ReportWire

Tag: Business Process

  • 5 Sneaky Ways for Brands to Boost Holiday Sales

    5 Sneaky Ways for Brands to Boost Holiday Sales

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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

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

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

    Related: How Small Businesses Can Prepare for Holiday Shopping

    1. Promote giftable subscriptions

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

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

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

    2. Offer extra loyalty points for gifting

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

    3. Allow customers to customize bundles

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

    4. Discounting can be a win-win

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

    Related: How Holiday Marketing Can Help Enhance your Brand Image

    5. Get in the spirit of giving

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

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

    Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Make Charity a Habit

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

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

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    Gaby Yitzhaek Tegen

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  • 5 Things to Do Now to Propel Your Business in 2023

    5 Things to Do Now to Propel Your Business in 2023

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Entrepreneurship is a daily leap of faith. In times of economic uncertainty, that leap may feel like a dive off a cliff. We are in one of those times. It likely will take months to fully re-adjust to the forces that have pummeled the world’s economy, and to entrepreneurs, months can feel like years.

    With the right playbook, entrepreneurs can survive and thrive in whatever economic scenario. Here are five things you can do to propel your business ahead now and through the difficulties of business cycles for years to come.

    1. Learn the lessons of more challenging times

    A rocky economy presents a unique opportunity to make tough decisions about the business plan. Everything is open to reexamination. How has the market changed? Are your customers facing challenges that create new opportunities for your solutions? How do new conditions change your assumptions, and what actions do you need to take in response?

    Critically evaluate your product roadmap. Is this the time to pivot or become more aggressive with your current plans? Prioritize the highest margin features that are achievable in the next twelve months. Push out projects that don’t make that list, and re-assign resources accordingly. Re-assess pricing. Even as inflation tiptoes back from the highest levels in forty years, raw material and transportation costs remain way up. What will impact your customers if you adjust the pricing or add surcharges to offset these costs, at least temporarily?

    It’s been a rough year for hiring. Many companies took the talent they could get. If there are employees or gig workers who would fare better in a different job, now is the time to let them go. Make tough-minded corrections that will pay off overall — corrections that might be avoidable in less challenging times.

    Related: How to Turn Inflation and Recession into Your Largest Business Opportunity

    2. Tighten your grip on cash

    Venture capitalists are pulling back. In the third quarter, Crunchbase reported that funding for startups in U.S. and Canada fell 50% year-over-year. Valuations are down across the board. If you are fortunate enough to be a later-stage startup that benefited from VC largess in 2021, make your last raise last longer than intended.

    Keep your dry powder dry, and put off going for another round until the markets even out. Reemphasize the basics for early-stage companies with less market validation and greater distance between now and a potential exit. Delay all capital expenditures. Leverage the hybrid work model if possible, to reduce rent and other office expenses. Continue with Zoom or Google Meet. Now is not the time to rack up travel costs. Re-negotiate fees and terms with service providers. Seek credit terms with key suppliers, in a word, bootstrap.

    3. Talk to customers, in person. Now.

    How have the business needs of your customers — whether paying or beta — changed over the last 18 months? Are there benefits to your solution that have more recognized value now? Nearly every business, for example, from corporates to startups, has been forced to re-learn the lessons of supply chain management. Startups that can help their customers make better business decisions based on artificial intelligence (AI), reduce costs by improving inventory management or protect against out-of-stock scenarios by identifying and building relationships with new, more local sources of supply will have an edge.

    Related: Finding Validation in Serving Customers

    4. Non-dilutive capital

    According to PitchBook, venture capitalists are showing greater interest in portfolio companies “whose satellite, robotics and software tools can do double duty” in military and commercial markets. International conflicts are one reason, of course.

    Another is that the defense and military security industries are generally viewed as recession-proof. Our firm routinely encourages portfolio companies to consider non-dilutive funding from the Small Business Administration — grants to support cutting-edge technologies range from $150,000 to more than $1 million.

    Navigating the application process isn’t for the faint of heart. A startup must be realistic about the work involved, but in many states, there are resources to help. Besides the funding, severe responses to agency requests for proposals are reviewed and evaluated by technologists. At a minimum, this can be terrific feedback and a great source of industry contacts.

    5. Blue-chip cultures attract blue-chip talent

    Company culture can be an asset or a liability. An inclusive, rich culture helps key hires say yes. Finding stakeholders that believe what you believe and are aligned with your team’s values significantly improves the odds that they will stick with you in good times or bad.

    After months of “great resignation” fever, the over-heated demand for talent may be cooling off. Maybe offers aren’t as fast or grand as they were a year ago. Maybe Twitter won’t be the only advanced technology business to let people go. Regardless, the search for great talent isn’t a faucet that a young company turns off and on. A startup might modulate the timing or the number of hires but stand at the ready to recruit and filter for culture fit.

    Related: 3 Ways to Stay Competitive in the War for Talent

    With the right mindset and intentional approach, an entrepreneur can make 2023 a year to strive and thrive. As Yogi Berra, my favorite baseball player of all time, said, “Swing at the strikes.” In business, like baseball, the right swing can turn even the most challenging pitch into a hit.

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    Tom Walker

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  • How to Book Yourself on a Podcast

    How to Book Yourself on a Podcast

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    By 2023, it is predicted that there will be 465 million active podcast listeners across the globe. That is a lot of attention for business owners of all shapes and entrepreneurs to tap into. With more and more people busy and on the go, it’s no surprise that people are opting for audio-only listening — whether in the car, on a walk, on a plane or while cooking dinner. Podcasts are here to stay, and they’re only just getting started.

    When it comes to business, one of the most critical factors in your growth is the number of people you know, like and trust. Podcasts will help you tick all three of those boxes. If you’re not leveraging them as a part of your marketing, let today be the day that changes.

    You will get more reach and exposure as a direct result of the podcasts, and you can leverage the video content from the episode across your social media channels. One recorded podcast episode can produce a month worth of short-form video content for you. Boost Media Agency specializes in PR and podcast bookings, and here I share the exact strategy that we use to book our clients on podcasts and how you can do the same to get yourself on at least one podcast per week.

    Related: Podcasting is the New College

    1. Build a list

    When it comes to getting booked on podcasts, the best place to start is getting clear on the types of shows where you feel you can first reach the right people and, secondly, add the most value. Ensuring each podcast is aligned with your work will simplify the process. It goes without saying, but if you’re in the hair and beauty space, a finance podcast isn’t going to interview you.

    If you’ve never done podcasts before, start small. Trying to get onto Joe Rogan or Tony Robbins podcast if you’re just starting might dampen your spirits. Try to find podcasts that have between 500-5000 listeners per episode, as these will be your best shot, and build a list of at least 20 podcasts.

    Related: Listen up! 4 Reasons Why Podcasts are One of the Best Life Hacks

    2. Connect with the host directly

    It goes without saying, but podcast hosts get pitched — a lot. If you want to skyrocket the chances of a host booking you, the best place to start is to connect with them on social media. Doing so starts the relationship by giving, which is far more likely to end with the host reciprocating.

    So, take the time to listen to an episode, drop them a friend request or follow, and send them a message telling them that you love their show and that a particular message resonated with you.

    3. Create your pitch

    Crafting a pitch can seem like a daunting task. The best place to start is your talking points. What are 2-3 things that, from your experience, you know better than anyone else? Try to get a little more creative than”Scaling to 6-figures,” — as you’ll sound like everyone else. Lean into your uniqueness and story here, as that will sell the host on having you on their show. Remember to keep your pitch short. Here is a basic framework: Compliment, Story, Value and Call To Action.

    Compliment: Who doesn’t love a compliment? Start with this to ensure the host knows it’s personalized and not a mass pitch. E.g., “Loved your episode with John Smith. The message about growing from within really resonated with me.“

    Story: Your story is what will sell them. Share the unique parts of you and your story in 1-3 sentences.

    Value: Podcast hosts want to hear the value you have to provide. Share your 2-3 unique talking points with them in bullet format.

    Call to action (CTA): You’ll never know if you don’t ask. Ask them if they’d like to have you as a guest. For example: “I’d love to share these insights with your audience. If you think this would be valuable for them, would you be open to scheduling a time?”

    Related: Betting Big and Crafting a Winning Elevator Pitch

    4. Press send and automate the follow-up

    So you’ve got your list, your pitch, so here comes the exciting part. Pressing send! Whether pitching the media, or a podcast, in this case, sending emails can be time-consuming, particularly the follow-up. That being said, there are some great email tools that you can leverage, such as Lemlist or Omni.us, where you can create custom email campaigns with automated follow-up sequences.

    We all know that not every email gets replied to, and often the host won’t reply until the second or third email — and trust me, persistence pays off. Make sure to keep the follow-ups around 3-4 days apart, as no one likes to be bombarded daily. We all get enough emails as it is.

    There’s no doubt that podcasts are a great way to build authority, reach new audiences, and ultimately, grow your brand and bottom line. This 4-step process is all you need to book yourself onto great podcasts regularly.

