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If you don’t foster this skill, you’ll fall behind the pack financially and professionally in 2023.
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Ben Angel
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Tag: Business Process
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Mastering The Art of Negotiation Requires a Lesser-Known Approach
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
So much has been written about successful (and unsuccessful) negotiation that certain universals are well established, and yet there are still other lesser-known essentials that I have learned over my 50-year career in real estate.
Perhaps the number one universal is to look for a win-win in any negotiation. Both sides have to agree to the terms and both have to gain something as a result. Other negotiating skills are building a relationship, avoiding a combative position or approach and being mindful of timing.
Other advice for successful negotiation includes reframing hard questions or ultimatums to lower the temperature, being tough when and if necessary and delaying acceptance. It is far too easy to derail a negotiation through bad timing, for example, taking something off the table too soon or offering something up too late.
And then there are things I have discovered through countless negotiations that should genuinely give you a path to success.
Related: 5 Steps to Master the Art of Negotiation
My “go-tos” before beginning negotiations
The most important thing for me is simply to know everything I can about the person sitting across from me. Everything. I want to know what sports they like, their career history, something about their families (spouses and children) and sometimes deeply personal facts. For example, does he or she have a spectacular business success or failure in their past?
Most people do not spend anywhere near enough time understanding who they are negotiating with. I consider it essential. When negotiations start to slow down, you can often “breakthrough” their wall by talking about what is important to them.
Knowing someone’s cultural background is also critical. Some cultures really do look for a win-win, but some other cultures consider it a failure unless they see the result as a win for them and a loss for the other side. Some cultures think bargaining is natural and expected. Obviously, you have to frame things differently depending on which type of negotiator you are dealing with.
For example, you would not put your best and final offer out there when dealing with a bargainer until well along in the give-and-take of the process. They won’t feel successful without having bargained and you may have given ground unnecessarily.
Besides knowing everything about the person, I want to know their “true needs” and I want to know them walking into the meeting. Are they looking to add to an enterprise, diversify, obtain something to break up or flip for a fast profit? If I know the answer to their true needs, I can usually walk away with a deal — one that is good for me, too.
Emotions matter — a lot!
Never discount the role of emotions in negotiation — and I don’t mean the emotions involved in doing battle. Remember the universal that you should not approach this as combat.
Let me give you a real-life example. I once found out that the person I was going to negotiate with had lost a brother to suicide. It so happens that my brother committed suicide. This allowed us to connect in a very personal way, understanding the suffering we had endured and what it did to our parents.
The bond we formed allowed us both to concede important points in order to get the deal done. We wanted to get it done for each other’s sake, as well as our own.
Other emotions to be acutely aware of are trust (yes, that is an emotion in my book), anger (obviously) and self-doubt (second-guessing can be fatal to a negotiation). You want to create a setting that evokes the best emotions of the person you are dealing with to get to success.
Related: 8 Negotiating Tactics Every Successful Entrepreneur Has Mastered
Beyond business
In addition to my real estate work, I am very involved in philanthropy, both my own and that of some very successful and very generous people whom I advise.
After deciding which issues and causes to support, and ensuring that the organizations we support enjoy good reputations and track records, then comes the negotiation.
The universals still apply — seeking a win-win, coming to mutually acceptable terms and being mindful of timing. But there are also unique aspects when negotiating major gifts.
If you donate to build a school for children with special needs, for example, you want to negotiate a contract that will prohibit using the building for other purposes or selling the building. You want to negotiate terms and lock in provisions that your gift will only be used for your stated purpose.
Do you want “naming rights” and what size donation does that entail? This, too, is a negotiation, not a predetermined equation. A donor name often has its own cachet and that has a value to factor into the negotiations.
The core of every negotiation
If you take away only one thing from my lessons, I hope it is this:
When negotiating anything – business, philanthropy or even personal – you are negotiating with a person. Lose sight of that and you are unlikely to succeed. Be acutely mindful of that and, in my experience, you are likely to succeed. and that is why I want to know everything I can about anyone with whom I negotiate.
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David Malcolm
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6 Ways to Foster Teamwork in Your Business
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Teamwork is essential to any successful business, as it allows employees to pool their skills and knowledge to complete tasks more efficiently and effectively. But, just having a team of employees is not enough to guarantee success. To get the most out of your team, you must encourage successful teamwork within your organization.
Let’s discuss six ways to do just that. With these tips, you can foster an environment of collaboration, trust and understanding that will help your team reach their potential and drive success for your business.
Related: The Importance of Teamwork and Collaboration
1. Define roles and responsibilities
When it comes to successful teamwork in your business, one of the most important elements is having clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Each team member must understand their role and how they fit into the bigger picture. Having well-defined roles will allow each team member to take ownership of their own tasks and understand how their work fits into the collective success of the entire team.
Before any work can begin, it’s essential to identify each team member’s skills and experience and assign specific roles accordingly. Make sure each team member is aware of their duties and responsibilities, and don’t be afraid to give them room to explore their talents and use them to benefit the team. This will help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal and promote collaboration and camaraderie amongst team members.
When defining roles and responsibilities, it’s important to consider how individual skills can complement those of other members. This can mean assigning more complex tasks to those with more experience or expertise while giving simpler tasks to those needing more time or guidance. By doing this, you are ensuring that everyone can contribute to the team’s success in their own way.
Finally, ensure that you create a system for tracking progress and providing feedback. By setting deadlines for tasks and providing regular feedback to each team member, you are ensuring that everyone is held accountable for their work and helping them improve their skills. By defining roles and responsibilities, you are laying the foundation for a successful team that will help your business thrive.
Related: How To Increase Employee Responsibility — Regardless of Where You’re Working
2. Set clear goals and objectives
Teamwork is essential for any business to succeed, but fostering collaboration and cooperation among your employees can be difficult. Set clear goals and objectives that the team can work towards together. Doing so helps give everyone a sense of purpose and direction while also helping them stay on track and avoid getting sidetracked by other tasks. When everyone understands what they are working towards, they will be more likely to collaborate and come up with creative solutions to any problems that may arise. Establishing clear goals and objectives can also help to motivate the team, giving them something to strive for and measuring their progress against.
3. Encourage creativity
Teamwork is essential to any successful business. To foster an atmosphere of collaboration and success, it is important to encourage creativity in your team. Here are a few ways to get your team thinking outside the box:
- Brainstorming sessions — Use brainstorming sessions to develop new ideas or solutions to existing problems.
- Promote healthy competition — Creating friendly competitions between teams or departments can help stimulate creativity and drive employees to think of creative solutions.
- Support risk-taking — Encourage employees to take risks and suggest creative solutions without fear of failure.
- Set a good example — Lead by example and show your team that you are open to new ideas and willing to take risks.
- Celebrate successes — Celebrating successes will motivate team members to continue striving for success and take more risks.
- Provide resources — Give employees access to the tools, resources, and training they need to create innovative solutions.
- Create an inspiring workspace — A clean, organized, and inspiring workspace can help increase creativity.
- Reward creative efforts — Rewarding creative efforts will show your team that you value their creative input and encourage them to keep coming up with new ideas.
- Invest in technology — Invest in the latest technology to give your team access to the best tools for creative work.
- Involve everyone — Involving everyone in the creative process will ensure everyone can contribute their ideas and benefit from the team’s success.
4. Celebrate successes
Teamwork is essential to the success of any business. Encouraging successful teamwork starts with celebrating successes and recognizing individuals and teams for their contributions. Celebrating achievements, big or small, helps to create a positive and productive atmosphere in the workplace and will help to motivate and engage employees.
- Share success stories with the team — Take time to recognize individual and team successes by highlighting them in meetings or emails.
- Give out rewards — Reward employees for their hard work and accomplishments by providing bonuses, gift cards, or other incentives.
- Showcase success on social media — Let your audience know about the great things your team has achieved by posting about them on social media.
- Have team celebrations — Celebrate team successes by throwing an office party or team-building activity.
- Say thank you — Make sure to take the time to thank each individual for their contributions, no matter how small.
- Share recognition — Encourage team members to recognize each other’s successes and praise each other publicly.
- Hold competitions — Give awards or prizes to teams or individuals who have achieved a particular goal or milestone.
- Use public acknowledgment — Acknowledge successes in a public setting like a company newsletter or blog post.
- Celebrate the little things — Don’t just focus on the big wins, but also take time to appreciate smaller successes along the way.
- Set achievable goals — Create achievable goals that everyone can strive towards together as a team. This will encourage collaboration and support amongst team members and foster a spirit of success.
Related: How to Set Goals and Celebrate the Successes
5. Encourage healthy conflict
When building a successful team, encouraging healthy conflict is essential. Healthy conflict encourages team members to think critically and view issues from multiple perspectives, which can lead to innovative problem-solving. To promote healthy conflict in your team, provide an environment where everyone can express their ideas without fear of being judged or attacked. Encourage active listening to ensure everyone feels heard, and consider setting ground rules for respectful communication. Inviting an outside facilitator to lead the discussion can also be beneficial in ensuring that dialogue remains constructive.
6. Learn from failures
Regarding teamwork, it is crucial to recognize that failure is essential to learning and growth. If a team works together to complete a task but fails, it can be a valuable opportunity to learn from mistakes and to try something different. Leaders should encourage the team to discuss what went wrong and brainstorm ways to do better the next time. This dialogue will help build a culture of open communication, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Additionally, when a team experiences failure, leaders should provide recognition for any hard work and contributions made by individual team members. Doing so will help ensure that even when projects don’t end up as expected, everyone can still feel a sense of accomplishment for their effort.
Finally, take the time to reflect on what was learned from the failure and use this knowledge to inform future tasks. With this approach, teams can move forward with greater confidence, knowing they have the tools and strategies necessary for success.
