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Tag: Business Culture

  • 5 Best Practices to Prevent Digital Fatigue from Derailing Training

    5 Best Practices to Prevent Digital Fatigue from Derailing Training

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Today’s employees spend a lot of time in front of screens, which is undoubtedly necessary but can also lead to digital fatigue. This mental exhaustion can affect not only performance, but also the capacity to absorb and apply new knowledge, which can lead to training failure.

    To drive productivity, results and morale, it’s up to companies and learning and development teams to design training programs that reduce digital fatigue.

    Related: How to Help Your Employees Avoid Digital Burnout

    How does digital fatigue affect training?

    Digital fatigue can affect any professional sphere, including training. There are several telltale signs of digital fatigue, so you can take action to mitigate and even prevent it from spoiling training outcomes. For example, when employees frequently put off training or have higher-than-usual rates of poor training results, those can be indicators of digital fatigue.

    According to a study by Deloitte, about a third of Americans say that since the Covid-19 pandemic began, they’ve felt overwhelmed by the number of devices and subscriptions they need to handle. The pandemic may be waning, but digital fatigue is here to stay and take its toll. Research shows that 22% of remote workers want to leave their jobs because they’re inundated with email; in fact, half would rather scrub their bathrooms than clear an overflowing inbox!

    What can learning specialists do to prevent digital fatigue from derailing training in particular? Here are five best practices.

    1. Offer more communication opportunities online and offline

    While on-demand digital training is highly convenient, a constant lack of face-to-face communication can sometimes make employees feel disconnected and tired in front of their screens.

    But with the right tools, training designers can prevent this and encourage learners to connect and communicate. Social learning — where employees connect, often informally, and learn collaboratively and through real-life scenarios — remains a priority, even if training is more digitized than ever. In 2021, 28% of organizations relied on social learning, compared to 19% the year before.

    Some e-learning features that streamline communication are:

    • Chats that allow employees to quickly get instructions, feedback and support;
    • Forums that enable group communication on specific training topics;
    • Groups that keep everyone in the loop and allow users to easily share learning resources.

    Communication and collaboration tools are vital to making online training more engaging. However, employees also need some time away from screens to mitigate the effects of digital fatigue. Occasionally organizing in-person training sessions for people working in the same office, area or country can counteract digital fatigue. This provides employees the chance to connect, learn together and test their knowledge in a more traditional learning environment — adding some variety into the predominantly digital routine.

    Related: This Silent Productivity Killer is Draining 4 Hours From Your Week. Here’s How To Fix It

    2. Tap into learners’ competitive spirit

    Training shouldn’t be perceived as boring or useless — but when employees feel like that, engagement suffers. For example, a recent survey about cybersecurity awareness training found that boring training caused employees to disengage — and, as a result, persist in risky behaviors.

    At the same time, when 70% of employees say they lack the skills needed to do their jobs, training is, of course, crucial. How can L&D specialists motivate people to learn? One answer lies in gamification.

    Learners are often eager to know there’s something waiting for them at the end of their training (and along the way), aside from meeting their company’s requirements. Challenges and incentives, such as certificates, badges, leaderboards and group games (where two or more teams compete for points), can provide motivation. The prizes’ utility goes beyond their symbolic value. Knowing they’ve done well in an online course stimulates employees to keep up the good work.

    Related: 3 Ways to Make Corporate Training Fun

    3. Make training more “snackable”

    Microlearning — or short learning activities with single objectives — doesn’t only help employees acquire and retain knowledge more easily, but it also feels less overwhelming.

    By providing short courses and multimedia content to help employees with their tasks at hand, instructors can easily squeeze learning into employees’ schedules. L&D professionals need flexible technologies that support different training formats (like videos) and can streamline assessments, i.e. through automated quizzes.

    4. Tailor training to employees’ skills and preferences

    It’s the instructors’ responsibility to design training programs that address necessary skills and goals for their workforce, but these should also focus on employees’ specific needs and preferences.

    Technology makes it possible to personalize training at scale by creating individualized learning paths. Some learning systems choose the steps in learners’ journeys based on learners’ skills, aptitudes, goals, roles, competencies demonstrated, interests and more — automatically recommending, for example, whether someone needs a refresher in a certain area or can move on to the next learning activity. They might suggest course modules, videos, Q&A forums, articles or more for individualized skills development.

    Related: Workplace Learning Is Broken. These 5 Steps Tell You How to Fix It.

    5. Use different training models

    A combination of live and on-demand learning also optimizes training and makes it more engaging. Although live training (whether in-person or online) is often harder to organize, especially for large teams working across time zones, it offers undeniable benefits — especially when interactive components (e.g., role plays, Q&As, brainstorming) are involved. Live training sessions allow employees to engage with others, get feedback in real time and put names to faces. Social interaction can motivate learners to engage in training they perceive as more meaningful.

    On-demand training provides many benefits too, including the ability for learners to consume (and review, as necessary) materials when it fits into their schedules. And when training isn’t highly interactive, on-demand e-learning is both convenient and cost-effective.

    Taking a blended approach benefits learners and companies. Instructors can kick off a training program with a live call to explain its scope and goals, and take questions. Afterward, trainees can learn at their own pace, when time allows — consuming articles, course modules and videos, posting questions in forums, etc. Periodic group calls and a closing live session, where trainees put their skills in action, can wrap up the initiative.

    Related: How to Evaluate if Your Corporate Training is Working

    Avoiding digital fatigue

    Nowadays, employees are increasingly prone to suffering from digital fatigue. Uncontrolled, it can lead to burnout. Instructors need to catch the early signs of digital fatigue and design training programs that are engaging, rewarding, concise and flexible so that employees find the motivation to spend more quality time in the digital workplace learning environment.

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    Graham Glass

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  • How to Improve Mental Wellness in the Workplace

    How to Improve Mental Wellness in the Workplace

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It’s widely recognized that having a healthy mind and body is necessary to have a healthy, productive work life. But as life continues to move at an increasingly fast pace, this is much easier said than done.

    As a business owner, it’s important to stay aware of your mind and body’s needs so you can remain productive and creative. But it can be easy to let these things slip by the wayside during busy seasons — and honestly, what seasons aren’t busy as an entrepreneur? Many of us are familiar with late nights at work, forgetting to eat meals or exercise and unfortunately dealing with great deals of stress, exhaustion and burnout. Although it’s important to pay attention to the needs of your body and mind, it’s also important to remember your employees have the same needs.

    Life and work are intertwined in a way that cannot be separated. It might seem simple to put aside whatever you’re dealing with at home to focus on work for the day, but it’s not realistic. Similarly, problems at work come home with you. Both our personal lives and our work lives affect our moods, energy levels and ability to focus. If your child is sick or you’re having a tense argument with your spouse, of course you aren’t going to be able to fully engage in your job — what’s going on at home is more important to you. And problems in the workplace, such as stress, burnout or a negative work environment will affect your mood and energy level when you go home. You might make your argument with your spouse worse because you’re tense and stressed out, or you might be unable to sleep because you dread returning to your toxic work environment the next day, further exacerbating the problem.

    Related: How I Failed Miserably As a Leader and Ultimately Improved My Company

    By promoting the mental and physical health of your employees, you can create a better working environment and encourage employees to succeed, creating a more sustainable workplace in the long run. Happy, healthy team members will be more productive and create better results for your company. But promoting your team’s health isn’t as simple as putting some exercise equipment in your office, especially when you factor in mental health, which is complex and can majorly affect the way a person thinks, feels and performs their job. Strong mental health is reliant on several factors, but here are a few necessary things, which you can apply in various ways for you and your team:

    1. Fuel your mind with good food and hydration

    Staying hydrated and eating well is necessary to keep your body and mind running. And brain functions like energy, focus and creativity are some of the first to suffer when you don’t get these things. If you forget to drink enough water, it might be beneficial to use a large water bottle with measurements on it to keep track of exactly how much you’re drinking. This is an easy tool you can provide for your team as well. It’s a good idea to keep healthy snacks around the office, both for yourself and your employees. Some foods will give you a burst of energy, while others, especially fat- and carb-heavy foods, will slow you down or make you sleepy. Having healthy options easily available will help you make good choices. Another way to promote healthy eating for your team is to allow them to work from home, where they can cook healthy meals for themselves. When employees are in a rush to reach the office in the morning, where they might order takeout or pack things that are quick and easy rather than nutritious for lunch.

    Related: 6 Healthy Habits to Maximize Your Mental Health and Get You Through Your Worst Days

    2. Prioritize sleep

    Sleep is possibly even more important than food and exercise, but unfortunately, it’s overlooked by many people. A phenomenon in many offices is a sort of competition to see who slept the least. If you notice this kind of attitude toward sleep, it may be worth addressing. Often lack of sleep is due to bad habits, but it can also be a result of busy schedules that don’t allow enough time to sleep. To ensure you and your employees have enough time to sleep, consider offering flexible working hours, which will allow them to adjust their schedules if needed.

    Related: How Serving in The Army Taught This Leader The Importance of Employee Wellbeing

    3. Exercise stimulates the mind

    Did you know that sitting is literally killing you? Excessive sitting lowers your life expectancy, and it can lead to injuries from repetitive motions and weakened muscles. And as we all know, exercise is excellent for both the body and the brain. Have you ever noticed that some of your best ideas form when you’re exercising? Or have you ever taken an exercise break and come back to your work feeling energized and highly productive? Take regular breaks to go for walks, and encourage your team to do the same. Even if those breaks take 10-15 minutes out of the workday, they will increase your team’s overall productivity. You can also provide exercise equipment and standing desks in your office, or provide wellness benefits such as gym memberships to encourage your team to exercise outside working hours as well. Sharing links or apps for breathing exercises or mindfulness practices can help employees to better manage their stress levels.

    Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Workplace Focused on Mental Wellness

    4. Keep mental health in mind

    One of the words that’s most commonly used when someone is struggling with their mental health is “stress.” Mental health is innately tied to physical health, and just like treating your body right can help your brain, negative emotions can seriously affect your body. Reducing stress, burnout, depression and other mental health challenges is complex, but there are a few things you can do.

    First, ensure you’re getting enough sunlight. Not only does vitamin D improve your mood, but the light itself plays a major role. Working in an office without much sunlight can be draining, but if you can’t manage to arrange your office so everyone has access to sunlight, consider allowing at least part-time remote work.

    Related: The Truth About Loneliness During the Holidays and 5 Tips For Coping

    Burnout is another factor that affects many people’s mental health, and there has been an epidemic of it lately. Watch carefully for burnout in yourself and your employees, and when you identify it, take steps to improve the situation that’s causing it. Have managers include this discussion during their regular one-on-one meetings. Create a culture of support around burnout and other challenges people might be facing, such as family matters and health challenges, which can contribute to burnout significantly. There are many resources to help address burnout, as it’s a complex issue. Remember to prioritize your employees as people rather than workers. If you’ve hired well, your team wants to do a good job. If they’re struggling, there’s likely a reason for it. Ask for and listen to feedback, even if it’s not what you want to hear. Work and work-related activities take up a majority of a person’s waking hours, so the environment you provide plays a major role in an employee’s quality of life.

