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Tag: Business Ideas

  • How to Send a Funding Pitch

    How to Send a Funding Pitch

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Funding round stories are imperative for a startup’s success, especially during an economic downturn. They show the world that there is trust in the business’s longevity as investors believe the company is likely to succeed and provide returns. These announcements also inspire excitement and further emotional investment in the company. However, with journalist response rates decreasing quarter by quarter, it’s getting increasingly difficult to get company news out, especially for funding.

    To determine what will make journalists more likely to open and respond to a pitch, my company, Propel, analyzed approximately 3,500 funding pitches and found three key insights to use in your company’s next pitching strategy:

    Related: Five Ways To Raise Money To Launch Your Own Startup

    1. Use short, attention-grabbing subject lines

    Journalists want to know precisely what they’re going to find when they open up a pitch email, and this is no different when it comes to funding announcements. In fact, out of all the data, we found that funding pitches with subject lines of no more than nine words were opened the most frequently, garnering a 7% response rate. This is huge, especially given that the industry average response rate across all pitching types is just 3.35%.

    One reason is that journalists are inundated with pitches, so the faster they understand a pitch, the better. Many journalists also look at pitch emails on their phones, and with only so much space for so many characters in the subject line, PR pros must be able to quickly and briefly tell the story from the subject line. I recommend putting the name of the company and the funding amount in the subject line so the journalist knows what they’re going to read.

    Related: 7 Headline Writing Formats That Get Journalists to Read Your Pitch

    2. Don’t make the pitch an epic novel

    The adage “short and sweet” also applies to the pitch’s body. We found that pitches between 50-149 words were getting the best response rates at 15%. However, for some reason, we saw that most PR pros were sending funding pitches between 500-1,000 words long. For context, that’s the length of 2-4 word pages double-spaced!

    Journalists don’t have the time or energy to read a novel about the company getting a funding round. Instead, a PR pro should provide enough background information on the company and the budget to get a journalist interested in the story, with the ultimate goal of having them request the press release. That way, they won’t be intimidated by facing a wall of text.

    Related: Why Your Marketing Team Should Be Journalists

    3. Pitch Friday, release mid-week

    As it turns out, the day of the week you pitch a journalist a funding story is just as important as the length of the pitch or subject line. To this end, we found that the days with the most journalist responses to funding pitches occurred on Wednesdays, with 24% of responses occurring on this day. However, we found that the day with the highest likelihood of a pitch getting opened is, perhaps counterintuitively, Friday. Most PR pros had gut feelings that these were the best days to pitch funding news, but now there are hard numbers to back it up.

    While Wednesdays are still great days to pitch and to have press releases released from the embargo, the fact that pitching on Fridays gives you such a high likelihood of getting a response came as a surprise. However, the data shows that only approximately 5% of pitches are sent on Fridays. This means that journalists aren’t inundated with new pitches, so they have the time to read your story idea. 15% of responses happened on Friday, making it the day with the best ratio of pitches to responses.

    Given the worldwide economic slowdown, getting the word out that your organization is stable is more important than ever. One of the best ways to do this is by putting out a funding release, which sends a signal of strength to potential customers and stability to future investors. And by using actionable, data-driven insights, you can enable your funding campaign to reach its maximum potential. I hope that these findings will be used as guideposts for other professionals in the PR industry to enable them to create better pitching strategies and get better results.

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    Zach Cutler

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  • Would You Say No to a $2 Million Investment Offer?

    Would You Say No to a $2 Million Investment Offer?

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    For the seasonal finale of Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch, we saved the most intense negotiation for last. Without giving away too many details, one entrepreneur gets the biggest offer in show history — but it comes with a catch. You’ll have to watch to see what happens.

    A quick review of the rules before we get into the details on this episode rundown: Each week on our show, entrepreneurs are challenged to step into an elevator and pitch their business on camera to a board of investors in 60 seconds or less. If the investors like what they hear, the elevator doors open to reveal the boardroom, and contestants have the chance to walk away with life-changing funding, mentorship from the smartest minds in business and a personal and brand-defining moment.

    Related: What Do You Do When an Investor Suddenly Changes the Terms Mid-Deal?

    Episode 8 Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch board of investors:

    • Swan Sit, Clubhouse influencer and advisor to global brands
    • Brad Woodgate, CEO and founder of No Sugar Company and Joyburst
    • Jacob Peters, founder and managing partner at House Capital

    Episode 8 Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch contestants:

    • Brandon Feinstein of Fit Oven, healthy and hot vending machine meals
    • Grace Patterson and Cristi Fosher of Badkiss, an apparel company with a women’s empowerment message
    • Jonathan Schultz of Backyard Beverage Co., barista-inspired coffee syrups and mixologist-inspired cocktail syrups
    • Jarrod Stoldt of Skin the Tix, an innovative day spa
    • Andrew Lee of Otis Dental, an affordable fix for nighttime teeth grinding

    Related: Watch the Pitch That Landed a $175,000 Investment

    Who wins, and who gets sent down?

    Without exaggeration, this episode features the highest-energy entrepreneurs in show history. But does a great pitch translate to a great product? And be sure to stick around until the end. One entrepreneur gets an offer that blows away the rest in terms of dollars, but is it the right deal that aligns with their vision?

    Thanks for watching this season and be on the lookout for season nine where they’ll be more entrepreneurs, more deals, and more stress in the elevator!

    Season 8 of Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch is brought to you by Amazon Business with support from State Farm and Canon. New episodes stream Wednesdays on entrepreneur.com. Follow Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch on Facebook, YouTube and IGTV.

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • The Ultimate Side Hustle Playbook for Launching Your Consumer Goods Product

    The Ultimate Side Hustle Playbook for Launching Your Consumer Goods Product

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    We spent an afternoon with David Greenfeld, who started Dream Pops out of his family’s kitchen while also working an arduous finance job. David saved up his vacation days and launched the company in two weeks, and the rest is sweet, sweet ice cream victory. His plant-based, naturally sweet treats are now available in Whole Foods, Erewhon, Bristol Farms, and more retailers. His advice might just be the cherry on top of your dream business!


    Dream Pops

    David Greenfield is an expert on launching consumer goods products. Book a 1-on-1 consulting call with David today!

    Related: How to Start a Coffee Shop

    Step 1: Find the Big Idea

    David’s advice: “Ask what’s missing?”

    When you look around at the way you live and the things you love and care about, ask yourself what kind of product would greatly improve your quality of life. What do you wish existed? Bonus points if you belong to a big group of people who feel the same way.

    For David, the thing that was missing was a way to satisfy his sweet tooth. “Working long hours in finance, you find yourself craving a little afternoon treat.” And like many children of the ’80s and ’90s, David craved nostalgic confections like Dibs, Dunkaroos, and Gushers. But as a vegan and lactose-intolerant dude, those weren’t options.

    So he set out to make a product that had the whimsical, snackable allure of these sweets, but without all the artificial sweeteners and dairy. And so, his dream snack, Dream Pops, was born!

    Step 2. Make Your Prototype

    “The early days I was literally in my mom’s kitchen making these products.”

    So many entrepreneurs agonize over every detail of their prototype, but here are two important things your prototype doesn’t need:

    1. Perfect execution from the get-go. You can and should get used to iterating it with feedback.
    2. Instant scalability to 1 million units.

    The most important thing your product does need, however, is to be differentiated in its look and function. David had the vision to build something “equally as beautiful internally as it is externally.” Dream Pops aren’t just delicious, they are architectural, colorful, and unique-looking.

    If you’re prototyping a food product, follow his advice:

    • “Deliver on taste” with simple ingredients.
    • “Make it look cool” with geometric design and unique packaging that stands out

    Step 3. Put your product out there

    Unlike other businesses out there, consumer goods really do make for a great side hustle.

    David spent a year and a half catering events and hosting pop-ups with brands. Well-known brands like Patron, Soul Cycle, and H&M would pay $5K-$10K for a popsicle event. David would listen for real-time feedback and update his formula.

    Did you see the Beats by Dre DreamPops at Coachella?

    Step 4. Scale thoughtfully

    Don’t get lost in the sauce.

    Getting into Target doesn’t make sense right out of the gates. Don’t chase revenue, but consider profitability, product quality, and overall risk.

    Some retailers require you to pay “slotting” where you spend $50K to $100K to be on the shelf for eight months. And, as David shares, “if you don’t perform, you’re out.” The risk is massive and can put you out of business before you have the opportunity to flourish.

    Instead, find independent grocery stores and regional grocers with 3-10 locations. Find partnerships that like supporting local brands. For Dream Pops, Erewhon and Bristol Farms were the perfect partners. Similarly, Stacy’s Pita Chips started at Berkley Bowl and eventually sold the business to PepsiCo for $250 million.

    As demand for your product increases, you’ll have to leave mom’s kitchen!

    David tells us, “Don’t be afraid to ask around. Find experts in your field through friends, family, LinkedIn, Google, you name it. Then you can truly find the best contacts for suppliers and factories.”

    It’s ok to change the way you build your product, but you must know your non-negotiables. For Dream Pops, they keep several promises to customers:

    • Dairy-free, gluten-free, and soy-free
    • No high fructose corn syrup and no artificial ingredients
    • A fun, whimsical brand that delivers on taste

    The integrity of the product should never be compromised.

    Enjoy this article but not sure where to get started? David is available for 1-on-1 video coaching powered by Intro. Book time today! Browse all experts here.

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    Brad Klune

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  • The Must-Have New Christmas Gift Is a Giant Fruit Loop

    The Must-Have New Christmas Gift Is a Giant Fruit Loop

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    Follow your nose, and be sure to bring plenty of milk.