The key to successful teamwork is open communication and collaboration. By leveraging these tips, you can encourage effective teamwork in your business and promote a culture of trust and respect. With the right tools and strategies, you can help create a positive environment for teams to achieve success.
Let Hana Retail be your POS system and experience the power of teamwork! Our innovative technology allows multiple users to access the system simultaneously and collaborate on tasks, streamlining customer service and increasing efficiency. With us, you’ll have a POS system that works with your team, not against it.
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Murali Nethi
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5 Best Practices to Prevent Digital Fatigue from Derailing Training
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Today’s employees spend a lot of time in front of screens, which is undoubtedly necessary but can also lead to digital fatigue. This mental exhaustion can affect not only performance, but also the capacity to absorb and apply new knowledge, which can lead to training failure.
To drive productivity, results and morale, it’s up to companies and learning and development teams to design training programs that reduce digital fatigue.
Related: How to Help Your Employees Avoid Digital Burnout
How does digital fatigue affect training?
Digital fatigue can affect any professional sphere, including training. There are several telltale signs of digital fatigue, so you can take action to mitigate and even prevent it from spoiling training outcomes. For example, when employees frequently put off training or have higher-than-usual rates of poor training results, those can be indicators of digital fatigue.
According to a study by Deloitte, about a third of Americans say that since the Covid-19 pandemic began, they’ve felt overwhelmed by the number of devices and subscriptions they need to handle. The pandemic may be waning, but digital fatigue is here to stay and take its toll. Research shows that 22% of remote workers want to leave their jobs because they’re inundated with email; in fact, half would rather scrub their bathrooms than clear an overflowing inbox!
What can learning specialists do to prevent digital fatigue from derailing training in particular? Here are five best practices.
1. Offer more communication opportunities online and offline
While on-demand digital training is highly convenient, a constant lack of face-to-face communication can sometimes make employees feel disconnected and tired in front of their screens.
But with the right tools, training designers can prevent this and encourage learners to connect and communicate. Social learning — where employees connect, often informally, and learn collaboratively and through real-life scenarios — remains a priority, even if training is more digitized than ever. In 2021, 28% of organizations relied on social learning, compared to 19% the year before.
Some e-learning features that streamline communication are:
- Chats that allow employees to quickly get instructions, feedback and support;
- Forums that enable group communication on specific training topics;
- Groups that keep everyone in the loop and allow users to easily share learning resources.
Communication and collaboration tools are vital to making online training more engaging. However, employees also need some time away from screens to mitigate the effects of digital fatigue. Occasionally organizing in-person training sessions for people working in the same office, area or country can counteract digital fatigue. This provides employees the chance to connect, learn together and test their knowledge in a more traditional learning environment — adding some variety into the predominantly digital routine.
Related: This Silent Productivity Killer is Draining 4 Hours From Your Week. Here’s How To Fix It
2. Tap into learners’ competitive spirit
Training shouldn’t be perceived as boring or useless — but when employees feel like that, engagement suffers. For example, a recent survey about cybersecurity awareness training found that boring training caused employees to disengage — and, as a result, persist in risky behaviors.
At the same time, when 70% of employees say they lack the skills needed to do their jobs, training is, of course, crucial. How can L&D specialists motivate people to learn? One answer lies in gamification.
Learners are often eager to know there’s something waiting for them at the end of their training (and along the way), aside from meeting their company’s requirements. Challenges and incentives, such as certificates, badges, leaderboards and group games (where two or more teams compete for points), can provide motivation. The prizes’ utility goes beyond their symbolic value. Knowing they’ve done well in an online course stimulates employees to keep up the good work.
Related: 3 Ways to Make Corporate Training Fun
3. Make training more “snackable”
Microlearning — or short learning activities with single objectives — doesn’t only help employees acquire and retain knowledge more easily, but it also feels less overwhelming.
By providing short courses and multimedia content to help employees with their tasks at hand, instructors can easily squeeze learning into employees’ schedules. L&D professionals need flexible technologies that support different training formats (like videos) and can streamline assessments, i.e. through automated quizzes.
4. Tailor training to employees’ skills and preferences
It’s the instructors’ responsibility to design training programs that address necessary skills and goals for their workforce, but these should also focus on employees’ specific needs and preferences.
Technology makes it possible to personalize training at scale by creating individualized learning paths. Some learning systems choose the steps in learners’ journeys based on learners’ skills, aptitudes, goals, roles, competencies demonstrated, interests and more — automatically recommending, for example, whether someone needs a refresher in a certain area or can move on to the next learning activity. They might suggest course modules, videos, Q&A forums, articles or more for individualized skills development.
Related: Workplace Learning Is Broken. These 5 Steps Tell You How to Fix It.
5. Use different training models
A combination of live and on-demand learning also optimizes training and makes it more engaging. Although live training (whether in-person or online) is often harder to organize, especially for large teams working across time zones, it offers undeniable benefits — especially when interactive components (e.g., role plays, Q&As, brainstorming) are involved. Live training sessions allow employees to engage with others, get feedback in real time and put names to faces. Social interaction can motivate learners to engage in training they perceive as more meaningful.
On-demand training provides many benefits too, including the ability for learners to consume (and review, as necessary) materials when it fits into their schedules. And when training isn’t highly interactive, on-demand e-learning is both convenient and cost-effective.
Taking a blended approach benefits learners and companies. Instructors can kick off a training program with a live call to explain its scope and goals, and take questions. Afterward, trainees can learn at their own pace, when time allows — consuming articles, course modules and videos, posting questions in forums, etc. Periodic group calls and a closing live session, where trainees put their skills in action, can wrap up the initiative.
Related: How to Evaluate if Your Corporate Training is Working
Avoiding digital fatigue
Nowadays, employees are increasingly prone to suffering from digital fatigue. Uncontrolled, it can lead to burnout. Instructors need to catch the early signs of digital fatigue and design training programs that are engaging, rewarding, concise and flexible so that employees find the motivation to spend more quality time in the digital workplace learning environment.
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Graham Glass
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9 Lessons Entrepreneurship Will Teach You
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Once upon a time, my wife Jenna and I and our three kids under ten moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, had another baby, and bought our first house together. This, we thought, is the perfect time to quit our jobs and start a business! [eyeroll]
The idea of our company, Be Courageous, was born during the facilitation of a client session when the team was at odds with each other while exploring the future of their business. This quote from George Prince was on the wall: “Another word for creativity is courage.”
I realized many of us stay trapped in old thinking and actions when we lack the conditions to be creative and courageous.
A question emerged for me, “What would a world with an abundance of courage look like? How can I help create it?”
With my experience in marketing, strategy and facilitation, and Jenna’s in psychology, human resources and operations, we founded our business consultancy, Be Courageous. Every year we’ve grown. Every year our impact has expanded. Every year we’ve learned.
Here are some of our biggest learnings for those of you on your entrepreneurial journey.
Related: The 7 Business Lessons You Should Learn by 30
9 lessons from five years of learning
As any reader here knows, starting and running a business is a piece of cake. Ha!
For real, here is what we learned, having grown our U.S. business of two to a worldwide organization with dozens of clients and 35+ network partners while positively impacting nearly 1 million people in 82 countries.
1. Agility
One of our most in-demand programs with Fortune 500 companies this year has been our training on agile leadership. When you own your own business — the unexpected will happen. A successful entrepreneur adapts to new challenges and situations and creates lemonade from lemons.
We have created programs we never thought we would in response to what the world has needed from us.
Have a solid plan, but be flexible.
Related: These Are the Core Elements Needed to Successfully Pivot Your Business
2. Purpose
We aim to activate courage in companies worldwide and align them with a planet-beneficial future. Yours might be to improve humanity’s mental health or lessen people’s stress by building an easier-to-use product. Whatever your purpose is, make sure you’re deeply passionate about it and that it fuels your actions.
Use the strength of your purpose to courage through challenges.
3. Superpowers (and kryptonite)
We found more success when we identified and focused on our greatest strengths. We aligned our strengths with our values and the services we wanted to provide to our clients to solve a problem they faced.
For example, my superpower is guiding businesses to realize their potential and future. My kryptonite is getting tripped up in the micro-details of spreadsheets. That’s where Jenna comes in. She leads operations with her superpower of keeping our company financially stable, growing and on the ground. I’m the visionary, and she makes it possible.
Align your superpowers with your business goals and values. Find people who have superpowers you lack.
Related: Find Your Flow Through Deep Work and Unlock Your Superpower
4. Curiosity
In an exponentially-changing world, having an open mind is the key to running a successful business. Be curious about skills you don’t have and new ways to solve problems. Challenges will arise, but if your curiosity remains peaked, you’ll always get to the solution positively. Ask, “What is the courage needed in this situation?”
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it feeds company growth. (We’re a dog company, anyway, no offense to cats.)
5. Healthy company culture
Create a team that feels safe, strong, empowered and able to share and receive ideas. When you foster personal connections with your team and your clients (yes, business is personal), you will thrive beyond competitors who are only in it for the buck.
Develop a positive company culture to unlock the full potential of your team.
Related: 4 Ways Leaders Can Create Award-Winning Corporate Culture
6. Operational foundation
While you don’t want to get bogged down in systems and processes, your business won’t thrive without a solid operational foundation. Get an understanding of legal, financial and team infrastructure.
Stay pragmatic and, as we like to say, “aggressively conservative.” We make leaps, but only with a net.
Develop systems to streamline your business, so you can focus on serving your customers.
7. Integrity
Many people make empty promises, which erodes trust over time. It’s far better to over-deliver on your word. Pay what you say you will, earlier than you say you will. We’ve established deep, trusting relationships with our clients. We foster community.
We get callbacks five years after doing one program with a client because we don’t burn bridges; we build them.
Show up with your heart, don’t be a jerk, and honor your word.
