Did you know that France adopted a 35-hour working week in February 2000? The work day may not exceed 10 hours. Before you get too envious, French employees do work overtime. The 35 hours is the standard limit, after which further working time is considered overtime.
While most American workers have a 40-hour work week, more businesses are exploring a shorter work week as a way to entice top-notch applicants, among other things. Would a four-day week work for your business? It does for Treehouse, a business in Oregon that develops online courses in website-building, code writing and mobile apps. Every weekend starts on Thursday night. They maintain normal business hours on work days. Sounds nice!
Let’s wrap up this work week with our top picks of startup, customer service, content marketing, social media, ecommerce and small business tips.
Starting a Business:
- Thought-leadership creates visibility and brand loyalty. If you become a thought leader in your industry, journalists and conference producers will want to put you in the spotlight. Other respected people in your niche and customers will want to connect with you, which breeds growth. It’s a powerful tool. Learn five ways thought-leadership can help your business grow.
Customer Service:
- How about ditching your old-school cash register and deliver an in-store experience that customers might expect from an Apple store? No matter the store size, shoppers want to pay without waiting in line or find out if an item is in-stock—now—without sending an employee to search. Is ShopKeep POS the future in customer service and payment processing for your business?
Content Marketing:
- New businesses need content marketing as a way to draw in customers, clients and visitors on a variety of platforms—company websites, tweets, Facebook pages, and email newsletters. As a startup, you’re building a brand and reputation, so it’s important that you get the right attention from the right markets. Follow these eight musts for startup content marketing.
Email Marketing:
- Creating an effective email newsletter for your small business is no easy task. In order to pull your readers in, you need quality content about a few particular topics with an option to read more by including a targeted call to action for each article or story. Your ability to engage your audience and generate leads hinges on how your newsletter looks and what you have to say. Here are examples of highly effective newsletters.
Social Media:
- If you haven’t been marketing your products and services through social media because you think it’s too time consuming and difficult, think again. Here are seven steps you can do to make social media work for you.
- Want proof social media works? Read about how a single nail salon became an innovative e-commerce company worth $20 million (in seven years!) using social media.
Ecommerce:
- Have you thought about subscription-based selling? It’s cost-efficient. You get a better estimate of demand. There is no need to store inventory. The subscription model is growing in popularity due to the recurring monthly sales, predictable inventory quantity and a consistent cash flow.
I’ll crawl the Web in search of more business advice, tools, trends and guides. See you next week!