The Hottest and Most Brilliant Business Tips for YOU – Strengthen Your Small Business and More

Our research ninjas at Credit Suite smuggled out ten amazing business tips for you! Be fierce and score in business with the best tips around the web. You can use them today and see fast results. You can take that to the bank – these are foolproof! Strengthen your small business and get the results you crave.

Stop making stupid decisions and start powering up your business. Demolish your business nightmares and start celebrating as your business fulfils its promise.

And these brilliant business tips are all here for free! So settle in and scoop up these tantalizing goodies before your competition does!

#10. Love Your Loyal Customers and They Will Love You Back

#10. Our first jaw-dropping tip is all about relationship marketing. Our pals at GoDaddy put together how-to on using relationship marketing to spur sales. In the eCommerce space, relationship marketing is all about retaining current customers and enticing newer ones. And that’s all at the same time.

One of our favorites of their tips is using a loyalty program. How many of you have shopped at a supermarket because you had a loyalty card? How many added just another gallon of gas at your favorite gas station so you could get a reward? And have you changed your buying habits because of a credit card with rewards?

GoDaddy also talks about customer experience. Spoiler alert – that’s part of our tip #4, below, so be sure to stay tuned.

#9. It’s Super Tech to the Rescue!

#9. The next awesome tip is about business technology. Are you using technology in your business? Of course you are! You’re reading this on a PC or a mac, a phone or a tablet, yes? The Balance reports on 33 excellent ways to use technology in your small business.

In this short, sweet list, The Balance groups together apps for productivity and marketing. It also showcases mobile work and telecommuting apps. Plus there is software for customer service, and collaborative and learning.

In short, if you can think of it, then there’s probably some software or even an app for that. Save time and money and sanity while you strengthen your small business!

#8. The Best Reality is Virtual!

#8. Our following life-changing tip concerns virtual reality. Do you know how it’s affecting marketing? With immersion marketing, virtual reality could help your customers see just what your furniture will look like in their bedrooms or how your wallpaper will look on their walls. This is kind of like what Lowe’s is doing, Feedough reports.

Tom’s shoes uses virtual reality to show its customers how the shoes it gives away are helping people in Peru. But what about showing how your shoes look with a customer’s suit or slacks or skirt?

Volvo is using virtual reality to provide a test drive without a test drive – so kiss test drive accidents (yes, they do happen) goodbye!

Will augmented or virtual reality strengthen your small business and help you connect with customers? Let us know what you think.

#7. Social Media Evolution – What’s it doing to Marketing?

#7. For our next sensational tip, we looked at how social media’s role is changing, and how that impacts marketing. Impact had a sensational article about this very thing.

Social media is undergoing even more of a radical shift these days than before. Of course some of this has to do with how Twitter and Facebook have to contend with the onslaught of fake accounts. But another reason is people.

How many of you know someone who has just had it up to here with social media and they’re taking a break? And maybe you are that person in your social circle. It’s totally understandable. We are continually bombarded with information.

And it does not help one bit that we are also getting a ton of notifications. They pop up on our phones and in the corners of our screens. So what does Impact say about all of this?

With all of the people taking breaks – some of which are permanent – the focus should shift to smaller platforms. So if your customers are mainly millennials, maybe you already know this! They are often leaving Facebook, sometimes for good. But you need to go where your customers are.

So maybe Facebook, huge as it is, and Twitter, promising as it is, are no longer fertile hunting grounds for your customers. Maybe your best customers will come from SnapChat, or Google+.

Or maybe you’ll strengthen your small business in some platform not yet invented. What do you think? Does your business thrive in the smaller corners?

#6. The Skinny on Inbound Marketing

#6. This tip is so reliable, and it works! Red Website Design in the UK put together a terrific infographic, all about how effective inbound marketing is. The infographic packs lots of information into a small package, include the return on investment for blogs – like this one!

And be sure to click through and check out the infographic. It really is great and should be seen to be appreciated.

Our favorite part is how consistent marketing means costs drop. Yes, you’ll strengthen your small business by saving money!

