Podbrix |New Thinking…

Many small-sized businesses are not doing enough to reach their local audience.

There are many ways to engage the local community in your products and services.

So, here are five suggestions to help win your local market.

Join Local Groups

In your community, there are groups and forums that your target audience will be a part of. Consciously search those associations out and join them too.

By being active in these groups you are able to gain an insight into what drives local commerce and trading. Your local Chamber of Commerce is an excellent platform, to begin with, its members often include residents and businesses from your area.

Do Local SEO

While it is great to want to target a broad audience with your search engine marketing including local SEO is one of the best strategies.  Local SEO includes listing your business on Google’s free business directory.

To get listed, you will have to provide detailed information about your business such as your complete address, phone number, hours open, directions to your office, your website address, and pictures of your premises.

Once set up, you may want to get your customers to write reviews about their experience – think of these reviews as word of mouth marketing.

Now, as you know, people are more likely to purchase from a business after reading honest reviews from other buyers. Plus, Google ranks your business higher the more reviews you get.

Attend or organise Networking Events

The old-fashioned networking events are still powerful ways to market your brand while also building local connections.

Register to attend these custom exhibitions that seek to bring professionals and local businesses together.

These events provide a great opportunity to connect with other people and for them to discover new local businesses. Take advantage of these positive experiences to grow your business.

Are you wondering about the type of networking events to attend? Niche-specific events plus tradeshows for complementary industries are great places to start building out your connections.

You can even plan your own events. Be deliberate in your planning, make use of available tools such as event planning templates to help organise your thoughts and get your proposal out there to other businesses who might be interested.

Sponsor Local Events

Sponsoring local events is a strategy that will pay for itself. The idea is to stay active in your community. To always remain in the mind of your customers. And what better way to do that than to sponsor community events they care about?

Does your community host annual carnivals? End of year school party? Or any yearly civic event? Consider developing a professional and compelling event plan to motivate your network of prospects and local industry

You can even get involved with local charities or local sports clubs.

91% of consumers say they would switch brands to support a business involved in charitable works. 85% say they view companies with local charity affiliation favourably.

Now, that’s a valuable way to raise your business profile in the local community, gain new customers without additional effort, and dominate your local market.

Use Social Media and Local Directories

Your customers are on social media. They read review sites like Yelp to learn about local businesses. They use location-specific business directories to gather information about your business.

Remember though; it is not just enough to open accounts on these websites. Take the time to brand your profile to reflect your overall marketing strategy.

Publish content that showcases your expertise; however, be sure to post only engaging content — no sales pitch.

Finally, encourage your customers to review your business on Yelp. You may want to offer incentives – maybe a discount, redeemable points – to nudge them to take action.

So, there you have it. Use these five proven methods to win your local market.

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Leaders and managers alike set the tone for how their employees perform and the overall morale of the company. When they are disengaged, don’t give regular feedback or praise for a job well done, everyone suffers. It’s beneficial and often critical to a company’s success that leadership shift their company cultureand ongoing efforts to boost morale. According to the American Psychological Association “Psychological, sociological and economic research has shown that having happy, healthy and engaged workers is good for a company’s bottom line.”However, if you’re a leader,you likely are juggling many hats and it can be hard to dedicate time to these initiatives.Here’s five excellent ways to engage employees and boost the morale at work:

Train Your Management Teams

Boosting morale in the workplace is a long-term game. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight and by one person alone. This philosophy needs to be engrained in your culture as a top-down approach. Just as many other initiatives won’t work unless everyone is on board, trying to change the foundation of your company culture to a positive one involves all leaders at your company. It’s important to get your management teams on board early and train them so they know what is expected of them. We’ve all likely experienced in our career when the President or CEO says one thing, yet their day-to-day actions display something different. Get buy in first and then train everyone to be on the same page – you’ll see the ripple effect throughout your company and your employees will be grateful you took the time to do so.

