche vendors, the best option is to remain a niche vendor. Do that one process better than anyone else does, and ignore the clarion call to expand. One awesome album is a pretty fine thing.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite examples of a band that coped with massive adversity and metaphorized into something new and equally special. The story of how Joy Division became New Order, in the wake of Ian Curtis’ death is quite remarkable. Here is the New Order song, Blue Monday. It is the best selling 12″ single of all time, and an immense influence even today.

The difficult second album. Advice for HRTECH vendors. is copyrighted by Thomas Otter. If you are reading this outside your feed reader or email, you are likely witnessing illegal content theft.

Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

One of the challenges mid-sized businesses have to face when expanding is making sure that their underlying process will support their new supply chain models and global operations. If you have an ERP system, you may have not chosen it with expansion in mind, and it might be limited. Using the wrong software could make it difficult or impossible to support your global operations plan. This is why you may need to consider switching solutions or evaluating if your current software will be able to support your needs. Here are a few things executives need to pay attention to make sure that their ERP software can handle global expansion.

Global
or Regional Management

One of the first questions you’re going to need to
answer is whether you want to run your operation as a collection of
interconnected regional businesses or as an integrated global company. Management
will need to be able to get a clear view of operations and inventory and ensure
coordination between distribution
and manufacturing.

The issue here is that many mid-sized businesses will
need to make acquisitions to gain a foothold in their new markets and these
might need to work with a different supply chain as your main operation.
Functions like accounting could also be run locally.

There are various solutions here. You can decide to go
for a completely regional model or a hybrid one where you run your main
operation globally and your new acquisitions in a regional way. If that’s the
case, you have to pick an ERP that can accommodate both scenarios.

At the end of the day, you want a system that will
allow you to get information on your global operation as easily as for any
regional location. You also want to be able to get a quick snapshot of how this
regional location is affecting the big picture.

Support
for Regional or Local Requirements in a Global ERP

Another thing you’ll have to consider when looking at an ERP is making sure that processes will be able to be standardized globally. For one, tax rules will differ depending on the region, and your ERP might not be compatible with some of the reporting measures in certain countries. This is why it would be wise to not only use the right ERP but consider working with a PEO on the ground to ensure compliance.

An international PEO solution like New Horizons Global Partners will be able to help you standardize your processes and make sure that you understand and can meet reporting requirements in any market you’re in. They can also help with taxes that are unrelated to payrolls, like corporate income taxes, digital transaction taxes, VAT, sales taxes, or GST. Also, they can provide you with a legal landscape of any market you’re thinking of entering and layout the compliance requirements that will be needed in any particular jurisdiction.

Possibility
to Centralize or Decentralize Specific Processes

As you go, you may realize that some of your processes
would be more efficient if you centralized or
decentralized them. That could include things
such as inventory control, materials planning, or order management. This could
help enhance coordination between distribution and manufacturing shared between
multiple product divisions and operating regions.

Or, you may need to decentralize some processes to
meet your customers’ needs or issues proactively. We can think of things like
invoicing, shipment, or order changes, for example. This is why you need an ERP
that will be able to support certain process models both in a centralized and
decentralized way.

Other
Requirements to Consider

You also want an ERP that will support regional views in financial management. For instance, a manager in a different country should be able to access data in their language and currency, and the same set of data should be available to your corporate officers in English and dollars.

Also, many ERP vendors will not have the resources
needed to support a global operation. Some may only provide support during
certain hours. Many will also lack local expertise. These two factors mean that
there will be more risks and costs associated with global deployment.

Another thing you need to look at in an ERP is
scalability. You want your solution to be able to grow as your business does.
You don’t want it to become an obstacle to expansion and want to make sure that
it will be able to support more complexity as you go. Your ERP system should
also be able to adapt to new processes or changes to established ones easily.

Choosing the right ERP
solution is essential if you want to be able to keep track of your global
operation and adapt to new processes. Not only does it have to meet your
current requirements, but it’ll need to adapt to future requirements as you
continue to gain market shares and add pieces to your current structure.

The post How to Ensure Your ERP Software Can Handle Global Expansion appeared first on ERP News.

