by Samuel Gitukui

We are approaching the new year and many people have already set their new year resolutions. Is yours to grow your business? Let's find out how you can get funding to move your enterprise to the next stage.

As an entrepreneur, at some point, you were faced with the task of funding your business. And if you considered the option of investors, then you know that getting someone else to commit funds to your business is not easy.

It is not surprising to secure a meeting with a potential investor, thinking that the fact that you’ve managed to get them to sit down with you means that getting them to fund your business is a sure thing, only to come out of that meeting disappointed.

The main objective with investors is to make money. This means that they have their own methods of judging and avoiding risky ventures. If you want to be successful at getting investors to provide you with the cash you need, you need to be proactive and know how they think.

1.    Know their background

Most investors will not get into a business that they don’t know. This is why it’s important to contact only those that are aware of your type of business and how it functions.

If your business is centered around transport, then find an investor who has experience with the transport industry. They will be more willing to work with you and will also advise you on how to avoid certain pitfalls.

2.    Learn about their previous investments

You could say this point complements the first. Someone who has never invested in chemical supplies before will not be aware of the nature of the business and the industry in which you work.

Even with the best pitch, the investor is still not going to be willing to take the risk. However, if they have previously invested in your type of business, then you can catch their attention with a convincing pitch.

3.    Stage of growth

Note that investors will have their own preferences before they can fund your business. The stage of your business growth is just one of them. Is it a startup or has your business been running for quite some time now? Does the investor have a minimum revenue requirement? Such questions should be running through the mind of the entrepreneur before making that pitch.

This means doing the right research about your investor before sitting down for a meeting.

4.    Investment amount

How much do you want for your business? Is it $1,000 or $10,000?  Find out how much money investors are willing to put into any investment and work from there.

You can’t ask for a million dollars from an investor that is only willing to put in $10,000 into a business.
5.    Returns
Before an investor can put in money into your business they will have their rates of return. Is it double or 5 times the amount they gave you? Learn this and decide whether the investor is the right fit for your business.

Make sure that you are willing to work within their terms.

6.    Investor time frame

Investors have a time frame on when they should expect a ROI or return on investment. Again, make sure that you are willing to work with the terms of the investor.

But how can you learn all this?

Doing proper research is paramount. Also, during your meeting, you can ask these questions. This will help you figure out whether the investor is a good match for your business.

by Samuel Gitukui

Entrepreneurship is one of the most rewarding endeavors that anyone can ever undertake. Millennials continue to thrive by starting their own business and companies. Some are successful, some not so much. With the digital age of information, there are plenty of business ideas that are coming up.

This means that it's not surprising to see entrepreneurs who are operating more than a single business. the challenge comes in how to separate your time and manage them both.

Let’s consider a few tips that one can follow to ensure that all your businesses are getting enough attention to thrive. And with the new year just around the corner, we are going to make sure that all of your businesses are operating at full efficiency.

1.    Remain flexible

Nothing is constant and the business environment is always changing. It follows then hat a closed mindset will be kicked out of business. Instead, learn to be flexible and to meet the changes as they come.

Adapt and be willing to rethink the original business idea in order to accommodate the changes. This is how you remain ahead of the game.

Often businesses that started well and were thriving find themselves out of business simply due to the inability to keep up with the competition. Change is inevitable and adopting a flexible mindset will ensure that your business remains stable even during the rough times.

2.    Provide a solution

The trick to remaining in business is to be able to provide a need to your customers. But how do you find this void in the market?

Proper research into the workings of the market will tell you where there is a missing link. With this information, you can go ahead to create something that fills the void.

Often this need will be necessary and clients will keep choosing your products over the competition because you are providing something that is rare and that the competition doesn’t offer.

3.    Get the best team

When running multiple businesses, you need to know that the people working for you can be trusted with performing their set tasks. After all, you cannot have all the time to run the businesses on your own.  This is why it's important to get qualified professionals working for you.

There will always be those moments where the business meets challenges. What if you are at the other business premises and an urgent matter arises? Does it mean that you are the only person who can handle it? The right team will be in a position to handle most of the challenges and leave the absolutely crucial ones to you.

4.    Know when to say no

Managing more than a single business may leave you with so much work that the quality of output starts to drop. This is the time to say no to more tasks. You would rather have less business that you can handle and provide high-quality output than have too much and fail to deliver.