Give Incentives

Employees love incentives and they often boost morale in the workplace –and sometimes encourage a little friendly competition. As a leader, the opportunities can be endless but it’s important to be sure you’re offering something your teams are actually interested in. Take a poll or have an open-suggestion box to see what your teams are willing to go the extra mile for. Their suggestions might really surprise you! Maybe it’s working toward an extra vacation day or maybe it’s earning lunch catered to the office for a successful meeting. Get creative and switch things up on a quarterly basis. Employees are typically willing to go the extra mile when they know they will get rewarded for doing so – and it boots team morale!

Get Out Of the Office

Sometimes forced team bonding is frowned upon but it’s up to you to make it fun! Many companies are notorious for having the same events year after year. Dedicate someone on your team who is creative and outgoing to planning the company’s outings and make it a line item in your budget. Fun ideas include taking your teams bowling, hosting a happy hour or wine tasting at the office, going to a sporting event together or even trying out the newest restaurant in town. There’s truly endless opportunity in this category, just make it happen!

Encourage Gaming During Work

Playing games at work can actually be used to encourage bonding among your teams and even  boost employee moral. Gaming during the workday –whether online or in real-life, can foster colleagues to improve their mood and lower stress levels. A recent survey reveals online gaming can actually improve productivity – and many people enjoy the sense of accomplishment and overall satisfaction they feel from winning a game. At the end of the day, a positive and fun environment (and a little competition) allows for greater efficiency in the workplace and happier employees.

Promote Health & Wellness

Promoting a mindset of health and wellness in the workplace can directly impact your teams’ morale. One of the best ways to do this is to present exercise opportunities to the group and encourage everyone to take part. Exercise has many benefits including increased productivity, better sleep, less risk of injury on the job, reduced risk of heart disease and many more. Exercise can even improve someone’s overall mental health and mood since the body releases chemicals that can make you feel more relaxed. This in turns helps people to cope with the stressors that might present themselves throughout the workday. As a leader there are endless ways to do this such as, offering lunchtime yoga classes in the office, encouraging a friendly competition to train for a 5k or even partnering with a local fitness studio to give your employees discounts. Some companies even offer financial incentives to boost healthy behaviors in the workplace.

Boosting the morale of your teams won’t happen overnight. But if there’s ever a good time to start, it’s now. Why not encourage a fun environment where people are happy to come to work and do their job? Your company will reap the benefits for years to come!

There is absolutely no part of the house that does not look really classy and rich with wooden furniture. be it tables or chairs, beds or shelves, cupboards or even ornaments, the rich warm comfort and beauty of wood cannot be overstated. Wood is a unique amalgamation of unrivalled structural integrity and aesthetic appeal. It is something no other material can afford. And hence here are 5 reasons why you wooden bed designs should always be our first choice.

1. Strength and durability: Wood is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it is also long lasting. It is a robust material and is the perfect choice for anyone who has longevity in mind while buying a bed. Hardwood (Eg; Blackwood and Australian oak) and softwood (Eg; hoop pine and celery top pine), both promise innate reliability and stability.

Moreover, the durability ensures great resell value and can fetch you good price no matter how old your piece of furniture is.Wooden beds, due to their durability, also have low maintenance because oiling, polishing and waxing needs to be done occasionally and it is not a pricy process either.

2. Aesthetics: As already mentioned above, wood can bring a certain charm and dignity to any part of the house. The bedroom is no different. It may be light coloured or have dark hues, when crafted by a skilled artisan, your bed will definitely feel regal. Moreover, there are countless designs that can be curved into it to further the aesthetic appeal.

Wood creates a sense of the natural world, inside your house. If you live in a city, it is only natural that you may yearn for a sense of nature in your home. What better wa to achieve this than wood? Wooden furniture can very easily bring warmth to an environment otherwise sterile.

3. Versatility:Wooden furniture looks fascinating in almost every setting, unlike other material. Be it modern or vintage, traditional or rustic, wooden furniture never disappoints and it is no different for wooden bed designs. Be it just the head board or the entire frame, it won’t fail to transform your bedroom into your dream bedroom.
4. Variety:Wood has a vast range of tones and colours with noticeable, though subtle differences in the texture and grains. Moreover, every craftsman offers different designs and slants both influenced by your and their tastes and the type of wood.