    The Big Fruit Loop just hit the market, a giant 930-calorie single fruit loop that costs $19.99.

    The cereal killer is the latest creation of Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, which specializes in limited-edition “drops” that come out every two weeks. This is the same company that sold Lil Nas X “Satan Shoes” — Nike Air Max 97s with a bronze pentagram, inverted cross, and a drop of real human blood for $1018.

    The shoes sold out in minutes.

    Big Fruit Loop is less controversial, although Kellogg’s isn’t too happy about it. Company spokesperson Kris Bahner told CNN that the “Big Fruit Loop” constitutes “trademark infringement and unauthorized use of our brand,” adding, “we have reached out to the company seeking an amicable resolution.”

    Packaged in a colorful box with images of Toucan Sam choking, Big Fruit Loop promises to be “Part of an Imbalanced Breakfast.” The single blueberry loop tastes like a Fruit Loop, but it contains 870 grams of sodium and 75 grams of sugar.

    “With MSCHF, we are always looking at cultural readymades we can play with,” Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF’s co-founder, told Food & Wine. “Cereal is, of course, one of those things. When looking at the object and thinking about what we could do with it, enlarging it to fit the size of the box seemed too perfect to pass up.”

    Is this some sort of commentary on excessive consumerism?

    Greenberg won’t say. “As always with any MSCHF release, it is up to you to decide,”

    Related: 4 Seasonal Side Hustles to Keep Your Pockets Jingling

    A successful business model?

    MSCHF’s funny stunt art has them laughing all the way to the bank. In addition to Satan Shoes, products like “Jesus Shoes,” Air Max 97s with soles containing holy water from the River Jordan, also sold out to the tune of $1,425 a pop.

    Last year, Business Insider reported that MSCHF, founded by a former BuzzFeed employee, closed two funding rounds totaling $11.5 million.

    More recently, investor Sahil Bloom did a Twitter thread analyzing MSCHF, which he says is “as creative as they are profitable.”

    Bloom tracked sales of their Cease & Desist Grand Prix shirt, featuring logos from Disney, Microsoft, Tesla, Walmart, Subway, Starbucks, Coke, and Amazon. Bloom estimates that selling just eight shirts generated: “$120K revenue; $75K profit, millions in earned media, and thumb nose @ big corps.”

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    Jonathan Small

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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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  • How Retailers Can Win In a Post-Pandemic World

    How Retailers Can Win In a Post-Pandemic World

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It has been an unprecedented few years for brick-and-mortar retailers, but in 2022, physical stores have started to bounce back. In October, nationwide foot traffic to shopping centers was up more than 18% from two years ago. Meanwhile, 54% of consumers prefer brick-and-mortar retail to any other channel, suggesting that people still love going to physical stores.

    There are bright spots for retailers, but it is important to note that while in-store shopping has surged, the industry has evolved since the pre-pandemic era. Recent consumer habits and preferences that emerged during the pandemic appear to be here to stay.

    Let’s explore these in more detail.

    Related: As Inflation Soars, Consumers Want More Rewards and Shopping Incentives. Here’s How to Give Them What They Want

    A lot of retail journeys start online but end in store

    According to Google, searches for “open now near me” have increased 400% Year-over-Year, which suggests that even those who love shopping offline rely on digital tools to point them in the right direction.

    That’s why it is essential to have a solid online presence in search engines and to improve your business’ discoverability by optimizing your listings in business directories and review platforms. To fully leverage this opportunity, you should ensure your business details are complete, add photos of your location and update your details when needed.

    Social platforms help drive offline traffic

    Social platforms like TikTok and Reels for Instagram and Facebook boomed during the pandemic and continue to be popular today. This is good news for retailers because you can leverage these platforms to drive brand awareness and foot traffic.

    Social apps and platforms are excellent product discovery tools — even for physical retailers, as 81% of shoppers have made an in-store purchase after seeing a product on social media. To stay relevant, you need to meet shoppers where they are, and for many of them, that means being on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

    Related: Why Social Media Platforms Are Adopting Ecommerce as a Saving Grace

    Product and order fulfillment expectations are higher than ever

    The rise of ecommerce, “Buy Online, Pay in Store” (BOPIS), and same-day delivery has increased shopper expectations regarding when and how they get their orders. Research and Markets forecast the BOPIS market will reach $703.18 billion by 2027 — representing a 19.3% compounded annual growth rate over six years.

    In-store (and curbside) pickup is here to stay; if you haven’t done so, it’s high time to implement these initiatives.

    That said, it is essential to remember that the success of your order fulfillment efforts will also depend on how well you forecast and manage inventory. Customers have little patience for “out-of-stocks,” as 50% of consumers report that they will switch products, brands or retailers when faced with shortages.

    This is why it is critical to stay on top of stock management. Invest in robust inventory and reporting tools that enable you to identify trends and make smarter ordering decisions.

    Related: The Future of Online Shopping Is ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’

    It’s more challenging to gain true customer loyalty

    The pandemic shook brand loyalty, and shoppers switched brands at an unprecedented rate. On average, US shoppers belong to 17 loyalty programs; but engagement is low, and less than 50% are active loyalty memberships.

    Winning the loyalty game is a challenge, but not an impossible one. The key to improving shopper loyalty is ensuring your brand aligns with your customer’s needs and values.

    Accomplishing that starts with obtaining the right customer insights. Knowing where your customers are from, why they buy from you and what their shopping preferences will enable you to make moves that are relevant to them.

    Omnichannel is now table stakes

    It is no longer enough to have a presence on different channels (e.g., online, in-store, social). You must seamlessly connect these channels to win over and fulfill today’s shopper’s needs, wherever they are.

    To do that, you need a solid commerce platform with omnichannel capabilities. Investing in a point-of-sale solution with built-in ecommerce functionality enables you to sell and manage multiple channels from one system.

    Another option is to choose a retail management platform that can integrate with other solutions. If you already have an existing POS system, set your sights on ecommerce platforms that can integrate with your current tools. Whichever route you take, see that sales, orders and inventory data flow smoothly from one channel to the next.

    The current retail landscape presents numerous challenges; the good news is there are plenty of opportunities for savvy retailers to thrive. Equipping yourself with the correct data and tools will put you in the best position to compete — now and in the future.

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    Ana Wight

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  • 3 Ways You Can Pivot Your Business to Accelerate Your Growth

    3 Ways You Can Pivot Your Business to Accelerate Your Growth

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Most people think that once you “niche down,” you’re stuck. It’s not true. When you run a successful niche business, you can speak to an incredibly specific audience on topics they care deeply about. That kind of personalization is increasingly sought these days, as 71% of consumers say they crave individualization from their brand interactions.

    But choosing a niche doesn’t mean you’re locked into your original choice forever. It’s not only possible but profitable to change lanes every once in a while — even if you’ve been driving on the same highway for a long time.

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    Drew McLellan

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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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  • 5 Sneaky Ways for Brands to Boost Holiday Sales

    5 Sneaky Ways for Brands to Boost Holiday Sales

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    There may still be a prolonged supply chain shortage, but there are plenty of holiday tips and tricks for ecommerce brands to win this time of year. More often than not, most tips floating around tend to focus on different types of acquisition strategies to get consumers to your site. However, I’m here today to offer up one overlooked piece of advice: look to your most loyal customers to reach your goals.

    Your most loyal customers will be turning to you during the holidays, and you should be doing the same for them as a merchant. Remove any friction while creating new opportunities for your loyal customers to share their favorite products with friends and family.

    With everyone in the spirit of giving, there is no better time to promote, package and offer products as gifts. A great way to flip your marketing funnel and build from your most loyal customer base, we’ve seen brands executing this strategy in a few impactful ways.

    Related: How Small Businesses Can Prepare for Holiday Shopping

    1. Promote giftable subscriptions

    Arguably the lowest hanging fruit to optimize your holiday shopping products is to offer the option to “gift” their next subscription order. Take Methodical Coffee, for example! Traditionally, if a customer has too much coffee, a brand would allow them to skip or pause their next order in their customer account portal. However, in addition to those standard subscription preferences, Methodical Coffee allows customers to gift their next month’s subscription order to a friend. Holiday season shopping is a phenomenal opportunity to introduce and educate this option to your subscriber base.

    Another game-changing holiday program we are seeing is giftable subscriptions. Brands such as Scott’s Flowers are leveraging maximum billing cycle subscription programs to encourage customers to gift three or six-month subscriptions to their loved ones. After receiving three months’ worth of flowers, the recipient could receive an email or SMS notification asking if they would like to opt into a full subscription. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!

    Related: 4 Strategies to Convert Holiday Gift Recipients into Loyal Subscribers

    2. Offer extra loyalty points for gifting

    Loyalty and rewards programs can be strategically positioned to boost referrals this time of year. Over-communicate to your subscriber base that they will be rewarded for gifting products to their friends. The more product referred, the more credits are received. Go further to allow customers to exercise those credits however they wish — setting up the ideal brand experience!

    3. Allow customers to customize bundles

    71% of consumers expect brands to deliver more personalized interactions. What better way to provide personalized experiences than through an interactive and customizable bundle experience? Loyal customers looking to share your product with their friends may want to pick their go-to flavors or favorite colors. Offering discounted variety packs during the holiday is a great way to gain exposure across your product line.

