Business.com |
- 4 Genius Marketing Tactics Proven to Drive Leads for Businesses on a Budget
- Everything Small Business Owners Need to Know About Personnel Files
- How to Add Emotion to Your Content (And Why You Should)
- What Are You Waiting For? The Best Time to Start a Business Is Today
- What's the Best Timeclock for Your Small Business?
| 4 Genius Marketing Tactics Proven to Drive Leads for Businesses on a Budget Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:47 AM PDT  Lead generation can seem like a daunting – or confusing – task for small business owners, especially if you don't know which strategy will work best for your business. First, what is lead generation marketing, and do you need some crazy budget to do it? Lead generation marketing is simply a strategy – whether online or offline – designed to promote your business and its products and services to your ideal prospects at the right time. Let's first talk about your ideal prospects. These are people who are very likely to respond to your marketing and buy from you, whether immediately or after some nurturing. How do you know who these people are? Easy. look through your customer base, find your best customers (the most loyal, the highest spenders, etc.) and tabulate their demographics. Chances are, you'll find at least a couple demographics that define your ideal prospect. What about timing? How do you reach your ideal prospects at the exact time they need you, so they instantly jump at the phone and spout their credit card numbers to you? Sounds nice, but with inbound marketing, you need to utilize a strategy called nurturing. Fortunately enough, today's technological advances make it easy to promote a business consistently, thereby nurturing your prospects over time to warm them up to your business, so that when they do need you (timing!), they think of and call only you. I explain four budget-friendly lead generation tools below that you can use based on the results of our 89,030 small business clients, including:
So, let's get started! 1. Get on Google AdWords.Google has become a must-have lead generation tool. I don't personally know anyone who doesn't use Google every day. Here's how Google plays into your inbound marketing strategy: When you search for something on Google – whether it's a dentist, restaurant, plumber, etc. – you see three things right away:
And with most clicks coming from Page 1 of Google – and only a minimal amount of clicks happening on Page 2 – you must embrace Google as a vital marketing tool for demand generation of your business. It is fairly easy to get your business on Page 1 of the search results using Google's paid advertising platform, called AdWords. In this case, your search result would fall into category No. 1 above and have a small green "Ad" box next to it. Your ad's placement is determined by keyword phrases that are bid on. The higher your bid, the higher your ad will be shown in the rankings, and the more likely your ads will produce leads as part of your lead generation strategy. Every time someone clicks on your ad to visit your website, you pay Google. Thus, these ads are called pay–per–click ads. Clicks can be as cheap as a few pennies per click or on the pricier side, depending on how competitive your industry and keywords are. For example: If you were a dentist in Dallas, Texas, you would bid on keywords like "Dallas dentist" and not keywords like "auto mechanic" or "Dallas plumber." And, if you're bidding on "Dallas dentist," a $50 per-click bid will pretty much guarantee you the top spot on every search for that keyword – whereas a $0.05 per click bid may not get you any exposure at all. Of course, those bids in the above example are outrageous for the sake of demonstration. An actual peek at AdWords (which I have open now as I type) shows that "top of page" bid estimates for the keyword "Dallas Dentist" range between $7.61 and $17. That means that any bid over $17 will pretty much guarantee you a top spot, whereas anything under $7 won't give you much exposure at all. Of course, some other variables go into play here, such as:
Unless you want to spend a lot of time engineering an organic Page 1 ranking, it makes sense to pay a fee per click to get there fast. If your business derives its customers locally (like most small businesses), you can run ads directly within Google Maps. Your ads not only will be seen inside the Google Maps app (which has 1 billion downloads) with a purple ad icon, but they will also be shown on Page 1 of Google in the "Maps" area. (Given your bid is the top one.) This could offer a big advantage if your business serves the local area. The other advantage offered by Google Maps ads is that you can use your real Google My Business listing for your map ad, which is great news if you have several Google reviews – this instantly adds mountains of credibility. One more thing – for your local ads, make sure you enable the "location extension" in Google AdWords. This will sync your ads to your business's address and offer many perks to encourage foot traffic and local calls. Now, the downside. These ads require active monitoring and tweaking to keep your spend under control, or else those $17 clicks will quickly add up. Ideally, you will want to set aside a few hours a week on your calendar to check up on your ads to make sure this digital inbound lead generation strategy is not only producing clicks (which you're paying for) but customers that grow your bottom line. 2. Run coordinated ads on Facebook and Instagram.You can reach your prospects where they spend time and consume content every day: social media. Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can run ads on both networks simultaneously from the Facebook Business Manager, which operates on a pay-per-click model similar to AdWords. Depending on your budget, you can cap how much you want to spend either as a daily budget, or run the ad for a set amount of time and limit the budget expenditure by set dates. For example, you run the ad for two weeks, and during those two weeks, you set your budget to $150 for clicks on your ads. Here are a few tips for running Facebook/Instagram ads:
The biggest issue I see small business owners run into with Facebook ads is that they spend money to send traffic and leads to their website, but there's no cohesion between the ad and the page they arrive on, or, worse, there's no clear way for these visitors to contact you. Whatever you offer on your social media ads (and I recommend that you offer something of value to encourage interest and action from prospects), I recommend you broadcast that special offer on your website and put a contact form "above the fold" on your website so prospects don't have to hunt for how to contact you. (Above the fold is an old newspaper term for front-page items you could see on a newspaper rack. In website terms, above the fold includes website elements that are visible without any scrolling.) When someone clicks on your social media ads, they should arrive on your website, recognize where they are and know exactly how to contact you quickly for the thing they want. A word to the wise: These ads also require ongoing management and maintenance, like the Google AdWords platform. Be sure to build this personal time cost into your budget at the onset. 3. Contribute your expertise to fellow blogs and magazines to build credibility.Public relations is an area I don't see enough business owners dedicating time to … largely because they are so busy running the day to day of their businesses. That said, the reputation of your business is more important than ever in generating credibility and trust in your products and services. Plus, PR is free to you and only requires a time commitment to make it work. There are usually two types of PR pickup that work best for businesses:
The second type of pickup is much easier to get, and I suggest you start there. Here are some tips: Locate blogs, magazines, newspapers, podcasts, and even radio shows that your audience pays attention to. For example, if you are a plumber, this could be as simple as your local newspaper. Now, what do you say? This is the hard part. You'll want to create an article idea that solves a problem for your target audience – usually a problem you are uniquely and professionally qualified to handle. Here are some examples:
Once you have a few loose article ideas/discussion points down, contact someone at the publication or outlet of your choice to see if they're interested in your ideas. You can usually find contact information for editorial staff on an "About Us" or "Contact Us" webpage. And – this is important – don't give up! They may say they aren't interested or may not even reply at all, so you'll want to follow up until they bite. Another easy way to generate media pickup is to be there when writers and journalists need an expert. But how do you know when they need you?? The answer is HARO, which stands for "Help A Reporter Out." Journalists all over the country constantly need experts to weigh in on their current piece, so they submit requests for experts via HARO. For example, a home magazine might be writing a story about protecting your home against hurricanes. Their writer would send a request via HARO looking for roofers and contractors with expertise to sit down for a 10-minute phone call. You only have to respond to their request via the email they provide, and if they choose you, you'll be featured! You can sign up for a free HARO account here, which will give you daily or weekly emails with many possible submissions that may apply to your business. If you reply to one, and your business is interviewed or featured, you just got yourself some free publicity! Remember, the point of public relations isn't touting your accomplishments. It is a marketing strategy that positions your business with likable causes, brands, people and purposes. Use direct mail to reach consumers.Believe it or not, I'm talking about "old school" direct mail! And direct mail is still flying under the radar compared to the proliferation of digital outreach. Let's look at the response rate by the numbers (These figures are all representative of marketing to new prospects, rather than current clients/customers.):
The biggest drawback to direct mail is the cost of postage, which is set by the United States Postal Service and makes up the bulk of any campaign's cost. You can lower your postage cost by selecting more affordable delivery methods. The cheapest is EDDM (or Every Door Direct Mail), because every single door and mailbox receives your postcard. There is zero sorting or extra work, so the USPS offers the lowest price. But there is some tradeoff for the savings – and it's that you might end up wasting money on postage by mailing a postcard to unqualified households or businesses that will never become a customer of yours. To maximize targeting capabilities while still keeping postage costs low, I recommend a mailing list type called "resident/occupant," and it is easily the best of both worlds. Your postcards will be delivered to every door along a specific mail route (so you save money, like with EDDM), but you can select each mail route based on demographic information, like average household income, age and presence of children. If your business is even more niche or selective, you may want to forego discounted postage rates for full targeting. In this case, your mail would only be delivered to those who meet your demographic criteria – and as far as what criteria you can target, the sky is just about the limit. Regardless of your list type, you want a good quality list. Ensure your list provider will guarantee their list – any legitimate list provider should offer at least 90% deliverability. If they won't guarantee deliverability, proceed with caution. There is one aspect of direct mail that's even more important than the right mailing list, and that is mailing consistently. I'm