5 Tips for Small Business

Only five out of 10 small businesses (companies with less than 500 employees) such as Jeff Asherbranner's will survive to see their fifth birthday, according to the Small Business Administration. Successful entrepreneurs that make it to that milestone will have most likely done so because of their ability to apply the following key strategies to their businesses.
No matter what the industry, these traits are typically found in small businesses that survive and thrive beyond their fifth anniversary. As you review these, think about small businesses like Jeff Asherbranner-Sales Consulting in Redlands, CA and what they could do to improve.

1. Adapt & Innovate

As time goes on, the world changes. Technology improves. Laws are amended or new ones created. New productivity improvements, such as widespread prevalence of smart phones, affect not only the communications of a business but can also affect how its product is consumed.
“Uncertainty” is the new buzzword that you hear repeatedly amidst our tumultuous political and economic climate.
With constant fluctuation, the only way a business can survive is by adapting to the new world and consistently tweaking their products and services.
Just take a look at the evolution of cell phones throughout the previous three decades for a visual. As technology improved, lifestyles changed and business operations transformed, so did the products that cell phone manufacturers produced.
What happens when a company doesn’t change? Ask Kodak, once a market share leader of photographic film sales and now not even a blimp on the digital camera scene. If you aren’t adapting to your customers, your competitors will – just ask Kodak.
While successful entrepreneurs adapt their companies’ product/service offerings, some do so without a dedicated research and development department. These business owners don’t do it alone, though. Often, these bosses empower their employees across all departments, which can result in suggestions to improve efficiency or boost results.
After all, who is better qualified to identify everyday problems than those that are on the ground every day?

2. Stay Connected With the Customer

Successful entrepreneurs know that they cannot invent the next big thing or improve their products or services by living only in their world – they must stay attuned to customer feedback and needs, continuously looking for opportunities to improve their services.
This point goes hand in hand with innovating because solving problems for customers is never complete. There will always be room for improvement or the development of new products or services entirely, since change is constant.
Staying connected with customers involves not only listening to client feedback but also applying critical thinking skills that can help businesses anticipate future needs.
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is reported as saying.
While there is some truth in Jobs’ statement – customers don’t always know what products they’ll use and how they’ll use them – successful entrepreneurs have a good grasp on the problems that their clients face and develop solutions to meet their needs.

3. Understand and Articulate Why Their Product/Service Is Better

A company could have the best product or service, but it won’t do anyone any good if the company is unable to persuade anyone to try it. Communicating product benefits can break down at two main points.
The first point is a lack of understanding why people like the product or service. If the majority of customers buy a product for X but the company believes that Y is what gets the product off the shelf and promotes it, then the business is focused on communicating the wrong benefit.
Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “The buyer rarely buys what the seller thinks he is selling.”  Know “why” your clients are buying.
The next aspect of this is communication itself, which can’t be overvalued. Think about a recent conflict at work. The source of a problem with a colleague can often be traced back to poor communication or a simple misunderstanding. The same thing can happen when companies attempt to communicate with customers – things can get lost in translation.
Communicating how and why a product will benefit a prospect is key to running a thriving business.

4. Strive To Improve

Since successful entrepreneurs know that their companies must constantly improve their offerings, they also know that they can always better themselves, as can their employees.
These CEOs value education in every form – articles, podcasts, Google hangouts, conferences, etc. They help their employees elevate their skillsets and also focus on improving their weaknesses.
The thing about successful entrepreneurs is that they’re never content – they’ve always got an eye on tomorrow and how they need to improve to continue to be prosperous. Encourage your employees to grow and learn on a daily basis. You will reap the rewards in the long term.

5. Create A Profitable Business

Earning more money that you spend is a simple concept, but it’s one that needs to be addressed. Some business owners can have a solid grasp on the first four concepts, but struggle to make their idea work financially.
If you can’t figure out a way to take in more money than you spend, then a fabulous product and superior customer service skills won’t matter. Because there won’t be a business.
Of course, a new venture may lose money initially. Experts suggest that a new company should budget to lose money for the first 2-3 years. However, if you are spending more than you make in Year 4, you need to reassess your business model.

Stressful Workplace Environments

An important factor in workplace environment is to avoid stress to the employees. Businesses like Jeff Asherbranner-Sales Consulting do everything they can to avoid stressful work environment.

If you have a cruel boss or rotten co-workers, beware. It may not be just your job that's on the line.

Clearly, a work environment that includes insults, back stabbing and belittling can erode an employee's morale. What's less understood is that such a toxic work atmosphere can also lead to deteriorating health. At WebMD, we talked to the experts to find out what it is about negative work relationships that can cause so much stress, how our bodies react to chronic workplace stress, and what it takes to find relief.

