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Happy Spring Equinox

When is the Spring Equinox?

Good news for those counting down the days until warmer weather – the 2017 spring equinox is now here, taking place at 10.28am GMT on March 20.

This is the time when the sun passes the celestial equator and days become longer – no more going to work in pitch darkness. For some March 20 marks the first official day of spring – but meteorologists argue that it’s actually March 1st

What is the Vernal Equinox?

The Vernal Equinox is another name given to the Spring Equinox and labels the March Equinox is the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, the March Equinox is called the Autumnal Equinox.

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

5 Fundamental Reasons Your Business Can Fail

The importance of systems in business is well known, but even in great businesses, they can fail. While the outcomes can range from minor inconvenience to catastrophic, the causes of failure come down to one or a combination of 5 fundamental reasons.

Fault in Design

As all systems are created by human beings, it is highly likely that they will contain faults. The more complex the system the more likely that is the case. This means that systems should be thoroughly tested before they are made live, preferably by someone not involved in their development, as developers can have blind spots. Pilot programs are often used to test systems in a live environment before a major rollout so any faults detected will have limited impact.

The good news is that in many systems there is inbuilt redundancy (which creates inefficiencies- a topic for another day), so a fault in one system may be picked up by another in the workflow process, but even with redundancy, you can have multiple point failures, which may be rare, but can be devastating.

Change in the internal environment

A system may have been functioning well for some time, but when there are organizational changes, this can affect workflow processes, particularly when roles change. A person who was previously responsible for checking progress may have other duties and a gap in responsibilities with the new structure appears.

New technology can also affect the functioning of existing processes. While often introduced for productivity reasons, there may not have been a review of the impact on other parts of the workflow. Any change in the internal environment must include a review of the effects on existing systems.

Change in the external environment

The external environment is changing all the time with the needs and demands of suppliers and customers, regulatory changes and general societal changes. Often a business can be caught by surprise when what has been accepted practice is no longer. Customers may change their specifications, suppliers may change their terms and governments are forever changing the rules. Business inputs and outputs can all be affected by external changes which can disrupt the internal procedures of a business. It is incumbent on the owners of each system in a business to be aware of the external changes and to update their systems accordingly before failure occurs through lack of attention.

Inadequate Training

It doesn’t matter how good your systems are and how well documented, problems will occur if the staff doesn't know how to use them. Mistakes will happen if there is inadequate training. For each new system, there should be a communication strategy to let staff know, what has changed and how to follow the new process.

For new staff, there needs to be an induction procedure and mentoring to ensure that the systems are understood as well as how they have positioned in the workflow process their inputs and their outputs.

Inadequate Reporting

Systems may be carefully developed and rolled out but problems can still arise in spite of all these precautions. Whether there are problems with the design, environmental changes, or training issues there needs to be a mechanism for measuring system outcomes and compliance. When problems occur there should be a process to track them, understand root causes and see they are corrected. Often staff gets used to shortcuts which most of the time get the job done but set up failure when there is an event that only occurs rarely for which the system was specifically designed to mitigate. A reporting system should audit both outcomes and compliance, without which management will only be aware of a problem when disaster strikes!

No system can last forever and there should be a regular review of the performance and relevance of all systems even if no problems have been identified. The frequency will depend on how critical the system is to the business.

While each system should have an owner responsible for its maintenance, the responsibility to drive overall system integrity and performance lies with the owners. That is, they must create a Business Management System which enables them to manage their business by reports. This will greatly reduce, if not entirely eliminates the risk of system failure.

Written by Chapman

 

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Your Guide to Deals, Freebies, History and Fun Facts.

Here's a list of some of the promotions being offered up by national chains:

Krispy Kreme.The doughnut chain is dying its Original Glazed green for Friday only — and spelling it "O'riginal" for the day.

McDonald's. The beloved Shamrock Shake is joined by four others this year — the Chocolate Shamrock Shake, the Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappé, the Shamrock Mocha and the Shamrock Hot Chocolate.

TGI Friday's. The chain is offering  $3 green beer and $5 Jameson Irish whiskey drinks at participating restaurants.

Dunkin' Donuts. There's will be a shamrock sprinkle doughnut and a yeast-ring doughnut frosted with chocolate icing and shamrock sprinkles.

Baskin-Robbins. Check out the green ice cream cake, decorated with four leaf clovers, a rainbow and a pot of gold.

