Easy Ways To Make A Million Dollars

Making a million bucks is an ambition held by many of us, but for most people it’s a pipe dream that never comes to pass. They say money isn’t everything, but there is something highly alluring about the notion of having a cool one million dollars in a bank account with our name on it.

It might seem unattainable right now, but if you set the right wheels in motion, it is possible to make a $1 million before you reach retirement – and here’s how:

Build an Investment Portfolio.

In theory, investing with little money is never going to get you anywhere. In practice, it is a surprisingly good way to accrue and build your wealth if you have the patience to stay on course. Start investing before you reach the age of 30 and your money has a chance of accumulating a hefty amount of compound interest.

Compound interest is your friend, as it makes every cent you invest work that bit harder. Investing for the long-term means your investments will weather the inevitable ups and downs of the financial markets, so in the long-term, you will see a decent return. You don’t even need to invest significant sums of money. A few thousand dollars a year from the age of 25-65 will easily build a million dollar nest egg in time for retirement.

Start a Tech Business.

OK, so starting a tech business is not necessarily a fast-track way to earn a million dollars, but if you start the right business, you are well on your way. Tech start-ups have generated huge revenues in recent years, not because they were necessarily amazingly successful, but because they were bought out by larger brands.

A great example of this is Periscope. This app hadn’t even been launched before Twitter bought it for a cool $1 million. Another massive acquisition was Microsoft’s purchase of Sunrise, a suite of calendar apps and programs. That deal also went down for $1 million.

The lesson here is simple: if you are techy enough to create a must-have piece of software or app so amazing everyone wants to download it, the big boys are likely to sit up and take notice and (hopefully) offer you mega bucks to buy your business.

Write a Bestseller.

E-publishing is the way to fame and fortune, or it can be if you target the right niche and happen to be lucky. EL James hit the big time with her infamous erotica trilogy. They were not particularly well written, but the stories struck a chord and she sold millions. Today, Fifty Shades of Grey has spawned a film series and an awful lot of merchandise, so whatever your opinion of the books, EL James has had the last laugh as she’s now worth around $70 million.

The other easy way to make a million dollars is to buy a winning lottery ticket, but your odds of success are not great at 175 million to one. Good luck.

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5 Ways Artists Can Work Like Entrepreneurs

Image credit: Tool kit from Shutterstock

By Laura Zabel, founder of Creative Exchange

“How am I going to make a creative living and a life?”

That question can be daunting for artists, writers, performers and musicians at all stages in their careers, whether just starting out fresh, mid-career, or choosing to focus on artistic work full time after a lifetime of balancing it with other jobs. It can feel like a big void of unknowns, with an inner monologue of uncertainty that says, “I make art, then… something happens… and then I make art for a living.”

With the new “Work of Art: Business Skills for Artists” toolkit, you now have tools to cast light into the darkness of that “something happens.” Developed from decades of working with artists of all disciplines, the toolkit is a 12-unit workbook with accompanying videos that starts with career planning and moves through business plan essentials, offering you the framework and exercises to imagine, plan and put your artistic career into practice. The digital version of the toolkit is available for free via Creative Exchange, and here are 5 tips to get you thinking about your artistic future:

Define Success.

Knowing how you define success for yourself will shape all of your plans to come, and all the work that you need to do to get there. Defining success as selling Adele-level records takes you along a very different path than defining success as being a self-employed musician in your community. You can set goals for short-, middle-, and long-term success, but you have to start by defining what’s important to you.

Budget Your Time.

There is only one thing that every single person has in the world, and that is 24 hours in the day. How are you spending yours? Use the Time Management module to audit how you are actually spending your time, when you do your best work, and to allocate your 24 hours to have the biggest impact on your work.

Know The Margins.

There’s an old joke in business about a company going broke because they lose money on every order, but they make up for that in volume of sales. Knowing how to price your work – whether original artworks, band merch for sale, or creative services – will help keep your expenses and income in order, and know what kind of flexibility you have. The Pricing module walks you through steps for understanding the component parts of your costs, and how to set a price to make a profit.

Get That In Writing.

Contracts can seem dense and illegible, but they are important tools for protecting you and your work, and creating reasonable expectations between you and the party that is buying your work or hiring your services. A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, or so the saying goes, so get your agreements in writing. The Legal Considerations module has important questions for you to ask to help create solid agreements, including things like defining the scope of work, how and when changes can be made, and defining payment schedules.

Don’t Do It Alone.

The “Work of Art“ toolkit is designed to be used with other people, whether in a classroom setting, or as part of a self-organizing group of artists. In the same way that art school critiques helped move your art forward, or playing demos for your friends gave you great feedback, the practice of taking care of your business is strengthened by learning as a group. Use the toolkit to connect to other artists and professionals in your community to grow and succeed together!

 

Laura Zabel is executive director of Springboard for the Arts and the founder of Creative Exchange.

 

 

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Launching A Business? Ask Yourself These 7 Questions

by Abhilash Patel, vice president of digital marketing at American Addiction Centers

No one goes into launching a business with the assumption that it will be easy, but plenty of people do it thinking they’re fully prepared.

Maybe a handful of them are. But until you’ve actually been in the grind, fighting for growth while trying to squeeze the most out of every dollar, it’s unlikely that you’ll start off with all the knowledge necessary to push your business to its fullest potential.

I’ve been there myself. As I was working to grow multiple businesses, there were times when we weren’t growing fast enough. Or, even worse, I realized there was a limit to how much a particular business would grow with the model it had. It took time, effort, and luck before we saw success. And I know there were a few things I wished I’d known from the get-go.

There are seven key things that every business owner needs to consider before trying to launch that new business idea:

1. What problem will your company solve?

Are you solving multiple problems? Simplify. Not sure what the problem is? Go back to the drawing board. If someone’s already solving that problem, ask whether you’re trying to improve upon that company’s solution. Plenty of famous, profitable companiesbecame successes by improving someone else’s idea.

2. What is your business’s fundamental mission?

Go into business with a clear idea of where you want to take it and what you want to be the best at. You might be able to make money without a focus on the future, but it’s essential if you’re going to reach your full potential.

Making money will be a byproduct of realizing and achieving your mission. But that mission will help dictate your brand, the products or services you deliver, and even the culture that your company will adopt.

3. Does your business have “legs”?

While it’s important to have a mission and a vision for the business, one aspect of vision is being able to see the additional areas and categories into which your business could expand.

For example, Under Armour might have started out as just apparel, but it expanded from multiple sports into technology, events, and more to become a global brand. As an entrepreneur, your vision needs to be broad so you can see what you need to do first and where you can go in the long term.

4. Know your numbers.

How much do you really need to get this business to profitability? What happens with different levels of capital? Take the time to understand how much funding is really required to get the business to sustainability (meaning breakeven and, ultimately, profitability). Does more money get you there faster? Or is it just a matter of time?

Knowing how much money is required will dictate how you ask for money, who you ask, and how much of your company you end up sharing with investors.

5. What does the financial model say?

What are the key revenue drivers and variables that have the most impact on your company? A solid financial model supports every aspect of your business, from raising funds to operational planning. It helps you decide where your money is best spent and identifies key changes in your finances so you can recognize where to focus your energy. Bottom line: Build a dynamic financial model. A good one is your road map, and you will be toast without it.

6. Is there any doubt in your mind about this opportunity?

When it comes to driving your business to success, you have to go big or go home. That means knowing that your business is going to triumph and talking to everyone you meet about it without reservations. Your confidence and excitement is instrumental in connecting with potential clients, investors, and other supporters.

7. Can you make this your life for the next 10 years (or more)?

Think of it this way — no one will ever care more about this business than you. How deeply are you willing to commit? Can you pass that enthusiasm to others?

Much of what it takes to succeed can’t be learned in a classroom — you have to learn it on your own. Confidence and vision come from within, and they are both essential if you’re going to push your business to the limits of its potential.

So before you start your business, ask yourself a few questions. Where do you want it to go? How will the finances work? And what makes you so excited about it in the first place? Once you have concrete answers to these questions, you’ll be ready to go down the path to success.

(Image credit: Checklist from Shutterstock)

 

Abhilash Patel is an entrepreneur, investor, and digital marketer who helps companies grow and thrive. In addition to his role as vice president of digital marketing at American Addiction Centers, Abhilash is an active venture investor and adviser to a venture capitalist fund and multiple growing startups.

