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Experian is celebrating National Small Business Week by inviting leading influencers and thought leaders from the world of small business to contribute guest posts. Today Ebong Eka, Corporate CPA, Speaker and Business Expert shares some best practices for finding ROI when hiring an employee.   It's National Small Business Week and time to honor the millions of businesses started by entrepreneurs who stay up late for the opportunity to live the American Dream. If you're an entrepreneur, self-employed, freelancer or solopreneur, you've probably asked yourself the following questions when you were exhausted at 2 am: 1) Can I actually afford to hire an employee? 2) Won't hiring an employee cost a lot of money?3) Aren't I too small of a business to have an employee? Remember the saying, "it takes money to make money"? That's partially true but in this case every dollar you spend in your business should yield a return. In other words, if you spend $1 of expense, you should expect $2, $3, $4 etc. in income or revenue.    So how does a small business owner determine the "Return of Investment" on hiring an employee? If I had a dollar every time I heard "I can't afford to hire an employee yet because my business is too small!"....well you know the rest.  The difference between a solopreneur and a business is the ability to grow or scale.  Your business can't grow, if you as the business owner are doing the sales, fulfillment, customer service, website and everything else under the sun.   In my experience, many solopreneurs and small business owners don't hire employees because they believe doing so will cost more money than their business would earn.  There can be catastrophic consequences and negative financial implications if you make a mistake in the following areas:  1) Recruitment2) Retention3) Expansion  1) Recruitment Recruitment of talent is one of the biggest challenges small businesses consistently face. Hiring the wrong person can be costly because it can damage your sales process, product/service delivery and overall productivity of the business.  Pro Tip #1: Visiting websites like Upwork or Freelancer is a great way to find a great employee, save money and see reviews of their past work. If you want to hire someone locally, ask the perspective person if they understand the job description and responsibility. Then give them a small project to start.  2) Retention Whether you're a traditional business or a solopreneur, it costs a lot of money to not only hire but keep employees. One of the biggest challenges I've seen with clients who've hired me to speak to their sales teams or employees is employee retention/empowerment.  It's a problem, but if done correctly you can have inspired employees that will work hard to increase your bottom line! Pro Tip #2: Believe it or not, money or higher wages are rarely the problem for the employee. Your employee feeling a lack of significance is the bigger problem. One tip is to ask an employee for feedback on the best way to perform a task. That increases the employee's feeling of significance and increases the revenue for your business. 3) Expansion If your business isn't growing, you may be going out of business. The same questions you're asking yourself at 2 am can be alleviated by hiring an employee, whether in person or virtually.  For every $1 I spend, I expect a return of a multiple of that amount...in some cases as much as $10 in revenue. Pro Tip #3: Before hiring an employee, identify what that employee will be doing and make sure that task has the potential to yield a return in revenue for your business.  If you want to grow your business, hiring an employee is an important part of your growth. Legendary business mentor and expert Jim Rohn said "If you do the right thing at the wrong time, you get pain!" In other words, there are financial implications to every decision you'll make in your small business.  However, hiring an employee will cost your money in the short term but the investment will yield a great return in the long run.  Ebong Eka is a Certified Public Accountant, keynote & TEDx speaker, small business and pricing expert who regularly appears on MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business Channel, NBC, Arise Television, China Central TV America, Huff Post Live and CNN.  He is also a Huffington Post Small Business Blogger and Office Depot blog contributor. Ebong is also the author of the bestselling book, “Start Me Up! – The No-Business-Plan Business Plan”, published by Career Press.