talking about reaching prospects a minimum of three to six times within three months to reach the bare minimum of consistency. I know this sounds oddly self-serving given I own a direct mail company, but this is advice I built my business on. We started mailing 1,000 postcards every week back in 1998, and now we mail 180,000 postcards weekly. Last year our revenue topped $59 million. So I speak from personal experience here. Simply put, consistency trumps everything when it comes to direct mail. So whatever you choose to do, commit to it! And, don't lose sight of your #1 most valuable resource – it isn't money, it is time. Once you have successfully piloted a marketing tactic and proven that the ROI is there, keep it going. Put it on autopilot (if you can). When you are ready, there are companies that can handle all your digital marketing (Google, Facebook, Instagram, websites) as a coordinated effort with your direct mail, such as a product that I developed to help save business owners time. My main point is this: Find a marketing formula that empirically works for your business first. You do not have to break the bank doing it. Once you find the best solution? Pour on the coals. Sources
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| Everything Small Business Owners Need to Know About Personnel Files Posted: 09 Mar 2020 09:39 AM PDT 
Like many small business owners, you may have taken on the work of a human resource manager without realizing it. You might not have the resources or a large enough staff to justify hiring someone specifically for that position yet. For the time being, you're responsible for everything related to your team, including creating and managing their personnel files. Why your small business needs personnel filesEstablishing and maintaining employment records may be low on your priority list, but they can help your company in several ways, such as:
How to set up and manage personnel filesSince it's essential to your business to maintain personnel files, follow these six easy steps to help you create and manage your team's records. 1. Take stock of what documentation you already have.You probably have a lot of information about each worker, such as resumes and W-4 forms. Search through emails and paperwork to gather what you already have. Then use the following checklist to help you identify any gaps:
2. Ask for help from your team.Let your staff know you're creating personnel files for each of them so that everything is in one secure location. Then ask for help collecting any missing information, like emergency contacts. Give everyone a list of what you need from them and set a deadline to provide the info. 3. Secure your files and create policies for who can access them.Store the documentation in a protected location either online or in a locked filing cabinet. This will keep everyone's information safe from unauthorized access. Since employment records are private and confidential, make it clear who can view the files. Generally, you and the employee can view the information. You may want to give the employee's supervisor(s) limited access to certain pieces of information their employees' files. For anyone who can view files, set clear guidelines about
For example, you might permit an employee to look at their folder, but they
5. Create files for new hires.Whenever you have a job opening, create a folder to collect candidates' applications and resumes. After you've hired someone, move the individual's info to a separate employment record. That way, you'll have a secure folder at the beginning of their tenure and won't have to go through emails or paperwork later to piece together the worker's data. 6. Regularly perform an audit.Periodically revisit each team member's records to ensure everything is accurate, updated and complete. Reviewing each folder annually, such as before annual performance reviews, can show you what has – or has not – changed from the previous year. When you're auditing each file, ask yourself the following questions:
How long you should keep documentationGovernment agencies, like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Department of Labor, and state labor departments, have rules and guidelines about how long an employer should keep paperwork. Generally, you need to save general employment records for at least one year after someone leaves your company. This documentation includes:
You need to store info about how wages are calculated for at least two years. This data includes:
Typically, you need to keep most attendance and payroll data for at least three years, including:
The IRS recommends that you keep employment tax records for at least four years after the tax is due or is paid, whichever is later. Personnel file do's and don'tsTo keep your small business compliant and protect yourself from potential lawsuits, follow these simple guidelines. Do:
Don't:
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| How to Add Emotion to Your Content (And Why You Should) Posted: 09 Mar 2020 08:00 AM PDT  How do you get your audience to engage with your brand more without spending on advertising? The answer lies in creating content that's packed with emotional signals. Your audience skims through an ocean of content online, filtering out marketing messages with lightning speed. Catching their attention is only possible by creating an emotional reaction. Using emotion as a way to capture attention is a marketing principle that has been around for ages. Today, this principle still applies even as new apps, social media platforms, and technological advances alter the marketing landscape. In this article, we're going to look at how adding emotional signals to content can benefit your business. We'll also explore how to make your content more engaging with the help of emotions. How emotion in content marketing benefits a brandMany businesses work on creating content that reflects professionalism and integrity. This is essential, but in the process, many brands produce web content and email communication that appears impersonal and stiff. You can communicate professionalism while humanizing your brand by adding emotion to your marketing material. Doing so create several benefits that will help grow your business:
Adding emotion to content has powerful benefits for any business. Let's look at practical ways that your material can excite, inspire, and engage your audience. Practical ways to add emotion to your contentWe looked at the reasons why adding emotion to your content is not only helpful but necessary. So, how can you add emotional signals that create a strong response in your audience? Let's dive into a few practical and easy ways that you can optimize your content to win over your audience. Understand your audienceWhen making content for your website, social media pages, and email, it's essential to understand who your target customers are and what they care about. When you have a clear understanding of your target market, you'll know what kind of emotions to generate that will appeal to them. For example, a business in the financial sector needs to convey security, trust and integrity. An automobile company may need to create content that showcases status, adventure and other emotions. Use social media listening tools and sentiment analysis to understand your audience's primary emotions surrounding a product. You can also ask your audience to report their interests directly by using a survey form. Create a compelling title.The first thing that your audience sees is the headline of your blog post, video or image. It's essential for your title to immediately trigger a response that compels them to click on it and read your content. When creating a title, use power words to set off a psychological response. Words such as "best," "free," and other terms easily catch your user's eye. Likewise, you can build confidence in your business by using words like "expert," "certified" and other terms that indicate authenticity. Create short, impactful titles by using relevant keywords and power words to build excitement. A great title will help you get more engagement and traffic on your site and on social media. Focus on creating positive emotions.Emotional content that goes viral often creates complex emotions, and there's no straightforward formula for driving virality. However, according to one study, viral content has certain characteristics that you can replicate in your own content creation.
Both negative and positive emotions can lead to your content getting more engagement. However, positive emotions are more effective and your brand should be associated with feelings like joy and excitement. Use the right platform.According to one study, people tend to associate specific emotions with certain social media platforms. For example, people associate using Facebook and Twitter with anxiety and isolation among other feelings. Other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are linked to feelings like creativity and excitement. When creating emotional content, think about the right platform to use. Appropriate platforms will help maximize the effect of your content. It's also important to create the right type of content for each platform. Social media management tools will help you understand whether to create a video, an infographic, a list or a blog post for different platforms. Content format matters and can also impact emotions. For example, blogs are rated as the fifth most trusted source for reliable information. Hence, you can use blogs as a way to provide helpful and informative content to users as a way to build trust and thought leadership. Create an emotional connection to your brandBuilding an emotional connection to your brand using your content has powerful outcomes. One analysis shows that even though fully connected customers form only a fraction of all a business's customers, they spend twice as much as less connected customers. Emotionally connected customers also have lower attrition and higher lifetime value for a business. Infusing positively charged emotions into your content is a surefire way to build a closer relationship with your audience. Brands like Nike, Lego, Starbucks and many more hold a strong place in their audience's psyche. This happens through shared values, creating emotions that spark positive feelings and building a community. It's vital for your business to highlight its values and to build the right feelings in association with your brand. Along with creating emotionally-charged content, you can also create a membership platform to build a community. A community membership site will help you create a hub for people to share content. It can also develop a closer relationship with your audience by creating an exclusive space for brand and customer interactions. This will help create feelings of belongingness, making your customers identify with your brand. We've looked at a few effective ways to build emotion through content. By working with the tips mentioned in this post, you stand to improve your brand image and to help your business grow quickly. |