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Sales Success Begins And Ends With Engagement

By Kurt Bilafer, Global Vice President Sales & Success at WePay

As a sales leader, my professional life is filled with quotas, metrics and dashboards. But if I had to pick just one thing I’m optimizing for, it would be engagement. Why? Because I’ve learned that engagement is the leading indicator for success with whatever else you’re optimizing to achieve.

Early in my career, I was always optimizing for percentage of quota attained, which is a typical sales metric and usually tied to your compensation. Although I wasn’t insightful enough at the time to recognize it, my level of engagement with a prospect was usually a good indicator of the likelihood of making a sale. If a prospect was asking questions, working through their process, showing increased understanding and asking more questions, those were all signs of engagement. It took me a while to see the value of that.

Optimizing to quota.

Optimizing to quota worked fine when I was an individual contributor, but as I moved into management and got further removed from the nuts and bolts of the sales cycle and engaging with customers every day, I had to figure out a way to influence the members of my team to make their number. So, I focused on optimizing for influence, working one on one with people to get them up and running and performing at a high level and hitting their quotas.

That worked fine when I was managing a team reporting directly to me.   As I evolved into more startup-fixit-turnaround specialist I had to shift gears again. Now I was working in matrixed organizations with distributed teams of hundreds of people who didn’t report directly to me. I had to evangelize new processes and programs, organizational changes and strategy shifts. I had to reach a lot of people I’d never be able to meet personally, let alone learn all of their names. To lead effectively, I had to influence the people who would influence them.

When you’re bringing change to an organization, everyone has to work through his or her process. With big, distributed teams, you don’t get to see people and work with them as often. It could take six to nine months to see whether my influence was having an impact. I needed to know much sooner than that whether my message was getting through, and whether people were buying in and working through their process. That’s when I started focusing on engagement. I increased my presence on social media and started blogging as a way to amplify myself and stay engaged even when I couldn’t be there physically. This helped me quickly capture feedback, learn, evolve and improve my message and approach.

Measuring engagement.

Engagement can be difficult to measure, but there are ways to do it. One of the ways I’ve done it is by surveying my team. I ask, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how well do you understand the objectives?” Then, “On a scale from 1 to 10, do you understand how you can contribute to these objectives?” and then, “On a scale from 1 to 10, do you think these objectives are achievable objectives?”

Engagement scorecards such as these are a key component of my strategy management efforts, helping me determine where to spend more time reinforcing messages or giving examples.

I also look to see how many people have actually embraced whatever it is we’re doing and are executing on it independently. For example, if I’m implementing a new sales process, one of the ways I measure engagement is how many people are actually leveraging the new sales process.

I do that by doing a deep dive analysis on individual deals to determine if people are actually following all the steps, or they’re just doing it the old way and putting lipstick on a pig to position it differently.

I might also look at how many opportunities the team had to present, what the audience turnout was, the kind of the press or analyst coverage we were getting, and activity on social media.

The loudest actions.

Those are all qualitative assessments. But to me, actions speak louder.

In sales there’s an expression, “coin operated salespeople.” It speaks to the fact that the most sales people get compensated on is achieving their revenue quota, and as long as the “new thing” is tied to their revenue quota, they’ll embrace whatever the message of the day is. But even quota attainment can hide lack of engagement, especially in a larger organization, and eventually lack of engagement becomes a problem.

So, I look for signs of engagement every day. Are people participating in meetings and contributing and asking questions? Are they changing behaviors? Am I hearing success stories?

Are they reaching out to me directly to ask clarifying questions, or asking for help on deals?

Beyond that, I know I have engagement when I have people asking to update the sales presentations, taking time to write a blog post, or start being more active on social media. I know I really have it when I hear people evangelizing sharing the message themselves, in their own words.

It’s very rewarding to see that growth, and to know I’m impacting someone’s trajectory. And I know that they’re going to keep executing on the strategy after I leave the room because they’ve worked through their process and made the strategy their own. That’s the level of engagement you need for your team members to be successful, and for you to be successful as a leader.

 

Kurt Bilafer, Global Vice President Sales & Success at WePay, is a sales veteran with more than 20 years of experience in direct sales, channel and partner development and business strategy. Prior to WePay, he was Global Vice President of Sales at SAP, previously serving the company as Vice President of Analytics for Asia, Pacific & Japan and Global Vice President of Business Analytics and Technology solutions, Ecosystem and Channel Partners.

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Everything You Should Try To Make Your eCommerce Business A Success

If your eCommerce business hasn’t got off to the best of starts, then you’re probably wondering how to fix things. Fear not. We’ve compiled a list of great tips that you should try – all of which may save your bacon!

So, here is everything you should be giving a shot in order to drive your eCommerce business to success.

Incentives.

Who doesn’t love an incentive to go and do something? Whether it’s free samples, discount codes or cashback – consumers love getting something for nothing. So, why not entice traffic to your site with incentives? If you have an email database of all of your current consumers, then why not send them out a token gesture of 10% off their next order. If you think that is being too generous, then why not incentivize them to buy something in order to gain 20% off their order after that. Similarly, incentives where you have to spend X amount to qualify for things like free delivery also work a treat. There is nothing worse than paying for postage – we all know that! So, capitalize on this. A consumer is much more likely to spend that additional $5 than waste it away on postage costs. Incentives will keep customers coming back for more, so it only makes sense if business success is what you’re after.

 

Creating A Buzz On Social Media.

Next up, be sure to ply your social media channels with engaging content all about your eCommerce store. Look at the online marketing campaigns carried out by ASOS or Topshop – these are both really successful, so look to follow suit. Having a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat is basically essential these days. Don’t be put off by the effort and time that would have to go into running multiple channels of social media. Simply hire an intern and get them to work for nothing – they’d happily do that just for the experience alone! Make use of a hashtag to celebrate new products launches or sale periods. This will really create a buzz amongst the online community, which is exactly what you need in order to be successful.

SEO Marketing.

Next up, be sure to see one of many eCommerce SEO expert agencies to get your digital marketing fix. Outsourcing your search engine optimization needs will help drive traffic to your eCommerce store. Thus, helping sales figures skyrocket! Say somebody searches for ‘DIY tools’ or ‘women’s fashion’. Your eCommerce store (depending on what it sells) wants to be at the top of those search results. The only way to do this swiftly is by using SEO techniques. Be careful not to overkill this method, because search engines like Google are working hard to stop this sort of thing happening. You don’t want to get your eCommerce store deindexed from Google’s results – that’d be a nightmare!

 

Better Web Design.

Furthermore, be sure to instill a current, modern and legible design across the whole of your eCommerce store. Your website needs to be very easy to use – even for the average consumer. Think about it this way. A company’s website directly reflects the way a consumer is going to feel about dealing with them. If the site is tricky to use, slow or unresponsive, then people are going to think that your business works in the same way. Now, nobody wants that! Therefore, investing in proper web design from a creative agency designed to do this sort of thing is a must. There is a wide array of web design agencies out there, some of which will specialize in the creation of eCommerce stores. Be wary, however, this is a very costly process. So, be sure to set aside a large amount of your budget in order to be successful in this way!

Reach Out To The Media.

One final technique that is a little more niche should be to send out some of your products to the media for review. A company who are receiving your product free of charge are likely to leave a more positive review on their website or TV show. This is because it hasn’t cost them a dime to get hold of the product. Positive reviews are, obviously, an excellent way to drum up new business for one of your products or services. If you think this would help make your business successful, then definitely look to get involved in doing so. Another option is to get vloggers, bloggers or YouTubers to review your products, pre-launch. These types of figures often have a large fan base that they could bring with them to your eCommerce store. This is a great way to help B2B relationships to aid growth, too.

Hopefully, some or all of these tips help your eCommerce business to grow and become successful!

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Four Key Tips To Successfully Grow Your Business

by Sean Rudner, small business expert, creative entrepreneur and owner of the ultimate business resource StockPKG

Company growth: everyone wants it, but unfortunately not all have the means to succeed. The balancing act of working to forge lasting relationships with new clients while simultaneously maintaining current connections can be overwhelming. Without the right mindset and procedures, growing a business may prove to add to that difficulty.

Here are four simple tips that have lead my company to continually reach triple digit growth year after year.

#1 – Don’t Get “Shiny Object Syndrome”.