A Need to Be Heard

Feeling trapped in a workplace that isn't fair can actually increase your risk for coronary heart disease (CHD), a leading cause of death in the U.S. In a two-part landmark Finnish study conducted between 1985 and 1990, researchers surveyed more than 6,000 male British civil servants -- without presence of CHD -- regarding how fair, or unfair, they perceived their employers. Subjects who reported a high level of justice at work were 30% less likely to develop CHD than workers who consistently experienced injustice at work.

Just how did study participants define "justice" in the workplace? Those who felt their bosses considered their viewpoints, treated them truthfully, and included them in decision-making processes said they worked in "just" workplaces.

The results of the study show what many experts say: Feeling like you haven't been heard ranks as the most stressful aspect of interpersonal work relationships. "It's a helplessness that comes when employees feel like they've expressed themselves and been discounted, or someone hasn't taken the time to listen to them," says psychologist Carol Kauffman, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School's department of psychiatry.

Others agree. "The workplace needs to feel meaningful. If you feel like you're not respected, that your opinion isn't meaningful, you're at an increased risk of heart disease," says Bruce Rabin, MD, PhD, a professor of pathology and psychiatry at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. On the flip side, Rabin tells WebMD, "Feeling a part of the workplace is a meaningful buffer to the health effects of stress.

Reacting to Co-Workers

How workers react to negative interpersonal relationships in the workplace, be it passive-aggressive co-workers or disgruntled bosses, also has a dramatic impact on subsequent stress levels.

"Some people are more prone to stress reactions. They're likely to be people who have difficulty managing on a day-to-day basis. They may not have effective problem-solving skills, or be predisposed to high levels of anxiety and uncertainty," says social worker Len Tuzman, DSW, an expert on stress management. This is particularly true for employees that Tuzman calls "catastrophizers" -- those who blow a situation out of proportion until it becomes a major calamity.

Just how great a toll does workplace stress take on employees' health? While it's impossible to tease out every illness and adverse health effect that began as a reaction to stress, Minnesota-based health management company StayWell compared the costs of stress with 10 other common health risk factors -- among more than 46,000 employees of both private- and public-sector companies. The risk factors included tobacco and alcohol use, overweight, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Cumulatively, these 11 modifiable health risk factors were found to comprise 25% of companies' total health care expenditures. The most costly risk factor? Stress.

This is why businesses like Jeff Asherbranner-Sales Consulting and others strive to avoid putting their employees in what could be considered a stressful work environment.

All information presented courtesy of www.Webmd.com

Positive Workplace Environment

Jeff Asherbranner and Positive Work Environments

Our work environment encompasses more than the employee lounge, office area and lobby. Policies, resources, professional relationships and company culture also fashion the environment in which we work. Author and University of Virginia Professor Scott A. Snell, in the book, “Managing Human Resources,” defines a positive environment in the workplace as an atmosphere of employee enthusiasm that improves organization performance. Workers reap social, health and personal benefits from a positive atmosphere at their place of employment. Organizations that fail to foster a positive environment for employees risk hampering their ability to succeed. Jeffery Asherbranner believes firmly that a positive workplace environment is important to any company.

Employee Benefits

In her book, "Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success," Jessica Pryce-Jones notes that we spend more than a decade of our lives -- 90,000 hours -- at work. Jobs fulfill our need to belong and give us a sense of identity. The quality of our association with work depends on the quality of our relationships with colleagues, supervisors and clients as well as company culture. When those relationships and the environment in which we interact are positive, we feel valued and respected. We take pride in what we do, perform better and care about our employer’s future. We become engaged: connected to the organization, results, customers and coworkers. Our professional contentment spills over to our personal lives.

Adverse Consequences of a Negative Work Environment

A negative work environment has career and health consequences for employees. An employee's less-than-exemplary job performance resulting from frustration with bureaucracy, a bad boss, 70-hour-a-week work culture, coworker conflicts and hostility raises fears of dismissal, stress and unhappiness. Leaving a negative job situation carries economic uncertainty and interrupts a chosen career path. According to a 2008 study published in the International Journal on Disability and Human Development, negative work environments lead to insomnia, anxiety and depression.

Employer Benefits

The agency overseeing the federal performance evaluation system, U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, notes that profitability, productivity, low turnover, an excellent safety record and customer satisfaction result from employee engagement created by a positive work environment. Engaged workers create a 20 percent increase in productivity and are nearly 90 percent more likely to stay with their employers such as Jeff Asherbranner, according to a Corporate Executive Board study cited in Snell's "Managing Human Resources" textbook. Organizations with a positive workplace also experience fewer Equal Employment Opportunity complaints and lower absenteeism.

Organizational Repercussions

Problems stemming from a negative employment atmosphere feed upon each other to the detriment of the entire organization. Attendance issues -- call-offs, lateness, leaving early -- lower productivity and poison morale. "Presenteeism," defined as reduced productivity while on the clock, leads to disengaged employees making errors due to their lack of concentration and motivation. Customer service suffers when unhappy workers cannot put on a happy face. Innovation and creativity lose their competitive advantage when disengaged researchers and product developers lose interest. As disillusioned employees leave, management loses credibility which tarnishes the organization's reputation and causes recruitment trouble. In an organization that keeps a positive environment such as Jeff-Asherbranner-Sales Consulting is an all around better business.

