Social Media has since long proved itself more than just Facebook or a chatting platform. It has evolved into something more powerful and substantial. It is an effective medium to share and express your thoughts and opinions. Hence, not only individuals but small businesses and large enterprises too have started exploiting social media for their brand recognition and promotion.

But as is the case with any technology; that when it gains popularity some people taste success while some, disappointment. This disappointment in turn gives rise to wrong beliefs and myths.

Here we have compiled a list of some myths of social media marketing that we will bust one by one:

Social Media Marketing requires constant updates

It’s true that a social media site with no updates is a dead one. If there is no contribution, there is no participation and reciprocation. But it’s no excuse to fill up your Facebook wall or flood your Twitter. Remember, too many updates will hardly give the opportunity to your followers to see a particular post. Secondly, overexposure leads to saturation.

Hence, instead of stuffing your social media sites with lots of content; try to focus on the quality of the content. Content should be relevant, informative, engaging, and sharable.

Social Media Marketing = Amass followers

People think that the measures of success on social channels are Likes, Shares, Tags, Subscribes, Mentions, Retweets, Followers, etc. Having thousands of Likes sure looks impressive, but is it really a true barometer to gauge your small business’s popularity or success? Most often than not, it means people mindlessly hitting on the button.
You don’t want an audience who is just hitting a thumbs-up button every time you share a feed. You want them to participate, spread the campaign, recommend others, provide feedback on your products and purchase them.

Social Media Marketing is simple and easy

This myth about social media marketing is one of the biggest ones. People have this illusion that social media marketing is simple and easy. Truth be told, social media marketing is not a job you can do during your coffee breaks. It requires much time, dexterity and nimbleness.

Successful social media marketing require the following things:

• Content plays an equally important role, if not more, in establishing your brand recognition. Hence, create creative content so that people find it interesting enough to read it, comment on it and share it.
• Create customized content for multiple networks.
• Invest in SEO and media optimization.
• Hire a professional if you think your internal team can’t handle it.

Social Media Marketing is Free

Social media is free to join but like any other marketing channel, you will need to invest some resources to reap the benefits of social media marketing.

• Creating content, posting, optimizing, and circulating it on multiple networks, requires a lot of time and creative resource.
• There are free managing tools available but they are not always adequate. Hence, social media marketing requires an intelligent and experienced professional for managing data flare-ups.
• Premium tools for modifying, controlling social media are not free.
• Commenting and posting on Facebook, twitter, etc. may not cost anything, but an effective social media campaign or sustaining it over a period involves investment.

Social Media is too difficult to measure

Marketers are learning that social media is not only about creating brand awareness or influencing perception but it can actually be used for revenue generation. You can measure the effectiveness of your social media activities; what you will need are appropriate tools for it.

With closed-loop reporting, you can identify exactly how much traffic social media drives to your social media website, how many leads social media generates, and how many of those leads convert into your customers. Now, you can even calculate the average cost-per-lead and customer across individual social media channels and/or in aggregate, the same way you do with every other marketing channel.

By overcoming these myths and misconceptions, you can surely augment your social media ROI.

Health in a Small Business

 
Corporate fitness plans and regular engagements around this are essential to keep your employees in the best shape. Small steps are all it takes to help your establish a more healthy and employee-friendly work environment.
 
. Organise a corporate health challenge: Some companies in India have already taken the initiative of educating their employees on the importance of maintaining good health and staying fit. Under this initiative, the companies make their employees participate in a health challenge. The employees are made to undergo a month-long training programme under the guidance of physical fitness experts and advised to follow the diet prescribed by a dietician.
 
. Find a good deal on a gym membership – group memberships for your employees: Large companies may offer personal training, gym at work premises or one-on-one fitness coaching for their employees, but being a small businesses you will have your own limitations. Hence, lookout for a good deal and group packages where your staff will learn more about effective diet plans, exercise regimes, and relaxation tips during work.
 
. Biggest loser contest: Get your employees to burn some calories and reward them for the same. Roll out the contest and after a month the participants are evaluated on the body mass index level and loss of weight. The person with the biggest difference wins. You could even make it a team sport so that employees can support each other in their endeavour.
 
. Healthy eating at work: Encourage your employees to eat healthy, and suggest some healthy options available at restaurants close to your premises. Pin up the menu cards and numbers of such places on your the notice boards. You could organise for a team lunch once a week and sensitise the employees about healthy food habits.
 
. Group Yoga: Schedule a one hour yoga session for employees. This can be done either at your office premises or at a studio. This will help your employees overcome stress related issues and keep up a positive mind frame at work.
 
. Cycle to work instead: Cycling to work can be a good habit that you can promote. Being a small business owner, your employees will always look up to as a role model and hence, influencing them to do something like this can be quite easy.
 
. Work from home: Letting your employees to work from home can create wonders for you. Employees get a stress-free environment where they can concentrate on work and improve on the efficiency. Also, it also reduces chances of your employees falling sick regularly as they work from a comfortable environment close to their families.
 
. Share the costs: Bring in a system where you share the health care and medical spending with your employees at a 75:25 ratio. Though this might affect your revenue, but the benefits often attract better employees and help retain existing workers. Satisfied, healthy employees are more likely to help your business grow.

What is a Mobile-Friendly Business Website? This is the first thought that might have come to your mind upon reading the title of this blog. Making your business’s website mobile friendly is to ensure that the website loads onto a mobile devise quickly and without a glitch.

Why Make Your Business’s Website Mobile Friendly? With the proliferation of smart phone and tablets in the country, more and more people are using their handsets to access information on-the-go. Hence, it becomes imperative for any business, small or big, to have a website that loads quickly and easily on mobile phones or tablets. Remember, prospective customers use their phones to check compare prices, deals and information of products/service they want to buy. If your website is not mobile friendly, you would be missing out on new sales and inquiries.

How to Make Your Business’s Website Mobile-Friendly?

• If your business is WordPress-based: WordPress provides a variety of plugins that can make your website mobile-friendly. Chief amongst them are :
o WPtouch: WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website for mobile devices, complete with ajax loading articles and smooth effects when viewed from popular touch mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, Android mobile phones, BlackBerry OS6+ mobile devices.
o WordPress Mobile Pack: The WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site and blog. It includes a mobile switcher to select themes based on the type of user that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about

• If your business is WordPress-based: There are a plethora of companies that offer to adapt your website to mobile-phones and tablets for some specified charges/fees. Scout the internet and you are sure to find some whose services you can avail.

Basic Principles to Make Your Business’s Website Mobile-Friendly:

• Simplicity: For users check only the most basic information but a product/services portfolio or contact numbers
• Right Design: In order to ensure easy navigation on the phone or tablet
• Easily Visible Links: So that the user does not have to spend time looking for the right links

Before you start off to make your business’s website mobile-friendly, use Google Analytics to find out how many visitors are browsing your web pages via a mobile device. Also check how mobile friendly your website is currently in GoMo. Once armed with these information and data, set about making your website mobile-friendly.

TripOrTrap

Neeraj Bhatia’s blog site describes him as “Entrepreneur, Part time Blogger, Travel Freak, Honest and Restless!” It is not surprising then that he founded TripOrTrap, a hotel review site where travellers and tourists can benefit from the honest feedbacks, comments and suggestions given by fellow travellers, thereby helping them to decide and plan their trip better.

This is how TripOrTrap works – Based on the feedback of fellow travellers, the team of TripOrTrap rate the hotels, their facilities and their amenities such as the cafeteria and restaurant facilities, housekeeping and cleanliness, parking facility and overall hospitality. This helps in “transferring your experiences to all those who are yet to experience the good things of a satisfying holiday trip”, says Neeraj.

We caught up with him to know more about his venture.

Travellogue

What made you start TripOrTrap?

Travel reviews space is a very niche segment and totally unexplored in the Indian market. There were sites only for hotel booking, but neglecting overall travelling experience of an Indian traveller who has only recently have started exploring this vast land of ours.

So, we planned to start a hotel and destination review website with the aim to saving travellers from the traps/wrong doings and mis-commitment made by travel agents , so rampant even now. “Travel planning is the most essential thing which our country needs because no demo, no trial packs are available to make sure one gets the optimum value out of trip each time”.

In TripOrTrap, hotel reviews are made by real travellers for the real travellers so, the real reviews help people to find out and nail the hotel best suited to their needs. Since, we believe that travelling is the only segment where there is no ‘try-before-buy’, people can plan their trip based on reviews thereby mitigating the chances of impulsive and instinctive choices.

Post your Review!!!

What has been the key to your business’s success?

UI – we have a clutter free, conducive and more user friendly interface so that it gives the opportunity to the users to dig deep rather than pushing them into an information maze.

Market Infancy – The area, quite frankly, has not been explored in detail. With approx 137 million internet users, the opportunity to reach out to the wider audience is there and we can help service the customer with real facts and wider view about a destination/property rather than making India only a “Cost-based booking” culture

Fresh Content – The content of the website is very informative. Various aspects of a hotel property such as the number of rooms, services available, etc has made users gain immensely so that that they have started relying on TripOrTrap.

Complete Travelling Portal – Not only hotel and destination reviews, our website also has sections related to travelling forums, discussion boards, Travelogues, Destination guides – making it a complete travelling portal where users can come and check any aspect of trip planning.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

Demand – The demand for this kind of review-based website is still at an infant stage in India and this cause a major challenge to promote and place a travel review-based website to Indian audience. We use social-media extensively (Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter) to promote TriOrTrap. And have tied up with two youth-centric websites (youth 24×7, universityexpress.in) for the promotion of TriOrTrap among the youth in the country.

Fresh Content – Ensuring repeat users of our website in a cost-effective manner to maintain a fresh, lively and up-to-date content.

Revenue Generation – Websites rely heavily on Advertisement and the advertising partners ‘aptitude to grow the budget over a period of time.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Fresh content, customer interaction through website feedback as well as social media interactions, contest for promotion of travelogues and blog page of website (triportrap.wordpress.com) helps to engage with the audience.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Clarity, Passion and Larger than life attitude towards failures

We have told you about How to Apply for Registration Certificate for Shops & Establishments, TAN – Who needs it & How to Obtain it and How To Register for Profession Tax in our earlier blogs.

In this blog, we will tell you about VAT and how to register for it.

What is VAT? Introduced to replace the Sales Tax, VAT is a multi-point levy on each of the entities in the supply chain with the provision to allow ‘Input tax credit (ITC)’ on tax at an earlier stage, which can be appropriated against the VAT liability on subsequent sale.

Who is liable to register for VAT? Any trading or manufacturing business, whether a sole proprietorship or a partnership firm or a private limited company, that sells its products is liable to be registered for VAT

What is the procedure of VAT registration?

i. Submit an application for VAT in Form 1 along with the following documents to the local VAT office:

• Central Sales Tax registration certificate(Form A)
• Professional tax registration certificate(Form 2)
• Copy of important documents such as the address proof, ID proof of the Proprietor/Partner/Director
• Four PP size photographs of the Proprietor/Partner/Director
• PAN No. & Bank Account No of the Proprietor/Partner/Director
• Copy of the rental agreement of the business place
• Details of business activities
• Partnership deed (in case of a partnership firm)
• Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association (in case of a Private Limited company)

ii. The authorities from the local VAT office will inspect the premises of where you conduct business within a prescribed time

iii. Once the inspection is over, you will have to pay a specified fee to the local office for your VAT registration

iv. On payment of the fee, a TIN number will be allotted to you for your business and you will also be given the VAT registration Certificate.

 
The decision to outsource can be a function of lower operational and labour costs, a lack of expertise within a business (for specialty functions), or to keep employees within the business focused on the core business functions. Lower operational and labour costs are usually the main reasons why companies are outsourcing, thereby making them more efficient and helping them reap bigger revenues.
 
Of late, many small businesses are outsourcing finance functions because many of them are not confident of taking up high-level financial management tasks. Several progressive businesses are gaining significant advantages from this, as it works out far cheaper and beneficial than having a highly paid CFO.
 
Many companies are also outsourcing HR functions like hiring, training, managing the performance management system and payroll processing to free-up their internal HR team to enable them to focus on more strategic activities for the organisation.
 
The need for outsourcing generally arises when there is a lack of expertise internally to manage certain functions that impact the company’s desired growth. Therefore, by delegating responsibilities to external sources, companies can focus on offering greater value to their clients or customers.
 
However, the decision to outsource has to be a measured one, and businesses should opt for outsourcing only after thoroughly thinking through the pros and cons. Special attention must be paid to the profile of the service provider. Today, technology makes it a lot easier to find the most reliable and capable provider. Professional networks and platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn can be leveraged to zero in upon the most suitable and trustworthy provider.
Investments have to be right, so it is best if companies allocate a budget for outsourcing, which could be the surplus not being used in any running projects. Allocating budgets will also ensure that spends on outsourcing do not go overboard.
 
Outsourcing should never be a hasty decision; business owners should invest time to carefully weigh the cost and efficiency advantages, identify the right vendor, and the kind of value add coming from them. Companies need to ensure that they are outsourcing only to improve upon their efficiencies and ensure that the engagement yields optimum results for all stakeholders involved.