Leaders from global healthcare technology giant Philips and global managed services provider (MSP) Randstad Sourceright described how Philips’ total workforce management strategy enables the company to be agile in this time of uncertainty in a keynote address today at Procurement Reimagined, a new virtual event for procurement, supply chain and external workforce management professionals hosted by SAP SE (NYSE: SAP).

Martin Thomas, Philips’ head of total workforce management, talked about the value of having a holistic view of employees, contingent workers, and service providers to actively manage its total workforce with true agility. In fact, earlier this year when the pandemic hit, Philips’ visibility into its total workforce was critical in two significant ways. First, it enabled the company to protect all worker types by knowing who they were, where they were and the buildings to which they had access. Second, it enabled the company to quickly ramp up its production of monitors and ventilators, deploying its flexible workforce in new ways to meet the rapidly increased demand for these critical pieces of equipment.

Thomas explained:  “Our driving purpose at Philips is to make lives better, so when the pandemic hit, we wanted to do everything we could to increase the production of the monitors and ventilators that were in such high demand. Visibility into our highly skilled external workforce allowed us to shift and redeploy resources quickly to do that and keep our people safe.”

In the session, Thomas described Philips’ “zero base” approach to total workforce management: to examine the work that needs to be done first and then compare resources based on skill, capability, location, cost, and availability in the marketplace to make informed decisions about the best resource to get the work done. This approach requires a holistic view of the myriad workforce options, as well as strategic alignment across procurement and human resources (HR). Critical to its success is what Thomas describes as a three-way partnership among its HR team for talent acquisition, its procurement team to manage services procurement, and Randstad Sourceright, its MSP managing the global contingent workforce located in more than 25 countries.

Randstad Sourceright manages Philips’ large contingent workforce from requisitioning through invoicing and payment with SAP Fieldglass solutions. The MSP also provides detailed reports that give Philips’ leaders the insights to make informed decisions about how to complete work and maintain compliance with labor regulations, which vary in each country of operation. The team recently brought services procurement into the fold, a significant step in the execution of its total workforce strategy, as Philips maintains a sizable number of services contracts representing a significant amount of spend. Visibility into the skills, certifications, security needs, and compliance requirements of individuals working under a services provider contract is equally important to the success of Philips’ total workforce strategy.

Philips’ digital transformation and adoption of SAP Fieldglass solutions are driving positive outcomes, including significant cost savings, and most important, agility during these uncertain times to get the work done on time, at the highest quality, at the right cost.

The post Global Healthcare Technology Company Philips Describes Future of Work at SAP’s “Procurement Reimagined” appeared first on ERP News.

Apple introduced the next-gen macOS Big Spur in June 2020 at WWDC, which features the revamped look. This was such a major update that Apple named this superb version as 11. Yes, you heard me right, the macOS Big Sur is macOS 11.0.

The tech experts suggest that this is the biggest design update that
Apple has launched right from the announcement of Mac OS to the macOS Big Sur.
There has been a complete renovation with the macOS Big Spur from the exemplary
designs of the icons to the curvature of the corners of the window. And this
has been done to present a familiar yet fresh look. With so much said about
this new update that’s one of the best and well-received ever since its
announcement, let’s have a look at what fresh-out-of-the-box features make it a
desirable update:

1- Design Modifications:

macOS Big Spur comes to be known as one of the biggest design
updates-all thanks to the easy navigation and great controls that it bestows
the users. There has been a refinement in almost everything like we just
discussed the beautiful design in terms of color
and material palettes and the window corner curvatures. Some of the changes
include:

• The docks icons have been
  outlined in a manner that there is greater consistency with Apple’s ecosystem
  icons.

• A new-fangled Control
  Center has come into being that swears to deliver quick access to users to
  controls that appear from the desktop, which is available on the menu bar that
  can be customized.

• The controls and buttons
  will appear only during their need, and users notice them recede when their
  appearance isn’t necessary. You can play music settings, enable Dark Mode,
  Bluetooth, and WiFi controls from this menu bar.

• There are also some new
  designs and features in the Notification Center for having the widgets and
  alerts in a single view. The notifications are now interactive, and users can
  group these per the app.

