Consider the fact that there is no ideal software or tool which is capable enough to fit all the requirements of a team. However, these tools support the organizations to communicate, understand and execute work properly. When it comes to project management the task is not just to communicate well but to keep a constant and proactive communication with clients, designers, sales, developers or other teams. Usually, in case of any loop-hole in work or delay in finishing the task, all the teams start blaming each other for not delivering the right message at the right time. In such circumstances what suffer most are the reputation of the company and the work of the client.

To be more professional and customer-oriented there are several useful project management tools which can help the designers to work properly with collaborations with other teams to create the desired outcome. These tools also resolve the issues of blame game because things become pretty much explicit and systematic. But all these tools are proficient only if you properly use them. So here are some tips to tell you how to use a project management tool with designers.

Find a Suitable Tool

Trello, Hygger, Favro, Roadmap Planner, Client Portal, InVision, Jira Software, Dropbox Paper, Ora,  LiquidPlanner, Planway, Basecamp, etc. are some popular tools which are used in companies commonly. Each tool has its own variety of features which can benefit your work process. There are several other useful tools too. All you need to do is search and research for the most adequate tool as per your company’s style of working. Enforcing something which is not up to the suitability of your company`s approach to working is entirely a wastage of time and efforts.

Understand the Ideology of a Designer

Designing is a creative work and most of the time designer’s work with their ideology and in most cases, believe it or not, their ideology benefits more than anything. Clients are more focused of outcome which is appealing, and productive and designers are aware of this fact that`s why they take a risk to insert their idea while designing regardless of the brief given to them. Another fact is that design work becomes creative and out of the box if the artist is in a mood. Thirdly some artists are not that much sound in using management tools, or simply they never bound their working to an organized pattern. So keeping all the three natures of designers in mind, it is necessary to give them space to work in a creative way. However to keep an eye and to pattern the work in-line you should use a tool to allocate, communicate and pattern the work. But do not force designers too much to follow a prescribed tool or software just to surveil their activities and trying to mold them to act as you say.

Built a healthy way to turn your employees towards a patterned way of working. Your tool should not affect anyone`s creativity. Another way is to keep an employee just to add files and material over the project management software in this way your designers will not be burdened to focus more on the specific tool rather than designing.

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Services are so much more about a relationship than almost anything else. Think about it this way: you can be a real jerk, but sell a great product and as long as people have limited contact with you, you can be a success. However, if you are selling a service – whether that is technical support or drinks in a bar – then your customers and clients are much more interested in your relationship. You cannot be a jerk if you sell services because services necessitate human interaction.

Selling a Service is Selling a Relationship

Whether it is landscaping, painting, web development, or bartending, people tend to care more about the relationship than they do about the product. You don’t have to be a mixologist to be a good bartender, you have to be personable. Likewise, you don’t have to build million dollar websites to be a successful web developer, but you do have to listen to your customer and deliver what they want.

Customers would much rather work with a company or person that they enjoy communicating with or being around. If you are hostile or you don’t listen or you insist on your way being right, the majority of folks are not going to care about what you have to offer. This is especially true in a bigger firm, but if you have an affable, personable salesman with a backing of excellent employees and coworkers, you will be a success. The salesman doesn’t have to be technically gifted to sell a website, but if he is going to be the face of your company then it only makes sense to have him be an accurate reflection of your best qualities.

Long Term Service Relationships

Regular, repeat, retainer clients are crucial to success: they are the bedrock that you build your business on. Without this bedrock of customers or clients the month to month becomes much more stressful and income is much harder to anticipate. Cover your costs with an excellent stable of regular clients and you are gifted the freedom to go out and find one off clients or pitch for big, one time projects without having to worry about these sustaining your business.

