Category Archives: Business

Business

11 Ways You Can Become A Better Leader

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Leading is not for the faint of heart.

It’s one of those things that we all do everyday, even when you don’t think about.

Whether you lead a division, a company, many companies, a team, family, or just yourself we are leaders in one shape or fashion.

Thanks to great work of Dave Kerpen we have a number of ways that a leader can be more effective, impactful, and legendary.

All of the concepts are simple, and yet, perhaps in the name of revenues or the bottom line, we often lose sight of the simple things – things that not only make us human, but can actually help us become more successful.

Below are the eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader:

1. Listening

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

Listening is the foundation of any good relationship. Great leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors. Here’s why the best CEO’s listen more.

2. Storytelling

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” -Robert McAfee Brown

After listening, leaders need to tell great stories in order to sell their products, but more important, in order to sell their ideas. Storytelling is what captivates people and drives them to take action. Whether you’re telling a story to one prospect over lunch, a boardroom full of people, or thousands of people through an online video – storytelling wins customers.

3. Authenticity

“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” -Oprah Winfrey

Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Tomorrow’s leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together.

4. Transparency

“As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.” -John Whittier

There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers and colleagues. More important, transparency makes it a lot easier to sleep at night – unworried about what you said to whom, a happier leader is a more productive one.

5. Team Playing

“Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.” -SEAL Team Saying

No matter how small your organization, you interact with others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, practicing humility, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking.

6. Responsiveness

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” -Charles Swindoll

The best leaders are responsive to their customers, staff, investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder today is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Whether the communication is email, voice mail, a note or a tweet, responding shows you care and gives your customers and colleagues a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on the organization.

7. Adaptability

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” -Ben Franklin

There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable to most organizations. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader.

8. Passion

“The only way to do great work is to love the work you do.” -Steve Jobs

Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line.

9. Surprise and Delight

“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.” -Charles de Gaulle

Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money – a smile, We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.

10. Simplicity

“Less isn’t more; just enough is more.” -Milton Glaser

The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so today’s leader must be focused and deliver simplicity.

11. Gratefulness

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” -Gilbert Chesterton

Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great! Donor’s Choose studied the value of a hand-written thank-you note, and actually found donors were 38% more likely to give a 2nd time if they got a hand-written note!

The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated

By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.

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Business

5 Tips To Being Successful Entering A New Industry

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I’ve always wondered how people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Oprah, Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Larry Page, Grant Cardone, and Gary Vaynerchuk along with other super successful serial entrepreneurs are able to jump into so many different industries and win.

How they are able to go into an industry that they have no success in, and are able to make it work.

It’s the same secrets that I myself have learned and used to operate, consult, and work in so many different industries.

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The term “serial entrepreneur” isn’t very common in business circles, but I believe that some people are built for that kind of practice. A serial entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses. As opposed to a typical entrepreneur, who will often come up with a single idea, start the company, then see it through and play an important role in the day-to-day functioning of said company.

A serial entrepreneur will often come up with an idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else and move on to a new idea and a new venture. This would have been a very bad practice in the days when the old cliché held sway, “a Jack of all trades is master of none.” In my opinion I think the 21st century has become “the century of the Jacks.”

As a serial entrepreneur myself, I know how challenging it is to leave the comfort of a thriving business and step out into the icy cold waters of starting a business again, much less in a different industry. However, in 2017, I decided to stop suppressing all my new and unique ideas and just get on with it. Here are a few indispensable tools to help anyone out there with the same tendencies.

1. Work with people and partners.

This is perhaps the most important piece of advice I will give to anyone who is intending to go into areas of business that excite them, but that they are not particularly gifted in. As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I started my jump into entrepreneurship by leaping into property management, which was vaguely related to my job as a lawyer, so I was safe and had sufficient knowledge to run the business.

Sometime last year, I began toying with the idea of starting a business in the food industry. I am not a very good cook, and I know nothing about baking or confectioneries. All I had was a keen interest in the vast potential of the business in my vicinity and a few ideas about how I could make money from it.

Since I had no practical knowledge, I partnered up with someone who was doing the same thing on a much smaller scale, and we launched a food line. I funded the business kickoff, and he started managing the business itself. A good entrepreneur will do well in any business once he has the right people around him, either as partners or employees. You hold on to your knowledge of business and work with people of skill in the areas of your interest.

