by Summer Worsley

Although Germany’s economy has stalled a little of late, the years beforehand saw an unparalleled level of steady progression. All this action contributes to a thriving domestic and international market, one that can be tapped into by making sure your website is in German as well as English.
 
Connecting to audiences who speak either language (or both) expands your business and increases your outreach.
 
Furthermore, with the global online marketplace crowded and packed with cookie-cutter sites offering services and products that seem largely indistinguishable, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Add to this the fact that search engine optimisation (SEO) in English is highly competitive, and it becomes key for German and European websites to have websites in German.
 
Not to mention, individuals respond well to text in their native language. With an estimated 220 million speakers worldwide, ignoring this market is not wise.
 
Translation tools are of little use to German speakers wanting to understand text in a foreign language either, these usually miss the mark completely and are rarely as nuanced as translations by native German speakers. Check out our post on machine translation fails if you’re still not convinced.
 
Need more reasons to have your website translated to German? Here are some compelling points.
 
Europe’s Largest Economy
 
Thanks to some pretty impressive industrial advances, Germany is at the fore of European economic development and exports many more goods than neighbouring countries do. In line with demand, businesses hire more staff who, in turn, spend their wages in the home market and beyond.
 
Generating online interest from German speakers and consumers is a natural step for European businesses.
 
Online Business is Booming
 
Websites with text in English and German (and other European languages) cast a wider net over the potential customer base. The German-speaking base, in particular, responds very well to online promotions. In fact, 2014 saw Germany a close second to the United Kingdom in the number of internet sales. The nation hit a staggering one-fifth of total online sales across the continent.
 
Moreover, online payments and transactions are popular. That same year, more than 60 per cent of all transactions in Germany were conducted digitally — a percentage even higher than that of the United States.
 
Unemployment is Low Across Germany
 
In August 2019, Germany boasted an impressive 3.1 per cent unemployment rate, one of the lowest in the world and a record-breaking figure for the nation. The steady period of financial growth enables staff to gain and maintain jobs that pay at and above a livable wage and generates expendable income.
 
Much of this extra cash finds its way into the coffers of online businesses and grows the digital sales sector in all niches. As imaginable, native speakers choose to vote with their wallets and easily align themselves with companies that speak directly to them, in their mother tongue.
 
SEO Matters — And it’s Easier in German
 
It’s no secret, English dominates the digital sphere. Despite the fact that roughly 20 per cent of the global population speak English, more than half of all the content on the web is in English.
 
Search engine optimisation is now a fact of life and something that all businesses have to consider, whether they operate fully online or maintain a slight digital footprint. Consider the world’s top-ranking websites across all industries, imagine how many people open those sites just because they appear on Google’s first page? If your business is in a highly competitive field, SEO matters even more.
 
Differentiation your website can be as simple as getting some first-page Google power with clever SEO in a language that is not English. Ranking highly in search results is simply easier in German than in English because there is less competition.
 
Make Sales With German
 
While Brexit may be taking its agonisingly slow toll on Europe as a whole, the German economy has remained steadier than expected. Now is the perfect time to incorporate German text into your website and make sure you reach the German-speaking market.
 
But there is a right way to add text in German (or any language) do it with the help of fully qualified human translators. Sub-par content in any language is off-putting and may scare off the very clientele you’re trying to court.
 
Need to get your website ready for the German market? Talk to us today to find out how we can help with German to English and English to German translation services.

by Samuel Gitukui

One thing that sets entrepreneurs and great business leader apart is their drive. Most successful leaders have at some point had to overcome great obstacles and challenges. Everybody admires those that aim high and fail hard.

But there’s a downside to being competitive. Many entrepreneurs and business leaders who have the drive to pursue a new concept may also be prone to changing their minds too quickly. This can cause a few problems.

The importance of consistency

A good business leader needs to be aware of the fact that while they may be fine with trying new things, the employees may feel insecure about new business concepts.

Employees want security and a steady income at the end of the month.

If the leader is inconsistent, the employees will be doubtful of the future of the business and their position in the organization.