Many companies become so focused on acquiring new business they completely forget about their existing customers. It is much less expensive to maintain an existing customer than it is to replace them. At StockPKG, we’ve implemented systems requiring us to stay in constant contact with our customer base. We make a point to call every single customer – large and small – on a regular basis. This helps maintain those solid relationships that are so necessary in the industry.

#2 – Goals, Goals, Goals.

At StockPKG, we set monthly goals like many other companies, but have three specific aims outside of revenue and profitability:

A. Total number of orders: We don’t concentrate on the size of orders, but simply the number of orders placed. If the job is done correctly, order size will grow in time.
B. Total number of repeat customer orders: Since our priority is to maintain existing customers, the number of repeat orders from one customer holds extreme importance at StockPKG.
C. Total number of new customers: Our team sets definite goals for our sales and customer service departments, placing them high enough so our employees work diligently. At the same time, we ensure they are fair and attainable. We provide daily assistance to our customers to help them with their own businesses, truly believing in the notion if they succeed, we succeed.

#3 – You Can’t Save Your Way To Prosperity.

Don’t get me wrong, we focus on controlling our costs. However, we make it a point to be a customer-oriented company. We are in a consumable business – we don’t look to generate our money on just one order. We keep our margins tight and review the customer’s worth over the lifetime of our business together.

#4 – Use Your Spare Time Productively.

Many entrepreneurs choose to spend their spare time talking to their suppliers because it “feels good.” Instead, I spend that time talking to prospects and existing customers to learn more about their business (how they’re perceived by customers, ways to improve, etc.). Be sure to make the effort to pick up the phone and ask your customers specific questions on how you can improve as a supplier. You may be blown away with what you’ll discover.

Through these four pieces of advice, you too can watch your company grow to its full potential. Sean can fully attest this, as StockPKG continues to expand, becoming the “next Amazon” of business supply solutions offering more than 35,000 high-quality discounted products.

 

Sean Rudner is the president and CEO of StockPKG and is directly involved in the general management, sales and financial departments. Sean founded the company in 2012 and provides the vision for keeping the company moving towards success. Prior to his role at StockPKG, Sean successfully started Desert Plastics in 1998 and turned it into a multimillion dollar company before selling it in 2004.

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Creating Brand Ambassadors From Within

By Brandon Moxam, Director of Brand Development at U.S. Lawns

All successful companies know that rebranding involves more than creating a new logo, messaging, or an ad campaign. It requires a compelling story that can be understood by all. But while most companies focus their time and money on marketing and public relations initiatives, they often forget about another factor that can help them accomplish their goals — their employees.

Creating brand ambassadors from within your company will not only boost employee morale and get them excited about a re-brand, but it also works to engage clients and inform potential clients about the company’s new direction. In order to grow employee brand ambassadors, companies must take the necessary steps to prepare their employees, empower them, and plan future initiatives to keep the momentum going.

Preparing Employees For A Re-brand.

Practicing transparency from the top down is the first step to creating strong brand ambassadors. Because your employees’ happiness and performance is tied with how they feel individually about the company’s brand—and directly impacts your clients perception of the brand—it’s critical to share the company’s new initiatives with your employees from the beginning. The announcement of a company re-brand can be unsettling, as change can be difficult to accept, but with the right message and execution, employees will feel supported. Keeping your employees informed will also increase employee retention, which is key when you’re ready to actually roll out a new product or service.

This isn’t to say companies should communicate every part of their plan with employees before the product or service is ready to be launched—as it can negatively affect the impact of the launch—but companies should share the information as soon as it’s appropriate, so the employees can be informed and get excited early on.

For example, giving employees the opportunity to be involved in smaller-scale projects is one strategy that companies can start implementing from the get-go, to encourage positive interactions with the new brand. Whether it’s designating a group of staff members to help order new business cards/other company marketing collateral, or asking them to coordinate the logistics for new meeting events, making employees feel like they’re a part of something will help to lay the groundwork and will prepare them for what’s to come.

Apple is a great example of a company that has mastered the art of generating employee brand ambassadors. Because of their employees’ passion toward the brand, when the company shares that something bigger and better is coming out soon, whether it’s the release of a new iPhone, or MacBook, their employees are immediately intrigued and help spread the excitement. Apple is an expert in creating buzz among customers as well. Its process is simple. When it’s closer to launching the new product, Apple hosts a series of untitled events where they invite the press to attend. This method creates a nationwide phenomenon among both employees and customers, leaving both groups eagerly anticipating what’s to come.

Empowering Employees.

Once a company has shared the initial news with its employees, it’s time to unveil the company’s new initiatives. During this part of the process, it’s critical that employees feel connected to the company’s mission, vision, and values. Employees need to know that the shift in direction is genuine, and not based on a whim. When done correctly, this is the biggest opportunity to cultivate brand ambassadors.

In addition to motivating the employees to embrace a re-brand, the company should also help them understand the strategy behind the rebrand, and the positive impact it will have on the company and their individual careers. Specifically, during the announcement, companies should include how the re-brand will attract new customers, increase sales, and the type of role they will play in promoting and protecting the company’s new shift. Again, open communication is the key to preventing negative speculation. Companies should equip their staff with the information behind the new initiative, as well as any resources they may need to help make the launch more successful.

The type of industry you’re in will dictate what resources will benefit your staff most. A landscaping company — for example — might offer new uniforms and equipment, while a professional services firm might lead training sessions or host a series of conferences. Regardless of the industry, all employees want to be proud of what they do, and the company they work for.

In addition to empowering employees from a psychological point of view, companies should also focus on the type of content they’re producing to further support the re-branding efforts and include the employees. Focusing on refreshing your website, blogs, e-newsletters, social media, and other forms of communication plays an instrumental role in getting your message out there. It’s a great way to get your employees to share the message. It’s also beneficial for companies to feature employee spotlights to show a more personal side of the company and to highlight any departmental or sales achievements.

Keeping The Momentum Going.

To keep the company’s momentum going, they should reinforce the messaging around the brand, mission and vision. Hosting events like group meetings and annual conferences in particular aids in fostering a cohesive environment. Creating annual awards and highlighting employee achievements can also strengthen the company’s morale and image.

Establishing routine “brand maintenance” is equally important to creating new brand ambassadors. Companies need to be consistently sharing information and boosting employee engagement (i.e. posting on their blog, creating company newsletters, and carrying out monthly office events). To protect the company’s brand during the onboarding process, new employees should have a full understanding of the brand and what the company stands for.

If the company can keep the momentum going, it will no longer have to keep re-enforcing the re-branding initiatives, and it will be ingrained into the company’s culture. Once employees reach this threshold, they evolve into brand ambassadors — signifying the true success of the re-brand.

 

Brandon Moxam joined U.S. Lawns as Director of Franchise Recruiting in 2007 and is now Director of Brand Development. He has been instrumental in the U.S. Lawns branding development since 2012. He manages the franchise recruiting department at U.S. Lawns and works closely with potential new franchisees to fully educate them on our U.S. Lawns systems and processes that are in place to guide them to build a successful business. In addition, Brandon is a Certified Franchise Executive and is active within the International Franchise Association.

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Six Practical Tips To Avoid Distraction In The Workplace

By Sean Blanks, Marketing Director, cartridgesave.co.uk

Phone calls, email notifications, impromptu meetings: the office can be such a hectic environment it can feel like a massive struggle to get anything done.

It’s been proven that every time you’re interrupted, it takes one-to-minutes to regain focus on the original job in hand. If this is happening numerous times an hour, it’s easy to see why some days it feels impossible to meet your deadlines.

Follow our six top tips to help minimise distractions in your workplace and dramatically reduce the stress in your life:

Carry out a daily appraisal.

When there are lots of jobs pulling you in multiple directions take a few minutes to perform a daily appraisal. Stepping back will allow you to identify your top priority for the day.

However, don’t neglect smaller jobs like responding to emails or briefing your colleagues. Instead look at blitzing these jobs in one go, to get them off your to-do list, by setting aside a dedicated ‘power hour’.

Turn off your email.

Don’t email to be a tyrant. It can be easy to fall into the trap of being at email’s constant beck and call, and feel compelled to reply instantly to the endless stream of correspondence.

Only check your emails once an hour and physically close it down for periods when you don’t wish to be interrupted. In other words, only use email when you intend to, not just because it’s always running in the background. Using an out of office for these periods will let clients know that you are unavailable. If it is urgent, they can phone you.