| What Are You Waiting For? The Best Time to Start a Business Is Today Posted: 09 Mar 2020 06:00 AM PDT  As an entrepreneur, I am often approached with pitches for new business ideas. This isn't unique to me, and I am sure anyone who has started a business can attest to the number of business pitches they constantly receive. Sometimes the new idea is presented from friends, but I'm more often pitched from people throughout everyday life, many of whom I've just met for the first time. Even while on an 11 -hour flight home from our Belgrade office last week I was approached by a flight attendant who told me about her new product idea. While those pitching are usually asking for feedback or just reassurance that they have the next great idea, my response is always the same: "Why haven't you done it yet?" The answer tends to catch people off guard as they are usually expecting me to say how great their idea is or to give some high-level feedback. However, my advice is always the same. The best time to start a business is today. Your age is your advantage.I feel very fortunate that we started my company while I was still a teenager in college with limited risk and very few personal responsibilities and commitments. I have tried to convince myself that if I waited several years to start a company that I would have had the entrepreneurial drive. I would be willing to take the risks and quit a job. I would be up for the challenge, and I wouldn't be afraid of failing. The reality, however, is that as much as I want to convince myself this is the case I will never know. I will never know whether I would have had the courage to put everything on the line once I had more responsibilities. What I do know is that every year that I would have waited, every time I decided that I wasn't ready or came up with an excuse for why it wasn't the perfect time, it would have gotten more difficult to start. There would have been more reasons not to take action. When I talk to high school and college students, I am always bullish about their opportunity to start now. They, like me at the time I started a business, have very little to lose. It is much easier to start before having to make a decision for an entire family rather than just yourself. It is easier to justify spending time on a new venture when you don't have a mortgage or when you can split your rent with a handful of roommates. And a lack of experience can also be an edge in certain cases. You are moldable, quicker to adapt, and less tied to the status quo. These are all advantages to an entrepreneur. Ignorance is bliss.Sometimes ignorance can also be a major benefit. When starting, you'll have numerous people, many of whom you respect, give you critical feedback or tell you that your idea has no chance of being successful. In the early days of my company, there were tons of industry experts telling us that nobody would ever require phone verification and that there was no market for our products. Being inexperienced in the space gave us a fresh view compared to industry experts and allowed us to see the market from a different perspective which ultimately allowed us to develop a new market. However, you don't have to be just out of college to start a company. Reid Hoffman was 35 when he left PayPal to launch LinkedIn. Colonel Sanders was 62 when he started franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken. There are different advantages and experiences that you can leverage when starting a company later in life. The reality is that the longer you wait, the more time you will have for excuses to pile up until starting your own business feels like an insurmountable feat. Alas, the hypothesis still stands, if you are reading this and you don't have the benefit of being young, today is still the best day to start your business because tomorrow will just be that much harder. Technology is your friend.The barrier to entry has never been lower to bootstrapping a new business and reducing startup costs. If my American Airlines flight attendant wanted to launch her new product online, she could within hours with so many resources at her fingertips. She could set up her marketplace using Shopify, develop all the required contracts with LegalZoom, establish marketing automation using Mailchimp, create a new logo on 99designs, and immediately test the concept with a Facebook campaign to get market validation. Business services like mine can be more challenging to launch but cloud computing services like AWS and Azure allow you to launch without a big upfront infrastructure cost. Building an initial team can be done virtually at a low cost by outsourcing tasks to experts in specific areas. The digital age has given entrepreneurs everything they need at their fingertips to get started. Fake it 'til you make it.Technology also can make you appear bigger and more credible to potential customers. In the early days of our company, we were challenged with selling to enterprise customers who would later discover that we were a small company of a couple of people without significant funding. We would constantly receive feedback that we had a good product, however, we were too great of a risk. The old adage that "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was hurting our chances to grow. When customers tried to visit our office, we would make up an excuse about our conference rooms being booked and needing to meet down the street at Starbucks. One way we tried to appear bigger was by setting up a phone tree for incoming calls using RingCentral. When customers would call, they would be asked to press 1 for sales, 2 for billing, 3 for support, etc. Regardless of what callers would select, it would route to my cell phone, and I would usually need to step out of class to take the call. While not every company needs to take this route, there are many ways to appear bigger and equal the playing field with larger competitors. The next time you tell your friend your business idea, ask yourself why you haven't already taken the action. What has stopped you from starting today? Why haven't you validated the concept? The list of excuses and reasons to delay a launch will only get longer. The cavalry is not coming; it's on you to make this happen. The next time your friend pitches you on an idea or your flight attendant tells you about their product they want to launch, encourage them to do it. The time will never be better for them to start than today. |
| What's the Best Timeclock for Your Small Business? Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:45 AM PDT 
