We all want to build a “dream team” – a group of employees that have synergy when working together, complementary strengths and weaknesses, and a great social dynamic. It’s important to build a team of employees that possess a variety of talents, skills, backgrounds, and experience when you’re running a business.  Without this diversity, you’ll end up with a homogeneous

Outsourcing has typically been thought of as a solution for large companies that can afford to hire outside agencies totake over specific parts of running the business – accounting, legal, marketing, customer support, etc. But the advent of technology has made it possible for very small companies (even those without employees) to find outside agencies to which they can outsource

An answering service handles your phone calls and delivers your messages to you. Using an answering service is a common solution many business owners implement when handling customer service and administrative duties on their own become too much of a time sink. Answering services differ greatly in their delivery of service, type of service, and level of automation. Some answering

If you’re selling to a person that isn’t 100% certain they want your product or service, you’ll likely encounter one of a small group of common sales objections. When situation-specific details are taken away, most customer sales objections center around one of six factors, ranging from price to timing. Learning how to overcome these common sales objections is a must in a

Did you know that Conversational offers a medical answering service for medical offices? As technology continues to change the way companies do business, more applications for our services crop up. We realized that the current market for medical answering services wasn’t offering the right solutions for medical offices that need call answering services. Many of our clients are considered medical

The concept of team building has been studied since the late 1920’s, with the first experiment being the famous Hawthorne studies that looked at productivity and how it relates to working conditions. Research says that teams, in order to be productive and effective, have to be able to work together cohesively. But most teams aren’t naturally cohesive. People often disagree and have

Feel like you’re always busy, but don’t have much to show for it? That’s a sure sign you’re working on time wasters that make you feel busier than you really are. This post will outline 5 common time wasters that look like work, but are really only distractions. We have a lot of words for “wasting time” in the English

Small business owners are among the busiest human beings on the planet, but you already knew that. Running a business on your own is not a job. It’s a lifestyle. Owning a small business touches every area of your life – your work, your family and friends, your long-term goals, your finances. You need a few tools in your business

“Satisfaction is a rating. Loyalty is a brand.” -Shep Hyken Customer loyalty can be easily misunderstood as customer satisfaction. If your business is doing a good job, it should be satisfying nearly every customer. But realistically, only some of those customers will become loyal to your business. Customer loyalty raises a lot of questions for small business owners, so in this

Home businesses are typically one-man (or woman!) operations. As such, many home businesses are run solely by the owner and there are no departments or additional employees to handle the day-to-day operations. This is why home business owners typically experience burnout sooner than traditional business owners – one can only do it all for a short period of time. But