Top Tools to Run a Location-Independent Business
Remote and location independent international businesses are on the rise in the late 2010s. In fact, Walter Analytics as a company and a team is also a remotely operated business. We do believe in this approach and got many questions from clients and partners on how do we manage our business without maintaining a physical office. In this week’s topic, we will explain the benefits of a location independent business, how to run a location independent business and what are the most useful tools for a manager to run the business remotely.
For better projects: Slack or Basecamp
Managing a project online with a location independent team isn’t that hard that you would think. A good project management tool will help you out. There are three characteristics of a good project management tool: transparent communication, organised flow, sharing availability. Your team needs to communicate on projects, and sometimes email is not the best option as it is not as flexible as a live chat. Following the progress of a project is also essential with deadlines and tasks. And there is the option to integrate other sharing services and track everything. Slack and Basecamp are the best options.
For better communication: Skype and Join.Me
There are three options to communicate instantly with your team: instant messaging or chat, conference calls and screen sharing calls. Your project management software will support your chatting needs, or you just use GChat or other services for quick one-on-one catch ups. For anything more in depth, we recommend Skype as it has excellent conference call capabilities and the service is always working. There are also needs to do demos and screen share, for that we recommend join.me.
The essentials
There are also a bunch of other smaller tools that you need to use on a daily basis. A file sharing system should be a must to store and access your corporate files on the go; Dropbox would be a valid option. Screen capture is also an essential service you need to use, especially if your business does a lot of online development and design, Droplr is a good option. Organising meetings and calls, Calend.ly is a good choice.
But in the end, it doesn’t matter what tools you use. What is important is that you need to make sure that everyone in your team is happy with the toolkit and can use them effectively to cooperate and work on a better location independent business.
This week we will show you how to run your business remotely. Please join our weekly Q&A where we answer all of your questions.
How to Run a Location-Independent Business
Remote and location independent international businesses are on the rise in the late 2010s. In fact, Walter Analytics as a company and a team is also a remotely operated business. We do believe in this approach and got many questions from clients and partners on how do we manage our business without maintaining a physical office. In this week’s topic, we will explain the benefits of a location independent business, how to run a location independent business and what are the most useful tools for a manager to run the business remotely.
Be transparent and proactive
Having a physical office will get you the benefits of having live conversations between your employees on your business. Office politics, new hires, new clients and all the good stuff in a “typical” company can happen there. But if you are a location independent business, you don’t have this setup so you need to create that atmosphere virtually. Have as much transparency as you can handle regarding the business KPIs, the economics behind your business, your business model, and the actual progress of your business. Your virtual employees will feel part of the company through this transparency. Proactive mindset is also helpful, letting to disappear employees online will hurt your business, while “sleeping” or underperforming employees in your physical office might be easier to manage.
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Communication is essential. Having regular meetings online will ensure the smooth progress. Successful online businesses have also guaranteed to maintain online channels where employees can interact with each other apart from email and other usual platforms. Maintaining an on-going relationship is a must. When your employees are stuck in a project, having a one-on-one call with them is highly significant. Know the options where your employees respond fastest to your reach outs.
Use the gadgets
You don’t have a physical office. Your office is the internet so you need to harness the power of online. Have all your tools set up and use them to build up your virtual company. Project management services, online chat rooms, mailing lists, developer platforms, online communication services, screenshot and screen share services are super important for your business. The key here is to mimic the office without stepping into one.
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The Benefits of Having a Location-Independent Business
Remote and location independent international businesses started to rise in the late 2010s. In fact, Walter Analytics as a company and a team is also a remotely operated business. We do believe in this approach and got many questions from clients and partners on how do we manage our business without maintaining a physical office. In this week’s topic, we will explain the benefits of a location independent business, how to run a location independent business and what are the most useful tools for a manager to run the business remotely.
Access to the Internation Pool
The number one benefit wouldn’t be the costs as you might imagine but the access to international pools of talents and new businesses. When you don’t have a physical office or headquarters, you won’t be tied to a single location or market. With a location independent business operating online, you have the access to a wider pool of talent and businesses. You can hire practically anywhere in the world, and that gives you a cutting edge advantage over your competition. Finding talent in a city is hard if you are not in one of the major hub business points but hiring from online anywhere you have access to anyone. Finding new business at your town is also challenging, and eventually, if you are successful enough, you’ll run out of new business options. With a location independent business, the world is your market.