There is hardly any uniformity when it comes to wooden furniture and a great scope for you to get creative.

5. Sustainability:Wood represents a very good option for sustainable material when responsibly sourced and certified. Thus it can be said that wood is an ecologically friendly way of decorating your home. It is the only renewable building material with trees which are being harvested for material being replenished b new growths. The carbon footprint is also lower than any other material. About 50% of the dry weight of wood is carbon and wood can also store carbon. This is extremely important especially today in our fight against climate change.

With all these benefits listed for your convenience, hopefully your bed purchase will be made easier.

For a new business, gaining attention in Instagram could be a challenge because no one knows your business and maybe you don’t have people to like and share your content. Instagram is a powerful content marketing tool that can improve business awareness but you first need to make sure you have maximum influence. With some few tips, you can be very influential on your marketing campaigns. Below are some of those tips. You can use Instagram bot to simplify your engagement involvement.

An Attractive Professional Bio is a Must

Your Bio is like your online introduction. Followers or people will not follow you if you don’t give them a reason to follow you. Include your name, what you do, your address and a nice brand pic or your picture. That way, your bio would sound real and attractive and many people would like to know what you have to offer. Incomplete bio translates to incomplete profile which directly indicates you are not serious with your business. You can comprehensively learn how to create an Instagram bio so that you do the perfect thing.

Create Amazing Content

Content is what attracts people. Descriptive words or texts are just used to spice up the entertainment or attraction but the core thing is the content. If its photos, make sure they are creatively taken, photos that make people not to skip. Quality must be 1080p or more because that is where technology has reached. For videos, quality must be the same or more for crystal clear viewing. If your produce boring and low-quality content, no one will bother to even follow you. people want the best content to enjoy as they know your brand.

Post Regularly to Keep Your Audience Busy

Regular posting equals to regular involvement meaning you will always be winning the attention of people. You can use instagram like bot to post and comment on your behalf. This is important for people who forget or maybe they are busy to do so. You can schedule posts and comment even when you are not available. A perfect frequency is 2-3 days so that you improve brand awareness and keep your audience on the know. Poor posting will lead to many people deserting your account leaving you without any followers.

Do Hashtag Research to Make Sure You Use Appropriate Hashtags

Many people share content on unrelated hashtags. This means your exposure is going to the wrong people so probably you don’t create an intense impact. To make sure you increase impact, make sure all hashtags that you create or share are related to your business. It is also important to ensure you utilize all 30 hashtags so that you gain maximum exposure to your business. This will make more people know your business and you will be able to get a lot of followers.

Instagram Stories Are Perfect for Your Growth

It is important to make sure you utilize Instagram stories especially if you have 10,000 or more followers. You can add hyper links to those stories and people will always follow them to ensure they get to understand your brand on your website. Stories indicate that you are human and people can always trust your brand. Keep your bran live, let people know you really exist through powerful stories.

Conclusion

Instagram stories are one of the best tools you can use to make sure you increase brand awareness. You need to make sure you increase quality of your posts and images so that you attract more and more followers. Associate yourself with accounts from your niches so that you increase quality of your outcome.

An attractive Bio is instrumental to your brand marketing on Instagram. With a perfect Bio, you are able to create positive first impressions that will make your audience to fall in love with your brand. Many people don’t know how to create an attention-seeking lovable bio. With a perfect Bio, people will share your profile with friends, they will start visiting your website and even follow you on Instagram. Learn the simple Instagram bio creation techniques and you will be able to harvest lots of followers online.

SEO Your Name Field or Section

On your name section, it wouldn’t be so fruitful if you use your real name especially if you are promoting a business. People don’t know you and furthermore, you won’t be using your name when creating online content for your business. For that reason, let the name on your bio be your business name that will appear on searches when people search for similar keywords. People will find you even on search engines and you will be able to increase your followers.

Be Precise and Up to the Point

You only have a space for 150 characters on the bio section. This means there is no room for fluff so just head directly and tell people what you do, what you offer, and how people can benefit from your services or products. You can then add your location, email address and contact information. Such information humanizes your brand and you will be able to enjoy excellent outcomes. Real information creates customer trust as well and many will follow and recommend your brand.

