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Tag: Operations & Logistics

  • The 5 Steps of Competitive Analysis On Social Media

    The 5 Steps of Competitive Analysis On Social Media

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Competitive analysis is an analysis of who your potential competitors are, what marketing activities they do and what results their campaigns get. It is a crucial part of the groundwork done by every business hoping to stand out and sell well.

    When doing detailed social media competitor analysis, people usually start with the number of followers, content assessment and the level of engagement. After this, they should go deeper into the social listening stats.

    With social media competitive analysis tools, you can reveal:

    • Competitors’ online visibility and brand recognition 
    • Real-user feedback on products and services
    • Customer insights
    • Influencers and mass media

    This is a simplified version of a multi-layer process. Knowing your competition lets you perfect your unique value proposition, develop best-selling products, improve your marketing strategy and identify new market segments when done right.

    When done via social listening, competitor analysis is not only doable but also worth doing, even if you’re going for it on top of your daily tasks. 

    Let’s walk through competitor analysis with the help of a social media competitive analysis tool, one step at a time.

    Related: 3 Reasons Why I Gladly Welcome Competition

    Step 1: Pick competitors and start monitoring

    While this might seem self-evident, picking the right competitors to benchmark yourself against is a task of its own. If you’re thinking big and want to conduct comprehensive market research, you need every name of the competitive brand on the list. Big and small, well-established and new to your industry. 

    For more customizable competitive analysis, you’ll need direct competitors only, preferably a company list of comparable size.  As soon as you are ready with the lineup, jump to a tool. We need to set up mentions in a monitoring tool to start tracking. You’ll need to put in your brand name as well as your competitor brand names; you can use Awario for it or try other similar tools.

    When you set up your alerts, give the tool some time, and it’ll pick up recent mentions as well as some historical data — this way you’ll be able to do an initial analysis. The more information you have, the more thorough your competitor analysis will be.

    Related: Five Reasons Small Organisations Should Invest in Social Listening

    Step 2: Go through basic social listening stats

    Once the tool has collected data, you can visit the dashboard and look at the analytics.

    Mentions and reach

    The mentions and reach metrics will show you how much weight each of your competitors’ accounts has on social media platforms. The buzz a name generates corresponds to brand recognition and overall visibility.

    In social listening terms, measuring share of voice — the number of times a brand is mentioned on the web and in social media posts vs. the number of times competitor brands are mentioned — is the closest to measuring market share. 

    Countries and languages

    The countries and languages sections will give you an idea of the geographical distribution of mentions. Depending on the markets you operate in, you can check specific locations to see if any market segments are overlooked and underserved by business competitors. You can see how the competition spreads and analyze what that means.

    Age and gender

    These sections show who mentions your brand most and reveal the age of people that post messages on the web about your company. It helps you to meet your target audience.

    Sources

    Next is sources —the distribution of the buzz among social networks and the web. This is an important metric that shows where the mentions come from, platform by platform. More often than not, there are unexpected insights into how well content competitors create, how their advertising is performing across social networks, and how much buzz is coming from the web and news. 

    Related: Don’t Use The Same SEO Playbook As Your Competitors. Use These 3 SEO Tactics Instead.

    Step 3: Dive into mentions

    The mentions feed is the storage of all the mentions collected by the tool.

    Here, you can access raw data and filter it in the way that serves you best. Say you noticed a spike in mentions of your competitor, and you know that most of them appeared on Twitter. Therefore, you want to do Twitter analytics and pull the influencers who have talked about the brand in the last month. Go ahead and apply the filters.

    Meet the influencers

    Influencers are the biggest drivers of brand visibility. When applied wisely in social media management, influencer marketing is an effective and often free tool used to generate engagement and build that genuine brand-to-customer connection other forms of marketing may fail at.

    Exploring influencers working with your competitors is made easy with competitive analysis tools. First, you can filter mentions by reach to find the most influential people who’ve talked about competitor brands. This way, you discover significant and minor influencers as you go through the mentions sorted by Reach. 

    Related: Influencer Marketing 101: A Blueprint for Running a Successful Campaign

    Step 4: Explore social listening reports 

    It’s a shortcut to the insights social media competitor analysis tools uncovered. For a marketer, reports offer an overview of all the metrics discussed in this guide. With them, you can measure competitive performance on social media in detail.

    Compare brands and get back-to-back performance reviews by:

    1. Share of voice
    2. Counties and languages
    3. Sentiment
    4. Topic Cloud
    5. Top mentions
    6. Age and gender
    7. Influencers
    8. Sources

    Step 5: Sit back and feel proud of the work well done!

    Good job! We’ve come a long 5-step way, having reviewed primary social listening stats and analytics.

    You can try various solutions for analyzing your competitors. The metrics I mentioned are available in most of them. Some social media competitive analysis tools provide integrations with other marketing apps like scheduling posts or template-creating ones.

    Please use this guide as a roadmap for future social media competitive analysis. Remember: the longer you track mentions, the more insightful and comprehensive your analysis gets. 

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    Aleh Barysevich

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  • Ring Cameras Hacked in ‘Swatting’ Scheme

    Ring Cameras Hacked in ‘Swatting’ Scheme

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    The Department of Justice said on Monday that two men have been charged in a scheme that involved hacking Ring security cameras outside homes, drawing and sometimes taunting police, and then broadcasting the antics on social media.


    Bloomberg / Contributor I Getty Images

    Ring cameras.

    Amazon bought security company Ring in 2018, and the product quickly became one of the company’s “signature” security products for the home, per The Guardian. Ring offers products like doorbells, security cameras and home security systems, with relevant data and controls accessible through the company’s app.

    Critics and researchers say the Ring cameras are used to surveil gig economy drivers and delivery people and that they give law enforcement too much power to survey everyday life.

    Related: Report Reveals Controversy Surrounding Video Doorbells — and Why Delivery Drivers Don’t Like Them

    It’s unclear what the men’s motivation was. The two charged are Kya Christian Nelson, who is 21, from Racine, Wisconsin and “currently incarcerated in Kentucky in an unrelated case,” per the DOJ, and James Thomas Andrew McCarty, who is 20 and from Charlotte, North Carolina.

    In this case, the two men used the Ring cameras to do something known as “swatting,” where one pretends there is an emergency to draw a large group of police or other first responders.

    The pair would hack people’s Yahoo email accounts, then their Ring accounts, find their addresses, call law enforcement to the home with a bogus story, and then stream police’s response to the call. Often, they would harass the first responders at the same time using Ring device capabilities.

    For example, “A hoax telephone call was placed to the West Covina [California] Police Department purporting to originate from the victim’s residence and posing as a minor child reporting her parents drinking and shooting guns inside the residence of the victim’s parents,” the Justice Department wrote.

    The pair conducted this scheme a dozen times across the country in a one-week span, the department noted. The two men were indicted by a grand jury. Nelson faces two counts of accessing a computer without permission and two counts of aggravated identity theft.

    Nelson and McCarty each face one count of conspiring to access computers without permission.

    The conspiracy and computer charges have a maximum sentence of five years each, and identity theft has a required sentence of two years. The case is also being investigated by The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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    Gabrielle Bienasz

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  • The Value of Digital Credentials vs. Degree Programs

    The Value of Digital Credentials vs. Degree Programs

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Pre-pandemic trends have shown S&P organizations losing standing to new disruptive market competitors, making it difficult to continue doing business the same way for long periods of time. Disruption is here to stay. For employees, the challenge becomes adapting to new processes and techniques faster than ever before to remain relevant. Lifelong learning is not just a quotable personal pursuit, but a requirement of the working world.

    In 2022, the median tenure for salaried employees is just 4.1 years. When combining employee tenure with the average S&P 500 company tenure on the list trending down to just 12 years, it’s clear that the same experts and expertise your business relies on today are unlikely to be there tomorrow.

    To stay at the top, great organizations will innovate to capture the market, while simultaneously acquiring new skills to execute in the next market. Designing and delivery of great training is a coveted core competency.

    Related: 5 Innovative Ways to Create Growth Opportunities for Your Employees

    Resisting change

    Becoming comfortable with the discomfort of change is a core competency managers and employees will also need to embrace. Our natural inclination is to not change, even when we know changing our behavior will have lasting positive effects. A few of the most common fears and anxieties associated with change include:

    • Losing control

    • Removal of safety and certainty

    • Peers no longer viewing you as the expert

    • Dreading the extra effort to learn something new

    Our experiences shape our beliefs. For managers in charge of change initiatives, there are two levels of beliefs to focus in on:

    1. Everyone is wary of change. Past changes have undoubtedly been painful for every employee, whether at work or in their personal lives. No matter what, there will be an existing level of resistance amongst your team.

