Networking is a very important part of any individual’s professional life. A strong network will not only give your career a competitive edge, but also provide you with the opportunity to learn from people you admire and respect. Not to mention meet some new and interesting people along the way.

When it comes to networking, most of the advice focuses on connecting with people who are senior and further along in their careers than you are. While there is a lot of value in establishing relationships with people who have walked the path before you, it is equally beneficial to build relationships with your peers.

What Exactly is a Network of Peers?

A peer network consists of people who are at a similar career stage as you. They may be your colleagues or people who work at other organizations within the same sector, fellow business owners, or people looking to establish new businesses.

How Your Network Can Help You Be Successful?

There are several benefits of having a peer network. Here are a few ways by which your peer network can help you succeed:

Access to Information & Best Practices

Your network can be a great resource to discuss ideas, opportunities or challenges you face in the day to day of your business. More than likely your peers are or have experienced the same type of situation and can provide insight into the situation as a whole. Your peers may also have other people in their network that they may be able to connect you with to help with your situation. Sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Support System

Your peer network can be an incredible support system for you. They can provide honest feedback on your ideas, create a safe space for you to share your fears and concerns, motivate you when you feel down and out, and also be your biggest cheerleaders.

Investing in the Future

You and peers will be far more established in their careers a few years down the line. They may be leaders, subject matter experts, and successful entrepreneurs in the future.

Investing in these relationships at the outset will ensure you will have access to them at a later stage when it might be more difficult to reach them.

Tips to Find and Communicate with People in your Position

You can begin with your workplace and connect with your colleagues. Industry-specific events, conferences, seminars, and forums are also a great way of finding people with similar interests and professional backgrounds.

Social media can also be leveraged to find people in similar professions, organizations, and career stages.

When you communicate with these people, make sure you underline why you’re looking to connect with them. What are some of the common interests or attributes between you and them, what are you looking to gain from this association, and what value can you add to their life?

Networking in Virtual Events

While networking in a virtual setting can be tricky, you can look at the attendee list to identify people you’d be interested in connecting with.

Share thoughtful comments and insights on the event platform. Participate actively in Q&As as well as break-out sessions organized as part of the event. Do also make time to follow up with people you interacted with through the events to continue the engagement.

Using Social Media for Networking

Social media is a really powerful tool. You can reach out to almost anyone across the globe. LinkedIn is an excellent platform to connect with professionals and industry leaders. You can also use Twitter and Instagram to follow thoughtful leaders and influencers and learn from what they have to share.

Peer networks can make a world of difference in your professional and personal life. Make sure you invest time in connecting with your peers.

Share with me on social media your networking tips – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Use #NetworkingTips

For a business to keep growing, they need to pay close attention to what their customers are saying. That said, it can be extremely challenging to know what your clients are thinking. So, how do you listen to your customers and take their insights to improve your business?

We’ll cover everything you need to know below. 

Request Customer Reviews & Monitor Your Feedback

Customer feedback is information you gather from your clients to determine whether or not they’re satisfied with products or services. It can also be general details about how they feel about your company. Asking for customer feedback is an excellent way to improve your products, measure customer satisfaction, better your customer experience, and more. 

Gathering feedback is great, but it’s not going to help unless you do something with the information. Whenever you collect insights from your clients, make sure you monitor each piece of data to use it as a reference in the future. 

Email Past Customers or Create a Customer Feedback Survey

The easiest and most popular way to gather customer feedback is with a survey, typically sent out via email. You can easily create surveys online and add whichever questions you deem relevant. However, you shouldn’t go overboard with the questions. Keep it simple and to the point. 

It’s also essential that you use open-ended questions whenever possible. If you create multiple-choice questions, you’re filling in the answers, not your clients. Open-ended questions allow your customers to talk freely and give you genuine answers you can use to make your business better. 