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    Lewis Schenk

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  • How to Avoid the Mistakes That Cause Startups to Fail

    How to Avoid the Mistakes That Cause Startups to Fail

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It has been estimated that as many as 90% of startups fail within the first five years globally. Yet, every year, both new and seasoned entrepreneurs put their heart and soul into starting a new business venture. As a serial entrepreneur and investor, I have built multiple businesses in the last few years. While some failed, a couple of them succeeded and went on to become multi-million-dollar companies with offices on a global scale.

    Being an entrepreneur is often seen through rose-tinted glasses, but the reality is that it requires hard work, perseverance and grit. You can expect to work a lot of hours, and work-life balance can be challenging. You are going to need to focus on designing the product, acquiring new customers, doing the marketing and taking care of finances. In fact, it can feel overwhelming just how many hats you will need to wear. What’s more — there is no guarantee of success.

    So, why do so many startups fail? While lots of different factors can lead to startups failing, here are just a few of the top reasons:

    Related: 5 Reasons Startups Fail (and Why Each One Is Preventable)

    5 key reasons why startups fail

    Cash problems:

    One of the top reasons startups fail is they run out of cash or they fail to raise the capital they need. There can be many factors that contribute to this. They may struggle to attract investors and get them on board with their idea, or perhaps they struggle to get the customers and clients they need to bring in cash.

    Startups often do not go as planned with hitches along the way, which can cost money. So, unless you have the cash flow, you are going to struggle to get the work done so that the product can be moved to production and you can start making money. Furthermore, managing costs poorly can often make the difference between success and failure.

    No market need:

    Perhaps you feel that your idea is fantastic and solves a really important problem, but if it does not serve a market need, you are going to struggle to get interested buyers. This can mean that your product or service does not fill a gap in the market, or there isn’t a market for the gap you are trying to fill.

    Sometimes people try to get around this by marketing a product to everyone, but this is often too broad, and you risk not being able to create an audience around the product or service. Even if you have a great business idea and it has a market need, it can still be a case of bad timing. If you are too early, the market may not be ready for your business — and if you are too late, the market may be saturated, or the hype may be over.

    Ousted by competition:

    Awareness of competition and the overall market is essential if you are to come out as a leader since the competition can be fierce when it comes to business. However, many entrepreneurs do not put the necessary time and effort into assessing and learning from the competition or do not take the time to develop a unique value proposition to help their brand stand out from the rest. Around 20% of startups fail due to being out-competed.

    Having a flawed business model:

    Business models are crucial to the success of a startup, enabling you to scale and become profitable. It can help give a startup a competitive advantage and help them understand their own operations better. It can also lead to an established finance plan to increase cash flow and profitability. Yet, one of the top reasons startups fail is because entrepreneurs have a flawed business model, and as such, cannot scale or sustain the business.

    Lack of passion or burnout:

    Starting a new business can throw your work-life balance out of whack. You may be working long hours or weekends just to stay on top of things, yet you run the risk of being burnt out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where working to extremes gets you a badge of honor, yet it can have a negative impact on your health, home life and your work. Many entrepreneurs lack the tools to manage the pressure of running a startup and can quickly find themselves descending into burnout if they are not careful.

    Related: 5 Tips to Prevent a Startup Failure

    How can entrepreneurs set themselves up for success?

    As an entrepreneur myself, I know how challenging it can be to get a new business up and running and make a profit. That is why we at VentureRock, a digital venture capital platform and ecosystem of founders, backers and builders building the next generation of global tech companies, set up a 72-step program to help accelerate startups and reduce the startup failure rate.

    While there isn’t a miracle formula for success, there are some key points you can focus on to set yourself on the right track.

    Remembering the “why:”

    This tip seems so simple, but it is crucial — and that is remembering the “why.” This could be why you are doing this or why you feel your business is important. It can be your anchor in maintaining a clear vision of what you want to achieve and what problem you are working to solve in the market. It also reminds you of your passion and provides a starting point for setting a solid foundation for your business and establishing core values.

    If you focus solely on selling products and making money, the chances of you succeeding in the long term are small, and most will give up. This is where my company’s approach plays an important role, working with ventures from seed to scale and guiding founders toward long-term success.

    Playing to your strengths:

    Playing to your strengths can be critical in early-stage startups, but they can often be your secret sauce and what makes your business yours. We all have unique qualities and strengths, and they can help set your company apart from others. Look for ways to leverage your strengths, and put them to the best use possible. It is important to stay true to yourself and make sure that what you are doing is in alignment with your sense of happiness, purpose and meaning.

    Getting support and building up a network:

    As an entrepreneur myself, I am passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed and to use my experience to help decrease the failure rate for startups. Getting the support you need early on can be key, whether that is joining groups or joining masterclasses with like-minded people to build up a network. I strongly believe in working closely with people who are already where you want to be, so it can be incredibly useful to work with a mentor.

    Related: 3 Ways to Avoid the Agony of Startup Failure

    Being an entrepreneur often means you need to take a risk, but it is better to go for it than to regret not trying later on in life. You never know the outcome of your efforts until you do it, and while there may be obstacles along the way, belief in yourself can get you a long way.

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    Danny Cortenraede

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  • How to Give Customers the Digital Experience They Crave

    How to Give Customers the Digital Experience They Crave

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The discrepancy between the quality of digital experiences customers report and what businesses believe they are delivering online is proving to be more significant than previously thought.

    Only 10% of global customers agree that brands provide a good digital experience, while 82% of marketers believe they are meeting customer experience (CX) expectations. This abysmal statistic serves as a call to action for businesses everywhere — they must prioritize and optimize their online customer experience to meet customer expectations or risk revenue losses and a damaged reputation.

    Anticipating what customers want out of their digital experience through rigorous analysis can have a significant impact on a brand’s success. By adopting best practices, strategies and tooling, businesses across industries can close the gap between what they think they are delivering and what customers report experiencing.

    Related: What Customers Expect Out of Their Digital Experience

    Digital experience makes or breaks a brand

    The digital experience is essential to a company’s profitability and longevity, yet customers feel as though their expectations are not being met on digital platforms. A total of 54% of U.S. customers say the user experience (UX) of brand websites needs improvement. Brands must listen to customers and understand all issues within digital experiences, taking swift steps to address points of friction.

    Responding to problems as they arise is crucial, but it is just as important to be proactive when developing digital experiences. Brands must work to anticipate customer needs and design platforms with evolving customer preferences in mind.

    Eliminating company blindspots through CX enhancements

    Every company has blind spots — business leaders do not understand customers’ wants and needs, so they invest in the wrong areas. Knowing exactly where customers are experiencing pain points instead of guessing is key to delivering a better CX. Executives must take steps to investigate and close this “digital experience gap.”

    Using tools to surface hidden problem areas provides an opportunity to rectify them — giving customers a reason to come back and stay loyal to one’s brand and website. A recent Emplfi study broke down several key areas where customers experience the biggest pain points:

    • Nearly 20% of customers will abandon a website after just one bad experience.
    • Having a previous positive experience with a brand influences where they make a new purchase.
    • Half of customers will abandon a brand they have been loyal to for over a year due to poor CX.
    • Poor CX and low-quality products are equally harmful to a brand.
    • The main contributors to a negative CX are slow response times and a lack of 24/7 customer service. Customers expect a response within an hour.
    • Customers across the board want access to self-service options to resolve issues independently.

    All it takes is one wrong move for a customer to abandon goodwill toward a brand. Companies are increasingly relying on modern digital tools to help identify sources of customer frustrations and mitigate site abandonment.

    Related: 5 Ways to Show Your Customers You Understand Them in a Digital-First World

    Proven strategies to tackle problem CX areas

    A total of 86% of customers say that they are ready to pay more for a better customer experience, making digital experience improvements a revenue-driving opportunity. Implementing technology that can help businesses anticipate customer needs and respond to user issues in real time can lead to increased conversions and enhanced efficiency. Proven strategies include:

    • Leverage AI: Implementing an AI-driven digital experience analytics platform enables businesses to proactively identify and resolve problems surfaced through customer feedback and interactions data.
    • Prioritize a self-service model: Customers expect immediate answers to any issues they may encounter without having to deal with customer service representatives. Incorporating a chatbot, dynamic FAQs and semantic search engines help customers find their answers with ease.
    • Individualization: An individualized digital experience for each customer is essential, as nearly three-quarters of customers expect personalized interactions. Furthermore, 76% are frustrated when personal interactions aren’t delivered.

    The power of data and analytics

    Businesses cannot close the digital experience gap and meet their customers’ expectations if they do not have a thorough understanding of how customers are navigating their digital platforms. To achieve that understanding, they can integrate analytics solutions such as a Digital Experience Intelligence (DXI) platform to capture and analyze 100% of customer interactions across channels.