Related: Understanding the Burden of Trust for Business Leaders
8. Optimism
Never doubt what you can achieve, yet don’t be disillusioned. Approach everyone you can as a holistic human being, putting aside bias. Presume positive intent and look for positive solutions. Expect people to be their best until proven otherwise. And even then, be graceful about terminating any relationships.
Work and live from a place of abundance, not scarcity.
9. Mindful hiring
Be thoughtful about who you bring into your organization.
We hire a type of person — not only for the exact level of expertise we need. We hire people in love with our vision. A person who can be adaptive and learn with us. Who is willing to put in the work for a shared purpose.
Hire the right puzzle piece for your vision, not just how they look on paper.
Related: Why Kindness Should Be Part of Your Hiring Process
Bottom line
Owning your own business isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an ebb and flow of successes and learnings. But 20 years from now, if you look back, would you regret not doing something about your big and burning idea?
Fear will never go away, but when the desire to fulfill your purpose outweighs the fear of risks involved, that’s when you know you’re made to be an entrepreneur.
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Kyle Hermans
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Watch Out For These 3 Entrepreneur Death Traps
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Inexperienced founders and first-time entrepreneurs who are excited about entering the realm of entrepreneurship often find themselves focused on “not important right now” items.
You can generally tell when an entrepreneur is falling for the non-important. Their focus gets drawn out over a longer than necessary period of time for things like branded clothing, business cards and the proper titles. There is a flow of priorities in business that are always at play, and when you’re building a business, it is crucial not to waste resources on non-important right now priorities.
To clarify the point, let’s look at a general overview of priorities broken down between experienced and inexperienced entrepreneurs:
Inexperienced order of objectives:
- Figure out a name
- See if it’s available
- File to incorporate
- Wait for incorporation to go through, then get a business bank account
- Get a logo
- Get branded apparel
- Get the business cards
- Start to build a prospect list
- Get a customer
The experienced flow of objectives
- Get a customer
- Continue to build a prospect list
- Figure out a name
- Maybe get a contact card
- Etc.
Here is a list of three common flaws first-time entrepreneurs and founders face when starting a business.
Related: The True Failure Rate of Small Businesses
1. Understand the difference between an order of objectives and a flow of objectives
Inexperienced entrepreneurs tend to think that things must be done in a set order to accomplish a goal. For example, I have seen multiple people start their entrepreneurial journey and turn away customers because they feel it’s necessary to follow the order of objectives above.
That thinking — especially in the early stages — slows down execution rates because they bottleneck the next thing to be done. This causes friction, leading to burnout in a new entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, an experienced entrepreneur knows that multiple objectives will be in play, working to accomplish simultaneously — especially at the beginning.The challenge is that the brain wants a perfect order, but that’s not how it always works; sometimes we have to focus on multiple things to see them through to accomplishment.
A flow of objectives will vary on a case-by-case basis. However, the critical point, in the beginning, is to make sure the focus is on the right objective and, most importantly, the business shows some premise of viability. The objectives listed above can be completed in about a day — that’s not the issue. The issue is that the inexperienced tend to get caught up on the non-important and it pushes a one-day list into a one-week or one-month list or a not completed “I got distracted” list.
Sometimes even setting up a legal business entity is not important right now. When it comes to small businesses, most can and should be started as a sole proprietorship — at least briefly before filing to incorporate. That said, there are specific industries where incorporating should be heavily considered.
For example, a low-risk graphic design business might want to forge ahead and start conducting business. However, if it’s an industry with a risk of personal injury, it might make sense to incorporate it. (Always consult with a legal expert on what could be the best fit for you).
Related: How Successful Entrepreneurs Stay Focused and Block Out the Noise
2. Understand the risk and rewards of priorities
Every action or inaction has a risk or opportunity cost, especially at the beginning, where the compounding effect is more significant. That being the case, looking at objectives in a risk vs. reward manner gives us guidance on tackling the objective list.
An experienced founder will start by bringing on a new customer. It is rarely risky, and the reward is great — there is business growth, especially compounded over time. But following the inexperienced route risks all the resources used in steps 1-8 (time, money, mental capacity, etc.) in hopes of generating the reward of 9, bringing on a new customer. Furthermore, the risk is more significant because a founder might find that the actions in steps 1-8 might change with the compounding of time. Example: The logo might not be the best fit, or a C-Corp or LLC would have made more sense.
This means we need to write down the steps and label them in priority of what needs to be done. You can always incorporate it later, change the logo, or get branded apparel later. While you can always get customers later, the focus of getting a new customer offers the greatest return on investment, especially at the beginning.
An inexperienced founder who focuses on the wrong things from the beginning tends to focus on the wrong things until one of two things happens:
- They continue to waste resources sweating the “not important right now” until they run out of resources and the business dies.
- They continue to waste resources until they learn the appropriate type of execution for them. (Sometimes necessary, but why waste the resources when it’s preventable.)
Option number two brings us to the third tip for starting entrepreneurship:
Related: The Biggest Trap Of Entrepreneurship: Happiness ≠ Achievement
3. Understand the type of entrepreneur you are. It’s not a one size fits all role
Entrepreneurship mirrors life in that you cannot know who you are and how you operate entirely until you live through it. You might think that you can tackle one step by one step, only to discover that you are the type that needs to make progress on all fronts intermittently.
Like life, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to Entrepreneurship.
Certain key requirements are needed in the starting phase, but how those requirements are met is completely up to the individual. Experienced entrepreneurs who know who they are and how they operate best can create their chosen route to build an optimal company. Meanwhile, the inexperienced can use the tips listed above to build from scratch better.
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Anthony D. Anselmo
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Hack Your SaaS Growth With These 3 Easy Strategies
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to build an audience before you launch your SaaS business. SaaS affiliate programs give access to other people’s audiences. You will access tons of early users in a few weeks that would otherwise take years. Of course, it comes at some costs that this article aims to help you get ahead of.
SaaS affiliate programs work so that when an affiliate refers a prospect that purchases your product, the affiliate gets a commission in return.
Related: How SaaS Is Changing the Way We Work
Three strategies to launch successful SaaS affiliate programs
If you are planning to launch your SaaS or looking to grow your customer base fast and you’re short on cash supply and not a marketing fan, pay close attention to these strategies.
1. Play the long game with your funnel and pricing structures
Before deciding on your affiliate commission structure, you must determine your SaaS pricing structure and profit margin. Do you want one-time pricing or recurring pricing? Since we are all about hacking growth for a new Saas launch in this piece, a proven strategy is to combine both pricing strategies. Yes, it is counterintuitive!
But SaaS entrepreneurs who have launched successful SaaS products at a nitro-speed mode know this is the secret sauce. The engineering of this strategy will be done in your funnel structure, where your affiliates will send traffic. Your front-end funnel will be a pay-once-access-for-life offer or lifetime deal (LTD). Lifetime deals are limited paid promotions.
However, communicate and enforce usage limits or restrict access to certain premium features for the LTD package. Next, put a subscription upsell in place. This is very important to have to compensate for costs incurred in offering LTD. Also, remember that your recurring revenue has to outgrow your LTD revenue to keep the model sustainable. Here are a few tips to keep this on lock:
2. Offer a limited number of lifetime accounts
Use in-app prompts to nudge users to upgrade to a yearly subscription when they reach LTD usage limits. Use LTD customers’ first-party data to optimize advertisements for the subscription offer. You need a viral loop, as your LTD is a promotional strategy. This is where affiliates come in.
Lifetime deals sell fast, and affiliates jump on it real quick. This fact is what the million-dollar SaaS LTD platforms and their vast affiliate network thrives on. When you throw in recurring commissions (on the back of the commission for LTD sales) to affiliates whose leads take up your subscription offer, you are in for a treat of quality leads.
3. Find niche affiliates
Next up is finding the affiliates that will form your viral loop. You have two options:
- Reach out and recruit affiliates. Think of this as making cold outreach to affiliates. So, where should you fire your cold shots? It’s best to start with blogs and review sites, content creators and influencers, online communities or brands with complementary products.
- Tap into an existing affiliate network. This is the growth hacking route. Of course, you have to be ready to part with some of your revenue.
It is possible to launch on these platforms and have zero affiliate sales. This is where affiliate managers come in. They help you onboard the big whale affiliates and manage your launch in exchange for some percent of the launch revenue.
Here are a few tips to ensure you get the best affiliates for your saas affiliate programs:
- Ensure they have access to your target audience
- Go for those who have experience promoting SaaS
- Verify that their traffic sources are genuine
- Ask how they intend to promote your SaaS to make sure your interests align
SaaS marketing requires a lot of moving parts to achieve success. Hence, do some heavy lifting for your affiliates by providing them with marketing materials to promote your product.
Your SaaS affiliate program promotional kit should include promotional email templates, a media kit, explainer videos, ad creatives, testimonials and case studies. You can support affiliates by hosting live webinars. All affiliates have to do is drive traffic to the webinars.
The LTD offer in the hybrid approach to SaaS affiliate programs will give you the runway cash, the feedback and the marketing data you need to scale your subscription revenue quickly. At the same time, the recurring commissions keep your affiliates motivated.
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Said Shiripour
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The 5 Steps of Competitive Analysis On Social Media
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Competitive analysis is an analysis of who your potential competitors are, what marketing activities they do and what results their campaigns get. It is a crucial part of the groundwork done by every business hoping to stand out and sell well.
When doing detailed social media competitor analysis, people usually start with the number of followers, content assessment and the level of engagement. After this, they should go deeper into the social listening stats.
With social media competitive analysis tools, you can reveal:
- Competitors’ online visibility and brand recognition
- Real-user feedback on products and services
- Customer insights
- Influencers and mass media
This is a simplified version of a multi-layer process. Knowing your competition lets you perfect your unique value proposition, develop best-selling products, improve your marketing strategy and identify new market segments when done right.
When done via social listening, competitor analysis is not only doable but also worth doing, even if you’re going for it on top of your daily tasks.