As a small business owner, you more than likely understand how proper resource management can often mean the difference between a thriving business and one that struggles. While cash flow, supplies and inventory are all manageable resources that should immediately come to mind, one of the most important things small business owners need to be aware of is time. If you've ever come dangerously close to a deadline or rushed to meet a quota, you understand how time management has a direct impact on your productivity. As you add more people to your staff, their hours worked – and by extension, their productivity – can be measured with the help of either a physical employee timeclock or a timeclock app. Couple that with the fact that timeclocks can integrate with payroll software, and you have an important tool that could potentially save your business thousands of dollars. As with most modern business tools, a lot of factors matter when trying to determine the best timeclock for a small business, since there are numerous options available. Whether you want a biometric-enabled timeclock physically installed on-site or a cloud-based solution that your employees can use to clock in and out while on the road depends largely on your business's structure, payroll system and needs. As you search for the right timeclock solution for you, here are some questions to consider before committing to one option over the other. Editor's note: Looking for the right time and attendance system for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs. Why is an employee timeclock so important for small businesses?If you don't have employees lined up at the start of your business, or if your employees aren't working on an hourly basis, then it makes sense to hold off on a time and attendance system. However, most early business models require some form of hourly labor, so as your staff gets larger and more people contribute to your company, you're likely going to want to implement some sort of time and attendance software solution. Timeclocks are important for small businesses in some major ways. First and foremost is the fact that timeclocks are a fair and equitable way to ensure your employees are being paid what they're owed. A good timeclock and attendance software app can also make tasks like employee scheduling and payroll much easier for managers. Additionally, timeclocks can help reduce the risk of employee fraud and time theft by highlighting inconsistencies in a worker's clock-in and clock-out habits. According to a survey of 1,000 employees by QuickBooks, 49% admitted to committing time theft, with 46% admitting to "adding between 15 and 60 minutes" to their timesheets. Shockingly enough, 3% said they added more than an hour of additional time to their timesheets. That kind of either willful or accidental malfeasance can cost a business thousands of dollars in wages and lost productivity. Another important function of timeclocks is accurately tracking your payroll. Being able to easily implement your paid time off policy among your part-time and full-time employees in an easily understandable way makes for a seamless workflow. Many timeclocks allow you to program your payroll policies into its parameters, automatically handling any required calculations and reducing the amount of time you have to spend on payroll. A good time-tracking app will also alert you to any attendance inconsistencies that crop up. Sometimes employees show up to work late, leave work early or are regularly "sick" on certain days. While some of those instances can be coincidences, some people take advantage of a lax attendance policy. Given the fact that frequent absenteeism costs your company money by potentially driving up labor expenses, implementing a system that lets you identify and deal with problems as they happen can be a huge time and money saver. Speaking of labor costs, most modern timeclocks offer real-time data. Once implemented, time and attendance software can show you which positions are using up the most time, what your overtime costs are and how your business is comparing to industry standards. With that type of information at your fingertips, you can adjust as needed to keep your labor costs at a reasonable level. What kind of timeclocks are there?Just as there are countless types of businesses out there, there is a range of time and attendance monitoring options out there to meet those varying needs. Physical devices installed at a central location, while seemingly old school in nature, are still relatively common in some workplaces. More mobile work environments, however, have eschewed the classic punch-card system for app-driven models that let employees accurately calculate their hours worked regardless of where their office may be that day. In light of their differences, here are some of the different styles of timeclocks available on the market today. Punch card timeclocksAs was previously mentioned, the punch-card style of timeclock has been around for a long time. Going back as far as the turn of the 20th century, punch-card timeclocks still see regular use in some workplaces. These devices work by requiring an employee to insert their timecard into the device to be stamped with the exact time their shift starts and ends. Then a manager gathers all of the timecards and manually inputs the shifts into the company's payroll. Since this is a decidedly analog method of timekeeping, managers are required to make sure the data they enter is accurate, resulting in more effort and time needed to get payroll done. Key cards/barcode/RFID timeclocksThe next step up in terms of technological ability is the timeclock that relies on a key card, barcode or the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In these systems, the employee usually has an item that they keep with them at all times, like an employee identification badge that doubles as a key they swipe to start their shift. Whether it's a barcode that gets scanned or an RFID card that users tap or place near a dedicated scanner, this style of timeclock is usually connected to time-tracking software that automatically logs an employee's shift. While largely seen as an easier and faster way to count an employee's