Have a dream? Bootstrap. And that’s what you did. You have bootstrapped (Read about Basics of Bootstrapping) your way into the world of entrepreneurship, building it brick by brick, client by client, employee by employee. And now, when you have your feet firmly in your operations and business model, you are ready to take the next leap – that of growth and expansion.

How then should you go about raising the additional capital? We discuss it here -

• Bank Loan: Most entrepreneurs, even to this day, first think of loans from banks when they are in an expansion mode. Such loans are appealing since neither your ownership is diluted nor is your freedom curtailed. However, taking loans from banks do have their own pros and cons. Assess them before you go for it. Here’s an insightful article on subject – Pros and Cons of Bank Loans

• Venture Capital: The red hot sector in modern India, venture capitalists, offer a lot more in expertise and experience over and above the money they invest in you. Should you be willing to ‘expose’ your business to investors, getting venture capital funds should be your answer. Read about the availability here – VC Firms in India

• Trade Creditors: You may also want to tap your creditors for the services, supplies, raw materials or even finished products you buy from them. Negotiate longer credit periods to cut down on your entrepreneurial finance. This will give you the liquidity that you need so badly for your growth plans.

No matter the source of funding that you may finally choose for your additional capital requirements, you need to keep a few basics right so that investors/lenders ‘park’ their money with you.

• Be ready with a focused funding proposal. Include details of your business plan, important numbers and forecasts of revenue growth and financial viability.

• Have you had a clean credit history so far? It is perhaps the most important factor that will be considered by your prospective lenders when they decide whether to invest you or not.

• Do a market study to understand the prevailing terms and conditions in your line of business. You wouldn’t want to get a raw deal, would you?

• Along with the point above, make sure you are well aware of the industry jargons. Ignorance on the terminology can cost you dear when you are negotiating the finer lines of your loan.

• Finally, sign nothing before you have taken a qualified opinion from someone trusted and knowing. A legal scanning of the document will also protect you from lop-sided agreements.

CityShor.com

Pallav Parikh, co-founder of CityShor, says that “CityShor was a difficult idea to sell. It was diificult to convince even Pankaj Pathak, the co-founder.” The idea of CityShor clicked roughly a year back but they parked it aside due to some reasons.

The duo wanted to do something on their own and brainstormed over different ideas, liking some, disliking the others, even failing with a couple of ideas. After much deliberation came CityShor – Pallav says, “as everyone puts it ‘we wanted to do something which we can really enjoy’”. Pankaj loves to write and Pallav loves to roam around and was always fascinated with the online world. CityShor, therefore, turned out to be just the apt idea where the duo could write, roam and also be online

Pallav Parikh is a professional with 12 years of experience and 2 start-up attempts before founding CityShor. In his own words, he is “a food hogger, an avid reader about the internet startup space, crazy about Silicon Valley and one time author (Just like in Hollywood movies)” He naturally leads the Marketing, Distribution and Product Development at CityShor. Pankaj Pathak, 29 years ‘young’, has authored two novels and has 12 years of experience in the corporate world. At CityShor, he is called the “Content” guy who hits the field everyday to get matter for the content he writes. He analyses what’s working, what’s not and takes call on the strategy of coverage based on that. Pallav adds, “Anything that you see on CityShor (good, bad, ugly), thank (or slap) Pankaj!!!”

Definitely a fun team, we spoke with Pallav to know more about CityShor – excerpts from the interview:

Pallav Parikh & Pankaj Pathak

What has been the key to your business’s success?

• Product Fit: CityShor as a product is something which people normally love – making a product which people love is the most critical success factor for any business. On the very first day of our pre-launch on Facebook, we got quite a few complimentsand the unexpected compliments kept on increasing day by day. On the first day itself, we knew we are on the right track.

• Expertise: When you have a great idea but if you don’t know how to take it to your customers,it won’t help. Pankaj has authored two fictions and Pallav did online marketing exposure in his earlier ventures… we knew what it takes to get traction and we are good at our job. As a result, CityShor had huge number of people following in very short span of time.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

We call this as ‘a nice problem to have’. As per our plan, we were supposed to face challenges in customer acquisition and retention; however, as they say – make what your customers want and you will not face a challenge in selling it.

We are facing different kind of challenges. We have got such a huge response that we are finding it difficult to actually fulfill these demands.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

Our product is not tech heavy and thereby we don’t use any of the specific technology other than what normal online companies use.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction& Expansion?

We are very strong with our analytics. We analyze every single detail that goes on our website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or anywhere. We know what works what not – what people love the most – what stuff they hate. All these analysis goes back into product changes almost on a real time basis.

Moreover, in order to ensure that entire team is aligned with whatever analysis is done, we have pasted big chart papers on the walls of our office – ensuring the analytics are in the face of every single team member. Instead of checking out mails and different reports – all a CityShor team member is required to do is look around in the office and s/he will come to know what went great / wrong.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Passion, Persistence and Skills

Website: www.cityshor.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Cityshor

Ratio Analysis helps you understand your financial statements better as they give insider views on the working of your business. We have already discussed 5 Ratios That Show Your Business’s Health and 4 Profitability Ratios Every Business Must Calculate. In the present article, we will tell you about those important performance ratios which you must calculate at regular intervals in order to assess how well your resources are utilised and measure the business’s performance over a given time.

Investopedia defines Performance Ratios as, “These ratios look at how well a company turns its assets into revenue as well as how efficiently a company converts its sales into cash”

Performance ratios help in:

• Gauging how efficiently and effectively a company is using its resources to generate sales
• Determining the growth of the promoter’s investment
• Measuring how individual aspects of a business are performing

The important performance ratios are:

Gearing Ratio:

• Gearing ratio shows the balance between the debt and equity in the business
• It is calculated as total borrowings divided by net worth of the business
• It is important to maintain a healthy balance between borrowings and owner’s capital, with owner’s capital being higher than debt in order to carry on business operations independently and away from the daily scrutiny of creditors

Debtors Turnover Ratio:

• Debtors turnover ratio indicates the number of times your debtors pay you over a year
• It gives you insight into the time of cash flow from credit sales
• Debtors Turnover is calculated as Net Credit Sales divided by Average Trade Debtors
• If the debtors turnover is high, it means you are getting paid more frequently. Say, if it is 6, it means that you are collecting your sales once every 2 months. On the other hand, low debtors turnover ratio implies inefficient management of debtors or less liquid debtors.

Creditors Turnover Ratio:

• Creditors Turnover Ration, on the other hand, shows the number of times you make payments to your suppliers.
• It is calculated as Purchases divided by Average Trade Creditors.
• A high creditors turnover ratio signifies that the creditors are being paid promptly. This shows that your business is highly credit worthy. However a very favorable ratio to this effect also shows that your business is not taking the full advantage of credit facilities allowed by the creditors.

Stock Turnover Ratio:

• This ratio measures how fast the inventory in your business is moving and generating sales
• It is calculated as Cost of Good Sold/ Average Stock
• A higher ratio will indicate a slow-moving inventory while too low a ratio will mean that your business is not able to manage stock levels to meet sales demands

Revelri.com

“We all want to be happy, but the irony is that the more we start to chase happiness, the more it eludes us!” says Abhishek Agarwal, founder of Revelri.com. “Pick up any book on happiness, and it will tell you that happiness is in the present moment, and that it is in the smaller, seemingly insignificant things in life, like hugging your loved ones, spending time in nature, being complimented, enjoying good music, appreciating our blessings etc. Although we all know this at some level of our consciousness, it is very easy to forget it in the humdrum of life. So we thought of creating a system that will remind people about the importance of these little joys, and encourage them to perform simple activities that will make them feel happier. This idea gave birth to Revelri.”

With almost a decade long experience in the Internet marketing arena, he started his online career with Baazee.com (now eBay.in). After becoming one of the highest rated Power Sellers there, he graduated towards creating niche websites and affiliate marketing. Abhishek finds working on Revelri to be most exciting, fun and challenging project. He keeps it close to his heart because he is a staunch believer in the Law of Attraction, the immense power of our thoughts, and the importance of feeling good!

Confident that Revelri can bring about a positive change in the lives of millions of people, Abhishek speaks with us about his journey so far.

What has been the key to your business’s success?

Since happiness is a universal positive emotion, Revelri’s idea resonates with many. Regardless of which geographical location a person is from, people want to be happy. And I think this is one of the reasons why Revelri has a mass appeal. That, coupled with a great team of programmers, a great UX design, and our passion for what we do are the keys to our success.

Revelri.com - High On Happiness

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

We all know that exercising is good for our physical fitness. But how many of us actually take out time for it? Even if we gather enough motivation to go to the gym, after a few days or weeks, most of us become irregular. The problem here is staying motivated enough to stick to something that is good for us.

At Revelri we are facing a similar challenge. We are about mental fitness. And even though our users know that being happy is good for them, they often get distracted with their day-to-day chores, and become irregular in performing the happiness activities.

We realized this, and are currently working on “gamifying” our site to make the entire process more fun, exciting, encouraging and rewarding. We also hope that this will help increase user engagement, and make our users want to perform the activities we provide.

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

In the strict sense of the word, no, we do not have a mentor. But we do have close friends and we often brainstorm together and come up with some great ideas.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

Nothing specific. But we have recently migrated to Amazon Cloud, and we do hope that this will make our site faster, and help us scale up at very low costs.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Our users are very special to us. We often conduct surveys to take their feedback to see whether we are providing them what they want. And we always make it a point to reply to all our support ticket promptly, usually within a few hours.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

There are many skills that an entrepreneur needs to have in order to be successful. Here are three important ones.

• An entrepreneur must have a vision: As an entrepreneur, you may not know the exact path you will be taking. But it is important to know where you are going. And only if you have a vision, can you transfer it to your team. Knowing what your goals are keeps you focused, and helps you overcome challenges with better clarity.
• An entrepreneur must be willing to take risks. Entrepreneurs are willing to take risks. Some entrepreneurs take calculated risks, while others burn their bridges. But if you do not take some amount of risk, and prefer staying in your comfort zone, you will never know how much you are capable of. And you will often lose the thrill of the adventure itself.
• An entrepreneur must have the power to ricochet. The entrepreneurial journey is full of speed-bumps. You will often stumble, need to take a detour, or you may even feel lost. But regardless of all that, as an entrepreneur you need to realize that every so-called failure is a lesson in disguise. And that each experience teaches us something. You never fail, as long as you get up just one more time, as long as you ricochet.

Website: www.revelri.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/RevelriOnline

As an enthusiastic entrepreneur, you may want to speak volumes about your business plans and the operations. However, while pitching your business idea to investors, you not only need to keep it focussed, but also crisp, summarizing the business’s novelty, or USP, its capabilities, the customer base outlook, competitor mapping etc. Finally, you need to show them the justification why they should buy your product/service.

This is not all that tough as it appears. The golden rule is to create an elevator pitch that is short, simple and up-to-the-point because you usually have a very short amount of time to ‘pitch’ it.

We have consolidated some must-haves for your business pitch -

What is your product/service?

Explain the product/service to your client. You need to be specific here, highlighting the key problems that it solves and the business value it delivers.

Why will this idea work?

Most ideas come out of one’s own experiences. Though a good base to start with, your personal experience alone won’t sell the product. Validate your idea with your audience; tell them about your business’s capabilities, what the market opportunity is and the value proposition you are bringing to the table. Show data or case studies to back up your claims.

Who are your competitors, if any?

If it’s a unique idea and there’s not a similar concept in the market, you may have a smooth sailing. But in case of competition, be prepared with a competitor mapping; who are your existing competitors, their strengths and weaknesses. Also, you need to showcase what is it that your product can give to the customers that they aren’t already getting from your competitors.

How will your business solve your customers’ needs?

The customer’s need is at the core of your product development.

• Be creative while explaining why your product/service is better over the existing ones in the market
• Explain the USP of your product; follow it with proof that your product solves this problem better than any other product in the market
• Combine a strong product story with sales data and you will surely catch the prospective client’s attention

Lose a job. Gain a business

 
The most important thing to remember is not to be impulsive. Starting a business should never be a rebound decision from losing a job. It has to be a well thought out decision and one that fills you with anticipation and excitement. Because, there is no success in business without passion, and that is something you cannot force or manufacture.
 
Getting to the brass tacks, here are some tips that could hold you in good stead during this transition and onward.
 
Have a concrete business plan
 
Write it down so it becomes more ‘real’. You need a roadmap to guide you and keep you on track as you move forward. If you are looking at financing, a robust business plan is absolutely essential to present to the bank or any other financier. Even if you are planning to bootstrap it, write a business plan.
 
Getting the funding
 
Most businesses need some investment to start. Take a long look at how much you will need for both day to day expenses as well as to get the business up on a stronger footing. You have to decide whether it can be met by your own funds or you need financial help in the form of a loan, or even a partner.
 
Business financials is different from personal financial
 
You may be a whiz at your personal financial management. But business financials is a different game altogether. As a business owner, you will have to gather enough knowledge about revenues, payables and receivables, profits and so on, apart from the legal and statutory requirements that your business can fall under.
 
Develop a difference
 
As a new business, you will have to give your potential customers a very good reason to choose you over the competition. What is the way you have differentiated yourself? Is it a unique or improved product? Better value for money? A different type of service? The thing to keep in mind is that your differentiating factor has to be something that you can have for the longer term. A tactical offer will not cut it.
 