Burger King. The Oreo Irish Mint Shake is the St. Patrick's take on the Classic Oreo Cookie Shake that's already being offered by the fast food giant. It was introduced in January.

Jersey Mike's: The 1,200-plus sub shops are offering double points for their Shore Points rewards program on Friday.

Tim Hortons: Customers will get a free mint-chip Timbit with the purchase of any beverage on Friday while supplies last. They are — you guessed it — green.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

St. Patrick’s Day celebrates the Roman Catholic feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. St. Patrick died on March 17, 461. But did you know that he wasn’t even Irish?

HISTORY:

Traveling along the Irish countryside you can see many shades of green, but knights in the Order of St. Patrick wore a color known as St. Patrick’s blue. Green has been used by supporters of Irish independence who used the color to represent their cause in the 18th century and later. Undeniably, green is used to denote Ireland today but that has nothing to do with St. Patrick.

Interestingly, Patrick’s birth name was Maewyn, born in Roman Britain, kidnapped into slavery at age 16 and brought to Ireland. He escaped to a monastery in Gaul (France) where he converted to Christianity. He returned to Ireland in 432 as a missionary. Patrick ultimately became a bishop and after his death was named Ireland’s patron saint. Celebrations in Ireland were understated, though. When the Irish emigrated to the U.S., they created the bigger celebrations and parades known today.

It wasn’t until early in the eighteenth century when the Irish held their first St. Patrick Day parades. The celebrations became a way for the Irish to connect with their roots after they moved to America.

Fun Facts:

The shamrock: According to legend St. Patrick used the three-leaf clover (or shamrock) to explain the Trinity. The plant commonly sold today as the shamrock is usually triforium minus, a small yellow-flowered clover with four leaves.

Dyeing the river green: The practice of dyeing the river green started in Chicago in 1962, when city officials decided to dye a portion of the Chicago River green.

Corn beef and cabbage: This is an Irish-American dish. 19th-century Irish-American immigrants were so poor they couldn’t afford certain meals. On St. Patrick’s Day, the best meal they could pay for was beef and cabbage. It became a staple for the holiday for decades, However, for many Irish people, Corned Beef is now too “poor” or plain to eat on a holiday, so they routinely make something more celebratory.

But, how did we come to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the United States? North America has only observed this holiday since the late eighteenth century. Although not a legal holiday in the USA, St. Patrick’s Day is widely recognized and celebrated throughout the country with Irish festivals, parades, food like corn beef and cabbage, excessive Guinness beer drinking, prominent displaying of the color green and Irish traditions. On any given day 5.5 million pints of Guinness, the famous Irish stout brand, are consumed around the world. But on St. Patrick’s Day, that number more than doubles to 13 million pints, said Beth Davies Ryan, global corporate-relations director of Guinness. In addition, the consumption of green beer has become part of the tradition.

Unfortunately, few St. Patrick’s Day revelers have a clue about St. Patrick, the historical figure, according to modern day experts on the subject. But now you can offer some valid insight about this popular nationwide party day, and while you’re at it please ensure that a designated driver is identified if the celebration involves a location away from your home.

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

Cash Flow Strategy Is The Lifeblood of Any Business

Business owners often underestimate their needs by assuming cash will come in sooner or that bills are going to come in later.

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, but especially so for smaller operations—it’s what keeps the doors open. We see cash flow as fuel for your business. If you run out of fuel, you’re not going anywhere. Cash flow is essential for growth. There’s not a single business that has been able to grow without it.

Yet, as integral as cash flow is to success, many small business owners mishandle this aspect of their operations—a mistake that puts businesses at serious risk. Owners often underestimate needs by assuming cash will come in sooner than it actually does or that bills are going to come in later than they do. It’s also common for owners to not properly manage their line of credit or access to loans. It’s often better to take advantage of credit with low-interest rates when it’s not needed, rather than seek it when you’re up against a time-sensitive situation. Another concern is confusing cash flow with profitability. People think if they made a sale and that it’s profitable, then everything is great. But what they really should be looking at is the cash flow behind the sale.

When it comes to cash flow, timing is everything. You might make a nice profit on a particular contract, but what if that contract doesn’t pay until 90 days after the work is completed? How are you going to pay your bills in the meantime? If you’re not careful, small mistakes can wipe out your profits.