#5. Strengthen Your Small Business and Go From Tiny to Dominant

#5. Grab this mind-blowing tip while it’s hot! Strengthen your small business with this exceptional article.

Small Business gave us some eye-opening advice about how to go from a one-person operation to a global powerhouse.

One of our favorite tips is to plow your profits back into the business as much as possible. Tempting as it can be to rest on your laurels, or to treat yourself, hold the phone! Now, we talk a lot about being bold in business. So this may seem a little counterintuitive. But hear us out, okay?

Playing it a bit safe with your profits means your business starts to build a steady cash flow. And a steady cash flow can often mean the difference between getting a bank loan. Or not.

Another tip we really liked was to retain control. Now, we know that is not always possible. Sometimes, you need to give up some control to venture capitalists or to angel investors. Such is sometimes the nature of getting initial funding.

But this advice is still very sound. If it is at all possible, try to stay in charge of your business. Think of it as controlling your own destiny.

#4. Delight with Politeness and More

#4. Check out this spectacular tip, all about impressing your customer in five ways before they even make a purchase. Jeff Bullas reports on five key ways to delight a customer before any money changes hands. What a great way to strengthen your small business!

One of our favorites is being grateful. Didn’t your mom teach you to be polite? Ours sure did! And it’s not just for thank you notes to Aunt Mildred these days. Politeness is a way to make and keep customers happy. As they say, courtesy counts.

More tips include making customers feel special and listening to them. Hey, there’s that politeness thing again. We think it just might catch on.

#3. The Secret and Not-So-Secret Connections between AI and Customer Service

#3. It’s not your imagination: this winning tip can help you decide if AI is for you. Sage recently looked at how artificial intelligence could improve the customer experience.

Their biggest takeaway was that AI can bring in customer service outside of normal business hours. So that means customers can get service even when the company’s closed. It also means a company could potentially be 24/7 for service without outsourcing.

But at the same time, Sage notes AI doesn’t really reach an aging customer population. As Britain’s (the article is from the UK) population ages, AI becomes an issue. After all, 2.6 million British citizens over the age of 70 have never used the internet.

But times are changing, and users with them. As the population over age 70 starts to creep into people born in the 1950s, the percentage of people who have never used the internet should start to drop. So this concern should disappear – we just need to be patient.

#2. Frame Your Goods and Services so Customers Can Make Fantastic Comparisons

#2. Our second to last unbeatable tip can give you a new perspective on the psychology of buying. Crowd Spring reported all about 5 powerful psychological triggers for marketing.

We were particularly impressed – and maybe a little caught off guard – by framing. The concept behind framing is for the customer to make a favorable comparison.

So let’s say your business is selling used cars. You might have some higher-end luxury models. And you might have some middle of the road models. Plus you might have some real inexpensive models in there as well.

If the luxury models are all cordoned off, then your customers might not compare their prices to what’s on the lot. But there may very well be other reasons to cordon off your luxury cards. So that strategy could still work.

But if you want to engage in framing, then how about mixing some of your more expensive models in amongst the others? Your middle of the road models in particular may benefit from such a strategy. For your customers, seeing that a middle of the road sedan is far less expensive than its neighbor might be the push to get them to buy.

And the inverse might even work. If your customer sees that a luxury model is only (for example) twice the price of a middle of the road model, then maybe that will help them feel the luxury model is more moderately priced.

#1. One Size Doesn’t Fit All – How to Use Personalized Video Content in Marketing

#1. We saved the best for last. For our favorite remarkable tip, we focused on personalized video content, with this article from the fabulous Forbes.

So how cool would it be to give your customers a personalized video experience? Imagine your best cupcake customers getting a personalized video all about new ways to decorate their favorite dessert? Or your insurance customers seeing cars just like theirs in your ads? Or maybe your trucking customers could see how their home town looks to a long-haul trucker just passing through?

Forbes says behavioral data can really make a difference here. So leverage your data! That’s what it’s there for.

So which one of our brilliant business tips was your favorite? And which one will you be implementing now?

If you are as passionate about succeeding in business as we are, please help us spread the word about how to take the plunge and save time and money – and your sanity! Strengthen your small business and make a difference in your success!