Include Your Branded Hashtags

Remember everything you do must match your brand and promote its visibility. Branded hashtags are important because they improve your visibility even on other platforms. People can easily follow the tags and see the kind of content you have been posting. It doesn’t consume users time because they just see the hashtag the moment they visit your profile and they click on it. One branded hashtag on your bior can stimulate interests of followers and make them to engage you.

Call to Action and Link to Your Shop Are Important

You need to add a link to your shop because that is what will direct your fans to the products. It doesn’t need to be a long statement, let it look like an anchor text so that it doesn’t consume a lot of space. People will see the call to action stamen and they will come to buy from your site. This means if your products are nice, Instagram could be a selling tool making your products to have direct customers from your account.

Include a Photo that Reflects Your Brand Style

Profile photo is important because it lets people know what kind of a professional you are. You cannot just take any photo and put it on your brand account. For example, if you deal with a restaurant, it wouldn’t be so professional if put the image of shoes. If you don’t have a perfect brand picture, you can at least include your logo so that people easily identify your brand. Create a positive impression and you will always win followers.

Conclusion

Now you have the best bio in place, what is next? There is no relaxing, schedule on how you will be able to engage followers and make them always be your brand ambassadors. Always make sure whatever you post is wonderful and attractive to your readers. If you don’t have time, you can make use Instagram like bot to do the posting for you and also comment for you.

It is important to exercise every day in order to stay fit and healthy. This goes for everyone, especially for people who spend at least 8 hours of their day in a confined office space, with little to no movement and probably with significant exposure to stress.

What better way to blow steam off or overcome afternoon sleep cravings than introduce some physical activity into the daily routine and make your day at work healthier and more active.

I decided to talk to experts over at Fit Athletic who had some interesting ideas for ways to sneak some exercise into your office before you are able to hit the gym.

Stability Ball

This is perfect if you have to sit down and finish a lot of work. You can turn your passive, unhealthy, long session of sitting in a chair into simple, yet effective exercise.

The trick is in a stability ball. It is a great way to have your back muscles more active as they work harder in order to keep balance. You would also have to sit straight because the ball wouldn’t allow otherwise.

Know that there’s no need to sit longer than you feel comfortable because you want to avoid excessive stress on your lower back and prevent potential problems. You can spread it into periods of 15 minutes, a few times a day.

Leg Raises

Another useful exercise which requires very little effort in terms of moving away from your designated seat. You can do this simultaneously with your daily tasks and it’s like taking a little yoga class in silence. This exercise requires you to raise your leg and hold it in the air for 15 seconds, put it down, and raise your other leg for another 15 seconds. Repeat that in 15 series. After a while, you can start raising the time you hold your leg in the air or even add additional weight.

Elevate From Your Chair

You can also do this while sitting at your desk and no one would even notice. What you need to do is while sitting lift your body and hold with your hands for about 15 seconds, rest, and then repeat the same thing for another 6 times. This exercise is silent and you wouldn’t bother anyone, you just need to make sure your chair is stable and handles won’t break.

Wall Sits

A great opportunity to get up from your chair and again ‘’sit’’ against a wall. This form of exercise is good for your back, and it also strengthens your quad and core muscles. Lean your back against a wall, then slowly slide down to form a sitting position, stretch your legs to form a 90 angle in your knees and hold like that until you feel it’s enough.

You can take breaks between sessions and you can also increase the difficulty by spending more time holding than resting.

Take The Stairs

Whenever you can. Try to move around the building as much as you can and avoid using an elevator whenever possible. This is a great form of training which takes very little of your time, and if you do it every day, soon you’d be literally running across halls and floors. Avoid this exercise if you are wearing shoes that could make this difficult, like high heels for example.

Walk To Work

Especially if you live close by, there’s no better way to start your day than a nice cardio walk before work. You should even have a cup of coffee on an empty stomach and then walk. If you have to commute by a vehicle, maybe you can use a bicycle, or at least park your car a little farther so that you force yourself to walk. Do this every day and soon you’ll be able to increase the distance.