Stick to it
 
Starting a business is not easy. Keeping it running through the initial hiccups and the ups and downs is even more so. Many entrepreneurs get disheartened as their rosy dreams of success take longer to achieve than they imagined. But starting and running a business is for the long haul. You have to believe in yourself and your business idea, and keep your focus on making it a success.
 
Trust your instincts
 
A good business person has great instincts and learns to trust them. Remember that you are the creator and owner of the business, and at least in the initial stages, there’s nobody who knows the big picture better than you when it comes to your baby. So, you have to trust your gut when you feel that you are at crossroads. Sometimes, the best way forward may not be the way that everybody else has always done it. But that does not mean you need to do something different just for the sake of being different.
 
There’s no getting way from the fact that losing a job, most of the time, is something that you cannot control and is a moment that will lead to great change. However, what that change could be, is something that you can control. Gaining a business could be one of the ways to turn the change into a factor that works in your favour. And who knows, maybe real life may mirror reel life for some of you.

QuickBooks Online Inner Circle

 
Members of the Inner Circle will enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship that will put them and their business in the spotlight as brand ambassadors of QuickBooks Online and would help in product co-creation. The Inner Circle ambassadors will act as advisors to facilitate the product development, marketing communication and sales teams to gather feedback, in order to get better in meeting the customer needs.
 
The Inner Circle was launched and celebrated at a unique event organized at The Oberoi in Gurgaon. The first nine members of the Inner Circle were welcomed by Kiran Karnik, Ex-President, NASSCOM and Intuit India Advisory Board Member and Kamlesh Vikamsey, Ex-President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants.
 

Inner Circle Launch - The Oberoi, Gurgaon

 
Speaking on the occasion of the launch of the Inner Circle, Nikhil Arora, Vice President and Managing Director of Intuit India, stated that, “QuickBooks Online Inner Circle is an exclusive programme for a select group of small business owners and accountants, with the benefits being very clear. We journey along to find more about the pain points and problems they go through, and in turn this helps us in creating better products.”
 

Nikhil Arora, Vice President and Managing Director of Intuit India

 
Here’s what Unnikrishnan Menon, Partner, Vasan & Sampath Chartered Accountants and an Inner Circle Pro-Advisor, feels about the initiative, “It provides us another platform to network and showcase our professional capabilities. By being a part of this group, we hope that we will be on top of the enhancements in QuickBooks Online – which in turn can help provide better services to clients.”
 
Kiran hosted an engaging panel discussion with the Inner Circle members on Growing your business with cloud accounting. On the panel discussion the Inner Circle shared their experiences on harnessing cloud accounting and the benefits they have derived, there was a deep dive discussion on the significant impact and benefit they have gained from QuickBooks Online, as well as a few areas where they’d like to see improvement. Kiran added, “I think this Inner Circle concept is a great idea which brings customers and companies closer together.”
 
Some of the exclusive privileges that the Inner Circle members will benefit from are:
 
• Two years of free subscription on QuickBooks Online Plus for Inner Circle members
• Priority customer service
• Updates, first trial, training on new products and features related to QuickBooks Online
• Quarterly advisory council meetings to get feedback on product, customer care and marketing communication
• Customer case studies and testimonials to be promoted on external and internal channels
• Profile them on the Intuit Small Business India blog and QuickBooks Online website
• Opportunity to be positioned as a small business and accountant expert via media ops and external events
 

Inner Circle Members at Launch

 
Suraj Nayak, Partner, Creative R Solutions, added that, “Being an Inner Circle member helped me to give my inputs directly to the core development team, interact with them personally and customize each and every option in QuickBooks Online to suit my business needs.”
 
Check out the launch of the elite QuickBooks Online Inner Circle on YouTube!

YouTube has opened up an entire new platform for marketing and branding, changing considerably the face of traditional marketing. It started off as a great marketing tool for those who did not have deep pockets for their marketing spends. Inexpensive and offering instant virality, YouTube was the upcoming artist’s, the start-up’s, the newly set-up’s recourse. But not any longer. Large organizations have since then understood the power of YouTube, and not wanting to be left behind, have joined it in hordes.

Why Should You Be On YouTube?

• Remember, You Tube is owned by Google, the most popular search engine in the world – Google frequently places videos and search results from sites it owns prominently. Going by that logic, being on You Tube helps in your business’s search-ability and SEO as you can take advantage of universal search results.

• YouTube hosts large videos that can otherwise take up valuable space in your own website. It makes more business sense to load your video on You Tube and then embed on your website or your blog.

• Adding videos of your product or service can lead to increased footfalls in your business’s website as well as media, both traditional and digital, coverage. Virality is easily achieved via YouTube as videos can be easily shared on other networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc

• Should you desire additional features and benefits, become a YouTube Partner and avail such extra benefits as customized profile page, revenue generation, copyright your videos and increased search-ability.

How To Get Your Business Into YouTube?

• Step-1: Create your account with a good Username. Your natural choice should be the name of your business as that will help you secure every mileage for your business.

• Step-2: Include relevant business information in your YouTube profile, so that people can find you easily on this channel. Information should be strictly professional. Hence, stay away from personal sections such as books, movies, interests etc.

• Step-3: Create appropriate titles and tags for you profile so that people find you easily. Click the ‘Settings’ button for this. Also, customize the look by choosing your brand colour and background image by clicking ‘Theme & Colours’.

• Step-4: Change the edit settings so that you can upload an appropriate photo, such as your logo or company image, as the profile image. Check the email options such that you receive email alerts. Also, check ‘Activity Sharing’, so that you can make simultaneous updates on your business’s Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles.

• Step-5: This step is for what you created the YouTube account – to upload your videos. Videos could be of your product/service range, on ‘How-To-Use’ the product, client testimonials if you can secure them, milestones or important events. Care should be taken to include only professional quality videos as you wouldn’t want your brand value to be diminished or diluted by silly, half-baked videos.

• Step-6: Finally, promote your video. Add a YouTube icon on your website or blog and link it to your YouTube profile. Comments on other videos in the same industry to catch visitor attention.

Bank Power

Saurabh Bansal (Graduate in Finance from College of Business Studies, Masters in Finance from Delhi University), Anil Nagar (B.Tech from IIT BHU and also MBA from Goa Institute of Management) and Nikhil Agarwal (Graduate in Finance from College of Business Studies (University of Delhi), MBA from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow), all from different backgrounds, came together in the year 2010 over the common belief that the regular office life was mundane and that she ought to do something of their own in the field of Education.

The trio zeroed on for Banking Test Preparation, admitting that it was “an obvious choice as lot of opportunity was coming into this field and no quality coaching was available to candidates.”

Saurabh Bansal, Anil Nagar and Nikhil Agarwal

And thus Bank Power was born on 1-Apr-2010. Saurabh was entrusted General Awareness and Reasoning aptitude. Nikhil, English and Reasoning Aptitude. Excerpts from an interview with Anil Nagar who currently looks after Quantitative Module and Reasoning aptitude in Bank Power

What has been the key to your business’s success?

Innovation, proper use of technology platforms, no compromise on quality and Self-Believe that we can achieve in spite of all odds, team work and finally, the trust amongst us, the three partners.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

• Extremely fragmented market.
• The fact that the three of us are 1st generation entrepreneurs without any experience in running a business.

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

Well we do not have any mentor who guides us on business matters. We, currently, brainstorm amongst our own selves where we play the devil’s advocate to each other’s point and arrive at solutions.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

One of us is techie from IIT BHU which gives us an edge over a number of our competitors as far as technology usage is concerned. Although our business at present is not technology intensive, we use internet extensively to reach our audience and for product usage. For our day-to-day operations, we have built in-house Institute Management Software.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Education is what we deliver. We are extremely careful about our teaching pedagogy and content as that is the core of any education company. A regular feedback from all stakeholders like Students, faculty, staff keeps a regular check on customer satisfaction.

BankPower has two ways to go ahead:

• One surely is geographically but we also plan accelerate on the product level. Ultimately, we want to have a pan India presence but looking at the short term, we’d like to consolidate our presence in NCR region. In the medium term, we have identified some educations hubs like Patna, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Indore etc where we want to make our presence felt.

• On the product Side, Bank Power has launched a brand SSC Power, which is a focused brand catering to the needs to the recruitment tests of Staff Selection Commission (Central Government jobs).

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

1. Clear vision of the company.
2. Risk Appetite
3. Persistence and patience

For more information about us, you can visit our website – www.bankpower.in

LinkedIn Mistakes

 
No or inappropriate profile picture: Adding a profile picture for your business page is an absolute must! Also add a suitable cover image for your business. Upload your company logo as a profile and a picture of your products/services as a cover to help with brand identity. Do not add inappropriate pictures which could mislead your audience into assuming that you are not serious about your small business. Goofy pictures and photos without copyrights could get your business in serious trouble.
 
Linking updates via Twitter: It is best to refrain from auto updating your statuses from Twitter. The audience is entirely different in these two sites and your professional network would not like to read tweets and retweets unrelated to your business. Rather update your status and show your connections that you are an active user and a frequent visitor. If you still want to auto update from Twitter to LinkedIn, make sure you pay attention to what you are tweeting and make sure that it is business related. Refrain from sharing personal views.
 
Lack of or over participation in group discussions: The reason why you are on LinkedIn is because you want to expand your professional network. So it is important that you take part in discussions so that people will notice you and your views. At the same time, make sure not to get carried away and participate in group discussions endlessly. Spamming in groups could prove more detrimental than not participating. Do not shy away from engaging in discussions since it will help you in building a relationship with them. Ensure that you balance your presence in LinkedIn in a smart way!
 
Employees’ profiles have all or few of the above mistakes: Spend some time to check the profiles of your employees. There could be similar mistakes in their profiles which could in turn affect your business. Train them on how to do it right, have some sessions on improving the LinkedIn Skills. This will contribute towards an overall development of your business page, hence delivering good results in your business.
 
Not following competitors: Following your competitors on LinkedIn can give you access to some good business intelligence. You can build up your strategy based on the information you get from the pages of your competitors. You can also keep a track of who joins and leaves the organization, and you will get an idea of what they are planning to do next when they post jobs on LinkedIn.
 
Not creating a group for your employees and your customers: Having a common platform to discuss and share ideas is a great way to interact with your employees. You can exchange ideas or discuss on how to improvise customer service- all in one exclusive group! Create one group for your customers as well and you can be in constant touch with them. It will heighten the possibilities of a larger engagement with them. You can hear their ideas and feedback and improve the services of your products.
 
Incomplete or inaccurate profile: The ideal way for people to know more about you and your business is by reading your summary. It is the most crucial part in your profile if you want your name to turn up in search results. Also, lack of a profile photo and business details is a big letdown. Add keywords related to your job and your business which will help your potential business partners and customers to find you. Information about the product or service your small business is selling is critical! Do not skip that or give false details when you talk about them.

Business centers, commercial ‘plazas’ are a common sight in Indian towns and cities, thanks to the realty boom and overall buoyancy in the economy. Most of these commercial buildings come with built in basic infrastructure such as electricity and water supply, local body approvals, etc. In some cases, they even have the furniture and fixture in place, sometimes with the computer systems included. It’s a boon for all those businesses that are looking for office/workshop space without going into the hassle of setting-up an office. The ‘package-deal’ works out well for them with the consideration being rentals or lease payments.

However, before you sign the agreement, we urge you to do your homework regarding the rules and regulations in your city of business as well as the normal practices that are followed for such commercial rentals/leases. The pointers below will help you to find out what you should look out for:

• Total Cost: Read the lease agreement carefully to find out what components make up the total cost of the lease. This will include the cost per square foot of the rental area and the other subsidiary charges like common area maintenance (CAM) costs – i.e., charges for maintaining courtyards, entry and exit points, common areas, utilities; property taxes, property insurance, house-keeping, garbage collection etc.

• Facilities Provided: Find out if the lease agreement will provide for the air-conditioning, security, broadband facility, separate restrooms, house-keeping facilities of the rental area. If yes, a blanket charge will probably be applicable. If no, find out from your broker and the other tenants how easy/difficult it is to get the afore-mentioned amenities in place and the applicable charges too.

• Terms & Conditions: This is the difficult part as you need to ask yourself a number of questions before you agree on the terms and conditions.

- Firstly, assess your space requirement. Include a sound business estimation of growth in the ensuing months. You wouldn’t want to be grappling for space 6-7 months into your occupation.

- Secondly, make a sound judgment on the number of years you want to take the lease for. In case you have just started your business and are not sure of its performance in the day’s ahead, consider taking a shorter lease thereby protecting yourself from high rental penalties. Should you already have a reasonably sound business running, consider taking a longer lease for that will enable you to negotiate special terms, such as a discounted rate, adjustments to rent during slow seasons or a few months’ worth of free rent for moving in.

- Thirdly, assess the availability of space in the same building or at best nearby buildings/areas should you need to expand in a big way and accommodate a bigger staff. You wouldn’t want to be juggling two differently located areas while managing operations. Hence, see to it that the present location gives you enough scope for expansion when the need arises.

Financial Reporting is the periodical assessment of a business’s performance. They are in the nature of records of business finances and include balance sheets, profit and loss statements, cash flow and fund flow statements.