Second, your relationships may start to suffer where you are spending too much of your time working and less of it with your loved ones. The solution is to determine your priorities and work on these.

by Samuel Gitukui

The business world is seeing more and more freelance workers. In the recent past, the trend has been and continues to be on the rise. In fact, expert prediction says that this isn’t something that is going to lose momentum any time soon.

Freelance work spans across plenty of different professions from architects, accountants, and bloggers to journalists and even nannies.

Things are different now with the advancements in information technology which makes it that much easier for freelancers to get clients.

But regardless of the nature of the job that freelancers are involved in, one thing about them remains true, they are very much interested in not only acquiring clients but retaining them as well. That means providing quality work and keeping their clients happy.

And this is where the challenges come in. If you are a freelancer, let’s find out how you can maintain regular happy clients.

1.    Being dependable and reliable

Studies have shown an increase in the number of companies that now hire freelance workers to get their jobs done over the more traditional employer-employee setting where the recruiter has to go through a rigorous process to identify the right candidate for a position.

There is a concern however that since freelancers work on their own terms that they could be a bit unreliable and even flaky. And there is a good reason to think this way.

However, while this might have been the case in the past years, it is certainly not the case now as freelancers make it a priority to provide quality work on time.

As a freelancer, you should aim to deliver good quality work to your clients. Once clients see that you can be trusted, they are far more likely to come to you with regular tasks.

2.    Use your flexible time correctly

Speaking of time, freelancers seem to have it made. There is less commute time and more time to work on tasks. The downside is that some freelancers may take too long to complete a task or even reply to a message.

Ensure that this is not the case with you. Messages should be replied fast and tasks completed within the agreed timeframe.

It gets frustrating to an employer when a freelancer is taking too long to reply or send the completed tasks. In the mind of the employer, you would seem unreliable and less trustworthy.

Make sure you strive to provide the best to your clines.

3.    Be flexible

It’s very simple for freelancers to find themselves locked in a box where they provide the very same service to their clients.

However, it is always beneficial to show your clients that you can work on other tasks as well as long as it is something that you can perform.

As opposed to just handling in your work and waiting for the next time that you get asked to perform a task, you can get to know your client at a more personal level by asking them if there is anything else you can help them with.
By following the steps above, you will resonate well in the minds of your clients and the next time they have a task, you will be the first person they will contact.

by Summer Worsley

Since the neologism ‘Brexit’ was first coined in 2012, it has gained a lot of cultural currency rapidly. So fast, in fact, that in 2016, when Brexit was added to the dictionary, the OED called its rise to prominence “impressive”.

Brexit is not confined to European and UK newspapers. Use of the term has been recorded in foreign-language news publications across the world. It seems the lexeme is on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

With that in mind, in this post we’ll take a look at some of the linguistic aspects of Brexit.

“Brexit means Brexit” - Theresa May
Despite UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s somewhat ambiguous statement that “Brexit means Brexit”, the word does have a deeper meaning.

Economists first started using the term to denote a British exit from the European Union.

Britain or British + Exit from the EU = Brexit

They modelled the portmanteau after 2010’s Grexit:

Greece or Greek + Exit from the Eurozone monetary unit = Grexit

The OED’s definition of Brexit is a little fuller than the above. For the lexicographers, Brexit means:

“The (proposed) withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and the political process associated with it.”

The extended definition continues:

“Sometimes used specifically with reference to the referendum held in the UK on 23rd June 2016, in which a majority of voters favoured withdrawal from the EU.”

The OED also notes that the more accurate ‘UKexit’ didn’t hold much sway with language users. Nor did ‘Brixit’.

Word Class
Although Brexit started life as a noun, it is increasingly being used as a verb, as the OED’s extended definition of Brexit as a process would suggest. (Note though, at the moment the OED defines it solely as a proper noun).

Let’s have a look at how it functions in each word class.

Noun - “The report warned that Brexit would reduce the EU's potential GDP”

Verb - “The UK will Brexit in 2020”

Third-person simple present - Brexits
Present participle - Brexiting
Past and simple past participle - Brexited

Adjective - “The Brexit referendum”

There aren’t a lot of instances of adverbial use; can something be carried out Brexitly? But given how active the Brexit lexeme is, this may change. Perhaps it will come to mean doing something begrudgingly, or with “Bregret”!

Productivity: The Brexicon (Brexit + Lexicon)
Brexit as a lexeme has spurned a lot of other new words, many of these are used frequently, including:

Bremain - Britain + Remain, a antonym of Brexit. And by extension, Bremainer.
Brexiter - A Brexit supporter. Linguist Graeme Davis also makes a distinction between Brexiter and Breixteer.
Bregret (or Regrexit) - Regret over the leave vote.