    I highly recommend offering some kind of mental health benefits, even telehealth options. This might look like paying for counseling for those who need it. Or try allowing mental health days. We’ve changed our sick leave policy to include a mental health day, not just a physical sickness day. Just knowing they have the option to take a day off if needed is likely to be enough for most employees, and you likely won’t experience a significant cost as a result.

    To keep a happy, healthy and productive workforce, the most important thing you can do is to create a positive workplace culture. A negative or toxic culture can easily wear on anyone, causing problems both at work and at home. With these steps, you’ll be on your way to improving the health of your entire team and creating a stronger and more sustainable work culture.

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    Jason Hennessey

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  • Why High-Performance Culture Is Critical to Business Success in 2023

    Why High-Performance Culture Is Critical to Business Success in 2023

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    With 2023 business planning underway, business leaders are setting priorities for the next year and beyond. For some, the focus may emphasize productivity or roll back certain benefits like flexible working schedules.

    A high-performance culture improves productivity, bringing higher profits and happier employees, improving talent retention and continuing a growth cycle. A cornerstone of 2023 growth should be building or maintaining a high-performance culture for all businesses. Refraining or forgetting about culture in 2023 is a mistake, as it plays a critical role in company performance.

    Related: How to Create a Work Culture That Can Survive Anything

    Understanding the importance of high-performance culture

    A high-performance culture allows an organization to succeed and grow. This type of structure is good for business and for each employee. Not every high-performance culture will look the same, yet every organization with a high-performance culture values workers and holds their trust in return.

    Employees may come to work partly for a paycheck, yet evidence suggests they crave meaning from work and are more productive when they get it. Like everyone, workers want to feel a sense of purpose and mission in their daily lives and enjoying the same at work is only natural.

    The best cultures embed their mission throughout the employee experience, honoring and furthering these values daily. These cultures also offer their employees interesting and engaging projects which drive their sense of belonging to the organization. A recent survey by McKinsey showed workers across all levels of income believed having an interesting job was as important as earning a solid income.

    Related: How to Develop a Company Vision and Values That Employees Buy Into

    Workers feel fulfilled by purpose-driven work. Unfortunately, many employers ignore culture in favor of focusing on profits. Workers need clarification and connection in these types of work environments. In a survey from Gallup, only four in 10 employees strongly agreed they knew what their company stands for and what differentiates their company from competitors. Even for organizations that articulate their values often, management could be viewed poorly if employees do not see the connection between the values and the organization’s actions.

    When leaders grow nervous about their businesses’ future, it can feel tempting to ignore culture at the expense of profit. In fact, culture becomes even more important in times of economic uncertainties. In these moments, employees will look to management to set the tone. Without a culture fostering engagement and collaboration, workers could lose productivity to stress and conflict.

    Related: Why Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurs Focus on the Bigger Picture

    How to build a high-performance culture

    To build a high-performance culture, first, understand how your culture functions. Employees usually understand culture best simply by judging their own level of satisfaction. Their daily experiences are typically defined by coworkers and frontline managers more than company management. Leaders who do not work with frontline managers daily will likely need to speak with employees to understand their experiences.

    Signs of an underperforming culture could include low employee retention, low productivity and frequent workplace conflicts. Not every employee will be satisfied, even in the highest-performing cultures, but consistently unhappy employees reflect serious problems. Direct, private conversations between employees and HR can offer insight. If employees seem reluctant to speak candidly, much-needed feedback via surveys can provide ways to track improvement.

    After gathering information about employee experiences, HR may wish to prepare a report assessing culture as it stands. Strong cultures should clearly understand which policies contribute to the culture and how to continue them. Doing so will help preserve civilization in the face of future business difficulties or leadership changes.

    On the other hand, struggling cultures need to identify the most negative factors of their culture to begin changing. High-performance cultures feature strong leaders, actively engaged employees, ongoing workforce development, strong communication and adaptability. If employees are disengaged, find out whether imbalanced workloads, micromanaging, lack of flexibility or absence of trust could contribute.

    During this process, employees also feel their input is genuinely welcomed, which it should be. Psychologically, employees accustomed to a toxic culture may fear expressing their true thoughts, mainly if their frontline managers previously engaged in verbal abuse or insults. Build this trust by taking accountability to admit that culture has not met the mark and protect employees who voice their concerns from retaliation.

    Each leadership level, from the C-suite to frontline managers, plays an integral role in rebuilding a company’s culture. The positive vision set forth at the top needs to be actionable. Once the vision has more tangible attributes, through structure and processes, each level of leadership can provide the necessary training and easily communicate these goals on how they translate into the fabric of the company.

    A high-performance culture is often viewed as optional. That cannot be further from the truth. A high-performance culture is the backbone of an organization, providing a strong framework for business growth. Moving into 2023, culture should be central to every successful business strategy.

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    Steve Arizpe

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  • Martin Shkreli Offers Prison Tips to Sam Bankman-Fried

    Martin Shkreli Offers Prison Tips to Sam Bankman-Fried

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    Martin Shkreli a.k.a. “Pharma Bro,” has some advice from one ex-con to one accused fraudster.


    Spencer Platt/Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

    Shkreli – who gained infamy in 2015 as a pharmaceuticals CEO that hiked the price of a lifesaving drug from $13 to $750 and was later found guilty of securities fraud — offered some slammer survival skills to now-disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on crypto journalist Laura Shin’s, “Unchained” podcast.

    Ahead of Bankman-Fried’s looming legal battle and possible incarceration, Shkreli said he should prepare for prison life and “reinvent” himself if he wants to make it behind bars.

    “Sam is going to have a lot of issues because he is a bit of an effeminate guy and his demeanor — some people say autistic sort of sense, or sensibility — is not something that goes over well in prison,” Shkreli said.

    Shkreli was sentenced to prison in 2017 and released this past May after serving five years of a seven-year sentence.

    Related: Who Is FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried and What Did He Do? Everything You Need to Know About the Disgraced Crypto King

    Bankman-Fried, a.k.a. SBF, was arrested in the Bahamas earlier this month on several criminal fraud charges. He could face up to 115 years in prison after allegedly stealing billions in customer funds in a Ponzi Scheme between crypto exchange FTX and Alameda Research crypto trading firm. After being extradited to the U.S., SBF was released on a $250 million bond and is living with his parents in California as he awaits trial.

    Shkreli’s other advice includes saying SBF should shave his head, deepen his voice, and brush up on rap music, gangs, and “criminal culture.”

    While Shkreli said these changes “could save your life” on the inside, he also said the former crypto entrepreneur should hide his Ivy League education and privileged roots.

    “He should probably start to reinvent his background and history because the rich white kid from a good neighborhood — that story doesn’t sound great,” Shkreli said.

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    Sam Silverman

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  • 7 Lessons That All Entrepreneurs Must Know

    7 Lessons That All Entrepreneurs Must Know

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Recently I decided it would be a good idea to participate in a Kidnapping Survival Course. During the course, I would become trained in handling a real-life kidnapping, interrogation and being hunted for a day by professional bounty hunters.

    It sounds nuts, I know. So, why did I do this?

    One reason — to learn critical performance and stress management mindset and skills.

    I believe that mindset is everything. It can be the difference between success and failure. It can determine whether a business will grow from five figures to six figures, to seven figures and beyond. Mindset is essential for your success.

    I learned this specifically when I picked up my first business book in 2002 by Robert Kiyosaki. His timeless must-read book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” completely shifted the way I thought and changed my life trajectory. Since then, there have been numerous books, classes and workshops that I have invested in spending over $100,000 in education to upgrade my mindset.

    And that is precisely why I decided to take a kidnapping survival course. Realistically, I don’t think I will get kidnapped anytime soon. Still, I thought to myself, if I can learn to survive a kidnapping, being trained by the same people that train Navy SEALS, the CIA and the FBI, then I can control my emotions when a major crisis happens in my business. I can control my communication when working with customers, clients and my team.

    What did I learn & how does it apply to business?

    Related: 4 Leadership Lessons I Learned From a Marine Corps General

    1. Be prepared

    All entrepreneurs need preparation. Without preparation, you become more vulnerable. To survive a kidnapping, you must first be mentally prepared. To survive the ups and downs of business, preparation always helps us get one step ahead. No matter if we are preparing a pitch deck to ask for investment or if we are preparing our tasks for the week. You can’t control when you get kidnapped or oftentimes what is going to happen in business, but you can control your reaction and be prepared is essential to making that easier.

    2. Develop a plan

    As mentioned before, being prepared is essential, and planning is an important part of that. To survive a kidnapping, one must plan to evade those trying to capture them. Choosing undercover personas that blend in well with the environment and don’t stand out is essential. This is also essential in business. Robust plans can make our business operations run more smoothly and keep us operating more effectively. The more you can create an educated and detailed plan, the better your chances of success.

    3. Breathe

    This is the most simple underestimated lesson we learned. When a Navy SEAL gets kidnapped, they are trained to manage their breath. Why? Because breathing will manage your brain’s stress response. When you fear something, your amygdala reacts. Your heart rate and the levels of adrenaline and cortisol start to increase. If you can learn how to slow your breath down, it will control your heart rate and begin to wash away the stress hormones. It also improves brain functioning so we can focus better and make better decisions.

    Related: How to Find Clarity Through the Conscious Breath

    4. Be adaptable

    During our kidnapping simulation, we stayed undercover the entire day while bounty hunters searched for us. We had to change clothes regularly to blend in. We had to hide when we were spotted and run when we were being chased. We had no control over when we would be under stress and had to react instantly. We were taught to remain completely adaptable. This is very similar to business. I can’t tell you how often entrepreneurs (myself included) get stuck on resisting change. Often it is the main reason why most businesses fail. It is important to plan well and follow your plan, but it is also essential to know when to adapt and shift.

    Related: Why Resisting Change Will Only Hurt Your Business

    5. Work as a team

    Throughout the kidnapping simulation, we worked in teams of three. We had 14 missions we needed to complete throughout the day while avoiding being caught by the bounty hunters. We did this without phones, the internet or money. The only thing we had to rely on was our training, our plan and our team. My team decided to start by planning who would work on each mission and how.

    The missions included getting someone to give us money for a bus ticket, translating a phrase into Russian or Portuguese and finding a free food and water source to survive. Like in business, we discussed a plan to accomplish each task to the best of our ability. All companies have some team and need to make daily decisions on what that plan will be and who will work to accomplish the mission.

    Related: Here’s Why Teamwork and Collaboration is a Must For You

    6. Learn to sprint

    While undercover, if a bounty hunter spotted us, they captured and handcuffed us to a bench or a pole. We then had to escape from the handcuffs in a downtown area while people were awkwardly staring at us. After being trained for a week to survive a kidnapping, I had my mind set on not getting caught.