    2. Success or failure in the first change initiative you manage will build important beliefs for the second change initiative. Successful teams will thrive during consecutive change initiatives, building the belief they can tackle any change together.

    Related: 3 Keys to Successful Change Management

    Driving business outcomes with digital credentials

    Digital credentials provide a verifiable means to honor individual skills acquisition and to measure both the organization’s and the market’s investment in change. In years past, an employee’s journey through prescribed training has been owned and kept secret in the employer’s learning management system. Ownership of acquired skills is valuable to both organizations and individuals. In vogue, skills have real market value. Things like statistical process control, Lean/Six Sigma, account-based marketing, value selling, scrum and servant leadership are not just owned by the organization — they’re owned by the employee as well.

    For business leaders, using digital credentials to track internal competency levels and/or market penetration of your brand skills training provides extraordinary value:

    • Certifying third-party technicians gives customers confidence in hiring service providers and broadens the marketing reach of a brand name.

    • Certifying contractors gives employers the flexibility to keep 1099 talent sticky to a brand, while also managing the ebbs and flows of business.

    • Certifying employees on future in-demand skills provides motivation for employee tenure as they master new skills. They become interested in recruiting new potential employees who also value professional development opportunities from employers.

    • Certifying employees on today’s in-demand skills motivates employees to increase their value at the organization and embrace change head-on.

    Related: What Business Leaders Can Offer to Keep and Develop Employees

    Digital credentials are an HR hiring manager’s best friend

    As organizations observe tenures of employees shrinking, it’s easy to believe that many stakeholders will still view training as a cost center. The alternative view is that training, no matter what organization has delivered it, is valuable. Using a digital credentialing strategy allows an organization to track not only course completion but skill trends internally and externally.

    Look no further than the immense value HR hiring managers gain from digital credentials. Unlike CVs of the past, with just a few clicks, stakeholders can see when, where and how an individual gained new skills. Using platforms, like Pearson’s Credly, gives hiring managers a searchable database of individuals with key skills. Earners who have added or shared their digital credentials on LinkedIn provide a transparent record of verifiable skills.

    Digital credentials, especially when tied to professional development or industry certification, can show an individual’s growth over shorter periods of time than a diploma. Moreover, when stacked together over time, they may well be indicating an individual has become comfortable with adapting to change in general. As businesses are faced with the need to innovate at a faster pace, why wouldn’t candidates who demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning, comfort with change and willingness to invest in themselves provide the greatest organizational value?

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    Christopher Allen

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  • How These Friends Started a Lucrative Charcuterie Side Hustle

    How These Friends Started a Lucrative Charcuterie Side Hustle

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    Starting a side hustle? It might pay to find yourself co-founders who have something you don’t.


    Courtesy of Platterful

    That’s what Ryan Culver, Caroline Elston and Lowell Bieber, the Indiana-based friends behind charcuterie subscription service Platterful, discovered when they teamed up to launch their venture last year — and made $40,000 in their first month.

    Culver and Bieber previously partnered on a health-and-wellness subscription box, which they successfully scaled and sold in September 2020.

    This time around, Culver’s logistics and shipping experience and Bieber’s operations expertise proved to be the perfect pairings with Elston’s background in digital marketing and burgeoning charcuterie business.

    Entrepreneur sat down with the trio to learn how they built their meat-and-cheese side hustle — and continue to fuel its growth.

    Related: Meats and Cheeses and Olives, Oh My! How this Veteran Launched a Successful Charcuterie Franchise

    “We really didn’t have any idea of how to pair things well together — certainly not how to create a board.”

    Culver and Bieber wanted to start another subscription service after the sale of their first, and recognizing the gap in charcuterie offerings, saw a prime opportunity.

    “We definitely wanted to repeat the subscription model,” Culver says. “We could’ve just created this brand [that had] standalone products that you could buy, which we do offer as well. But really the crux of the business is tied to that subscription model. We were both still highly interested in the recurring revenue that comes in each month. It’s almost like a guaranteed buffer to keep the baseline cost of the business covered.”

    The only problem?

    Culver and Bieber didn’t know anything about the business of meat and cheese.

    “We had no knowledge of charcuterie,” Bieber recalls. “We just knew it was a growing space and that we liked to eat meat and cheese. But we really didn’t have any idea of how to pair things well together — certainly not how to create a board.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: How Subscription Services Are Changing Brand and Consumer Habits

    “Meeting Ryan and Lowell [who already had] all of that operational background on subscription boxes and fulfillment was like the perfect timing and the perfect marriage.”

    Culver and Bieber began looking for someone to help them get their venture off the ground. Their search led them to Elston, a marketing professional who also operated a grazing-table side hustle serving events like weddings, birthday parties, bridal showers and more.

    “I love meat and cheese as well — no surprise there,” Elston says. “I loved cheese boards and would get them at restaurants. They were starting to catch on two, three years ago, so whenever people would come to my house or there were family gatherings, I would always make a board.”

    Elston continued to get creative with her boards in 2020 for her college friends’ 30th birthday celebrations, and when people suggested she go into business for real, she decided to do just that. From there, it “caught fire;” Elston would craft 10-15 small boards every weekend in addition to five to six grazing tables for larger events. She was also about to become a parent.

    She knew it wasn’t sustainable.

    “Meeting Ryan and Lowell [who already had] all of that operational background on subscription boxes and fulfillment was like the perfect timing and the perfect marriage,” Elston explains, “because it was a way that I could continue this creative outlet that I found and fell in love with, but I didn’t have to run all over the city of Indianapolis to do so.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: 12 High-Earning Side Hustles for Creative People

    “We took a month or so to build out our website, and that blew up in December, which was great to see.”

    Platterful planned a crowdfunding initiative on Kickstarter to gauge market interest but had to pull the campaign at the last minute when the co-founders learned their business was considered “reselling” — “even though it’s much more than that,” Elston says.

    But with a quick pivot to Indiegogo, Platterful was back on track.

    “The Indiegogo did well,” Bieber says. “And then we took a month or so to build out our website, and that blew up in December, so that was great to see.”

    Platterful did $40,000 in sales during its first month, and despite being a “very seasonal business” with spikes in popularity around major holidays, it’s been able to sustain that growth. This December, the business is poised to at least double last December’s earnings.

    Culver’s logistics company Lessgistics fulfills Platterful’s orders. “So I kind of see both sides of [the process], which is interesting,” he says. “It gives us full control over the shipping experience, which we like.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: Here’s How You Can Grow in the Logistics Business

    “One of our big 2023 goals is just to ensure our packaging and presentation looks very nice when customers open it.”

    But Platterful’s journey hasn’t been without some challenges. Even though Culver and Bieber had subscription experience, the co-founders did have to contend with a new complication: cold shipping.

    “Some of the meats are shelf stable, but all of the cheeses need to be refrigerated,” Bieber says. “So we have to make sure that they’re arriving cold, and that [brings] a whole new set of challenges that are frankly kind of expensive. We had to figure out how to still offer good value to the customers at an affordable price.”

    That’s meant constantly refining Platterful’s packaging.

    “We’ve gone through six or seven iterations of packaging so far,” Culver says, “and we’re still working on that now, continually making that better. One of our big 2023 goals is just to ensure our packaging and presentation looks very nice when customers open it. So it’s always been kind of a work in progress.”

    Image credit: Courtesy of Platterful

    Related: 5 Creative Packaging Ideas to Delight Your Customers

    “[With co-founders] you have other people to lean on — if you’re having a tough day, maybe someone else is having a good day.”

    Of course, balancing full-time jobs with a fast-growing side hustle is no easy feat either. But having dependable partners to fill in the gaps makes all the difference.

    “We all have our core jobs, but there’s also still a lot of free time, pockets at night or in between lunches, breaks, whatever,” Culver explains. “So we stay in contact throughout the day, each day. Not Saturday and Sunday, that’d be a little too much. But Monday through Friday for sure.”

    Platterful also has two employees in the Philippines who handle significant portions of customer service and corporate outreach.

    “We’re all in and out all day long,” Elston continues, “and very stressed with a lot to balance. [But it’s] a blast and stuff I really want to do. So we all make time for it because it’s like our baby, and it’s going very, very well, and we’re all very committed to making it work.”

    Bieber agrees.

    “I feel like it would be really hard to do [these things] alone,” he says, “because you don’t have a support system. [With co-founders] you have other people to lean on — if you’re having a tough day, maybe someone else is having a good day. That balancing act of having three different people going in it together, plus the rest of the team, is what makes it sustainable.”