Lesser items in the Brexicon include:

Brexchosis - Double portmanteau coined by Boris Johnson.
Brexiety - A state of anxiety over Brexit.
Brespoke - A bespoke exit deal.
Brexodus - The exodus or departure of both EU and UK citizens from the UK following the vote.
Brexthrough - A breakthrough in exit talks.

UK newspaper The Independent has put forward a more complete, and oftentimes hilarious, list here.

Who’s In and Who’s Out
Brexit has been polarising, to say the least with Brexiters and remainers taking a firm stance on either side of the issue.

The Brexit vote, and the accompanying clamour of voices focuses attention on language and the discursive construction of patriotism, that is how we linguistically construct our allegiance to a given community. In this case, in or out.

The leave campaign's simple slogan “take back control” might be jingoistic and misleading (political slogans often are) but it proved to be effective. In contrast, the remain campaign never really coined a powerful slogan, “Britain is stronger, safer and better off in Europe” just didn’t have the teeth, or the spin possibilities, that camp leave’s slogan had.

Vote leave relied on emotion, the use of “control” here implied that the UK was/is out of control as part of the EU. Associations of foreign bureaucrats as puppeteers “controlling” the UK rose among the public. As too did anti-immigration sentiment.

Enough has been said about the rise of populist politics and rhetoric recently that we won’t add to the discussion here except to note that language is a powerful tool indeed when wielded for a specific means.

Weighing In
“Hello, I am from Britain, you know, the one that got tricked by a bus” - Aher Shah

Post-vote, people on both sides of the debate signal their preferences through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. These micro-blogging platforms provide an outlet for people to express their community, be it in, out, or apathetic.

Jokes have been aplenty. As too have the memes. An oft-seen signifier on the remain side is the EU’s circle of stars on a blue background. Some remainers favour a Union Jack as cover images or profile pictures.

Outside the digital realm, people have been spotted wearing their preference with t-shirts emblazoned with text such as “All I want for Christmas is EU” and “Brexit people scare me”.

Linguists and sociolinguists alike have been weighing in too with what seems like a whole field of study springing up around the issue. If you’re interested, this lecture from Veronika Koller at Lancaster University on Brexit discourse is a good start.

We’re sure the academic debate is going to continue for a while yet. After all, Brexit is the kind of event that gives discourse analysts a lot of work to do!

Have you noticed any interesting uses of language to do with Brexit? If so, let us know in the comments below.

by Samuel Gitukui

In the modern business era of high competition, it’s a no-brainer that customer experience is one of the main ways to develop loyal customers. In fact, many companies go above and beyond with new technologies and processes to make sure that the customers have a good service.

But is it working and can businesses link their customer experience strategies to increased revenue?

The short and simple answer is that while there is indeed some proof, the bigger picture is that there is really no predetermined method of finding that out.

But what does this mean?

Well, most businesses are now aware that good customer experience is important, but this is solely based on thinking. This means businesses are spending millions on customer experience methods and strategies hoping that they will turn their customers into loyal buyers.

In all this, something seems to be left out and most entrepreneurs seem to not pay much attention to it—employee experience. To really succeed in customer experience, the employees need to love their jobs. Simply put, employee experience equals customer experience.

Let’s discover more.

Your Business is its employees

People often talk about things like the company policy and the company culture. However, they seem to forget that the business is really made up of people. It is the employees that perform all the tasks from sales to manufacturing to serving customers.

This is why employee experience is so important. Employers should realize that people are not just legal entities who are there to simply complete a task.

The closest people to your customers are the employees

Have no doubt about it. It is your employees that are dealing with your customers on a daily basis. They hear their complaints and are the first to offer solutions to any questions.

Your employees are also the best source of information about customer experience and will help pass this information to top management.

Employee experience equals customer experience

Many businesses spend a lot of their money on making sure the employees provide the best experience to customers. Not only that, but part of that investment will go towards ensuring that the employees themselves don’t do anything to mess up customer experience.

Employees will give customers what they themselves have and little more. If their experience is lousy, they will simply lack the motivation to provide a better experience to the customer.

Your employees will help build your brand

Let’s dissect this a bit, shall we? The business brand is a promise to deliver a certain quality of service or products to your customers. But how do you deliver the best service when the people delivering that service, the employees are dissatisfied with their jobs?

Your employees deliver your brand. So, make sure that they are in the best position to.