Another thing to consider is ‘office hours’. As a business owner, you’re likely to be inundated with questions from your team. So specify times in the day when you’re available for queries and informal meetings; and advise of set-hours when you have to keep your head down, meaning your desk is a no-go.

Avoid multitasking.

The ability to multitask is often seen as the embodiment of productivity. However, juggling multiple complicated jobs at once is in fact almost impossible. Multitasking only really works when we are performing roles that don’t perform much brainpower. When you are trying to accomplish two dissimilar tasks, each one requiring some level of deliberation and attention, multitasking falls apart.

Compartmentalise your day.

Instead, take the time to compartmentalise your day so you can devote yourself to one job fully at a time. Peak attentiveness usually occurs at around 10 o’clock in the morning, so schedule important jobs for around then and allocate tasks that require less concentration, for later in the day.

I work well to deadlines and I find using an alarm to signal when a job should have been completed optimises my productivity. At the start of every task, I forecast how long it should take and set an alert to warn me when I have ten minutes left. I find it really helps motivate, especially if my concentration has begun to wane.

Decide on your music policy.

Listening to the radio can actually help a lot of people to focus and work more productively. Unfortunately, every office is likely to contain many different music tastes and what might help some people tune out can leave others feeling exasperated. Conduct a private vote via email so everyone can express their opinion without feeling they have to follow the crown and make a decision that will reduce their capability to concentrate on their job

Also, if you’re really up against it but working in an open plan office, use headphones. Not only do these help to tune out distracting background noise, but they signal to colleagues ‘do not disturb’.

Take regular breaks.

It’s been proven that humans can only really concentrate on a task for 25-45 minutes at a time. So rather than taking one large break for lunch, take shorter breaks scheduled throughout your day. A five minute ‘reset’ break every 45 minutes, will optimise productivity and ensure you’re not just sitting there for the sake of it. The productivity you gain from regular breaks will more than make up for the time you spend making a cup of tea and refocusing your mind.

 

Sean Blanks is the Marketing Director of printer cartridge company cartridgesave.co.uk. By taking a systematic trial and improvement approach, Sean and Managing Director Ian Cowley have created a Sunday Times Fast Track100 e-­retailer which manages 30,000 orders a month and is among the UK’s fastest ­growing printer supplies retailer in terms of sales.

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5 Business Plan Secrets For A Successful Tech Startup

 

Making the decision to break the mold and start a business is an exciting step, but building a successful company is a challenging endeavor. This is particularly true for tech startups – whose industry evolves at a rapid pace.

In no small way, the success of your venture will depend on the details of your business plan. Your strategy should be comprehensive yet concise and easy to understand for investors. It should outline your business goals and how you will achieve them. Also, your business plan should incorporate risk-management tactics and financial projections.

Having a great idea is not enough to develop a thriving company. Long-term success hinges on proper preparation, and this starts with creating a business plan. Here are five essential tips to keep in mind:

1. Develop a comprehensive marketing plan.

There is a multitude of marketing channels available to entrepreneurs. Social media, blogging, press releases and pay per click ads all have their pros and cons. Your audience and budget will help you identify the best advertising options and get the most out of your marketing dollars.

Which types of content resonate well with your audience? How do they interact with social media? While a B2B company can find success with LinkedIn ads, a B2C company’s promotions would be better suited for CPC or CPM ads on Facebook, Twitter and Google.

What is your budget? If you are on a tight budget, then you may have to limit your marketing efforts to a few channels such as PPC and email advertising. The best approach is to find the channels that your audience interacts with most and use consumer targeting to maximize your return on investment.

In addition to short-term marketing, you should consider where your company and brand will be six months, 12 months and several years from now. In particular, tech entrepreneurs should build a long-term search-engine optimization campaign in the first stages of business planning. The keywords you target will influence the marketing channels you use, the ads you design, and the amount of money you invest in each marketing strategy.

2. Use a business plan template.

A template can help you organize your thoughts and identify holes in your business plan. Several websites offer free and for-sale business plan templates. Some of our favorites include:

Business Plan Tool.

According to BusinessNewsDaily.com, the Business Plan Tool from the U.S. Small Business Administration lets you organize your strategy into six sections: Company Description, Product/Service Line, Market Research, Marketing and Sales, Financial Projections, and Executive Summary. You can save your business plan and tweak it whenever you want.

MOBI Business Plan Template. 

The My Own Business Institute of Santa Clara University offers a free business template, which is available for download here. This template has 15 sections and tips for business management and problem resolution.

3. Make your business plan concise and easy to understand. 

Making your business plan concise not only will help you stay organized, but it will also attract more venture capital investors. This is particularly important for tech startups with complex products or services. Your business plan should clearly explain the amount of money you need to accomplish specific objectives, and the amount of income it would take to break even.

4. Analyze the risks, and incorporate them into your business plan. 

According to John Bertino, CEO of The Agency Guy Inc, “Investors will also be interested in how you intend to mitigate risks. Changes to the market, operational failures and legal problems can destroy your business.” He adds, “When evaluating the risks, ask yourself these questions”:

• What intellectual property laws apply to my products or services?
• When and how do I intend to hire employees?
• What problems could arise in daily operations? How do I prevent and resolve them?
• Can your target audience afford your product or service?
• Ask for feedback.

When developing your business plan, don’t be afraid to ask colleagues for their opinions. Also, get feedback from potential investors.

Developing a tech company is an exciting process. It takes creativity, sleepless nights, leadership and – perhaps most important – thorough preparation to be successful. If your business plan is concise, organized, and incorporates details about risk management and marketing, then it will be much easier to attract investors and manage your growing enterprise.

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Mobile Apps vs Mobile Web: Do You Have To Choose?

by Ajay Kapur, CEO and Founder of Moovweb

There have been countless debates about the demise of the mobile Web at the hands of mobile apps. Who’s winning? No one can agree. One pundit sees apps dominating users’ attention; another predicts apps will kill off the entire Web. As the saying goes, “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

The reality is neither solution will go away, and it’s a mistake to pit one against the other. The truth is both serve a useful purpose, and both have limitations in terms of meeting the needs of users in any given context.

Let’s consider some key facts:

The biggest brands have it made.

Mobile apps represent a small fraction of the total mobile revenue for all but a handful of the biggest brands.

Amazon has more app revenue than mobile Web revenue. Walmart is getting close to parity. Most are not even close. Why? Benedict Evans summed it up most succinctly: “Do people want to put your icon on their home screen?” The answer for most brands is “no.”

Does this mean retailers shouldn’t create native mobile apps? Absolutely not. But the goals are different. Apps are for retailers’ most loyal customers by definition (who else will download your app?). So instead of a generic shopping app, consider a VIP program for your best customers, delivered through an app. This will not only drive more revenue from these customers, it will also make their experience better. Nordstrom, for example, targets its most loyal customers via its mobile app that delivers store notifications and promotions based on where those shoppers happen to be. Customers can also see real-time inventory of stores closest to them. Another example, is Dick’s Sporting Goods. The company has focused its efforts on its iPhone app as a digital hub for the company’s Scorecard rewards program. It targets special promotions for its most loyal, active customers.

The apps versus mobile browser discussion is really about audience segmentation and user behavior patterns. While apps are ideal for nurturing loyalty, the mobile Web is preferred for convenience and reach. A recent Forrester Research report shows shoppers prefer to buy from mobile sites while on the go.

Shoppers show up to a company’s mobile site, not their app. In fact, across industries, the Web drives 2x the site traffic of apps according to a recent Morgan Stanley report. This is driven by the fact that a company’s mobile site is intimately connected with all its marketing activities including email, SEO/SEM, affiliates, etc. Its mobile app, even with deep linking, is not as richly connected. This richer interconnectivity gives the Web an advantage not only in attracting new audiences, it also means that the mobile Web provides better consistency of experiences across channels – and across devices.

Apps are for loyal users and mobile Web is for reach.

In the changing face of mobile commerce, the on-going debate between mobile apps and the mobile Web is about trade-offs. Apps can be expensive to build and develop. And they’re most useful for a niche. In fact, the stats around apps are sobering. Today’s consumers are spending over 85% of their time on their smartphones using native apps, but the majority of their time – 84% percent – is spent using five apps. Those five apps will vary from person to person. For some, their top 5 could include social media or gaming, while others may spend more time in instant messaging.