    Toward the end of the day, my team was walking through an outdoor mall when a bounty hunter spotted us. We looked at one another and went on a dead sprint through the mall. This took us on a chase through the back rooms of various stores, racing through a parking lot and running circles inside a Macy’s department store. As you can imagine, the pedestrians thought we were running from the police. All of our team went in different directions. I thought I was in the clear and started to walk when a bounty hunter came around the corner at that exact moment. I began to sprint as fast as I possibly could. I turned another corner and dove behind a pillar of a building. Unfortunately, as the bounty hunter walked by, he saw my reflection in the window and captured me. He then handcuffed me to a bench and walked away with a smile. I spent the next few minutes embarrassingly picking the handcuffs while people were walking by and giving me the most awkward looks.

    Business is very similar. There are deadlines you will have to hit even when you don’t want to. You will often need to push your limits to accomplish impossible things. You will need to flat-out sprint and hustle with everything you have got, and the more prepared you are for these moments, the better you will be able to handle them when they happen.

    Related: 5 Comfort-Crushing Tips to Reach Your Goals

    7. All things are possible

    The last lesson was that all things are possible. If goals are dissected into a simple step-by-step process (make a plan), it is much simpler to take each hurdle and obstacle that comes your way. It seems nearly impossible to be kidnapped, handcuffed, blindfolded, duct taped, waterboarded, shocked by a stun gun, escape from bounty hunters and accomplish 14 missions in one day that most people would struggle with working on only one. But we did it, and we did it because we were prepared, planned, worked as a team, were adaptable, remembered to breathe and ran as fast as we could when needed.

    I firmly believe that anyone can build a business if they believe in themselves and their dreams. Learning to survive a kidnapping was just one way to reassure me that anything is possible if you believe.

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    Chris Reynolds

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  • 9 Lessons Entrepreneurship Will Teach You

    9 Lessons Entrepreneurship Will Teach You

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Once upon a time, my wife Jenna and I and our three kids under ten moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, had another baby, and bought our first house together. This, we thought, is the perfect time to quit our jobs and start a business! [eyeroll]

    The idea of our company, Be Courageous, was born during the facilitation of a client session when the team was at odds with each other while exploring the future of their business. This quote from George Prince was on the wall: “Another word for creativity is courage.”

    I realized many of us stay trapped in old thinking and actions when we lack the conditions to be creative and courageous.

    A question emerged for me, “What would a world with an abundance of courage look like? How can I help create it?”

    With my experience in marketing, strategy and facilitation, and Jenna’s in psychology, human resources and operations, we founded our business consultancy, Be Courageous. Every year we’ve grown. Every year our impact has expanded. Every year we’ve learned.

    Here are some of our biggest learnings for those of you on your entrepreneurial journey.

    Related: The 7 Business Lessons You Should Learn by 30

    9 lessons from five years of learning

    As any reader here knows, starting and running a business is a piece of cake. Ha!

    For real, here is what we learned, having grown our U.S. business of two to a worldwide organization with dozens of clients and 35+ network partners while positively impacting nearly 1 million people in 82 countries.

    1. Agility

    One of our most in-demand programs with Fortune 500 companies this year has been our training on agile leadership. When you own your own business — the unexpected will happen. A successful entrepreneur adapts to new challenges and situations and creates lemonade from lemons.

    We have created programs we never thought we would in response to what the world has needed from us.

    Have a solid plan, but be flexible.

    Related: These Are the Core Elements Needed to Successfully Pivot Your Business

    2. Purpose

    We aim to activate courage in companies worldwide and align them with a planet-beneficial future. Yours might be to improve humanity’s mental health or lessen people’s stress by building an easier-to-use product. Whatever your purpose is, make sure you’re deeply passionate about it and that it fuels your actions.

    Use the strength of your purpose to courage through challenges.

    3. Superpowers (and kryptonite)

    We found more success when we identified and focused on our greatest strengths. We aligned our strengths with our values and the services we wanted to provide to our clients to solve a problem they faced.

    For example, my superpower is guiding businesses to realize their potential and future. My kryptonite is getting tripped up in the micro-details of spreadsheets. That’s where Jenna comes in. She leads operations with her superpower of keeping our company financially stable, growing and on the ground. I’m the visionary, and she makes it possible.

    Align your superpowers with your business goals and values. Find people who have superpowers you lack.

    Related: Find Your Flow Through Deep Work and Unlock Your Superpower

    4. Curiosity

    In an exponentially-changing world, having an open mind is the key to running a successful business. Be curious about skills you don’t have and new ways to solve problems. Challenges will arise, but if your curiosity remains peaked, you’ll always get to the solution positively. Ask, “What is the courage needed in this situation?”

    Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it feeds company growth. (We’re a dog company, anyway, no offense to cats.)

    5. Healthy company culture

    Create a team that feels safe, strong, empowered and able to share and receive ideas. When you foster personal connections with your team and your clients (yes, business is personal), you will thrive beyond competitors who are only in it for the buck.

    Develop a positive company culture to unlock the full potential of your team.

    Related: 4 Ways Leaders Can Create Award-Winning Corporate Culture

    6. Operational foundation

    While you don’t want to get bogged down in systems and processes, your business won’t thrive without a solid operational foundation. Get an understanding of legal, financial and team infrastructure.

    Stay pragmatic and, as we like to say, “aggressively conservative.” We make leaps, but only with a net.

    Develop systems to streamline your business, so you can focus on serving your customers.

    7. Integrity

    Many people make empty promises, which erodes trust over time. It’s far better to over-deliver on your word. Pay what you say you will, earlier than you say you will. We’ve established deep, trusting relationships with our clients. We foster community.

    We get callbacks five years after doing one program with a client because we don’t burn bridges; we build them.

    Show up with your heart, don’t be a jerk, and honor your word.

    Related: Understanding the Burden of Trust for Business Leaders

    8. Optimism

    Never doubt what you can achieve, yet don’t be disillusioned. Approach everyone you can as a holistic human being, putting aside bias. Presume positive intent and look for positive solutions. Expect people to be their best until proven otherwise. And even then, be graceful about terminating any relationships.

    Work and live from a place of abundance, not scarcity.

    9. Mindful hiring

    Be thoughtful about who you bring into your organization.

    We hire a type of person — not only for the exact level of expertise we need. We hire people in love with our vision. A person who can be adaptive and learn with us. Who is willing to put in the work for a shared purpose.

    Hire the right puzzle piece for your vision, not just how they look on paper.

    Related: Why Kindness Should Be Part of Your Hiring Process

    Bottom line

    Owning your own business isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an ebb and flow of successes and learnings. But 20 years from now, if you look back, would you regret not doing something about your big and burning idea?

    Fear will never go away, but when the desire to fulfill your purpose outweighs the fear of risks involved, that’s when you know you’re made to be an entrepreneur.

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    Kyle Hermans

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  • 5 Ways You Can Build a Strong Leadership Team

    5 Ways You Can Build a Strong Leadership Team

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Laying the foundation for a powerful leadership team starts with a business assessment and a self-assessment. What does the business need to achieve, and how can our leadership teams get us there?

    I tend to look at things globally, but while I can see things in a micro way to determine the next steps, I like to lean on my teams to dig down into the details as they come up with a knock-out marketing and sales strategy, stellar creative, rock-solid and accurate financials and innovative thinking that are all informed by five guiding tips.

    Related: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

    1. Determine what goals and priorities the business needs to focus on

    When determining the base needs of the business, you have to look at who’s already on your team. Here’s a good example. I have a person in a manager’s seat right now, but I’m mentoring him to be a director because what I’ve identified in him are many of the key personality qualities that a leader and a leadership team need.

    Intelligence is key. I refer not only to business intelligence but also to emotional intelligence. This includes understanding how to interact with people and the business requirements. They are two different things, but both are required of a leader. You need to be organized, and you need to have really good communication skills.

    You also need to be able to say no. I want my leadership team to be strong enough to know the difference between what we should say yes to and what we should say no to because I’m relying on them to run their parts of the business and then report to me. Therefore, I need to have trust that they understand what it means to say no — and they can only know that if they understand the business as a complete operation.

    For example, if there’s a need for someone to jump in the warehouse and pack boxes, then so be it. The fact that my warehouse leader was packing orders on a Monday shows the rest of his team and me that he’s not going to ask anyone to do something that he’s not willing to do himself.

    Related: Setting Measurable Goals Is Critical to Your Strategic Plan (and Your Success). Here’s Why.

    2. Never forget the importance of “right people, right seats.”

    Do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have the capacity to do it? And then there are measurables that give us an idea if they are meeting those criteria. We’re a little obsessed about this, but it’s important.

    One thing that guides a strong leadership team foundation is the establishment of core values. What does the business stand for, and what are those values?

    In our business, one of the things that we really believe in is customer relationships built on trust. Another one is minding the small details. Little things matter. This can be the little nuances of contract manufacturing or providing more service to our customers.

    You want to go out and find a leadership team that lives the core values every minute of every day that they are in the building, hybrid or remote — because it is through their leadership, their belief in those values, and how they exemplify them that provides the blueprint of how an employee should act.

    Remember that every employee, not just leaders, builds a company’s reputation and goodwill.

    Related: As a Leader: Never Compromise Your Core Values

    3. Leaders should be able to pivot, make adjustments and change course

    If you’re going to be in business and think things are going to stay the same, you’re not in the right field and should do something else. There’s an excellent quote that I read recently from Jeff Bezos, where he said that “every day needs to be day one.”

    He said that day one is when you’re entirely customer-obsessed and constantly looking to grow the business. On day one of a business, you’re asking what we can do to wow our customers. How can we provide value? You never want to leave day one because, once it becomes day two, it’s now on a path to stagnation.

    I agree with that. Part of day one thinking is understanding that things change. It’s being resilient enough to change course, evaluating things on the fly, knowing what’s working and rapidly driving resources to what’s working.

    How do you bring the best out in your teams? In baseball, it’s catchers that have a unique perspective. They’re managing the pitcher and see the game from a perspective only they can see.

    They’re watching the game unfold in front of them. Nine innings, 162 games a year for 20 years, or however long they’re behind the plate. They’re great leaders in the sport because they understand the game at a level that other players can’t.

    I think that that’s a big part of when you’re looking to develop a quality leadership team. Those are the kind of skills that you want to see.

    Be like a catcher.

    4. Knowing that honest mistakes, smart risk and bold action are often needed

    What I believe in is that you want to give people smart authority. You want to let them understand the guardrails within their sphere and encourage people to own things. You give people a chance to accept responsibility, take full responsibility for something and give them goals for what you want them to accomplish. Then set them free to go out and do it.

    When they make mistakes, they learn something. It’s through honest mistakes that real learning happens. We grow up in a culture where everything has to be mistake-free and perfect. In reality, however, the best and most successful entrepreneurs are founded out of risk. If you remove the risk from your business as you’re operating it, how can you ever grow? How can you ever move to the next level?

    You want to allow your team and leaders to grow and make what I call “smart mistakes” — honest mistakes that are not due to carelessness or recklessness. It’s okay to make a mistake when you’ve gone through the process of making a good decision.

    I also believe in “smart risk,” — where you think more outside the box. Smart risk is, for example, taking a reasonable chance on a well-thought-out opportunity.