    So for those breaking into the subscription box industry? Find yourself a complementary set of business partners first.

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    Amanda Breen

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  • How Small Businesses Are Teaming Up to Boost Local Economies

    How Small Businesses Are Teaming Up to Boost Local Economies

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It’s no secret that small businesses face challenges on a daily basis. Current supply chain woes need all levels of attention as problems arrive in every shape and size. Small businesses are seeking many – often any – opportunities to help keep their lights on and doors open.


    mavo | Shutterstock

    The gap between businesses thriving, surviving, and boarding-up windows is a fine line.

    The incredible challenges over the last few years brought rapid innovation and adoption of new technologies to supply chains, which has helped small businesses purchase essential supplies to keep operations up and running.

    Small businesses make up the fabric of local communities and keep main streets populated and vibrant. Big business also plays a role in developing technology and solutions on a scale that reflects the scale of the challenge – in this case, global supply issues creating challenges at every level of business.

    When it comes to the challenges that small businesses continue to face with remote work and ongoing supply chain disruption, there is an opportunity for small businesses to partner with other small and local businesses to help survive the economic climate, while also supporting their local community.

    Strength in numbers

    One of the first steps is to help small and local businesses connect with one another. This is where new technology and innovation help the local business community get in touch, with a mutually beneficial purpose: to buy from each other.

    Innovation from digital purchasing solutions helps small businesses make a greater impact on the local community. Current technology can help direct the purchase of products and supplies to (other) small businesses in the local community

    All businesses have a unique story to tell. Ask any business owner and they’re sure to award your curiosity with their tales of success and hardship.

    Survival of the smartest

    Many people are familiar with the words “Smart TV” or “Smart Phone”, while less people know “SMART” stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. SMART objects and processes have gained awareness where they were once considered inanimate.

    Not only have advances in technology brought new efficiencies to the purchasing process for small businesses, but the benefits of innovation and digital procurement solutions have introduced a variety of fresh ideas and approaches from this resulting innovation.

    Using digital procurement solutions not only enables small businesses to more easily pinpoint cost savings, reveal opportunities, and turn insights into action, but business leaders get time back to invest in organizational strategy and business growth.

    Small businesses can leverage the power of machine learning technology and use these solutions to find and purchase business products from other small and local businesses. In turn, this helps their small business community and local economy.

    Exclusive pricing and products

    Digital procurement solutions simplify the buying process, helping small businesses easily purchase business-relevant products while shifting spend to support other small and local businesses.

    Businesses can shop from hundreds of thousands of sellers, buy products in bulk, and access quantity discounts on supplies, which starts with the purchases of two or more of the same products.

    The purchasing platform does the work of finding, retaining, and nurturing suppliers. Businesses can then create buying policies to prefer sellers based on criteria that match the company’s values and goals, choosing suppliers with certifications for diversity, local businesses, and more sustainable products.

    Simplify and organize purchases

    Organizational purchasing goals can be proactively measured by tracking purchases of products from certified local businesses and can also be filtered by certification, zip code, city, and state.

    Once small businesses can locate and purchase products from other small and local businesses, the process becomes simple and repeatable. This allows small business owners to introduce more organization to their purchasing, while also benefiting from a more simplified purchasing process, overall.

    Small businesses can now easily separate work from personal purchases, automate buying and shipping preferences, create out-of-the-box reports, and streamline the entire procurement process.

    From building to booming:

    Current innovations in purchasing can help identify purchasing behavior, discover new products and sellers, and measure progress toward purchasing goals. Small businesses can continue to focus on building and growing, along with pinpointing opportunities for savings, while also helping support other businesses in their communities.

    Whether your small business is a recent startup or a quickly-growing organization, digital procurement solutions help make running your small business easier while connecting you with other small businesses. As a collective, you can keep lights on throughout both your digital and physical “Main Street” which, in turn, benefits your own small business.

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  • Free Guide: Investing in Health Pays Back

    Free Guide: Investing in Health Pays Back

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    Hear from leaders prioritizing people-first places.

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

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

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

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  • 5 Ways to Improve Local SEO

    5 Ways to Improve Local SEO

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving like any other industry. The struggle to stay on top of the ranking takes more than a post in a month. To stay rated and relevant, you must put in the time and conduct the research.

    Being easily searchable, informative and consistent is more crucial than ever for small businesses, and for that, businesses need local search engine optimization. It’s simpler than you might think to master local SEO. Here are five quick techniques to boost local SEO and make your small business rank above its rivals.

    Related: Struggling in Local Search? Here’s What Your Local SEO Strategy Needs

    1. Ensure the consistency of your NAP

    Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP). Your local SEO approach may succeed or fail based on these three simple facts. Make sure to display this information on your website prominently.

    As it will show at the bottom of every page, the footer is an excellent location for your NAP. You can also make your NAP visible on service area pages and your contact page’s body.

    Consistency is key. Your essential company details must be consistent wherever potential clients may find you online.

    Related: 5 Tips to Improve Your Local SEO in 5 Hours

    2. Enhance the on-page content

    You can demonstrate that you are the industry leader in your field for the service you offer by using the content on your site. Along with your services in your region, include specifics like street names and landmarks.

    Explain to the customer why they would require your services in that particular location. Your customer’s user experience will be improved the more you sound like you belong.

    Related: This Important Website Feature Is Crucial For Your Business

    3. Get listed in local directories

    Getting featured in local directories is a fantastic additional strategy for enhancing your local SEO. There are a lot of web directories that are specifically designed for businesses in certain regions.

    Your chances of being discovered by potential clients looking for companies like yours are increased by having a listing in these directories.

    4. Optimize header tags

    Check out this resource on the best practices for using header tags if you haven’t already looked into the topic. By developing localized service pages, you have now gained more space to construct highly targeted header tags with local-based keywords.

    Good header tags provide a general picture of the page’s overall structure and what to expect as visitors browse through the content. It would look odd if you simply loaded keywords into the header tags.

    Related: How Should You Optimize for Branded Keywords?

    5. Create relevant backlinks

    Backlinks are one of the most significant ranking elements for any website, and it is the connections to your website made by other websites. Google views backlinks as endorsements — the higher the backlinks, the more they appear in search results.

    Prioritizing quality over number is crucial while developing backlinks. Look for chances to receive backlinks from reputable websites related to your business.

    Related: What Are Backlinks and Why Do You Need Them for Your SEO?

    Style preference for SEO

    • Use dashes with a space on either side.
    • Avoid serial commas: Cabbage, tomato, and potato.
    • End quote marks should be placed inside commas and periods, and there must be one space following a period.
    • Single quotes should only be used around other single quotes.
    • Include your personal hyperlinks and avoid placing citations or URLs in parentheses below the article.
    • Sparingly use one-sentence paragraphs. The ideal paragraph length is two or three sentences.
    • Subheads should have the same parallel format. They all need complete sentences if the initial heading is a full sentence. Subheads shouldn’t contain links. Just use them in your text. After the first word in a subhead, do not capitalize the following words.
    • If you must use “he,” use “she” as well. Pluralizing your pronouns will help you avoid this formulation, at least occasionally.
    • Never use the pronoun “they” to refer to a firm, organization, or government body.
    • Maintain consistency: If you begin with the pronoun “you,” don’t change it. It’s best to avoid using “we,” “I,” “he/she,” and “you” in the same sentence. Throughout the sentence, use the same verb tense. Keep in mind that the present perfect tense shows continual, habitual action.
    • Look for repetition of the same points, words, or themes.
    • All numbers less than ten (apart from percentages) are written out. Numbers 10 or more are represented by numerals.
    • Numbers are always used to express years. With numbers, use “greater than” rather than “over.” Instead of writing “percent,” use the % symbol.
    • Verify quotes using trustworthy sources.
    • Lay out any acronyms and abbreviations other people may not be familiar with on the first reference, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.
    • In names for the first reference, use the complete name. Only the last name should be used in subsequent references.

    Final thoughts

    For promoting your local online business, you must include local SEO. You can increase your visibility in local search results by claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing. By getting listed in local directories and adding location pages to your website, you can draw more clients to your company.

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    Sean Boyle

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  • 3 Ways to Avoid Violating Federal Regulations (and Save Money)

    3 Ways to Avoid Violating Federal Regulations (and Save Money)

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit have always been integral components in what it takes to succeed and grow in a competitive marketplace. With the numerous tasks and considerations business owners must juggle when starting a business, there’s already a lot to worry about. Throw regulatory risk in the matrix of items businesses must face and that is an overwhelming total.