Why is Financial Reporting Important?

Financial reporting is one of the most vital components of business information.

• It provides a summation of the financial position of a business at a given point in time
• It assists in the preparation of strategies, forecasts and budgets.
• Financial Reports are the principal method of communicating financial information about your business to outside parties such as banks, investors and creditors.

Financial Reporting Made Easy via QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks Online has been a pioneer in providing world-class accounting and bookkeeping software system for small businesses. It helps you organize your finances and keeps track of all activities related to your business. It also complies with managerial accounting standards. Since this is an online accounting tool, there is no need to install any software on your computer. All your financial data is kept securely on our servers rather than on your computer. This means that you can access your data from anywhere, anytime. Even if your computer is damaged, lost, or stolen, your data is safe and secure.

QuickBooks’ financial reports give you valuable insights into your business’s finances so that you can make better business decisions, from basic financial reports to reports for specialized business activities. Here’s a quick glance into how QuickBooks Online provides the best-in-class financial reporting tools for small businesses:

• Customise in Minutes: It’s easy to customize QuickBooks reports, so you can quickly develop report formats tailored to your unique business. Once you customize a report, you can have QuickBooks memorise it so that you can run it any time you wish.
• Get the Bigger Picture: The QuickZoom® feature shows the detail behind the reports and lets you drill down to the transaction level. You can display original transactions and analyze the numbers behind the numbers. It is easy to see summary reports on a cash or accrual–basis at any time.
• Get Drilled Down Information: Further QuickBooks has the ability to drill down from reports to specific transactions. This will give you insights into over-spends, under-utilisations, thereby giving you the opportunity to take corrective action.

A sampling of available financial reports on QuickBooks Online: Here’s a sample of the many useful financial reports you can expect in each version of QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Online - Financial Reports

For a Free Trial of QuickBooks Online, visit www.quickbooks.in/index.html

Jumporee

Sudha Sundaravaradan, an MBA graduate from US, was motivated to start Jumporee upon discovering the lack of active and fun playtime among young children these days.She wanted to start a company related to physical playtime of children, and driven by passion and urge to create something unique, she zeroed upon bounce houses for children. In her own words, the moment that made her to step forward with this idea was when she hired a local bounce house rental for her kids’ birthday party, and found the bouncies that were delivered to be very dirty and unsafe with the staff inefficient in monitoring the kids too. She decided to start Jumporee, claiming, “Bounce house rental business fit the bill especially considering the lack of safe, clean and professional rentals in India. Also, I felt there was a huge gap in that segment wherein safety is considered as the last priority. This venture is all about fun, safety, cleanliness and professional customer service”.

Jumporee is currently a very small company, in the form of a sole proprietorship, with 3-4 staff members. Sudha adds that Jumporee is self-funded and that she is not looking for any funding but quips that she may be need money soon when she scales to the next level.

Excerpts from an interview with her:

Tell us about Jumporee

Jumporee is India’s first exclusive kids bounce house rental company specializing in creating clean and safe, party and play zones for kids at their door step. Jumporee has wide variety of inflatables to choose from (castles, bouncies, slides and obstacles) based on the customer’s requirement. On the event day, our trained staff create a fun play zone with the rented inflatables, monitor kids and let them have some pure fun, all at their door step.

Jumporee bounce houses are created specifically for kids keeping in mind their safety and fun factor. They conform to US and European standards and are lead-free*. Our bouncies and slides are of commercial grade quality for safety, durability and reliability. We clean and disinfect our bouncies before and after every event. For safe operation of the inflatables, we have obtained advanced certification from the most reputed training institute (Safe Inflatable Operators Training Institute) from US.

Jumporee - Crayon Playland

What has been the key to your business’s success?

Various things attributed to the success of Jumporee.

1. Planning and execution
2. Excellent service in all aspects – safety, cleanliness, professional service for each and every party
3. Having a good team is also very critical for business like this. My employees are the pillars of my company

What are the major challenges in your line of business?

Very pessimistic views from various people about the idea as a whole and people were not optimistic about woman doing a rental business hitherto dominated by men in India. Convincing people to understand our service, philosophy and the price difference was a challenge during the initial stage. Now, customers recognize our brand and service and they know the value addition we bring in to their parties.

How did you overcome the challenges?

Confidence and will-power, a Can-do attitude and the feeling that nothing is impossible if it is done right at the right time! We have also done extensive research before taking the leap and proper execution has helped me present my brand very effectively. My husband’s support is immeasurable during tough times. He is my advisor, critique, guide and supporter.

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

My husband is my first mentor, advisor, critique and guide. Lately, I have two mentors who are mentoring me on different aspects.

Mr.Venugopal, CEO of Vengo Ventures and Angel fund investor
Mr.Vittal Bhandary, CEO of Little Elly concept preschool.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

I have not used anything extensively but having a website presence helps my business a lot.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Customer satisfaction is our first and foremost priority. We make sure to call customers immediately after their first call within 5 minutes. From the time of their first enquiry to till the end of the show, we make sure they get excellent service from Jumporee. We guarantee on time delivery and set up or else money back. We also make sure to get feedback from each and every individual customer about our show before and after.

We believe strongly in referrals and word of mouth approach. More than 50 percent of our business is through referrals every month. Having an online website has also helped us a lot.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Planning and Execution
Willpower and Belief in oneself and their idea/s
Motivation and Delegation

LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/pub/sudha-sundaravaradan/18/509/a11

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jumporeeindia

Website: www.jumporee.in

Technology saw some major breakthroughs and advancements in 2012 and in the first quarter of 2013. With mobile devices, like smart phones and tablets, becoming more affordable, they’ve became the primary gateways for users to consume business data. The year 2013, will see a mobile device more than just as a communication device. In fact, most of the top tech trends will revolve around mobile phone as a medium.

Here are some top tech trends in 2013, everyone will be talking about.

 
Mobile Devices:

Mobile Devices

Mobile Devices make small businesses more efficient by providing productivity enhancement applications. As per Gartner, mobile phones will overtake personal computers as a common device for internet access by 2013 and by 2015, over 80% of mobile phones sold in the market will be smart phones. The report also highlights that by 2015, tablet shipments will reach around 50% of laptop shipments and Windows is likely to be in third place behind Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. With the number of mobile users climbing by the day, SMBs should sync their marketing strategies taking full advantage of mobile applications.

HTML5 and Web 2.0:

HTML5

According to a research report from Strategy Analytics, one billion HTML5 capable phones will be sold in 2013, compared to 336 million in 2011. Also, according to the survey report published by Forrester Research, 60% of mobile services developers are showing interest in HTML5 and makes it as one of the top tech trends in 2013. Marketers have already started using Web 2.0 solutions because of its highly interactive, reliable and responsive functionalities which gives a completely new experience to their users. Small business owners can be relieved about the complexity and the cost involved in IT management because Web 2.0 based applications can be easily deployed and updated.

Big Data: Big Data has always been there but nowadays it’s been spoken about everywhere and that makes it one of the top tech trends in 2013. According to Wikipedia, Big Data is a collection of so large & complex data sets, which is difficult to process using traditional data processing applications or database management tools. Whereas Big Data Analytics on the other hand, is the tools and capabilities used to derive insights from aforesaid data. SMB’s can make use of advanced big data analytic tools to measure customer’s emotions, derive social media insights and also to track and improve the customer relationships.

Gamification: Wikipedia says, ‘Gamification is the use of game-thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts in order to engage users and solve problems’. In Business Context, it means designing the process with gaming principles right from Back-office tasks to Sales Force Automation and Customer Interactions. Gamification will see businesses looking to invest in developing skilled resources in Gamification Designs in 2013. Small businesses can consider Gamification in order to stream-line their processes thereby increasing the productivity of their employees.

Cloud Computing: Customers are increasingly turning to cloud for cost reduction, for the more efficient use of IT and for the improvement of the business environment. Small businesses stand to benefit the most because of its reduced spending in IT infrastructure systems.

Apart from these trends, what are the other trends you think can make it into this list?

 
Empower your employees
 
A large part of thinking creatively comes from the freedom to do so. If your employees have to take permission or approval even for the smallest of things, they would have no incentive to try new things. It engenders a feeling among them that any deviation from the status quo is frowned upon. What’s more, it does not encourage ownership of responsibilities among employees. However, giving employees the power to make decisions at their level will foster a culture of constant innovation as employees try to improve processes or products. When you empower your employees, you demonstrate your trust in them. And in most cases, this trust is a great motivator for the employee to push him or herself to do better.
 

Encourage open communication
 
Most businesses have a top down approach to management, and innovation. However, the first rule of creative business thinking is that it can come from anywhere. In my experience, I have often found that great ideas come from relative freshers, or from employees who have may not even be in the relevant department. If your company has channels of communication where employees can share their ideas without fear of rebuke or ridicule, chances are that you will see a constant stream of great ideas coming into the business.

 
Eliminate fear of failure
 
Creative thinking does not always lead to path breaking innovation. Successful innovations are built on the foundation of learnings gathered from failures along the way. Employees have to know that they will not be penalized if their ideas do not work out. Otherwise, the fear of negative repercussions will not only stifle their creativity, but will also discourage employees from coming forward with any ideas whatsoever.
 
Diversify your talent pool
 
If you hire the same kind of people across your organization, chances of new ideas are naturally reduced. Ideas from different kinds of people, with different mentalities and skillsets, will spark and feed off each other to take better shape. These differing approaches can help make an innovative idea more robust and comprehensive.
 
Factor in thinking time
 
An employee who is thinking about nothing but their present work responsibilities or operations does not have the mind space to think about anything else. Creativity needs both the free mind and the free time to blossom and amount to something concrete. Build this ‘thinking time’ into the employees’ workday or work week, rather than expect employees to do this on their own time. For instance, Intuit’s unstructured time is well-known model where employees spend 10 per cent on innovation or projects not related to core business tasks. This gives our employees some time to explore their areas of passion to drive growth and come up with some ingenious ideas!
 
Change the stage
 
Taking your employees out of their usual setting can be a good trigger to start then thinking differently. Offsite sessions for brainstorming or coming up with new ideas work for a variety of reasons. For one, the lack of distraction. Even if you are able to shut everyone into a conference room, the participants’ minds will be on the work that they have the moment they get out. A new location also exposes them to new visual or other stimuli that can spark off new trains of thought. Lastly, the freshness of the location and the unfamiliar environment help in making people break out of their comfort zone.
 
In summary, encourage a culture that encourages and nurtures innovative and creative thinking in your organization right from day one, and see the results for yourself.

In an earlier article, we had spoken about 5 Ratios That Show Your Business’s Health. In the present article, we will tell you about those important profitability ratios which you must calculate at regular intervals in order to be on top of your financial matters.

Investopedia defines Profitability Ratios as, “A class of financial metrics that are used to assess a business’s ability to generate earnings as compared to its expenses and other relevant costs incurred during a specific period of time. For most of these ratios, having a higher value relative to a competitor’s ratio or the same ratio from a previous period is indicative that the company is doing well.”

Profitability Ratios Help In:

• Gauging business performance
• Taking business decisions related to expansion or diversification
• Enabling lenders/investors get a clear picture of the business and make available additional resources

The important profitability ratios are:

Gross-Profit Ratio:

• Gross-Profit ratio shows how profitable your company utilizes its resources, materials, and labour
• It measures your business’s manufacturing and distribution efficiency during the production process
• Gross-Profit ratio is calculated as gross profit divided by total sales (revenue)
• A higher Gross-Profit ratio indicates that the business is cost-effective. Note that investors use the gross-profit ratio to compare the profitability of business’s in the same industry and also in different industries

Net-Profit Ratio:

• Net profit ratio is a key ratio of profitability
• It shows the amount of each sales rupee left over after all expenses have been paid
• Calculated as Profit (after tax) / Revenue
• A higher net profit ratio means that your business is more efficient at converting sales into actual profit

Operating Ratio or EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes):

• EBIT measures an entity’s profitability after excluding interest and income tax expenses
• It represents your business’s earning power from on-going operations.
• Calculated as Profit (loss) + Operating costs + Income tax expense

Cash Flow Margin Ratio:

• Cash-Flow Margin ratio is a key profitability ratio that gives insight into your company’s inner workings
• It measures how well the business’s operations are creating cash from sales
• It is calculated as = Cash flows from operating activities / Net sales
• A high cash flow margin indicates efficiency at debts collection and also a high earnings quality.

Lost Beat

The inspiration for Lost Beat came from the fact that many ‘budding musicians’ fail to pursue their passion for music due to personal and professional commitments as well as due to lack of support and resources; much like the initiators of Lost Beat – Abhay Pruthi, Akshay Pruthi and Ashish Goel – Ashish is an Investment Banker from Birmingham Business School, Akshay and Abhay are studying technology at Netaji Subash Institute of Technology.

Very attached to music themselves – Ashish was a drummer in his school days, Abhay sang well and Akshay, a passionate music lover – they always longed for a better platform to showcase his talent. And following the maxim “one should be the change you want to see in the world”, the trio came together and started Lost Beat.