As you evaluate your strategy, be sure to:

  • Consider how much cash is coming in. Create a simple cash flow model to illustrate when cash is coming in and when bills are due. Prepare this weekly. Remember, there will always be a percentage of accounts receivables that come in late.
  • Take advantage of the credit. Get situated credit-wise before you need it.
  • Examine cash flow before you hire. Never hire ahead of cash flow.
  • Incentivize customers to pay on time. Offer lower pricing if customers pay on delivery, and add a surcharge if they want to pay later.

Managing cash flow takes awareness, organization, and preparedness. But if you’re caught off guard and you think there’s going to be a cash flow problem, don’t automatically take out a loan. Evaluate if there are other strategies you can deploy first. Negotiating with vendors. For example, if you’ve been paying upon delivery, see if they’ll allow you to pay in 30 days. Additionally, if cash flow is becoming a chronic issue, take a look at your pricing—it may be too low.

Above all, don’t let cash flow cause repeated panic, and use it as a starting point to control what you can and prepare for the unknown. When small business owners get intimidated, they tend to ignore what’s intimidating them. But ignoring cash flow could do you in. A business could actually be on a path to growth and they could still have to shut their doors because they didn’t manage their cash flow.

Manta

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

Good things happen to those who hustle

Quote of the day

Good things happen to those who hustle. Chuck Noll

Some days, you just need to be reminded why you started in the first place.

What drives you to get up in the morning and chase your dreams? Why are you working 80 hour weeks? Why are you at home working when you could be out partying or hanging out with friends? It’s easy to get lost in your own head and allow procrastination to put your dreams in a standstill. Always remember why you started in the first place.

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

Are You Using The Right Apps?

Evaluation new technology? Make sure you focus on what’s most helpful to your business.

For many small business owners, getting a handle on the right technology for their specific business seems a complicated task that requires time, research and careful analysis. While true, there are two no-brainer technologies all small business owners should embrace—smartphones loaded with relevant apps, and security and storage software.

Let’s start with apps. The sheer volume available for small businesses is enough to make your head spin; apps for marketing needs, scheduling, bookkeeping, communication, and every other business-related necessity. We have mobile banking, mobile payments, mobile video conferencing, and mobile you-name-it. Yet, according to a number of telecom industry experts, most small businesses utilize less than 30 percent of their smartphones’ capabilities.

The key is to streamline what’s most helpful for you and your business. And the first step is to get to know your phone—you might be surprised by the functionality and what you already have available at your fingertips. After phone mastery, take a cautious approach to apps.

  • Think about your needs and the needs of your business. What could you work on when you’re out of the office or on the sales floor and can’t fire up your laptop? How might employees work more efficiently if given the power of mobile accessibility?
  • Based on these needs, determine what apps would enable a more efficient processor or organized the system. Not sure? Ask other business owners in and out of your industry, locally and online (ask an industry group on LinkedIn or people you connect with on other social media).
  • Remember, the objective is to use the most appropriate apps for your business and employees, not collecting the most apps.

In addition to gaining efficiency with the right apps, it’s essential to protect customer and business data from hackers. You must have a minimum level of security on your computers; although a smarter approach would be to keep that data in the cloud. That way, if there’s a natural or man-made disaster that affects your business, you won’t lose all the data on your computers. Additionally, the cloud company you choose will most likely provide data security.

As for storage and security, if you decide to go the software route, you should take considerable time to research the product and the company providing it. But for all the reasons previously mentioned, We recommend opting for cloud-based solutions. The biggest piece of advice I can give to business owners about their technology is to maintain it like they would their cars or homes. Check your computers, smartphones and other devices regularly to ensure they’re running as efficiently as possible. And make sure your employees are trained in the software that runs your business. Don’t let an untrained employee accidentally wreak havoc because they didn’t know what they were doing.

Holi

History of Holi

Holi is a Hindu spring festival celebrated in India and Nepal, also known as the "festival of colors" or the "festival of love". The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships. It is also celebrated as a thanksgiving for a good harvest.  It lasts for two days starting on the Purnima (Full Moon day) falling in the Vikram Samvat Hindu Calendar month of Phalgun, which falls somewhere between the end of February and the middle of March in the Gregorian calendar. The first day is known as Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi and the second as Rangwali Holi, Dhuleti, Dhulandi or Dhulivandan.

Holi is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities outside Asia. In recent years the festival has spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic, and colors.

Read More »

Increase Your Sales

How is the best way to increase your sales? Should you advertise more? Perhaps a new website is needed. Is there some product improvement necessary? Or should you reduce your prices? Does your staff need sales training? Which should you do first, or do you have to do everything at once?