    According to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, it is estimated that federal regulations cost the American economy up to $1.9 trillion each year from direct costs, lost productivity and higher prices. On top of that, businesses that are non-compliant with regulations pay, on average, 2.71 times the amount they would on regulatory-conscious practices.

    Few industries are immune to regulatory risk. The manufacturing industry tops the list as the most regulated with over 200,000 regulations, according to Industry Today — and in the same report, finance and insurance are the second most regulated sectors with almost 128,000 relevant regulations. Additional domestic and international highly regulated industries in a list curated by Deloitte include health care, transportation, life sciences, energy, agriculture, construction, defense and postal services.

    Although compliance poses a headache, regulations do play an important role. Numerous governmental regulatory bodies — such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — exist to protect consumers and the integrity of the domestic and abroad fiscal environment, as well as to promote fair and ethical practices. But with so many regulatory agencies and policies existing, it isn’t surprising countless businesses find themselves caught in potential regulatory violations.

    Having the tools to avoid non-compliance penalties and stay ahead of regulatory risk is critical to the financial health and longevity of your business. Regardless of your industry, regulatory risk is an ever-present threat due to robust and ever-changing policies that pose tremendous costs if you aren’t properly protected or completely compliant. The following practices position a business so it’s safeguarded against rising costs and increased risk of regulatory compliance.

    Related: Risk, the Entrepreneur and Intelligent Disobedience

    Start with a strong foundation

    Before anything else, make sure the people you employ model values and character you deem essential for your business. After all, regulatory compliance often comes down to trust — being able to trust that employees will respect and adhere to regulations and value the protection that regulations provide consumers and end-users.

    With government regulations and regulatory risk, that principle is a significant determining factor in how well your business can adhere to regulations enforced by governing bodies, especially since your employees carry out your business’s mission and their commitment can make adherence to federal regulations simpler when working together as a cohesive unit. Putting policies and policy/regulation training in place also helps ensure your employees stay aware of changes in regulatory standards and keep contributing in positive ways to your business.

    Stay compliant or risk everything

    Cutting to the chase, your business needs to conduct ongoing internal audits to determine points of weakness and see areas of current or future potential risk. Implementing a regulatory compliance team/officer is also a great idea to ensure your company follows mandates handed down by government agencies, lest you incur their wrath.

    From a penalty standpoint, Chron reports that a business unknowingly violating health regulations must pay a minimum of $5,000 for each infraction committed. A number that goes up to $70,000 per violation if the business is deemed to have willfully violated regulations. For small and mid-size businesses, this can devastate and seem like an uneven punishment given how little the fines affect larger businesses.

    A real-world example of a regulatory violation and its cost comes from Target and its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) fines from 2017. In 2013, Target’s system was hacked and 41 million of its customers’ payment card accounts were compromised. Subsequently, Target settled a class-action lawsuit with victims of the hack for $10 million. Although Target was not intentionally mishandling its customer data, it was a breach nonetheless.

    Given the tight regulations and restrictions that GDPR enforces, this cost Target a further $18.5 million from a multi-state settlement in 2017. In terms of penalties, healthcare and personal data-related breaches consistently result in tens of millions of dollars in fines.

    Related: Target’s Security Breach Stresses the Need for Better Cyber Security

    Insure your business

    In a report from McKinsey & Company, traditional insurance companies and their respective policies may be able to protect your business’s regulatory/compliance risks. While still behind the curve in getting new policies immediately out there, traditional insurance is working to keep up with rapidly changing economic and regulatory environments.

    Another option when transferring risk is captive insurance. A captive insurance company is owned by the company or company owner and is a form of self-insurance where premiums (minus claims) are retained as profit. For risks like regulatory compliance, captive insurance is uniquely suited to address the risk since the policies can be written more broadly and customized to address an evolving, complex threat such as regulatory risk. It can also fill the gaps in a traditional insurance policy and ensure an exclusion won’t prevent claims from being paid.

    Related: What Business and Government Should Do When Innovation Outpaces Regulation

    When growing a business within a highly-regulated industry, it’s extremely challenging to stay on top of evolving regulations and policies unless you have specific experts on your team dedicated to ensuring compliance. However, not all businesses have the capacity for a role such as this. Thus, it behooves businesses to follow best practices and have resources in place to properly address and mitigate the risk.

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    Randy Sadler

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  • Here’s What Really Builds Customer Loyalty in the B2B Industry

    Here’s What Really Builds Customer Loyalty in the B2B Industry

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    During the past couple of years, we’ve all had a front-row seat at the B2B digital transformation, and it has become clear that great B2B ecommerce buying experiences don’t just happen. They require a strategic investment of time and money — and an understanding of the psychological drivers that create experience loyalty in business buyers.

    While experience loyalty has been around the B2C world for decades, the B2B industry is now catching on that delighting customers doesn’t build loyalty. Instead, reducing buyer effort, or the work a buyer must do to get their problems solved, does. For today’s B2B customers, the “problem” that needs to be solved starts with the first purchase: Is it easy to start doing business with your company?

    Related: The Convergence of B2B and B2C: How to Create Epic Experiences in an Experience-driven Economy

    Over half of B2B buyers have switched all suppliers in one year

    Most B2B companies earn a large share of their revenue from ongoing sales to existing customers, making customer retention an important B2B business priority. As human encounters are replaced with digital ones, sellers are challenged to find new ways to keep clients sticky when the competition is just a click away.

    In 2021, 55% of US-based respondents in a global survey said they had switched suppliers for all business purchases in the 12 months preceding the survey. Another 41% said they had switched some suppliers for some business purchases. With nine of 10 respondents switching vendors, one can only conclude that great B2B buying experiences are not happening and likely falling further behind as the digital age progresses. Only a year earlier, in 2020, the comparable percentages were 20% for all purchases and 43% for some purchases.

    Although 2022 numbers aren’t out yet, it’s safe to assume that B2B buyers continue to have rising expectations based on their B2C ecommerce habits. That’s why B2B leaders need to understand that today’s key differentiator is their company’s ability to deliver the best possible B2B customer experience.

    Customer effort matters much more than delight

    Gartner has extensively studied experience loyalty, evaluating whether customer satisfaction can accurately predict future loyalty. Although counterintuitive, their conclusion is “no.” The data revealed that 20% of customers who reported that they were “satisfied” also expressed an intention to buy from someone else. And the delight strategy fares no better: “There was virtually no difference between the loyalty of customers whose expectations were exceeded and those whose expectations were simply met,” the report states. Instead, the true driver of customer loyalty is the amount of effort customers must use to resolve a problem: 96% of customers who had a high-effort experience reported being disloyal compared with 9% with low-effort experiences.

    As business leaders, we don’t want our customers to have problems with our products or services. But it doesn’t take a “big” problem to give a customer the feeling that a company is hard to do business with. Gartner identifies the key sources of customer effort as:

    It’s more likely that a “simple” customer request can reveal whether it’s genuinely easy to do business with your company.

    Related: 12 Golden Rules for Customer Experience Strategy

    B2B payments are complex, but the buying experience can be simple

    In evaluating today’s B2B customer journey, many B2B buyers find the purchase process complicated and time-consuming. It can be hard to select a supplier, and once chosen, the onboarding process can take days (or even weeks, in some industries) adding immense friction at the very beginning of the customer experience. This segment of the customer journey has historically been a manual and paper-based system. In my experience, many companies “digitize” payments by adding online forms, which does not improve or accelerate the manual underpinnings.

    Today’s buyers have much higher expectations and expect B2B ecommerce to be fully automated, instantly responsive and mobile-friendly. Furthermore, corporate customers increasingly want more self-service account options, which require robust portals or apps that allow them to access invoices, make payments, manage disputes and more in just a few clicks.

    Better B2B payments can remove a majority of the friction

    Today, business growth will likely include new digital channels, such as ecommerce, marketplaces and more. And although B2B customers enjoy these new channels, they want to continue purchasing the way they always have, with contracts, purchase orders (POs) and invoices. Why? Because contracts often include special pricing and other negotiated terms, and the POs and invoices are required to manage enterprise expenses.

    That’s why digital channels designed to offer a great B2B customer experience must include all the complexity required by buyers and their organizations. The key is that the complicated plumbing must sit behind a sleek, easy checkout experience.