2. Diverse App
Changes:

Apple Maps: Can’t resist having trusted source guides and longing to
create your designs? Well, you can do that on Mac, where you’ll find explicit
designs and versions for yourself. These guides may include vacation spots,
parks, and your favorite restaurants. Apple Maps also include indoor maps in
detail for major shopping centers and airports across the city.

You can refresh the extensions and decide as to which sites can access
these extensions and which not, and for what period. These have become a place
of pivotal importance in the Mac Apple Store.

The native web browser changed with the macOS Big Sur update. You can
have a privacy report for every website that you visit, prevent would-be
trackers from following you, and many other new features. You can also add
shortcuts to the Home Page and see an improvement in the tab design.

Another app that has seen updates is none other than Messages. The users
can now pin their favorite conversations at the screen’s top and find message
animations, tap backs, and typing indicators above the pins. There is a
flexibility of adding memoji’s, GIF effects, trending images, and group photos
in the messages.

3. Miscellaneous
Changes:

Some of the other useful yet new features launched on macOS Big Spur are
the AirPod device switching for helping you carry your tunes across the active
Apple Devices, The Photos App that has new editing tools. Also, the users will
witness a significant change in the camera that works well in
supporting HomeKit Secure Video for better facial recognition and a smarter
Siri that awaits you to explore the world with a voice search.

Notes, Reminders, Weather, Spotlight, and others are some of the other
apps that witnessed significant changes. The recent years have seen Apple not
leaking the newest macOS version name, but this year it kept quiet before
announcing macOS 11 Big Sur. This update is available for public beta testers
and developers for now. However, the official update is all set to be released
in the fall and will be free of cost for the compatible Macs.

The post Five Things to Know about macOS Big Spur Right Away appeared first on ERP News.

Contrary to popular belief, marketing isn’t about constantly promoting your business, products and services, and asking people to consider buying what you’re selling.

Instead, marketing involves influencing people’s buying decisions by educating, informing, and building a relationship with them over time. In simple words, it’s about building trust.

People buy from people they trust. And how can you build trust online? By becoming an educator whose main goal is to provide the best, most helpful answers to the questions your audience is asking.

The good news is that you’re probably already an authority in your industry. You’re running a business, so you probably know your stuff. What you might not know is how and where to share all that knowledge to entice more people to trust to buy from you.

Read on as we explain how you can build your authority and attract new customers by sharing your expertise online.

Start blogging

Blogging gives you the fantastic opportunity to showcase your expertise, skills, and personality and become an authority in your industry. Don’t sell but use this space to tell engaging stories that demonstrate your unique understanding of the challenges faced by your potential customers.

Write about your industry and provide expert-level content that answers your audience’s questions and concerns. Also, make sure that every blog post you publish is detailed and insightful, and offers helpful advice that your readers can implement right away. That’s what gets people’s attention and builds their trust in your business and offering.

(Want to learn more about your audience and the questions they’re asking? This post explains how to find your target audience and create content they care about).

The key to getting results with blogging is to be consistent so that your blog can quickly become a source of value to your audience. When you’re constantly showing up for your readers with useful tips and advice, they’ll come to trust you and feel more confident buying from you.

Not sure if blogging is the right strategy for your business, or don’t know how to get started? The following articles explain everything you need to know:

Guest post on relevant, authority sites

If you already have a blog but want to expand your reach, try guest blogging. Guest blogging can help get your name out there, outside of your website, blog, and regular social media circles.

If you’re not familiar with guest blogging, it involves writing content for other blogs or publications that are not only popular and trustworthy but also relevant to your business. Why consider it? Because you can reach more people than you ever could by just blogging on your own space.

The trick is finding the right blogs and publications that you can contribute to. You want to make sure that the audience on those sites is the one you want to attract to yours, and that your topics can help solve people’s problems or teach them something new. So, take some time to research and identify relevant blogs, and then engage with the editors to pitch your topics and ideas.

One major benefit of guest blogging is that you can usually include a link back to your website. This will attract new visitors to your site. Instead of adding a link to your homepage, consider sending readers to a specific landing page designed with them in mind.