Lost Beat is a creative initiative that stems from the endeavours of this trio that believe in uncovering potential talent from unheard Solo/Band artists. Says Akshay, “Lost in a sea of people, a lot of musicians are found clueless and kept in the dark about what to do about their obvious talent for creating Music. Thus, we are creating a platform for musicians by allowing them to connect to others.”

Let’s hear what more he has to say about their labour of love, their belief ‘Your Music Your Identity’

Team - Lost Best

• What has been the key to your business’s success?

Our passionate team working on the project is the key for crossing the milestones set-up and thus achieved. We, here at Lost Beat, believe that through our dedicated and passionate team, can think of achieving something big, facing the challenges in a more scrutinized and different way.

• What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

We did have our share of challenges and learned the most from them.

- Since ours is a technical product, there is no end to improvisation. It is like finding something better as soon as you think you’ve made it good enough. So, we keep trying to keep pace with that.
- We were meticulous in making the website as user-friendly as possible, this took almost two years; patience, is what we learned through the process.
- We are currently working towards expanding our marketing resources. Our industry is a saturated one. Thus, we will be facing a tough competition through our competitors. Hence, we are focusing on NEW ways to target our market, thus, we thought if one had to bring in good content to a musical-something, no one could do it better than musicians themselves. So we launched an online journal, lostbeat.me. You can look at it as a kind of educational forum, where people can know more about musicians and the musicians can understand the concept of Lost Beat better. Our strategy is to focus on the in-flux of people who associate with music professionally for the initial few months and then switch to getting attention from general users.

• Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

As of now, only the three of us are into decision making of the project. But, we would like a mentor who can guide us on experienced ways to target our market.

• What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Good Music content is our first priority. We are here to make a brand out of Musicians. To Lost Beat, branding is something which makes our life easier. Thus, we take regular feedback from our customers and improvisation is done on daily basis.

- First, we will be targeting the Musicians to come to our website and thus marketing the venture well enough to reach out the potential costumers.
- Our next project is the launch of the second phase of the website. Our concept works on a two-tier plan, the online module has the website, and the offline module is where we organise shows for the bands and artists to perform in. As soon as the website picks up pace, we will begin skimming through the profiles online and will organise rock shows for the best bands. This is a very important part of the concept and we look forward to it.
- Also, we will soon be working towards penetrating the mobile industry. We are going to make Lost Beat mobile-compatible and will launch musical applications for iphone and android. We recently launched our online journal, lostbeat.me, we also aim at expanding it.

• What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

- Good leadership skills
- Belief in yourself, even when no one believes you. That belief that YOU CAN DO IT, might work out well for you.
- You need to be passionate enough to actually believe in your project and make people realize the necessity of your product.

Check out Lost Beat:

• Website- www.lostbeatlive.com/LostBeat/login.aspx
• Facebook – www.facebook.com/LostBeatLive

You run a small home-based business and enjoy the perks that come with it. However, because you do not operate out of an impressive business park or have a storefront with a huge sign of your business, marketing your home based business can be quite challenging.

But rest assured, it’s nothing that you can’t overcome – Sharing a few practical, easy-on-the-pocket marketing ideas for home based business.

Send flyers:

Flyers are a great way to get the word out about your business. Make them yourself at home with word processing software or get it done from a professional. It’s quite cheap.

• You can ask your newspaper delivery boy to pass them out door to door in exchange for a nominal fee. But instruct him strictly to not put the flyer inside the paper. It can pose legal issues if caught.
• You can put the flyers yourself on cars parked outside residential colonies or parking lots.

Expand your Network:

You might have a large supporting group of friends and family but they may not be the best sources of referrals. You need to look beyond them for marketing purpose. Network with others in your community by joining organizations such as your local Chamber of Commerce, attend regional trade shows and participate in professional conferences. You will get to meet other small or home-based business owners who may turn out to be your prospective customers. You may also pick up some valuable trade tips that can help you operate your home based business more efficiently.

Give Business Cards Freely:

Even though you are working from home, your business card can still prove to be a valuable marketing tool. Push your cards freely at every opportunity.

• Make sure to leave home with a stack and give them to everyone you come in contact with; even if it’s your barber or the teacher at your child’s PTA meet.
• While sending mails, don’t forget to put your business card in the envelope.
What should you business card include? Refer this.

Exploit Technology:

In this age of digital technology, it will be a big mistake to not use technology to your advantage.

• Create your business accounts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc.
• Upload a video on You Tube demonstrating your professional skills or your products.
• Build a professional looking website. Remember, potential customers will most probably check your website before they deal with you. Secondarily, website makes selling your products online easier for your customers.
• Activate voicemail message on your personal cell phone or home business phone. The voicemail is a good tool to promote your business even when you’re unable to answer your phone. Your voicemail greeting should include your business name and a mention of your products or services. It can even include a business slogan.

Promote Personally:

Don’t wait for your first customer to spread the word out about your business. Take this upon yourself actively even before your first client. So put your ego on the back seat and dive into it headlong.

• Contact your friends, family, neighbours, ex-colleagues or everyone else you know and let them know about the business you have started.
• Talk about your business to any person you meet anywhere. You never know when and how you meet your prospective client.
• When you are talking about your product or service, let your enthusiasm and knowledge show for maximum effectiveness. People would perhaps like to try out your products/services because they like your manner of speaking or your personal touch.

Keep these suggestions in mind as you promote your product or service. Do you have a tried and tested marketing tip for small home-based businesses? Do share with our young entrepreneurs.

Partnership firms in India are governed by the Indian Partnership Act, 1932. While it is not compulsory to register your partnership firm as there are no penalties for non-registration, it is advisable since the following rights are denied to an unregistered firm:

• A partner cannot file a suit in any court against the firm or other partners for the enforcement of any right arising from a contract or right conferred by the Partnership Act

• A right arising from a contract cannot be enforced in any Court by or on behalf of your firm against any third party

• Further, the firm or any of its partners cannot claim a set off (i.e. mutual adjustment of debts owned by the disputant parties to one another) or other proceedings in a dispute with a third party.

Registration Procedure: A partnership firm can be registered whether at the time of its formation or even subsequently. You need to file an application with the Registrar of Firms of the area in which your business is located.

• Application for partnership registration should include the following information:

- Name of your firm
- Name of the place where business is carried on
- Names of any other place where business is carried on
- Date of partners joining the firm
- Full name and permanent address of partners.
- Duration of the firm

• Every partner needs to verify and sign the application

• Ensure that the following documents and prescribed fees are enclosed with the registration application :

- Application for Registration in the prescribed Form – I
- Duly filled Specimen of Affidavit
- Certified copy of the Partnership deed
- Proof of ownership of the place of business or the rental/lease agreement thereof

It may be noted here that the name of your partnership firm should not “contain any words which may express or imply the approval or patronage of the government except where the government has given its written consent for the use of such words as part of the firm’s name”.

Once the Registrar of Firms is satisfied that the application procedure has been duly complied with, he shall record an entry of the statement in the Register of Firms and issue a Certificate of Registration.

Nikita Bansal - Design Matters

Nikita Bansal is a Lifestyle Accessory Design Graduate from National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFT), Bangalore. After working for Fab India as a designer and buyer for two years, Nikita got a lot of clarity and insight in terms of market trend and demand. This, in turn gave her the necessary confidence to ‘start-up’!

A long-time dream, Nikita finally took the leap in 2011 and started ‘Design Matters’. Her venture now supplies lifestyle products to stores across India and the world; offers design packages in lighting, giftware and small accent furniture across materials such as wood, metal, stone, glass, natural fibres, ceramics and fabric.

Believing that only hard-work, honesty and talent can make a success-story, Nikita has big plans for Design Matters for the days ahead. We wish her luck!!!

Here’s a straight-from-the-heart tete-a-tete with her -

Design Matters

What has been the key to your business’s success?

Our motto, “Contemporary in form but traditional in spirit” – This is also the USP of Design Matters!

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

Once the designs are out they get easily copied – this is one of the big challenges that we face today and there is not much that one can do to in this regard. The copy right laws are not too stringent.

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

My husband and my family have been my support system throughout. They advice me and guide me through thick and thin and stand beside me like my pillar of strength. I could not have done anything without their constant support.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

Designing software like Corel, Adobe and 3D max are such a boon. They make work so much faster, easier and presentable.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

Be honest with your work. You can never cheat in terms of quality, prices and time lines. It will not lead you anywhere in the long run. Be truthful to your work and give it your best shot the customer will definitely be satisfied.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Hardworking, Honesty and Talent

In an earlier article, we had discussed about Venture Capital – Availability and Trends in India. As emphasized in the article, you may think of turning to venture capitalists, when your start-up has taken off at a decent speed and needs the next level fuel for further acceleration and growth. Remember, venture capitalists are generally for big money requirements. Hence, consider them only when you need funding for a massive expansion or a major overhaul in your operations.

Given below is a list of venture capital funds that you may find useful:

Canaan Partners: Focusses in businesses in the technology and healthcare sector, offering a variety of support to the portfolio companies including assistance in the development and review of business strategies, with the recruitment of key senior management, in the structuring and negotiating of strategic alliances etc. Canaan’s huge portfolio includes Artspace, Business Layers, Happiest Minds, IntraLinks etc.

Nexus Venture Partners: Nexus focuses on technology, business services, agriculture and Internet start-ups. Their preferences are “capital efficient business models, innovative product, process or business model addressing a significant customer pain point, differentiated product or service that can create a competitive advantage, companies that can be standalone independent businesses, not features for another business.” Key portfolios have been Craftsvilla.com, BigshowBazaar, SnapDeal, Komli, Druva Software, Aryaka Networks.

Helion Venture Partners: Helion Venture Partners is an India-focused venture fund that has made a spate of investments in high-growth technology-powered businesses and consumer services in sectors like Outsourcing, Internet, Mobile, Technology Products, Retail Services, Education and Financial Services. Komli, Jivox, Azure Power, Agni, Mast Kalandar, NetAmbit and more have received investments from Helion.

Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund: Aavishkaar believes in investing in early-stage entrepreneurial ventures and focusses chiefly on these seven sectors – Agriculture and Dairy, Education, Energy, Handicrafts, Health, Water and Sanitation, Technology for Development and Microfinance and Financial Inclusion. Some of the businesses where they have invested are Milk Mantra Dairy, Vaatsalya, Lets Recycle, Butterfly Fields, Desert Artisans Handicrafts and many more.

Mayfield Fund: Mayfield India invests in India-based companies that have potential to become industry leaders, with a focus on Consumer Services, Internet, Mobile, Technology & Technology Enabled Services, Logistics, and Agriculture-related Businesses. Their portfolio companies include Centum Learning, dealsandyou, Fourcee, Genesis Colors, Geodesic Techniques, Sohan Lal Commodity Management etc. Notable past successes of the team include India Bulls, India Games, MakeMyTrip and Persistent Systems.

Ojas Venture Partners: Ojas is an India-centric, technology-focused, early-stage venture capital funding firm backed by one of the early captains of Indian IT industry, Mr. Nadathur S. Raghavan, co-founder and former MD of Infosys. Their portfolio includes tyfone, Ziva Software, Vizury, Radiowalla etc

The market abounds in many other venture capital firms. If you have benefitted from any of them, do let us know here.

However it is heartening to note that many women have found ways that superbly balance their emotional maternal pulls and their professional aspirations. They run businesses from home. And the formula for success lies in knowing the technical requirements of the product/service well, desire to ‘make a mark’, determination to carry on despite the everyday challenges.

• Consultancy: Who says you lose touch on your technical skills when you take a sabbatical? Increasingly, women from premier institutes, with professional qualifications are setting up their own consultancies based out of their home or nearby commercial complexes in order to ensure that they are able to manage both home and office. Such consultancies range from personal development trainings to technical trainings to accounting and taxation guidance to marketing and others. Point is, if you can pull it off in a big organisation while handling a team, why can’t you do it from home too? Your determination and drive is the answer!

• Cooking Workshops/Catering: Is it wrong to say that women have a flair for cooking? No! Now give it a business touch and you will have a flourishing catering business in your hands. Perhaps the most popular form of business with women, these days you get to see such innovative ‘food entrepreneurs’ – baking, chocolate-making along with the traditional fare. Once you start with your core expertise and spread the word around, you will find yourself busy catering to birthday parties, festive occasions and even offices. Chef Gunjan Goela is a point in case.

Gunjan Goela

• Creche/Play-Schools: Another popular business option, women who have a background in teaching toddlers/children or in Montessori education, can easily start their own crèche or play-school for little children. All that you need are a place that is safe in every way for kids; whole lot of child-friendly toys, play-things, books, furniture; a couple of helping hands to help you with the kids, cleaning and kitchen; and loads of patience and creativity. You will be dealing with young, impressionable minds after all.

Sensing an opportunity in tapping demand for toys, Prajakta Kapure founded Toys-On-Rent, a toy rental enterprise.

Toys On Rent

• Hobby Classes: And what about those women who are good in arts and crafts and in performing arts? Start your own school. More and more parents want their children to get multi-skill training. Hence, classes for drawing, painting, crafts-making are a huge hit. And then there is a whole section of people who like to stay connected with their cultural roots through dance, music and theatre. Hence, if you are trained singer, dancer or theatre artist, know that people will throng you in large numbers if you open a school. Runjhun Gupta’s ZipOut was born out of her love for dance and see where she has taken it.