Get Immediate Feedback When Closing the Sale

Getting feedback right after a purchase is key because it will help streamline your sales process. Right after someone buys something from your company, you could ask them if everything was clear during sign-up or checkout. 

That said, never ask for feedback in the middle of a process. It’s better to wait for the right moment, such as when a live chat session ends, after a demo, or after resolving a support ticket. 

Why It’s Important To Monitor Customer Feedback

Your customer feedback is vital if you want to make effective changes to your company. However, gathering responses isn’t enough. Once you conduct a survey to see how your clients feel about your products or services, monitor your feedback and make adjustments accordingly. 

How To Deal With Negative Feedback

While it may feel natural to feel like your company is flawless and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong, please understand that negative feedback can be more powerful than positive. However, the way you deal with negative feedback is important.

Here are a few things to try:

• Be sympathetic and understand why your customers feel that way.
• Issue an apology if you feel like your company has made a mistake
• Always address your customer by their first name.
• Stay calm and resolve the issue.

It is always important to respond to your client in a timely manner with a proposal that will make them feel heard and acknowledged. This can make or break your relationship with your customers.

Final Thoughts

Without a doubt, gathering customer feedback can be exciting and intimidating. Make sure you do everything in your power to utilize their input and take action to improve your company’s performance and the relationship you hold with your clients. 

We’ll cover everything you need to know below. 

Request Customer Reviews & Monitor Your Feedback

Customer feedback is information you gather from your clients to determine whether or not they’re satisfied with products or services. It can also be general details about how they feel about your company. Asking for customer feedback is an excellent way to improve your products, measure customer satisfaction, better your customer experience, and more. 

Gathering feedback is great, but it’s not going to help unless you do something with the information. Whenever you collect insights from your clients, make sure you monitor each piece of data to use it as a reference in the future. 

Email Past Customers or Create a Customer Feedback Survey

The easiest and most popular way to gather customer feedback is with a survey, typically sent out via email. You can easily create surveys online and add whichever questions you deem relevant. However, you shouldn’t go overboard with the questions. Keep it simple and to the point. 

It’s also essential that you use open-ended questions whenever possible. If you create multiple-choice questions, you’re filling in the answers, not your clients. Open-ended questions allow your customers to talk freely and give you genuine answers you can use to make your business better. 

Get Immediate Feedback When Closing the Sale

Getting feedback right after a purchase is key because it will help streamline your sales process. Right after someone buys something from your company, you could ask them if everything was clear during sign-up or checkout. 

That said, never ask for feedback in the middle of a process. It’s better to wait for the right moment, such as when a live chat session ends, after a demo, or after resolving a support ticket. 

Why It’s Important To Monitor Customer Feedback

Your customer feedback is vital if you want to make effective changes to your company. However, gathering responses isn’t enough. Once you conduct a survey to see how your clients feel about your products or services, monitor your feedback and make adjustments accordingly. 

How To Deal With Negative Feedback

While it may feel natural to feel like your company is flawless and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong, please understand that negative feedback can be more powerful than positive. However, the way you deal with negative feedback is important.

Here are a few things to try:

• Be sympathetic and understand why your customers feel that way.
• Issue an apology if you feel like your company has made a mistake
• Always address your customer by their first name.
• Stay calm and resolve the issue.

It is always important to respond to your client in a timely manner with a proposal that will make them feel heard and acknowledged. This can make or break your relationship with your customers.

Value Your Customers’ Opinions

Without a doubt, gathering customer feedback can be exciting and intimidating. Make sure you do everything in your power to utilize their input and take action to improve your company’s performance and the relationship you hold with your clients. 

Are you looking to take your business to the next level but aren’t sure where to start? This is something most business owners face at some point in their careers. Success is measured differently for everyone, but it almost always includes your ability to visualize an ideal outcome and outline a game plan to get there. It all starts with setting short and long-term business goals and objectives.