    4. Discounting can be a win-win

    Margins don’t always have to suffer from holiday promotions. Instead of discounting your standard subscription program, offer a greater discount on larger quantities shipped less frequently to save on excessive shipping costs. Taking a note out of Slate Milk’s playbook: they ran a promotion to all subscribers who were receiving packs of 24 cans of Slate milk every month with a significant discount if they switched to 48 packs bimonthly. A win-win situation, with Slate Milk saving on shipping and the customer saving on the overall cost.

    Related: How Holiday Marketing Can Help Enhance your Brand Image

    5. Get in the spirit of giving

    One last note we often see in the ecommerce space year-round that translates nicely during holidays is charitable donations. Companies that donate a percentage of proceeds to charitable organizations tend to see less churn and higher LTV. Consumers care where their dollars go, and they want to contribute to a greater purpose and mission.

    While acquiring new customers with holiday discounts is important, it’s equally as important to lean into your subscriber or membership base. This time of year is an excellent opportunity to come through and leave lasting impressions on your loyal customers. We are confident the tips outlined above will positively affect your short and long-term business goals, just as it has for many other brands.

    Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Make Charity a Habit

    Bonus holiday season tip: get creative with one-time add ons

    Don’t forget the bow on top, literally. We strongly recommend brands suggest gift wrapping-themed one-time add-ons such as tote bags, branded wrapping paper or gift boxes. This is a great way to increase order value, hedge shipping costs and introduce another opportunity to build brand awareness to a greater audience.

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    Gaby Yitzhaek Tegen

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  • How to Spot Winning Business Ideas at Your Day Job

    How to Spot Winning Business Ideas at Your Day Job

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Curiosity is the spark behind every leading innovation. Without it, we never would have harnessed electricity, rocketed to the moon or developed a Covid-19 vaccine in record time. But while it’s easy enough to come up with a good idea — they’re everywhere — the ones that revolutionize entire industries and professions require us to keep our eyes open to the challenges right in front of us in our daily lives and then ask, “How can I change that? How can I make things better? How can I use my curiosity for good?”

    That’s precisely what I discovered as I made the move from full-time professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University to entrepreneur, co-founding Acuity Insights, formerly Altus Assessments, a Toronto-based company that now employs 150 people. It all started with an assessment that challenged the concept that being book smart was all it took to be a good doctor, nurse, teacher or business person. The test measures social intelligence and professionalism that is used alongside measures of knowledge — and we’ve found that the more holistically we can assess someone, the more we are able to understand and support them.

    I saw a problem and realized there was a potential for a game-changing innovation. We have now broadened to a full scope of products for higher education programs that connect key data across the learner journey from application to graduation, providing key data points to inform decisions. Acuity is partnered with over 530 higher education programs worldwide.

    And my experience shows that almost anyone can spot an opportunity in their day job and turn it into a viable business. Here are five things you can do when opportunity knocks so you can knock that new venture out of the park:

    Related: How to Know When That Business Idea Is Good Enough to Pursue

    1. Watch out for workarounds

    You know how when we leave a pile of books on the floor, the longer they remain there, it becomes easier to walk around them? As time goes on, we forget they’re even there because we’ve become so accustomed to finding an alternate route.

    The spark for my business started with the realization that an ineffective workaround — depending on letters of reference and personal statements when assessing students’ applications — just wasn’t cutting it. They were inherently biased. Medical schools, my own included, needed to do better when accepting students. Being an excellent doctor is more than academic scores, high grades or knowledge. It’s about how you apply that knowledge to serve your patient using communication skills, empathy, collaboration, professionalism and ethics.

    So, we did our due diligence: We spent over five years collecting data and refining the assessment tool to make sure we were measuring what mattered. Then other programs and institutions started to become interested in what we were doing, too. But we wondered: Can we give them access to our innovative software? Should we monetize it? Soon after, I realized our groundbreaking business idea locked in the ivory tower was ready for the real world.

    2. Listen to yourself

    Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what we’re most passionate about, particularly if we’re juggling a lot of priorities. To zero in on the one idea that might hold your interest and enthusiasm long-term, you need to listen to yourself. If, years ago, I’d recorded myself talking about the need to revolutionize medical school assessments, I’m sure I would have realized that it was a true passion.

    So, talk to a friend or someone in your network about your project. Do you light up? Become more animated? Feel free? These clues could be the launch pad for turning a side hustle into a new career and maybe even revolutionizing your industry in the process.

    Related: How This Entrepreneur Kept His Day Job While Starting a Business

    3. Notice where you’re spending your extra time

    How are you spending your extra time even when you don’t have time to give? Do you feel passionate about a side project and can’t stop tinkering with it? Do you tend to lean in at certain meetings or ask more questions about specific topics? Pay attention to what drives you.

    The leap from a highly respected career in academia to the wild unknown of startups wasn’t easy, though. For years, I put in long hours at the university as a professor before working even longer hours at night and on weekends on the business. I was at a tipping point and realized if I wanted to make a difference, I had to swap my priorities. I eventually traded in a secure career in academia for the full-throttle existence as an entrepreneur when I was seven months pregnant, building Acuity Insights with my co-founder, Harold Reiter, a radiation oncologist with an equally demanding job. Because I was able to follow my curiosity, I never gave up, even when it was hard.

    4. Prepare for pushback

    When I first decided to leave my full-time university career for the corporate world, I sent an email out to colleagues to tell them — and some of them accidentally cc’d me on their responses to others about my decision. That was an eye-opener; but I understand that many of them may not have considered a profession outside of academia. But later at conferences, I was able to share with them why I was so passionate and excited. I could tell them my “why.” I had realized my “why” wasn’t tied to my profession — it was about how I could make the largest impact.

    If you experience pushback about a change in your career, reach out to people who have made the same leap or are working in an area you want to move toward to learn about the barriers and opportunities you might face. And don’t forget to take some time and dig into your own “why.” Knowing what truly drives you will keep you working toward your goals.

    Related: 10 Things You Must Do Before Quitting Your Job to Start Your Company

    5. Get unstuck

    If you had told me a decade ago that I would become a VP and co-founder of a business, I wouldn’t have believed you. I thought I didn’t have the right skill set. Sometimes we assume we can only do the role we’re currently in and have a very set idea about what’s possible for us. But as someone entrenched in an industry, you probably bring a valuable perspective and expertise to a broader problem. There are a lot of people with sales, marketing and accounting degrees who can be hired. But innovators bring vision. Understand that, and get out of your own way. And with time, your vision, curiosity and passion will spark innovation in those around you, too.

    Pay attention to what’s going on around you at work — and what fires you up — to uncover the next industry-changing business idea. Because when it comes to forging a new professional path, passion and curiosity rule.

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    Kelly Dore

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  • 7 Secrets of Truly Successful Personal Brands

    7 Secrets of Truly Successful Personal Brands

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The choice to launch your brand is noticeable. But creating a solid brand is essential. Authenticity, consistency, initiative, confidence, courage, and time are required to complete everything.

    Personal branding is not a thing to do because social media says so. Today it’s an essential element in your communication strategy, used by not only famous and influential people and big businesses but also every individual that wants to be seen, heard and ultimately valued.

    Globally, everyday people are already creating their own brands. The corporate branding machine enslavement is too much, so many professionals are leaving employment. It is crucial to build your brand authority because other than leading to commercial and reputational opportunities, it’s also positive for your self-expression.

    Better clientele, industry recognition and financial gains result from it. Due to declining trust in our institutions, customers trust individuals more than businesses; therefore, you should concentrate on establishing your personal (and business) brand as part of your elevation strategy.

    Check out these seven personal branding success secrets:

    1. Find and curate your “A-Team”

    A new brand’s path can be pretty tricky and resemble an endless race of overcoming technical, emotional and personal obstacles. A key component of overcoming these obstacles is finding and building a solid team that shares your vision and mission.

    Co-founders, workers, advisers, consultants, mentors, coaches and even dependable family members may be a part of your team — link your team selection to your values and ideals and favor compatibility above competence.

    Related: I’ve Interviewed and Hired Thousands of People. Here’s What to Keep in Mind Before Offering the Job.

    2. Tap into future trends and needs

    Adapting based on future trends and customer needs is pivotal because the world is evolving daily. For example, if Jeff Bezos tried setting up an online bookstore today, he would most possibly fail miserably. However, his foresight to know what customers need drove Amazon to a global ecommerce store today. Timing is everything!

    Likewise, knowing the market’s future can help your brand make the right moves and become successful. But it doesn’t imply it’s impossible to foresee how the corporate world will develop. What matters most is how analytically sound you are and how well-equipped you are to anticipate future events.

    Even though it won’t always be exact to a tee, this will give you a solid idea of where things are going. Making assumptions about future trends carries some calculated risk, but staying safe will never help you or your brand grow.

    Related: Looking for a New Business Idea? Here’s How to Identify What People Really Need

    3. Unlearn outdated trends to make way for the new

    For a brand to flourish, it is vital to unlearn in business. We can only build something fresh and distinctive if we let go of our outdated attitudes and practices—discovering a new project or closing a transaction with unexpected customers results from curiosity.

    Unlearning is a systematic strategy to advance and overcome barriers one at a time.

    Entrepreneurship success is composed of 20% learning and 80% unlearning. Remove the restrictive presumptions to make room for helpful information.

    4. Think fast for solutions and act fast

    One of the secrets to a great brand is having the capacity to think and respond quickly. Since environmental issues are worsening, the brand must move soon, seek eco-alternatives and sustainable solutions that reduce their adverse effects, and convey the concept of conscious living to the next generation as quickly as possible.

    Simply acting quickly and moving quickly to find answers can give you a competitive edge. If you are not in a technology-dominant business-like distribution, manufacturing, or something not typically controlled by technology firms, your rivals are probably advancing slowly. We must make many daily decisions, but some are more crucial than others.