One study showed the top reasons why workers leave a business. Two of the main ones included poor communication and poor management. On the list were also factors such as favorism as well as double standards.

The moral of the story is that consistency is important in a business. It provides the workers with a sense of security. Otherwise the team members are likely to have high levels of stress. This will obviously impact negatively on the operations of the business. Workers will be distracted and the production will be low.

One the other hand, the entrepreneur and business leader thrive on new concepts and ideas.

Sometimes, leaders show inconsistency without being aware of it. Some of the main ways they do this is by:

1. Making changes without communicating to team members

Sometimes changes in regulations and the business environment in general will require the business to adapt. However, if you do not communicate to your team mates, it is likely that you will build resentment.

When the change is taking place, it is important to let others know why as well as how it will impact the business for the better. Otherwise, the team members are less likely to accept the change and even if they do, they will do so at a slower rate.

2. Different rules with different teammates

Sometimes it’s only natural to treat different employees differently. For example, a worker who has been in the company for a long time and always hits deadlines may not be treated the same as someone who just joined the organization.

However, it is important that even the new worker understands the situation in order to prevent resentment in the workforce.

All employees need to be treated fairly. Note that there is a difference between treating them fairly and treating everyone the same. The most important thing is that there is communication and understanding of the business culture.

3. Competition

Business leaders need to be competitive in order to stay ahead of the game. However, keeping an eye on what the competition is doing and always reacting to it could make one seem inconsistent without them knowing.

For example, if the business follows certain rules and principles, then a competitor uses tactics and methods that the business doesn’t believe in, you may seem inconsistent when you start copying the competition.

At the end of the day, communication is needed to explain to team members why the business is changing its course.

by Samuel Gitukui

One thing is for sure, entrepreneurship requires one to have a knack for managing stress. Indeed, it is not for everyone. Setting up shop, attracting customers, marketing and processing payroll can take its toll on the business leader.

There are also the team members to manage and sometimes creating a good relationship with your employees can be difficult.

There are only two main reasons why entrepreneurs will hire. First is the need help with the current work load and second, is that they need people with more experience than they have to fill a void in the company.

Such employees will have their own opinion and views on how work needs to be done. It is likely that they have worked with different managers and businesses before and will therefore have different views and experiences to yours.

This is not to say that they are right and should not be given directives. This simply means that it is important to consider their side of things and incorporate it in your decision-making process.

Entrepreneurs and business leaders are prone to making certain assumptions that could ruin their relationship with their employees.

1. Employees will hold themselves accountable

It’s easy for business leaders to be under the misconception that the employees believe in the course and that they have the same interests as you. This type of thinking might cause you to expect them to work extra harder and to not complain when things get tough.

However, the truth is that they are not as invested as you are to your business and will not hold themselves accountable. They will mostly see your business and their employment as a means to an end.

2. Employees are motivated by money

Money can be a good incentive and any business leader may be tempted to increase salaries to prevent employee turnover.

However, employees are motivated by more than just money. Imagine a case where a team member complains that they don’t have enough time to spend with their kids. Simply increasing their salaries will not solve the cause of their frustrations. For this you will need to provide more free time and flexible work hours.

3. Employees will be fine with a lack of decorum

Employees understand that business leaders can be busy, having to run around dealing with the major issues of the business. However, being busy doesn’t means that they will tolerate a culture where nobody is smiling or talking to each other due to being overworked.

Business leaders need to slow down and take the time to complement their team members and acknowledge the efforts to the company.

4. Employees cannot handle change or risk

The mind and body get used to the status quo and changes are not always easy to deal with. However, thinking that the employees will not tolerate any risk or changes is wrong.

This type of thinking could cause the leader to keep things at a slow pace. As a result, employees are likely to deal with monotony at work.

As long as the change is communicated, employees will be open to new challenges.

by Samuel Gitukui

As a business leader, it is a good thing to be competitive. It allows you to enhance your performance. Having a rival will also help you commit to achieving your goals, hitting your targets and therefore boost overall performance.

However, before you can pick a business rival to compete with, it is crucial that you first understand the disadvantages of competition and the risks involved. Being too competitive may cause you to make irrational business decisions and take more risks. This could end up hurting your business in the long run.