Starting with Your List of Business Goals

How do you go about creating your goals? First, you must start with a list of business priorities. As a business owner, really think hard about what your business needs, and use this vision as a foundation for your goals.

Every business has a different path, so no two business owners top priorities will be the same. You can start by conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and deciding what your core business needs are. Then, you can design goals and priorities that address these four areas.

Types of Business Goals

Before creating business goals, you must understand the main types. Distinguishing the difference helps you outline a more effective business plan.

Personal and Professional Business Goals

Why did you first start your business? When you think about your business goals, your first thought may be about making money and gaining more clients. These are essential for business growth, but they are a small component of your personal and professional journey.

As you set your goals, think back to your initial motivations and what keeps you working towards those motivations. Evaluate things like the number of hours you want to work for the week, family and personal life needs, mindfulness, and your mental health.

Short-Term and Long-Term Business Goals

The best strategy is to set both short and long-term goals for your business. Develop a strategic vision that inspires you and provides you something fulfilling to work towards.  Then, break this long-term goal into specific short-term goals with essential deadlines. A big picture goal could include reaching a certain earnings level, creating passive income, retiring early, or moving to a new location.

Qualitative and Quantitative Business Goals

How you measure your business goals helps track your company’s key growth. Qualitative goals are those that you cannot measure with numbers. These include managing your stress better, gaining confidence, becoming more passionate about your work, and improving your communication skills.

Quantitative goals are those that you can numerically measure. Some examples of this are gaining five new clients before the end of the quarter, earning $20,000 next month, or working no more than 25 hours this week toward the business.

Monthly, Quarterly, and 5-Year Business Goal Examples for Your Business

Once you and your team establish your top priorities, it is time to form your business goals. Below are some critical objectives you can apply to your monthly, quarterly, and 5-year business goal plan:

• Implement a new customer service process – The best marketing tool is word of mouth, so you can develop a creative customer service process to establish a proper brand identity.
• Utilize social media marketing – Grow your brand and reach your target market better by providing value through social media in the form of contests, knowledge, and special offers.
• Increase your business productivity – Identify areas of your business where you could save time, money, or deploy resources more effectively.
• Decrease business expenses – Be strategic about reducing daily/monthly costs like eliminating debt, streamlining operations, or utilizing more technology.
• Extend your network – Find the businesses in your community that your customers also enjoy, and create a relationship that both parties can gain value from.

How can you begin achieving objectives like these? You must ensure that you and your team are on the same page. Below are some key strategies to achieve goals in business:

• Set hard deadlines.
• Review your goal progress on a weekly, monthly, and annual frequency.
• Keep the goals visible to you and your team so that they can remind you daily of your motivation and your progress.

SMART Goal Setting

SMART goal setting gives you the foundation for achieving company goals and objectives. SMART represents an acronym that helps set five criteria for your business goals: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. The SMART method creates a list of goals that help you and your team fulfill your business’s most important priorities.

Setting goals, is the easy part. Now it’s time to get those goals into action!

Here’s an interesting stat: only about 50% of all small businesses that begin this year will be around in ten years.

Lack of funding is one of the main reasons why businesses don’t survive. Imagine that, not poorly run shops, or owners that give up on their businesses… It’s the fact that businesses do not have enough funding to keep going. Most small businesses are unaware that other options than traditional bank loans are even in existence. For the mom and pop shops of the world, most won’t qualify for traditional business financing leaving them at a dead end. Or so they think…

What Is Alternative Lending?

Alternative lending is any type of lending that happens outside of a traditional bank. Most alternative lending companies generally operate online, and can provide a borrower with multiple options to fit their needs.

Alternative lending has become more mainstream over the past several years due to the number of restrictions and requirements traditional banks have in place. These strict guidelines often discourage many from pursuing a small business loan. Making small business owners look for alternative methods to obtain the financing they need for their businesses.

The economic downturns that have occurred over the last decade and a half have strapped companies of all sizes-forcing some out of business and others to turn to sources of alternative business funding.