However, all of these clients stick around because of the relationship that you have built with them. Certainly, you offer a service that they need or want, but they can always go somewhere else. Think about a bar: pretty much every bar sells the same alcohol, but why does one bar have a constant lineup of regulars that come through the door on a daily or weekly basis? It’s for the bartender. Take landscaping: do you think that a client chooses one landscaping service over another because of the type of lawn mower they use? More than likely not, but they do choose a lawn service because of the guy who knocks on their door every week or month to let the customer know that they will be in their yard that day. And that is the thing about selling a service – people can go somewhere else to get similar service, but what keeps them as your client is the relationship that you build with them.

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There are a few things more frustrating than realizing that you will always be behind someone else or some other company. Luckily you need not remain that way. If you are currently stuck looking up at other companies making more money than you or better positioned in a market than your company, you can change! You can find a small market within your own city sometimes; sometimes you have to move markets, but either way, you can change your focus.

The Small Market

Walmart might be the most famous example of this kind of market exposure. The story goes kind of like this: Sam Walton’s wife didn’t want to live in the city anymore, so they moved to the best quail hunting in the US in Bentonville, Arkansas – his wife’s family also lived there. It was here, in a town of around 10,000 that Walton opened the first Walmart. Instead of competing with the likes of Sears, Macy’s, or Montgomery Ward, or even the mid size markets that were dominated by regional stores, Walton staked his claim in the smallest viable markets.

Certainly, he could have staked a claim and fought tooth and nail to crawl up to compete in a big market with the big market chain that was nationally recognized in order to scrape by. Instead he planted his flag in the small market, offered small towns cheap goods that local retailers couldn’t compete with and quickly became one of the richest men in the world.

Specializing and Focusing

Certainly, you don’t have to move to a small town to exploit a small market, get filthy rich, and cause a whole ton of controversy. There are plenty of ways to fill gaps or cater to an un-catered-to section of your own market. Are you a web developer that specializes in eCommerce platforms? Maybe there is a platform that is not being shopped around your market yet and you can corner that market. Are you a painter who does it all in a very competitive market? Maybe specializing in office painting, or stucco, or Tudor houses will remove a lot of that competition. Maybe focusing on a small market is the way to go. 

Refocusing your business, or pivoting, takes a bit of foresight and a bit of bravery, but moving from 3rd or 4th or 5th in a market to 1st in a different market can lead to a massive windfall. Take the house painter for example. In a large market where there might be a lot of really good house painters, this guy can’t seem to break into the top 1 or 2 in his market. And that is fine for a while, but losing all of those customers to more recognized names isn’t what he is in this business for. So instead of spending lots of money on marketing and advertising, he changes his focus. Turns out, in this example, there is a small market waiting for him. There are a lot of Tudor houses that need new paint, and the owners of these houses don’t trust a general house painter to real with all of the trim work, the stucco painting, and the brick: they want a specialist. Could be that our house painter doesn’t necessarily specialize in Tudor houses, but he has enough experience to say that he does, he and his crews can say they specialize in Tudor houses in order to corner this section of the small market. Suddenly, our house painter is trying to claw after 1st or 2nd position in a broad market, he is #1 in a smaller market without necessarily changing a thing besides some wording on his website or informational brochures.

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 There is no definite answer as to why businesses fail. It can be due to a failed strategy that your company did not plan through to survive in the long run; it can be due to your continued ignorance of your customer’s concerns or just because of your lack of management of your resources. While some mistakes are unavoidable, there are some human caused blunders that can severely cost you if not handled and stopped at the right time.

As new startups continue to emerge, it is likely that only a few of them will be able to survive the fierce market competition. In fact, according to Bloomberg, only a mere 20% of the total novice entrepreneurs can thrive longer than the first 18 months of starting their business. The reality is no doubt sad and bitter but gives us more reasons to be careful and learn from the mistakes.

Differentiate or Die

Many businesses operate with the belief that the service they are providing or the product that they are selling is unique and will be used by all. Little do they know that there are several other businesses that offer similar services and will cause a serious competition.

When a customer has abundant choices to choose from, it is no surprise that they will choose your competitor over you due to a small difference in price or quality. There are several examples of big companies and names that fell apart due to their inability of offering something special to their consumers besides what already existed in the market.