    The good news is that the days of building these digital solutions in-house are long gone. Instead, B2B merchants can choose to join an existing B2B payments and invoicing network that is purpose-built to reduce many of the challenges organizations encounter as they strive to enhance experience loyalty. These proven B2B payments providers can provide:

    • Real-time trade credit decisioning in moments, not days, that keep prospective buyers engaged when they have decided to purchase

    • Right-sized corporate trade credit accounts

    • Automated accounts receivable to support new customer acquisition and onboarding

    • Digital invoices in formats that are easy for enterprise systems to digest

    • Fraud detection and mitigation during trade credit decisioning

    Related: The Ultimate Secret of Building a Loyal Customer Base

    A modern B2B payment process can create experience loyalty

    It’s the new reality: Most B2B buyers don’t want help during “the sales process” unless they ask for it. Instead of relying on salespeople to build sticky relationships, companies must grow customer loyalty in other ways. Investing in an easier payments experience is an excellent place to start.

    Many companies view their online payment experience as merely mechanical — it either works or not — and in the past, they were largely correct. But like it or not, today’s digital world is very different. With a world of merchants at their fingertips, buyers know they have choices and are quick to take their business elsewhere. That’s why suppliers that create a customer-centric checkout, designed to give B2B buyers an experience that is neither complicated nor time-consuming, can gain a significant competitive edge. According to McKinsey, B2B companies that transformed their customer experiences saw 10 to 15% revenue growth, higher client satisfaction scores, improved employee satisfaction and a 10-20% reduction in operational costs.

    Companies of all sizes can use this type of technology to their strategic advantage where loyalty-building B2B payments experiences are just a few APIs away. A comprehensive payments solution can significantly reduce the friction that new buyers encounter. Investing in a low-effort onboarding process can create a memorable relationship starter, build experience loyalty and differentiate your company — all the result of strategically investing time and money to create a great B2B ecommerce experience.

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    Brandon Spear

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  • 5-Minute Mentor: How Do I Get My Products In Front of Customers Online?

    5-Minute Mentor: How Do I Get My Products In Front of Customers Online?

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    “Success leaves clues.” Terry Rice, a business development consultant and writer for Entrepreneur magazine, is not channeling Sherlock Holmes — he’s offering a surefire method for newbies in the business game to unlock success. “Jot down the names of competitors and similar companies and see how they are making it happen. Look how they use social media, find out who they are partnering with. Then put your own spin on those methods that are proven to work.”

    In this week’s episode of 5-Minute Mentor, Terry talks with Julia Cuthbertson, co-founder of Las Chingonas Imports, a Brooklyn-based company that imports high-end Mezcal from Mexico. Julia and her co-founder Tiffany Collings launched their company with two products a year and a half ago, and are looking for ways to expand not just in New York City shops, but online as well. Terry breaks down strategies and tactics for the team to reach a wider customer base while keeping things manageable within their time and resource constraints.

    Watch the above conversation and in just five minutes get actionable tips for:

    • Moving from brick-and-mortar to online sales
    • Getting your product on relevant delivery platforms
    • Developing a customer relationship management system
    • Taking your first steps in fundraising

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    Terry Rice

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  • 3 Ways Consumers are Driving Change in Retail Logistics for 2023

    3 Ways Consumers are Driving Change in Retail Logistics for 2023

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Consumers are increasingly exhibiting preferences for ethical products, transparency, sustainable practices, personalization, convenience and digitization — and it’s driving big changes across the retail industry as brands take note and adapt.

    Across the board, consumer expectations are raising the bar for retailers. This leaves leaders with two choices: hesitate, reach a tipping point and be forced to pivot (and risk losing customers along the way), or stay in sync with consumers and make impactful operational changes now.

    On the logistics front, here are three ways retailers can embrace consumer cues on sustainability, transparency and customer service in 2023 and beyond:

    1. Sustainable shipping

    Consumers have come to expect environmental responsibility from the brands they shop. Across generations, consumers are even willing to pay more for sustainable products. In fact, 90% of Gen Z consumers said they are inclined to spend an extra 10% on sustainable options.

    Yet, despite this number being up from just over 34% two years prior, two-thirds of retail executives believe consumers wouldn’t pay more for sustainable products. Disconnects such as this present an opportunity for retailers to listen to what consumers are saying about the importance of sustainability and take action.

    For starters, consumers are growing mindful of the long-term impacts of their purchasing decisions, especially in this era of ecommerce and next-day offerings that increase delivery vehicle traffic, carbon emissions and packaging. According to Forrester, some 68% of highly empowered consumers plan to increase their efforts to identify brands that reduce their environmental impact, and 61% seek out energy-efficient labels when shopping.

    With retail supply chains responsible for roughly 25% of global emissions, brands have an opportunity to share in consumer values and adopt environmentally sound practices at every stage in their supply chain. This spans sourcing renewable or recycled materials, utilizing clean energy sources, adopting reusable bags and committing to sustainable last-mile deliveries.

    Take the Montreal-based sustainable fashion brand, Frank And Oak, for example. The company recently partnered with a sustainability-minded third-party logistics (3PL) provider to move its warehousing closer to its customers and offer shoppers carbon-neutral, same-day and next-day deliveries. Across major Canadian and U.S. markets, shoppers’ packages will be delivered via electric vehicles, and where EV deliveries aren’t possible, carbon offsets will be calculated and bought.

    Port to porch, retailers can execute greener shipping practices with 3PL providers that align their services with both brand and consumer sustainability goals.

    2. Increased transparency

    Increased transparency, such as from where materials are sourced to the environmental and actual costs of making products, helps shoppers decide whether to click “purchase” or not. The American clothing retailer, Everlane, calls this high level of visibility “radical transparency.” Founded on the mission of selling clothing with transparent pricing, Everlane reveals the true costs behind producing all of its products and provides insight into its sustainability initiatives and conscientious business practices across its operations.

    Consumers are now accustomed to this degree of transparency, and it goes beyond clicking “buy.” Once they’ve placed an online order, shoppers want to know exactly where their order is and when it will arrive at their doorstep.

    Within logistics, retailers can deliver complete transparency of their fulfillment and delivery operations. Tech-enabled 3PLs give retailers the ability to track thousands of SKUs housed, packed and shipped from centralized warehouses, then grant consumers access to in-depth order tracking right up until the minute their order is delivered.

    3. Better customer service

    Consumers are vocal about their experiences — especially when it comes to deliveries —and share their opinions by posting reviews, tagging brands on social media and flexing their spending muscle.

    Nearly 80% of U.S. consumers say speed, convenience, friendly service and knowledgeable help are key to a positive customer service experience. In fact, 32% of global consumers would walk away from a brand they love after just one bad experience.

    When retailers partner with a 3PL that supports every facet of their inventory, warehousing, order fulfillment, delivery and returns, companies remain in control of their entire logistics operation. And with so many pain points along the fulfillment journey where issues can arise, retailers need supply-chain partners with brand knowledge who can offer quick issue resolution at every step. By partnering with a 3PL that manages its end-to-end logistics, retailers can effectively deliver seamless customer service experiences from the time an order is placed to when it arrives at a consumer’s door.

    Consumers have always been powerful agents of progress. In response to the pandemic, supply chain issues and climate change, consumer needs and desires have shifted. Retailers would be wise to meet consumers where they are and embrace change, especially around sustainability, transparency and customer service.

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    Mark Ang

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  • How Telematics Will Improve the Efficiency of Transportation and Logistics in the Coming Years

    How Telematics Will Improve the Efficiency of Transportation and Logistics in the Coming Years

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Transportation and logistics operations are in a brittle, fast-changing business landscape. Logistics is all about ensuring accuracy, transparency and timely services today. The Covid-19 crisis demanded logistics companies gain overall visibility, flexibility and agility despite the industry’s growing complexity, and Brexit has added a new set of challenges.

    It is no longer a secret that customers expect more, and with rising customer demands, fleet companies need to be flexible and innovative. Digital solutions like telematics help them meet those needs, extend beyond traditional approaches and be prepared to deploy futuristic concepts.

    Related: How Telematics Has Completely Revolutionized the Management of Fleet Vehicles

    Telematics combines telecommunications and informatics to unlock critical insights that help logistics and fleet companies make strategic decisions, address multiple fleet management challenges and boost fleet efficiency. Hence, logistics businesses worldwide are investing in telematics solutions and making fleets interconnected like never before. McKinsey estimates that data shared through telematics will be worth $750 trillion by 2030.

    However, telematics has advanced over the years and shifted from collecting data about vehicles to analyzing data about drivers. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, IoT and advanced analytics have facilitated telematics to unleash previously impossible applications and leverage the benefits of real-time data transmission.

    Then, what is the future? Undoubtedly, telematics is here to stay, making the future of logistics and telematics digital-driven. In fact, connectivity and convenience will rule the coming years, fostering on-demand and flexible logistics. And here, technology will be the biggest driver.