Traditional minority groups like African-Americans and women-owned businesses have suffered the most significant loss in traditional lender settings. Many alternative lenders are known for issuing unsecured loans, making business loans for women and African-Americans easier to secure in today’s current market.

Here’s a list of the most common types of alternative lending programs that are available to businesses:

1. Small Business Loan – traditional bank style financing, with a set amount being borrowed and it being paid back over time.
2. Business Line of Credit – the most flexible program type rather than a fixed amount at one time, funds are accessible as needs may arise
3. Equipment Financing –  tye type of funding businesses use to purchase or lease equipment related to their businesses
4. SBA Loans – yes you read that correctly, alternative lenders have access to government backed business loans such as SBA 7(a) and 504 loans

Alternative Lending Requirements

There are also funding requirements for alternative lenders, just as there are traditional term loans issued by banks. However, alternative lending platforms make it a bit easier for some applicants to reach their lending requirements. Typically, FICO score is not a large factor in determining your eligibility with an alternative lender. Alternative Lenders tend to look at the entire picture of the company, including their time and business and monthly and annual sales.

Benefits of Working with Alternative Lenders

The following are some advantages of working with alternative lenders.

• Flexible qualifiers for funding
• Perfect credit is not a requirement
• Fast approval and funding

If you’re considering obtaining alternative business funding, make sure you do you research and work with a reputable company. Ask questions and work with your advisor to get the best options available for you and your business.

If you have questions surrounding financing for your business, feel free to give the team at ROK Financial a call or complete our simple 15-second application to and speak with one of our knowledgeable advisors today!

Starting a business during Covid is nothing like starting a business during ‘regular times’ (or so I’ve heard). If I’m being honest, I actually have never started a business during ‘regular times’. It’s in times of the most uncertainty I have seen the greatest opportunities. I started my first company back in 2007 during the recession, and ROK Financial in the middle of a global pandemic.

It’s safe to say there have been tons of lessons learned along the way. Some I wish I could forget, and but truthfully all have shaped me into the business owner I am today.

I’ve compiled a few of the tips I have found beneficial for myself and my business –  take a read below and share your tips with me on my social media channels.

Keeping A Digital Experience

Now more than ever it’s crucial to establish an online presence. Almost every person you know (even your grandparents and school-aged children) have direct access to everything at their fingertips. If your business does not have a website GET ONE, and FAST. Even if it is a simple landing page with basic information about what you do and how to get in contact with you, it’s critical to determining your legitimacy.

Get reviews, it’s free to do. Ask your most loyal customers to drop you a quick review on Google or quote them to be featured on your website. Over 90% of consumers rely on reviews prior to purchase so make sure you are asking Justin who comes in every morning for his cup of coffee, or Katie who’s hair your color every month to leave you a review. Providing a positive experience is more important now than ever before. If people like your company, or even better, have fun with your company, they’re far more likely to become repeat customers and recommend your goods or services to others.

Keeping a Healthy & Focused Daily Routine

Having a daily routine is also essential to your success. Whether that be going for a quick run in the morning, meditating prior to your morning emails or meets doing something for you consistently helps with your mental ability to take on the day.

For me, I like to wake up get a quick work out in and enjoy a little peace before the chaos ensues. It’s time I carve out for me (even if it’s only a few minutes) it makes a difference in my day.