Learn more about guest posting and how to develop an effective guest blogging strategy that turns readers into customers.

Document and promote a customer success story

A customer success story, also known as a case study, is another effective way to share your knowledge and expertise with the world. The best thing about it is that you get to show proof of the amazing results people can achieve with your products or services. While it’s not the only form of social proof that works, it is still one of the most popular and effective ways to nudge prospects into purchasing from you and becoming valued customers.

But what if you’re a new business? If you’re just getting started, you could donate a product or your time and expertise to an individual, a professional, or another business in exchange for being able to do a case study about the experience.

Once you release the case study on your website, make sure to also write a blog post about it. You could even do a video interview with the customer and release it on YouTube so you can reach even more people.

Not sure how to get started? We’ve got you covered with a simple guide that explains how to write a customer success story and how to make case studies an effective weapon in your digital arsenal.

Use videos to showcase your expertise

If you’re comfortable being in front of a camera, try creating videos to showcase not only your knowledge and expertise but also your personality. It will allow your audience to put a face to the brand and you can also demonstrate that you truly know your customers, business, and industry inside and out.

The truth is not many people are comfortable being in front of a camera. So, getting out of your comfort zone can also help you stand out from the crowd, especially if your competitors aren’t investing in videos either.

Make sure you take advantage and use videos not to sell your products or services but to provide real value to prospects and customers. That’ll get you one step closer to establishing yourself as a trusted voice in your industry.

Don’t know what types of videos to create? Here are eight types of videos and examples to help get you started.

Next steps

Building trust and establishing yourself as an industry expert is one of the key steps to attracting new prospects to your website. Once they’re on your blog and website, you’ll need to keep building a relationship with them to entice them to buy from you, to recommend you to others, and to keep them coming back.

In these posts you’ll find more tips and advice on how to improve your website and entice more visitors to buy from you:

The post How to build your online authority and attract new customers appeared first on Better business online: Tips, insight and advice.

Want your business to show up at the top of the search results when people are looking for your brand, products or services online? Although there are lots of search engine optimisation (SEO) tactics to help with that, there’s nothing more effective or affordable like setting up a Google My Business account.

Google My Business (GMB) is a free yet powerful tool that can help get your business in front of more customers looking to buy what you sell. It makes it easier for people to discover, learn about, and contact your business.

In this post, we’ll explain why getting your Google My Business listing set up is critical to your success, and how to go about creating yours so your business shows up more prominently in the search results.

Why you need a Google My Business account

Not sure if it’s worth creating a Google My Business account for your business? Here are five reasons why you need one.

1.    Control your reputation and the information that Google displays about your business

If you don’t sign up for GMB and claim your listing, Google will display information about your business in the search results that may not necessarily be accurate or complete. Your business description or critical information like your website address or contact information might be missing, which can prevent prospects from visiting your website or reaching out to you.

By creating and verifying your GMB profile, you can add all those important details about your business. This ensures that every time your business shows up on Google, the information displayed is up-to-date and presents your business in the best possible light.

2.      Get found at the top of the local search engine results

These days, it doesn’t matter if you run a consulting business or an old fashioned brick and mortar shop. Your customers and prospects are online. And that’s where they usually start their search for your business, products, or services.

Additionally, have you noticed that when you run a search on Google like “emergency plumber”, Google suggest “near me” or specific locations to complete your search?

That’s because most people think local when they run a search like this. Google then suggests specific locations to narrow down people’s search and make it easier for them to find local nearby businesses that are relevant to them.

What does this mean for you? It means that if you run a plumbing business and have a GMB profile filled out, your business may show up in the local results when people search for “emergency plumber near me” or “emergency plumber in London”.

What’s more, if your business profile is properly filled out and optimised, it can even show up at the top of the search results in a Google Maps results section, before the organic search results. This is a valuable top spot that can bring more visibility to your business and encourage more people to visit you or book your services.

3. Reassure searchers you’re a legitimate business

When people run a search on Google, they’re looking for products and services, but also for signs that the businesses selling them are legitimate and not a scam. It makes sense that they’d be wary of a business that has no description, website address or contact information in their profile on Google.