According to both Nielsen and Forrester Research, communication and social apps account for the most usage, followed by games, music and streaming video. Aside from the top 5 apps, creating loyal app users isn’t easy, with 69% of users opening an app 10 times or less, and a quarter using the app just once after downloading it according to Localytics’ analysis. A consumer may have one or two retailer apps on her phone (e.g., Amazon), though she shops at many more stores. Her choices are tied to frequency and loyalty; she likely won’t download 10 different retail apps. Instead, she’ll use search and the browser to find information from retailers she’s more casually invested in.

The bottom line: The Web is for audience reach, and mobile apps are driving engagement from loyal customers. If done right, both are strategic and valuable. So when it comes to mobile, it’s not a question of Web vs. mobile apps. It’s picking the right approach that will yield better results for your customers.

 

Ajay Kapur is CEO and Founder of Moovweb, where he drives the company’s vision, strategy and growth. His goal is to make it easy for companies to deliver high performance, contextual experiences on any device so they can increase mobile conversions. Prior to founding Moovweb, Ajay was an early stage investor in startups and wrote apps for the very first smartphones.

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Message Without Permission (Because No One Meets Organically Anymore)

by John Thies, CEO and co-founder of Email on Acid

Wrong. This may be the quickest way to end a relationship before it even starts. Growing your list organically via single or double opt-in forms are the foundation of a healthy email list AND relationship.

If you cut corners and purchase a list or send to people who haven’t opted in, you’re spamming them, plain and simple. By purchasing a list, you run the risk of emailing a number of unqualified leads, or even worse… fake and malicious email addresses.

When deciding how to organically build your list, marketers go back and forth between the single or double opt-in methods. Personally, we love our email subscribers and want to ensure they love us back. That’s why we practice the double opt-in method in our lead generation efforts. And, feelings aside, MailChimp tested this theory and found double opt-ins improved their email stats.

To do this, MailChimp took a random sample of 30,000 users in their database who’d sent at least 10 campaigns to see if the double opt-in method improved their email marketing stats.

Ignore the power of a good wingman.

When it comes to effective email marketing, an ESP must come in between you and your new subscriber if you ever want the relationship to grow.

Ways ESPs optimize your email efforts:

• Allow personalization on a mass level
• Provide detailed reporting
• Offer pre-made responsive templates and creative
• Enhance delivery

An ESP has employees dedicated to staying up to date on the latest CAN-SPAM laws, going toe-to-toe with ISPs and helping maintain your sender reputation and inbox placement. More than saving you a headache, ESPs help your bottom line across the board. MailChimp, a popular ESP we just mentioned, documented how one email sender, Photojojo, switched to MailChimp from their in-house solution and saw fantastic results.

Don’t think of an ESP as cramping your style, think of ‘em like the email guru you need so you can form a deep bond with your new lead.

Show up looking like a hot mess.

Sending an email that looks terrible on the mobile device or email client your new subscriber is using is the equivalent of showing up to a first date with ratted hair or wearing sweatpants. Whether it’s your first email to a new lead or an email you’re sending to your client of five years, sending a broken email can be devastating to your ROI.

And don’t fool yourself into believing that popping off a quick test to your iPhone or Gmail inbox will do the job; it won’t. That’s because every email client’s rendering engine is NOT created equal.

Almost every email client displays HTML differently because each client has its own unique way of interpreting your HTML. That is why your HTML code can get all messed up in some email clients like Outlook even though that very same code looks like pixel perfection in another inbox.

Below is proof that even bigwigs like Google sometimes fail to properly test their email, and the results can be ugly.

Instead of manually testing your email in hundreds of clients and devices before each send, try the most cost-effective and quickest way to test your email. Get access to unlimited email, web page and spam testing so you can send with absolute confidence, free for 7 days.

Pass on the tab for the first date.

Just because someone gave you their email for a free download or signed up to get your newsletter does NOT mean you should respond immediately with a hard sale. You have to court your new leads and show them the value of your product before asking them to take out their checkbook!

The most effective way to nurture new leads is through a drip campaign. Drip campaigns are automated emails, triggered by a certain action (i.e. downloaded guides or browsing actions), that are sent to the lead at the right moment to move them through the sales cycle.

Automation, as seen in drip nurturing campaigns, is the best and easiest way to send timely, relevant emails to your subscribers. It’s also worth your while, as automated emails get 119% higher click rates than broadcast emails. In the end, you’re going to have to build the relationship by sending valuable content over a period of time before you can expect them to shell out any dollars.

Stay top of mind, ALL of the time.

No one likes a stage five clinger. Once you capture a new email address, you’re bound to lose it if you start flooding the inbox. So how often should you email your list? There isn’t an easy answer to that question, but there are some rules to follow to ensure you aren’t an over- or underwhelming sender.

First, take a hint from your peers. The DMA’s National Email Client Report 2015 found that over the past three years, companies were contacting individuals less. The research highlighted that 21% of companies send 4-5 emails a month to their contacts, so use that as a baseline for sending frequency.

Another way to send just the right amount of email to your members is by letting them choose how often you email them via a preference center. Bonobos did a fantastic job of letting their subscribers edit their preference center to ensure they are sending just the right amount of email.

Let the subscriber take the lead when it comes to how much they want to hear from you. Even if it’s only once a month, don’t take it personally, at least they’re still *somewhat* into you.

Call them by someone else’s name to make them insanely jealous.

A personalization mishap, like inserting the wrong recipients name via a merge tag, can be a costly mistake.

The lesson here is if you’re going to use merge tags to personalize your messaging (which we highly recommend you do), make sure your merge tags are pulling the correct data.

Also, have a contingency plan for what happens if that data does not exist. If you never collected data in the column the merge tag is pulling from, have it insert “reader” or “friend” so it reads, “Dear reader,” and not “Dear .”

Don’t let the fear of making a mishap with merge tags stop you from leveraging this strategy, though. According to the Experian, personalized promotional emails were shown to lift transaction rates and revenue six times higher than non-personalized emails. The study also found that personalized subject lines delivered a 26% higher open rate overall.

Go BIG, every time you contact them.

Anything to get their attention, right? How about we dial it back a notch. Overhyping or misrepresenting what’s inside your email in the subject line is what we call clickbait.

A Return Path study of more than 9 million emails found that emails with clickbait-like words in the subject line had lower read rates compared to emails with similar content that avoided clickbait words.

For example, the use of “Secret of” resulted in an 8.69% decrease in read rates compared to messages containing similar content sent under different subject lines. The word “shocking” accompanied a 1.22% decrease in read rates as well.

Besides underperforming, clickbait subject lines also destroy the trust between you and your new lead. Even if this tactic feels like an easy way to get an open, remember that it may just as easily result in an unsubscribe.

Now that you know what to avoid, check out these 5 tips to create compelling subject lines to get your creative juices flowing.

Make it impossible to dump you.

If someone wants to end the relationship; let them. It’s better for both of you in the long run. If you make a teeny, tiny unsubscribe button that’s hard for your reader to find, they’re more likely to mark you as spam rather than take the time to locate the link.

Take a look at Netflix’s email below. That camouflaged unsubscribe link makes a delete or spam tag more likely than an unsubscribe.

Remember that you don’t want someone on your list that doesn’t want to hear from you. The more engaged subscribers you have on your list (read: people that ACTUALLY are interested in your service), the better engagement, opens and click through rates you will have!

 

John Thies is the CEO and Co-Founder of Email on Acid, a service that gives email marketers a preview of how their emails are displayed in the most popular email clients and mobile devices. He resides in Denver, Colorado with his wife and son. When he isn’t working he’s either on the golf course or snowboarding in the fresh Colorado powder.

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Keeping Startup Costs Low: Three Ways To Manage It

Starting a business can be hugely expensive. Costs are one of the main reasons why many businesses fail, with the price of upstart fees, management fees, buying stock, paying staff and marketing always on the rise. In order to give your business the best chance of success it is important that you stick with costs that are manageable and that will not cripple your business should things get tough in the future. However, it’s often difficult to keep costs low whilst still being able to deliver a quality service to your customers and clients.

Here are our best tips for cost-cutting during your business’ start-up period:

Grants and Business Loans.