Focus on the positive. So many times as business owners we wrapped up in the day to day and feel overwhelmed by tasks and employee situations. In times like this, it’s best to take a step back and list all the positives you have going on in your business and switch your mindset to that. Keeping a positive mindset helps you tackle those issues objectively and allows you to make the best decisions for your business. I

Tips To Be Productive & Not Reactive

Let’s take a look at a few tips for being productive:

• Organize your resources – identify what resources you have available to you and your business and what you may need to do in order to obtain the resources you may need
• Have a plan. Don’t try to run your business by inspiration alone, regardless of your experience. Create a plan, then follow it, and only adjust it as necessary. Business plans are also useful for getting more loans (and on better terms), so they’re always a good idea
• Outsource as needed. The internet has a functionally-unlimited number of workers who can perform just about any task imaginable, and for a better rate than full-time employees. Learning to make use of on-demand options is a key part of reducing costs and improving overall profits
• Find a way to stay sane. Stress management is vital for success during these unique times, and pushing yourself too hard will ultimately harm your business instead of helping it. Learn how to disconnect, take time for yourself, and manage your overall well-being. Make sure to manage the well-being of your team, too

Although the global pandemic has made it a challenge for businesses to operate, business owners have been resilient and adapted to create plans to get back to business. As a business owner during a pandemic, you will need a solid and proactive business plan that is continually changing and evolving.

By implementing a business continuity plan for the pandemic, businesses are more likely to continue running without risking personnel safety. If you’re concerned about facing risks during this time, it’s crucial to develop strategies to combat these potential challenges. In addition to utilizing these plans during a pandemic, these business processes can also be utilized during natural disasters as Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Wild Fires, or any other unforeseen event that may happen while you are in business.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

When running a company, it’s smart to establish a business continuity plan. Traditionally, organizations use them to preserve business operations and recover from random risks or threats, such as natural disasters or cyber-attacks. Even if a true plan is not set on paper, it’s a good idea to prepare for unforeseen threats to your business.

Due to the pandemic, many small businesses needed to take action and develop a business continuity plan for COVID-19.

Before implementing the business continuity plan, you’ll need to consider several factors that could impact your business and how it operates.

Some actions might include discussing your business’ core services, financial shifts, and planning for the unexpected. Ideally, it should cover risk management, business impact, incident response, and recovery plans.

Your business continuity plan for a pandemic should have protocols that are easy to understand and flexible for everybody involved.

Why It’s Important to Have a Small Business Pandemic Plan

A Pandemic Plan is probably something prior to 2020 you never even considered having in place, but if you want to keep your small business thriving during these difficult times, you should establish a small business pandemic plan. You may need to take several measures to keep running a business while staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic. A disaster plan may also include finance options like SBA loans or a Line of Credit, to keep the business operable during these times.

Business owners can implement many strategies into their pandemic plan, such as outlining expected staff availability should they contract the virus and need time off. You can also prioritize which business functions are most crucial for your small business’ operation, and which business functions you may not need during these times, perhaps pivoting that staff to other tasks to ensure your have coverage for your business. Another thing you can do is reviewing your monthly expenses and seeing what costs can be cut, even if it’s simply reaching out to some of your vendors to see if they are offering reductions in monthly expenses, taking a deep dive into some cost savings items will help steady your business and can keep your cashflow positive.

Workplace Pandemic Preparedness Plan

Depending on the type of business you run, you should establish a workplace pandemic preparedness plan to keep your business on track. We use these plans to take preventative and active response measures. Establishing these protocol practices will ensure all involved parties’ safety and functionality in the workplace.

Some examples of implementing these workplace plans include:

• Daily temperature checks
• Mandatory health screenings or testing before returning to the workplace after travel
• Wearing protective masks to minimize spread of the virus
• Keeping an appropriate distance away from other employees and clients or customers
• Adding protective partitions to separate your employees or employees from customers

If your industry allows, you can also implement working from home to reduce the number of people present in the office at any given time or staggering employee schedules so there are less staff in the building at one specific time. Also, performing routine cleaning for reducing the spread for employees working in the workplace. If they are new to telecommuting practices, you can provide training.

How Business Funding Can Help

Among the many options you can use to keep your business running during the pandemic are business funding avenues. If you own a small business, you may qualify to apply for an SBA loan.

If a COVID-19 small business grant or loan is in your pandemic plan, explore your options. Applying for financing could be the boost your organization needs to survive the pandemic and get back to business.