ZipOut

• Beauty Care/Clothing: Unarguably their strong domain, women have more than made a mark in the personal care industry by setting up salons and spas, offering home-packages, starting their own boutiques for clothes and accessories. Easy access to cheap labour and raw materials, ever-increasing demand for fashionable and exclusive dress items, have spurred the growth in this line of business.

Whatever be the line of business, remember, it will be fraught with challenges and hiccups. But that’s the case with any business – be it from the home-turf or otherwise. Why then waste a skill by just sitting at home? Start-up and roads will open – make sure you have thought of the pros and cons, and have drawn up a business plan with a clear revenue model.

Finally, your focus and determination will show you the way. After all, you are a born multi-tasker. Women are.

Launching a product through social-media gives has become a fad with a number of brands/products these days. Availability of different engagement metrics, measurement tools make it an extremely popular medium to build consumer interest and generate buzz for the launch.

Let’s discuss product launches via platforms that have caught the marketer’s attention:

Facebook: The social-networking giant, Facebook, has long been a favorite platform for marketers to launch their new product. It is because of the humongous number of active users of FB, the friendly features like Like, Comment and Share.

Tap in Facebook users by attracting ‘fans’ for your Facebook Page. You can either conduct a Facebook contest on your page or build a customized app, through which your customers can apply for a free sample of your product. Giving away free samples has always been a successful technique of generating buzz around the product, and Facebook is no exception. Make interesting updates related to the product to build adequate excitement — slowly reveal details about the product and asking your fans to make wild guesses. Time the contest/updates well so that you can maximize on the product launch.

You can measure the buzz created in terms of how many people are liking, commenting and sharing your everyday updates. Hence, when the buzz is one its peak, you can launch your product through Facebook.

Twitter: Twitter is the second most popular social network for marketers — it has proven to be one of the most successful tools for generating buzz and product launch. The main advantage of Twitter is that conversations about a particular brand or product can be aggregated under a Hashtag (#), that makes it easy for marketers to measure the interactions around their product. A high volume of tweets around your hashtag can also get you in ‘Trending Topics’. The launch of your product, when you are trending in Twitter, will get a number of eyeballs around your product and brand.

Website & Blog: There might be some situations, where you won’t be able to convey a message through posts or tweets. Your website and blog comes handy in such situations. Build a story around your product launch and pass the link through your different social media channels. A story with share-worthy content is bound to create more awareness among the users who haven’t heard about your product or brand before.

Over and above these tools, there are others tools like Pinterest, Slideshare and YouTube which small-businesses can make use of to build the excitement around and launch the product.

However, remember, no matter how many social platforms you use, make sure they are integrated in such a manner that it does not confuse users.

Creative R Solutions

 
Bangalore based Creative R Solutions, is the place for your complete landscape design needs, under one roof. Set up in 2008, today Creative R Solutions has a team of young talent that is enthusiastic, dynamic and made up of people who love pushing the boundaries of landscape design. The firm has recently implemented an innovative eco-friendly concept called Green Wall, for an urban lifestyle. A garden is designed on a vertical surface, rather than a horizontal one. So far, the firm has designed around 15 – 20 green walls in the country and specifically in Bangalore.
 
What made you start your venture?
 
The firm was set up by Suraj Nayak and his partner in 2008. He and his partner were keen on the interest around the world when it came to the “green aspects,” of landscaping and thought that India had huge potential in this space.
 
What has been the key to your business’s success?
 
The key to Creative R Solutions’ business success is quite simple – the team never loses hope or never gives up! “We face challenges with enthusiasm and don’t let them bog us down. But that said, I think we still have a long way to go.”
 
What strategy do you follow for customer satisfaction?
 
“Though it is hard to match customer expectations all the time, we do our utmost when it comes to satisfying our customers.” Suraj Nayak makes sure that he and his team are extremely prompt when it comes to addressing customer queries or issues.
 
As a small business owner, what do you look for when you hire employees?
 
Being in the creative field, the kind of people Creative R Solutions hires is crucial for its growth. “We are particular about hiring people who are open to learning new things on the job, rather than coming equipped with just theoretical background. The ideal candidate would have zeal and fresh ideas.”
 
What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

Suraj Nayak feels that, “in the creative field, it is very hard to please clients, hence we need to be dedicated to giving them the best we can to meet and exceed expectations.” Apart from the core client relations, other challenges faced by the firm were to track delayed payments or collect pending payments and following up with vendors on supplies. Creative R Solutions, desperately needed an easier way to keep track on the flow money, into and out of the business. The firm also could not afford an auditor during the initial stages.
 
How QuickBooks Online has helped…
 
“My firm has been using QuickBooks Online for a year and a half now. For me investing in this software was a must! I like the feature that shows me a consolidated graphs/ pie charts of my business’ financial information. This helps me plan my expenses and budget very easily. With QuickBooks Online, we finally have a convenient way to keep track of outstanding payments that we need to collect. This software has helped make our business more streamlined, systematic and organized – any business needs this to grow further.”

Creative R Project

 
Today Suraj Nayak uses QuickBooks Online India for both professional and personal financial management, to make informed decisions and effectively manage time. The product helped the team focus their efforts on their core business functions, rather than spread their efforts across administrative and management tasks.

Digital Marketing

 
Content Marketing: In order to attract the interest of the customers and generate more sales for your business, ensure that the content you offer is engaging. Incorporate your brand message with creative content and infographics with the objective of communicating the right data to your target audience. Graphic visual representation is on the rise now with brands adopting and applying the course of creative infographics. Prioritize the needs of your customers and prepare content accordingly for your marketing strategy. You can promote your product through videos, photos or blogs.
 
Location based services: Consumers these days frequently use apps with location features. For example, you go to a restaurant and you ‘Check In’, your friends within that app circle will get to know where you are. Consumer data such as age and location based are valuable for a marketer. You can build a relationship with these database owners and strategize on how to connect and engage with your consumers. Also work towards resolving privacy issues with these location based services and once it is secure, you can listen to the needs of the consumers and address their needs accordingly.
 
Creative ad formats: Advertising is an appealing platform that has huge potential to boost customer engagement. An ad that can connect to the audience with the right content will go a long way in garnering good results for a business. With the availability of abundant creativity in the market, you can deliver an appealing and an engaging ad for your target audience. You can do this by keeping a track of trends that are popular with the new generation and work on a relatively similar idea to share your product/brand story in a creative way.
 
Optimize mobile presence: It is the age of smartphones and tablets and almost everyone owns one. But still most of the online sites are not accessible through mobile. You could upgrade your online mobile presence by enhancing the process of easy access to your website and by making it better than your competitors. Ensure that you incorporate substantial information about your products with the objective of driving traffic to your website. In addition to this, you can hire a mobile app developer to create an app for your product. Focus on the features you require in the app and explain it to the developer ensuring the app is productive for the business.
 
Recreate an engaging website: Consumers visit websites for any information they require, and it is your responsibility to ensure your website is user friendly. Given the fact that user experience is a significant factor for a website, provide services that allow personalization- like self select preferences which in turn will engage the consumers. Update your website according to the latest styles and also work towards making it more search engine friendly.

What is Professional Tax? Professional Tax is a tax levied on professions and trades in India. It is a state-level tax and has to be compulsorily paid by every member of staff employed in private companies.

Applicability of Professional Tax as per the Constitution of India: Article 276 of the Constitution of India lays down that “there shall be levied and collected a tax on professions, trades, callings and employments, in accordance with the provisions of this Act. Every person engaged in any profession, trade, calling or employment and falling under one or the other of the classes mentioned in the second column of the Schedule shall be liable to pay to the State Government tax at the rate mentioned against the class of such persons in the third column of the said Schedule. Provided that entry 23 in the Schedule shall apply only to such classes of persons as may be specified by the State Government by notification from time to time.”

What is the Amount of Professional Tax? The maximum amount payable per annum towards professional tax is INR 2,500. The professional tax is usually a slab-amount based on the gross income of the professional. It is deducted from his income every month.

The slab for professional tax varies across the different states in India. Click here for the different slab rates.

In Which States is Professional Tax Applicable? The state governments of the following states have levied professional tax – Karnataka, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Assam, Chattisgarh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Orissa, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh.

Who is responsible to deduct Professional Tax?

• The owner of a business is responsible to deduct professional tax from the salaries of his employees and pay the amount so collected to the appropriate government department.
• He has to furnish a return to the tax department in the prescribed form within the specified time.
• The return should include the proof of tax payment. In case the payment proof is not enclosed, the return shall be deemed incomplete and invalid

How To Register for Professional Tax?

• Apply for the Registration Certificate to your state’s tax department within 30 days of employing staff for your business
• If you have more than one place of work, apply separately to each authority as regards the place of work coming under the jurisdictionof that authority

Penalties for Non-Compliance on Professional Tax Payment:

• Delays in obtaining Registration Certificate, a penalty of Rs. 5/- per day
• In case of non/late payment of profession tax, penalty will be 10% of the amount of tax
• In case of late filing of returns, a penalty of Rs. 300 per return will be imposed

Oomph Nutrition

Mitalee Doshi, with her background in Nutrition & Diet consultancy, founded Oomph Nutrition along with her husband Saurabh Doshi. Saurabh brought to the venture his experience in international business and branding and strategy. He takes care of the business’s BD and Marketing. Along the way, they invited Pooja Kothari, their friend and a fellow nutritionist, to join in with her technical expertise.

But before taking the plunge, the trio first analysed the crowded market where every other company offered so-called tummy tuck and weight loss programs. The team looked at the potential of India’s market and assessed the real need of the crowd for genuine offerings in the most convenient way to them. They spent hours collecting information from various sources, visited competition and studied their service gaps, spoke to a number of consumers and drew up a business model with customer needs and their delivery approach. Thus started Oomph Nutrition.

We spoke to Mitalee Doshi to find out about her experience as an entrepreneur this far. Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Mitalee Doshi & Her Husband Saurabh Doshi, caught while at Work!

What made you start your venture? When did you start it?

The socio-economic progress is not only witnessing people fly high in their careers but also grapple with problems on the health and overall well-being front. Stretched working hours, frequent eat-outs, liquor and cigarettes, overall stressed environment have become way of life resulting in to life threatening diseases, lifestyle diseases and disturbed personal lives. We started Oomph Nutrition to tell people that it is all about eating right and being disciplined in terms of your life and health. We believe in making small changes to your lifestyle while you can still eat the foods you love and gain health while losing weight through pure nutrition, yoga and exercise.

Oomph Nutrition started operations from August 2012.

Have you reached break-even? What has been the key to your business’s success?

Our pricing model is our USP — we are probably Mumbai’s most affordable yet professional Nutrition & Wellness consultancy firm. We have kept our prices extremely affordable which starts as low as INR 799/- wherein a client gets e-consultation, access to nutritionist over email & phone, disease specific guidelines & health newsletters. We maintain these prices as we choose to operate on a virtual office model & we pass on this benefit to client.

The key to our success so far is our customer approach — the flexibility we offer to our clients; the tailor-made health plan depending on their objective, lifestyle, food habits and preferences; online chat, consultation on phone, exercise videos for demonstration, flexibility of appointment and even door-step visit for client.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

• We have noticed that there is absolutely no entry barrier in this line of business. All sorts of wellness clinics mushroom in the cities regardless of the technical expertise.
• Our next challenge was to educate people to go the natural way for weight loss instead of the pills and tummy-tuck programs offered by a host of other clinics around the city.
• Finally, getting our clients comfortable on the online mode of operation was a challenge. We however overcome it by getting more acquainted through preliminary questionnaires and one-to-one phone calls.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

Our entire business model is online, hence, technology is at the core of our business. We plan to invest more on technology in the future in order to take the user experience to the next level.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

We don’t intend to completely commoditize the Health & Diet product, so there are no fancy bundle packages, no sales talks and no wrong advices. We work with the single objective of making a difference in our clients’ lifestyle — we help them determine their objective, guide them to choose the best possible plan and then help them to achieve their goals.

Well without too much of marketing we have been received well and now we intend to start brand activation campaign locally. Clients’ feedbacks are really encouraging and a feeling of making change in someone’s life really fuels the enthusiasm to grow more.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Discipline, Passion and Belief.

To get some oomph factor in your life, do visit their website: www.oomph-nutrition.com

Follow them at Facebook/ Twitter/ LinkedIn/ Blog for regular tips on Nutrition & Diet.

Customer Service Tips from the PR Industry

Listen, educate and then troubleshoot
 
When it comes to disseminating information in the Public Relations industry, it is rather methodical than randomly screaming out messages. In most cases the true purposes of communication generated by PR professionals is to increase visibility and also to educate the target audience. Even this education comes only after keenly listening to the stakeholders or target audience. If any issues need to be addressed, the industry professionals will do so, only when the audience is educated about the various contributing factors. So, listen, educate and then troubleshoot.
 
Use several channels and tools
 
For an industry that was traditionally restricted to the print medium – increasing client visibility mainly through newspapers and magazines, PR professionals were quick on their feet when it came to embracing broadcast and digital media too. Today, the right channels of communication are chosen in accordance to the kind of message and target audience. When it comes to customer services for your small business, try e-mailers, social media sites, direct mailers and more.
 