These are 3 main tips you can use for healthy business rivalry while also helping you to avoid risky moves.

1. Commit to your business principles

You can boost your focus by finding someone to compete with. You are better able to achieve your goals which will ultimately take your business to the next level. The downside is that when the competition is fierce, you may have a win-at-all-costs mentality.

This may cause you to put aside your business principles and “play dirty”. However, you may ruin your businesses reputation in the process and damage business relationships that are crucial to the success of the business.
Take time off as a business leader and think about what is important as well as the business principles.

2. Take regular breaks to think

Rivalry will make your business perform more efficiently since you have the motivation to work even harder. However, note that the eagerness to be the best may also contribute to your business’s lack of success.

This is especially the case when you end up making impulse decisions. One study proved that business leaders are more prone to make reactive decisions instead of being more cautious in their decision making.

However, as a smart business leader, you can avoid this by performing critical thinking. Think about different viewpoints, and consider the cost and benefit of your decision.

3. Do not take unnecessary risks

Having a rival that you want to beat not only causes you to make irrational and reactive decisions but it can also cause you to take unnecessary risks. This could jeopardize the position of your business in the market.

An example can be seen clearly when it comes to football. If a team views an opposing team as a high risk, they are more likely to have more offensive strategies and lag behind on the defensive and risk aversion strategies.

Many business leaders will instead of focusing on avoiding the risks, will dive into a strategy without performing proper market research.

Final Thoughts

Being a good business leader means finding the right balance between controlling your emotions and competing with your business rival. Making the wrong move can slowly cause your enterprise to crumble.

The best way to avoid unnecessary risks is to employ critical thinking. Take regular breaks and engage your mind in a rational conversation. In this way you will be able to remain competitive and still make the right business choices.

by Samuel Gitukui

Many big businesses unfortunately do not treat their workers in an ideal manner. Whether its management barking orders or the supervisor never letting the employee perform their tasks without breathing down their necks, this is simply inefficient management and undermines the creativity and the job satisfaction of the employee.

The small business or startup is often characterized by few employees and the business leader takes the time to acknowledge individual contribution to the company.

Many business leaders have recently become aware of the treatment of employees and have put in place policies for allocating more benefits to the employees. However, there is more that needs to be done. The great thing is there are those enterprise leaders that are pushing for workers to receive a share of the company profits including dividends.

These are some reasons why modern large businesses should maintain a startup mentality.

It can be disastrous to force changes on the workers
It is crucial for the employees to have a choice in the company matters. Since there are at the forefront of the day to day business, they will after all, be the first to come up with ideas on how processes and procedures can be improved.

Modern businesses see changes at light speed. Unfortunately, there are some managers that still believe that the best way forward is to do more talking and less listening.

Surprisingly, it is the management that needs to embrace change the most. The employees need to be allowed a voice and should not feel as though they are being controlled all the time.

This will also result in employees having more opportunities to grow as they share their ideas. Team members feel appreciated and valued and this increases job satisfaction and reduces turnover.

Employees want more than money

The younger workforce of millennials wants more than a well-paying job. They want a job that gives their lives meaning. In fact, studies show that millennials will gladly leave the organization for a lower paying job that offers greater fulfillment.

The main reasons why many businesses should maintain a startup mindset will often come down to a sense of belonging. If millennials are given the opportunity to make a difference, they will have greater job satisfaction than simply having a better pay.

As a business leader, it is important that you ask yourself, does the job offer my workers more than just a check at the end of the month? If the answer is no, then something needs to be done about it.

And there is good reason to keep a young workforce and the right company culture is key to maintaining your workforce. Being an autocratic leader is more likely to put off the younger worker force. They are the most energetic and have the best potential of skyrocketing the business to the nest level.

One excellent way of giving employees meaning in their jobs is allowing them time every day to work on what they think will benefit the business.

Creating the Ideal Company Culture

The company culture has the largest influence on employee job satisfaction and whether they enjoy working for the company or not.