If you ask most people, home cleaning is not fun and it is a chore they would rather not have to do. However, in order to live in a clean, and more importantly, healthy environment, we need to clean our homes.

Still, if you aren’t a professional, you may be overwhelmed when it comes to home cleaning, particularly if it is a full house cleaning. We asked home cleaning experts at Deluxe Maid to share some of their tips where to start and how to make home cleaning more effective and less tiring.

How Much Time Do You Have?

Well, in order to know where to start and what to do, you first need to know whether you will have enough time to cover everything or just the basics.

If you have enough time to devote to home cleaning, you are looking at several hours of serious work. However, at the end of it, your home will be sparkling and tidy.

On the other hand, if you are on a tight schedule, there are some key points which you can clean and get your home in presentable condition, although the end result will not be ideal.

The First Steps

If there are clothes or other big items like blankets, books, and magazines lying around, take care of these. The visual impact of these big items can be staggering. The feeling of clutter is usually the biggest part of the sense that your home is a mess.

Once that has been removed, it is time to start dusting. If you haven’t dusted your home in longer than a week, chances are that it has collected everywhere. Don’t forget the tricky places like on top of the bookshelves and your kitchen cabinets, as well as the blades of the ceiling fans.

If You Are In a Hurry

In case you need to clean your home quickly and don’t have the time, cleaning professionals suggest to clean the most important places first – that is, the places which have the biggest impact on the cleanliness of the house.

In most cases, apart from the living room, the kitchen is the most obvious target. Wash the dishes and clean the large surfaces in your kitchen for the visual effect. You may not have enough time to clean the appliances thoroughly, but giving them a cursory wipe is a must.

When You Have More Time

On the other hand, if you have more time, you can pay more attention to the details. If there are things you have been avoiding due to time constraints, now is the time to double down and take care of them.

When it comes to kitchens, the oven and the microwave are the most common examples of things we don’t like cleaning. It can take a lot of time and effort to scrub the oven from all the residue. However, once you clean it, you will feel a lot better.

Bathrooms in general fall into the category of places people really don’t like to clean. However, you can use some tricks to make the cleaning much faster. For instance, all of the large surfaces, including the floors and walls of your bathroom can be cleaned with a squeegee to save time and effort.

Using vinegar to clean all the metal surfaces in your kitchen and bathroom is a well-known and effective method of saving yourself some time and effort.

Leave Floors for Last

Finally, in order to avoid having to do things twice, leave all of your floors for last. Any dirt or debris that falls to the ground can be cleaned last, instead of cleaning the floors first and then having to do it once again when everything else is done.

When it comes to house cleaning, bathrooms are one of the most important and often one of the least desirable parts to clean.

However you feel about cleaning your bathroom, it is clear to all of us that it needs to be done. However, the degree to which you will take your bathroom cleaning is largely up to you.

Some people do the bare minimum and are satisfied with that, whereas others go to a different extreme and disinfect everything with bleach daily.

We asked cleaning experts at Swipe N Clean for their tips on bathroom cleanliness and avoiding bleach due to its effect on our skins and the environment

Why Do People Use Bleach?

A lot of people love using bleach in their cleaning. And it’s not difficult to realize why. It is a strong disinfectant and it is capable of destroying anything organic, including mold and mildew and bacteria.

What’s more, due to its bleaching properties, it can make white things whiter, which is why it used to be a staple in laundering white laundry, and why it is still frequently used to wash the white tiles and other ceramic items like sinks and toilets.

Why Bleach Is Not the Best Option

Just like with a lot of things which we used to use quite abundantly until we realized how unhealthy they are, bleach is slowly going out of fashion as a cleaner.

First of all, bleach is chlorine-based, which means that it gives off fumes which can be damaging to your lungs, and are especially damaging to children and elderly. It is also listed as a carcinogen and can cause chemical burns, once again due to chlorine.