    In marketing, there’s the whole theory of test and rest. Try something, give it a time frame, and look at the results. Did it work? Yes, then throw more at it. If not, what did we learn, why didn’t it work and what could we tweak?

    Related: 7 Mistakes Leaders Make When Managing a Remote Team

    5. Blending diverse talents can create a force multiplier effect

    The best example that I can give is a hockey team. There are usually four lines on a hockey team, and traditionally, you have the top six that score. You have two lines of forwards that go out there, and their job is to generate offense and control the puck in the other team’s zone. But if you have four lines like that, then who’s playing defense?

    So, you complement those lines with somebody who’s maybe a bit more physical, somebody who likes to agitate. While you certainly need to score goals, you also need the passers, the players who keep the team spirits up, and the enforcers where necessary.

    Same thing in business. You have to have a leadership team that’s not an echo chamber. In echo chambers, there are no divergent views or solutions. When you look at things like marketing and sales, you want different opinions so you have the best chance to make a decision that helps the business move forward.

    Related: Ensuring Diversity Is Not a Distraction to Leaders

    While values can be shared, talents should be unique. People should be able to work together and respect each other’s aptitudes and viewpoints because I believe that creates a high tide in which all boats can float.

    My feedback about our vice president of sales from her employees is that “She is the best manager I ever worked for because she empowers me to own things and do the best job I can.”

    That’s what I call great leadership.

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    Vincent Tricarico

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  • Watch Out For These 3 Entrepreneur Death Traps

    Watch Out For These 3 Entrepreneur Death Traps

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Inexperienced founders and first-time entrepreneurs who are excited about entering the realm of entrepreneurship often find themselves focused on “not important right now” items.

    You can generally tell when an entrepreneur is falling for the non-important. Their focus gets drawn out over a longer than necessary period of time for things like branded clothing, business cards and the proper titles. There is a flow of priorities in business that are always at play, and when you’re building a business, it is crucial not to waste resources on non-important right now priorities.

    To clarify the point, let’s look at a general overview of priorities broken down between experienced and inexperienced entrepreneurs:

    Inexperienced order of objectives:

    1. Figure out a name
    2. See if it’s available
    3. File to incorporate
    4. Wait for incorporation to go through, then get a business bank account
    5. Get a logo
    6. Get branded apparel
    7. Get the business cards
    8. Start to build a prospect list
    9. Get a customer

    The experienced flow of objectives

    1. Get a customer
    2. Continue to build a prospect list
    3. Figure out a name
    4. Maybe get a contact card
    5. Etc.

    Here is a list of three common flaws first-time entrepreneurs and founders face when starting a business.

    Related: The True Failure Rate of Small Businesses

    1. Understand the difference between an order of objectives and a flow of objectives

    Inexperienced entrepreneurs tend to think that things must be done in a set order to accomplish a goal. For example, I have seen multiple people start their entrepreneurial journey and turn away customers because they feel it’s necessary to follow the order of objectives above.

    That thinking — especially in the early stages — slows down execution rates because they bottleneck the next thing to be done. This causes friction, leading to burnout in a new entrepreneur.
    Meanwhile, an experienced entrepreneur knows that multiple objectives will be in play, working to accomplish simultaneously — especially at the beginning.

    The challenge is that the brain wants a perfect order, but that’s not how it always works; sometimes we have to focus on multiple things to see them through to accomplishment.

    A flow of objectives will vary on a case-by-case basis. However, the critical point, in the beginning, is to make sure the focus is on the right objective and, most importantly, the business shows some premise of viability. The objectives listed above can be completed in about a day — that’s not the issue. The issue is that the inexperienced tend to get caught up on the non-important and it pushes a one-day list into a one-week or one-month list or a not completed “I got distracted” list.

    Sometimes even setting up a legal business entity is not important right now. When it comes to small businesses, most can and should be started as a sole proprietorship — at least briefly before filing to incorporate. That said, there are specific industries where incorporating should be heavily considered.

    For example, a low-risk graphic design business might want to forge ahead and start conducting business. However, if it’s an industry with a risk of personal injury, it might make sense to incorporate it. (Always consult with a legal expert on what could be the best fit for you).

    Related: How Successful Entrepreneurs Stay Focused and Block Out the Noise

    2. Understand the risk and rewards of priorities

    Every action or inaction has a risk or opportunity cost, especially at the beginning, where the compounding effect is more significant. That being the case, looking at objectives in a risk vs. reward manner gives us guidance on tackling the objective list.

    An experienced founder will start by bringing on a new customer. It is rarely risky, and the reward is great — there is business growth, especially compounded over time. But following the inexperienced route risks all the resources used in steps 1-8 (time, money, mental capacity, etc.) in hopes of generating the reward of 9, bringing on a new customer. Furthermore, the risk is more significant because a founder might find that the actions in steps 1-8 might change with the compounding of time. Example: The logo might not be the best fit, or a C-Corp or LLC would have made more sense.

    This means we need to write down the steps and label them in priority of what needs to be done. You can always incorporate it later, change the logo, or get branded apparel later. While you can always get customers later, the focus of getting a new customer offers the greatest return on investment, especially at the beginning.

    An inexperienced founder who focuses on the wrong things from the beginning tends to focus on the wrong things until one of two things happens:

    1. They continue to waste resources sweating the “not important right now” until they run out of resources and the business dies.
    2. They continue to waste resources until they learn the appropriate type of execution for them. (Sometimes necessary, but why waste the resources when it’s preventable.)

    Option number two brings us to the third tip for starting entrepreneurship:

    Related: The Biggest Trap Of Entrepreneurship: Happiness ≠ Achievement

    3. Understand the type of entrepreneur you are. It’s not a one size fits all role

    Entrepreneurship mirrors life in that you cannot know who you are and how you operate entirely until you live through it. You might think that you can tackle one step by one step, only to discover that you are the type that needs to make progress on all fronts intermittently.

    Like life, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to Entrepreneurship.

    Certain key requirements are needed in the starting phase, but how those requirements are met is completely up to the individual. Experienced entrepreneurs who know who they are and how they operate best can create their chosen route to build an optimal company. Meanwhile, the inexperienced can use the tips listed above to build from scratch better.

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    Anthony D. Anselmo

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  • Avoid These 4 Pitfalls to Become a Great Communicator

    Avoid These 4 Pitfalls to Become a Great Communicator

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Most of us want to be great communicators. Many of us pride ourselves on it. However, it’s easy to fall into common traps that confuse our audience and set us back.

    Being an exceptional communicator means that we’re constantly considering how we come across to others, especially those dissimilar to us. If you’re leading a team or looking to progress in your career, it’s important that your words don’t unintentionally alienate or offend others. Here are a few examples to avoid.

    Related: 9 Best Practices to Improve Your Communication Skills and Become a More Effective Leader

    1. Obscure or even semi-obscure references

    Sometimes, when we like a popular sport or movie, we’ll make the mistake of assuming everyone does. Then we’ll make references to this thing, without noticing that we might be losing some of our audience.

    Sports references are especially prevalent. Phrases as simple as “we should punt on that decision,” “we’re in a holding pattern on this project,” or “I don’t want that meeting to be a no-hitter” might make total sense to us, but not everyone. Especially in large groups, outstanding communicators speak in ways that everyone can understand.

    In corporate settings or any kind of mixed group, it’s important to recognize that not everyone will understand your sports or movie references, even if they are from popular movies such as Die Hard or The Godfather. Those who don’t can easily end up feeling lost in the conversation because they simply aren’t familiar with the terminology.

    When with friends or a homogenous group, where you’re sure everyone is familiar with your reference, that’s one thing. But making references to our favorite movie, show, celebrity or sport without recognizing that not everyone in the room will know what we’re talking about. When this happens, you run the risk that an audience member will feel ignorant or unworthy, then disengage or check out because they don’t feel included in the conversation. Find literal ways to say what you mean.

    Related: 4 Expert-Backed Strategies for Improving Your Communication Skills

    2. Gross generalizations

    As a society, we love to generalize. We’ll say things like “this happens a ton,” “everyone feels this way,” or “she’s acting crazy.” If you’re using a word that’s open to interpretation, find a better word. Generalizations are rarely helpful or accurate.

    If you’re trying to estimate how long something will take, try to narrow it down to a specific amount of hours, days or weeks. If you want to discuss how commonplace something is, find data on how many people are actually affected by it. If you’re describing someone’s behavior, see if you can detail it in a specific and objective way, instead of a subjective way. Don’t just call something a terrible experience — describe what specifically made it so terrible.

    Words like “a ton,” “a lot,” “everyone” or “crazy” have different meanings to different people. When we can report data and discuss situations with language that’s specific and measurable, it’s less likely that our words will be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Our problem statements, pain points or proposed solutions become factual and based on data, not just “gut feel.” True professionals and mature adults communicate this way, so there’s never any confusion. People respect it far more, too.

    Related: The Biggest Communication Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make

    3. Excessive analogies and metaphors

    Analogies and metaphors have a place in speech, especially if you’re confident that your audience will understand. When you insert an analogy or metaphor into a conversation, it should serve a purpose. This is the case when you draw a comparison of something that’s well understood to something that’s less well understood.

    However, the overuse of analogies and metaphors can be distracting. Each time you make one, you’re asking your audience to travel somewhere else in their minds, which takes them away from what’s going on at the moment. Those who constantly liken one thing to another also run the risk of avoiding simple and straightforward communication.

    If you’re always finding the need to compare and contrast things for the sake of explanation, then there’s a chance you don’t understand the current situation well enough or feel comfortable talking about it directly. This can be especially dangerous when comparing two people together. Saying “Rick is just like Sarah” might sound innocent enough, but Rick is not Sarah. He’s his own person, and chances are, they’re not exactly alike. Saying two people or things are the same is a great way for us to ignore and really appreciate what makes them different. Valuing differences is such an important part of leadership and teamwork.

    Related: 7 Leadership Communication Blunders That Could Make or Break Your Company

    4. Buzzwords

    Buzzwords are a great way to say something without really saying much at all. We’ll insert them into conversation regularly, saying “I don’t like any of these proposed solutions; let’s think outside the box” or “You can’t talk to John about this; he’s been drinking the Kool-Aid.” There’s almost always a more illustrative or descriptive way of describing something. Saying “think outside the box” conjures up imagines of being more innovative or creative, but it doesn’t really address what’s wrong with the proposed solutions.

    For most, especially if you have a diverse group, it would be more helpful to say: “I’m worried that these ideas are focused on the short-term, and they center on things we’ve already done. What if we took a totally different approach with this strategy by focusing more on how we expect our clients to shift their use of digital technology over the next five years?”

    Saying “drinking the Kool-Aid” probably implies that John is very dialed into the status quo or current direction, but it doesn’t address why or what should be done about it. For most, it would be more helpful to say: “I know he’s very supportive of the current initiative, especially since he was here for the pilot. Let’s try to explore alternatives with him by asking him some open-ended questions, especially about the risks of this approach and what could go wrong.” Now, you’re actually communicating how you feel, what you think and what you’d like the future to look like, instead of allowing everyone to draw their own conclusions.