Cutting the Costs
This should be the second most significant benefit and cannot be neglected, but it is far not the most important. But it is true, without a physical office, you will have much power on your revenue. Severe overhead costs can be reduced and with location independence you can also harness the power of international corporate laws and tax jurisdictions. While you will spend a lot on new tools to manage your business, you don’t need to worry about costs for new vending machines.
Flexibility
Location independent businesses don’t have a physical office and fixed staff mostly. Though there are some key members of your team, everything is flexible and aligned with your revenue. With this flexibility, you will gain a serious quick market advantage; you can adjust your business while on the go anytime.
This week we will show you how to run your business remotely. Please join our weekly Q&A where we answer all of your questions.
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Marketing Analytics Q&A: Social Media for B2B Communication
Most of the social media channels are a Business to Consumer (B2C), but can they be used for Business to Business (B2B) communications as well? And how efficiently? In our weekly Q&A session with Neil Walter, we talked through the areas of B2B social media communication. If you would like to participate in our next Q&A and ask your questions, please sign up and register here. As some of the issues contain business information, we only show the general ones here as we’re always respecting our clients’ and prospects’ privacy.
Where should I structure my social media team?
Your social media team should be your go-to point for all of your sales people and marketing team. They should be placed horizontally on your wider communication team to get the most out from social media in the benefit of a better marketing.
What’s the main difference between LinkedIn ads and AdWords?
Targeting. With LinkedIn, you can find people and not the people’s interests like in AdWords. You can communicate directly to the decision makers of related companies. This communication can be business/personal through LinkedIn messages or a sponsored story your organisation can share online. This sophisticated targeting though comes with a bigger price cap compared to traditional ads like AdWords.
How should I determine on the platforms?
Don’t determine on them, use as many social platforms as you can maintain with good content. If you are highly sales-led, and you focus on lead generation mainly, focus on LinkedIn first and build up a smooth process to funnel those leads. If you are more into branding, use any other social media channels you would like and those which you can fill up with relevant content.
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Digital Analytics Can Help You Raise Profits – Part 2
In a study in 2015 November, CMO Survey showed that companies spend 6.7% of their marketing budgets on analytics and expect to spend 11.1% over the next three years. With this massive increase and an already significant chunk of overall marketing spending, the question remains: what is the return on investment (ROI) on digital analytics? How can we quantify this amount of expenditure? At Walter Analytics we worked with numerous clients and helped them grow through implementing digital analytics. One our success stories was a cooperation with EmployEase.
Walter Analytics has worked with EmployEase for over two years enhancing Analytics and driving the digital growth of the business. This partnership has been a key driver of revenue growth for EmployEase and outlines our framework for working on Analytics with a client.
Align stakeholders, other experts, and agree on a measurement framework
It’s important to get decision makers on the same page in regards to the best way to measure results and track digital growth. To do this, you need to define the framework, agree on implementation, and then technically implement the changes. In the case of EmployEase, we decided we needed a Google Analytics configuration to track different goals on the website with a weekly review of results. Once the business agreed to the changes, we worked with the web developer to implement the required tracking.
Define the path to sustainable growth and achieve the stated goals of this path
This stage is where the real results happen. However, rather than jumping in, we define what needs to happen and get buy-in from the business. In this stage, we identified that two things needed to happen to achieve growth goals;
1) An increase of conversion
2) An increase of relevant traffic
We worked with the web developer to improve the landing pages and overall structure of the website, and we worked with the business to agree on traffic buying and changes that would lead to longer term organic traffic growth.
Maintenance and funnel optimisation
We achieved the third stage after working together for twelve months. After hitting the initial goals, the business decided they wanted to scale up. However, this required some internal changes, so we worked with new members of their team and new products. At this stage, the key importance is to maintain the minimum amount of revenue and then look to expand through new channels, new tactics, and better backend conversion. This is further than the website and includes calls, the customer service team, and customer feedback.
The profits in this stage come from the compounding optimisation of several stages all at once. EmployEase is still growing.
This week we will show you the ROI in digital analytics. Please join our weekly Q&A where we answer all of your questions.
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