    As a DXI platform serves as a single source of truth, the analyses can be used by various teams, helping businesses prioritize and quickly make data-driven decisions about customer experience improvements. Teams are immediately alerted to technical issues on a brand’s website or mobile app so they can be solved before significantly impacting revenue or the customer experience, ensuring a frictionless journey.

    Related: 3 Tips for Using Consumer Data to Create More Personalized Experiences

    Improve digital experiences now for the future

    It has never been more important to close the digital experience gap. The customer journey is invaluable; maintaining an exceptional digital experience requires teams to work diligently behind the scenes to tackle any possible issues before they escalate.

    Implementing strategies that prioritize anticipating and meeting customer needs ensures long-term brand success. Through best practices, businesses across industries will soon deliver the quality experience customers say has been missing from their digital journeys.

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    Asim Zaheer

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  • 4 Crucial Indicators When Raising Venture Capital Funding

    4 Crucial Indicators When Raising Venture Capital Funding

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In this day and age of shrinking VC funding for startups, you might think your business is the exception. You might think your business model is so ripe for growth with a little cash infusion that VCs should compete to see who can be your primary investor.

    Besides the fact that startup founders are rarely objective about their business prospects, it’s always good to get outside perspectives before heading down the potentially long, winding and soul-bruising road of VC pitches.

    Do you know who you might want to check with as a first step before you sink a bunch of time and energy into your pitch deck? Your marketing agency. (If you don’t have an agency, make a friend with an agency exec pronto.)

    If an agency isn’t your first choice as a sounding board — hear me out. I’ve worked with dozens and dozens of intelligent, ambitious startups since founding Playbook Media. Throughout those relationships, I’ve recognized a few significant indicators of whether your business is positioned to sprout unicorn wings with some extra resources — or whether you have some fundamental issues to address before you take your pitch to your version of Sand Hill Road.

    Related: The 10 Most Reliable Ways to Fund a Startup

    1. Burn threshold

    Also known as “burn multiple,” this metric takes a broad view of your business to calculate how much revenue you bring in for every dollar you spend. Divide your net burn by net new revenue for a given period, and you’ve got your number. (Anything over 2 these days, and you’ll have difficulty getting funding because your operational efficiency needs work.)

    Your agency partners won’t have all that data on hand to calculate your burn threshold, but there are plenty of ways they can help you improve it. They can reduce costs by lowering your average CAC (the cost of acquiring a customer). They can improve your customers’ average LTV (lifetime value) using lifecycle marketing, referral programs, upsell campaigns, etc. They can also run frequent forecasting models to ensure your strategic decisions are informed by current data and market conditions — which have been evolving rapidly.

    An agency can be beneficial in understanding your entire marketing picture and assessing where you can cut spending and suffer minimal revenue effects. Agencies proficient at MMM (media mix modeling, which I’ll touch on more in a bit) will be great partners in that endeavor.

    2. K Factor

    Your K Factor is your natural growth rate if you aren’t doing any marketing. It usually boils down to product-led growth and virality stemming from your existing customer base, site users, media outlets picking up on your momentum, etc. This isn’t specific to products, by the way; if you have a software service or platform, you can build tons of product-driven growth.

    Agencies can help you determine your K Factor if they’re proficient at understanding the impact of each of your advertising channels. Ideally, your agency is using media mix modeling to determine the incremental impact of each channel; when they analyze all of your channels and touchpoints and compare it to your overall growth, they’ll be able to isolate a baseline level of growth that isn’t explained by those channels. That’s your K Factor.

    The key to optimizing your K Factor is growth loops. Reforge defines growth loops as “closed systems where the inputs through some process generates more of an output that can be reinvested in the input.” This can go beyond organic loops, too — although K Factors are defined in the absence of ads, you can apply a little advertising budget to great effect if you’re working with growth loops. An example is taking a popular TikTok post from either your company’s or a relevant creator’s page and doing a Spark ad, which boosts the post and prompts more engagement that feeds the post’s organic momentum.

    Related: You Can’t Get VC Funding for Your Startup. Now, What?

    3. Channel reliance

    Despite recent setbacks (check out the last couple of quarterly earnings reports), Google and Facebook still dominate their competitors in gobbling advertising budgets, as we see time and time again with new clients coming to us to jump-start their growth.

    I think brands should almost never spend more than 50% of their budget on Google and Facebook (combined), which is easier said than done. There are several reasons for this, but the two most important are that Google and Facebook are getting increasingly expensive and that all companies should protect themselves against over-reliance on one channel that could get hit by, say, algorithm updates or outside influences like the iOS14 release.

    Beyond those reasons, there are clear warning signs that you should diversify your marketing channels ASAP:

    • Diminishing returns (CPAs keep climbing no matter what you try)
    • A lack of new users
    • Demographic trends shifting away from your core platforms (e.g., younger generations are now using TikTok instead of Google for their search engine of choice)
    • Business goals evolving out of alignment with your core channels

    If any of these sounds familiar, start carving out ideas and resources to reallocate the budget into new channels.

    Related: 9 Extremely Clever Startup Funding Stories

    4. Market penetration

    There are a few market-penetration scenarios that potential investors will hone in on right away (for better or for worse):

    • The market is small, and you’re dominating but might have a hard growth ceiling (example: Wild Earth)
    • The market is large but ripe for disruption, and you have one or more differentiators that will help you carve out market share (example: Dollar Shave Club)
    • The market is new, and you have the plan to build awareness for the market’s need and your solution (example: Fitbit, back in the early 2010s)

    Agencies can analyze and tell you what segment you might be in. For Wild Earth, an agency would help define the target market by segmenting data into silos (e.g., vegans, dog owners, owners who only feed their dogs dry food, owners who order online, and owners who will pay a premium for food and shipping). Cross-reference that relatively small audience that lives in the intersection of those segments with data like rising CACs and relatively high impression share. That company looks like a poor choice for investor funds unless you can leverage what you’re already doing well into other product categories.

    If things like search volume and available impression volume are curiously low, you may have a tremendous opportunity to build awareness for your product or service as the leader of a new market (or market segment). “Video rentals” probably had a ton of search volume when Netflix was in its early stages, but “online video rentals” or “video rentals by mail” were exponentially less popular queries that, when combined with the rising trends of online shopping and engagement, evidenced a market ripe for introduction. Brands like Peleton (spinning classes at home vs. spinning classes) and Rent the Runway (luxury fashion for rent vs. luxury fashion) represent similar scenarios that, when the story is told well, represent catnip for intelligent investors.

    The takeaway

    With startup funding relatively hard to come by, you should recognize that poor indicators in any of these areas put you out of position to leave a VC pitch with millions of dollars. But there’s hope yet. First, most issues in these areas are fixable. Second, fixing them now will mean you’ll be extraordinarily well-positioned to take full advantage of future VC investments when you have a better story.

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    Bryan Karas

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  • 7 Secrets of Truly Successful Personal Brands

    7 Secrets of Truly Successful Personal Brands

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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

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

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

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

    Check out these seven personal branding success secrets:

    1. Find and curate your “A-Team”

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

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

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

    2. Tap into future trends and needs

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

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

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

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

    3. Unlearn outdated trends to make way for the new

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

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

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

    4. Think fast for solutions and act fast

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

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

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

    5. Be adaptable and flexible

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

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

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

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

    6. Become an autodidact

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

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

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

    Related: 6 Little-Known Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

    7. Be street smart

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

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

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

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

    Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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    Jon Michail

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  • Is On-the-Job-Training Killing Your Company’s Potential?

    Is On-the-Job-Training Killing Your Company’s Potential?

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    On-the-job training is a common practice, regardless of how many employees work in an organization. As human beings, we naturally observe and model the behavior of those around us, especially when their behavior aligns with compensation, promotion and cultural norms. The not-so-secret secret of on-the-job training is that it relies on top performers to teach when they could or should be performing revenue-generating tasks. Relying on top performers to deliver training also limits the scope of skills exposure to what a top performer is willing or able to share. Not every expert is conscious of their own competencies or actions that help them achieve consistent success, nor is every expert a good instructor. The reality is that on-the-job training is inefficient, not standardized, unreliable and very hard to scale.

    However, on-the-job training does have one core benefit — it isn’t theoretical. Practicing real skills in real situations gives individuals the benefit of experiencing when, where and how a skill is employed on the job — seeing the consequences of actions, gaining personalized insights (if the mentor is in tune with the mentee) and establishing the first set of experiences that might lead to performance confidence.

    Related: Most Companies Fail at Employee Training. What are They Doing Wrong?

    The myths of the 70:20:10 model

    Myth: 70% of training is on-the-job, in real-time

    Myth: 20% of training is delivered socially, through coaching

    Myth: 10% of training is formally structured, in a course

    As an observation of what most organizations do for training, it’s not unreasonable to believe only 10% of professional skills are supported with formal training. Great training is expensive and time-consuming to create. It’s estimated that it takes learning and development professionals nearly 490 hours to create 1 hour of quality (level 3) training.