    Remember, when you’re communicating, it’s for the benefit of your audience, not yourself. Avoiding these four parts of speech help you from alienating, losing or confusing others whose brains work differently than yours. That will allow you to be more effective with your message, which is what we all want.

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    Amy M Chambers

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  • 7 Ways to Retain Employees

    7 Ways to Retain Employees

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Employees are the backbone of any successful business. Replacing an employee can be a painful experience, especially for small businesses and entrepreneurs that have small teams. Employee turnover can result in the loss of valuable knowledge and expertise, damage customer relationships and cost thousands of dollars to find and train a replacement. The cost to hire and train a single mid-level manager is nearly $30,000. Each year, employee turnover costs U.S. businesses about $1 trillion. Here are some ways businesses can reduce turnover rates and improve employee retention.

    1. Start with compensation and benefits

    Employees expect to be compensated well for the work they perform. Companies that fail to remain competitive will struggle to retain their top talent. Although wages and bonuses are important factors in compensation, businesses should also explore opportunities to enhance other forms of compensation such as health insurance, life insurance, vacation policies and 401k contributions. Even non-monetary perks such as having an on-site gym or time off for volunteer activities can boost employee satisfaction and retention.

    Related Article: 7 Tips for Making Quality Business Decisions

    2. Employee recognition and praise

    Employees want to be recognized for their contributions. Business owners should take the time to reward and recognize the members of their team who are bringing their best. Different forms of recognition are effective, from sending a personalized note thanking them for their work on a special project or giving a gift card for helping another department. Public praise can also be effective such as giving out awards during a company meeting.

    3. Provide career development opportunities

    Career development is a critical part of employee retention. Employees who consistently feel challenged will be more likely to stay with a company. Find ways to give your top performers stretch assignments and promotions. Training such as educational courses and mentorship programs can provide an opportunity to enhance your existing staff while preparing them for their next opportunity.

    Related: This Is How to Boost Employee Retention With Lifelong Learning

    4. Provide the right resources and tools

    Employers are responsible for making sure that their employees have everything they need to be successful in their jobs. Skimping on these resources can leave employees feeling underappreciated, burned out and frustrated. Resources come in many forms, from hiring the appropriate number of employees to support the work to updating technology and improving processes.

    5. Promote healthy work-life balance

    Work-life balance is extremely important to most employees and can impact turnover. According to the Pew Research Center, 45% of employees left their jobs because of not enough flexibility in their work schedule, and 39% left because they were working too many hours. Giving employees the ability to balance work and their home lives reduces stress and allows them to take care of personal issues that would otherwise distract them from their work.

    Businesses can help support healthier work-life balance by permitting employees to work remotely (either full-time or part-time), create flexible work schedules and have more sick or personal time available.

    Related Article: How to Regain Work-Life Balance

    6. Hire the right people the first time

    Although this might seem like common sense, this is easier said than done. Rapid changes in the economy and workforce can leave companies desperate to fill open positions. It might be tempting to just hire any halfway qualified candidate. Unfortunately, this can increase turnover for both new and existing employees. New employees may leave quickly when they aren’t able to keep up with the demands of the job. Existing employees may also become burned out from constantly training new hires over and over.

    Instead, try to hold out for the best possible candidate for your open position. Also, being clear about expectations upfront can help reduce the number of employees who accept the position only to quit shortly after because the job wasn’t what they were expecting.

    Related Article: How Entrepreneurs Can Find Great Talent Despite a Labor Shortage

    7. Get feedback from your team

    Employees leave companies for a wide variety of reasons. One of the best ways to reduce turnover is by getting feedback directly from employees on how they feel about working for the company. Too many companies gather this type of information in exit interviews. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help because the employee has already chosen to leave. Instead, conduct stay interviews with top performers to find out what would keep them from looking outside the company for new opportunities. Anonymous employee satisfaction surveys can also provide a wealth of information to help business owners make retention decisions.

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    Nicholas Leighton

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  • Why Leaders Must Learn to Forgive and Forget

    Why Leaders Must Learn to Forgive and Forget

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The year was 1980. I sat in the august anteroom of one of the nation’s leading private foundations waiting to meet its CEO, a man who possessed the resources to provide much-needed financial resources to the small, nonprofit art and design college I’d recently founded. With barely 100 students at the time, SCAD was a scrappy, young startup and needed all the financial support we could get. Even to have landed an appointment with this powerful man was, in its own way, a victory. Every year, his foundation contributed millions of dollars to other nonprofit art organizations and institutions of higher learning. I had a strong case to make for SCAD and the evidence to back it up, including our first SCAD catalog, which I’d written and published myself.

    I believed SCAD would change the world and transform higher education in the process, with our mission to prepare students for creative professions and rewarding lifelong careers. The term “creator economy” would not be coined for many decades yet, but I already saw this idea clearly in my mind and hoped to share that vision with this powerful man. Unfortunately, the meeting did not go as planned. I had been in his office for fewer than 10 minutes when he curtly informed me our conversation was over — and promptly ushered me out.

    Related: 8 Steps to Move Away From the Past You Need to Leave Behind

    Grudges do not serve leaders

    I learned many valuable lessons from that brief encounter, including, for example, that established institutions, even those that claim to champion progress and innovation, are quite often threatened by startups. And I learned that grudges do not serve leaders. I privately forgave the powerful CEO for his obvious antipathy and resolved to move on, emboldened to build our young startup into the most innovative and creative university on the planet.

    “Don’t get sad, get even,” Taylor Swift croons on Midnights. She cuts a mean pop hit, but resentment has no place in business. “Truly transformational leaders are acutely aware of the cost of animosity,” notes business writer Manfred Kets de Vries. “[H]olding grudges holds people back.”

    Where would Apple be now, had Steve Jobs felt spite against the company that fired him in 1985 and then begged to hire him back 12 years later? Jobs might have enjoyed hurling a rotten Granny Smith in the faces of his detractors when they made the comeback offer. Instead, he chose to move forward and saved thousands of jobs, created new products as revolutionary as Gutenberg’s press and revived an iconic brand into what is now the world’s most valuable company.

    Related: Why Forgiveness Plays a Huge Role in Stress Reduction

    The power of forgiveness

    On a more practical level, studies have shown that in the workplace, letting go of grudges (i.e., forgiveness) highly correlates to increased productivity. “There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed,” says Dr. Karen Swartz, director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Forgiving and moving on from recent (and not-so-recent) hurts has been linked to a lower risk of heart attack, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and stress. Forgiveness often cures what Big Pharma cannot.

    “Forgive and forget,” the old adage says. Forgetting possesses its own special power. Wallowing in one’s mistakes serves little purpose. While a glut of recent commencement speeches focus on the power of failure, I recommend the precise opposite. Forget failure — literally. Jettison bad memories! Focus instead on past successes. Where did you choose rightly? When did you nail a pitch? What big bets have paid off? Duplicate and amplify those victories. Leaders who look backward and see only failure fail to prepare for the challenges ahead.

    Speaking of forgiving and forgetting … this lesson can also help you build a brilliant team. Over the years, I’ve seen a few of our most talented leaders and professors resign and take jobs with competing universities. How easy it would have been to take these departures personally! But when good people leave, I always make it clear that they’re welcome back to SCAD any time. According to LinkedIn, “boomerang” hires, as they’re now called, accounted for nearly 5% of all new hires in 2021. In the last year alone, SCAD has recruited and rehired no fewer than 20 former employees — a veritable host of familiar faces who know our culture, our policies and our mission on day one.

    Related: What Being Embezzled Out of $5 Million Taught Me About Forgiveness and Moving on

    Move forward

    No leader in world history has ever been served by resentment. Clearly, that foundation president from so long ago held his own grudges and found great pleasure in dismissing me from his office so unceremoniously. He wanted to discourage me, to dishearten me. For the sake of our 53,000 alumni, 16,500 students and 2,000 employees, I’m glad he didn’t.

    Today, SCAD operates three accredited university locations and four world-class museums on two continents and proudly proclaims a 99% employment rate for our graduates (for five years straight!). Antipathies do more than slow you down: they take you backward. Let go of hurts, keep your heart open, and watch your company go where I’ve been looking all my life: up, up and up.

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    Paula Wallace

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  • Who Is FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried? Net Worth, Arrest and More

    Who Is FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried? Net Worth, Arrest and More

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    Sam Bankman-Fried started the cryptocurrency exchange FTX in 2019 at watched it all come crashing down in 72 hours.


    Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

    Bankman-Fried was once seen as the King of Crypto. He promised big returns for customers and investors and even tried to help the government impose regulations on the industry. That was until crypto giant Binance expressed concerns over FTX’s financial stability and falling crypto prices sparked a bank run, revealing FTX and its sister company Alameda Research were suspiciously working together to pay off debts, according to The New York Times — and leaving an $8 billion hole in its accounts.

    FTX attracted major investors including SoftBank and BlackRock and boasted celebrity endorsements from the likes of Tom Brady and Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal. Still, the company’s low-risk, high-reward business model appeared almost too good to be true. And it was.

    In the wake of the FTX collapse, between $1 billion and $2 billion in client money has gone unaccounted for, according to Reuters.

    SBF has since been arrested and charged with several counts of fraud, and prosecutors say he orchestrated “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.” He could face up to 115 years in prison.

    While the crypto scandal is still unfolding, here’s everything to know about Bankman-Fried.

    Who Is Sam Bankman-Fried?

    Before Sam Bankman-Fried was embroiled in the FTX scandal, he was known as a rising crypto wiz and an academic standout.

    Also known simply as “SBF,” Bankman-Fried was raised in California by his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, who were both Stanford University law professors, according to Reuters. He excelled in mathematics and went on to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2014.

    How Did SBF Make His Money?

    After graduation, Bankman-Fried worked for Jane Street Capital in New York City, where he traded currencies, futures, and exchange-traded funds. SBF stayed with the company for three years before leaving to start his own crypto trading firm, Alameda Research, in 2017 when he was 25 years old.

    Related: Who Is Caroline Ellison, Stanford Grad and Former CEO of Alameda Research?

    Alameda was based in Hong Kong and turned a profit by taking advantage of the price differences in Bitcoin around the world. The company would purchase Bitcoin in Asia and sell it elsewhere, in order to pocket the currency difference, per The New York Times.

    Although Alameda operated much like a traditional Wall Street firm, it had no regulatory oversight, which scared investors, the outlet reported. To help generate revenue for Alameda’s trades, SBF launched a cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, in 2019, which greatly benefited from the increased demand for crypto.

    The company was valued at $32 billion in January 2022, according to CNBC.

    SBF discussed crypto regulations and testified in front of Congress in December 2021, detailing his then-supposed willingness to add regulations to the industry, something typically feared by crypto-enthusiasts. Despite facing legal troubles for the FTX collapse, SBF said that helping to regulate the industry is still important to him in an interview with The New York Times.

    What Is Sam Bankman-Fried’s Net Worth?