2. Pay others and utilize platforms.

If you are like me and refuse to let go of the thriving business while moving into new territory, then you need this key to survive. The internet revolution has created a lot of ease within different industries. Platforms and freelancers are now fast becoming the norm, especially in areas like marketing and social media management.

However, the proliferation of the internet has also severely digitalized business processes and few people are thinking of employing full time IT staff at the start of a new business.

A plethora of platforms run by companies and freelancers will help you position and market your business for a minimal fee. I found resources like Yelp especially useful for creating some positive social review that customers can refer and add to.

A few resources have also received positive reviews by business leaders. Resources like MOGUL offer you an amazing showcasing platform. Accounting platforms like Quickbooks and online firms like Pushdigits have a proven track record in the accounting and bookkeeping industry, while resources like Program Ace have had consistent success in utilizing iOT and AI to help businesses remain relevant in an increasingly digitalized business space.

Creating a Linkedin company page will significantly increase your reach with clients/customers. There is really no need for you to do everything yourself. The advantage is that starting a new business may not take as much attention away from your already existing business.

AI and social media marketing are all the rage these days. The time for excuses is gone, and the era of the serial entrepreneur is really here.

3. Prepare for surprises, and develop a thick skin.

Starting a new business can be draining, and I won’t kid you into thinking it is easy. It implies getting into uncharted territory. I have learned that while asking questions and market surveys are very important, they will never reveal the full extent of the unique challenges that you are going to face.

I started my food venture by doing a market survey of business prospects. I asked questions and got a feel of how much it would cost me to launch the product, but no one told me that the ancillary costs would be almost as much as the substantive cost. No one told me how sluggish contracted professionals in that field could be and how much their sloppiness would cost me. I had to take it on the chin and keep going, business hazards and all.

4. Do different things or do things differently.

If you are going to start a new business, you need to make sure you make a statement. The thing with ideas is that no one really owns them. I remember walking into a store to introduce my product last year. I was so psyched that it was a unique product. Halfway into my conversation with the manager, she pointed to a product on display behind me and asked “something like that?”

Needless to say, I had to go back and work on the uniqueness of my product before introducing it to the market. Every serial entrepreneur has to deal with some level of divided focus; you need to make sure that it is over something worth it and not something too familiar.

5. Create firm structures to maintain focus.

I have always been a bit of a do-it-yourself person. I found it really difficult to employ a manager in my business, and so I found it hard to start a new business. I always wanted to be in control. However, one of the inevitable lessons every serial entrepreneur must learn is how to delegate.

Delegation is the number one strategy for success in serial entrepreneurship. Find people you trust, or learn to trust the people you have. Find people with similar values and drive, and give them a chance to flounder and learn.

You need to create systems that allow you time to develop new ideas and implementation strategies. It often means that a chunk of your profits go into salaries, but if serial entrepreneurship and building an empire is what you really want to do, then it’s a sacrifice you have to be willing to make.

The 21st century and technology has not just made serial entrepreneurship possible, it has made it appealing.

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Business, Sales

These 16 Terms You’re Using To Describe Yourself Is Making You Lose

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Words have power.

Simple and true…what’s even stronger is the words we use to describe ourselves.

The trick is how can you describe what you do in a way that gets the other person to lean in. How do you speak about yourself without coming across like a jerk.

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Here’s some self reflection questions:

  • Do you describe yourself differently – on your website, promotional materials, or especially on social media – than you do in person?
  • Do you use cheesy clichés and overblown superlatives and breathless adjectives?
  • Do you write things about yourself you would never have the nerve to actually say?

Here are some words that are great when other people use them to describe you – but you should never use to describe yourself:

1. “Innovative.” Most companies claim to be innovative. Most people claim to be innovative. Most are, however, not. (I’m definitely not.) That’s okay, because innovation isn’t a requirement for success.

If you are innovative, don’t say it. Prove it. Describe the products you’ve developed. Describe the processes you’ve modified.

Give us something real so your innovation is unspoken but evident… which is always the best kind of innovative to be.

2. “World-class.” Usain Bolt: world-class sprinter, Olympic medals to prove it. Lionel Messi: world-class soccer (I know, football) player, four Ballon d’Or trophies to prove it.