    In a corporate environment, training and development is generally viewed as a cost center, not a revenue driver. On paper, the arithmetic of 70:20:10 looks ingenious, 70% of training costs are free. Don’t be fooled, the most expensive training you can buy is training that doesn’t work.

    A bad lecture, boring eLearning or required reading that doesn’t create any new skills or organizational change wastes the time of all the employees who could have been productive. On-the-job training that needs to be provided repeatedly, or worse, processes that always need to be supported by the one expert at the company creates massive lost opportunity costs that find their way to the balance sheet.

    When it’s time to perform, it’s too late to practice. — Dr. Michael Allen

    In the modern era of corporate training, many organizations don’t believe 70:20:10 is a prescriptive model for smart training. 70:20:10, however, is an ingrained legacy model that’s hard to give up. The core assumption to justify making an investment in effective training is that new or perfected skills will lead to enhanced business operations:

    • Increase revenue

    • Minimize accidents

    • Lower operational costs

    • Create loyal customers

    • Reduce turnover

    It will enhance business operations but only if the training is effective. The outcomes of ineffective training create organizational beliefs that training is not worth investing in. As a business leader, now is the time to review how training is being delivered to your employees. Taking the best of what each modality has to offer, from on-the-job training and coaching to formal course development, quality training solutions include:

    • Sufficient and spaced skills practice on authentic application scenarios

    • Individualized learning paths, skipping skills already mastered

    • Motivational support to encourage mastery and utilization of new skills

    • Contextually rich training to connect when and where performance is expected

    The ingredients listed above can be deployed in many training modalities. None are exclusive to on-the-job training; in fact, each is more powerfully and cost-effectively delivered in formal training. To challenge training norms, business leaders need to align strategic outcomes to learning budgets. How much should a change in behavior net the organization, and how much would you spend to ensure that change happens with quality training?

    Related: Training New Employees Sucks. 3 Ways Make It Faster, Easier and More Effective.

    The massive gap in talent

    Consider space-related industries. The space economy is on pace to be a $1 trillion industry by 2040, with tens of thousands of open positions and frantic startups popping up everywhere. On-the-job training has become the norm. But to create a highly skilled workforce and meet revenue goals, space organizations can’t rely on top talent with subject matter expertise to mentor every new hire.

    In service industries experiencing both labor shortages and high rates of turnover, internal subject matter expertise can be one resignation away from leaving a company stranded. Without creating a digital and scalable solution for training, today’s organizations risk losing the ability to provide effective training solutions altogether. The gap in available talent will inevitably hit your industry, business and team. How should a business leader prioritize spending on training?

    Your first training dollar

    The cost of a digital training program is really for the first employee. Once in place, digital learning is inexpensive to deliver to the second through millionth employee. Here are a few dimensions to evaluate if training should be created at all:

    • Is the skill risky to the person or business?

    • Does the skill get used once a year or many times a year?

    • Can you hire already skilled individuals?

    • Could a job aid or checklist be used every time the skill is needed?

    • How many people are required to perform the skill?

    • What’s the rate of attrition/turnover?

    • Do employees need extra motivation to perform the skill, even after mastery?

    Related: How Innovative Technology Improves On-the-Job Training

    Performance success in our careers makes an enormous impact on our lives. Your future employees will no doubt evaluate training programs not only for the applicability in doing the job at hand but also for the usefulness in advancing their career opportunities. By making an investment in quality formalized training, your business can make a tangible and measurable impact that on-the-job training is hard-pressed to match.

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    Christopher Allen

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  • How to Become More Resilient

    How to Become More Resilient

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Throughout my career, I navigated undeveloped markets within environments where things hadn’t been figured out, and the world didn’t yet understand what we were creating. My one saving grace has always been resilience.


    Evening Standard | Getty Images

    Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, bounce back, then proceed, no matter what. It can be defined as the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape. (A recent study of 1,000 parents conducted by the PBS program, Thomas & Friends, ranked it #12 within the top 20 traits they most want in their children.)

    Resilience is the power of never giving up no matter what life swings your way.

    I was inspired by the epic career of Sir Winston Churchill at a young age, which can be summed up in one of his more famous quotes: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

    Related: How Does a Leader’s Mindset Affect the Office Environment?

    Staying the course

    The path to prosperity is often misunderstood, as when the going gets tough, many are not equipped to stand up to the test of time and quit before they reach their goals.

    Thomas Edison claimed his many wins were “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration”. My addendum would be that 90% of people give up when they’re just 10% away from success.

    The closer we get to breaking through, the harder it becomes, yet testing our spirit is part of the achievement process. If things were easy, it wouldn’t be worth the effort and our sense of achievement would be considerably diminished.

    Humans are incredibly intelligent, adaptable and resilient beings. Achieving your wildest dreams is just a case of just being passionate and determined enough to achieve those goals.

    These techniques may sound rudimentary, but if you learn to train yourself to overcome any hurdle and never give up until you reach success.

    David beat Goliath, Beethoven outshone his teachers and Galileo outsmarted his peers when the odds were all against them. Only with resilience did they all succeed to leave their legacies.

    Rebuilding your brain

    I learned of stick–to–itive-ness as a toddler, being scalded by hot water in an unfortunate accident and suffering the pain and heartache of that mistake for many years after.

    Difficult experiences in business were to follow. You name it? I’ve experienced it. It’s still impossible to imagine a time in my career when things were “easy”. That’s just not how it works.

    The benefit of struggle is that you learn and adapt and become wiser. Many give up along the way, which leaves more opportunities for those of us who are determined to reach our target.

    If I hadn’t failed so many times, I wouldn’t have realized how resilient I needed to be. Meeting challenges is part of the path to success. It’s how you deal with hardships and what you do to overcome them.

    As Albert Einstein put it: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

    If you’re doing something new? Expect to make mistakes. If you hit problems? Simply work out how to overcome them. Resilience is the ability to beat every challenge and push through with your agenda.

    Related: 4 Ways to Use the Past to Capture Success

    Recording the process

    Write lists! This is the way I ensure that things from my brain are put on paper and actioned as a task list. I don’t recommend writing these lists in your phone, there is something physical about writing the tasks out and extracting them from your brain.

    Update your lists constantly, crossing off tasks that you have achieved and adding new tasks to achieve. Be organized and be determined. Every day complete a number of tasks on your list and cross them off. Do this every single day.

    Be an independent thinker and have enough self-confidence to stand up against the barrage of challenges and let-downs on the path to success. You need to believe in yourself before anyone else will believe in you. Confidence begets confidence.

    I work harder than anyone I know; this has always been my mantra. As Elon Musk puts it “Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in 80-to-100-hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success.”

    There is no such thing as a free lunch or something that comes easily. You will find in life things that come easy, go easy, or have a very limited shelf or value. Working hard brings personal satisfaction that is critical to a healthy body and mind and of course, entrepreneurial success.

    That being said, everything is a balance and it’s important to rest, sleep, eat and exercise as well, but whatever you do in life…work to be more determined and be more resilient.

    David showed Goliath the difference between a person who is resilient and a person who is privileged, and there is simply no competition.

    Related: 4 Ways to Capitalize on Being Your Own Worst Critic

    Resilience takes focus, resilience takes devotion, resilience takes passion and determination, but be assured, if you arm yourself with the power of resilience, no-one will be able to stop you from achieving your goals.

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    Jonny Caplan

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  • 10 Cost-Saving Ideas For Businesses

    10 Cost-Saving Ideas For Businesses

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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

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

    Related: 7 Outdated Habits That Will Paralyze Your Business

    1. Root out process inefficiencies

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

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

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

    2. Reduce office expenses

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

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

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

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

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

    Related: 5 Effective Strategies for Employee Retention

    4. Expand on social media and community engagement

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

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

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

    5. Refine, then automate

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

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

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

    6. Slice operational costs

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

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

    7. Look at insurance and cash flow

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

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

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

    8. Staff up or hire out?

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

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

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

    9. Reduce travel expenses

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

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

    10. Specialize in what you’re good at

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

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

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

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    Vincent Tricarico

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  • 4 Strategies to Increase Your Conversion Rates

    4 Strategies to Increase Your Conversion Rates

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    There’s no question that conversion rates are important to the success of any business. After all, a company can’t make money if its potential customers aren’t converting into actual paying customers. But what many business owners don’t realize is just how big of an impact hitting your conversion goals can have on your business’s bottom line.

    Consider this: If your company has a 1% conversion rate and you’re bringing in $1 million in revenue each month, increasing your conversion rate by just two percentage points — to 3% — means you’ll be bringing in an additional $2 million each month. That’s an extra $24 million per year!

    Of course, increasing your conversion rate is easier said than done. But it’s certainly not impossible. Here are a few tips to help you boost those numbers and reach your full revenue potential:

    Related: 5 Key Tips to Improve Conversion Rates

    1. Perform regular funnel analysis

    Funnels can be really simple (ad, sales page, delivery email) or incredibly complex (several ads leading to segmented landing pages leading to a sales call leading to … well, you get the picture). At any stage in the process, your funnel either loses people or moves them forward to the next stage.