Let’s walk through competitor analysis with the help of a social media competitive analysis tool, one step at a time.
Related: 3 Reasons Why I Gladly Welcome Competition
Step 1: Pick competitors and start monitoring
While this might seem self-evident, picking the right competitors to benchmark yourself against is a task of its own. If you’re thinking big and want to conduct comprehensive market research, you need every name of the competitive brand on the list. Big and small, well-established and new to your industry.
For more customizable competitive analysis, you’ll need direct competitors only, preferably a company list of comparable size. As soon as you are ready with the lineup, jump to a tool. We need to set up mentions in a monitoring tool to start tracking. You’ll need to put in your brand name as well as your competitor brand names; you can use Awario for it or try other similar tools.
When you set up your alerts, give the tool some time, and it’ll pick up recent mentions as well as some historical data — this way you’ll be able to do an initial analysis. The more information you have, the more thorough your competitor analysis will be.
Related: Five Reasons Small Organisations Should Invest in Social Listening
Step 2: Go through basic social listening stats
Once the tool has collected data, you can visit the dashboard and look at the analytics.
Mentions and reach
The mentions and reach metrics will show you how much weight each of your competitors’ accounts has on social media platforms. The buzz a name generates corresponds to brand recognition and overall visibility.
In social listening terms, measuring share of voice — the number of times a brand is mentioned on the web and in social media posts vs. the number of times competitor brands are mentioned — is the closest to measuring market share.
Countries and languages
The countries and languages sections will give you an idea of the geographical distribution of mentions. Depending on the markets you operate in, you can check specific locations to see if any market segments are overlooked and underserved by business competitors. You can see how the competition spreads and analyze what that means.
Age and gender
These sections show who mentions your brand most and reveal the age of people that post messages on the web about your company. It helps you to meet your target audience.
Sources
Next is sources —the distribution of the buzz among social networks and the web. This is an important metric that shows where the mentions come from, platform by platform. More often than not, there are unexpected insights into how well content competitors create, how their advertising is performing across social networks, and how much buzz is coming from the web and news.
Related: Don’t Use The Same SEO Playbook As Your Competitors. Use These 3 SEO Tactics Instead.
Step 3: Dive into mentions
The mentions feed is the storage of all the mentions collected by the tool.
Here, you can access raw data and filter it in the way that serves you best. Say you noticed a spike in mentions of your competitor, and you know that most of them appeared on Twitter. Therefore, you want to do Twitter analytics and pull the influencers who have talked about the brand in the last month. Go ahead and apply the filters.
Meet the influencers
Influencers are the biggest drivers of brand visibility. When applied wisely in social media management, influencer marketing is an effective and often free tool used to generate engagement and build that genuine brand-to-customer connection other forms of marketing may fail at.
Exploring influencers working with your competitors is made easy with competitive analysis tools. First, you can filter mentions by reach to find the most influential people who’ve talked about competitor brands. This way, you discover significant and minor influencers as you go through the mentions sorted by Reach.
Related: Influencer Marketing 101: A Blueprint for Running a Successful Campaign
Step 4: Explore social listening reports
It’s a shortcut to the insights social media competitor analysis tools uncovered. For a marketer, reports offer an overview of all the metrics discussed in this guide. With them, you can measure competitive performance on social media in detail.
Compare brands and get back-to-back performance reviews by:
- Share of voice
- Counties and languages
- Sentiment
- Topic Cloud
- Top mentions
- Age and gender
- Influencers
- Sources
Step 5: Sit back and feel proud of the work well done!
Good job! We’ve come a long 5-step way, having reviewed primary social listening stats and analytics.
You can try various solutions for analyzing your competitors. The metrics I mentioned are available in most of them. Some social media competitive analysis tools provide integrations with other marketing apps like scheduling posts or template-creating ones.
Please use this guide as a roadmap for future social media competitive analysis. Remember: the longer you track mentions, the more insightful and comprehensive your analysis gets.
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Aleh Barysevich
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3 Ways to Build an Online Presence With Social Media
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The internet has changed business almost beyond recognition. Gone are the days when business cards, a listing in the yellow pages and well-considered display advertising were needed to establish a presence with potential customers. In the 21st century, digital marketing has replaced many traditional marketing activities. Social media networks are among the most effective channels for establishing an online presence.
The importance of social media for your company’s online presence
Since the advent of the world wide web in the 1990s, having an online presence has become all but a requirement for successful businesses. Customers look for products and services online, and many have become accustomed to online shopping. Granted, there may be some local businesses that manage to attract customers by word-of-mouth only, but most companies rely on online connections.
For the first decade and a half of the internet’s existence for the public, building an online presence relied on creating a company website and perhaps using email marketing. Since then, digital marketing has grown and diversified, with social media networks becoming one of the most important marketing tools. Being visible on social media allows brands to connect directly to consumers and establish trust between a business and its potential customers.
In addition, leading social media networks offer marketing tools explicitly designed to help brands connect to their audiences. By 2021, more than 90% of U.S. businesses with more than 100 employees were using these tools for social media marketing. However, your brand can be small to benefit from an online presence. Most social media marketing tools will scale up or down to accommodate companies of all sizes.
Related: How to Make Social Media Marketing Effective for Your Brand
Building a successful online presence
Building a successful, effective online presence on social media requires a strategic approach [perhaps link to the previous article here]. Before going into detail, it is worth defining what we mean by social media presence. The term refers to a brand’s social media visibility and its audience connections.
Three main pillars to help establish this presence are branding, public relations (PR) and digital marketing. For all three, a strategic, well-planned approach delivers the best results. Simply adding a post now and then is not enough to establish a recognizable presence or build lasting connections with your target audiences.
Related: Why Effective Content Marketing Will Transform Your Social Media
1. Branding for social media presence
By the time they start building their online presence, most businesses have created a brand identity and developed a strategy for branding. If that is the case for your business, your brand must remain recognizable on social media.
The company’s brand voice and aesthetic should be easily identifiable across all digital and analog marketing channels. In practice, that means a social media user scrolling through their feed should be able to recognize your posts without seeing your brand logo or your account handle.
Aligning brand messages between all channels helps reinforce and strengthen them. Alignment also helps build trust and credibility with potential consumers. On the other hand, if your brand voice, messages and visual presentation differ between outlets, the differences will create confusion. They dilute the brand’s messaging and damage the credibility you are trying to build online.
2. Public relations (PR)
Strategic PR is another channel brands can use to engage their audiences. Public relations has traditionally relied on media outlets to disseminate brand messages.
However, by using social media, brands can reach audiences — including journalists — directly and start a conversation. If the conversation is relevant to other audiences, social media platforms make sharing content easy and increase its reach. As a result, new audiences become aware of the brand, leading to a greater social media presence.
Another way of leveraging PR to increase a brand’s online presence is by contributing to other media outlets as an expert guest or regular contributor and linking to your brand’s social media channels.
Related: What’s Hot and What’s Not in Public Relations for 2023
3. Using digital marketing to increase your social media presence
Brands with a successful social network presence utilize all their digital marketing channels to build that presence. These synergies between marketing activities do not happen automatically. They must be written into your digital marketing and social media marketing strategy.
In practice, your marketing and brand team must actively pursue opportunities to highlight your social media presence and drive engagement. Here is an example: if your brand has been using email marketing successfully to connect to consumers, encourage readers to connect to you on social media. They benefit by establishing a more immediate and direct connection if they need support — your brand benefits by being able to connect more frequently.
Other digital marketing channels like blogs can elaborate on a topic introduced on social media and encourage readers to join your brand’s community on a specific channel. The key to using other digital marketing channels to support your social network presence is to create connections between your brand’s channels.
Related: How to Build on Your Digital Marketing Momentum in 2023
Consistency matters
Building a successful online presence through social media networks requires a consistent and strategic approach. Utilizing existing digital marketing channels and ensuring close alignment with the company’s overall branding supports a growing social media presence. In addition, strategic PR activities can also increase a brand’s social media presence across all its channels. Delivering consistent, relevant content that aligns with overall brand objectives is the key to growing and maintaining an engaged social network audience.
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Jessica Wong
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VCs Are Missing Out on New, Innovative Ideas. Here’s Why (and What They Can Do About It).
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It has been a challenging time for technology investing. S&P and NASDAQ are down, and crypto is down considerably. S&P 500 declined by 19% earlier in the year, and NASDAQ, which is tech-heavy, has lost almost 30% of its value in the same period, with some of the biggest tech giants reporting disappointing earnings.
The crypto winter continues with Bitcoin and Ethereum prices tanking following the collapse of FTX earlier this month, with around $200 billion being wiped off the crypto market in just days. It goes without saying that on the surface, it may seem like this is not a good time for tech investing, and many investors have indeed dropped their big tech stock in favor of “old economy” stocks. Still, could this be an opportunity to invest in companies with a discount?
Related: 6 Important Factors Venture Capitalists Consider Before Investing
Tier 1 wastage
For large VC funds, investors are often looking to partner with startups that can achieve more than a $50B outcome in order to get a return of 3-5 times the fund. However, with only 48 public tech companies currently valued at more than $50B and over 1000 venture funds gunning for these few, this is a challenging situation.
Furthermore, since VCs only typically take on 20 or 30 companies per fund, they often use “pattern recognition,” whereby they use experiences from the past to make more efficient decisions about current investments. However, what can happen is that their portfolio companies all look pretty similar.
This can be problematic for entrepreneurs applying for VC funding who do not fit the “tried and tested” criteria many VCs use to decide whether to invest or not. In fact, we see that the majority of U.S. venture funding goes to white, Ivy-League-type entrepreneurs. In Q3 of this year, only 0.12% of venture funding went to Black entrepreneurs.
Even if these startups have the potential to be the next biggest thing, their idea will struggle to get off the ground just because they cannot get the venture capital. Furthermore, VCs also stand to lose out, simply because they are only focusing on that small segment of startups and not on the potential of others that perhaps do not fit the bill on paper.