We’re in the home stretch now just before the holidays, but it’s not too late to get an extra push out of your marketing. Those final few emails can make or break your holiday sales, so don’t overlook opportunities to grab the attention of last-minute shoppers. The beauty of email is that you can quickly create and distribute virtually any kind of message — be it promotions, customer service information, big news, useful insight, account reminders or a quick holiday message — and send it directly to your most valuable customers. Email marketing offers a variety of specialized uses that can be tailored to both your business and your customers. Here are five ways that email can help you boost your online marketing for the holidays: Increase sales conversions — Prospects may require up to nine “touches” before making a buying decision. Your last one or two emails before the holidays could be the extra incentive they need to make their purchases. Generate repeat sales — Finding and acquiring new customers can be expensive, anywhere from six to 12 times more expensive than selling to an existing one. Focus on emailing your big spenders and frequent buyers right now. To create urgency, be sure to tell customers there’s a limited number of days to shop with you before Christmas. Send these emails directly to the customers who are most likely to buy in order to generate the most sales. Up-sell and cross-sell your products — Email provides a great opportunity for you to help customers order “one more” product while they’re in the mood to buy. Experian’s email campaign builder makes it easy to create a series of email messages that are timed to follow up with offers of related interest. Drive Web users to offline purchases — Email marketing is often a catalyst for Web users to purchase offline. More than half of users in one survey had made a purchase offline after receiving an email promotion. Make it easy for customers to find you, see business hours and other essentials about your brand. Gain feedback from your visitors — Email gives your customers a chance to offer honest feedback so you can readily adapt to what your customer base wants. Their reviews will help you tailor your products and messaging for their needs as you head into the new year. Experian’s email campaign builder makes it easy to give your holiday sales a boost — and also create the kind of customer loyalty that will generate year-round returns. Check out a risk-free trial here.

Is your site optimized for holiday traffic? If it isn’t, you risk sending visitors clicking away — resulting in lost sales, a weakened brand image and an overall poor impression of your business.   This holiday season, make sure customers stick around when they visit your site by incorporating holiday-centric navigation. Make it easy for visitors to see your special sales, gift guides, top-rated products and other information that will enhance their shopping experience.   Here are some quick and easy ways to leverage your site’s content and create user-friendly navigation that highlights your site’s “gifting” opportunities. Your navigation should include some or all of the following:   A “gifts” section. Include a link from your home page to your gift center. Use color and seasonal imagery to draw users’ eyes toward the link. “Shop for/by” links. Create links to gifts for moms, dads, significant others, kids and other demographic groups as appropriate to your brand. Gifts under $20, under $50 and over $75. Some visitors want inexpensive gifts for coworkers, while others are seeking high-price-point items. Don’t leave out either group in your navigation. Top sellers. Feature your top-rated products in one area to help visitors narrow their choices and buy with confidence. Spotlight users’ reviews and testimonials with each product. Our picks. Select your team’s favorites, and highlight them in one area. Include reviews with each product description to give your site some personality.   There’s more than just navigation to consider for your Website, however. If you find that your visitors aren’t sticking around when they visit your site, then Experian’s new Website Review services are precisely what you need to fix what’s not currently working.   Whether you have a well-established online presence or a brand-new Website preparing for launch, we’ll walk you through the steps needed to:   Improve SEO performance Enhance usability and functionality Convert browsers into buyers and boost sales Ensure browser compatibility Advance your search engine rankings   Ready to ramp up your site’s performance? Just tell us which services you need, and we’ll generate a customized report to help you optimize your site and meet your holiday sales goals. Get started here.      

It’s easy to get into a marketing rut from time to time. You keep sending the same types of emails to the same list, and you keep getting the same result: lackluster sales. What gives? It’s time to overhaul your marketing. Don’t get overwhelmed by the process. Just start small with the three ideas below, and your marketing will likely improve almost immediately.   Limited-Time Offers “For a limited time, take 20 percent off your order.” Words like those get customers to stand up and take notice! By implying that there is an end date to your promotion, you will get customers to respond more quickly. They can’t wait to take advantage of your offer, because if they do, it will be gone. So instead of ignoring your email or direct mail, they will hop online and shop your Website. The constraint of a limited-time offer could be the extra push your customers need to take action, before it’s too late.   Solving a Problem Present your customers with a dilemma and your implied solution. For example, an online baby blanket retailer could send an email stating, “Help your baby sleep better than ever with our lavender-infused blankets.” Be sure your copy makes it clear that your products are better than the competition’s. You don’t need to name names or badmouth anyone. Simply state ways that your product solves a problem your competitors can’t solve. Maybe you have better service, better quality or better prices for the value. Solving a problem sets your business apart as a company that customers want to buy from. Your audience will be more likely to become loyal customers if you show what makes you different and better than any other company like yours.   Get a Good List The people receiving your email and direct mail must be good potential customers for your business. Your list should include prospects who are your ideal buyers in terms of demographics, psychographics and buying behaviors. Basically, you want a list of prospects who are like your best customers. If you’re sending to the wrong people, they are not likely to read your messages — whereas with the right list, you increase your chances of building a loyal customer base. Experian’s customer cloning services are a great place to start building a list that will get results. Simple yet effective, these three tips will help you get your marketing on the right track and increase your ROI on all your marketing campaigns.