    Just days before Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire collapsed, he had an estimated net worth of $15.6 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. After his fortune plummeted, he was left with $1 billion. The 94% drop in his wealth is among the biggest one-day collapses the tracker has ever seen.

    At his peak, SBF was worth an estimated $26.5 billion, with most of his money tied up in his companies.

    Earlier this year, SBF pledged to give away 99% of his fortune to charitable organizations, and his FTX Foundation has donated over $190 million to several causes including animal welfare and global poverty, according to Vox. SBF also outlined his charitable intentions in a post to the Giving Pledge website, which has since been removed.

    Image credit: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    What Is FTX and What Went Wrong?

    FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that worked in close collaboration with Alameda Research.

    In addition to charging customers to trade on the platform, FTX created the FTT token, which was mainly bought and sold by Alameda on the exchange, per The New York Times. As the token’s main market marker, it was allowed to set the price for the token at a big discount, attracting people to the platform with promises of a high return on their investment.

    The business model attracted major investors including Softbank and Blackrock, in addition to several celebrity entrepreneurs, including Gwyneth Paltrow and baseball star David Ortiz.

    However, FTX’s close workings with Alameda went under the radar, including SBF’s reported romantic relationship with Caroline Ellison, who worked as Alameda’s co-CEO with Sam Trabucco.

    According to an SEC filing, Ellison said she and others were aware Alameda had been using FTX customer funds.

    “During a meeting with Alameda employees on or about November 9, 2022, Ellison admitted that she, Bankman-Fried, Wang, and Singh were aware that FTX customer funds had been used by Alameda,” the complaint reads.

    Ellison has yet to be charged in the case.

    Together, FTX and Alameda provided billions in funding to 246 crypto companies, but despite SBF’s push for more crypto, investors started to back out as a result of fluctuating crypto prices and withdrew funds from their accounts.

    As Alameda struggled to pay back its lenders, it began to use customer funds deposited in FTX to pay back its investors. FTX reportedly lent an estimated $10 billion of customer funds to Alameda.

    Then, in a last-ditch effort to save Alameda, Binance proposed a deal to buy the company, but it fell through after analyzing FTX’s books, according to The New York Times. After Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao announced he would sell his FTT tokens due to fears concerning the company’s financial stability, he sparked panic and traders withdrew $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours.

    The bank run exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX and Alameda’s accounts.

    After struggling to raise more capital for the business, FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022. SBF announced he’s be stepping down as CEO that same day and would be replaced by lawyer John J. Ray III.

    What Did Sam Bankman-Fried Do and Why Was He Arrested?

    U.S. prosecutors have accused Sam Bankman-Fried of defrauding FTX customers by misappropriating funds to pay debts and expenses for its sister company Alameda Research. According to prosecutors, SBF also provided false and misleading information to investors, in addition to attempting to hide his earnings through wire fraud, according to The New York Times.

    SBF was arrested in the Bahamas at his apartment complex after the United States filed criminal charges against him on December 12, stating they were “likely to request his extradition,” the government of the Bahamas said in a statement to the outlet. He is facing criminal charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering.

    Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission has authorized charges “relating to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s violations of our securities laws.”

    So far, SBF is the only person charged in the indictment.

    What Is Sam Bankman-Fried Saying in the Wake of the FTX Collapse?

    After FTX imploded, Sam Bankman-Fried has been vocal about what transpired.

    Just one day before the company filed bankruptcy, SBF took to Twitter to issue a public apology.

    Additionally, he suggested that poor internal organization contributed to their inability to return funds to customers.

    Furthermore, SBF said he “did not ever try to commit fraud” at the DealBook Summit on November 30, stating he “screwed up” and failed to protect his customers. He claims to have been truthful following the FTX fallout, stating, “I don’t know of times when I lied.”

    He went on to issue an interview with The New York Times, telling the outlet, “It could be worse.” He explained that he didn’t realize how much borrowing was going on between FTX and Alameda, and the significant risk it posed. Additionally, SBF blamed himself for not seeing trouble ahead.

    “Had I been a bit more concentrated on what I was doing, I would have been able to be more thorough,” he said. “That would have allowed me to catch what was going on on the risk side.”

    Prior to his arrest, SBF told the NYT he was “working constructively with regulators, bankruptcy officials, and the company to try to do what’s best for consumers.”

    Image credit: (Photo by Mario Duncanson / AFP) (Photo by MARIO DUNCANSON/AFP via Getty Images)

    What Is Next for Sam Bankman-Fried?

    Following his arrest, Bankman-Fried has been at Fox Hill prison in Nassau, Bahamas, and was denied bail. He has agreed to be extradited to the U.S., and a judge ordered his extradition hearing to be held on Feb. 8, 2023, per CoinDesk. Once he is back on U.S. soil, he will be arraigned in Federal District Court in Manhattan and face a bail hearing.

    But sources close to the case told CNN he may return to the States sooner and will be seeking bail to hopefully avoid detention.

    In addition to the criminal charges SBF is facing, he is also dealing with a class action lawsuit claiming that the celebrities who endorsed FTX, including Kevin O’Leary and Gisele Bundchen, were engaging in deceptive practices to “induce confidence and to drive consumers to invest in what was ultimately a Ponzi scheme,” according to the lawsuit.

    It’s possible SBF could work out a deal that includes both his criminal and civil cases, Reuters reported. Additionally, prosecutors will ask for restitution for those who lost money in the collapse.

    Prior to Bankman-Fried’s arrest, he was supposed to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee about the FTX collapse.

    “The American public deserves to hear directly from Mr. Bankman-Fried about the actions that’ve harmed over one million people,” Representative Maxine Waters, who chairs the committee, said in a statement, per NYT. “The public has been waiting eagerly to get these answers under oath before Congress, and the timing of this arrest denies the public this opportunity.”

    The hearing went ahead without SBF, and FTX’s new CEO John Ray spoke in his place. He called the relationship between Alameda and FTX “old-fashioned embezzlement” and blamed the collapse and financial fallout on the “absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company entrusted with other people’s money or assets.”

    His testimony went on for four hours, stating he is in the process of getting to the bottom of the scandal and figuring out how to repay lenders and customers. However, the unorganization at FTX has made that a challenge.

    “Even with most failed companies, we have a fair roadmap of what happened,” Ray said, adding, “We’re dealing with a literal paperless bankruptcy.”

    When asked what role SBF would play in the company going forward, Ray responded: “Zero.”

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    Sam Silverman

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  • How to Fight Through the Holiday Slowdown

    How to Fight Through the Holiday Slowdown

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Were you like me when you started on your journey as an entrepreneur? You’d get to around mid-November and find yourself frustrated because all momentum seemed to grind to a halt. Your suppliers take longer to deliver. Your clients don’t return your calls or emails for weeks, and there hangs in the air a feeling that nothing is going on (apart from present shopping, of course).

    The Christmas season slowdown has begun!

    This infuriated me as a young man trying to make his way into the business world. Why does everybody just down tools and give up for the year?!

    There’s a general sense that December is a write-off as people slow down and look to the new year. But what is that about? Why do we have this collective agreement, and what can we do about it as frustrated “go-getters”?

    The first thing to recognize is that this is a collective agreement — even Christmas is just that. We see it as the time of the year when we take a break during the cold. Ultimately though, the reason why we all engage in traditional behaviors around this time is purely that we’ve all agreed to.

    Related: 6 Ways to Keep Employees Engaged During the Holiday Season

    Collective agreements

    Everything is really a collective agreement in our society. Most of us agree to:

    • Work
    • Pay our taxes
    • The rule of law
    • Abide by the results of elections (mostly!)
    • Participate in traditions & the conventions of society

    There are clear reasons why we do agree to these things. We understand, for example, that there will be consequences to breaking the law, but it’s still just an agreement.

    We are all free agents within our realm. If you want to get home, strip off and cover yourself in hot sauce…you can. I wouldn’t advise it, but you can.

    But in that (admittedly ridiculous) example, by not doing so, you’re still abiding by the collective agreement that your family would probably deem you to be a danger to yourself and others and also that it would be physically unpleasant.

    Our business practices are the same way. We generally agree that there are specific ways of conducting oneself when onboarding a new client, for example, or when conducting meetings. Contractual obligations are another very literal agreement that we enter into with an understanding of the consequences should either party not fulfill their obligations.

    So why would the Christmas season slow down be any different?

    It does seem like something people assume to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. Like rock formations or aurora borealis. “Well, we’re all getting into the Christmas slowdown at work now. It’s just what happens, isn’t it?”

    But it’s not! It’s only a thing because we think it is.

    The truth is that you don’t have to abide by it if you don’t want to. It’s a relatively harmless agreement, after all. Instead of being frustrated like I used to be, though, think of ways that you can mitigate the impact on your business by shifting how you operate.

    Related: How to Create Trust and Keep Motivation High at Your Company

    Use December to take care of all those tasks that get put off during the rest of the year. Work on your preparedness for the upcoming year by reaching out to clients and asking them for feedback, for example. Or you could make those updates to the website you’ve been grumbling about since 2020.

    More than just housekeeping tasks, though, you could also use the time to work on yourself!

    If you’re finding the stress of running a business is getting to you, now is the time to interrogate that and find out what you can do about it. Start working mindfulness practices into your daily routine. Learn to listen to what your mind and body are telling you.

    Read More: 5 Text Messaging Tips for Businesses to Succeed in 2023

    If you’re at that precarious stage of business ownership, where you’re trying to focus on growth but also having to do the work, now is the time to sit down and determine how you will correct that. Get a roadmap together for next year that you can (and crucially: will) follow.

    It’s easy to see the Christmas holidays as a wind down to a final destination, but there is something on the other side! And it would be best if you prepared for it. Come out of the “new year’s gate” swinging, and you’ll steal a march on your competition. Moreover, your existing and prospective clients will see that energy and what a piece of it!

    The ultimate truth about the Christmas season slowing down is that you don’t have to participate. Others can sign up for that collective agreement if they want to, but you can use it to your advantage simply by reframing the situation.

    Happy holidays everyone.

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    Daniel Mangena

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  • Free Guide: Investing in Health Pays Back

    Free Guide: Investing in Health Pays Back

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    Hear from leaders prioritizing people-first places.

    While the benefits of people-first practices have long been established in public health and building science research, recent studies show organizations that make strategic investments in health see strong economic returns.

    We summarized the research to inform better decisions for your business.

    IWBI’s research review examines the business case for investing in health. Whether you are interested in how healthy buildings can strengthen your real estate returns or want to dive into the science behind improved productivity and performance ⁠— the review has something for everybody.

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  • The Recipe For Making a Customer For Life: Personalization, Quality, and Care

    The Recipe For Making a Customer For Life: Personalization, Quality, and Care

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Behind the Review host and Yelp’s Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick, shares a look at this week’s episode of the podcast.


    Boite de Fleurs

    To some customers, the decision to purchase from a small business rather than a big retailer comes down to something very simple—the experience they have in the store. Due to their size, small businesses have the advantage of being able to build deeper relationships with their customers through exceptional service or a customized product.