    IoT and blockchain

    Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), everything is connected. IoT sensors and connected solutions are already helping logistics companies to intelligently combine the physical world with the digital world and simplify the unbending world of logistics, bolstering visibility and efficiency. Intelligent logistics networks are looming, enabling fleet companies to trace and ensure reliable operations.

    IoT will enable more intelligent connectivity and share information about product conditions, whereabouts and goods management. When fleet managers can remotely know the exact temperature in trailers, they can ensure safer and more efficient deliveries, mitigating the risk and costs associated with dead stock. Timely decision-making insights can go a long way to maintaining broad margins.

    IoT combined with blockchain will provide greater transparency. Distributed ledger technologies will allow every party in the supply chain to track goods and entirely rely on the data’s accuracy. The peer-to-peer technology of blockchain will coordinate deliveries to vehicles directly and automatically without any human intervention. Everybody could see and analyze each movement and activity, identify improvements and action them now (and rapidly). Over time, we can also expect IoT devices to be smaller and easily accessible.

    Related: Why the Internet of Things is Taking Over the Markets

    5G

    Providing a connection intensity of 1 million connections/km2, 5G is set to disrupt the world with super-fast internet speed. With a ten times quicker speed than 4G, 5G will enforce Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) applications. Vehicles will share information, understand infrastructure signals and encompass knowledge of cyclists and pedestrians without going through the network. And with a response time of less than a millisecond, we will witness vehicles perpetually talking to each other like in-person human conversations.

    Fleet and logistics companies can improve safety, operate on transparent data and improve fleet management with such robust network capabilities. Besides, 5G can be the wave-maker for trailblazing innovations like augmented reality fleet applications.

    Digital twins

    Indeed, 5G promises lower latency, impeccable bandwidth and faster communication, implying that we need robust telematics systems to handle such a surge of data, quickly analyze data in real time and make the most out of valuable data sources. “Real-time digital twins” — a new software technique — provides the necessary evolution in the existing telematics software for streaming analytics.

    Rather than processing incoming telemetry through delayed batched analysis, digital twins do it as data rolls in. It simply creates a twin of each physical data source and studies inbound insights from that particular data source. Here, data sources are vehicles, drivers or containers. So, each digital twin holds critical detailed information about its corresponding data source, assists in evaluating incoming information and effectively updates the specific data source’s knowledge. With such on-the-spot information from digital twins, fleet admins can make the most rational decision on anything that requires immediate attention.

    Typically, delayed batch analysis can take hours to aggregate and analyze incoming data, but real-time digital twins taper the entire process to seconds and empower better situational awareness. Additionally, digital twins can use the 5G network to send back signals to the vehicle and elevate dual-communication capabilities. For example, using machine learning algorithms, digital twins can catch sight of an imminent vehicle equipment failure and alert drivers immediately.

    And as these digital twins operate on in-memory, scalable computing systems, logistics businesses can easily manage increased data sources with growing fleet size by injecting more digital twins. Due to logistics’ complex nature, digital twins will aid telematics to keep the fleet’s challenges under the thumb.

    Related: Why Blockchain and Digital Twins Are Good Partners

    Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

    A fair and responsible logistics system will play an essential part in fleet management strategy and work towards a safer, cleaner future for all. With the introduction of Clean Air Zones (CAZs) and Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), transportation and logistics need to shift to a supply chain that does not harm the environment and evolve into a greener and more sustainable mobility. Thereupon, fleet businesses will have to follow a market-responsive, demand-driven supply chain model, and MaaS will become dominant.

    Integrating various modes of transport services into a single mobility service available on demand, MaaS will allow logistics to move from one point to another on time and cost-efficiently. But when integrated with telematics, MaaS can unify a range of operations from mobility planning to asset management. Instead of handling a few physical assets within the company, fleet owners can manage mobility for all assets across numerous companies.

    MaaS enables fleet businesses to naturally scale efficiently and leverage the economic benefits of sharing vehicles with other companies by using existing facilities and a labor force. In reality, logistics will focus on vehicle usage rather than vehicle ownership. The environmental impact will directly be linked with the company’s failure and success, making reverse logistics critical and changing the linear supply chain to circular.

    The future will be defined by how well logistics can focus on deploying technologies onto their existing systems. Evolution will take place from siloed reactive operations to forethoughtful thinking to meet the rising demands of delivering goods in a personalized and purposeful way. Increased connected solutions will foster logistics companies to work across the ecosystem, making cross-border collaboration the new normal. So, telematics and logistics will unfollow being cheaper and efficient but rather be intelligent and personalized.

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    Ekim Saribardak

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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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  • Let Your Team Decide Their Approach to Hybrid Work. Here’s Why and How.

    Let Your Team Decide Their Approach to Hybrid Work. Here’s Why and How.

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    A November 2022 survey by Gallup finds that 46% of hybrid employees report being engaged at work when their team determines their hybrid work policy of when to come to the office. By contrast, if employees are free to determine their own approach, only 41% report being engaged. If the leadership determines the top-down policy for everyone, only 35% are engaged, and if it’s their direct supervisor, 32% are engaged.

    It makes sense when you think about it. Team members know best what they need in order to collaborate and socialize together effectively. After all, the only useful function of the office is to facilitate collaboration, socialization and mentoring: people are much more productive in their individual tasks at home. So it makes all the sense in the world for the rank-and-file teams to determine what works best for their needs.

    Yet the Gallup survey shows only 13% of employees say that their team determines their approach to hybrid work. That’s unfortunate and undermines engagement among hybrid workers. And it’s easy to fix.

    From my experience helping 21 companies figure out their hybrid and remote work arrangements, the best practice is for the leadership to provide broad but flexible guidelines for the whole company. Then, let teams of rank-and-file employees determine what works best for them.

    Related: So Your Employees Don’t Want to Come Back to the Office. Here’s How to Create Purpose and Culture in Remote Teams

    Empower each team leader to determine, in consultation with their team members, how each team should function. The choice should be driven by the goals and collaborative capacities of each team rather than the personal preferences of the team leader. The top leadership should encourage team leaders to permit, wherever possible, team members who desire to do so to work remotely.

    To set the stage, first, conduct an anonymous survey of your staff on their preferences for remote work. All companies are different, and you want to know about your staff in particular. More importantly, employees want to feel that they have input on major company decisions. That applies especially to policies concerning working conditions. You’ll get a lot more buy-in, even from staff who may be unhappy with your final policies, if they feel consulted and heard.

    As part of the survey, have respondents indicate who their team leader is: that keeps the survey answers anonymous, but can be provided to team leaders to help them understand the desires of their teams.

    The reason it’s important to ask this in the surveys is that many lower-level supervisors feel a personal discomfort with work from home. They feel a loss of control if they can’t see their staff and are eager to get back to their previous mode of supervising.

    That’s why there’s a low level of engagement when team leads are given sole discretion to make the decisions. You need to have team leaders understand what are the actual preferences of their team members without any team member feeling inhibited by giving their team leader undesirable information.

    While you may choose to ask a variety of questions, be sure to find out about their desire for frequency of work in the office. Here’s a good way to phrase it:

    Which of these would be your preferred working style going forward?

    • A) Fully remote, coming in once a quarter for a team-building retreat
    • B) 1 day a week in the office, the rest at home
    • C) 2 days a week in the office
    • D) 3 days a week in the office
    • E) 4 days a week in the office
    • F) Full-time in the office

    In all the companies where I consulted, there were never more than a quarter who wanted to go back to the office full-time. In fact, one company with over 3,000 employees had 61% of its staff express a desire for fully remote work. And it wasn’t even a tech company.

    In the highly probable case that your results aren’t too different from the typical company, you’ll want to follow the lead of the companies I helped. Namely, you’ll institute a hybrid-first model, with some flexibility for employees who want to work remotely full-time and whose roles permit them to do so.

    Next, make sure that team leaders justify the time their team needs to be in the office. That justification should stem from the kind of activities done by the team. Team members should be free to do their independent tasks wherever they want. By contrast, many — not all — collaborative tasks are best done in person.

    Related: 3 Ways to Empower Everyone to Lead (and How to Do It)

    Team leaders should evaluate the proportion of individual versus collaborative tasks done by their teams. Then, they should use that proportion as a basis for a discussion with the team to determine the frequency of when team members come to the office. And it should be a consensus-based decision-making process, informed by the surveys, with a focus on collaboration, socialization and mentoring. All team members should come to the office on the same days of the week to facilitate collaboration.

    What if team members wish to be fully remote and have a team leader who doesn’t want any remote team members? If this team member can demonstrate high effectiveness and productivity, and if their tasks are mostly individual — 80% or more — the team leader should allow them to work remotely. That team member should only come to the office once a quarter for a team-building retreat.