    For example, eating is essential, but whether you choose a salad, chicken or a Big Mac is less important at the moment. You can think more rapidly if you can swiftly pick what to eat. Even if your choice weren’t the best, the effects would be minimal in the short term.

    5. Be adaptable and flexible

    Being an entrepreneur entails weighing possibilities and dangers equally. This will help you create a distinct brand and ensure its long-term survival and competitiveness. Many new brands tend to concentrate on a single item or service.

    Meanwhile, they frequently need to see the value of brand creation right away. Startup brands often think that the benefits of their products are evident and that the brand can speak for itself. You can only place that much faith in some potential consumers.

    You must include the development of your brand skills in your content strategy and make sure that the visuals reflect this.

    You must evaluate new items in light of your company values as you grow. Check to see if your objectives are compatible, and if not, make any necessary modifications.

    6. Become an autodidact

    After college, education for most people typically comes to an end. However, your reputation will continue to rise if you develop a passion for studying and being an autodidact.

    However, in this day and age of information overload and many online distractions, being an effective autodidact can be taxing. Therefore, staying focused on your mission is more crucial than ever.

    Some people contend that the age of the autodidact, or self-directed learning, is currently upon us. After all, the internet is brimming with tools for self-learning that you can utilize to build your brand. However, beware that some may lack substance and are merely shiny bells and whistles.

    Related: 6 Little-Known Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

    7. Be street smart

    Being “street smart,” or able to foresee and handle unexpected everyday business issues, is generally seen as a crucial ability for brand owners and entrepreneurs.

    Most investors claim to be able to spot this capacity when they see it, but the experience is necessary to describe it. To be a street-smart person, you need to comprehend your brand’s surroundings or condition well.

    You are consciously aware of your surroundings. Moreover, you can see what’s happening around you even when you can’t see it. You can form opinions about the situation based on lived experience, the environment and the people in it, giving you the confidence to put your faith in these opinions.

    Related: Are You ‘Intelligent’ Enough to Be an Entrepreneur?

    Conclusion

    To succeed at personal branding, you must be a brand new, evolving you. In a world full of imitators, be genuine and authentic to yourself.

    Authentic personal branding is more than simply self-promotion and marketing commonly seen online. It focuses more on making a courageous difference in people’s lives and inspiring them to live better lives. It can also be about inspiring humanity to do good. After 33 years in this game, I believe and practice that “doing good” is all possible.

    You must invest time and effort to be the “go-to” authority in your chosen area. All things worth doing must be done well; therefore, it’s better to make the most of that time and effort!

    Applying the seven tips above will help you create an authentic personal brand that is true to you and enjoy the success that will inevitably follow.

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    Jon Michail

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  • 10 Cost-Saving Ideas For Businesses

    10 Cost-Saving Ideas For Businesses

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    None of us is immune to what’s currently happening in the economy, forcing many business owners and executives to consider ways to cut costs. I recently asked my leadership team to take a good, hard look at their expenses to determine what can and should be cut and gauge the effects those specific savings would have on the business.

    Finding ways to save money in your business is not always as obvious as you think and can come from a few places that are not typically looked at. Here I outline ten money-saving ideas all business owners should consider.

    Related: 7 Outdated Habits That Will Paralyze Your Business

    1. Root out process inefficiencies

    Take a look at how technology can play a role in improving efficiencies. How can you utilize technology to minimize time, effort and money spent where it doesn’t need to be? Whether it’s analytical data that helps you be quicker to market or process improvements that make your supply chain run more efficiently — plus having good processes around where you spend money.

    For larger projects, obtain three quotes from separate vendors before placing an order. Make sure you negotiate the best possible cost on a meaningful purchase. Be assured that what you are buying is right for your business.

    Related: How to Ditch the Inefficiencies That Are Eating Your Revenue

    2. Reduce office expenses

    I think that the mentality of being scrappy is essential. What I mean by scrappy is being pugnacious and determined not to be wasteful. Think local and establish relationships with local businesses. In our industry, for example, we buy, manufacture and print labels for our customers and brands. Fortunately, our label vendor is literally down the street, so we’re saving money on transit costs. Utilizing your local network ensures you’re getting the best price, not just in direct costs but also in time and effort.

    3. Make sure you have the right employees for the right roles

    This boils down to “right people, right seats.” When you look at the world today and how the labor pool has, for various reasons, contracted, having the right person in a role who’s passionately engaged is vital. They get it, they want it and they can do it. Over the long haul, that spells increased efficiency and savings. Running a business where you don’t have the right people in the right seats makes everything cumbersome and challenging.

    In most businesses, marketing tends to be something companies can overspend on. That’s why it’s essential to have the right marketing person in the right seat. This person has relationships and expertise and knows when a consultant can do something and when something should be handled in-house.

    Employee retention helps, too. Teams have chemistry, they understand how people operate and they play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. When you’re constantly replacing people on the team, that’s all learning that must be done over again instead of doing the job.

    Related: 5 Effective Strategies for Employee Retention

    4. Expand on social media and community engagement

    I’ve seen brands effectively connect the organization to the consumer through social media. One thing to understand is that your content should be organic and user-generated, not scripted or overly polished. Recording content on your own versus paying an influencer or agency thousands of dollars has a cost-benefit. But there’s an even bigger reason why you want to choose this path.

    Today’s consumers see right through content that’s heavily produced and edited. Instead, they follow, work with, purchase from and remain loyal to easily relatable brands that don’t take themselves too seriously and have no problem being transparent about every aspect of their business.

    Sit with your marketing and finance teams to determine what percentage of the annual budget needs to be allocated toward purchasing equipment and boosting posts. Use data and analytics to determine what posts help you meet your goals (e.g., engagements, views, conversions, etc.) and place your bets accordingly.

    5. Refine, then automate

    When you’re talking about logistics and shipping and the operational piece of the business, the more automated you get your orders in and out the door, the more efficient you’ll be. This hopefully means you’ll have more bandwidth to spend time doing other things, right?

    I also believe in minimizing clicks and pain points within your sales process. Have information readily available, so employees don’t have to click five different screens to get to what they need to get through. You want to free up the time to sell and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. For example, you could automate invoicing or utilize a service that consolidates your accounts payable, so you don’t have to pay somebody for that.

    Related: Want to Improve Workplace Efficiency? Improve Your Team Dynamics First.

    6. Slice operational costs

    If you can operate all aspects of your business under one roof, that’s ideal. For example, if you complete the shipping or manufacturing of your products in-house, you don’t want to be in three different buildings — you want to be in one building so you can organize things, get the best use of your staff, maximum use of the space and highest possible output.

    You don’t want to sit on tons of office space because that is bleeding money. Whatever you can do to get out of those situations as soon as possible, the better off you’ll be. Looking into co-working spaces might be worthwhile in certain cases, too.

    7. Look at insurance and cash flow

    You need to have somebody who has the experience, knows the right questions to ask, understands your business needs, and is bound to save you money regarding insurance. For employee health benefits, make sure people have a choice and have an option that makes sense for both the business and the employee. Over and above making sure you’re not under-insured or over-insured, it’s more important that you’re insured correctly.

    Avoid short-term loans, cash advances and borrowing on high interest. If you’re buying things on credit, pay it off. And don’t get smashed with interest. Make sure you’re only buying what you need. All of those things factor into good cash flow.

    One of the things my CEO mentor always used to say is that there always needs to be a certain number in the bank. So, if we even got close to that number, he would send out fire alarms. It was all hands on deck evaluating things, cutting things we didn’t need and making sure that the company’s cash position was one we felt comfortable with. This way, we could sleep at night and know we were in good shape. That’s just one of those old-school mentalities that have always stuck with me.

    8. Staff up or hire out?

    If you don’t have the expertise, you need to be ultra-selective in ensuring you’re not just being penny-wise and pound-foolish. I always say you don’t want to step over the dollar bills to pick up pennies. If you can save money on wages and other things, that’s great, but you must set KPIs.

    You have to understand (and communicate) what your expectations are from these independent contractors; otherwise, you’re just going to be spending good money without seeing any benefit from it. And that’s throwing money out the window. So, there’s a little bit of a catch-22 there. You’ll save money on the fringe but must have measurables to ensure they’re performing.

    Related: 8 People You Should Hire to Grow Your Startup Fast

    9. Reduce travel expenses

    If you don’t have to travel, don’t. But when you do need to travel, travel effectively. Make sure that there’s a good travel policy about meals, hotels, flights, etc. These expenses can go through the roof if you don’t have some control. Use Zoom, Teams and other messaging applications when possible, but also be cost-effective in managing travel.

    Related: 9 Business Expenses You Can Reduce or Eliminate to Save Thousands

    10. Specialize in what you’re good at

    So, you’re a sales and marketing operation, and you’re struggling. Then you, all of a sudden, decide you’re going to start doing packaging, but you have no clue how to do it. This is probably a recipe for failure because you’re not focusing on the areas you’re good at, and you’re taking time and effort away to try and learn something you don’t need to. But the nice thing about the way the world is that somebody out there can do it; you need to find the right partner.

    Being careful with money doesn’t mean being cheap — quite the opposite. It means honoring the value of the money entrusted to your company by customers for goods and services they care about.

    Related: How to Specialize Without Locking Your Startup Out of the Market

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    Vincent Tricarico

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  • How Blockchain Will Change Traditional Finance

    How Blockchain Will Change Traditional Finance

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Since the inception of organized commerce, centralized financial systems have dominated the market, generally operating as a black box in the eyes of their customers. Aside from a lack of transparency, they have conducted business in a monopolistic manner, building empires along the way by simply serving as an intermediary.