    Tina Y., owner of Phoenix floral shop Boite de Fleurs, says her dedication to adding that personalized touch to not only the product but also the shopping experience is what drives her luxury flower business.

    “We make everything curated for the customer who’s ordering it. If they call in and want something specific, even if it takes us a day or two to make sure we get the exact flowers from our vendors, we make sure we do that because we want to deliver a great experience at the end of the day,” she said.

    It was Tina’s genuine care that impressed Yelp reviewer, Reginald M., who went to Boite de Fleurs with his one-year-old son to pick out the perfect Mother’s Day gift for his wife. He says the memory of having the whole store to himself while Reggie Jr. chose the flowers is one he’ll cherish forever—and what cemented his status as a loyal customer.

    “When my son walked in there, they catered to him. He picked out each flower that’s in that arrangement. It was memorable. It’s the kinda things that [mean] I’ll never buy flowers from anyone else.”

    Many small business owners can relate to the origin story of Boite de Fleurs, which Tina started in her garage five years ago. What initially began as a side hustle blossomed into a full business when she opened up her brick-and-mortar store in February 2020, right before the pandemic presented entrepreneurs with unprecedented challenges.

    “Going through the pandemic and not really knowing what to expect or even how long it was going to be and pushing through to actually having a sustainable business for the last three years has been tough,” she said. “But it’s been great at the same time because it’s something I feel like not a lot of people can say that they’ve done or they’ve gone through. That’s not what we were expecting when we first opened up.”

    Despite the obstacles she’s had to overcome in the past few years, Tina’s commitment to customer service has remained constant. She puts meticulous care into everything, from the quality of the product to the delivery process, so that each order is exactly what the customer has envisioned.

    “To me, that’s what it’s all about: making sure I can get whatever it is that the customer wants,” she said. “I just feel like that’s what people want nowadays. Everybody wants something specific, whether they’ve seen it online or somewhere else, or someone else has gotten something.”

    When a potential customer approaches your small business, a good product might not be all they’re looking for. Providing that memorable experience through customer service that goes above and beyond or a special personalized touch is a solid way to leave a strong impression on clients and keep them coming back.

    In this week’s episode, Tina discussed some other great tips that keep her business flourishing:

    • Responding to all reviews, whether they’re positive or critical, is one way to let your customers know they are valued. Customers will notice when you take the time and effort to respond to feedback. In Reggie’s case, he felt special and heard when Tina responded to his review.
    • Your store’s digital presence can often be a potential customer’s first impression of your business. Especially in this day and age, a majority of your customers will find your business through social media or an online review platform like Yelp. Uploading eye-catching photos and accurate information on your social media platforms and review sites can inspire someone’s decision to choose your small business over your competitors.
    • Make sure the quality of your product justifies a higher price point. Many customers won’t mind paying extra for an experience and product that reflects the care and attention that goes into each purchase, especially when it comes to special occasions.

    Listen to the episode below to hear from Tina and Reginald, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.

    Available on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Soundcloud

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    Emily Washcovick

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  • 6 Values That Define a Healthy Workplace Culture

    6 Values That Define a Healthy Workplace Culture

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    Here are six values that I use to cultivate a healthy culture in the workplace.

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    Justin A Staples

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  • 9 Ways To Grow Your Small Business Through Social Media Marketing

    9 Ways To Grow Your Small Business Through Social Media Marketing

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Small businesses have increasingly relied on social media marketing to reach customers, create brand awareness and drive sales over the past decade. Whether you’re just starting or have been in business for years, social media marketing can help your small business reach its full potential. You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars in marketing to grow your customer base and succeed with social media marketing — you need to use it strategically and effectively. To help you grow your small business through social media marketing, we’ve put together this list of nine tips you can use in your next campaign.

    Related: 5 Components Your Content Marketing Strategy Needs

    1. Decide which platform is best for your business

    Social media is a great place to start if you’re thinking about branching out and exploring new marketing avenues. Instagram is an excellent way for businesses with visual products (like clothing or jewelry) to showcase their work. Twitter can be a powerful tool for building relationships and customer service. Facebook is the most popular platform on the web, so it’s worth experimenting with. Not only can you create a Facebook page for your company and post updates, but you can also build a community around it by liking pages related to your work. This will bring in new followers who are interested in your industry.

    2. Develop a social media calendar

    Start by researching your competition on all the major social media platforms. Look for what they’re doing, how often they post and what their posts look like. By reviewing their work, you’ll be able to determine if you want to emulate them or branch out on your own. Once you’ve found a strategy that works for you, create an editorial calendar with specific day-to-day tasks and goals outlined. You should be updating your social channels throughout the week rather than just once per week. Posting more often keeps people interested and leads them back to your site.

    3. Recognize when it’s time to pivot

    You might have successfully used a certain method or strategy in the past, but there may come a time when it no longer works or becomes ineffective. If this happens, don’t be afraid to switch gears and try something new that might work better for your company today.

    Related: When to Pivot Your Business — and When You Should Just Quit

    4. Stay up-to-date on trends

    One of the best things you can do for your business is to stay in tune with what’s happening in the digital world. Read blogs, magazines, books and publications about new technologies and innovations that will be relevant to your industry. Join groups, attend events and network with others working in the field so that you can stay current on which consumers are using new channels.

    5. Take advantage of live video

    Live video is a great way to engage with customers, respond quickly and provide a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in your office. It’s also a great way to offer quick tutorials, or an inside peek at the day-to-day workings of your company. If you’re struggling with content ideas, try using live video as a time filler while you think of something else to say.

    Related: Why More Brands Are Going Live With Their Videos (and Why You Should, Too)

    6. Host a contest or giveaway

    Create a contest or giveaway that is centered around your product or service. Make it simple and easy for people to enter by using a form on your website. You can run this contest or giveaway on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. If you are giving away a physical prize like a t-shirt or mug, ensure the shipping is included in the item’s price. Consider setting up a timeline with milestones so customers can see how they’re progressing through the different levels of the competition. Let them know how many more entries they need to get before they reach their next milestone. For example, when a customer has five entries, tell them they need ten more to win a shirt!

    7. Collaborate with other businesses or influencers

    Collaborating with other companies or influencers can be a great way to leverage one another’s following and increase exposure for both parties. The key is finding a pairing that makes sense and is relevant to the industry. For example, if you have a beauty salon, partnering with a hairstylist would make more sense than partnering with an accountant. Not only are they in different industries, but they also don’t target the exact demographics of people. Other companies that may pair well with yours include those in similar fields, such as trade show vendors, suppliers and manufacturers.

    Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works

    8. Take advantage of paid advertising

    Social media advertising is a cost-effective way to drive traffic and increase conversions on your website. Facebook ads, Twitter ads and Instagram ads are all great ways of reaching an audience that might not otherwise come across your content. Targeting based on location, interests, demographics and more allows you to reach the people most likely interested in your offer! If you’re using Facebook or Twitter ads, make sure you set up conversion tracking to see which campaigns are working best for your goals. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Universal Analytics if you’re using Instagram ads to track how many users visit your site after clicking on an ad.

    9. Make sure you include strong calls-to-action

    One of the best things about social media marketing is that it allows us to create one call-to-action per post, as opposed to one call-to-action per page (like we would do on our site). It’s essential that you put yourself in the shoes of someone scrolling through their feed — how does this post look from their perspective?

    In conclusion, the most important thing to remember about any business is that it’s a living, breathing entity. One of the best ways to keep your company alive is by using social media as a tool for marketing. Posting on Facebook and Twitter can help you stay visible and fresh in the minds of potential clients. You should also use other platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn or Google+ if they fit your company’s needs.

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    Murali Nethi

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  • What Millennials and Gen Z Users Expect from Their Online Experiences — and How to Give It to Them

    What Millennials and Gen Z Users Expect from Their Online Experiences — and How to Give It to Them

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Time is the catalyst to change. Whether it is a push for new standards, a sudden switch in trends or new ideas that pertain to established rhetoric, time is never static. In the UI/UX digital design world, innovation and industry standards are ever-changing, and designers and developers are often seeking new modes of ingenuity to enhance experiences and digital products. With the change in preferences, come new generations of users who are more vocal about the changes and standards they wish to have within a design.

    We are living in an epoch in which our society is saturated in everything digital, thus standing out from the crowd has become a new angle of competitive marketing, and the greatest asset is the newest generations that are attuned to not wasting time on a web design or digital interface that does not propel their experience. Younger generations of users that have grown up with exposure to the online world — millennials or Gen Z users specifically — have higher standards for their online experiences, and ensuring your brand matches their energy with experiential and human-centric digital products is what is allowing companies to have that competitive edge. How then, can brands design their websites, mobile applications and even copy to align with a newer generation of users? Frankly, it begins with paying attention to your target audience.

    Related: Good Design is Good Business

    Convenience is key

    Modern digital ecosystems are made to be quick, convenient and highly usable to boost the overall experience. For newer generations of users, these three features are instantly noticeable, and if it lacks one of the three, that is also highly noticeable, which can sway your users away from a design. The online world has postured many users to expect speed in every digital product they engage with as today’s attention span to these digital experiences is reportedly around 8 seconds. If their interest isn’t captured within that small window, many users will seek an alternative that quells their impatience. Further, the modern user expects any website to be responsive to mobile or tablet, for immediate results on the go. In fact, 55% of worldwide online visits come from mobile, as opposed to 43% that come from desktop interactions.

    Thus, ensuring that your brand’s online presence is made for mobile is a key factor that shouldn’t be placed on the back burner. Modern audiences expect their searches to extend to mobile and be fully usable as they would on a desktop. No matter the services offered, information shared or ecommerce products sold, your website should be highly responsive to any propel conversations and be in tune with modern expectations. If your website caters to an ecommerce platform, ensuring your users are able to browse, shop and check out without interruption is pivotal. Further, ensuring that your visual hierarchy is built for mobile will also seamlessly make an impactful experience. Lastly, certifying that your content — whether visual or readable — is easily digestible and straight to the point is what modern users prefer most.

    The influence of social media

    It’s no secret that the rise of social media has not only greatly shifted our daily interactions but our exposure to new brands as well. Currently, many social media outlets carry themselves as tools to communicate with others. However, as of late, it has an opaque undercurrent of marketing strategies, ecommerce and overall brand recognizability. For newer generations of users, social media is a huge part of their everyday interactions and mode of information sharing. Many established legacy brands have emphasized their presence on social media to drive engagement and brand awareness.

    In fact, 88% of companies have hired at least one social media coordinator because of the opportunities it brings forth and the audiences they are aiming to appeal to. Social media outlets allow for faster communication with modern-day users and for ecommerce purposes. When brands engage with their users on social media platforms, it builds a level of authenticity and trust because of these more casual forms of business-to-consumer communication strategies to answer questions or simply converse about their brand.

    With a whopping 78% of Gen Z users and 67% of Millennial users utilizing social media to discover and learn more about brands, attaining a strong online presence has become just as important as having a website online. Social media has become a portal for brands to utilize these “casual” platforms to boost their sales conversions to newer generations of users. Your website needs to easily have modes for users to find your social media platforms and vice versa. If a brand is discovered through social platforms, it is key that the excitement they felt there carries out to your website.