    However, if the team member needs to collaborate intensely with their team, they might not be able to fulfill that aspect of their role effectively if everyone else is in the office. In that case, they need to either come into the office at least once a week. Alternatively, they might consider finding a new team with a more accommodating team leader. Or they might adjust their role on the team to take on largely-individual tasks.

    There should be a very good reason if the team leader desires more than two days in the office per week. Such reasons exist.

    For example, in one company for which I consulted, the sales teams who placed outbound sales calls decided to do full-time office work. The team leaders argued persuasively that sales staff benefited greatly from being surrounded by other sales staff during outbound calls. Such calls are draining and sap motivation. Being surrounded by others on the sales floor making similar calls boosts motivation and energy. Moreover, hearing others make calls offers an opportunity to learn from their successful techniques, which is difficult to arrange in telework settings. However, such exceptions are rare.

    Generally speaking, no more than 5% of your staff should be forced to be in the office full-time. Surveys show that about 80% of workers who are capable of working remotely expect to do so. Employers indicate they will continue offering a variety of hybrid work options. Yet many are unsure about how to implement this model effectively.

    For maximizing employee engagement, while also facilitating team collaboration, the best practice involves having teams make the decisions. This team-led model will ensure that team members can collaborate most effectively. Using this technique will enable you to seize a competitive advantage in the return to the office.

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    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • Do You Have the Right Insurance for Your Business? Here’s How to Understand Your Options

    Do You Have the Right Insurance for Your Business? Here’s How to Understand Your Options

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    You’ve likely pursued traditional business insurance. But when it comes to protecting your business from a myriad of outside threats in today’s complex and ever-changing environment, is traditional insurance enough — or even the right fit?

    With the hardening of the insurance market and costly premiums, it’s a timely question, especially as more and more businesses are looking to alternative risk transfer. And an increasingly trending option is captive insurance as worldwide more than 100 captives formed last year as reported by Business Insider.

    Related: 4 Ways to Protect Your Business From Inflation

    Background of traditional and captive insurance

    Traditional insurance has built up a portfolio of coverage offerings and options for businesses. Some components of traditional insurance include risk distribution, tax deductibles on premiums and many blanket insurance coverages such as general liability insurance, business income insurance and worker compensation insurance.

    Captive insurance is a wholly owned subsidiary that exists to protect your business from unique threats and provide the dynamic and unique plan your business needs. Captive insurance may be right for your business if it can’t receive the insurance coverage it needs from the traditional insurance market.

    For instance, business interruption insurance is a coverage that insulates your business from disasters such as floods and earthquakes. This coverage does not, however, protect businesses from fires or tornadoes — and to activate this insurance, there must be an event that “triggers” your policy.

    Businesses that shut down during the pandemic lost money while they were closed, and they needed to be fully shut down to trigger their business interruption policies. With captive insurance, however, businesses can access their stored cash reserves and cover losses during instances of extended partial shutdowns that are not covered in a traditional insurance policy. Unlike this policy language with its many coverage exclusions, captive policy language is geared to protect the business owner.

    Captive insurance also doesn’t penalize for other firms’ bad behavior and the cost you pay for insurance isn’t based on other similar businesses filing claims. Other considerations for possibly leaving traditional insurance are in the hardening of premiums, and companies looking to have less expensive coverage.

    Keeping that in mind, companies seeking more control over their current coverages and insurance programs can craft a bespoke insurance plan built around their business’s unique risk profile with their captive plan.

    Related: How Businesses Can Navigate the Treacherous Waters of Trade Wars

    Premiums aren’t a sunk cost with captives

    High premiums with traditional insurance providers can handcuff your business to hardening monthly rates and can leave your business feeling the impact of those high expenses. With captive insurance, however, your business can retain profits when claims aren’t paid.

    These retained profits see deferment of taxes on loss reserves as well, allowing for the accumulation of a larger pool of funds for investment or unforeseen financially impactful situations such as litigation. These funds can also be utilized to insulate your business from losses during economic downturns or similarly fiscally challenging situations.

    For a small business, this can help with scalability as expensive premiums paid with traditional providers can mean less money spent on expanding your business. Additionally, as your business scales in size and needs, so do the coverages required for your business to be adequately protected. Comparatively, Kiplinger pointed out that captive insurance can provide these necessary adaptive coverages as the need for them comes up along the way.

    Related: 5 Trending Captive Insurance Considerations for 2022

    Policy differences and FAQs

    If your business faces potential cyberattacks, medical malpractice suits and many other costly risks, the deductibles associated with these protections are growing with traditional providers. Premiums for cyber insurance have increased by as much as 50% and 100%.

    Relating back to the earlier example, flexibility in captive insurance policy language would help. As evidenced by the civil unrest of 2020, whereby areas of the country experienced protests, riots and sit-ins that destroyed neighborhoods. If the area around a business was damaged and inaccessible, but the business itself was not, again, the traditional insurance policy would not be triggered, meaning your business can be left paying out of pocket.

    Related: 5 Ways to Protect Your Business Against Cyber Attacks

    So how much time does it take to create a new policy?

    With constant changes in what businesses need in their insurance protections, traditional insurance providers can often be behind the curve. Where new threats form, it also means new policies need to be made to cover vulnerable parts of your business.

    According to Deloitte, traditional insurance takes 12 to 18 months to create and release new insurance products. With the rate at which threats arise and can potentially harm your business, that is not an acceptable timeframe.

    Additionally, when buying traditional insurance coverage, startup costs are limited to the premium. Starting a captive insurance company, however, requires start-up costs and capitalization requirements with formation fees including legal costs. This is because a captive insurance company is a legally formed corporation. Additionally, with captive insurance, you are building upon your risk mitigation strategies to accrue funds for potential losses.

    While forming a captive may be daunting to a non-insurance professional, there are many captive management companies that will serve as a business owner’s insurance front office, that help companies form and manage their own wholly owned captives.

    Captive insurance can be a viable option for businesses large and small. Businesses best served by implementing captive insurance are those with complex, evolving, difficult or costly risks to insure through traditional plans and those who would benefit from increased cash flow, liquidity and profitability. Traditional insurance and captive insurance both have distinct features and one isn’t necessarily a better fit than the other. Regardless of what you choose, protecting your business with the right insurance plan is a necessity.

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    Randy Sadler

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  • See Your Company Through Tough Times with This Risk and Project Management Bundle

    See Your Company Through Tough Times with This Risk and Project Management Bundle

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Starting a business is a risky endeavor in any economic climate, but these days it’s particularly dicey. But that’s no reason not to pursue a great idea. You just have to learn some risk management skills and find ways to assess the risks worth taking and the ones you should pass on.


    StackCommerce

    In The 2023 Project Management & Risk Management Certification Bundle, you’ll get training in both risk management and project management to help you run a company more efficiently and smartly.

    This bundle includes ten courses from some of the web’s top instructors, including William Stewart (4.5/5-star instructor rating), Integrity Training (4.4/5-star rating), and Six Sigma Academy (4.6/5-star rating).

    Starting out, you’ll learn the basics of project management, understanding the difference between a process, project, and program. You’ll explore the most important concepts in project management and learn the various stages of a project. As you progress through the coursework, you’ll delve into a variety of project management methodologies in courses that will help you earn valuable certifications to both improve your day-to-day management skills and help you score more clientele. You’ll explore Lean Six Sigma, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), and more.

    You’ll learn how to construct process maps in easy steps, as well as flowcharts for more complex processes so you can better analyze risk throughout a project’s stages. There is also a practical course to help you get stakeholder buy-in and properly analyze projects before you even begin. By the end of the courses, you’ll have the skills to manage projects effectively and assess the risks they pose to your business throughout.

    Take care of your business. Right now, you can get Project Management & Risk Management Certification Bundle for just $45 for a limited time. That’s a small price to pay for better management.

    Prices subject to change.

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    Entrepreneur Store

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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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  • A Guide to Consolidation Strategy in Acquisitions

    A Guide to Consolidation Strategy in Acquisitions

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The search fund model is a method of investing that enables entrepreneurs to take a unique path to business ownership. It is structured to help searchers (entrepreneurs who engage in the search fund model) acquire, operate and scale an existing business instead of building one from scratch.

    By offering a rapid path to business ownership, and CEO status, search funds have created a new breed of entrepreneur — those who embrace the notion of plug-and-play.

    A critical factor in the search fund equation is the economic upside searchers could see for their efforts. Historically, this has meant a 32.6 % internal rate of return and a 5.5x multiple on invested capital.