The answer to all these questions is in your Sales Pipeline. Every Sales Pipeline has a bottleneck, and often more than one. The first step is to identify the biggest bottleneck which is where you will get the biggest bang for your buck.

When you analyze your sales pipeline, look first at your inquiries. Are you getting all the inquiries you can handle? Is the conversion rate to sales greater than 80%? Is it close to 100%? (If so, you are too cheap, and the easiest way to increase your sales is to increase your prices!) If your conversion rate is very high, then yes, increasing your inquiries through targeted promotion is likely to be the priority.

What if your conversion rate is below 50%? There could be one of two reasons for that. Either your marketing is poorly targeted, or there are problems downstream of inquiry generation.

When looking at your marketing, it pays to segment the inquiries to determine which parts are well targeted and which parts are unproductive. One marketing executive once famously said: “I know 50% of my marketing budget is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”

When looking downstream of your marketing, it’s important to define each step of the Sales Pipeline, for example, Initial Enquiry, Initial Consultation, Quote, Close. Each step should flow naturally to the next increasing the commitment of the buyer and the perceived value of your offer. A rush to the quote stage without establishing value is a recipe for rejection.

Where in your pipeline are you losing buyers, and why are you losing them? How well are the initial inquiries being handled? Are buyers too focused on price? What are you doing to establish value before you answer the price question? How do you present your quote, and how do you close the sale?

Examples of how to improve your Sales Pipeline are having a script for the initial enquiry which both qualifies the buyer and reveals value in the new relationship, having a process in the next stages to determine customer needs and creating desire for your solution even before presenting a proposal or quote, and of course having some simple closes to get the sale.

By analyzing your pipeline, the priorities becomes readily visible and low hanging fruit can be grasped for a relatively little effort generating substantial boosts to your sales.

Of course, when the biggest bottleneck has been removed, your pipeline will reveal the next one to be removed for your next sales boost.

How well defined is your Sales Pipeline? Can you see the bottlenecks?

By Chapman

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

How To Design a Great Website

These simple tips will help you build a small business website that can attract and convert customers.

You don’t have to be a web design expert to understand that effective sites don’t just happen. Simply building one won’t create marketing magic and draw in customers. The good news is that knocking out a home run with your website (and engaging customers) probably isn’t as tough as you might think.

Here are some simple tips to improved your site.

Have a call-to-action offer near the top or on the sidebar of every page.
The offer can be the same throughout, but make it compelling enough that visitors willingly leave their contact information.

Update on a regular basis.
Don’t treat your site like a static digital brochure. Instead, think of it as a dynamic communication tool. Regularly injecting new content will keep the conversation between you and your visitors flowing.

Make sure your design is responsive to mobile devices.
Most people surf the Web on their phones, so don’t miss opportunities due to a poor mobile experience.

Aim for a clean design.
A professional-looking logo is a must—nothing drives away traffic faster (never to return) than a cluttered website and lackluster logo.

Link to social media sites (and vice versa).
Don’t isolate visitors—utilize traffic and sharing behavior using social media links.

Traffic reporting and analytics tools are also vital to make sure the site is working for visitors and your business and to help uncover potential breakdowns and opportunities for improvement. There are effective options available for free that, in most cases, only require adding a line of code. Reporting is often just as simple and provides unique insights that can inform critical tweaks that can lead to more engagement and sales.

Identifying the outcomes or conversions you want, such as form submissions, sales or phone calls, is also important. Tracking form submissions typically require adding a ‘thank you’ page and an additional element in the form’s code. (You may need help with this, but it’s worth it.) To track sales, your shopping cart system will usually have an option to integrate with Google Analytics and automatically take care of reporting. For phone calls, services like Callrail or LogMyCalls have integration tools to set up tracking numbers that will integrate with Google Analytics.

Finally, don’t overlook the key role content plays in generating the statistics you hope to see, particularly having the right amount of content. Also too much content will drive traffic away, but too little will have visitors questioning your legitimacy. Your website should have all of the information the media would need to write a story about you and your business: who, what, when, where, why and how.

Lastly, take particular care with the ‘about’ page. Although the ‘product,’ ‘services’ and ‘contact’ pages are obviously important, this page is the most critical. It tells your story—and can play a significant role in transforming prospects into customers.

Have A Great Weekend

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.

Fivenson Studios: Michigan's #1 Graphic Design, Web Design, & Digital Advertising Agency 

Let's Get Social | https://www.fivensonstudios.com | (734) 224-9696 | [email protected]

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