On the other hand, bleach is also a pollutant, causing a lot of air pollution, especially if it mixes with ammonia, when it creates a powerful toxic gas.

Oxygen-Based Bleach

If you are ready to get rid of bleach in your cleaning due to the negative impact it may have on your health and the environment, you may be happy to learn that there is another variant of bleach, one without the negative impacts of chlorine bleach.

Oxygen bleach uses hydrogen peroxide as an active component and is therefore safe and odor-free, albeit a bit less effective than the other variant.

Borax

If you are looking to move away from bleach entirely, you can try borax. This cleaning agent has been around for a very long time, and for a good reason – it’s effective and can be used for a number of cleaning purposes. Best of all, it doesn’t contain any phosphates or chlorine, which might be toxic.

DIY with Vinegar

Even though there are some other non-toxic cleaning solutions out there, they may be quite a bit more expensive because they are green and eco-friendly.

However, if you are looking to really change the cleaning game and save some money while doing it, you can make your own bathroom cleaners, as told by professional maids and house cleaners.

White vinegar is a very versatile DIY cleaner which you can use for a variety of purposes thanks to its slight acidity. What’s more, combined with a few other ingredients which you probably have in your home already, vinegar can help you disinfect your bathroom on a budget and safely.

If you combine vinegar with borax and put it in your toilet, you create a powerful cleaning agent which should be left overnight to react and then scrubbed in the morning. If you are looking for a tile cleaning paste, combine some baking powder with vinegar.

There are a number of different ways you can use vinegar, baking powder, borax, and other household items for cleaning, but these are some of the best examples.

For an athlete, or even an avid fitness enthusiast, there is not a lot worse than getting injured. Not only the injury itself, which is the primary problem, but also the shift in the entire schedule and the way of life.

In the immediate aftermath of the injury, chances are that your doctor will tell you not to train and rest a lot. Even though it is a smart and reasonable thing to do, it may be a bit difficult to adhere to these rules.

We asked chiropractic experts at Fix Body Group on their experiences with athletes recovering from injuries and when it is safe to get back to training after an injury.

Your Previous Experience

If this is your first serious injury which made you stop training or doing exercise, chances are that you do not have a frame of reference to when it will be safe for you to get back to your usual routine.

However, there is your solution – once you feel well enough to do most other things without pain or discomfort, you can consult your doctor to start training again, albeit in a reduced capacity.

The Severity of the Injury Plays a Major Role, Too

This goes without saying, but a sprained ankle will only stop you for a short time, whereas a fracture, or surgery is something you should take a bit more seriously.

The severity of your injury also determines the intensity of the physical activity you are able to handle at the start. Some fitness experts claim that up to 5 days of absence results in no loss of fitness ability and that you should be able to get back at it with the same intensity.

However, anything longer than that will incur some restrictions, as well as a reduction in your abilities and you should take that into account when restarting your training.

Your Will May Be Strong, But Listen to Your Body

If you are competitive, chances are that your mind will be ready to jump back in a lot sooner than your body is fully healed and ready.

That’s why it is important to follow your doctor’s instructions and to keep to the schedule they set up for you. Listen to the subtle cues from your body to see whether you can really achieve what your mind has decided.

Ease Yourself Into It

One of the simplest, and often most disregarded pieces of advice a doctor or a fellow fitness enthusiast might give you is to wade in slowly. Don’t rush, don’t go for the maximum right away, give your body enough time to reacclimatize to the training and all the physical requirements it entails.

Even though you may not like it, there will be times when your body is simply not ready for the full strain of your full workout.

Help Your Body Heal

Aside from your regular doctor’s appointments and plenty of rest, there are other things you can do in order to help your body heal faster.

One such thing is proper diet, aimed at recovering strength and rebuilding your physique. Another thing many athletes do is visit a chiropractor. These specialists can help you heal and recover without the use of drugs and invasive surgery. There are even chiropractors in the US Olympic team. In fact, they’ve been a part of it since the 70s.

Even though waiting can be discouraging and annoying, waiting the proper amount of time can be crucial to help your body heal fully and avoid having a chronic injury which will mare all your future physical activity.