All information presented on this page is courtesy of http://work.chron.com/importance-positive-environment-workplace-3008.html.

To read more about Jeffery Asherbranner check out his website @ www.jeffasherbranner.net

Is Online Reputation Important

How Is Pissed Consumer Negatively Impacting People Like Jeff Asherbranner?

For Many Businesses, Pissedconsumer.com is Negatively Affecting Online Reputation Management Strategies by Dominating Google SERPs. Is Pissedconsumer.com a Legit Customer Review Website or Blackhat SEO Linkfarm?

If you do any sort of SEO (or PPC) work, you are probably familiar with www.pissedconsumer.com. Despite containing very little useful or valuable information, it has dominated Google’s search engine results pages since 2008. Sure, the site hosts tons of experiences and opinions from previous customers for almost every national brand in America, but is the content actually valuable?  Pissed Consumer hosts subdomain pages for countless companies, from Taco Bell to Best Buy, and everywhere in between.
So what are the true intentions of pissedcosumer? Some folks feel it is a valuable resource of finding out past experiences from widely known companies. Others feel that the entire site is nothing more than a giant link farm containing countless sub domains interlinking between one another.
At TriMark Solutions, one of our largest clients is a nationally franchised company, serving over 200 locations across the country. When the name brand of this company is searched, pissed consumer shows up 3rd!? How could this be possible when our client has so few actual posts on pissed consumer?

So what is pissed consumer doing to create such high rankings in Google?

• Interlinking between pages and domains. Because pissed consumer has SO MANY sub domains (your-company.pissedconsumer.com), they are able to internally link back and forth, creating a huge interwoven web of sites.
• Constantly adding new content. Despite the fact that 75% of posts on pissedconsumer are people badmouthing other posters or posting otherwise generally useless content, the constant barrage of new posts are seen by search engines as “fresh content”. This was literally the first post I clicked on from the Target Department Store, and it is utterly worthless to anyone looking for an authentic Target Review: http://target.pissedconsumer.com/nice-try-but-a-forgery-20100614185777.html. I hate linking to this site, but people need to understand the sheer volume of useless content that Google is constantly indexing.
• Targeting High Volume Brands as Keyword Searches. By constantly creating sub domains containing brand names such as K-Mart, Target, and McDonalds, pissed consumer is intentionally targeting (and optimizing) for those high volume keywords. If this wasn’t done on such a large, spammy scale, if may actually be considered white (or at least gray) hat.
So now that we know what pissedconsumer is doing “right” to build and keep such high ranks, what are they doing that could be interpreted as blackhat?
• Ignoring spam posts. Spend 2 minutes on the site and you will quickly discover that there are countless spammy comments posted on each review. Many are unrelated to the original post, are posted multiple times, or are identical copies of comments posted on other company reviews.
• Allowing people to post under different profiles. Essentially, there is no way to determine which posts are real and which are fake. Users are allowed to created unlimited names and post under each one. Someone could theoretically have an entire conversation or argument with themselves using different names. This decreases the likelihood that all content will be quality and useful to websurfers who are looking for actual legitimate reviews.
• Not deleting useless posts. Whether a post is submitted 4 times or simply consists of swear words and name calling, pissedconsumer allows it. Because these types of reviews and comments are in no way, shape, or from useful to the end user, you would think Google would realize that pissedcomsumer may not deserve the rankings it has.
• Having essentially 0 real content on the site. 99.999999% of all content on pissedconsumer.com consists of user reviews and comments. This sounds positive, but they are not moderated, and often not valuable in any way. Pissedconsumer simply relies on user driven content to constantly get reindexed into search engines, and continue to improve search results.

How is pissedconsumer negatively effecting online reputations for businesses and people like Jeffery Asherbranner?

Unfortunately for many small and medium (and even some large) sized companies, pissedconsumer.com is dominating search engine results. When a potential customer types in a company’s brand name and the 3rd result is a pissed consumer spot, they are often very likely to read these negative reviews, and not purchase from the company.
Many small business owners feel like pissedconsumer (and similar sites) are literally destroying their business by unfairly monopolizing the SERPs for their specific company brand name.

For many people like Jeff Asherbranner the case of online reputation management has become a never ending war of knocking down false negative reviews in an effort to keep one’s reputation positive. Sites known for fraud such as: Pissed Consumer, Rip-Off Report along with many others have irreparably damaged the reputations of many an honest businessman. Unfortunately it seems that until there is a way of taking fraudulent information off of the web the only way to keep a positive image online is to constantly monitor and improves one’s own reputation.

Information presented on page courtesy of http://www.trimarksolutions.com/inside/internet-marketing/how-is-pissedconsumer-com-unfairly-affecting-your-companys-online-reputation/