That’s why it’s critical that you sign up for GMB, claim your listing, and add all the important information about your business, such as:

• Your logo
• A description of your business
• Your contact information
• Your opening hours (including seasonal variations)
• A link to your website
• A cover photo
• Photos of the outside and inside of your business, as well as products

Filling out this information and making sure it’s always accurate and up-to-date can bring credibility to your business and encourage prospects to check out your website or store, and buy from you.

4. Make it easy for people to get in touch

A GMB profile that’s filled out with contact information, including a website address and phone number, makes it easy for prospects to get touch with you. All they need to do to give you a call is to tap the phone number on your profile on Google Search or Google Maps.

People can even ask you a question right there, on your profile page. This gives you the opportunity to engage with prospects and provide all the information they need.

Since the questions and answers are public on your page, other people can read them and be reassured that they’re making the right decision buying from you. This is particularly useful if you have no Google reviews for your business yet, as searchers can get a feel of how you’re interacting with your prospects and customers.

5.      Convince more people to buy from you

More and more people write reviews online about their experience with different businesses. GMB is a prime spot to show off those customer reviews so other people can read them and feel confident to buy from you.

So, once you get your GMB account set up, make sure you encourage your customers to write a few words about their experience with you. These reviews will show up on Google Maps and can entice more people to buy from you.

Read this post to learn how to attract more reviews from customers, as well as how to deal with negative reviews and turn them into a positive experience that your business can benefit from.

You can also take advantage of category-specific features that GMB provides to help give customers more information about your business and make it easier to interact with you. For example, if you run a hotel, you can add ratings to your listing on GMB. If you have a health and beauty business, you can add a booking button or a list of the services you provide.

How to set up Google My Business

If we’ve read this far, it means you realised how important it is to create your Google My Business profile. So, follow these steps to set up your account and verify your business.

1. Log in to the Google account you want associated with your business, or create a new Google account.
2. Go to google.com/create, and then type your business name. Select your business from the options that display. If your business doesn’t show up in the results, select Create a business with this name.

3. Enter your business name on the next page, and then select Next.
4. Select your business category. Try to choose the category that’s relevant to your business and what you’re selling. Select Next.

5. Select whether you have a location where people can visit.

•  If you don’t have a physical location, select the locations where you serve your customers, and then select Next. Select the country or region your business is based in, and then select Next.
• If you have a physical location, enter your address, and then select Next. If your business is displayed on the next page, select it from the list.  If it’s not displayed, select None of these, and then select Next. A map is displayed where you can add a marker on the exact spot where your business is located.

6. Select Next, and then select whether or not customers can purchase your products or services outside your physical location (for example, if you deliver or if you provide services in other areas).If you do, select Yes, select the areas you serve, and then select Next.

7. Add a phone number so prospects can quickly click or tap to call you. This information is optional so if you don’t have one, that’s fine. Select Next to go to the next step.
8. Enter your website address, and then select Next.

Note that you’ll need either a phone number of a website address to complete your GMB profile. If you don’t have a website, we’d strongly recommend creating one. Read this post to learn how quickly you can get your business and website online with 123 Reg.

9. Select Finish.
10. The final step is to verify your business. Enter your full address, and then select Next.

Postcard by Mail is usually the default verification option. However, if your business is eligible for other verification methods, such as email or phone, select the one you prefer. Fill in the required information, and then submit the form.

If you’ve selected Postcard by Mail, note that it can take up to two weeks to receive it in your mail. When you do receive it, sign in to your Google My Business account and select Verify location. Enter the verification code from your postcard to verify your business.

That’s it! Congrats on creating your Google My Business account and verifying your business. Note that it may take a few weeks for your business listing to appear on Google Search and Google Maps.

Wrapping up

If you want to show up at the top of the search results when people are looking for your business, products, or services online, you need a Google My Business account. And there are so many benefits to setting up your GMB account that you have no reason not to follow the steps in this article to create and verify yours. Good luck!

The post Five reasons you need a Google My Business page (and how to get one) appeared first on Better business online: Tips, insight and advice.

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.