    If you’re not regularly performing a funnel analysis, usually called an audit, you could be missing out on revenue that could be a game-changer for your business. Let’s look at a simple evergreen webinar funnel with a “buy now” option for a $1,500 offer as an example. We’re going to keep it super simple and assume you’re sending just one email to your existing list to drive them to the webinar registration page. Your funnel looks like this:

    • Email: converting at 50%

    • Registration page: 15%

    • Webinar: 20% watch rate

    • Order conversions: 0.67%

    With the conversion rates above, you’ll bring in $1,500 or one sale.

    Your email is converting really well, so we don’t need to do anything with that, but the registration page? Not doing so hot. We want that number to be 25% or higher, so we’re going to optimize the registration page.

    This might mean changing up the copy, design, images — even the offer itself — until we hit our goal of a 25% conversion rate on the registration page. With all other things being equal, that increase in conversion rate on the registration page alone nets you another sale, bringing your revenue for this funnel up to $3,000.

    By working through each step in your funnel this way, you could go from bringing in $1,500 to $28,500 — just by hitting the minimum conversion rate at each funnel stage!

    2. Make sure your website is optimized for conversions

    Your website is often the first point of contact between you and a potential customer, so it’s important to make sure it’s up to snuff. Is your site easy to navigate? Do the pages load quickly? Is the copy clear and concise? Is there a strong call to action on each page?

    If you answered “no” to any of these questions, it’s time to do some website soul-searching. Making even small changes — like adding testimonials or enhancing your calls to action — can make a big difference in terms of conversion rates.

    Related: 5 Tactics to Supercharge Your Website Conversion Rate

    3. Segment your email list

    When it comes to email marketing, quality is more important than quantity. Sending out a generic message to your entire list is likely to result in few conversions because not every recipient will be interested in what you have to say. Segmenting your list enables you to send more targeted, relevant messages that are more likely to lead to conversions.

    Not sure how to segment your list? Start by dividing it into smaller groups based on factors like geography, age, gender, interests, etc. Then craft different messages for each group.

    4. Personalize the user experience

    In today’s competitive market, simply having a website isn’t enough — you need to go above and beyond to stand out from the crowd. One way to do that is by personalizing the user experience for each visitor to your site.

    Thanks to advancements in technology, this is easier than ever before. There are now numerous tools available that allow you to collect data about each user and then use that information to display content that’s tailored specifically for them.

    Related: Why a ‘Personal’ Customer Experience Is Critical to Your Business’ Success

    Reaching — and exceeding — your desired conversion rate can have huge implications for your business revenue. If you’re not happy with your current numbers, take heart; there are plenty of things you can do to improve them. By following these four tips, you can start making progress toward reaching those all-important conversion goals.

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    Jacinda Santora

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  • The 4 Principles of Onboarding for Product-Led Growth Platforms

    The 4 Principles of Onboarding for Product-Led Growth Platforms

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As the product-led growth (PLG) motion becomes increasingly more popular, the process will mature as will the strategic process of acquiring customers. The stages of customer acquisition are becoming ever more apparent in line with the flywheels of both the PLG process and the inbound marketing strategy.

    The PLG flywheel has four stages; activate, adopt, adore and advocate. The inbound flywheel has three; attract, engage and delight. Each of these spins faster the more you learn, test and iterate for long-term success. Yet none of these reflects the principles of product-led onboarding in my mind.

    Related: How Customer Enablement Drives Product-led Growth

    The stages of onboarding for B2B PLG organizations

    To set the scene, onboarding does not start at the point someone signs a contract or inserts their credit card details. Onboarding is widely agreed to start at the first touchpoint in any channel your organization owns. This could be an ad, a social media post, an event or a speculative email, for example, and each of these must set the tone or trend for the following activities and actions. So, what are the four principles?

    • Marketing onboarding: making the unfamiliar familiar

    • Platform onboarding: familiar to the freemium user

    • Value onboarding: freemium to paid user

    • Peer-led onboarding: paid user to product champion

    For each principle, there are corresponding tactics and strategies — some of which can be applied in silos, and others perform best when used in a cumulative or combined strategic approach. Let’s discuss these in more detail.

    Marketing onboarding principles for PLG companies

    The very first stage of onboarding for product-led companies is marketing. From here, there is a natural flow to take strangers to champions. But what does that look like, and what is the best strategy focusing on B2B SaaS? For me, it’s the inbound marketing strategy, but let’s look at some of the channels you can adopt:

    You can dominate a single channel alone, but that may not prove beneficial to your longer-term goals. For many, content marketing is the price of admission to sit at the table, but for content to succeed in today’s overcrowded online world, you need email marketing to support it, paid advertising to promote it and social media marketing (both organic and paid) to distribute it.

    Therefore, a multi-channel persona-led inbound marketing strategy is the only choice. Unless, of course, your PLG platform also sells to the enterprise, and then you will require both an inbound and account-based marketing strategy for continued success. Beyond this, you need a strong messaging strategy on your website’s copy that will drive your new interested parties to start to try your platform.

    Related: Inbound Marketing — What is it and Why Does it Matter?

    Platform onboarding principles for PLG companies

    Once you’ve fully optimized your marketing strategy (which can only happen over time as you collect and use your data) you want to fully optimize your onboarding process. To do this, you need to use a recognized framework or combination frameworks like:

    Nail this stage of the onboarding process and your customer acquisition program will be heating up. Not only have I given you the playbook on PLG onboarding here, but I’ve also given you the tools to do it — and I’m not done yet.

    Value onboarding for product-led SaaS

    The articles I’ve shared with you in the hyperlinks will give you and your team more value guidance and context for sure, but there’s another stage to optimizing onboarding and that requires tools. These tools come in the form of:

    • Pendo

    • Userflow

    • Chameleon

    • Heap

    • Amplitude

    • Mixpanel

    • FullStory

    There’s also a whole host of other tools to help you understand if your product is delivering the value you set out to deliver, where the bottlenecks are and how you can deal with them. Optimizing your PLG platform for value is how you minimize the time that your freemium users take to recognize the true value of your product.

    Keep optimizing to deliver ongoing value and to understand how to build and focus on future product and/or feature releases.

    Peer-led or peer-to-peer onboarding for product-led organizations

    The final principle of onboarding is to optimize your platform’s ability for your champions or cheerleaders to invite their friends and colleagues. Whilst incentives are always good, ultimately, you want to build a product so good, so valuable and so necessary that your best users can’t help but talk about you and hype you up.

    You want these users to tell their stories and have your platform as a hero in the story. So, how do you do that? The likelihood is that if you nail the first three, this one takes care of itself. However, your job is not to become complacent but to treat this onboarding phase like a partnership channel — one that is driven by a user community, not a sales team.

    You can add the ability to invite and share from their account, that’s pretty much standard these days, but ask your team this question: How do we enable our best users, the champions and cheerleaders, to easily invite and onboard new users on our behalf? Figure that out through a champions committee or something similar, and you’ve nailed the four stages of PLG onboarding.

    Related: How to Turn Strangers into Loyal Customers With User Onboarding

    I hope you enjoyed this take on the four principle stages of onboarding for product-led growth platforms and that I’ve given you enough for you to go back to your teams and refocus your efforts. Using this framework will allow your organization to become more embedded and cross-functional, which can only prove beneficial for the entire go-to-market motion.

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    Paul Sullivan

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  • How to Produce Quality Competitive Intelligence

    How to Produce Quality Competitive Intelligence

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Competitive intelligence, or CI, is a crucial component of business strategy. It helps you understand your competitors, identify new opportunities and better predict market trends.

    Competitive intelligence is a continuous process, not a one-off briefing document. It is also not just about the competition. It also includes insights into your client and their needs, which can help them to get ahead of the game in their industry. You’ll be able to anticipate trends and opportunities before they happen, giving your clients a competitive advantage over their competitors and allowing them to grow their business faster than those who don’t have access to this kind of information.

    Related: Your Business is Failing Because You Have a Bad Strategy. Here Are 5 Hacks for the Perfect Business Strategy

    Don’t rely on what you think your clients or competitors want

    We often assume that we know what our clients or competitors want — this is a mistake. It’s easy to do this when you’re working with a firm from a similar industry, but it’s important to remember that every client has unique needs and interests.

    You should always start by asking questions about the business objectives of your client or competitor. These questions will give you insight into what they are trying to accomplish and how they hope to achieve it — information that can be invaluable when crafting reports for them in the future.