Be an influencer
 
The main aim of public relations is to influence a select group of people through set strategies. PR influences thought and indirectly or directly, the actions of people through targeted campaigns. Be an influencer when it comes to your customer services too. Create conversations and messages that influence the way your customers perceive your products or services.
 
Positive does it!
 
One of the best things to learn for the PR industry is positivity. Majority of the times, PR uses positivity and positive emotions to communicate with stakeholders. It is widely known and proven that people react better to optimistic or positive emotions rather than negative ones. Tweak your messages to sound positive and you’ll see a world of difference when it comes to customer service. Limit the usage of words like “no”, “can’t”, “problem”, etc.
 
Go beyond existing customers
 
When you think of customer services, look at it holistically, just as a PR firm would. Address the needs and concerns of all your stakeholders and not just your existing customers. Doing this will add to your small business image and increase overall goodwill. Besides, you are impressing a whole cross-section of potential customers by addressing all your stakeholders.

Build a Healthy Small Business

 
Know your customer
 
For a small business to prosper, the key would be to identify the right customers. An entrepreneur should carefully study his market and business model to know his potential customer base. Targeting the right customer saves money as well as time.
 
Identify any challenges
 
Entrepreneurs need to know the weakest link in their business. For a small business, the primary challenges would be aspects like cost control, inventory management, resources updates, customer services, etc. After the challenges have been recognized, entrepreneurs need to address these problems tactfully.
 
Tackle each problem singularly
 
At times, problems when seen collectively may seem overwhelming and demoralizing. Often entrepreneurs are intimidated by too many problems that crop up simultaneously. Instead of collectively trying to solve problems, it would be wise to break them up and see them individually. By dealing with one issue at a time, the entrepreneur is able to focus at the task at hand and accordingly find suitable solutions. These solutions prove to be the base foundation to a healthy and successful business enterprise.
 
Capitalize on your strengths
 
Each business has unique strengths of its own. This can be in any aspect: communication, finances, customer servicing etc. Being adept, responsive and exploiting these strengths helps in making the foundation of any business that much stronger.
 
Reinvent your small business
 
Adapting to change and reinventing aspects of your business is important for a small business to survive. Reinvention of a setup can be done without altering the vision and the business model. Acclimatization is what helps a company stay afloat with better business prospects.
 
Team building
 
In order to ensure a healthy business, an entrepreneur needs to ensure his team works in unison. A team that works in sync and coordination can achieve greater results. Effective team building and group dynamics help form a superior and healthier work environment.
 
The reluctance to say no
 
Start-ups make the common mistake of accepting any work that comes their way. Sometimes saying no or turning down an opportunity could work in favour instead of going against. Biting more than what you can chew can result in a drop of quality and that in turn could severely hamper progress. A possible solution to this would be to share or outsource work with another business entity.
 
Leverage the internet
 
Many businesses have formed a strong base and gathered customer acceptance due to effective social media presence. Leveraging your star-up business with the help of the internet can help clients identify with your venture as well as your products and services. The internet is the future of quick marketing and capitalizing on this aspect can help your business to grow.
 
Bootstrap whenever possible
 
Small businesses need to ensure their expenses are calculated and budgeted. An enterprise that is still in its nascent stage should curtail from making extravagant spendings. An expense or investment that does not add to any increase in the business revenue should be avoided. A healthy business is one that has a check on its disbursements.
 
To develop a healthy, successful business is no mean feat. To ensure the health of your business set up, a quick check on the above-mentioned points could yield fruitful results.

SEO for Small Businesses on LinkedIn

 
However, in spite of LinkedIn’s several features, entrepreneurs stumble to make the most of a site that can drastically increase their perceptibility. Following are some ways that a small business can leverage LinkedIn to increase their firm’s visibility:
 
Complete your profile
 
For any entrepreneur, one simple way to augment visibility is to complete all profiling details. An incomplete profile will appear lower in searches. Your LinkedIn page is almost like a mini website and gives information about your business. Following are essential pointers to complete a LinkedIn page:
 
. Upload a professional banner image
. Have a strong headline which would attract attention
. Put in links to your business’ other social media platforms such as Pinterest and Twitter
 
While these may seem like relatively minor details, these details help shape your business’ online identity.
 
Use keywords within your business description section
 
The summary or business profile section is where you have the most flexibility to expand upon who you are, who you serve and how you help your clients. The right and qualitative keywords will speak volumes about your business venture.
 
Product or service recommendations
 
Make sure you receive customer testimonials about your business’ products or services, because LinkedIn’s business pages have a product tab that lets your prominently feature recommendations. This will help in increasing your firm’s image and visibility.
 
Join and participate in groups
 
Participating in group interactions ensures quality visibility of your profile as well as your enterprises. Entrepreneurs can expand their business outreach, enhance communication levels and develop connections. Groups serve as a great approach to create your own community. Joining groups is a great way to increase visibility and to get valuable insights from your target audience or industry professionals.
 
Update relevant statuses at the right time
 
For a professional networking site, the focus of entrepreneurs should be to increase visibility during business hours. Any information that is updated should be relevant to the time, social surrounding and should be aimed to target the right audience.
 
Use your existing network
 
The most elementary and basic way to create a strong presence on LinkedIn is to make the most of your existing contacts as in individual for your business. Leveraging these contacts helps provide a smooth networking experience and promote your small business visibility.

A Facebook Contest is an interactive technique to increase the engagement in your Facebook Page and to acquire new fans. Many business owners accept that contests result in increasing the brand awareness and gaining valuable information about a customer. There are also few business owners who claim that Facebook Contests don’t work anymore.

Facebook contests can be successful in achieving your objective if conducted the right way, keeping few important pointers in mind. The biggest mistake a business can commit is by not reading the Facebook Promotion Guidelines before conducting a contest. Not following the guidelines can result in Facebook banning your contest or your page altogether.

Here’s a complete guide on how you should go about FB Contests:

Decide the type of Facebook Contests: The contest you run should match your objective and target audience. If the objective is to gain customer information, you can go for a ‘Sweepstakes’ Contest where in the customer has to give details like Name, E-mail ID, Mobile No etc to participate in the contest. The information can be collectively used for further marketing campaigns by the business. Photo contests are gaining popularity nowadays where a fan has to submit a photo on terms dictated by the Brand. A photo contest can be interactive and should be taken only if it’s relevant to the brand.

Administer the contest using a Third Party App: One of the biggest mistakes committed by a brand could be conducting a Facebook Contest on their Wall. Though you do not need a written permission from Facebook to run a contest, you will have to only administer the contest using some third party apps like North Social and Wildfire. Make sure the app is mobile compatible as the number of mobile users accessing Facebook is growing rapidly.

Offer prizes relevant to your Business: A trendy tech gadget might get a lot of users to participate in your contest but your objective is to bring in users who will be interested in your products and can be turned into customers. For example, if you are an e-commerce player, giving a discount voucher which could be used to buy products from your website at a discounted price, makes more sense as a prize for the contest rather than giving away a SPA voucher or an automobile.

Promote your Contest: Once you decide the type of contest and give-aways, identify appropriate channels to promote your Facebook contest. You can use your Facebook feeds as a call-to-action for the user to participate or you can use your different social media channels like Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest to divert the users to your Facebook Page. If you expect a lot of new fans to participate in the Facebook contest, it’s better to run Facebook Ads with the target page set to your landing tab (The Facebook Contest Tab in your page) and with precise targeting options.

Encourage all the Participants: Respond to all the queries about the contest asked by the users through Facebook Messages and Wall posts during the contest. Once the contest ends, distribute the prizes quickly and send an e-mail to all the participants announcing the contest results with a small incentive for people who participated but didn’t win. You cannot announce the winners on your wall as per Facebook Contest Guidelines.

A Facebook Contest can be a terrific marketing tool for small and medium businesses by following these simple tips. Make sure to maintain the excitement in your page even after the contest with interesting posts around your business and target audience.

Post your queries related to Facebook Contests here.

Buntea & Bubbley

We all have memories of sipping hot cutting masala chai at a tea stall at the ‘gali ka nukkad’. But just imagine sipping organic tea and eating delicious flavoursome frozen yoghurt in an innovative concept store where they flash the menu on an iPad and where your kids can have fun playing music notes on a virtual piano. Yes, it’s just that this is no imagination but an awesome reality.

Gautam Singh and his wife Prerna took the concept of tea sipping to a different level altogether. Gautam, a project manager in the mobile apps space for a multinational firm with an experience of 12 years in the industry and Prerna, with Fashion Industry experience of 12 years, started Buntea & Bubbley as a dream project.

Let’s understand this unique and fun concept of Buntea & Bubbley from Gautam and Prerna.

What made you start your venture?

The idea was planted in our head during a holiday earlier this summer. We had always wanted to do something on our own, something which was unique and a bit different than the usual. With our first sip of bubble tea, we realized this tea had immense potential in the Indian health market and that this was what we should do. We started exploring it as soon as we were back from vacation.

During our discussions we came up with the name and the store concept. We have conceptualized everything in the store right from the logo to the kiosk design and from the menu and recipe to the entire technology behind it.

From our first sip to our first store it took us around 4 months to conceptualize and execute the brand.

Buntea & Bubbley - Piano & their drinks

What has been the key to your business’s success?

The concept of our brand to sell healthy beverages and healthy desserts along with giving a unique experience to the customer are the key to our success.

• We believe in serving healthy items and are primarily focused on serving bubble tea and frozen yogurt.
• Another aspect of our brand is innovation not just in terms of the food items we offer but also in terms of customer experience.
• We have also tried to infuse an element of technology in our store which appeals to today’s customers.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

Launching a new and different idea in today’s competitive market in itself is a huge challenge. Just like any new brand we also faced a lot of challenges like;
• convincing a customer to try a different drink or try a Frozen Yogurt vis-à-vis an ice cream,
• managing supply chain as all the ingredients and machinery are imported,
• handling the operational front as we are not from the F & B industry.

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

Till date, we have been learning the ropes of the business by ourselves without help from any mentor. We feel that there is something to learn from everything we do, so of course this has been a huge fun learning experience for us as a brand.

The guidance has come via self learning through traveling, web, visiting places, talking to and understanding the customers’ needs. However, in today’s competitive world we do feel the importance of having a mentorship from someone who is an expert in the field. Hence, our company is in the process of signing up with IAN (Indian Angel Network) for their incubation plan.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

Technology has helped us in translating our brand vision into our store concept. We aim to appeal to the inner child of each and every customer and technology has helped us in bringing that quality out of all of our customers.
Our menu and billing system are iPad based. We have installed a floor projected piano developed using the latest technology of motion sensing.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction?

We believe customer satisfaction is the most important key to success; hence, we pay extra attention to look after our customers. We personally take care that all our customers are treated well and that everyone has a great experience at our store. We constantly ask customers for their feedback and all suggestions are taken very seriously.

What is your strategy for growth and expansions?

40% of our customer base is repeat clientele. Our customers have been promoting Buntea & Bubbley within their family and friends circle.

Regarding expansion plan, like any other company, we also aspire to grow. In the next 10 years we envision our company to be synonymous with healthy & innovative beverages and desserts.

• We are planning to open more stores and introduce a lounge. We have received offers from other malls as well.
• We are also working on technology front to provide newer games & toys based on cutting edge technology which has largely been unseen in India.
• We are also in the process of evaluating franchising options as it offers the only logical way to grow organically as a company.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

1. Belief – One must have faith in his / her ideas. Along with planning we feel the 1st step towards starting any new venture is the belief in your idea and that you can do it.
2. Fearlessness – Failure we feel is a part of success and failure makes us strong and more determined to reach our goals. We believe, that if you are determined to do something you must not fear about the results as I am sure if you are determined enough you will eventually achieve your goals.
3. Commitment – After you have started your venture we feel that you need to stay committed to your business as the initial years really can make or break a business. Always stay committed and determined to do better and to achieve better results.

We wish Buntea & Bubbley a bright future. You can experience the healthy and hygienic beverages and desserts yourself by visiting them at Phoenix Market City Mall, Whitefield, Bangalore.

Want to follow them? Visit their Facebook Page – www.facebook.com/BunteaAndBubbley

In our previous articles, we have talked about various responsibilities of a young entrepreneur of a start-up, from hiring employees, training and grooming them to motivating them. But there is one other task too, which though nobody looks forward to, becomes unavoidable in certain circumstances. We are talking about those unfortunate instances when you have to let go of your employees.

The Different Scenarios when you may have to let go of your employees:

• Star Performer: This employee is the most difficult to let go of. He not only contributed to the success of the company but also made the work enjoyable. But now it’s time for him to move on as he feels there is no room for his personal growth or development, finds the work mundane and not challenging enough or just needs a change.

• Neither here nor there: This is a good employee when he wants to be – i.e. one moment he is brilliant while the next, he can behave like a total moron. You are not too happy with his performance but still he keeps the cogs of the company moving. Furthermore, he is there when you want him to deliver. Though you are not too happy to see him go, you are a little relieved at some level when he resigns.

• Good for Nothing: Hiring him was probably the biggest mistake of your professional judgement. The employee’s performance is not up to the mark and you can never count on him to deliver. You can’t wait to see his back and fire him at the first serious opportunity you get.