In most cases, new business owners will need some form of external funding in order to help get their startup off the ground. Even if you have saved up enough money to cover the initial costs, it’s a good idea not to rule out funding in the future especially if you are planning to develop your business further. Depending on your situation and the type of business which you are planning to open, you may be eligible for some forms of government funding, which you may not need to repay, in order to help your business get off to the best start. An example of eligibility for this funding may be if your business is expected to create a lot of new jobs in the local community, for example. Knowing what you’re entitled to can often help to keep costs as low as possible.

Spreading the Cost.

In some cases, you may be able to spread the cost over a long time period so that you’re not losing out on a huge chunk of money during the first few months. This can help to make your startup costs more manageable, as you’re paying a lower amount per month or week rather than spending a large amount of money at once. Services such as http://ift.tt/1MDiq5j offer pay monthly plans on a professionally designed website for startup businesses – this can be an excellent alternative to trying to keep costs low on a one-off payment and opting for an amateur website instead.

Home-Based Workers.

Depending on the industry that your business is based in, you may be able to employ home-based, rather than office-based workers for a number of tasks. This can work out hugely more cost effective for you, as you will not need to pay in order to provide these workers with an office or other work space, and in many cases the pay will be per-project, rather than per-hour or salaried. By hiring freelancers and telecommute workers, you’ll only need to pay for the amount of work that you receive, keeping costs to a minimum. This can be done for tasks such as HR, marketing, and even customer services and sales.

Would you like to add any of your own cost-saving tips to this list? If you’d like to share your expertise, we’d love to hear from you – leave a response in the comments.

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What 6 Studies Say About The Best Time To Publish A Blog Post

Timing is everything.

There are many instances in life where timing can be responsible for the success or failure of an action. For instance, if you schedule an important meeting at noon, and all of the attendees are hungry, you probably won’t have a very productive session.

The same stays true to content writing. Publish a blog post at the right time and you will get tons of qualified traffic. Publish it when no one is online, and you’ve just got yourself a ghost article no one reads.

The big question is when it’s the best time to publish a blog post? What hour? What day of the week?

Luckily, you don’t have to guess the answer. In this post, we’re going to take a look at six studies that analyze how timing can affect readership:

1. The Best Time to Getting Traffic.

Content writing has taken off. Every day, more than 2 million blog posts are being published. The competition is stiff so you need all the help you can get to stand out.

The folks at KISSmetrics, HubSpot, and Search Engine Land, who specialize in copy writing services, conducted a study and learned some utterly fascinating things about the best time to publish a blog post.

Here’s what they found out:

• If you to get the most traffic, the best time to publish a blog post is Monday, 11 am EST;
• If you want to receive more comments, the best time to publish a blog is Saturday, 9 am EST;
• If you want more inbound links, the best publishing days are Monday and Thursday, and the best hour is 7 am EST;

2. The Best Time to Post for Maximum Shares.

If you publish an article when your audience is not active, you won’t see much engagement. But, at the same time, if you share them during popular hours, you will get lots of visitors and engagement, but your bounce rates will increase as well. So, what’s the solution?

Surprisingly, a study by TrackMaven found that post published during non-peak hours tend to get the most social engagement and shares. According to the study, articles published on Saturday and Sundays received more shares than those published during the week between 9 pm to midnight.

3. The Best Day to Share Blog Posts on Facebook.

BuzzSumo analyzed over 500 million posts collected from over three million Facebook pages and discovered some truly interesting things about the best time and days to share content on the social media network.

According to the study, Tuesday and Wednesday are the most popular days of the week, while Saturday and Sunday are less popular. When it comes to the best time, Buzzsumo found that between 10 am and 1 pm Eastern, posts get the most engagement, while between 11 pm and 2pm Eastern, users are less active.

4. The Best Time for Increasing Pageviews.

There are many content writing tricks that can get more people to read your blog posts, such as adding value to your articles, making your content visually appealing or optimizing your posts. One trick that is often overlooked by content writers is publishing their articles at the right time and day to maximize their pageviews.

One study from Shareaholic found that pageviews are highest for posts that are published on Monday, between 9 and 10 am Eastern. On the other hand, traffic dropped dramatically for blog posts published after 12 pm Eastern.

5. The Best Time for Going Viral.

Only a few content writers seem to know the secrets to viral success. They arise from the millions of articles, videos, and photos shared online and spark conversations.

What makes content go viral? Well, among the many different factors, such as triggering high-arousal emotions or appealing to people’s narcissistic side, timing plays a crucial role, as well.

BuzzSumo analyzed 100 million pieces of content to determine what makes content viral. They found that blog posts that are published on Tuesdays gained more social shares than those published on other days of the week. Of course, date and time are not the only factors that make blog posts go viral. Content length, post type, and images played an important role, as well.

6. Use Your Own Data to Find the Best Time for Your Blog.

The studies shared in this article should give a good idea of when it’s the best time to publish your content. However, results might vary. Your audience might have different interests or habits and what worked for other content writers might not suit your unique situation.

The best way to find out is to test. Look at your internal data and figure out when your audience is most active. Publish articles at different hours and during different days of the week and analyze the results carefully.

With a combination of scientifical studies and your own data, you should be able to figure out the best time to publish a blog post. Over time, you will get to know your readers’ habits and needs so well that you won’t need a study to tell when or how to engage them.

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Get Your Business Off To A Strong Start

There is a lot of varying information out there regarding how to build a successful business. Anyone who is running a business for the first time might find it to be something of a minefield. The truth is, there are some core values and ideas which apply well to just about any company. No matter what area or industry you are working in, there are certain things which apply to all businesses. When you are just starting out, the chances are good that what you most want is continued success for your business. The good news is that this can be readily achieved with a combination of hard work and dedication. However, those qualities alone are not going to be enough.

To give you some idea of what else is required, we have put together this short list. Here are the essential factors required for a business to boom:

A Powerful Marketing Campaign.

All businesses need to sell their wares well if they are to succeed in the long term. However, how exactly to do this is often the subject of much debate. The good news here is that there are many different tools available to you to market your business. But before we get onto those, we first need to look into the concept of building your brand.

Any business needs a brand to be able to effectively market itself. The brand is much more than a name, a logo and a design. It is a good idea, at the start, to think of your brand as a person. Treat it as though it has a certain personality, and you are trying to express it. If you can figure out what kind of personality your business has, you are set to go in terms of marketing the business. One important thing to remember concerning branding is to keep it consistent. You should ensure that all of your outgoing communications follow a particular style guide. Any variation implies an inherent weakness in the company – and you don’t want that.

Once you have built a strong brand, you need to focus on how you are going to market it. This can be a minefield in itself, so it is worth planning out as far in advance as possible. You should aim to use as many diverse marketing tools as you can. The further afield your message goes, the better. One key tip regarding this aspect of doing business: social media is your best friend. It provides a method for getting your message across which is both effective and free of charge. This is very good business sense indeed.

A Streamlined Office.

Too often, budding business owners put so much energy into the ideas that they forget about the groundwork. The fact is, you can’t just ignore the basics of day-to-day working. If you want your business to boom, then you need to put some effort into making the workplace flow as smoothly as possible. Fortunately, there are many ways to achieve this.

With most projects, if you plan ahead, you are more likely to succeed in the long run. You will also be more effective and efficient in your output. This is true when it comes to thinking about your office as well. When you are designing the office, keep productivity in the front of your mind throughout. Remember that the lines of communication need to be kept open between departments. Ensuring that the office space makes sense operationally is key. Beyond that, you also need to make sure that the workflow itself is managed as efficiently as possible. Use every tool at your disposal, from document templates to the cloud, to keep productivity as high as possible. A working structure which is managed successfully tends to lead to a booming business. As long as you have the day-to-day essentials down pat, you are probably set to do well in your venture.

A Core Vision.

However, to achieve that streamlined effect in the long-term, you need a driving force. For most businesses, such a force comes in the form of a core vision. Your business, like any other, will do much better if you have a central philosophy. The vision can be quite simple – and yet merely having one can work wonders for the company as a whole. So how do you go about deciding on your business’ central goal?

 

The answer is quite simple, but first it is worth investigating what a vision is not. It is not (or shouldn’t be) a financial goal of some kind. You are not looking to earn a certain amount of money by the new year. It is not a mission to beat every other competitor into submission, either. A good business vision is more like an overriding philosophy which could remain even if everything else failed. If you want to bring a certain something to people’s lives, then that could be your mission. If you think you have a great product which the world needs – even better. The main thing is to keep it both ambitious yet reasonable. It should be enough to drive you and your business forwards at any time.