    Gain other perspectives

    There are four primary groups you need to speak with:

    • Users of your product or service, including current and former users. They can tell you how they use it, why they like it or don’t. They can also give insight into the people who don’t like it. And if they’re former users, they may have valuable information on why they left. You’ll want as much detail as possible so that you can make use of that data in competitive intelligence analysis later on (for example, “Users say this feature is confusing.”)
    • People who do not use your product or service but would potentially be interested in using it if they knew more about what it does and how well it works. These are potential customers for whom there may not currently be an opportunity for purchase — they don’t know enough about your offering yet! Get them talking about their business needs so that you can market effectively in the future. For example: “This company thinks our product could help them solve their problem.”
    • People who do not currently use a competitor’s product or service but would potentially become a customer if offered one at an attractive price point or with better features than those offered by competitors (e..g., “These guys love our product because we provide X at only half its competitors’ price.”) If these folks were already using something else — and had a good reason why — you’d want to know if there’s anything specific about those products/services which makes them unsatisfactory; if yes then perhaps these shortcomings could be remedied through innovation efforts within yourself?
    • People who are already using your product or service but have not yet been convinced of its value (e.g., “We’re working on getting these guys to see the benefits of our product; we think they will like it once they try it.”). These are potential customers that you may need to spend more time educating about why your offering is better than competitors’ offerings.

    Related: Customer Intelligence As a Revenue Predictor

    Fully understand your audience and their needs

    It’s imperative to understand the needs of your audience and the needs of your competitors. A comprehensive competitive intelligence program can provide a wealth of information that will help you better understand the landscape, your customers’ needs and how they behave toward their competitors.

    Understanding the needs of your audience is essential for any successful business venture. You need to know what matters to them so that you can meet those needs with an innovative solution or product. This can be as simple as knowing who they are (demographics), where they live (geography) or what they like (lifestyle). It could also mean understanding what motivates them; why would someone buy one product over another? How many people do I need to sell my product annually to break even?

    Related: 9 Ways to Meet and Understand Your Audience

    Identify different audience segments

    Once you’ve identified your audience, the next step is to segment them into different groups based on their needs. This will allow you to craft a solution that meets all those needs. For example, if you’re selling a product aimed at helping people lose weight, one group could be people who need something simple and easy to use. Another group might be more tech-savvy and want something more complex and customizable. Knowing how each audience segment views fitness products will help you see what aspects of your offering are most important for each audience type.

    Related: 7 Outdated Habits That Will Paralyze Your Business

    Experimentation can help understand clients and competitors and identify new opportunities

    Experimentation is a vital part of the process. Experimentation can help you better understand your clients and competitors, identify new opportunities and discover how to make your offerings more competitive. Such an example is A/B testing. This type of experiment compares two versions of a single element to see which one performs better by improving conversions, sales or whatever else you’re looking for. For example, it could be an email subject line A/B test comparing “Doing these four things will help you grow sales” with “Doing these four things will help you grow sales 50%.”

    Ensure you are fully informed before you move forward with a new product or service

    To stay ahead of the curve, you must constantly gather information from as many sources as possible. Talk to your clients and ensure you are fully informed before moving forward with a new product or service. Conduct interviews about what they think are missing in the market, and see if a gap needs filling. Look at data from recent surveys, reviews or complaints that your company has received. Look at what competitors are doing and take notes on what’s working for them and what isn’t. Talk to people in your industry who can give feedback on how they perceive your business and suggestions on how it could improve its services or offerings.

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    Christopher Massimine

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  • 3 Difficult Personalities That Are Great Hires

    3 Difficult Personalities That Are Great Hires

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The concept of personality types, temperaments and working styles has been foundational in organizational behavior for years. As entrepreneurs or managers, we frequently assess personality to determine ideal team composition and workflows. While toxic personalities certainly exist, many others that seem difficult can offer severe advantages to start-up organizations. Oppositionality, non-conformity, perfectionism and the fickleness that often accompanies abstract thinking should not be deal-breaking traits.

    As a founder, I tend to have strong opinions about the working styles and personalities of those I consider creative, resourceful and hard-working people. At the same time, certain characters tend to clash within small teams, creating a challenging work environment. However, hiring managers can quickly write off people who are “difficult” as toxic — which can cost a startup its competitive edge. I, for one, appreciate the contributions that seemingly “difficult” people make. Here are three challenging personalities that frequently make great hires and give startup teams the edge they wouldn’t have without them.

    Related: Smart Advice for Networking With These 4 Personality Types

    1. Demanding yet artistically brilliant

    Just about any founder or CEO would appreciate a genius as part of their team, yet these rare outside-the-box thinkers can be notoriously difficult employees. They can be prickly, fiercely individualistic, anti-team players and have fragile personal lives.

    At my former design retail business, a set stylist we worked with fit the bill perfectly. Not only did he demand twice the market rate, but he also wanted my constant attention and would not allow anyone else on the team to address his concerns. That said, he successfully delivered the most beautiful sets in the most unlikely and underwhelming locations: he could turn a cave into a castle for the camera.

    In today’s ultra-competitive consumer product market, where hundreds of versions of every item are available, the differentiation of brilliant design can make or break your brand.

    Despite the obstacles, hiring a category-defying genius paid off for us. The key is to manage these individuals with empathy, awareness and appreciation for their unique contributions — while still setting the requisite boundaries for your sanity. Set your expectations that these hires will be individual contributors — not necessarily team players — and budget your time accordingly.

    Related: Are You Asking for Employee Feedback? If Not, Good Luck With Retention.

    2. Absent-minded abstract thinker

    For rational, linear thinkers who prioritize planning and organization, absent-mindedness can drive you crazy. Yet the same mental process that leads to fickleness can fuel fresh ideas and uncharted solutions.

    According to a study published in Psychological Science, mind-wandering spurs what neuroscientists call “creative incubation,” allowing a disjointed train of thought to make unlikely and uncommon connections that yield unique and creative solutions.

    Although one of the most inspired web developers I worked with often didn’t know what day of the week it was or where to find the printer he used every day, he figured out how to fashion a basic Shopify ecommerce system to deliver a fully custom site with sophisticated and unique UX features, flexible navigation and a robust backend–the likes of which even enterprise-level systems don’t often offer.

    The key to working with these absent-minded gems is to pair them with a colleague who can provide extra operational support.

    3. Problem-finding contrarian

    While working with someone forever finding problems can be discouraging and morale-crushing, a team that enthusiastically supports an unrealistic product idea is headed for failure. The right balance is hiring that smart contrarian: “Someone who looks for business practices that don’t make sense, who’s not too reliant on a small group of like-minded people, who can embrace diversity, and who’s happier on the sidelines.”

    A founder I mentored shared with me that she only hired people who showed extreme enthusiasm for her product — a scheduling app. She wanted to avoid negativity. As a result, no one on her team paused the beta launch to address a known glitch, and her app experienced a significant feature failure.

    Having that smart contrarian to call out real concerns at the right time, even if it’s not the popular or politically correct move, can help ensure problems are addressed before too many resources are invested, or larger issues ensue. While contrarians can be frustrating, they spot critical gaps others might fear speaking out about. To work effectively with contrarian personalities, practice prioritizing their observations and be prepared to translate unsolicited criticism into better ideas and more innovative solutions.

    Related: 5 Ways to Make Your Company’s Hiring Process More Fair

    The final decision

    Ultimately, you’ll need to weigh the costs and benefits of working with challenging personalities in your organization. While many demand special accommodation, buffering and hand-holding, I have found that their contributions are worth the investment.

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    Marina Glazman

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  • 7 Tips to Manage a Fully Remote International Business

    7 Tips to Manage a Fully Remote International Business

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    More companies are ditching the overhead costs of dedicated office spaces and unlocking global growth opportunities by transitioning to a fully remote business operation.

    While the potential benefits are significant, business leaders will face various challenges. Follow these tips to manage your fully remote company better.

    Related: 7 Outdated Habits That Will Paralyze Your Business

    1. Clearly define your mission and vision

    Steering a company in a strategic direction is challenging when everyone is located within the same building, and it is even harder for fully remote organizations.

    A clearly defined and adequately communicated mission and vision are vital for every successful remote business as this serves as a roadmap to guide the actions of every employee and the organization.

    If your employees connect with your mission and vision, everyone understands what they are working towards, how the company plans to get there, and what is expected from them. This unified vision is increasingly essential in an organization characterized by diverse backgrounds, cultures and languages.

    2. Don’t think local. Think global

    A fully remote business gives you access to new markets and a global customer base and opens up opportunities to tap into global talent pools.

    Don’t fall into the trap of keeping your hiring strategies and recruitment drives contained to home markets.

    For example, despite an ample supply of English-speaking Eastern European teachers, when Novakid was ready to launch, the founders looked for native English speakers from across the globe via Facebook groups.

    Building a globally distributed workforce enabled the business to expand into new markets with teachers in each region rapidly. This approach also created a pool of non-native English-speaking tutors who are highly proficient in the language but offer services at a lower cost to the company.

    Furthermore, offering classes with bilingual teachers from different regions created unique opportunities for students to experience diverse cultures and accents, which became a competitive differentiator for the company.

    A globally distributed workforce also provides additional benefits, such as better business continuity and diverse thinking, which can drive innovation and greater organizational agility.

    Related: Are Fully-Remote Businesses the Future?