But what is a world-class professional or company? Who defines world-class? In your case, probably just you.

3. “Authority.” Like Margaret Thatcher said, “Power is like being a lady; if you have to say you are, you aren’t.” Show your expertise instead.

“Presented at TEDxEast ” or “Predicted 50 out of 50 states in 2012 election” (Hi Nate!) indicates a level of authority. Unless you can prove it, “social media marketing authority” might simply mean you spend way too much time worrying about your Klout score.

4. “Results oriented.” Really? Some people actually focus on doing what they are paid to do? We had no idea.

5. “Global provider.” The majority of businesses can sell goods or services worldwide; the ones that can’t are fairly obvious.

Only use “global provider” if that capability is not assumed or obvious; otherwise you just sound like a small company trying to appear big.

6. “Motivated.” Check out Chris Rock’s response (not safe for work or the politically correct) to people who say they take care of their kids. Then substitute words like “motivated.”

Never take credit for things you are supposed to do – or supposed to be.

7. “Creative.” See particular words often enough and they no longer make an impact. “Creative” is one of them. (Use finding “creative” references in random LinkedIn profiles as a drinking game and everyone will lose — or win, depending on your perspective.)

“Creative” is just one example. Others include extensive, effective, proven, influential, team player… some of those terms may truly describe you, but since they are also being used to describe everyone they’ve lost their impact.

8. “Dynamic.” If you are “vigorously active and forceful,” um, stay away.

9. “Guru.” People who try to be clever for the sake of being clever are anything but. (Like in #8.) Don’t be a self-proclaimed ninja, sage, connoisseur, guerilla, wonk, egghead… it’s awesome when your customers affectionately describe you that way.

Refer to yourself that way and it’s obvious you’re trying way too hard to impress other people – or yourself.

10. “Curator.” Museums have curators. Libraries have curators. Tweeting links to stuff you find interesting doesn’t make you a curator… or an authority or a guru.

11. “Passionate.” I know many people disagree, but if you say you’re incredibly passionate about, oh, incorporating elegant design aesthetics into everyday objects, to me you sound over the top.

The same is true if you’re passionate about developing long-term customer solutions. Try the words focus, concentration, or specialization instead.

Or try “love,” as in, “I love incorporating an elegant design aesthetic in everyday objects.” For whatever reason, that works for me. Passion doesn’t. (But maybe that’s just me.)

12. “Unique.” Fingerprints are unique. Snowflakes are unique. You are unique – but your business probably isn’t. That’s fine, because customers don’t care about unique; they care about “better.”

Show you’re better than the competition and in the minds of your customers you will be unique.

13. “Incredibly…” Check out some random bios and you’ll find plenty of further-modified descriptors: “Incredibly passionate,” “profoundly insightful,” “extremely captivating…” isn’t it enough to be insightful or captivating? Do you have to be profoundly insightful?

If you must use over-the-top adjectives, spare us the further modification. Trust that we already get it.

14. “Serial entrepreneur.” A few people start multiple, successful, long-term businesses. They are successful serial entrepreneurs.

The rest of us start one business that fails or does okay, try something else, try something else, and keep on rinsing and repeating until we find a formula that works. Those people are entrepreneurs. Be proud if you’re “just” an entrepreneur. You should be.

15. “Strategist.” I sometimes help manufacturing plants improve productivity and quality. There are strategies I use to identify areas for improvement but I’m in no way a strategist. Strategists look at the present, envision something new, and develop approaches to make their vision a reality.

I don’t create something new; I apply my experience and a few proven methodologies to make improvements.

Very few people are strategists. Most “strategists” are actually coaches, specialists, or consultants who use what they know to help others. 99% of the time that’s what customers need – they don’t need or even want a strategist.

16. “Collaborative.” You won’t just decide what’s right for me and force me to buy it?

If your process is designed to take my input and feedback, tell me how that works. Describe the process. Don’t claim we’ll work together — describe how we’ll work together.

That’s my list — clearly subjective and definitely open to criticism.

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So, more importantly, what do you think? What would you add or remove from my list?

The way we describe ourselves is critical to making a good first impression, so let others benefit from your perspective in the comments below.

This goes for both professional and personal endeavors.

Never walk into a networking event again, and make these mistakes.

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