A Dedicated Workforce.

Nonetheless, if you want that vision to have any effect whatsoever, you need a dedicated workforce. Ask any business guru and they will tell you that the employees are everything. They are central to proceedings – and it is worth treating them as such. In the early days, the important thing primarily is to hire the right people. Go for passion over experience every time. The passionate ones are those who are likely to be able to keep your company going through thick and thin. When it comes to hiring for customer-facing roles, pick carefully. Go for those who enjoy working with people. The way you treat your customers is just as important as the way you treat your employees, so this will get you far.

Also, ensure that you keep your employees happy and trained up on everything they need to know. As long as you are looking after them, they will look after your business for you. That way, you will definitely be off to a strong start with your business.

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Five Small Innovations That Can Make A Big Difference In Your Company

by Patrick Stroh, author of “Business Strategy: Plan, Execute, Win!” and “Advancing Innovation”

To stay relevant these days, your company must innovate or die. For many leaders, scarier words have never been spoken. But it might take the pressure off to realize the I-word doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. An “innovation” doesn’t have to be a hot new product worthy of Steve Jobs or a Eureka! moment that transforms your company. Setting your sights on achieving a steady stream of tiny incremental innovations can be an incredibly powerful approach.

It’s easy to be intimidated if you believe you must constantly come up with big, market-disrupting inventions. This mindset can paralyze you or, conversely, send you down a costly wrong path.

The truth is, an innovation can be a revamped business process or a tweak to a manufacturing technique or a change in the way you work with a supplier — as long as it adds to customer value, it counts. Better to hardwire your culture so that people are driven and equipped to constantly be looking for small and medium-size innovations (versus just big breakthrough advancements).

For example, here are five small innovations that can make a big difference in your company:

1. Document and improve your employee onboarding process.

In large companies, new employees can get lost. Small or midsize businesses are easier to navigate, but there can be a lot of undocumented “tribal knowledge” that’s hard for employees to access and understand. Document a solid onboarding process that doesn’t just focus on providing “basics” like systems and facilities access but on arranging “meet-n-greets” with leaders and department heads. This will get the employee engaged quickly and drive value.

2. Increase your On-Time Delivery (OTD) metric by 1 percent.

This sounds small, but can actually be huge! It necessitates some analysis on determining your OTD rate and finding out rationale for why the misses occurred. Then, employees can begin to dissect how they could head off those issues in the future. In doing this, they will likely find much more than 1 percent worth of improvements — but asking for only 1 percent makes it a palatable request.

3. If your OTD efforts succeed, do the same thing again — this time focused on quality.

How can we increase our customer acceptance rate and/or decrease quality defects? Ask and ye shall receive.

4. Implement Net Promoter Score (NPS) with your customers.

For example, you might ask a customer during an engagement, “On a scale of 1-10, how likely is it that you would recommend [your product/brand] to a friend or colleague?” By asking this one simple question, you can put a focus on what your NPS rate is, discuss how to improve it, and benchmark against other companies. You can’t improve what you don’t measure — and NPS starts with one simple question.

5. Conduct one small business challenge in your organization.

Take an existing business problem — either one you are experiencing within the business or one that you know your customers are experiencing — and solicit ideas on how to improve. This may start out to be a simple, small task, but you may find that your employees are very engaged and natural problem solvers with multiple responses. If this exercise is successful, make it a regular innovation channel and solicit, evaluate, and implement more solutions to today’s business issues.

 

Patrick Stroh is president of Mercury Business Advisors, providing management advisory services in business strategy, innovation, and product development, and author of “Advancing Innovation: Galvanizing, Enabling & Measuring for Innovation Value!” and”Business Strategy: Plan, Execute, Win!“. He serves on the board of directors for the Institute of Management Accountants and was also appointed as a fellow in Palladium’s Positive Impact Research Institute.

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What Do A Company’s Core Values Say About Its Culture?

By Amy Zimmerman, Global Head of People, Kabbage

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to creating the right company culture. However, defining your values that will be the building blocks for your culture early on is integral to the future success of your company, particularly as it achieves new stages of growth.

A strong culture is one that is evident even to newcomers and is cultivated through dedication to a clear set of values and embodied by all members of the community. At Kabbage, we have found it is part of our DNA to care deeply. That most often entails a great degree of autonomy, freedom of voice, and respect for one another. As a result of the high value we place on these values, we find our team members more passionately engaged in the business and poised for great achievements.

According to a study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, a healthy corporate culture – with an established set of values that resonate throughout – makes a company more likely to thrive. In the end, it’s the cultural aspects of your company that will help you build an empowered and enthusiastic employee base, while allowing you live to your fullest growth potential.

Don’t let your culture happen by accident.

There is a world of difference between standing for something and having values that say you stand for something. Many leaders create core values for two reasons: #1 – they read somewhere that they ought to; and, #2 – they have really good intentions. Sadly, most attempts fall flat as a result. They write something that sounds good or is aspirational at best, but not something that they are prepared to deliberately create, nor something for which they’ve hired properly to achieve. A company’s culture will be created whether it is prescribed or not, so it might as well be something about which the leaders are excited and of which they want to be proud.

There is no point in having values if they are not the foundation for all actions. If a leadership team truly values its core values, then it is critical to hire other leaders and team members who share those values. Otherwise growth will dilute or even destroy the culture. The stated core values will no longer be the basis for actions and decisions, and the culture will be something altogether different from what was envisioned when those values were established.

Hiring with intention.

We have always been very deliberate about our hiring decisions. We only hire people that we believe care deeply and are self aware. It is important to us that people don’t merely tolerate one another, but rather they genuinely respect each others’ perspectives and experiences even if they don’t agree with or understand them. We spend a tremendous amount of time together at work, and the collegiate environment that we’ve created is very special.

Hiring the right people is as important to the success of the business as having a disruptive product or even well-heeled investors. A couple of toxic missteps can create such discord in the organization that the effects can be far-reaching, and range from expensive turnover, to missed business opportunities, to quality and trust issues, and countless others.

If companies spent more time thinking about who they are and defining the values for which they actually want to stand (not just the ones that merely sound good), and actually behaved according to those principles, they might actually find themselves making smarter hiring decisions and realizing far greater success in their business. Imagine an environment where everyone (in all of their diverse professional and personal experiences) is not only aware of and invested in the mission at hand, but also empowered to execute. An environment where team members are treated as individuals and are supported, respected, and trusted; an environment in which people are invested, creating endless opportunity. That’s the kind of culture that yields the business results about which most employees and investors can only dream. And it all starts with defining and committing to some fundamental principles that most define you and your business.

 

Amy Zimmerman is Head of Global People Operations at Kabbage. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Kabbage has pioneered the first financial services data and technology platform to provide fully automated funding to small businesses in minutes. Kabbage leverages data generated through business activity such as accounting data, online sales, shipping and dozens of other sources to understand performance and deliver fast, flexible funding in real time.

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Why A High Quality Mobile App Design Is Essential

Not all mobile app designers are created equal. Some app designers are difficult to work with or fail to deliver on their promises. Even worse, some don’t know what they are doing. This is not the case with companies like Magora, who understand why high quality business app design is essential.

These are the main reasons why proper mobile app design is so important:

User Acceptance.

When you develop and introduce a new mobile app, employees have to change their work practices. As a business owner or manager, you want this process to run as smoothly as possible. If the new app you have developed is easy to use, end users will be more likely to embrace this new workplace tool.

Less Support Costs.

Various types of bugs and anomalies are present in most software based systems. However, the better a mobile app is designed and tested, the less likely it is that these bugs and anomalies will affect you. However, if your app is poorly designed, you may become too reliant on your developer and continually have to pay them to support and fix your app. Over time, paying for this avoidable service can add up to a large amount of money that could be put to better use in your organisation.

Saves Time.

Most business apps are created to save time and make things more convenient. An app should have a simple design that does not require a lot of training to use it. It should take very little time to use important functions and access information using this type of technology.

Reduces Human Error.

When an app is designed with the end user in mind, less mistakes are likely to happen. This is particularly important if you and your employees use mobile apps regularly, in pressurised situations or when you are on the move.

Integration with Other Systems.

Many businesses want to be able to integrate mobile apps with existing business systems. However, this can be difficult to do and the end result is often an awkward and cumbersome solution. However, more professional mobile app designers see this as a challenge, rather than a problem. A professional mobile app designer should be able to seamlessly integrate an app with existing business systems, so that the end users have a better user experience and don’t notice this integration.