    However, as the next iteration of the internet unfolds, these conventional economic and financial systems are being reimagined like never before. With this next-gen internet, known as Web3, concepts such as blockchain, cryptocurrency and decentralization are making rapid headway into the mainstream economy. This paradigm shift marks the advent of a new commerce arena that can fundamentally restructure our global financial system as we know it today, making it a more transparent, inclusive and safe place to transact. Below are five examples of how blockchain can improve and replace legacy financial systems that we have grown so heavily reliant upon today as a society.

    Related: The Future is DeFi: Going Beyond the Traditional Norm

    1. Trade finance

    Trade finance is a foundational part of the global financial system to mitigate risks, broaden credit and ensure that importers and exporters can engage in cross-border trade. Like most industries, trade finance suffers from logistical bottlenecks stemming from old, antiquated manual documentation systems. For example, physical letters of credit are often still issued and transferred between various intermediaries to ensure payment.

    The versatile nature of blockchain can enable exceptional support for international trade transactions that would otherwise be far too costly due to trade and documentation processes. By storing and securing these processes on-chain (on the blockchain), companies can digitally prove transaction details such as country of origin and product information in a reliable, cost-efficient method. This would drastically increase trust between exporters and importers in the marketplace on the strength of exceptional transparency and security of data. Further, this could mitigate the most significant risks present to trade parties today, including discrepancies in documentation and oversight surrounding the flow of goods, among various other uncertainties.

    Related: The Blockchain Is Everywhere: Here’s How to Understand It

    2. Decentralized identity

    To onboard customers, TradFi (traditional finance) institutions need to verify their identity in a process called “Know Your Customer” or “KYC,” which requires customers to submit personal information such as their passport, driver’s license and various proof documents. TradFi systems take an average of 24 days on this KYC process, resulting in a terrible customer experience and reducing user retention rate. Banks store customer information on centralized systems, making that data vulnerable to various hacks.

    Conversely, customers could upload their KYC information to a blockchain just once and grant permission for institutional access on an ongoing basis. The KYC process could be executed in just a few seconds by storing KYC information on-chain as a “Decentralized Identity” or DID. Additionally, financial institutions would no longer be responsible for the long-term security of customer data, which would decrease costs and liability.

    3. Settlement infrastructure

    Today, transferring funds across the globe is a logistical nightmare. A simple bank transfer from one country to another must pass through a cumbersome set of intermediaries, ranging from custodial services to correspondent banks before it reaches its destination. Each intermediary adds its costs, increasing the processing time and introducing another security risk. On top of all this, the two account balances have to be reconciled across a complex, fragmented financial system.

    In contrast, institutions could leverage blockchain technology to serve as a decentralized ledger to securely keep track of all transactions. This single source of truth could effectively eliminate the network of intermediaries used today by allowing for the settlement of transactions directly on-chain — a 10x improvement over SWIFT. Further, this could allow for “atomic” transactions that clear and settle instantaneously with a verified payment, thus eliminating the multi-day transfer time on international transfers and 24-hour transfer time for domestic transfers imposed by financial service providers.

    4. Modernized bookkeeping

    TradFi institutions such as Mastercard, JP Morgan and Blackrock handle massive amounts of sensitive financial data daily that needs to be transferred, reviewed and audited. Today, it is costly and difficult to maintain and reconcile ledgers with absolute certainty securely.

    Instead, institutions can post this data to a private blockchain which would fundamentally improve internal processes by allowing the flow of information in a chronological, immutable and transparent manner. This could drastically improve security due to the traceability feature of the blockchain that can help detect fraud and develop a credible audit trail.

    Related: 6 Ways Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Are Changing Entrepreneurship

    5. Personal finance

    Today, banks offer a negligible 0.21% APY interest on customers’ savings accounts. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, banks are making significantly more interest in customers’ money, keeping the lions share of profits earned.

    On the other hand, blockchain is predicated on creating a user-first market. When users instead place their savings in blockchain applications such as Aave or Compound, they can earn 8-15% APY or more in some cases.

    One of the primary reasons people have purchased cryptocurrency to date is to combat the rampant inflation that most countries face. Today, the global inflation average is a staggering 8.8% and almost certainly growing. With inflation far outpacing the APY provided by banks, people have little choice but to find better alternatives or watch their money dwindle.

    For both reasons, the general public will likely transfer more of their savings into crypto in the long term, decreasing savings stored in banks and ultimately leading to a decline in TradFi revenues.

    Conclusion

    Many expect blockchain to replace the TradFi industry altogether. Others believe blockchain technology will simply serve as supplementary infrastructure to existing TradFi systems. Overall, it remains to be seen precisely how and to what extent the finance industry will embrace blockchain technology. However, one thing is sure; blockchain will bring about a new era of transparency, fairness and safety to finance.

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    Arnav Pagidyala

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  • Feeling Stuck in Your Career? These 8 Tips Will Help You Move Forward.

    Feeling Stuck in Your Career? These 8 Tips Will Help You Move Forward.

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I know what it feels like to be stuck in a career and not have any room for growth or a fair evaluation of your efforts within the company. Although I had what many people would perceive as a successful career in public relations, I felt a prolonged progression in my promotions, a lack of opportunities to grow in other areas of the field and not a great work/life balance. I started to lose a sense of determination in my work. My personal story began when Covid-19 first hit; like many people, I lost my job, which left me in a whirlwind of confusion and heartbreak.

    Related: A Successful Career Path Doesn’t Have to Be Linear

    How I got unstuck

    I had a moment to sink in the fear of job security but then realized I was luckier than most. I was already working on my side hustle with freelancing which was making more than I was making at my full-time position, and I was able to keep that up while I tried to figure out what my next move would be. Would I continue to just freelance and maintain, or would I push myself to do more?

    My next move came sooner than I realized. After all, at the time of the pandemic, I possessed a skill many companies needed most — public relations. I realized that this skill allowed me to work from anywhere. In the past, my personal success was hindered in this area, thanks to a full-time job that ate up a lot of my time with commutes and late nights. I realized I had enough clients to get going, with eight customers that quickly grew to 15 in just a few weeks, ranging across a plethora of industries. Things went so well that in the time of a global pandemic, a young 29-year-old female was able to create a growing business.

    This is something I never contemplated and didn’t think was possible just three years ago, but now it is a reality with over 25 people on my team and counting. When opportunities come your way, and you realize people want what you offer, you simply don’t turn that down. You acknowledge this as a sign it’s time to grow, your time to live into your potential and to take that leap in creating a business. These opportunities are coming your way because people are gravitating to what you offer. You need to invest in your vision and potential to realize you found something unique and something that companies want. This all starts with believing in yourself.

    Related: 4 Tips To Overcome Career Transition Anxiety

    How you can do it, too

    Some of the most frequent questions I receive are: “how did you change your work situation?” “how did you start your side hustle?” or “how do I market my skills?” As someone whose primary mission is to make an impact on others, I am here to help. Now I realize that many people are feeling stuck in their careers, and in the time of the “Great Resignation,” I want to guide you to feel less trapped and put you on a path where you can recreate your career. Here are my eight tips for getting started:

    1. Remember we have more opportunities than ever: There are more avenues now than ever to pick up a side gig and work on it from the comfort of your home. This makes recreating your career and focusing on the work that makes you happy easier than it’s ever been.

    2. Take the time to create a list of what skills you possess, are great at and love doing: Often jobs have us doing numerous tasks. Some we are great at, and other ones we wish were better at or just don’t like doing at all. You may simply not have had the opportunity to hone in on certain talents. Now you have the luxury of getting to focus on what you are great at and monetizing that skill. If you don’t have a skill that you’d like to hone in on yet, no worries! Many sites offer courses that are free or at minimal cost so that you can gain critical knowledge to create your new side hustle!

    3. Register for freelance sites: Join freelance sites like UpWork, Fiverr, ThumbTack, Freelancer, etc. Take a scroll through the types of jobs on their sites, then finalize which area you would like to focus on.

    4. Create a pitch about yourself: Many of these freelance sites will ask you to write about your accomplishments, skills and share your job qualifications on your profile page. It can be awkward for some people to boast about themselves, but if you don’t share all the fantastic things you did, no one will know. Learn to be your own publicist. Be sure to include what you can do for prospective clients on your profile page and show previous success stories.

    5. Draft a template cover letter: You can quickly modify a cover letter for different proposals you want to apply for and make simple edits per job posting. This will save you a lot of time.

    6. Ask for reviews or referrals: On these sites, you can boost your chances of getting opportunities by asking peers, previous companies you’ve worked for or other side gigs you’ve had in relevant spaces to get their review of you on the platform. This builds your credibility and also builds potential clients’ confidence when deciding whether to talk and eventually hire you.

    7. Research price points: When putting yourself out there, there is always the question of how much you should charge for your skillset per hour or per project. On many of these sites, you can do some analysis of what others are charging for similar fields. Starting a little lower at first can help you break through to start building your freelance roster, and once you have a couple of reviews of current clients under your belt, that’s when you can move the needle up.

    8. Start applying and putting yourself out there: Once you find a side gig or two, you can really craft yourself, put your passions outside of your current career and start honing a path for yourself that will make you happy.