    3. Build a company culture based on accountability

    The lack of direct oversight of employee time often causes concern for business leaders as their company transitions from a brick-and-mortar operation to a fully remote business. While keeping a tight rein on working hours is tempting, it is vital that every remote business finds the balance between flexibility and accountability. Rigid rules and set working hours can stifle innovation and complicate working arrangements.

    Instead, give employees the flexibility to structure their workdays around their individual needs, circumstances and preferences. The key is to set clear expectations regarding outputs and deliverables rather than tightly monitoring their inputs.

    Employees who understand this dynamic will have the discipline to manage their time effectively to complete their work tasks while also getting to the personal things they plan for their day — be it a family time or an exercise session.

    4. Empower your employees to act independently

    Building a company culture based on values like trust, honesty, discipline, courage, integrity and curiosity are the ingredients for a thriving remote international business.

    Over time, this gives employees the courage to take the initiative, make decisions, solve problems independently and, ultimately, take responsibility for their actions and outcomes when they don’t have direct access to management or colleagues. And waiting for feedback via online collaboration tools can also create bottlenecks that slow implementation and reduce organizational agility.

    As such, successful remote organizations give staff the autonomy to make their own decisions and the space they need to be brave.

    Fostering a culture of trust nurtures other positive traits within a remote workforce, such as curiosity, bravery, innovative thinking and bold experimentation. The freedom and confidence to explore, develop and try new methodologies and new ways of working can create a competitive advantage for your organization.

    This environment also supports a trend known as the “culture of everyone,” where employees become responsible for their development and learning paths. This is a powerful tool to boost employee motivation and satisfaction and can serve as an effective way to attract and retain talent.

    5. Prioritize talent and experience

    A key element in my company’s success as a remote international business has been our preference for hiring people with expertise and experience. While some companies prefer hiring junior people and developing them internally to keep salary costs low, this is not always the most appropriate option for remote organizations.

    The time and resources this approach requires often comes with an opportunity cost. And a junior person with no experience has to learn a lot. However, the nature of remote work means that managers cannot always provide the access and availability needed to quickly get junior staff up to speed.

    Bringing in people with expertise and experience means you get staff who can self-manage and work with freedom while delivering the quality outputs they require.

    6. Implement technologies that help employees

    Technology offers the ideal solution to transcend the geographic boundaries and time zones that remote international companies deal with daily.

    Online productivity tools like Slack create clear communication channels for different goals and purposes while supporting collaboration between dispersed teams and different workstreams.

    Video conferencing tools are another indispensable tool. They ensure that remote companies maintain interpersonal face-to-face interactions, which are vital to building rapport and conveying meaning beyond verbal or written communication. These interpersonal interactions are also important to transmit corporate culture.

    Productivity management tools provide managers with insights into workforce efficiency and outputs. The resultant analytics can help identify improvement areas or highlight workflows or processes that need refinement.

    7. Champion internal communication

    Fully remote international businesses require the appropriate tools, processes and procedures to drive clear and concise organization-wide communication and foster collaboration among employees in remote teams.

    Remote teams must frequently communicate transparently and correctly, regardless of the channel. Management and leadership must ensure they can effectively convey their messages to the right targets.

    Effective communication fosters trust through transparency and ensures remote employees clearly understand their tasks, roles and responsibilities.

    Creating multiple channels for staff to give their feedback and opinions, ask questions, share ideas, profile great work or simply voice their concerns allows remote workers to communicate their value and makes them feel heard and empowered.

    Related: Maintaining a Collaborative Culture in a Hybrid and Remote World

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    Max Azarov

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  • How to Increase Your Sales by Analyzing Your Marketing Funnel

    How to Increase Your Sales by Analyzing Your Marketing Funnel

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Your marketing funnel is the process that your potential customers go through as they move from awareness of your product or service to purchase. The funnel narrows at each stage, from the many people who are aware of your brand to the few who actually buy from you. Understanding your marketing funnel is essential to improving results and driving conversions.

    Let’s say you’re trying to increase sales. You need to understand how your marketing funnel works so you can make changes that will lead to more sales. Here are four steps you can take to analyze your marketing funnel and improve results:

    1. Define your marketing funnel stages

    2. Set conversion goals for each stage

    3. Identify bottlenecks in your funnel

    4. Test and experiment to improve results

    Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps so you can use them in your own business:

    Related: How to Generate Interest at Every Stage of the Marketing Funnel

    1. Define your marketing funnel stages

    The first step is to define the stages of your marketing funnel. This will vary depending on your business, but most funnels include the following stages:

    • Awareness: Potential customers become aware of your product or service.

    • Interest: Potential customers are interested in your product or service and want to learn more.

    • Consideration: Potential customers are considering your product or service and comparing it to other options.

    • Purchase: Potential customers buy your product or service.

    • Loyalty/advocacy: Customers who buy your product or service become brand advocates and promote your business to others.

    There are other variations of this model, but this is a good place to start. Once you’ve defined the stages of your funnel, you can move on to step two.

    2. Set conversion goals for each stage

    The second step is to set conversion goals for each stage of the marketing funnel. These goals should be realistic and achievable based on historical data and current circumstances. For example, if you know that 2% of people who are aware of your brand eventually buy from you, then you can set a goal of increasing that number to 3%. Once you’ve set conversion goals for each stage, you can move on to step three.

    3. Identify bottlenecks in your funnel

    The third step is to identify any bottlenecks in your marketing funnel that are preventing potential customers from moving on to the next stage of the funnel. Common bottlenecks include:

    Lack of awareness: Potential customers are not aware of your product or service because they haven’t been exposed to your marketing messages.

    Solution: Increase advertising, and create more compelling content that speaks directly to your target audience’s needs.

    Lack of interest: Potential customers are not interested in your product or service because it doesn’t solve their problems or meet their needs.

    Solution: Review your messaging and positioning to make sure you’re speaking directly to the needs of your target audience.

    Lack of consideration: Potential customers are not considering your product or service because they don’t know enough about it.

    Solution: Create more content that educates potential customers about the features and benefits of your product or service.

    Lack of purchase: Potential customers are not buying your product or service because they don’t see the value in it.

    Solution: Review pricing, packaging and positioning; consider offering discounts or other incentives; adjust messaging accordingly.

    4. Test and experiment to improve results

    The final step is to test different messages, offers, channels, etc., to see what leads potential customers down the path to purchase. Try different tactics and track results so you can continue doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t work. Remember, it’s important always to be testing and experimenting so you can continue improving results.

    Related: How to Create a Marketing Funnel That Will Increase Sales and Profits

    By taking these four steps, you can gain a better understanding of how your marketing funnel works and make changes that will lead to more sales. Of course, by taking these four steps regularly — perhaps quarterly — you can ensure that any changes made throughout the year actually have an impact on ROI come budget time.

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    Jacinda Santora

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  • How to Build the Infrastructure Needed to Scale Your Company

    How to Build the Infrastructure Needed to Scale Your Company

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Scaling your business might sound like a dream come true. But without the proper infrastructure in place, it can quickly turn into an absolute nightmare. Trying to grow when you haven’t put solid building blocks in place is like throwing up a tent on quicksand. It won’t be long before you sink — and at that point, getting out might not be an option.

    Many companies, especially newer ones, overlook the importance of infrastructure in business. Unfortunately, their oversight can often lead them to fail when they try to gain steam. A 2022 CB Insights study of failed startups revealed the top dozen reasons that can lead to an organization’s demise. Three of those reasons are related to a lack of proper infrastructure: a flawed business model (19%), a poorly hired team (14%) and stakeholder disharmony (7%).

    You might want to think of constructing your infrastructure like planning a vacation. Most vacationers don’t put their families in the car and take off for the week without prior planning. They create a general road map based on their goals, their budget, the number of people and maybe some very personalized factors such as preferred types of restaurants or lodging. The road map would need to be flexible enough to handle pivots but sturdy enough to provide a definitive guide, perhaps with a few guardrails.

    The same is true for business. When you’ve invested in a framework for scaling up, you reward yourself with a higher likelihood of seeing your business scaling strategy come to fruition. You also make scaling less stressful because everyone is working toward the same objectives rather than moving toward cross-purposes.

    A solid infrastructure is a crucial building block to ultimately see growth and scalability in your business. Keep the following suggestions in mind to assemble your ideal infrastructure:

    Related: Serve Your Employees With a Better Infrastructure

    1. Make sure you have the right internal team in place

    It will be challenging for your business to keep getting bigger if you have several skills and knowledge gaps in your team. The same is true if your staff is working at (or beyond) full capacity and you don’t plan on bringing in any help. If your employees feel overwhelmed or unprepared as you scale up, you’ll see your growth opportunities fall apart at the seams.

    It is imperative to make sure you have the right people in place that have digital DNA and ensure your term is cross-functional with a high-level understanding of how to serve across all functions. For example, a technical person who knows how to create proper onsite functionality and work with the proper tracking tools such as pixels and tag manager will create results that are significantly more beneficial to the company.