Opportunity for disruption in the market
However, while many VCs are focusing on targeting increasingly large outcomes, this provides an abundance of opportunities for what is left. By targeting the underfunded startups, you can invest in businesses that have an 80% chance of a $300M outcome and gradually move upmarket from there.
Not only will this provide a funding opportunity for entrepreneurs who would normally have been seen as outside the box, but it can drive innovation and new ideas. Different people can solve different problems, so it stands to reason that funding a wider spectrum of people will create new, innovative solutions — potentially serving a wider, more diverse population.
Related: How We Can Beat Venture Capital’s Diversity Problem
A need for a change of perspective
It is not that venture capitalists have made bad decisions or ignored critical data. They haven’t, but it is rather the culmination of multiple parties making rational decisions that have resulted in systemic levels of risk.
If we look at U.S. venture performance, the majority of returns are generated by a very small subset of players, with the top 5% of funds significantly outpacing the median.
This is also the case with startups, where you will usually have just one from the VC fund’s portfolio bringing in the overwhelming majority of the returns if not all. When successful, VCs can see a return of 5-10x of their money back, and founders can become billionaires.
Yet, we now find ourselves in a post-Power Law meta, which opens up an opportunity for a new perspective and to start making new rational decisions. This shift has seen a substantial increase in both the VC fund count and value in the U.S., with 2021 proving to be a record-breaking year.
Approximately $329B was invested across 17.054 deals last year, a record for both deal count and value. Investors also passed the $100B mark for the first time ever, raising $128.3B.
How should venture work?
However, although we would like to think that this influx of funding is going to the entrepreneurs who could not otherwise get funding, this is not the reality of the situation.
A funding round in a startup will usually comprise 3-5 major funds and a variety of smaller checks putting capital in. However, a recent analysis by venture fund, Social Capital, has shown that there is a significant overlap of VCs co-investing with each other.
Additionally, funds over $500M accounted for 77% of capital raised by venture funds in H1 2022, with an average fund size of $317M. The returns are predominantly concentrated on those few companies and a few key investors.
Related: You Can’t Get VC Funding for Your Startup. Now, What?
What is the solution?
Many things can go wrong with startups once they have accepted venture capital, and they are typically left with two options: to shut down or pivot. Limited partners’ fund managers are generally not going to consider risky bets, opting to look for consistent winners within their allocation. Furthermore, you have to look at what would incentivize them to diversify when they have received huge returns over the past decade.
Still, this provides an opportunity for an alternative product to invest in companies with limited fund size and equity optionality through redemption clauses or equity buybacks. As a serial entrepreneur myself, I have built multiple businesses in the last few years. Some failed, and a couple of them succeeded in multi-million dollar companies with offices on a global scale.
Now as Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Venturerock The Valley, we aim to support startups from seed to scale and decrease the high failure rate for startups. We are not looking to sell products, but rather to focus on startups that create a big impact and really solve a problem using emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI and IoT. All our partners combined have accelerated more than 700 startups to date.
While many still focus on the big few, they risk missing out on new innovative ideas and breakthrough technologies simply because they did not fit the mold. Even though these startups may not turn out to be the next $50B company, they can still bring great value to the table, be very successful and create a big impact. These companies deserve to be supported on their journeys and to see their visions come to fruition.
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Danny Cortenraede
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How Small Businesses Are Teaming Up to Boost Local Economies
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It’s no secret that small businesses face challenges on a daily basis. Current supply chain woes need all levels of attention as problems arrive in every shape and size. Small businesses are seeking many – often any – opportunities to help keep their lights on and doors open.
mavo | Shutterstock
The gap between businesses thriving, surviving, and boarding-up windows is a fine line.
The incredible challenges over the last few years brought rapid innovation and adoption of new technologies to supply chains, which has helped small businesses purchase essential supplies to keep operations up and running.
Small businesses make up the fabric of local communities and keep main streets populated and vibrant. Big business also plays a role in developing technology and solutions on a scale that reflects the scale of the challenge – in this case, global supply issues creating challenges at every level of business.
When it comes to the challenges that small businesses continue to face with remote work and ongoing supply chain disruption, there is an opportunity for small businesses to partner with other small and local businesses to help survive the economic climate, while also supporting their local community.
Strength in numbers
One of the first steps is to help small and local businesses connect with one another. This is where new technology and innovation help the local business community get in touch, with a mutually beneficial purpose: to buy from each other.
Innovation from digital purchasing solutions helps small businesses make a greater impact on the local community. Current technology can help direct the purchase of products and supplies to (other) small businesses in the local community
All businesses have a unique story to tell. Ask any business owner and they’re sure to award your curiosity with their tales of success and hardship.
Survival of the smartest
Many people are familiar with the words “Smart TV” or “Smart Phone”, while less people know “SMART” stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. SMART objects and processes have gained awareness where they were once considered inanimate.
Not only have advances in technology brought new efficiencies to the purchasing process for small businesses, but the benefits of innovation and digital procurement solutions have introduced a variety of fresh ideas and approaches from this resulting innovation.
Using digital procurement solutions not only enables small businesses to more easily pinpoint cost savings, reveal opportunities, and turn insights into action, but business leaders get time back to invest in organizational strategy and business growth.
Small businesses can leverage the power of machine learning technology and use these solutions to find and purchase business products from other small and local businesses. In turn, this helps their small business community and local economy.
Exclusive pricing and products
Digital procurement solutions simplify the buying process, helping small businesses easily purchase business-relevant products while shifting spend to support other small and local businesses.
Businesses can shop from hundreds of thousands of sellers, buy products in bulk, and access quantity discounts on supplies, which starts with the purchases of two or more of the same products.
The purchasing platform does the work of finding, retaining, and nurturing suppliers. Businesses can then create buying policies to prefer sellers based on criteria that match the company’s values and goals, choosing suppliers with certifications for diversity, local businesses, and more sustainable products.
Simplify and organize purchases
Organizational purchasing goals can be proactively measured by tracking purchases of products from certified local businesses and can also be filtered by certification, zip code, city, and state.
Once small businesses can locate and purchase products from other small and local businesses, the process becomes simple and repeatable. This allows small business owners to introduce more organization to their purchasing, while also benefiting from a more simplified purchasing process, overall.
Small businesses can now easily separate work from personal purchases, automate buying and shipping preferences, create out-of-the-box reports, and streamline the entire procurement process.
From building to booming:
Current innovations in purchasing can help identify purchasing behavior, discover new products and sellers, and measure progress toward purchasing goals. Small businesses can continue to focus on building and growing, along with pinpointing opportunities for savings, while also helping support other businesses in their communities.
Whether your small business is a recent startup or a quickly-growing organization, digital procurement solutions help make running your small business easier while connecting you with other small businesses. As a collective, you can keep lights on throughout both your digital and physical “Main Street” which, in turn, benefits your own small business.
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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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4 Holiday Side-Hustles for Extra Cash
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The holiday season is such a busy time that you might not think of taking on a side hustling gig. It’s the perfect time to do so because you are not the only one whose time is stretched to the limit. Everyone is going in ten directions at once; now’s your chance to step in, lend a hand, and make some excellent side-hustle money. Maybe you’d like to earn for that weekend getaway during the cold winter months or pay off those smoking-hot credit cards after your busy shopping season. Let’s look at some tremendous seasonal side hustles that also let you enjoy the fun of the holidays.
1. Take your e-business live at a show or festival
The holiday season is bustling with craft fairs and shopping festivals. Here’s your chance to combine a side hustle with valuable business research. My company, Hollywood Sensation Jewelry, has been an online business from the start. This year, my ingenious husband Anthony Hood suggested we participate in the Sunset Market, a huge outdoor market in Oceanside.
Quite economically, we rented a booth, set up a tent and spent four hours selling Hollywood Sensation merchandise in public. I admit I had doubts about whether this would work for us, and I was even nervous about the public interaction. But, if you’ll forgive the pun, the results were sensational! We sold more than enough to offset our expenses. More than that, however, we got live feedback from real customers with whom we could speak one-on-one.
If you have a product you’ve never taken out of the e-store, check your community calendar for upcoming festivals, conventions and fairs to get in on a new revenue stream and free market research. The cost of renting a booth will vary depending on the popularity and turnout of the event. I recommend starting small and scaling up if things go well. Be certain that you select an event that jibes with your brand. We might not want to take Hollywood Sensation Jewelry to a plumbing expo, but that sunset beach atmosphere was perfect for some glamor.
Related: Unlike Many Things That Are a Lot of Work, Trade Shows Are Worth It
2. Take your skills to the masses
Do you have a knack for holiday décor? Fancy gift-wrapping? Event planning? Delectable baked goods? Well, not everybody does, and that’s why they need your services, especially at this time of year. Maybe you have a holiday cake or cookie recipe that gets rave reviews everywhere you go. Let folks at the office potluck and the church social know you’re available to bake one for them, too.
Utilize social media to get your name out there as someone who can put up a beautiful Christmas tree (indoors or outdoors) and otherwise deck the halls. And don’t forget – while many people love to decorate for Christmas, almost no one loves taking it all back down again. Are you willing to do the untangling, repackaging and boxing of all that holly and mistletoe? Maybe you have a pickup truck and can haul away trees for responsible disposal.
Sites like TaskRabbit.com let you create an account as a helping hand for a limitless variety of tasks and get customer reviews to build your reputation and bring in even more business. For example, TaskRabbit offers the following average costs for these services: “Party Clean Up” for $49-$80, “Toy Assembly” for $40-$99 and “Christmas Decorating” for $48-$86. You can even get paid to stand in line for someone else. I am not kidding!