    Related: How To Find Success During Search Fund Launches

    Value creation

    With competition brewing in the form of fellow searchers and even some traditional private equity funds showing interest in acquiring smaller businesses, how do searchers achieve their edge? They look towards combining two or more companies with synergies in size, geographic coverage, key personnel or supply-chain advantages — in other words, a consolidation.

    Programmatic mergers and acquisitions (M&A), according to McKinsey, “remains the least risky approach with the smallest deviation in performance and the largest share of companies that generate positive excess total returns to shareholders (65%)” when compared to large one-off transactions, selective deals or organic growth.

    What does this mean for searchers competing at the smaller end of the enterprise spectrum? It represents an opportunity to bring the tailwinds of M&A-based growth further downstream, and to industries it has yet to touch.

    However, in a survey of 185 Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) businesses purchased by Harvard Business School graduates in the past decade, only 8% have implemented a consolidation strategy of buying multiple businesses in the same industry vertical.

    Challenges

    The timeline and structure of search acquisitions are often limited to two years. Additionally, searchers are often freshly minted MBAs with limited operational and M&A execution experience, which makes adding an additional business target to acquire a daunting task. However, the benefits vastly outweigh the possible downside.

    Related: Search Funds: What You Need To Know About This Investment Model

    Advantages

    With this business strategy inherently being an operational play, key considerations when looking for a second (or more) target could include financial and further operational synergies in the form of:

    • Capital structure improvements from the combined larger size of the businesses
      • Ability to take on additional debt at a lower rate
    • Capital intensity reduction
      • Shared fixed assets, working capital and capital expenditures
    • Margin expansion from greater purchasing power and unit economics
    • Valuation multiple arbitrage
      • In a similar vein to “greater than the sum of its parts,” businesses when combined, often command a higher value than if they were to stand alone

    Related: Data Security and the Downside Risk of M&As

    Picking an industry

    With that, what can searchers do to further de-risk a search consolidation? The answer to this lies in a refined thesis. Searchers with a background operating in a specific industry (i.e., healthcare) have an inherent advantage in launching a search with a focused thesis.

    Finding an industry to commit to can be challenging for those with multiple passions. However, the following markers could indicate the right fit:

    • Fragmented industry landscape (i.e., medical, dental, and veterinarian practices)
      • Industries in which business owners primarily operate a single entity or location
    • Mature and standardized industry operations
      • Businesses that have relied on tried and tested practices over the years
    • A large number of companies
      • Many businesses serve a similar customer profile but in different geographies
    • A large number of companies within the target enterprise value of the fund
      • Understanding the average value of a business in a target industry can help filter out opportunities that are either too small or too large
    • Historically stable growth and sustainable profit margins
      • Businesses that have operated profitably for many years and serve customers who have (if B2B based)

    Picking a business

    Zooming in a layer deeper, companies characteristic of success in the search consolidation model touch on a combination of the following elements:

    • Competitive industry advantage
      • intellectual property, proprietary software, etc.
    • Seller motivated to exit
      • retirement, change in a succession plan, career transition, etc.
    • Historically stable recurring revenue
    • Strategic avenues for growth
      • geographic expansion, marketing strategy, recruiting key personnel, etc.
    • Alignment with the financial mandate of the search fund
    • Viable exit vision over a five to seven-year horizon

    Eight percent is a small but growing fraction of the ETA community that has chosen to tread the path of consolidation. As more seasoned operators and mid-career searchers get involved, the odds of a consolidation strategy becoming more commonplace is only set to grow. This next wave of search fund entrepreneurs could bring revolutionary methods in creative financing, operating and growing businesses — a win-win for budding entrepreneurs and seasoned operators alike!

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    Karl Eshwer

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  • 4 Money Beliefs That Are Holding Your Business

    4 Money Beliefs That Are Holding Your Business

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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

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

    “Waste not, want not”

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

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

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

    After all: what is there to conserve?

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

    But you never do.

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

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

    1. It could all end tomorrow

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

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

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

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

    All it takes is a shift in your mindset.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    3. Risk mitigation

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

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

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

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

    4. Debt is the last resort

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

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

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

    Of course not!

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

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

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

    I hope so!

    Related: How Debt and Taxes Can Make Smart Entrepreneurs Rich

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    Daniel Mangena

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  • As Inflation Soars, Consumer Habits Are Changing. Here’s How to Adapt

    As Inflation Soars, Consumer Habits Are Changing. Here’s How to Adapt

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The current uncertain economy, coupled with rising inflation, is driving consumers to seek money-saving tactics, including cashback rewards, discounts, and online coupons.

    Economic pressures are driving the broad adoption of shopping rewards programs, which are “crossing the chasm” from coupon clippers and early adopters to mainstream consumers seeking to cut costs any way they can.

    In a survey commissioned by Wildfire and conducted by the research firm Big Village, we examined mainstream consumers’ attitudes and expectations toward rewards and other shopping incentives. The findings revealed that 90% of respondents are more interested than ever in getting discounts, using coupons and earning cashback rewards when shopping online, precisely due to rising prices.

    Related: 3 Secret Reasons Why Your Brand Needs a Rewards Program

    Rewards and discounts affect online purchase behavior

    Regardless of the economic environment, consumers will continue to shop. But in challenging financial times, they will modify their buying habits, for example, by purchasing store brands instead of more expensive options. Recent reporting on these types of behavioral shifts includes from Personetics, finding that almost 2 of 3 consumers are curbing spending on non-essentials due to the higher cost of living, and from Gartner, revealing that nearly 1 in 4 consumers will spend less on holiday shopping this year due to higher prices.

    In such a setting, rewards and other incentives are a substantial factor influencing consumers’ online shopping behavior. The availability of rewards and incentives directly and positively affects consumer behavior at the top of the purchase funnel (awareness and consideration) and the bottom (completing a purchase).

    A key finding in the Wildfire survey reveals that rewards impact consumers’ behavior even before they decide where to shop: 81% state that the availability of rewards is a factor when deciding which ecommerce retailer gets their business.

    In addition to influencing where consumers shop, rewards and incentives further impact the decision to purchase, driving higher sales conversion rates. Findings show that most respondents are more likely to complete a purchase when they can earn cashback rewards or use a coupon or discount code.

    Many consumers seek bargains when they shop online, and we expect consumers’ propensity for ferreting out discounts will further increase as the economy tightens. The majority of respondents (61%) state they “always” or “often” look for coupons, discounts, cashback rewards or other ways to save on their purchases.

    Based on these findings, the takeaways for any brand selling online are clear:

    • Retailers can win the battle for consumer preference by offering rewards for shopping, either through native loyalty programs or online cashback rewards programs.
    • Offering coupons through loyalty and rewards programs drive merchant benefits, including increased sales conversion.
    • Businesses choosing not to offer such incentives are disadvantaged in consumers’ selection of online shopping destinations.

    Related: Why Trust and Incentives Help Consumers With Better Brand Selection

    Responding to customer preferences for simplicity

    Furthermore, consumers seek ease of use and want to access rewards and discounts conveniently within the natural flow of their online shopping behavior without detours or hurdles. Most consumers surveyed for Wildfire’s report prefer rewards automatically applied at checkout or activating them while shopping without having to search elsewhere. Conversely, fewer consumers want to receive an email with a special offer, and even fewer still prefer to search through a directory of offers.

    Consumers have spoken: the simpler and more convenient a rewards program or discount offer, the better. Consumers prefer easy-to-understand, simple-to-access rewards such as cashback over rewards like points, miles, or future discounts. The survey also revealed that 80% of respondents prefer cashback as their reward instead of points or credits towards future purchases.

    The need for simplicity and convenience in rewards programs is borne out by other research. In the 2022 Loyalty Marketing & Rewards Program report from Comarch and Forrester, retail marketers were asked what they find to be the most critical elements of a loyalty program. The results showed that most are leaning toward offering cash rewards.

    What’s the implication for businesses considering a loyalty program? Online shoppers have become extremely savvy. They are now much more accustomed to seamless digital experiences, so their expectations regarding earning and redeeming rewards through retail loyalty programs or other shopping rewards programs have changed. Consumers are no longer willing to settle for jumping through hoops, and retailers will see low adoption for their program unless it is simple and convenient for customers to earn and redeem rewards.

    Related: The Marketing Power of Rewards Programs

    Conclusion

    By offering easy-to-access shopping incentives — such as cashback and coupons — businesses selling online can meet the demands of today’s value-seeking consumers. Through such programs, they cannot only positively influence consumers’ purchase behavior but also provide some much-needed relief for their wallets.

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    Jordan Glazier

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