time on the clock, it also requires that those same workers have their card or identification on hand. If they lose the credential or leave it at home, then that can cause headaches for management. Another issue is that magnetic strips tend to wear out on swipe cards, so those have to be replaced over time. PIN or password-based timeclocksJust as with nearly every online account, some timeclocks require employees to input a username and password when they start and end their workdays. Some devices even require a personal identification number (PIN) be inputted instead, with the technology often working as a second form of identification to other entry methods like a barcode. The main issue with this system crops up when people forget their credentials. Biometric timeclocksIt may sound like some sci-fi technobabble, but biometric timeclocks are a fairly commonplace piece of technology these days. For the uninitiated, biometrics use a person's unique physical qualities to log in or access certain systems. The most common example of biometric technology is the fingerprint reader on many new cellphones. While that tech is great for keeping prying eyes away from your cellphone, it's even better for businesses worried about "buddy punching" when it comes to time and attendance systems. Other forms of biometric systems include interactive voice response and facial recognition. The former requires workers to call a predetermined number and answer certain prompts in order to clock in and out. This format isn't that popular anymore, since they're usually replaced with a mobile device app. Facial recognition software also relies on a person's unique physical features, but cheaper models can be circumvented with a simple photograph of the person. App-based/online timeclocksMost people always have a smartphone with them, so it only makes sense that many workplaces today use an app-based or web-based timeclock system. This method is most appealing to businesses who don't want to pay for or lease a physical timeclock for the office or those that rely on remote workers. Most modern payroll services come with either an online timeclock or separate app that employees can download and use at their own discretion. Some of those apps can also include "geofencing," which only allows the app to work within a specified area or records their exact location when they were clocking in and out. Perhaps the biggest boon to this kind of time-tracking solution is that most people are inherently familiar with how to use an app on their phone. While this is likely the easiest and most convenient kind of timeclock for most small businesses, it's also the easiest platform for workers to commit time fraud and time theft. How can I deter time theft?Time theft is a major concern for most small business owners. Unless you're implementing a strict timeclock policy among your workers and adopt a clock-in process that eliminates the possibility of people fudging their hours each week, then you're going to run the risk of employees gaming the system. As previously mentioned, many employees are guilty of this, and whether you care about losing out on a few minutes here and there if your company is performing well is ultimately up to you. If you're worried about the thousands of dollars you could lose to time theft, it's imperative that you set a strong time and attendance policy that outlines the repercussions for dishonesty on a time card. With a strong policy and effective timeclock system in place, you can at least work to mitigate potential losses. Are timeclocks affordable?The out-of-pocket costs associated with a good time and attendance software program depends largely on the type of system you're looking to implement, along with several other factors. If you're going with a software-based solution, you must consider if you're going to host it on your own servers or if it's going to be hosted remotely. You also must factor in the number of employees that will use the system, the features you want and if you need a physical timeclock installed at your office. Most timeclocks and attendance systems are charged on a per-employee basis, meaning most vendors will charge you for each person on the system, regardless of their title at your company. According to our research, cloud-based time-tracking systems can "range anywhere from $1 to $10 per employee, per month" though the average was between $3 and $5 per employee. A base fee of between $20 and $100 can also be charged. There may also be a monthly minimum, meaning you will have to pay at least a certain amount regardless of if you have a large-enough workforce to meet that minimum. Additional fees can include installation, setup and training fees, which vary based on the providers and your needs. Our research found some vendors charge anywhere between $100 to "several thousand dollars" for such fees. On-premises systems are significantly more expensive upfront. According to our research, we found that such systems can cost anywhere between several hundred dollars to more than $10,000 for the software. Some even charge licensing fees once again based on the number of employees on the system. As for physical timeclocks, these devices can cost upwards of several thousands of dollars to purchase and install. You're also going to have to spend more on physical items, especially once your employees use up your supply of paper timecards. You can also buy or lease a timeclock, though that will depend on the vendor and how much money you want to spend on the system each month. Whether you go for a physical, in-office timeclock or opt for a more modern and digital approach, having accurate information about your employees' hours is invaluable for small business owners. With the right amount of data, you can not only optimize your bottom line, but you can ensure that your employees are the most efficient and effective group for your company. |
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