Tips to Bid Employees Goodbye Most Amicably:

• Respect his Decision: If the employee expresses a desire to leave, find out what was troubling him and offer to change that to the best you can. But if he unwilling to continue despite the changes offered, let go of him. Understand that your employee has given his fullest to the company and now his priority has changed. It’s not good for either your company or the employee if he is not motivated enough to work with you.

• Part Amicably: It’s a small world out there. You never know when you may cross paths again. Remember, with the influence of social-media on our lives, one bad word from the employee can put a serious dent on your company’s reputation. Part on amicable terms so that if you ever meet again, it will be with no hard feelings. Also, you never know when you might need his assistance in the future.

• Token of Appreciation: One of the best ways to bid employee goodbye is to throw a small party in order to recognize and appreciate his hard work and commitment. Invite other staff members too. Give him a token gift or an inscribed souvenir (clock, pen stand, photo frame etc) to remind him of happy times he spent with you. This will also serve as a morale booster for other employees when they see you appreciating dedication and loyalty.

• Recommendation Letter: Give the parting employee a decent Recommendation Letter (an outstanding one in case of your star performer) so that it becomes easier for him to continue his professional career in dignity.

• Open Job Offer: Though this one’s not for the employee you fired, you might want to consider it for the other employees. Let him know that if he ever wants to work with you again in the future, he can contact you without any hesitation. You will be more than happy to accommodate him in a role (if available) that does justice to his qualifications and ambitions.

Bidding your employees goodbye is not as simple as it sounds. What feelings did you experience while letting your employee go?

Come end-February, and India Inc waits anxiously for the presenting of the Union Budget. A yearly exercise that affects the lives of every Indian with new laws, new stipulations, new slab rates, the budget involves strategy change for businesses.

Let’s see what this year’s budget, Union Budget 2013-14, has for small-businesses and start-ups:

• Availability of non-tax benefits for 3 years: Agreeing that “Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) have a large share of jobs, production and exports. Too many of them do not grow because of the fear of losing the benefits associated with staying small or medium” the budget proposed that the non-tax benefits may be made available to a MSME unit for three years after it graduates to a higher category.

• SIDBI’s refinancing capacity increased: In order “to provide greater support to MSMEs” the budget proposed to enhance the refinancing capability of SIDBI from the current level of `5,000 crore to `10,000 crore per year. This, TR Bajalia, Deputy MD, SIDBI, says will be “helpful in providing credit facilities at affordable rate by Sidbi to micro, and small enterprises through banks and SFCs. This will benefit over 3.5 lakh MSEs.”

• Increased SIDBI’s India Microfinance Equity Fund by 100 crore: With the proposal to allocate another 100 crore to the fund, over and above the 100 crore already allocated in the budget, TR Bajalia said that it was “expected to expand reach of 60-70 additional MFIs, benefiting more than 12 lakh additional clients, mostly women”

• Funds to SIDBI to set up a Credit Guarantee Fund for factoring: The Budget proposed to provide500 crore to the Fund. This tool of financingwill therebybenefit small suppliers who often get stuck owing to availability of adequate financing at the right time.

• Incubation Funds Given to Academic Institutes to Qualify for CSR Expenditure: What brought cheer to young start-ups was when the Finance Minister said, “Incubators play an important role in mentoring new businesses which start as a small or medium business. The new Companies Bill obliges companies to spend 2 percent of average net profits under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I am glad to announce that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will notify that funds provided to technology incubators located within academic institutions and approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology or Ministry of MSME will qualify as CSR expenditure.” Probably one of the most impactful proposals, this will pave the way for more incubation money in the campuses and will allow angel investors to put their money on new ideas without worrying about taxes. Experts in the industry are already lauding this proposal by saying that allowing direct transfer of money from companies to incubator, rather than pulling it up centrally and then disbursing may improve the efficiency of fund allocation.

• Start-ups listing on SME Exchange: The FM also announced that start-ups can list themselves on the SME exchange, without the need to go public. This will enable the flow of greater liquidity and will also ensure that transaction costs of going public later will come down.

Do write in to us to tell us how the budget has touched your business and how you have benefitted from it.

Giftingnation

Srinivas Mothey, co-founder & CEO, and Swetha Mothey, co-founder who heads partnerships and product strategy at Giftingnation, always had an inclination to start something or create a product useful for consumers. They started with a couple of ideas in the payment space to create a platform to make utility payments easier. Soon, they looked at social-media space and wondered if they could create something which would increase social bonding/engagement between people. It was then that they started identifying areas in the gifting space.

Armed with their respective MBA and BE degrees, and their professional experience in a wide array of roles, Srinivas and Swetha, are now in the middle of taking Giftingnation to the next level.

Srinivas Mothey, Co-Founder & CEO, and Swetha Mothey, Co-Founder

Excerpts of an interview:

What made you start your venture?

We did few things before we zeroed it down

• Studied the gifting market opportunity across US, UK & India, discovered that Gifting is a Rs.30,000cr market in India, is fragmented with no clear leader and has a lot of space to grow
• Consumer pain points – finding the relevant gift suitable to the receipeint is always a tough job for most of people, less time on hand to find a perfect gift, no or less personalization, not all gifting options are available at one place, recepients likes/preferences are not taken into consideration always etc.
• People forget events/occasion and in the last minute they don’t know what to buy or gift.
• A great product/technology combined with a service is something which was missing in the space and we thought we could create it.

Then we came to a consensus to create a gifting platform which will offer easy discovery, choice & variety, personalization and convenience & flexibility for customers.

What has been the key to your business’s success?

We built giftingnation on 5 key values and in every step or strategy, we place these values. It has helped us to see revenue traction, customer delight & has created a strong partner base. What have we done:

• For the first time in India we started a unique service called “Dial-a-gift”. It’s a gifting hotline where customers can call numbers 080-68000068/22 to ask any gift ideas or suggestion they are looking at and our team would suggest them with ideas & if we have the product we recommend them. This has given a personalized experience to customers and on the call we were able to convince customers to select options suggested by our gift experts
• A clutter free website with navigation that helps customers to discover the right gift through options like “Gift by”- Occasion, People, Thought etc. or directly start searching which comes to his/her mind (e.g. gift for mom or birthday). We had to put in effort to make images look real matching to a retail experience.
• Offering personalization through custom gift wrapping, choosing your message that goes to the users, add-ons which you can request with the gift (e.g. Cupcakes with flowers or Bonsai’s with Cake or Poster with Chocolates) makes it a value for customers.
• Flexibility to select a date when you want your gift to be delivered. You can pre-order for a gift or select a time of your choice. On top of it, you can select express shipping (48hrs) or super express shipping (same day or 24hrs) for your gift to be delivered. We have observed customers don’t mind paying if we are able to service them better. These features have brought great convenience and flexibility.
• On the marketing side we have used a combination of Online and offline marketing to reduce our cost per acquisition. Google search marketing is a good tool to measure & drive positive ROI. We have targeted high end housing societies to promote gifting with occasions which has helped generate awareness & sales. Repeat customers & email communication with existing customers helped increase sales in a targeted way and also spread the word of giftingnation.com/ gift hotline number.

What are the major challenges in your line of business and how did/do you overcome them?

Few challenges

• Acquisition of customers
• Packaging
• Delivery timings
• Personalized service

Do you have a mentor who guides/advices you on matters of the business?

There is no one person whose name we can take but we get inspired by different people we have worked with in the past. There is learning from each of them and that’s how we get advice. We also take suggestions from few advisors.

Have you benefitted from the use of any specific technology for your regular operations?

• Mobile app to manage and track our basic admin functionalities like inventory tracking, sales, orders, customer’s data and delivery has helped to get real time mechanism to take quick decisions and actions.
• Combining sales data, online marketing initiatives with Google analytics has helped us to understand products that work, pages that need change of content, customer preferences, marketing insight etc.
• We were also able to identify and use web apps like Stitch labs, pixel printer and many more helping us in invoice generation, order slips, accounting, packaging etc.
• Handheld mobile point of sale payment devices helped us in collecting money at doorstep through credit or debit cards.
• Map based apps helps us to estimate distances and helps our teams to navigate through routes & get to know traffic updates.

What strategy do you follow for Customer Satisfaction & Expansion?

• We have learnt over time and have made this a practice to speak to few customers every week to understand how they want to gift, their needs, how they want our product or service to help them. This has given insights and we were able to change strategies faster
• Offering a great experience offline & online, a clean easy-to-navigate website, positive reverts, speaking to customers on phone, faster email support helped us to gain the trust of users.
• Personalization in delivery, felxibility in choosing delivery options helped us in delighting customers.
• Great curated collection of products offering choice & variety helped us to get traction faster and helped us expand customer base.

What, according to you, are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

• Persistence
• Learn to innovate & move faster
• Ability to form a great team

For more details, click – www.giftingnation.com

Small and Medium Businesses have already taken in Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest in a big way. “Do we still need our presence in Google+?” – They then ask. It is not mandatory to be on Google+ but you just can’t ignore it as the social network has got a whopping number of more than 250 million members across the world. To top it, Google+ adds a lot of value to your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts by helping your posts show up in Google Search results. Google+ then, is slowly becoming an essential tool of any business’s Social-Media Strategy.

How to Create a Google+ Page for Your Business?

Go to your Google+ Account and find the option ‘Pages’ under ‘More’ on the left side of your account. Click on ‘Create Page’ and you will able to see the screen below.

The layout is similar to that of ‘Facebook’ where you will have to select the category of your Business. Once you select the category, you will be asked to fill the name and link of the website (if you have one). Unlike Facebook, Google+ has given you the option to restrict your Page’s Content to a Particular Age Group. You can either choose a specific age group or make it visible to any Google+ user.

How to Optimize the Google+ ‘About’ Page for Your Business?

The ‘About’ Page in Google+ gives you the opportunity to give a quick overview about your business to your page visitors and also to showcase some of your important services by linking them back to your website.

Google+ Page - Hubspot

Make sure to include important keywords relevant to your business and used by your target audience in the ‘Introduction’ Section of your ‘About’ Page. Google+ also allows you to use bullets when you list down your products and services.

How to Optimize Posts for Better Results for Your Business?

Whenever you are posting something about your business in your Google+ Page, make sure to include relevant business keywords which could be used by your target customers. The posts need to be optimized because they will show up on follower’s search results. Google is vigorously working on providing personalized search results to its users. For this activity, Google Search algorithm considers the relevant posts from Google+ pages and posts. The more relevant your content is, the more you show up in Google Search Engine Result Pages.

How to Engage with your Audience in Google+?

There’s no doubt that the success of a business page in any social-media platform depends upon the engagement within it. Search for communities relevant to your business and add them to your circles from your personal page. When you add them, you get a live stream of relevant posts coming up in your home page. The only disadvantage of Google+ page is that youcannot add someone to your circle until he addsyour business to one of his circles. Hence you need to engage with relevant conversation using your personal page and then slowly introduce the business page’s content to the outsiders.

The search functionality of Google+ works like a dream unlike other social search Engines. You can easily search for your brand mentions and other relevant keywords. Identify relevant conversations and respond to them. Spending time in Google+ not just boasts your Google+ profile; it also helps in improving your overall online presence.

We will soon return with more guides on Google+. In the meantime, do let us know if this article has helped you.

Succession Plan

 
Here are a few things you can keep in mind when it comes to putting a good succession plan in place.
 
Identify potential candidates: The foremost step is to identify the potential candidates, with suitable skills and qualities. Not all these candidates will go on to the helm, but most will fill up important roles in your business as it grows. While your children may want to continue the legacy, they may not always be the right candidate. Sometimes an employee or a relative may prove more meritorious and would make a better leader for your business. You can consult your family or a third party advisor in this case, to assess the capabilities of the potential candidates.
 
Mentor and monitor: You need to train the future leaders for your business by assigning responsibilities and mentoring them. Mentoring is an essential part of the succession plan where you should involve identified employees in decision-making areas of the business and then establish a sound relationship with important stakeholders such as vendors and customers. Working closely with these candidates also ensures that you can tie in their own personal aspirations with business goals. Identify these candidates’ strengths and weaknesses and work on it constructively to mould a refined and experienced leader for your business.
 
Monitor the performance of the business under these candidates and see how they are faring in various activities. Make sure the trained candidates are good at prioritizing the roles and responsibilities. They should act as catalysts that accelerate business performance and growth. Guide them where necessary and allow them to share ideas and thoughts on important matters. This way you are empowering the managers to move on to bigger roles.
 
The legal bits: An important part of the succession plan is to settle the financial and legal matters in your business. You do not want to witness a bitter battle over finances or power when you plan to step down. A legally sound will and other necessary legal documents would ensure that any conflicts are resolved as quickly as possible. The leadership transition would also be smoother. Involve legal and financial consultants to settle on aspects of business investments, tax issues, monetization plans etc. and ensure that the next successor is aware of these decisions.
 
Your post retirement plan: Ensure that you have a sound retirement plan; if you would like to serve your business for some more time or if you would like to completely retire. Ensure that your plan will help you sustain your livelihood and that you receive a monthly pension or some sort of financial support from the business that you built. Alternatively, you can also work as a dormant employee, who steps in from time to time to offer guidance.