Tony is a sales veteran with over nine years of experience in helping people find the right solutions to meet their needs. He started his journey in sales with door-to-door sales at Cutco, a premium cutlery service, eventually dipping his toes in the Technology Industry at Verizon as a Solution Consultant for three years.

When he saw a posting for Liquid Web as a Hosting Advisor, he applied right away, ready to expand his technical expertise in the world of Web Hosting. He has been enjoying his career at Liquid Web ever since. These days, Tony is ensuring our existing customers have the best solution for their business needs as a Standard Hosting Account Manager.

Why did you join Liquid Web?

I have a longstanding passion for the field of Technology; I’ve wanted to work in it since I was in junior high. While I was at Verizon and working on my technical credentials, a job opportunity opened at Liquid Web, and I couldn’t wait to apply. I’d heard through some colleagues of their work, culture, and family atmosphere, and I knew it was somewhere I needed to be. Not only would I be making a true difference for customers by recommending solutions that would grow their business, but Liquid Web would be making an impact on me, both personally and professionally. I call that a win-win.

What draws you to the Hosting Industry as a career?

The Hosting Industry blended all of my interests together. I was able to work with and learn multiple operating systems, basic and advanced hardware and software, and work with many different industries. Basically, my dream job in a nutshell.

Is there something specific at Liquid Web that you just love?

The thing I’ve loved most about working here is the friendships that I’ve made. My coworkers have become my best friends, both inside and outside of work. I also have developed a love of pinball, which was very new to me. Before COVID, at our Data Center in Lansing, a local pinball shop delivered a new pinball machine to our break room every few months, so there was always a new machine to play.

These days, Liquid Web does a fantastic job at keeping things fresh for employees, even while we are working remotely at home. We have tons of remote culture activities to choose from, including Euchre tournaments, contests, virtual runs, and more.

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

The company pays my entire health benefit for my family, which is extremely important to me. There are many employers which do not offer optimal health benefits to employees, and during times such as these, being able to count on my coverage for my family is such a blessing.

What is the biggest milestone you’ve accomplished?

My career progression is my biggest milestone at Liquid Web. I started as a Hosting Advisor initially, and worked hard to move up to working mid-market accounts as a Business Development Manager. These days, as a Standard Hosting Account Manager, I make sure our existing customers are on the right solution. It makes a huge difference to our customers to be on the right infrastructure for their websites or applications. You can think of me as the guy at the garage that customers come to get insider advice as they consider their next car or upgrade. They trust the Hosting Solutions I provide, because they know I have their best interests at heart. After all, that is what being a Helpful Human is all about.

What are you known for at Liquid Web? What do people specifically come to you for?

I tackle the technical aspects of our sales, which can be tedious and cumbersome to some of my peers. Others often come to me for help when something gets extremely technical, which ensures each and every potential customer is given all of the information they need to make a good business decision. Being able to provide that level of service to both customers and peers is something I am grateful for.

What is one thing you wish our customers knew about their hosting?

I wish potential customers could truly realize what they’re able to do with our platforms. Our VPS Hosting is great for businesses upgrading from shared hosting, providing more power and storage. And as your business grows, we can grow with you as you move into either Dedicated Hosting or Cloud Hosting, which both can provide high performance. Once you move to Liquid Web, you’ll find everything you need for your web hosting.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

I love being a father and husband, and investing time into my family. I also love retro gaming and have been investing in building a substantial Nintendo 64 catalog in 2020.

The post Meet a Helpful Human – Tony Coleman appeared first on Liquid Web.

Although the acronym VPS seems similar to VPN, do not confuse the two, as these are different IT services. In this post, we will help you distinguish a VPS vs VPN.

What is a VPS?

So, what is a VPS server?

Using software, a physical server can be partitioned into smaller virtual private servers (VPS) that many users can utilize, taking only the resources that their applications require.

After all, if you want to run a website or host an application, you will need to host it on a server.

Decades ago, this server was always a physical computer that you or your company would own and manage. However, it became simpler and more economical to outsource these servers and rent them from an Internet hosting provider. This provider is responsible for managing the hardware of the computer, and you can just install the software that you want on it (like a website).