Know Thy Customer

Understanding of the customer needs and planning your service offerings based on that can greatly influence a business success. As Thomas Edison once famously said, “I never want to build something that nobody wants to buy.”

Regardless of how genius you think your idea is, it is worthless if the customer is unable to understand its usage and purpose. A business that operates without acquiring proper knowledge about its customers from their likes, interests, behavior, and values will eventually run short of ideas to attract them towards their product/service.

 No Shortcut to Success

There is no such thing as an overnight success. At least not in the business world. Every move should be carefully planned and implemented. Building a business is a slow and lengthy process and must be dealt with patience and determination, even Rome was not built in a day.

Using shortcuts and tricks can give your business a fast pace but not for long. Whether it is about the website design or building of your brand image, everything takes time and must be strategically planned. It is better to invest a considerable amount of time and energy to gain a comprehensive understanding of your business insights before making the big leap.

Know How to Fail

Finally, it is extremely important that you accept failure and the possibility of failing at some point of your business venture. It is better to be well-equipped with a backup plan rather than live under the false assumptions that somehow thing will turn out in your favor.

Every entrepreneur must realize that it is completely normal to fail and it is through this failure that you can regain your strengths and conquer back with greater force. According to Confucius, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time, we fall.”

The boom of social media over the past decade has completely changed the dynamics of marketing. As an estimate, in 2018 there will be over 2.67 billion social media accounts users around the world and the number of social media accounts will be even more.

It is about time for you to realize that if you are not utilizing the social media to market your business then you are definitely missing out on a lot of marketing opportunities. Relying only on the traditional ways of marketing can be your biggest mistake as a marketer. It is important for you to realize that the digital marketing is far cry from traditional marketing. Below, we have compiled a few tips that would be helpful for you to create engaging social media posts.

Visually Appealing Content:

According to massplanner “Infographics have a tendency to get 3x more likes and shares as compare to other less visual content.”. This emphasizes how powerful visual content could be. Keeping the fact in mind that Millennials and Generation Z easily get attracted toward the content where there is more visual and less text and things are explained mainly by using illustrations. Try to include as more visual as you can in your posts, keep the text a secondary medium to convey your message.

Personal Touch:

Being intimate with your followers is the best way through which you can maintain a strong and long-lasting relationship with them. If you have been posting only service and product related posts on your social media, chances are higher that people will pass by without even getting engaged with your piece of content. In contrast, the candid behind the scenes of your company would help to open up your business to a whole new audience. Best of all, these sort of posts will also help you to maintain the credibility of your company without putting a lot of effort.

The web is bursting with the amazing and creative content. It is quite possible that the creative idea that has just popped up in your mind has already been done so many times. Provided that, it becomes quite difficult to post something that is as unique a blue diamond. Don’t get overwhelmed, try to come with a new trend, remember that there is no need to be out of the box sometimes, just forget that there is a box in first place. Instead of jumping on a bandwagon, curate something fresh and new for your brand.

Interaction:

Social media is the best place where you can be interactive with your target audience and current followers. Let’s take the example of Snapchat stories following which Instagram, Facebook, and even WhatsApp too have launched the similar feature on their application. These stories are the great way to get interactive with your fan and followers. Moreover, a post where you are asking for the opinion or a quick guess, can also be a fun way to keep your followers involved and engaged with your brand.

Conclusion:

All things considered, the most important point that you should know prior crafting the marketing strategy is to have a comprehensive knowledge of your target audience and their preferences. Keep in mind, that the same method won’t work for every audience so don’t stick to a single technique, instead, try everything in the mix only then you will be able to come up the best way of communication.

Once you know the behavioral pattern of your audience it would be easier for you to adopt a strategy accordingly, which could not only fetch you social media engagement but could also drive the traffic towards your website. To emphasize, your web design should also be visually driven to cater the same audience.

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