Related: 44 Profitable Ideas to Make Extra Money on the Side
3. Reap the perks of a seasonal job
Stores and delivery businesses always seek reliable help for the season. Showing yourself as an excellent seasonal employee means you can almost certainly be welcomed back the following year. And don’t forget – many stores offer their regular employee discounts to seasonal workers. If you’ve got your eye on an expensive purchase, you might get another 10% or more off the cost. My friend worked for five weeks at a home furnishings store and saved his family a bundle on new flooring and a refrigerator.
Here’s another option: party companies are slammed this time of year, and they need people to prep, decorate, serve, check in guests, take coats, valet cars, conduct table games and clean up afterward. I have a friend who deals blackjack at holiday parties and enjoys it. She attends several fancy parties each year, hears the bands, meets fun people who are all having a great time and gets paid for doing it.
Seasonal job salaries depend on your location, but here are some examples. On average, delivery companies pay about $16.00 per hour, warehouses about $13.80, and store gift wrappers earn around $12.00 an hour. When applying at retail stores with an eye on purchases, ask if their employee discount extends to seasonal help.
Related: Start an Amazon Side Hustle and Earn Extra Money
4. Be a sitter
What do the holidays bring besides good cheer? Travelers! People have places to go and things to do, whether for an evening party, a busy shopping day away from the children or two weeks out of town. Ease their travel stress by being the person who holds down the fort. Reliable and friendly childcare, eldercare, housesitting and pet care take a load off everyone’s mind.
It’s a relief to know someone is there to keep an eye on the house or check in on older relations to ensure all is safe. Once more, multiple gig websites let you register as a sitter (check out Rover.com or Care.com, for example). Or, get established in one neighborhood as a terrific house — or pet-sitter, and you’ll get more offers. Word gets around on the homeowners’ websites fast, and having multiple gigs in the same neighborhood adds to your convenience.
Enjoy your holidays
A holiday side hustle is more than just a way to supplement your income. Getting out into the holiday atmosphere is a great way to enjoy the season’s spirit, ease the stress for others and help create wonderful memories. Of course, giving is better than receiving, but if you can do both simultaneously with a holiday side hustle, that’s quite a reason to celebrate.
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Mary Hood
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What is Staff Augmentation? 3 Reasons It is Vital For Your Business
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Recruiting and retaining exceptional talent is challenging and takes a lot of time, especially when companies in the tech space demand experienced developers and engineers.
Moreover, filling in the gaps due to a lack of resources or specialists can be challenging and time-consuming at the same time, especially for high-tech roles like iOS developers or machine learning engineers, for which the demands have been escalating since the great resignation.
This is where the model of staff augmentation comes into play! In this article, we will discuss the concept of staff augmentation, its increasing demand and why enterprises need to focus on in-house team expansion for quick hiring.
Related: 10 Strategies for Hiring and Retaining New Employees
Staff augmentation
Staff augmentation is a type of cooperation model where businesses, from startups to corporate enterprises, source talent via staffing agencies to work with them temporarily to fill the talent gaps promptly.
Today, staff augmentation has turned mainstream, with nearly $500 billion annual spending on global IT staffing services alone.
Businesses now prefer partnering with staff augmentation service providers to boost the competency of their internal teams and accelerate the development process rather than spending weeks prospecting ideal candidates, conducting interviews and shortlisting candidates to fill an immediate talent gap.
Related: 6 Ways to Effectively Navigate Market Turbulence in the IT World
Why is staff augmentation surging in popularity?
The staff augmentation model has been successful over recent years due to the following three reasons:
1. It is suited for a hybrid work environment
People willing to switch to low-paying remote jobs rather than continuing on-prem work in their previous settings indicate that the future of work is remote. Remote work is the new normal, especially in the technology and digital transformation sectors.
Staff augmentation services are suited to cater to the needs of a remote-first global economy that still needs to prepare to let go of all the advantages of on-prem work. With this setting, businesses can extend support to their internal teams by partnering with staff augmentation service providers to cater to bridge talent gaps and meet deadlines faster.
2. It is low risk compared to other outsourcing models
The staff augmentation model triumphs over all the outsourcing models regarding flexibility, affordability and quality. Compared to other outsourcing models, the risks involved with staff augmentation services are zero to none due to constant collaboration with the internal teams.
The augmented team or resource operates either as mere extensions of the internal teams or under the supervision of the in-house managers. Uninterrupted collaboration and seamless integrations of both teams eliminate any possibility of errors.
Thus, the risk involved in this model is considerably lower than the other project outsourcing models like offshoring or managed services.
3. Staff augmentation is flexible to scale without compromising sustainability
As the global recession started knocking on the doors, the results of aggressive hiring and fierce spending started becoming more evident. Consequently, most businesses either stopped or at least cut-down spending on scaling by considerable margins.
This phenomenon has kept thousands of global entrepreneurs from putting all the stakes in and investing aggressively in scaling their businesses. However, things have started to take quite an exciting turn as IT staffing, and resource augmentation services became mainstream.
With IT staff augmentation, businesses no longer remain prone to compromising sustainability, as they can end contracts with external teams if things start going south.
This model enables entrepreneurs to fuel their desires to achieve exponential growth and scalability without worrying about laying off permanent employees or (in the worst case scenario) signing up for bankruptcy.
Related: 6 Ways to Effectively Navigate Market Turbulence in the IT World
Why you need to start implementing the staff augmentation model
The following facts and figures are clear evidence that the staff augmentation model is here to stay:
1. The great resignation and the wake-up call
The quiet quitting culture has been disturbing the workflow of organizations since the epidemic. Even amidst the global recession session, where companies like Meta and Amazon are forced to lay off a considerable part of their workforce, the culture of quiet quitting has not stopped.
People silently leave their well-paying jobs due to a lack of serenity, toxic work environments, pay disparity or other reasons. As an entrepreneur, you should be prepared to deal with such cases within your organization.
Although you must prioritize fostering a culture of collaboration and encouragement, you should also be prepared to fill in talent gaps in case a team member resigns on short notice rather than compromising on the resource quality to fill the gaps.
2. Going above and beyond to fill talent gaps
The onshore, offshore and nearshore markets could provide more diversity in IT skills and expertise your company needs, depending on your location. With staff augmentation services, you can access a broader universal talent pool, including from regions acknowledged for having the finest IT talents, such as Europe and Asia.
Building external teams to bridge the talent gap using staff augmentation services can also help you save the time and cost of setting up dedicated workspaces and recruiting highly-skilled teams.
3. Increasing cyber attacks
As businesses switch to fully remote and hybrid working models, they become prone to cyber-attacks and data breaches. According to Statista, the data breaches in the third quarter of 2022 were at the all-time highest, with businesses reporting approximately 15 million data breaches.
Although businesses are now setting up dedicated networking teams to safeguard confidential information from hackers and intruders, not all of them can afford it. Thus, they eventually recruit network engineers via an augmented staffing model to stay protected from potential cyber threats and data breaches.
Related: 4 Best Practices When Choosing a Staffing Agency
Final thoughts
Using staff augmentation to address the talent gaps instead of outsourcing or managed services models let business owners keep the charge of the project. As a business owner, you get to choose the talent you deem fit for the role and maintain authority over the project to get things done your way.
With staffing services, you not only eliminate the recruitment time and cost but also access a global talent of highly-skilled developers and engineers to work alongside your in-house teams to optimize overall competencies and boost productivity.
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Asim Rais Siddiqui
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5 Ways to Improve Local SEO
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving like any other industry. The struggle to stay on top of the ranking takes more than a post in a month. To stay rated and relevant, you must put in the time and conduct the research.
Being easily searchable, informative and consistent is more crucial than ever for small businesses, and for that, businesses need local search engine optimization. It’s simpler than you might think to master local SEO. Here are five quick techniques to boost local SEO and make your small business rank above its rivals.
Related: Struggling in Local Search? Here’s What Your Local SEO Strategy Needs
1. Ensure the consistency of your NAP
Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP). Your local SEO approach may succeed or fail based on these three simple facts. Make sure to display this information on your website prominently.
As it will show at the bottom of every page, the footer is an excellent location for your NAP. You can also make your NAP visible on service area pages and your contact page’s body.
Consistency is key. Your essential company details must be consistent wherever potential clients may find you online.
Related: 5 Tips to Improve Your Local SEO in 5 Hours
2. Enhance the on-page content
You can demonstrate that you are the industry leader in your field for the service you offer by using the content on your site. Along with your services in your region, include specifics like street names and landmarks.
Explain to the customer why they would require your services in that particular location. Your customer’s user experience will be improved the more you sound like you belong.
Related: This Important Website Feature Is Crucial For Your Business
3. Get listed in local directories
Getting featured in local directories is a fantastic additional strategy for enhancing your local SEO. There are a lot of web directories that are specifically designed for businesses in certain regions.
Your chances of being discovered by potential clients looking for companies like yours are increased by having a listing in these directories.
4. Optimize header tags
Check out this resource on the best practices for using header tags if you haven’t already looked into the topic. By developing localized service pages, you have now gained more space to construct highly targeted header tags with local-based keywords.
Good header tags provide a general picture of the page’s overall structure and what to expect as visitors browse through the content. It would look odd if you simply loaded keywords into the header tags.
Related: How Should You Optimize for Branded Keywords?
5. Create relevant backlinks
Backlinks are one of the most significant ranking elements for any website, and it is the connections to your website made by other websites. Google views backlinks as endorsements — the higher the backlinks, the more they appear in search results.
Prioritizing quality over number is crucial while developing backlinks. Look for chances to receive backlinks from reputable websites related to your business.
Related: What Are Backlinks and Why Do You Need Them for Your SEO?
Style preference for SEO
- Use dashes with a space on either side.
- Avoid serial commas: Cabbage, tomato, and potato.
- End quote marks should be placed inside commas and periods, and there must be one space following a period.
- Single quotes should only be used around other single quotes.