    Related: The Business of Harnessing the Power of Social Media

    A positive experience in and outside of social media interactions is highly valuable to modern users. It is important to remember, however, that when interacting with users on social media, your social media posts and voice align with your brand. These further drive brand recognizability. Newer generations of users prefer a casual, more playful tone of engagement on social media, and if that does not align with your brand or translate well to your brand testimony off social media, it could affect your brand identity. Your brand’s overall identity needs to remain authentic, approachable and engaging to appeal to the new generational mode of marketing, design and recognizability.

    A sincere push for accessible experiences

    In our own digital design agency, we have always been advocates for pushing usability and accessibility for all users, as it should never be an afterthought. Yet not all websites are created equal. Many brands’ websites still lack full AAA compliance by W3C or do not fully have accessible and inclusive standards for users of all abilities. The modern user, however, is highly perceptive if there is a lack of authenticity when it comes to advocating for full accessibility and inclusivity of users. New generations of users are also much more vocal about disparities in equality and respond better to brands that are authentic and trustworthy — 90% of users, in fact. New users, however, expect these usability practices to be carried out, as opposed to stated in a cover-all blanket statement.

    Related: Inclusion and Accessibility in the Digital Space

    To ensure your digital product is usable to all audiences and highly inclusive, and you practice what you preach, incorporating accessibility tools to your online presence can begin with embedding plug-ins such as AccessiBe or ReciteMe, researching color contrast standards, alt-text and more to be fully inclusive. Inclusivity within copy content is also important to make all demographics of users feel welcomed and represented.

    New generations of users are always going to challenge the status quo and disrupt the established norms for the better, and this has become highly evident in the digital design world. Designing and catering for users should be experimental, usable and modern to align with the times and the audience.

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    Goran Paun

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  • How to Prepare Your Customer Success Teams for the Holidays

    How to Prepare Your Customer Success Teams for the Holidays

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The holiday season is here, and while that might mean family gatherings and hot chocolate for some, for those of us in customer success, it can mean high-intensity and understaffed teams. The last two months of the year tend to be frenzied. Leading up to holiday vacations, clients are rushing to wrap up projects before they’re out of the office, organizations want to utilize the remaining budget for the year, and even those who aren’t taking vacations are rushing to wrap up projects because they know that so many others will be unavailable.

    This can create a lot of pressure for your customer experience teams that these employees turn to during this season — not only because your teams will have to deftly help clients under stress, but because your teams might also be trying to prep for their own holiday vacations or working with a smaller headcount than usual if holidays have already begun. This means both clients and employees can end up unhappy.

    But it’s not too late to be proactive and ensure that your customer success team has a great holiday season. Here are some best practices to help you succeed:

    Related: 6 Ways to Keep Employees Engaged During the Holiday Season

    Before the season begins

    Start early: While talking about the holidays in September might feel silly, at my company, we start talking about them long before they arrive. This is part of our strategy to go into the season with our eyes wide open at every level of the organization. We learned this the hard way two years ago when we underprepared, and our customer success team ended up with a large backlog and frustrated customers.

    When we bring it up early, it gives us time to think through the challenges of the previous year, brainstorm solutions and then actually build the systems needed to implement them. Employees and managers get the chance to share what went right and what didn’t so they can prep on both team and individual levels.

    Talking openly about anticipated staffing needs also gives team members the opportunity to share their vacation plans early. This then helps us anticipate our workforce size more accurately and plan accordingly.

    Use data to plan: Two years ago, we didn’t have solid data from this time period, making it challenging to be prepared both in the moment and the following year. This led to poor staffing, which resulted in poor customer experience. Since then, we have put a lot of effort into creating data analytics and gathering and utilizing data from previous years to understand peak and down times, which in turn helps us optimize staffing.

    Related: Prepare Now So Your Team Can Enjoy the Holidays and Still Be Productive

    During the season

    Within the organization: Once the holidays start, no matter how much you’ve prepped plans and people, the rush can still be overwhelming. We focus on staying in tune with our employees’ sentiments and morale to make sure that we can step in if someone needs a boost or a break.

    On top of that, we try to be proactive in not only fairly compensating people who work special hours, but also in giving everyone recognition for their hard work. It’s true that this is always a priority for us — but especially during the holiday season, it goes an extra-long way.

    To ensure the support team has the resources they need, we have on-call contacts in other key teams so that even when people are out of the office, there’s always someone to turn to, whether it’s IT issues, sales questions or development emergencies. This helps things run smoothly when the support team is dependent on other departments in the organization.

    Outside the organization: During the holidays, we’re open with clients about the fact that responses might be slower than usual between specific dates. Typically, we display banners on our site with this notification. Letting clients and users know what to expect over the course of a few weeks helps them plan their own work and minimizes frustration down the line.

    Related: The Best Leadership Skills for the Holidays

    After the season

    Immediately after the season ends, it’s time to start prepping for the next year. This means taking notes on everything that went right and everything that went wrong while it’s still fresh in our minds. Employees might have had a different experience than our leadership, so we debrief with the teams to get their input on how things went and include that information in our notes, too. If there is any feedback that’s immediately relevant, we work to implement it right away. Otherwise, we store our notes somewhere that will be easy to find next year.

    The holidays can be a challenge, but if you and your team are prepared before, during and after the season, they can also be a tremendous opportunity to delight both customers and staff. So, use these tips to set your team up for success this year.

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    Hila Levy-Loya

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  • How to Create a Work Culture That Will Survive Anything

    How to Create a Work Culture That Will Survive Anything

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In the age of the Great Resignation, executives are in a near-constant battle to attract and retain talent. Paramount to this issue is the importance of company culture. In fact, studies have found that a toxic corporate environment is over 10 times more impactful than compensation when it comes to an employee leaving their job.

    Forward-thinking companies must put the focus back on building and maintaining an engaging, rewarding company culture, to which employees feel empowered to contribute, strengthen, and support for the long haul — especially in times of challenge or change. Such is the definition of “regenerative” — to renew, restore and continuously come back stronger.

    But achieving this means maintaining a people-first mindset and nurturing your employees to be your number one advocates for each other and the company. Here are four fundamentals for building a regenerative workplace culture.

    Related: Your Employees Want Purpose — Not Ping Pong Tables. Here’s How to Thrive Through the Great Resignation.

    Align your employees with company values

    Successful organizations energize employees around core values, referring back to them in times of uncertainty and modeling them for clients, consumers, and the greater good. Establish your values early and explicitly, such that employees can understand them, act on them and identify them in others.

    A consistent and shared appreciation of company values allows your employees to engage with the organization on a deeper level, fostering a professional and personal investment that promotes greater ownership, agency and motivation toward company goals.

    One way to align your team around company values is to acknowledge and uplift them at every opportunity. It’s important to both recognize staff who exemplify company values and create incentives for those who uphold them. Another way is to ensure your company policies both reflect and reinforce your beliefs, thereby giving back to employees and demonstrating your sincerity.

    At NINE dot ARTS, we host regular arts-oriented social activities to lean into our “authentic” and “creative” values, as well as offer ongoing DEIB training and professional development opportunities so employees can embrace our “ethical” and “educational” values.

    When your company’s core tenets help to ground your team in the face of obstacles, guide shared decision-making and galvanize collective action, you will experience the kind of continued growth and affirmation necessary for a regenerative culture.

    Related: 5 Lessons for Early-Stage Entrepreneurs I Wish I Knew

    Focus on human connection

    Values alignment is critical for organizations because it also helps promote employee connection. Thus, it’s essential to create opportunities for your staff to recognize, celebrate and support one another around core beliefs and business goals. And given that approximately 50% of leaders are asking employees to return to an in-office environment, such connections may be easier than you think.

    In fact, despite the rise of office perks like ping pong tables or deluxe coffee drinks, new research by Enboarder found that 60% of respondents feel the most valuable element of working in an office is the opportunity for spontaneous interactions with coworkers. Other top activities from which employees derived the strongest feelings of connection were team meetings, one-on-ones and skill sharing with peers.

    Such findings mean good news for employers because these activities aren’t anything new. There’s no need for special events or unique “connection-building” programs. Instead, incentivizing staff to collaborate in person through simple meetings, coffee dates and even serendipitous interactions may be just the key to strengthening overall connections.

    And when the connection is strong, the research found, employee productivity, satisfaction and retention are strong , too — all contributing to a regenerative culture.

    Related: Here’s the Secret to Improving Employee Engagement That Every Company Can Afford

    Promote employee agency

    As a longtime entrepreneur and business leader, I truly believe that diverse, hard-working individuals who unite around shared values can produce new innovations and outstanding results.

    This begins in the hiring process. One of the greatest lessons learned in my career is to hire for your deficits. After all, even the best leaders have blind spots. Bringing together fresh perspectives, diverse life experiences and a range of expertise can make your organization stronger as a whole, helping to prevent siloed thinking, promote ingenuity and hold everyone accountable. And when diverse specialists share common values and feel connected to one another and your mission, the potential is endless.

    Further, knowing you have committed, specialized team members who balance each other out can allow you to delegate with trust and confidence, giving employees the agency they (and you) need to improve your organization.

    For instance, our employees create topical task forces around our core principles, presenting recommendations to leadership about policy changes in these areas — from sustainability measures to artist advocacy efforts. Meanwhile, with the support of leadership, employees are emboldened to take initiative on operational innovations, creating efficiencies and improvements that benefit our business success.

    Such employee agency is critical for seeing the kind of sustained problem-solving and improvements necessary for regenerative workplace culture.

    Related: Investing in Your Employees Is the Smartest Business Decision You Can Make

    Emphasize education

    Lastly, don’t forget to further your employees’ aspirations — both personal and professional. Oftentimes, employees who seek to enhance a certain skill set, passion or area of expertise will contribute their newfound strengths to your organization in meaningful ways.

    Start by including education in your staff training. For example, at NINE dot ARTS, all new team members complete three Courageous Allyship trainings and each year we have a company-wide session for all employees. This workshop gives our team a shared understanding and language around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging — a core component of our ethos across every department.

    Additionally, provide continuing education stipends to fund workshops, lectures, conferences or other educational endeavors. And let your employees present their learnings from such opportunities to the company as a whole. Promoting your staff’s continuous advancement inspires each individual to have a growth-oriented mindset for themselves and the organization.

    Related: Is Your Employee Engagement Program Up to Snuff?

    Move beyond material perks

    In today’s hiring and retention landscape, we can’t underestimate the impact of workplace culture. Gone are the days when a mini fridge, coffee machine, branded merch or gym membership could entice talent to your organization. Instead, leaders need to focus on the foundational aspects of culture, like values alignment and human connection. Once these are solidified, empower employees to feel ownership, agency and a sense of purpose around their work — and provide educational opportunities to further that purpose. These are the building blocks of a regenerative culture — one that is adaptive, resilient and always improving on what’s been done before.

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    Martha Weidmann

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