Future Changes.

Every business leader should always be looking forward. In most cases, the app you build today will not be the same in a year, two years or further down the line. The best time to address this is during the design stage. The mobile app you develop should be easy to enhance and upgrade later. This will save on development costs and help you avoid having to create a new app from scratch again in the near future.

It’s vital to spend plenty of time concentrating on how to design a mobile app in the best way possible. An app that is designed properly will ultimately save you time, money and a lot of effort in the future.

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4 Major Mistakes Established Companies Make

By Steven D. Goldstein, author of “Why Are There Snowblowers in Miami?“

Start-up companies obviously face many difficulties. Once they make the decision to start their business, they must operate at full throttle almost immediately. They know that if they do not build their business, and quickly, they’ll have nothing — so it becomes a fight for their life from day one. There are dozens of concerns—raising initial funding, building the technology, and finding initial customers, just to name a few. Most start-ups fail, mostly because they run out of money too early.

However, the more established companies, especially when they are large, successful, and have been in business for decades or longer, face their own specific set of challenges. Older, successful companies have great attributes, but they often fall victim to their own successes. Inertia can play a big role. Ideas, systems and programs can become entrenched.

There are common, detrimental characteristics present in many established companies that seem to evolve over time — even though no one in these companies has set forth an explicit strategy or plan to create them. Here are the four major mistakes most traditional companies make:

1. They don’t really know what their customers think of them.

Just because customers continue to buy from you does not mean they are necessarily happy campers. Customers may not have discovered a good alternative to your product or service yet, or they may not have gotten annoyed enough with you yet. But the minute one or more of these conditions take hold, they’re moving on. And when they do, does the company even know that they’ve left? Usually the answer is no.

2. They take it on faith, often wrongly, that sales will continue to grow.

Established companies often just take it for granted that sales will continue to grow at the rate they have in the past, or at an even greater rate. This assumption leads to making safer investments, which often means investing in new facilities for the same products and services, expecting continued growth (growth that often does not materialize) rather than investing in new initiatives.

3. They have a tendency not to worry enough about the competition.

Established companies are liable to dismiss new competitors as too small to make a significant impact on their large company—sort of like not bothering to swat at mosquitos. Why haven’t Visa, MasterCard and American Express launched new payment products like the ones created by PayPal, Square, Stripe, ApplePay, and countless others? Their customers are using these new products and starting to question whether they should still be using a card when they can more easily pay with their smartphone. (Sometimes the more savvy older companies, after they see the start-ups gaining traction, create joint ventures with these firms or acquire them.)

4. They have a historical bias toward owning assets rather than focusing on core competitive advantages.

The upheaval created by the “sharing economy” is having profound impacts on more traditional companies. Airbnb has a market capitalization greater than Marriott, and Uber is more highly valued than each of the three top domestic airlines (Delta, United and American). Yet in almost every city around the world, the taxi commissions, who license this form of transportation, are arguing fundamental protectionism for their members. They are not interested in the taxi customers but rather the taxi drivers—and this is exactly where companies like Uber are attacking. Uber asks: “What does the customer want?” And then provides it.

Of course, most start-ups such as Uber are like speedboats, able to go super fast and adjust course quickly, while older companies are more like modern day cruise ships—with ten decks, three swimming pools, a rock climbing wall, and a five thousand-passenger capacity. Still, established companies need to take a page from start-ups. While they can not expect to be able to move with the speed and agility of a young company, big companies need to be sure they are always taking a fresh, outside-looking-in view of their organizations, and not simply resting on their laurels.

 

Steven D. Goldstein is a proven leader who has held executive positions with leading global brands, such as American Express, Sears, and Citigroup, as well as several early-stage enterprises. He currently works in the private equity industry as a Senior Advisor with the consulting and advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal, serves as Chairman of US Auto Sales, serves as a Senior Advisor to Milestone Partners and an Industrial Advisor to EQT Partners (a global private equity firm based in Stockholm). His forthcoming book, “Why Are There Snowblowers in Miami?“, will be available in Sept 2016.

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Why Every Business Needs To Become A Platform And How To Do It

By Kurt Bilafer, Global Vice President Sales & Success at WePay

What’s the hottest trend in business right now? Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter? Sharing economy apps such as Uber and Airbnb? Apple, and its line of personal computing devices? Or Software as a Service for the enterprise, such as Salesforce?

You could probably make a case for any one of these, but here’s the thing: Although on the surface these companies appear to have completely different business models, they all share one very powerful component: a scalable online platform connecting people and ecosystems.

Each monetizes their platform differently. Facebook and Twitter sell ads alongside the content people share with each other. Uber and Airbnb take a fee for connecting buyers and sellers of transportation and lodging respectively.  Apple manufactures products, owns retail stores and also has an open platform for developers to build and sell apps that makes the products Apple sells even more desirable. Salesforce does the same thing in the B2B world. Its cloud platform lets sales and marketing teams connect and share information about customers and prospects, and developers have enriched the value of the platform with a host of applications that integrate to the platform and add to its functionality.

Platforms’ speed of growth and economies of scale enable them to out -compete traditional businesses. To stay competitive, businesses have to learn to leverage the power of platforms. That starts with platform thinking.

What is platform thinking? The underlying strategies are not new. There are elements of vertical integration and franchising, classic business strategies for achieving operational efficiency and scale. What’s new is how technology allows companies to execute these strategies at unprecedented scale while also streamlining what were previously complex processes. Any company that has a product or software or a business system they’ve perfected that enables other companies, even companies as small as one person, to better operate their business can evolve to become a platform company by thinking about their business through these three lenses.

1. Leveraging network effects.

Network effects are the phenomenon whereby a good or service becomes more valuable when more people use it, so there is a relentless focus on building as large a network as possible.

That means making sure barriers to joining are as low as possible. For example, to become an Uber driver, you complete an online application, get your car inspected, wait for your background check to clear and start driving. By allowing people to provide transportation on demand without having to have access to an extremely scarce and expensive taxicab license, Uber was able to amass a US network of over 160,000 drivers in just five years. The traditional US taxi industry, which began in the 1920s, by comparison has 232,000 drivers.

Another way to build your network is to increase the value of the platform by opening it up for others to build on. Apple, Facebook and Salesforce have done this by offering APIs (application programmer interfaces) and SDKs (software development kits) so that people can build apps that extend the platform and make it even more compelling.

2. Customer intimacy.

Customer intimacy is thinking about and solving for everything the customer needs to be successful in the area your product or service addresses, mostly using technology. Companies that think competitively try to win on price or features. Customer intimate companies try to win on experience, and they think about that not just in terms of their customers, but their customers’ customers.

They ask questions such as, how do we improve our value to our customers? How do we help them acquire and retain more customers? How do we reduce friction, how do we streamline their processes and the number of solutions they need to use to do their jobs? How do we make them feel safe and secure transacting with us?

Salesforce was thinking along these lines when it acquired SteelBrick, a company that helps sales reps give price quotes, take orders, generate invoices and accept payments. Is there other software that does this? Yes, but Salesforce is betting that if you’ve brought your prospect to the point of sale on their platform you’d rather do the rest right there if it’s easy to do so.

3. Obsessive curation of the brand experience.

For most businesses, the initial cost of acquiring a customer, and building a network, is relatively high. With so much time and energy invested it makes sense to do everything you can to maintain that relationship. These days that means things like designing a frictionless web experience, and providing a mobile app so people can interact with your business anywhere, any time.

It means taking user data and pushing out actionable insights. It means things like embedding payments right into the platform, eliminating the hassle of having to enter credit card or PayPal account information. It means continually working to make it safer, easier and more delightful to do business on your platform than any other alternative.

Platforms are at the core of the successful businesses of the future. These opportunities are not limited to today’s platform giants. By adopting platform thinking and new technology, any business can evolve to join the platform economy.

 

 Kurt Bilafer, Global Vice President Sales & Success at WePay, is a sales veteran with more than 20 years of experience in direct sales, channel and partner development and business strategy. Prior to WePay, he was Global Vice President of Sales at SAP, previously serving the company as Vice President of Analytics for Asia, Pacific & Japan and Global Vice President of Business Analytics and Technology solutions, Ecosystem and Channel Partners.

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