- Include your personal hyperlinks and avoid placing citations or URLs in parentheses below the article.
- Sparingly use one-sentence paragraphs. The ideal paragraph length is two or three sentences.
- Subheads should have the same parallel format. They all need complete sentences if the initial heading is a full sentence. Subheads shouldn’t contain links. Just use them in your text. After the first word in a subhead, do not capitalize the following words.
- If you must use “he,” use “she” as well. Pluralizing your pronouns will help you avoid this formulation, at least occasionally.
- Never use the pronoun “they” to refer to a firm, organization, or government body.
- Maintain consistency: If you begin with the pronoun “you,” don’t change it. It’s best to avoid using “we,” “I,” “he/she,” and “you” in the same sentence. Throughout the sentence, use the same verb tense. Keep in mind that the present perfect tense shows continual, habitual action.
- Look for repetition of the same points, words, or themes.
- All numbers less than ten (apart from percentages) are written out. Numbers 10 or more are represented by numerals.
- Numbers are always used to express years. With numbers, use “greater than” rather than “over.” Instead of writing “percent,” use the % symbol.
- Verify quotes using trustworthy sources.
- Lay out any acronyms and abbreviations other people may not be familiar with on the first reference, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.
- In names for the first reference, use the complete name. Only the last name should be used in subsequent references.
Final thoughts
For promoting your local online business, you must include local SEO. You can increase your visibility in local search results by claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing. By getting listed in local directories and adding location pages to your website, you can draw more clients to your company.
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Sean Boyle
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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.
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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9 Ways To Grow Your Small Business Through Social Media Marketing
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Small businesses have increasingly relied on social media marketing to reach customers, create brand awareness and drive sales over the past decade. Whether you’re just starting or have been in business for years, social media marketing can help your small business reach its full potential. You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars in marketing to grow your customer base and succeed with social media marketing — you need to use it strategically and effectively. To help you grow your small business through social media marketing, we’ve put together this list of nine tips you can use in your next campaign.
Related: 5 Components Your Content Marketing Strategy Needs
1. Decide which platform is best for your business
Social media is a great place to start if you’re thinking about branching out and exploring new marketing avenues. Instagram is an excellent way for businesses with visual products (like clothing or jewelry) to showcase their work. Twitter can be a powerful tool for building relationships and customer service. Facebook is the most popular platform on the web, so it’s worth experimenting with. Not only can you create a Facebook page for your company and post updates, but you can also build a community around it by liking pages related to your work. This will bring in new followers who are interested in your industry.
2. Develop a social media calendar
Start by researching your competition on all the major social media platforms. Look for what they’re doing, how often they post and what their posts look like. By reviewing their work, you’ll be able to determine if you want to emulate them or branch out on your own. Once you’ve found a strategy that works for you, create an editorial calendar with specific day-to-day tasks and goals outlined. You should be updating your social channels throughout the week rather than just once per week. Posting more often keeps people interested and leads them back to your site.
3. Recognize when it’s time to pivot
You might have successfully used a certain method or strategy in the past, but there may come a time when it no longer works or becomes ineffective. If this happens, don’t be afraid to switch gears and try something new that might work better for your company today.
Related: When to Pivot Your Business — and When You Should Just Quit
4. Stay up-to-date on trends
One of the best things you can do for your business is to stay in tune with what’s happening in the digital world. Read blogs, magazines, books and publications about new technologies and innovations that will be relevant to your industry. Join groups, attend events and network with others working in the field so that you can stay current on which consumers are using new channels.
5. Take advantage of live video
Live video is a great way to engage with customers, respond quickly and provide a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in your office. It’s also a great way to offer quick tutorials, or an inside peek at the day-to-day workings of your company. If you’re struggling with content ideas, try using live video as a time filler while you think of something else to say.
Related: Why More Brands Are Going Live With Their Videos (and Why You Should, Too)
6. Host a contest or giveaway
Create a contest or giveaway that is centered around your product or service. Make it simple and easy for people to enter by using a form on your website. You can run this contest or giveaway on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. If you are giving away a physical prize like a t-shirt or mug, ensure the shipping is included in the item’s price. Consider setting up a timeline with milestones so customers can see how they’re progressing through the different levels of the competition. Let them know how many more entries they need to get before they reach their next milestone. For example, when a customer has five entries, tell them they need ten more to win a shirt!
7. Collaborate with other businesses or influencers
Collaborating with other companies or influencers can be a great way to leverage one another’s following and increase exposure for both parties. The key is finding a pairing that makes sense and is relevant to the industry. For example, if you have a beauty salon, partnering with a hairstylist would make more sense than partnering with an accountant. Not only are they in different industries, but they also don’t target the exact demographics of people. Other companies that may pair well with yours include those in similar fields, such as trade show vendors, suppliers and manufacturers.
Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works
8. Take advantage of paid advertising
Social media advertising is a cost-effective way to drive traffic and increase conversions on your website. Facebook ads, Twitter ads and Instagram ads are all great ways of reaching an audience that might not otherwise come across your content. Targeting based on location, interests, demographics and more allows you to reach the people most likely interested in your offer! If you’re using Facebook or Twitter ads, make sure you set up conversion tracking to see which campaigns are working best for your goals. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Universal Analytics if you’re using Instagram ads to track how many users visit your site after clicking on an ad.
9. Make sure you include strong calls-to-action
One of the best things about social media marketing is that it allows us to create one call-to-action per post, as opposed to one call-to-action per page (like we would do on our site). It’s essential that you put yourself in the shoes of someone scrolling through their feed — how does this post look from their perspective?
In conclusion, the most important thing to remember about any business is that it’s a living, breathing entity. One of the best ways to keep your company alive is by using social media as a tool for marketing. Posting on Facebook and Twitter can help you stay visible and fresh in the minds of potential clients. You should also use other platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn or Google+ if they fit your company’s needs.
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Murali Nethi
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Boost Your Customers’ Experience With This Operating Model
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Customer experience has become one of the top priorities for organizations, especially as an increasing amount of business moves online. The consumers of today shop with one foot in-store and one foot online, but they expect the same experience across both. It’s a tall order but not an impossible one. However, creating a seamless, frictionless journey for your customers won’t be possible if your organization doesn’t have seamless, frictionless teams.
Adopting an internal Revenue Operations model (RevOps) helps unite your customer-facing teams, so they can focus on providing a singular, cohesive experience to consumers, no matter where or how they buy. The tenants of RevOps are simple: Unite all these teams under the shared goal of revenue through a combination of tools and processes that enable them to work together more effectively. These tools then bleed into improving aspects of the buyer experience.
Related: Customer Experience Will Determine the Success of Your Company
1. Shared data improves personalization and consistency
Employees need to work from the same data to reduce miscommunication and confusion. In a traditional business model, customer data is siloed across different departments. This means that no one can access a complete picture of a customer’s journey and only works with pieces. From a customer’s perspective, this can lead to repetitive or irrelevant interactions that don’t match up with what’s already happened in their buying journey, causing frustration.
RevOps addresses this issue by condensing all customer information into a shared, accessible source that updates in real-time. A team member can look up a customer and see every interaction they’ve had with the company, whether it’s email messaging from marketing, a demo call with sales or an onboarding question with customer success. It’s all there in one place. Not only does this united data reduce repetitive or nontargeted interactions, but it also provides insight into actions moving forward. It ensures the customer receives an experience that makes them feel more seen and heard.
2. Improved internal communications remove friction within the customer journey
Customers being labeled as leads too early or opportunities allowed to go cold are frequent complaints in the discourse between marketing and sales. While there is no way to accurately predict which customers will purchase and which won’t, a lot of the infighting results from different perspectives and approaches to the customer. How marketing qualifies a lead could be different than how sales defines them and vice versa.
With a RevOps model, teams have increased communication and work under clearly-defined processes. Implementing a RevOps model requires sales and marketing teams to sit down together, share unique perspectives and expertise and map the entire customer journey to agreed-upon terms. The result is that both groups are armed with the same metrics to qualify customers in different parts of the buyer journey, clear next steps on how to proceed and tools that prevent prospects from going cold.
Related: Aggregate Data to Grasp the Whole Customer Journey
3. Tools support collaboration and communication across the customer journey
United teams require connected tools to keep everyone in sync, which is where the tech stack comes in. One of the tenants of a RevOps model is to create a centralized source of data, also known as “a single source of truth.” This is the heart of the RevOps tech stack. By layering tools like data enrichment and business intelligence on top, businesses can maximize the value of their data to create deeper customer profiles, discover new revenue opportunities and derive further actionable insights.
Customer-facing teams must also evaluate their tech stacks with a RevOps lens, ensuring that all existing solutions support the tenants of connection, communication and collaboration. Integrations are a must; all tools must be able to connect with and pull data from the centralized data source. This requires implementing a common data model so all data can be read and utilized by all other solutions. Marketing and sales automation solutions that run on this shared data equip teams to structure their communications around the revamped customer journey, ensuring consistent communications with customers while enabling businesses to scale.
Related: Customer Experience: Making it a Priority for Revenue Growth
While what your customers see and hear during their buying journey is incredibly important, so are the operations behind the curtain that support that experience. If your teams can’t work together as customers move through the sales pipeline, your customer will notice apparent bumps in the road. In addition to investing in the front-end operations and tools of your experience, you must also make the necessary internal investments. Switching to a revenue operations model ensures your teams work as a united front and empowers them with the leadership, processes and tools to do so.
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Margaret Wise
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3 Ways to Avoid Violating Federal Regulations (and Save Money)
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit have always been integral components in what it takes to succeed and grow in a competitive marketplace. With the numerous tasks and considerations business owners must juggle when starting a business, there’s already a lot to worry about. Throw regulatory risk in the matrix of items businesses must face and that is an overwhelming total.