Creating the perfect company culture however is not easy. It needs patience and somewhere along the way, the business leader is going to make mistakes. With the right ideals, and a willingness to create a workforce that enjoys working for your business, there are a few things that you can do.

Let’s find out!

1. Start off by hiring for skill, attitude as well as knowledge

When hiring your next employees, having the right skills and knowledge is crucial. Granted there will be new job skills that will be acquired once the employee is in training. However, it is important that the employee demonstrates what they are capable of doing. Only then will you be able to judge whether the candidate is right for the task or not.

During the interview, instead of just using buzzwords, the potential employee will show their knowledge of the subject matter. This makes training easier and ensures that you get someone who is capable.

But having the right skills and knowledge is just the first step. It is important the interviewee has the right attitude. You want to hire people who are likeable and who will integrate well with the rest of the workforce.

Try learning the individual at a more personal level and you can tell how likeable they are.

2. Make the hiring process more streamlined

The interview process can make or break the attitude of the candidate to your business. If it lengthy and has too many questions, the worker will be discouraged and will no longer have any enthusiasm to work for the company.

In fact, if another company offers the candidate a more attractive offer, they will prefer that company over yours.

Always make sure that the interview process is simple and doesn’t make the interviewee feel threatened. Also ensure that you follow up and send feedback to the potential employee whether or not they got the position.

Do not completely eliminate them from future positions and assure them that they will get first priority when there is another position in the company.

3. Make your employees comfortable

If you want your employees to enjoy coming to the office every day, it is important to put measures in place to make their work environment more comfortable.

Some savvy business leaders will go as far as having inhouse acupuncture or holding parties and comedy shows for their employees. All this is great but not always necessary.

You can maintain a healthy and thriving workforce, by providing a few basic essentials such as office space filled with natural light, fresh air and allowing them to personalize their work area.

You can so make sure that the equipment is up to date as well as adding a few green plants that bring a bit of life and color to the working area.

Note however that managing a young workforce requires skill and a good business leader will know how to bring everyone together.

How To Manage a Young Workforce

While the goals of managing every workforce is to bring people together, it is important to understand that managing a young workforce is not the same as managing an older workforce. Since they have different needs, the approach on management needs to be different in order to bring everyone in sync.

A younger workforce has greater demands and these demands are also more intensive. For one, the younger generation requires a greater sense of job flexibility, as well as participation in business objectives. They want to do something that has meaning and want to know that their actions are directly impacting the business in a positive way.

Millennials are first and foremost in search of a company culture that is more open. The business environment needs to adapt by having fewer departments. Granted what one business does may not apply to all businesses, but you can get valuable information from understanding what the younger generation requires.

Communication is key and according to a recent study, companies that have invested in good communication systems provide 47 percent more profit to their shareholders than companies that have not invested in proper communication channels.

Simply put, if you are dealing with a smaller and younger team that is highly energetic, you can increase the business revenue significantly by boosting communication. All you have to do is listen to your young workforce and understand their needs and requirements. From here you can tailor the right communication channels to them.

This is the age of social media and almost all tasks are digitalized. The human resource department thus needs to work even harder to ensure that the office is running as expected. Consider that almost everyone who is under 40 years old is using a social media channel. As a business leader, it is important to consider applying similar channels of communication. Simply put sending an email is more likely to be ignored than sending a slack conversation.

Once you understand this, you can incorporate into your own business. You will need to put a two-way communication channel to the organization. You can do this by putting in place an open reporting system where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. The employees also need to know what management is planning.

Also talk to the employees. Find out about their worries and concerns and use that information to come up with proper communication channels. After doing this, you need to share your views to them to get the young workforce conversant with your plans.  You can then sell them your ideas and internal protocols.

However, all this is faced by certain challenges top of which is selling the idea to the CEO and the business leaders. There is every chance that providing such an idea will be met with a certain level of resistance.

As a business leader however, you should aim at ensuring that the right communication channels are in place. Stand firm with your decisions and see to it that your ideas are implemented.

Once you have the right communication channels in place, use them to provide positive feedback to your employees.