We are not saying that you should completely ignore your customer experience processes. What we are saying is that to be most efficient at it, employee experience should be a priority.

by Samuel Gitukui

As an entrepreneur, you want your business to grow and naturally, getting more salespeople should translate to getting more clients, right?

As much as this is hard to argue with, you also want to ensure that your sales team is highly capable, highly efficient and are all up to date with the most effective strategies. You can’t just have each member of your sales team approaching the market differently.

A well-defined strategy for acquiring and retaining clients is essential.

Let’s take a look at a few steps to build an effective and efficient sales team from scratch.

1.    Have the right product for the target market

It doesn’t matter how talented your sales team is. If your product doesn’t satisfy a need or a want, then customers are simply not going to be interested.

If you are a startup, a safe way to approach the market is to gather a small group of customers that you can contact easily to get feedback and create a product according to their interest.

Once you are confident that the final product is satisfying the customers you can then scale up and expand your sales team.

Imagine having many people selling a product that customers are not overly excited about. Eventually, the business revenue will decline.

2.    Get a strategy that can be easily scaled up

In business, things are not as black and white as they may sometimes appear. Take cold calling, for example, one of the reasons it is not a favorite of many is because research shows that it has around a 1% success rate. Social marketing, on the other hand, has a good 15% success rate.

However, the question now becomes, which of the two strategies is easier to scale up? Without a doubt, it is far easier to use different technologies to scale up cold calling. This is not easily done with social marketing.

Entrepreneurs with such knowledge should be quick to educate their sales team. The salespeople will then know how to approach the market every time they go out fishing for clients.

3.    Get the right Salespeople

As an entrepreneur looking to increase the size of their sales team, you might be tempted to hire anyone with previous experience in the sales and marketing field. This approach is too generic.

Instead what you should aim to do is to get someone who has the skills that are needed in your particular line of business. Think of it this way, if your business requires rapid-fire transaction sales, the salesperson needed will be different from one needed in a complex organization where business relationships are needed.

4.    Improve the post-sale experience

A lot of emphasis is placed on making sales that people forget that the post-sale experience is equally as important. How you handle a buyer will remain stuck in their memories for a good long time. If the experience is good, then they are very likely to come back. And if it was less than ideal, then you will not remain in their favor for long.

Once you have set the above steps in place, then you can go ahead and scale up your sales team and watch your business grow.

by Samuel Gitukui

A question that is very often in the minds of sales executives is which of the two between email and phone calls offers the ultimate outreach medium.

Salespeople are often on the go and find it convenient to reply to emails quickly through their mobile phones. Indeed, emails are a necessary and all-important tool during marketing. It is the most widely used form of communication and in fact, studies show that by the end of 2018, there should be roughly 3.8 billion email users.

But what about making phone calls?

This is the thing, they are absolutely crucial as well. You simply cannot depend on email alone and expect to efficiently reach out to your customers.

Which of the two methods to use will very often depend on your audience and how best to connect and communicate with them. let’s find out more!

The Phone Call

There are certain situations that simply call for the use of telephone conversations. This method allows you to humanly interact with your audience. You can get valuable feedback that you wouldn’t normally get with an email conversation such as judging the authenticity and commitment of your client.

It is also an excellent way to build trust. The best time to make a call to your prospective client is:

•    when you are looking for a quick answer
•    when you are trying to explain a complicated process
•    when the client prefers phone conversations
•    when you want to connect more and create a relationship and
•    when you need to deliver bad news

The Email
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Sometimes you may have many clients and you can’t possibly make phone calls to all of them for every minor detail. Email is a good way to ask quick questions that are not urgent. Prospective clients may have a busy schedule and may not be in a position to pick a phone call. Email provides an excellent alternative.

The best times to use email includes:

•    when you are making a follow-up
•    you need a quick answer to a query
•    when there is a need for written proof or
•    when you need to communicate with many people.

How to choose the best outreach method

Now that we know that both of these communication methods are essential during marketing, the trick is to be able to analyze the situation and determine which of them to employ. This is how.

1.    What is the objective?

This is the first question you should ask yourself. Are you in the process of closing a huge deal? Then making a phone call is best as opposed to sending an email which may actually look rather lazy.

If on the other hand, you need a short response which is not very urgent, then an email will work just fine.

2.    What does the prospect prefer?

If you already know the prospect well and they have shown a timely response, then using email is a good way to reach out.

In case you have just only recently met the prospect and are trying to build that rapport and relationship then a phone call should suffice.