Month: August 2013

The decision to expand your business should be based on a number of components, such as financials, logistics and your own emotional readiness. As logic suggests and many have overlooked, only expand your business if you think it will be profitable. If there is an area of town that is not served by competitors or a niche market with unmet needs, then the stage might be set for expansion.   Scale Up and Over the Competition   Achieving economies of scale should be taken into consideration when debating over whether or not you want to expand your business. As your (more…)

Americans spend an average of 1,700 hours a year working, according to BusinessInsider.com. This is quite a lot of time in a person’s year, so why not make it enjoyable and productive. In fact, a rather recent study by Towers Watson shows that employees that engaged at work are much more productive. Thus, as a business owner, it would behoove you to create a positive and engaging work environment. Take a look at Google’s headquarters for an extreme case of offering employees reason to engage at work. Arcade games, gourmet food, massages on request, nap rooms and swimming pools are (more…)

Stephanie Laucho has been a wonderful addition to The REFUGE Group team over the past couple of months. Consistently improving and putting forth her best effort on a daily basis, Stephanie was determined to learn as much as possible. Social Media Super Hero   Our clients’ social media pages felt the impact of Stephanie’s superb work while at The REFUGE Group. We quickly noticed increased engagement and new fans and followers once she learned the ropes. Once she learned what is appropriate to post, what prompts engagement and the idiosyncrasies between posting on different social media sites she soared higher (more…)

Marketing has its place in every business. According to the Business Dictionary, “Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.” Based on this, a marketer’s job is to prove how a product will satisfy their needs. Putting together a marketing strategy can be expensive and time-consuming, making the task quite challenging. There are two ways you can promote your business, traditional marketing and online marketing. Now, you will probably ask which one is more effective? There is no single answer for this question because both can help you succeed.   Traditional Marketing (more…)