Why Business leaders Need to Make Use of Positive Feedback

Feedback is not always about telling your team members where they need to improve. It is also important to complement them where they have performed well. Many workers will tell you that their boss is yet to give them any positive feedback and will often receive much criticism when they have underperformed.

A positive feedback is a direct, effective and sophisticated way to encourage positive behaviors in the business. But there is a right way to provide positive feedback.

Providing compliments

Complimenting team members for performing well in their work will automatically increase their morale. In turn, their productivity goes up.

On the other hand, team members who work extra hard on their job but don’t receive any acknowledgement will be demoralized.

Some leaders simply believe that people should not be complemented if they are being payed to do their job. However human psychology proves otherwise.

Being specific

Avoid being vague in your compliments. Be specific and tell the team members exactly why you are complementing them and what part of the task appealed to you.

The compliment and acknowledgement will have a greater effect and appear more real.

Elements of a positive feedback

Start by using positive terms such as excellent, great, and wonderful.  When you give the compliment, be specific on what was good about the work or presentation.

Also talk about the results of the actions of the team member such as increased revenue, and greater efficiency.
End the compliment by thanking them.

Don’t add in any criticism

Make sure that you do not add in a negative feedback while giving your positive feedback. 

Note that in a meeting, there may be need to talk about what can be improved as well. However, giving a positive feedback on its own is enough to provide a significant effect as well.

Write it down

After giving a positive feedback, you can also put it in writing such as sending a note or sending an email to the team member.

A hand written note feels more personal in this digital era.

Let all the other team members know

The positive feedback will have a greater effect if it sent during a meeting. After all, it is always the best to praise in public and correct in private.

When you want to give negative feedback, call the team member to the office and have a private conversation. Do not do this in front of the other team members as this can create a feeling of resentment.

Also, it’s a good idea to have a specific time of day to give positive feedback and to do this regularly. The aim is to boost the self-esteem of the workers. This can have a huge impact on their productivity.

Another major benefit of positive feedback is employee satisfaction. Team members feel content in their place of work when the leader shows them that they are making an impact in the business. This will reduce the rate of employee turnover.

Having a workforce that enjoys working for the business makes it that much easier to delegate tasks and focus more on where the business is headed. Delegating however demands patience.

Learning How to Delegate Tasks

Delegating work as a business leader is one of the hardest choices you can make. It is not easy to trust that someone else will complete the work in time and maintain the same level of high-quality standards that you do. However, failing to delegate will often leave you with too much work, leave you feeling overwhelmed and burned out at the end of the day.

There is great benefit to learning how to delegate. You are able to focus on other tasks and you will not be as emotionally and physically drained.

Delegation is important for any business leader. Why? Because you are also able to develop the strengths of your individual team members. As a result, your collective strength increases. As a leader you can focus on the future and the direction of the business without being clogged up by the weeds.

And when it is all said and done, delegation helps you remain sane by not having too much on your mind.

Many business leaders however will struggle with delegation. The good thing is that you have access to tools that can make the delegation process simpler. However, to really get into the whole delegation process there are some myths that you will have to dispel from your thoughts.

1. Team members are already busy

As a leader, you may be grateful that your team members are busy and all involved in their own individual tasks but you may also worry about them being too busy and unable to take on more tasks. You may be concerned that being too busy will cause them to feel resentment.

However, the best way to get around this is to talk to the team members themselves. Ask them if they are open to more work. You would be surprised at how much work can be taken off your shoulders.

Asking is far better than assuming.

2. They will not meet the quality standards

The fact is you will be better at performing a task than your team members simply because you have spent a lot of time doing it. However, unless you believe that your team members can create quality output, you will never be able to delegate.

Always remember that your team is the best resource that your business has. By taking the time to build on their skills, you are making an investment into the future. Granted, they may not be able to work up to standards the first or second time. However, over time, their skill set will grow and they will be able to provide quality output.

3. I will finish faster

Of course, if you are the expert, your team members will not be able to complete the task as fast as you can. However, the alternative is being in a position where you cannot grow. The whole business stagnates because of this.

If you focus on the speed of finishing tasks, you will not see the bigger picture and the business will not grow any more than it already has.