    Related: Do You Feel Unfulfilled in Your Work Life? Here’s How to Change That

    Whether you want to try this until you find your next job, need extra income or are considering freelancing as your new full-time job for more flexibility, these eight tips above will help you succeed. As Christopher Robbins says, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”

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    Mary Elkordy

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  • Hackers Aren’t The Only Unseen Enemy Behind Cyber Attacks

    Hackers Aren’t The Only Unseen Enemy Behind Cyber Attacks

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The booming numbers of cybersecurity threats have compelled every C-suite executive and board members to pay closer attention to their cybersecurity hygiene. However, they don’t share the same lens while watching their information security posture. And here’s where a disconnect arises.

    A recent global survey of C-suite executives indicates that around 71% of board members have severe gaps in knowledge regarding cybersecurity and threats their organizations face.

    Whether we talk about data breaches compromising sensitive business information or exploiting consumer identities, executives and heads of information security (InfoSec heads) are already geared for the worst. But the senior management isn’t sure why they need to spend more on their cybersecurity budget.

    While InfoSec heads often emphasize security and risk management as a part of their job, board members often link cybersecurity as a part of their business but hardly consider it as one of the foundations of modern business success.

    Related: Learn How to Protect Your Business From Cybersecurity Risks

    As a result, their communication mismatches and challenges them to translate cybersecurity risks and potential business implications.

    In a nutshell, no matter how much they’re aware of cybersecurity risks and increasing threats, most board members can’t understand how cybersecurity and cutting-edge technologies translate into the underlying business risks.

    So, what needs to be done from an executive’s end to translate the risks? Let’s figure it out.

    Communicate risks of cybersecurity through effective storytelling

    The way you interact with your board leaders makes all difference. And effective storytelling is undoubtedly the best way to convince them.

    Though storytelling isn’t a new concept since humans have used it for centuries to convey a strong message, executives can leverage its true potential to help process crucial information.

    Stories have been a part of our lives from childhood, and various studies suggest that the human brain is wired for stories. And a compelling narrative could eventually evoke an emotional connection and change behavior and attitude.

    Now, while talking with your leadership while utilizing storytelling, you must ensure that you’ve done your homework to support your story to leave an impact. Otherwise, it would be good for nothing.

    Share some data and insights, and talk about the latest tools and technologies that can be incorporated into your processes that could make a huge impact. Moreover, depicting your competitor’s cybersecurity best practices can also help impact your board leaders.

    Also, you could use real-life examples of organizations that ignored their overall cybersecurity hygiene, which resulted in financial and reputational losses. This could be a great way to reinforce your opinion besides the story you crafted.

    Related: Harness the Power of Storytelling to Transform Your Business for the Better

    How to prepare for your conversation with board members

    As a board member, you need to be sure enough that you understand your board’s mindset to connect with them at an individual level. And it would be great if you could first know how they look at the importance of cybersecurity and threat management for the organization.

    Once you understand their perspective, it’s time to create your steps of action to convey your message and ensure they’re convinced that cybersecurity is an absolute necessity and not a luxury for your business growth.

    Here’s what you need to do before beginning a conversation with your board members:

    • Educate them about the latest compliances: Most of the time, your senior management isn’t aware of the latest data privacy and security compliances. And this could be the reason they aren’t in favor of stretching their cybersecurity budget. You must educate them regarding the latest compliances and the consequences of non-compliance. One great example is non-compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which eventually lead to hefty fines and reputational damages.
    • Board member’s background research: Researching the background of your board members could be the first step to understanding their mindset and approach toward overall business growth. Analyze their past experiences, educational background and personality to ensure you hit the right chord while convincing them about cybersecurity and underlying risks.
    • Learn their goals and priorities: Another crucial step is to learn about your leader’s priorities and goals. Do they often think about organizational growth without increasing the overall security budget? Do they keep cybersecurity as a part of their business but not a priority? Is there any way they could relate to organizational growth through cybersecurity best practices for customers and employees? Once you’ve figured out these questions, the next step is to portray your version of information security and its direct impact on your business growth. And for this, you can leverage the latest stats, competitor data and data related to the latest breaches.

    And ultimately, your C-suite executives, like everybody else, would be convinced that cybersecurity hygiene is undeniably a foundational aspect of their business. It’s your responsibility to ensure you’re on the right track and narrating the right story through which they’ll relate and act.

    Related: Cybercrime Could Cost the World $10.5 Trillion Annually by 2025

    Final thoughts

    The modern executive’s role is undoubtedly predominantly people-focused. And getting trapped between highly technical IT staff and leadership that focuses on growth while making cybersecurity-related decisions could be an uphill battle.

    However, the key to business success without compromising security lies in incorporating cutting-edge technology that fosters growth, builds customer trust and maintains compliance.

    And a modern executive must navigate business success by convincing board members regarding the need for cybersecurity best practices to jump on the digital transformation bandwagon.

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    Rakesh Soni

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  • 7 Signs You’re Ready to Transition from Employee to Entrepreneur

    7 Signs You’re Ready to Transition from Employee to Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I recently had a call with one of my best friends who moved to London to work for a big, multinational public company. She’s talented, successful and hardworking.

    Yet, she called me full of tears, anxiety and anger. “They are restructuring the company; they are cutting positions. My role is about to die.”

    I suggested that she apply for the same role in other ventures, companies that could offer multiple benefits, from remote working to stock options. I explained that with her talent, potential and ideas, she could even be self-employed through freelancing for various clients with contracts. She could chase her version of success and happiness. And she could probably end up with more money and even more freedom.

    “You don’t get it.” She said. “I don’t want to be nobody. I want to work for the top companies in the world.”

    Perhaps I don’t get it. But I also don’t get why talented, hardworking individuals like her want to throw their full potential into hierarchy and politics for prestige. Why do they let their companies fill them with stress, ruin their day, restrict their career options and define their value?

    Related: 7 Signs It’s Time to Transition From Employee to Entrepreneur

    Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of great people acknowledging their worth and consciously choosing to advocate the employee’s mentality. They are okay with that.

    But if you’re fed up with the corporate world, feeling like it’s limiting your options in life, and wondering when is the right time to leverage your skillset and make a transition, it’s probably now.

    Here are seven signs you no longer have an employee mentality.

    1. You’re in love with the idea of working wherever and whenever you want

    Flexible work hours and location independence started becoming the norm after the pandemic in 2020. You proved to your employer that location doesn’t affect productivity and that a strict 9 to 5 workday could burn you out instead.

    And while many companies allow work-from-home days and a flexible working schedule, you still have to report your location and total work hours.

    However, with an entrepreneurial mindset, complete location and time flexibility is your dream; you know the only way to achieve that is to fully own your freedom by creating your income stream instead of expecting a salary.

    Related: Remote Work Is Here to Stay: Are You Ready for the New Way of Life?

    2. When in meetings, you’re daydreaming instead of participating.

    The average employer spends at least 3 hours weekly in meetings, with 30% reporting that they spend over 5 hours weekly.

    And instead of actively participating in that meeting, you’re contemplating how to avoid the next one so you can work on something instead. You know you could be spending your time in a more fruitful way than attending company meetings, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

    Someone more senior requested your presence; you have to be there. So there you are, visualizing how you can escape this misspend of your hours, wasting time while time is money.

    Related: Your Time Is Money, So Stop Wasting It

    3. You absolutely despise titles and hierarchy.

    When having an employee mentality, you get so caught up in titles. You fool yourself with pride, showing off on Linkedin, gossiping about others’ abilities, and jealously spreading your best wishes to the colleagues who claimed the C-titles first.

    When you are a business owner, you laugh at job titles. You want people to work with you, not for you. You also know that a title cannot determine your worth. Anybody can go on Linkedin and claim that they are the CEO or an executive member of a 5-people company.

    What does that even mean?

    Fancy titles in corporate jobs almost always equal less freedom, less time to work on your relationships with others and less time to spend with your kids before they become adults.

    C-titles while climbing the corporate ladder also mean less time to invest in your self-care planning, wellness, and personal skills and less time to enjoy life.

    4. You’re testing multiple side hustles after or before work.

    With an employee mindset, you look at the clock at quarter to six and know it’s time to shut down your laptop and get on with your day.

    And while maintaining a work-life balance is crucial, as a business owner, you are continuously testing concepts and trying side hustles to build multiple income streams whenever you can. You don’t depend on one client, idea or salary, but you’re willing to test, take risks, fail and start over.

    Related: 4 Creative Side Hustles That Fight Inflation and Earn Extra Cash

    5) You’re not afraid of building relationships from outreach.

    As an employee, you are terrified of cold pitches. You are not fond of being rejected or ignored because that usually happens. You don’t attempt to reach out to others unless you’re selling something; in that case, you face outreach as a transaction, not a relationship.

    However, as an entrepreneur, you know that expanding your systems by connecting, advising, or simply interacting with others is one of the most vital steps in building a personal or professional brand.

    You don’t underestimate the power of community and networking; you aim to create daily connections with one or two new people in your industry. In one year, you are astonished by your reach and the ways your network proved helpful.

    6. You know that building passive income and making money online is 100% possible.

    When having an employee mentality, you don’t care about investing or building a passive income online. Even if you care, it strikes you as too-good-to-be-true, and you don’t bother putting effort into creating a diversified portfolio.

    On the contrary, when you have entrepreneurial tendencies, you get excited about passive income ideas and turn your world upside down to build an online income.

    Creator’s economy is not a too-good-to-be-true scenario nor a get-rick-quickly scheme. It’s an available reality with no barriers to entry, and as a business owner, you like that challenge. You know that spending an x amount of time creating the tiniest passive income stream can yield 10x results in the near future.

    They know they must find what they enjoy creating and work on it daily.

    7) You’re constantly enriching your knowledge and skillset to increase value.