As computers became more and more powerful, it was no longer practical to rent an entire server to one user who only needed to run a single website. In most cases, for both business and personal use, it was also not practical to buy an entire server. Even with a number of business applications and websites installed, in many cases, most of the resources of that server would sit idle and not in use. This represented a poor return on investment.

As a result, virtualization technologies were introduced and the virtual private server (VPS) was born.

For example, a physical server with 16 CPU cores and 32 GB of RAM could be broken into four virtual servers, each with a virtual 4 CPU core and 8 GB of RAM. The user has a more economical solution, and the person or company that owns the server is maximizing their resources as well. Each virtual server is then considered private to its user, because its resources are not shared with other users. It is like your own personal computer, except that it is hosted on the Internet.

When Should You Consider a VPS?

There are many benefits to virtual private servers. For example, if you need to host a relatively small website, then a server with a 2 CPU cores and 2 GB of RAM should be plenty. Unfortunately, you will not find a physical server this small. Servers are inherently expensive to produce, so making one that has minimal resources simply isn’t practical. However, you can find VPS Hosting that will fit your needs very well and be affordable.

As your website grows, you may want to make your VPS more powerful. Thankfully, this is straightforward to achieve in a few minutes, without needing to reinstall and reconfigure the whole server. Your hosting provider can help migrate you to a larger, more powerful VPS with considerably less difficulty than if you were trying to move from one physical server to another.

There are also alternatives to VPS. You can use shared hosting, which is even less expensive but only recommended for very small and simple websites. Or you can rent an entire physical server also known as a dedicated server if you need significantly more power. If you are considering either of these options, make sure to check out the full comparison between vps vs dedicated.

What is a VPN?

A virtual private network (VPN) creates a bridge over the Internet to connect users to resources securely. Since the VPN uses the Internet to connect users, it typically keeps the connections private by encrypting them. For example, any data that is sent from one office to another cannot be read by outsiders. This is the benefit of a virtual private network.

Business Use of a VPN

The Internet is a public network that connects computers around the world which allows people to access public resources from anywhere with a connection. However, there are some resources that should be kept private. For example, an organization can have private documents and websites (often called an intranet) that should only be accessed by its employees. In this case, it is more secure to keep these resources on a private network that only exist in the office.

Now, let’s say that this organization has many offices or remote workers in different locations. If the private network only exists in the headquarters of this organization, then employees in other locations will not have access to private resources. The solution to this problem is to create a virtual private network (VPN) that connects all these offices together.

Personal Use of a VPN

Another use case of a VPN is to offer anonymity to users. A user can connect their personal computer to a VPN, then any website that they choose to visit will go through the VPN first. This means that it is not possible for third-parties to know what websites you open, and these websites will only see the VPN that you are using and not your computer.

Let’s say that you connect your computer to a public Wi-Fi. In this case, the owner of this Wi-Fi has the ability to know all the websites that you open. Since most websites use HTTPS, the actual content that the user sends and receives is encrypted. But the domain names of the websites visited are still visible to the network or Internet service provider. Users can resolve this privacy concern by using a VPN. When accessing the Internet using a VPN, the only information that will be visible to the network is the fact that the user is connected to a VPN. Everything else including the websites visited will remain private.

Another common use for a VPN is to access geo-restricted content and to bypass censorship. Some websites will behave differently depending on the country from which they are accessed. For example, Netflix may have a movie that is available to the North American audience but not to Europeans. So, if you are in Europe, you can connect to a VPN that is located in the USA, and Netflix will work as if you were in the USA.

Using a VPS to Create Your Own VPN

Now that you understand the difference between a VPS vs VPN, you can see that it is possible to rent a VPS, and install a VPN software on it to obtain your own VPN. For example, see how to set up an openvpn on Windows Server 2019. Alternatively, you can choose to set up a cloud vpn for Windows through Liquid Web. You’ll be afforded the benefits of a private network without the hassle of installing, managing, or maintaining the VPN itself. 

To learn more about how the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting can help keep both your virtual private server and your virtual private network running smoothly, contact us.

The post What is the Difference Between a VPS and VPN? appeared first on Liquid Web.