According to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, it is estimated that federal regulations cost the American economy up to $1.9 trillion each year from direct costs, lost productivity and higher prices. On top of that, businesses that are non-compliant with regulations pay, on average, 2.71 times the amount they would on regulatory-conscious practices.
Few industries are immune to regulatory risk. The manufacturing industry tops the list as the most regulated with over 200,000 regulations, according to Industry Today — and in the same report, finance and insurance are the second most regulated sectors with almost 128,000 relevant regulations. Additional domestic and international highly regulated industries in a list curated by Deloitte include health care, transportation, life sciences, energy, agriculture, construction, defense and postal services.
Although compliance poses a headache, regulations do play an important role. Numerous governmental regulatory bodies — such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — exist to protect consumers and the integrity of the domestic and abroad fiscal environment, as well as to promote fair and ethical practices. But with so many regulatory agencies and policies existing, it isn’t surprising countless businesses find themselves caught in potential regulatory violations.
Having the tools to avoid non-compliance penalties and stay ahead of regulatory risk is critical to the financial health and longevity of your business. Regardless of your industry, regulatory risk is an ever-present threat due to robust and ever-changing policies that pose tremendous costs if you aren’t properly protected or completely compliant. The following practices position a business so it’s safeguarded against rising costs and increased risk of regulatory compliance.
Related: Risk, the Entrepreneur and Intelligent Disobedience
Start with a strong foundation
Before anything else, make sure the people you employ model values and character you deem essential for your business. After all, regulatory compliance often comes down to trust — being able to trust that employees will respect and adhere to regulations and value the protection that regulations provide consumers and end-users.
With government regulations and regulatory risk, that principle is a significant determining factor in how well your business can adhere to regulations enforced by governing bodies, especially since your employees carry out your business’s mission and their commitment can make adherence to federal regulations simpler when working together as a cohesive unit. Putting policies and policy/regulation training in place also helps ensure your employees stay aware of changes in regulatory standards and keep contributing in positive ways to your business.
Stay compliant or risk everything
Cutting to the chase, your business needs to conduct ongoing internal audits to determine points of weakness and see areas of current or future potential risk. Implementing a regulatory compliance team/officer is also a great idea to ensure your company follows mandates handed down by government agencies, lest you incur their wrath.
From a penalty standpoint, Chron reports that a business unknowingly violating health regulations must pay a minimum of $5,000 for each infraction committed. A number that goes up to $70,000 per violation if the business is deemed to have willfully violated regulations. For small and mid-size businesses, this can devastate and seem like an uneven punishment given how little the fines affect larger businesses.
A real-world example of a regulatory violation and its cost comes from Target and its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) fines from 2017. In 2013, Target’s system was hacked and 41 million of its customers’ payment card accounts were compromised. Subsequently, Target settled a class-action lawsuit with victims of the hack for $10 million. Although Target was not intentionally mishandling its customer data, it was a breach nonetheless.
Given the tight regulations and restrictions that GDPR enforces, this cost Target a further $18.5 million from a multi-state settlement in 2017. In terms of penalties, healthcare and personal data-related breaches consistently result in tens of millions of dollars in fines.
Related: Target’s Security Breach Stresses the Need for Better Cyber Security
Insure your business
In a report from McKinsey & Company, traditional insurance companies and their respective policies may be able to protect your business’s regulatory/compliance risks. While still behind the curve in getting new policies immediately out there, traditional insurance is working to keep up with rapidly changing economic and regulatory environments.
Another option when transferring risk is captive insurance. A captive insurance company is owned by the company or company owner and is a form of self-insurance where premiums (minus claims) are retained as profit. For risks like regulatory compliance, captive insurance is uniquely suited to address the risk since the policies can be written more broadly and customized to address an evolving, complex threat such as regulatory risk. It can also fill the gaps in a traditional insurance policy and ensure an exclusion won’t prevent claims from being paid.
Related: What Business and Government Should Do When Innovation Outpaces Regulation
When growing a business within a highly-regulated industry, it’s extremely challenging to stay on top of evolving regulations and policies unless you have specific experts on your team dedicated to ensuring compliance. However, not all businesses have the capacity for a role such as this. Thus, it behooves businesses to follow best practices and have resources in place to properly address and mitigate the risk.
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Randy Sadler
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Here’s What Really Builds Customer Loyalty in the B2B Industry
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
During the past couple of years, we’ve all had a front-row seat at the B2B digital transformation, and it has become clear that great B2B ecommerce buying experiences don’t just happen. They require a strategic investment of time and money — and an understanding of the psychological drivers that create experience loyalty in business buyers.
While experience loyalty has been around the B2C world for decades, the B2B industry is now catching on that delighting customers doesn’t build loyalty. Instead, reducing buyer effort, or the work a buyer must do to get their problems solved, does. For today’s B2B customers, the “problem” that needs to be solved starts with the first purchase: Is it easy to start doing business with your company?
Related: The Convergence of B2B and B2C: How to Create Epic Experiences in an Experience-driven Economy
Over half of B2B buyers have switched all suppliers in one year
Most B2B companies earn a large share of their revenue from ongoing sales to existing customers, making customer retention an important B2B business priority. As human encounters are replaced with digital ones, sellers are challenged to find new ways to keep clients sticky when the competition is just a click away.
In 2021, 55% of US-based respondents in a global survey said they had switched suppliers for all business purchases in the 12 months preceding the survey. Another 41% said they had switched some suppliers for some business purchases. With nine of 10 respondents switching vendors, one can only conclude that great B2B buying experiences are not happening and likely falling further behind as the digital age progresses. Only a year earlier, in 2020, the comparable percentages were 20% for all purchases and 43% for some purchases.
Although 2022 numbers aren’t out yet, it’s safe to assume that B2B buyers continue to have rising expectations based on their B2C ecommerce habits. That’s why B2B leaders need to understand that today’s key differentiator is their company’s ability to deliver the best possible B2B customer experience.
Customer effort matters much more than delight
Gartner has extensively studied experience loyalty, evaluating whether customer satisfaction can accurately predict future loyalty. Although counterintuitive, their conclusion is “no.” The data revealed that 20% of customers who reported that they were “satisfied” also expressed an intention to buy from someone else. And the delight strategy fares no better: “There was virtually no difference between the loyalty of customers whose expectations were exceeded and those whose expectations were simply met,” the report states. Instead, the true driver of customer loyalty is the amount of effort customers must use to resolve a problem: 96% of customers who had a high-effort experience reported being disloyal compared with 9% with low-effort experiences.
As business leaders, we don’t want our customers to have problems with our products or services. But it doesn’t take a “big” problem to give a customer the feeling that a company is hard to do business with. Gartner identifies the key sources of customer effort as:
It’s more likely that a “simple” customer request can reveal whether it’s genuinely easy to do business with your company.
Related: 12 Golden Rules for Customer Experience Strategy
B2B payments are complex, but the buying experience can be simple
In evaluating today’s B2B customer journey, many B2B buyers find the purchase process complicated and time-consuming. It can be hard to select a supplier, and once chosen, the onboarding process can take days (or even weeks, in some industries) adding immense friction at the very beginning of the customer experience. This segment of the customer journey has historically been a manual and paper-based system. In my experience, many companies “digitize” payments by adding online forms, which does not improve or accelerate the manual underpinnings.
Today’s buyers have much higher expectations and expect B2B ecommerce to be fully automated, instantly responsive and mobile-friendly. Furthermore, corporate customers increasingly want more self-service account options, which require robust portals or apps that allow them to access invoices, make payments, manage disputes and more in just a few clicks.
Better B2B payments can remove a majority of the friction
Today, business growth will likely include new digital channels, such as ecommerce, marketplaces and more. And although B2B customers enjoy these new channels, they want to continue purchasing the way they always have, with contracts, purchase orders (POs) and invoices. Why? Because contracts often include special pricing and other negotiated terms, and the POs and invoices are required to manage enterprise expenses.
That’s why digital channels designed to offer a great B2B customer experience must include all the complexity required by buyers and their organizations. The key is that the complicated plumbing must sit behind a sleek, easy checkout experience.
The good news is that the days of building these digital solutions in-house are long gone. Instead, B2B merchants can choose to join an existing B2B payments and invoicing network that is purpose-built to reduce many of the challenges organizations encounter as they strive to enhance experience loyalty. These proven B2B payments providers can provide:
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Real-time trade credit decisioning in moments, not days, that keep prospective buyers engaged when they have decided to purchase
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Right-sized corporate trade credit accounts
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Automated accounts receivable to support new customer acquisition and onboarding
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Digital invoices in formats that are easy for enterprise systems to digest
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Fraud detection and mitigation during trade credit decisioning
Related: The Ultimate Secret of Building a Loyal Customer Base
A modern B2B payment process can create experience loyalty
It’s the new reality: Most B2B buyers don’t want help during “the sales process” unless they ask for it. Instead of relying on salespeople to build sticky relationships, companies must grow customer loyalty in other ways. Investing in an easier payments experience is an excellent place to start.
Many companies view their online payment experience as merely mechanical — it either works or not — and in the past, they were largely correct. But like it or not, today’s digital world is very different. With a world of merchants at their fingertips, buyers know they have choices and are quick to take their business elsewhere. That’s why suppliers that create a customer-centric checkout, designed to give B2B buyers an experience that is neither complicated nor time-consuming, can gain a significant competitive edge. According to McKinsey, B2B companies that transformed their customer experiences saw 10 to 15% revenue growth, higher client satisfaction scores, improved employee satisfaction and a 10-20% reduction in operational costs.
Companies of all sizes can use this type of technology to their strategic advantage where loyalty-building B2B payments experiences are just a few APIs away. A comprehensive payments solution can significantly reduce the friction that new buyers encounter. Investing in a low-effort onboarding process can create a memorable relationship starter, build experience loyalty and differentiate your company — all the result of strategically investing time and money to create a great B2B ecommerce experience.
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Brandon Spear
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