    You are exchanging your skills and experience with payable work hours as an employee. However, as an entrepreneur, you offer your skillset, idea or business as a service that solves problems and delivers value.

    You don’t charge by the word, hour, or month. You charge according to the advantages and utility of your solutions. You answer questions and deliver results. And because your expertise is directly related to the value and results you deliver, you’re working daily towards improving and enriching it.

    Final thoughts

    Perhaps you’re not 100% ready to escape the rat race. However, if any of the above signs hit true, you know it’s time to start owning your career and follow a path you can fully control.

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    Maria Dimitropoulou

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  • 4 Money Beliefs That Are Holding Your Business

    4 Money Beliefs That Are Holding Your Business

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As business owners, many of us like to create a clear boundary between our personal and professional affairs. And with good reason! It’s not healthy to intertwine the two in a lot of ways. However, it’s also unhealthy to consider them to be oil and water.

    Whether you like it or not, your business is an extension of you. Your personal beliefs about money could hold your business back without you even knowing it.

    “Waste not, want not”

    “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”

    We’re drip-fed these lines over our formative years, usually with good intent. It’s hard to see at the moment how these words of ‘wisdom’ could do any harm…but their cumulative effect can have a tremendous stunting effect on your growth as an entrepreneur.

    Remember that these beliefs take root in your subconscious long before you set foot on the professional stage. When you start with nothing to lose and everything to gain, these messages of prudence and conservation don’t have much of a foothold.

    After all: what is there to conserve?

    But as you grow and succeed, you’ll find yourself placing more and more restrictions on what you do with your capital — setting the thresholds for investing ever further ahead, convinced that you’ll finally be ready to take that leap by the next one.

    But you never do.

    So here are four beliefs about money that you might hold and could be holding your business back.

    Related: 3 Money Mindset Blocks That Are Holding You Back From Expanding Your Business

    1. It could all end tomorrow

    It’s very easy to be convinced of the need to conserve your capital reserves because it could all be gone tomorrow, and you’ll need the liquidity.

    That’s fair and by no means unreasonable, especially given the current geopolitical situation. As a responsible business owner, you want to ensure you’ve covered your bases should the worst come to the worst. You have employees with mouths to feed, after all.

    However, you can convince yourself of this being the case at any time, and it’s a false economy. Think about it for a moment. You’re a smart person; you know how money works. If you leave your cash in an account, it will be eroded by inflation and taxes. It needs to be put to work to grow.

    The responsible thing to do is to find diverse avenues of investment to grow that money.

    All it takes is a shift in your mindset.

    Related: Want to Make More Money? Start Rewriting Your Story.

    2. I can’t increase my prices, or I’ll lose my clients

    This is one that an awful lot of business advisors speak on, but yet somehow, it just doesn’t get through. All of the logic and intellectualizing in the world can’t convince us that it’s the right course of action. But it is!

    I’m not saying to hike your prices every week. But you change your mindset about regular price rises, even just to keep pace with inflation!

    You also need to do it to optimize your client base. You’ve doubtlessly heard of the Pareto or “80/20” principle. This applies to your clients in a big way. I guarantee you that, within a small margin of error, 80% of your turnover comes from 20% of your clients, which means that you are spending 80% of your resources on 20% of them!

    Here’s the thing, though: it’s not a clear dividing line.

    When you put your prices up, it’s not like you’ll lose 80% of your client base, just like that! Many of them will be brought into the top 20%. Those that will, will be more than you think and certainly will negate any revenue lost, or resources expended on, those that represent the bottom half. Double the number of clients in that 20% bracket; you’ll have 160% of the revenue for less than half the work!

    Related: How to Let Customers Know About Increased Prices Without Making Them Mad

    3. Risk mitigation

    Risk is a four-letter word. The thing is… without risk; you will not achieve your business goals. You have to embrace it as a factor in what you’re doing. But risk in and of itself isn’t necessarily a good thing.

    We’re not talking about throwing yourself to the wolves needlessly. But you need to find that mindset where you’re comfortable “taking a punt” (as we Brits say).

    Calculated risk is good, but don’t get too wound up in the minutia. With any new venture or endeavor; there comes a jumping-off point. It’s a time to let go of the theorizing, stop trying to convince yourself of the certainty of the outcome and take the leap of faith.

    If you’re getting yourself bound up with risk assessments and market fluctuations, just remember that not taking action is a risk in itself.

    4. Debt is the last resort

    This is probably the best example of a personal belief that, when carried from your personal life to your professional one, can really impede growth.

    Consumer debt (i.e., buying consumables using debt) is to be avoided because this is servicing debt on an asset that is losing value — a car, for example, or a washing machine.

    But, when leveraged strategically, debt is one of the greatest tools in your arsenal and can increase your value. That’s how rich people get richer! What…did you think that they invested their own money?

    Of course not!

    They use their wealth and capital to leverage debt and invest that. As long as the return is greater than the interest on the debt: you’re winning and experiencing abundance!

    Don’t be afraid of debt in your business. Don’t let it suffocate the happiness and pride in your business. It is most definitely your friend. Awareness is the first step in any problem-solving.

    I hope that by bringing these four beliefs about money that could hold your business back to your awareness, you can start to see your role in all this. That alone could be all the change you need to start opening doors to new opportunities for growth.

    I hope so!

    Related: How Debt and Taxes Can Make Smart Entrepreneurs Rich

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    Daniel Mangena

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  • 5 Crucial Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Traveling the World

    5 Crucial Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Traveling the World

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Any entrepreneur could tell you that the road to success is paved with blood, sweat, tears and many lessons learned. While you can learn some of these lessons from home, there is a level of personal and business growth that can only come from traveling to new places.

    According to the Brightpark Edu-Travel report, 94% of U.S. business leaders believe that world travel gives them a competitive edge in the workplace. From opening your eyes to different perspectives to learning how to effectively communicate with people from all walks of life, travel offers a broad spectrum of valuable benefits for entrepreneurs everywhere. Here are five crucial lessons entrepreneurs learn while traveling:

    Related: Why Travel Should Be a Top Priority for Every Entrepreneur

    1. Traveling teaches you to be open to the unexpected

    Starting a new business venture comes with a lot of ambiguity. After all, you’re signing up for a truckload of the unpredictable. Will the business succeed? Will this year be a good one? Can I trust this investor? Is this the right move? Embracing the unpredictable can be a tall order, but doing so will afford you a much better chance at success.

    Traveling can be brutal at times. You’re forced to say goodbye to the comfort of your home and family, you have to trust strangers along the way, and you are constantly off balance as your mind and body adjust to a new time zone, new surroundings and new people.

    When you travel, you quickly learn that it’s imperative to be open to the unexpected. There are many variables in travel that cannot be controlled, and how you react to those challenges will determine how you can move forward — just like in business. As an entrepreneur, you must be open to the unexpected. Traveling the world is a fantastic way to learn that lesson early.

    2. Traveling can prevent burnout

    Taking calls or responding to emails when you should be sleeping doesn’t make you a better entrepreneur. On the contrary, devoting every minute of your existence to your career can actually prevent you from reaching your full potential and lead to burnout early on.

    Sleep deprivation has several adverse effects on your body, including:

    Lack of sleep will eventually catch up with you, causing you to hit a wall both physically and mentally. The effects of workplace burnout are real and can significantly hurt your chances of success. Likewise, stress and sleep deprivation can be detrimental to your business growth.

    Leading a healthy lifestyle is essential for entrepreneurs seeking success, and sometimes this means taking some much-needed time off to avoid burnout. Taking a vacation can give your mind and body the break they crave while allowing you to get a fresh perspective in a new environment. Traveling gives you time to reflect, come up with new ideas and gain focus.

    Burnout can quickly become the nail in the coffin for a hopeful entrepreneur, especially since it commonly leads to poor decision-making in the workplace. If you are feeling excessively fatigued, stressed or irritable, it may be time for you to hit the road for a refresh.

    Related: 5 Reasons Why Travel Should Be an Essential Part of Building Your Business

    3. Traveling gives entrepreneurs new ideas

    Traveling to new destinations around the world is an incredible way to benefit from the shift in perspective that can only come from experiencing different cultures and places. As entrepreneurs, we never stop searching for new ideas and business solutions.

    When you explore somewhere new, you gain a new understanding of what people in different parts of the world are interested in and what they worry about from day to day. If you’re stuck creatively or looking for inspiration, traveling abroad is the best way to form new ideas.

    Well-traveled people are more likely to think outside the box since their thoughts and beliefs are constantly being challenged. A curious mind is a creative one, and sticking to your daily routine forever is bound to lead to an eventual drop in productivity and innovation.

    4. Travel teaches entrepreneurs how to form valuable relationships

    During our daily lives, much of our communication is limited to colleagues, friends and family. When you travel, you’re forced to step out of your shell and communicate with strangers in all sorts of situations. It could be the man sitting next to you on the plane to Denmark, the hotel manager in Prague or the waitstaff at a sushi restaurant in Japan.

    These immersive experiences cause a mental shift to occur as you converse with people from different backgrounds, participate in new adventures, try new foods and adjust old habits. While it may not seem like much at the time, learning how to connect with different types of people and embrace new connections is a valuable lesson that will prove to be beneficial in the workplace.

    Your opinions and beliefs are re-evaluated when you travel. The more you learn about how others live and think, the more open-minded and curious you become. When your mind is flexible and void of rigid ideas about the world, it’s much easier to connect with those around you.

    As you gain insight into unique cultures and the common struggles of people in various parts of the world, you learn more about how you can support different people through your business ventures. The more you travel, the more you stray from your comfort zone, leading to a powerful transformation into an entrepreneur who is more willing to take risks and try new things.