    You can start measuring your team’s strength by developing two organizational charts. The first should show your organization as it is today, and the second should show it as it needs to be for your company to scale. Be sure to pick out any places where team members will require training to participate fully. Then figure out how to deliver that training so you can remain competitive throughout the business’s rapid growth.

    A recent Capterra survey indicates that nearly half of all companies asked said they were putting more funds into upskilling. Doing likewise makes sense because your employees will then be able to exhibit the confidence to master scaling, thanks to their education and the company’s reorganization.

    Related: 4 Mistakes to Avoid While Scaling Up Your Infrastructure

    2. Refine your marketing machine

    If your marketing efforts aren’t producing impressive returns now, they won’t suddenly start working great just because you scale. You could even end up wasting dollars on poorly designed marketing campaigns that don’t reach the right audiences or deliver the data you need. As one study found, around one-quarter of all marketing budget funds could end up going down the drain for myriad reasons.

    Marketing is a critical component because it sets the stage for you to bring in the leads you need to scale. Without more leads, you can’t grow — case closed. So, before you get into growth mode, you need to refine your marketing, from PPC to SEO and all the acronyms in between. Start by determining which marketing tactics are driving the most qualified prospects into the top or middle of your sales funnel. You want to hone those tactics, so start testing ways to make them produce leads on a reliable basis.

    Don’t be afraid to take on a partner to outsource your marketing. Trying to do everything in-house can be both costly and challenging, particularly as your marketing becomes more complex (hint: It will!). The benefits of a partnership with an agency or provider that understands your business are widespread. You’ll have access to expertise, advanced tools and innovative strategies that you don’t usually have in-house. Even if you do have in-house marketing, the team might not be familiar with what works best in an ever-changing digital age. In contrast, an agency with multiple clients is more commonly on the cutting edge of innovation.

    Plus, with an agency, you won’t have to lean so heavily on your capital expenditures and employees to deploy campaigns, track data, create content or generate and interpret reports. Most importantly, a great agency will not only increase your chances to grow successfully but also help you achieve your goals faster with less effort and total investment.

    3. Be certain your product works

    This might sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many companies go all out before making sure they’ve addressed glaring flaws in the items they sell. Even if you’re in a service industry, you must ensure all customer-facing experiences, features, assets and the like are ready for prime time.

    Trying to gain steam when you’re not selling something worth buying makes zero sense and often creates unnecessary friction between buyers and sellers. Nonetheless, companies routinely spend about 20% of their sales income on poor-quality products that haven’t been adequately addressed. Not only will your sales and customer support representatives end up fielding unhappy calls all the time, but your brand reputation could take a terrible hit, too. As part of your infrastructure planning, be honest about any design snags in your offerings. Then spend time correcting them.

    Don’t forget that processes might also deserve some tweaks. Let’s say your customers constantly complain about your time to ship. Those complaints aren’t going to evaporate when you get larger. Smoothing them out makes a lot of sense, especially during the beginning stages of growth.

    Related: Moving Beyond Startup Mode: 5 Tips for Building a Solid Infrastructure

    Scaling might be on your mind in the near future. Don’t rev the motor just yet, though. Make sure your infrastructure roadmap includes everything you need to make your scale adventure an unmitigated success.

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    Ross Denny

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  • Why Small Talk Is a Big Deal — And What to Do If You Hate It

    Why Small Talk Is a Big Deal — And What to Do If You Hate It

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    We’ve all heard it a thousand times: “People buy from people they like!” “Engage your customer!” “Ask questions about their family and hobbies!” “Become their friend!” And deep down you may even believe that small talk leads to relationship building, which is of course, important to your business. But, what if on the surface you feel that chitchat about weather, sports or your prospect’s family is a waste of time and you would just rather get right down to business?


    kate_sept2004 | Getty Images

    Related: That Potential Client Is Judging You So Focus on Making a Good First Impression

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    Weldon Long

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  • How Blockchain Will Change Traditional Finance

    How Blockchain Will Change Traditional Finance

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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

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

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

    1. Trade finance

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

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

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

    2. Decentralized identity

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

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

    3. Settlement infrastructure

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

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

    4. Modernized bookkeeping

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

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

    Related: 6 Ways Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Are Changing Entrepreneurship

    5. Personal finance

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

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

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

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

    Conclusion

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

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    Arnav Pagidyala

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  • 7 Misconceptions About Starting Your Own Business

    7 Misconceptions About Starting Your Own Business

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Starting a business can be one of the most exciting and rewarding things you’ll ever do. The process has its challenges, but it’s important not to let misconceptions about them stop you from trying. In this article, we’ll go over seven common misconceptions about starting a business.

    Misconception 1: You don’t need a business plan.

    There are a lot of misconceptions about starting a business. One of the most common is that you don’t need to write a formal business plan. It’s easy to understand why this would be so — after all, who has time for more paperwork when you’re trying to keep things going as efficiently as possible? The problem with skipping the planning stage is that it can lead to wasted time, money and a poorer product or service than what you could have created.

    An example of this is advertising: many start-ups spend thousands on ads without thinking through their audience, budgeting, or messaging strategy. Writing out a marketing plan before investing in any ad buys would help prevent these issues from arising and save you some cash along the way.

    The reality is that there are several different kinds of plans — business plans (which detail your company’s overarching goals) and financial plans (which provide projections for revenues and costs) are examples — but they all have one thing in common: they help you visualize where your company is headed over time.

    Related: 7 Common Misconceptions Young People Have About Entrepreneurship

    Misconception 2: You can entirely rely on your financing.

    Learning the basics of running a business before seeking financing is essential. While it might sound great to have all that money at your disposal, you could end up in debt before you even start.

    There are two common financial mistakes made by people who don’t have a lot of experience running a company. The first is relying too much on financing and not having enough personal money invested in the business. This leads to an over-reliance on loans, which can be difficult if the company goes under or runs into trouble. The second mistake is spending too much money on things that aren’t helping your business succeed — like a fancy office space or expensive furniture.

    Misconception 3: You’ll have to choose between work and having a personal life.

    You will not have time to handle every single detail. After all, you are now the head of your own company. That means you’ll have to balance running your business with everything else. You will not be able to handle everything by yourself. It’s okay if you need help from someone else. It’s expected.

    You can delegate tasks that don’t require special knowledge or training, such as answering phone calls or taking out the trash at the reception. Still, there are some things only you can do because they involve special skills and experience that only come from doing them before.

    For example, setting up marketing campaigns requires understanding how different channels work together for maximum effectiveness; updating website content requires knowing what keywords people search for when looking for information on a particular topic; creating invoices requires basic knowledge about accounting software programs like QuickBooks Pro.

    Related: Having A Work-Life Balance is Nonsense. To Reach Your Goals, Follow Another Approach

    Misconception 4: Everyone on your team will work as you do.

    When you are starting a business, there will be times when things get complicated. The longer you have been in business, the more complex the challenges can become. This is just part of the journey; everyone has their own way of dealing with these feelings.

    In my experience, though, I have found that rarely anyone will tell me when it’s time to stop and go home. And chances are you’ll keep working if you haven’t set boundaries. No one else should be expected to work as you do. After all, this is your company. You should temper your expectations of yourself with what you expect from an employee — and then act accordingly. If you fail to do this, your expectations will be unrealistic, and ultimately, nobody will want to work with you.

    Related: Good Leaders Treat Their Employees Like CEOs. Here’s 4 Ways They Do It.

    Misconception 5: You must compare yourself to other companies.

    You’re new in your space. It’s important to capitalize on what makes you unique and slowly carve a market share for your product or service. At this stage, comparisons are unproductive and could lead to jealousy or negativity. Instead of comparing yourself to other companies, focus on your goals and how you can achieve them in the most effective way possible. You can learn from others, but don’t try copying their success — it’s not likely that someone else’s approach will work exactly as well for you as it did for them in their industry.

    Misconception 6: There’s no room for error.

    As a founder, it’s easy to mount a full load of responsibility on your shoulders. So much more becomes personal when you’re an entrepreneur. But remember, everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. If you’re not making any mistakes, you’re either not trying hard enough or have lost your ability to think creatively and independently — and that’s a problem.

    Mistakes are part of the process. They tell you what works and what doesn’t. They teach valuable lessons about yourself, your product, service, customers and competition — all invaluable information for any entrepreneur building their business.

    Misconception 7: Taking a risk is too risky when first starting.

    Not making decisions based on risk can mean missing out on significant opportunities. Fear is why many people don’t try to start their own business in the first place — or even leave their current job for a new chance. When you can overcome your fears and take calculated risks that match up with your values and goals as an individual or company, you can do more than survive; you might thrive.

    When fear enters your mind, remind yourself that it is often a sign that there’s something more prominent on the horizon if you choose to overcome it — and if there isn’t something bigger on the horizon for you right now, then find it. There are many opportunities out there waiting for those ready to take them on.

    Related: Here’s What Science Says You Should Do to Achieve Greater Success

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    Christopher Massimine

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