    5. Traveling teaches entrepreneurs how to use body language effectively

    You have less than seven seconds to make a first impression. In business interactions, making a positive first impression is crucial. Once someone labels you — whether it’s as trustworthy, suspicious, powerful or submissive — everything you do is viewed through this lens.

    While it’s impossible to stop anyone from making a snap decision about you, you can use effective body language to sway the decision they make in those first few seconds after meeting you. It is widely believed that non-verbal cues are significantly more influential than verbal cues.

    Past studies have found that individuals who communicate through active gestures are generally perceived as warm, energetic and agreeable. On the other hand, those who remain still or whose gestures are more likely to come off as stiff or robotic are viewed as cold, dull and analytical.

    When traveling to foreign places where you don’t speak the language, you’re forced to rely more on nonverbal cues to communicate with those around you. By researching the culture ahead of your trip, you can determine how to use body language to your advantage. This knowledge can later be used in the workplace to help form positive interactions with peers and clients.

    Related: Traveling the World Is an Adventure That Makes You a Better Entrepreneur

    Travel offers a staggering number of benefits to anyone, but entrepreneurs are uniquely capable of turning these benefits into actionable ideas and solutions. Plan a trip — maybe even one without a set travel itinerary — and write down everything you learn during the journey.

    You might just be shocked by how many fresh ideas you bring back home. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to start a whole new business. After all, variety is the spice of life, and what better way to discover variety than by exploring the world?

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    Kareem Dus

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  • Find Success With This Unconventional Business Model

    Find Success With This Unconventional Business Model

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    People coming into the workforce today want to do things differently, and it’s critical that, as employers of multiple generations, we figure out how to support each one quickly. The newer generations want more autonomy, and the reality is that entrepreneurial people exist at every level of every sized company. Still, traditional bureaucracies hold them back until they rise to a position of influence.

    When structuring an organization — either incorporating another company or entering into a startup and setting out to structure from square one — you have more options than the traditional top-down structure. In our experience, there are better ways of organization that bring out each individual’s full potential and drive company growth. But fair warning: This model is more than just shuffling seats — it’s a total redesign of the bus.

    Related: How an Adhocracy Stimulates Entrepreneurial Growth

    Adhocracy as we see it

    As opposed to a traditional, bureaucratic business model, adhocracy is a flexible and adaptable organizational structure where groups form when necessary for a particular purpose. The ad hoc, problem-solving work groups of adhocracy, create a business environment more conducive to innovation.

    In our “adhocracy,” non-hierarchical business units run independently with their portfolio of clients, but at the end of the day, they are still part of our organization. Within each business unit, there are specific leadership roles: Our “executive squads” — an operational person, a finance person, a technical person and a business development person. No different than a C-suite, each one brings their expertise to be part of a collaborative leadership team to support a business unit. And we mean support — this is not an old-school top-down structure.

    Our business units, named after constellations, are all supported by a platform: “Hubble” — the ecosystem’s brain. If I wanted to bring a technical squad to a business unit’s team, we could use Hubble to identify the right people, their location, time zone and rates. We can also use it to seek out particular expertise for a new project or to move someone to a team that needs it.

    Related: 5 Tips to Consider When Designing (or Redesigning) Your Organizational Structure

    Encourage agency and entrepreneurship

    The adhocracy model emphasizes leadership — encouraging it from more people at different levels throughout the company. The ability to break things down and reassemble provides organizational fluidity. Teams can identify problems to solve and take action quickly, accomplishing more and bigger efficiency.

    Each business unit has the autonomy to design what they’re leading and how they want to run it. They control their growth to fit the project needs, which benefits the greater company growth. They see how their efforts can positively impact the company, which creates a greater sense of ownership, camaraderie and ultimately, less turnover. It also drives healthy competition: Who will grow bigger or better in pursuing our goals? When more people feel empowered to try and make a difference, more will rise to the occasion and try.

    Related: Establishing The Structure For Organizational Growth

    Take our advice

    This model allows everyone to step up, be leaders and drive their unit and company growth. People can broaden their experience within one company, making them more likely to stay than look for other opportunities elsewhere. The products we build for our clients make them better and make us better. We hold no one back.

    But this is not a model for an organization looking to stand still; you must have the following recipe to make it work.

    1) Have an appetite for radical change

    To foster the company-wide shift in mindset required to drive this model to success, it takes a strong group of believers at the C-suite level to go all in on a radical shift from a typical organizational structure. It can’t be achieved by teams alone. At our company, we shifted from an organization passing down directives to allowing individual business units to operate in service to their clients. We even encourage our clients to make this shift when restructuring because we see how it could benefit them, but they realize it requires radical change.

    2) Find the right people and rethink their roles.

    From within the organization, find back office people capable of this mindset shift and position them to enable these teams. Our executive squads make things happen at our company, so the rest of us support what they need. My role in HR shifted to being more proactive and engaging with these leadership teams as strategic growth partners. Be on the lookout for people with the natural ability to think like a leader, solve complex problems and seek out opportunities to learn.

    3) Stay flexible.

    Changes often happen: merging, joining, shifting, expanding portfolios and exploring new industries. Teams can grow to scale to the size they need to take on any project. We’ve had business units split. We have had business units join. We have had business units give birth to baby business units. We embrace the fluidity — if it makes sense for the executive squad, we’re all in favor.

    4) Beware the threat of silos

    These business units can grow large at a certain point, making it harder to prevent silos. A siloed company cuts off fluid cross-communication needed to support a healthy adhocracy model, so we must be careful about not letting them form. If you follow the Dunbar Theory, then 300 is a critical number. If you go bigger, getting more siloed becomes inevitable. Consider these numbers to set a cap on the size for individual groups but leave them the flexibility to form alliances and grow.

    At my company, we devour new books on great business theory, absorb it and run with what seems most likely to work for us. It keeps us evolving all the time. If a better, more proven way of structuring exists, we would look at it critically and see if it might be worthwhile. In most cases, change will happen regardless, so we may as well anticipate it. For now, this model puts us in the best position to do just that.

    Related: To Break Down Silos, Build in Cross-Communication

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    Victoria Maitland

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  • Why Having a Great Plan Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Business

    Why Having a Great Plan Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Business

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    If you’re familiar with the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry saying: “A goal without a plan is just a wish,” you’ve probably only heard the TL;DR version. Here is the full version:

    A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.

    This is why your plan isn’t going to be enough. A plan in itself is just a piece of paper or a bunch of 0s and 1s that make up words. Luckily, I have had experience with failing and succeeding in business (more of the latter), and these are the five things I focus on to turn my plans into realities.

    Related: Planning To Grow Your Business? Five Tips That Can Help You

    1. Focus

    Focusing on one primary goal per quarter is crucial. As much as we like to brag that we can multitask, we can’t. When was the last time you saw a population that throws 10 balls in the air and catch them before they hit the ground? Exactly. A much better skill is learning how to take all the tasks at hand and realizing which one will have the most impact.

    2. Transparency

    More specifically, internal company transparency. Does your team understand the finances of the company? Do they understand what a burn rate is and that revenue doesn’t mean you are profitable? Internal company transparency means educating your team on how a business works and bringing them into the inner circle that used to be reserved for leadership only. If you add stock options on top of that, you can trigger an ownership mindset that makes your team your partner.

    3. Accountability

    Now that your team has become your partner in success (and failure), they need to be held to a different standard, and being accountable is key. There may be 3-10 people responsible for a priority (remember, only one per quarter) but there is one person at the helm, or what I call the champions, that makes sure everyone does what they need to do. This person needs to understand something, though. They aren’t “the boss.” A lot of times when someone is given this type of responsibility, they believe that they can just shout orders and they only take credit when they succeed and blame others for “not listening” when they fail. That isn’t the case. Accountability goes both ways.

    Related: 5 Keys to Promoting Accountability in Your Business

    4. Hiring

    This is probably the hardest part of the process. Your company is only as good as your weakest employee. When you are small (under 50 employees), you don’t have the luxury of hand-holding — you either find a team that learns quickly or one that is already experienced. Once again, I suggest the latter. You will thank me later. Understand that salary will be your biggest investment and you should treat it just like that — an investment.

    Hire fast and fire quick, especially if you are smaller. Yes, I know this is not the usual battle cry (“Hire slow…”), but you have to realize a day in the life of a small, growing business is like a month for an established one. You need to trust your gut or trust someone else’s when hiring. I also strongly suggest you set expectations with new hires to understand they are in a trial period and that they need to step up. This may seem harsh, but as you grow, you can be a little more lenient and mentor with a softer touch.

    5. Stay healthy

    It’s important to stay healthy financially, physically and mentally. Create an environment that endorses the importance of all three. Physical and financial are usually easier concepts to grasp and fix (I said easier, not easy), but mental is a tough nut to crack. Just saying there is an open-door policy is great and must be said, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Keep in mind that the time you spend doing one thing — for example, focusing on revenue — usually prevents you from focusing on your employees’ well-being. Finding the balance is sometimes not worth the effort when you are smaller but should definitely be on the table as you grow and can afford to implement a mental health check system.

    Related: Keys to Planning for Smart Business Growth

    Did you notice a trend here about plans? There was only one point that spoke directly to taking action, and the rest was to help others be effective at their duties — which has always made me think about Antoine’s quote. I always wanted to add the following to it …

    But remember, a dream is nothing without someone to appreciate it with you

    Without your team running smoothly, a plan can’t take action. And if you really want to make it big, you aren’t going to do it yourself. Don’t you agree?

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    Doug Walner

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