Starting Up With Your Spouse? 8 Tips to Make It Work

When I was 24 years old, I started a business with my fiancé (now husband) and one of our best friends. Three years later, our business and marriage are stronger than ever (thankfully!) but not without a few bumps along the way.

If you’re considering starting a company with your spouse or significant other, or if you already have a business and you’re considering bringing your significant other into the mix, make sure to run through this checklist in order to avoid potentially major headaches down the road:

Have an emergency fund in place. Money is the number one cause of divorce, and cash flow tends to be the number one challenge for new businesses. When we first started out, we waited months to get our business cash flow in order and get paid. But we didn’t stress, because we had saved a personal emergency fund ahead of time.
Get an office as soon as possible. You shouldn’t run out and get an office right away, but see if you can start budgeting for an office or co-working membership as soon as possible. We spent the first year of our business working from home, but we also joined a co-working group and got together with other entrepreneurs twice a week at a local coffee shop just to get out of the house and find camaraderie. Co-working spaces often offer flexible part-time memberships that will give you a more budget-friendly opportunity to get out, meet new people and maintain sanity.
Know your personality types. I tend to draw my energy from being around other people, while my husband draws energy from focused time by himself. I have my best focus and energy in the morning, while he works best late at night. And I’m very focused on the big picture, while he does better with the details. By understanding our own strengths, we’re better able to find areas where we complement each other. Consider taking a personality assessment to figure out your individual strengths and how you can best work together.
Define your roles. Along with knowing your personality types, you should have clearly defined roles within the company. Write job descriptions for yourselves and set clear expectations about who will take on which tasks for the business.
Make a point to engage in separate hobbies. When you’re starting out, you’ll be spending a lot of long hours working together to get the business off the ground. It sounds strange to say, but it’s important to make a point to schedule activities apart. When we started our business, I got involved in the local photography community, while my husband got more involved with the organizations in the local startup scene. This added some balance to our lives and gave us something new to talk about outside of work.
Discuss your tolerance for risk. Because our business is our main source of income, my husband and I tend to be less risk-averse than we might be if we worked separately. We decided early on that we wanted to take a “slow and steady” growth path with no debt, loans or investments, but we reevaluate our views on tolerance for risk regularly.
Balance praise and constructive criticism. Make a point to thank each other for a job well done, and be kind about how you approach constructive criticism. In a close relationship, we often forget these basic rules of business.
Have a sense of humor. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Take time to find humor and happiness in the little things each day (I’ve been known to break into song and dance during the work day).

Starting a business with your spouse can be one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do. There will be tears and laughter. There will be celebrations and frustrations. But in the end, there’s nothing like sharing the payoffs of working together toward a common goal with your life partner.

Allie Siarto is the co-founder of Loudpixel, a social analytics company focused on social media monitoring, insights, measurement and infographics. She also runs a project called Entretrip, a co-traveling experience for location independent entrepreneurs, and a digital marketing innovation podcast called The Apt Marketer.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

image: justmarried

Breaking Startup & Small Business Bad Habits

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them,” says John C. Maxwell, a well-known author of several New York Times best selling books on leadership.

When you dedicate yourself to building a small business from the ground up, you expect some ups and downs, especially during the startup phase. Even the most innovative spirit and creative products cannot protect your business from management failure. External factors like limited cash and financing roadblocks can play a significant role for a new business, but internal factors — namely poor habits — often derail the entrepreneurial dream.

Small business experts advise owners to examine their personal management style and operating behavior for clues to overcome failure to thrive syndrome.

Delegation Dilemma

According to serial entrepreneur Jeet Banerjee, failure to delegate limits your growth potential. It is impossible to do everything successfully unless you are planning to stay small and serve a handful of customers.

Find an employee you can trust to assume responsibility for some aspects of management. You can still review production progress, customer service responses and sales figures and step in when you find something that seems out of line with your business plan.

Failing to Plan for Emergencies

Reinvesting revenues to grow your business should be part of financial goals; however, establishing an emergency fund is essential to sustaining financial health. Natural disasters, fire or personal illness can all derail your business plan. Without a rainy-day-fund to cover your expenses during recovery, your business could fail.

Consult your accounting to determine the best amount to set aside. Business credit cards are one option to respond to sudden cash flow issues caused by emergencies.

Ignoring Employee Retention Rates

Low employee retention rates are a signal of bigger problems. Low morale, inconsistent leadership styles, faulty training and many other factors sabotage team building within any organization. Cross training employees is one way to mitigate rapid turnover rates until you can establish a better program that ensures employees are fully trained to perform their jobs with confidence.

Seattle business owner Nathan Kaiser told the National Federation of Small Business, failure to focus on team building is a failure to focus on growing your business.

Multitasking Errors

According to TW Walker, author of “Superhero Success” (Breakthrough Media Network, 2012), wasting time on social media sites and continually checking email take valuable time away from focusing on business activities. Rather than monitoring online communication throughout the day, Walker suggests scheduling social networking time and limiting email review to two or three times per day to increase your efficiency.

Running a business is both challenging and exhilarating for most entrepreneurs. If your business isn’t growing at the rate you think it should be, take a look at your management style and operating behavior. Making some minor adjustments by replacing bad habits with good ones can turn sabotage into success.

About The Author, Sara Miller

From first grade through graduate school, “B” was never in Sara’s vocabulary. In addition to being a perfectionist, she has always been fascinated by the anatomy of successful start ups.

How to Choose Your Own Venture

As a professor of social entrepreneurship and an entrepreneur, people often approach me with all their ideas. They get overwhelmed with how to start choosing their first venture (or second, for that matter).

How do you start? Whether you are new to entrepreneurship or starting another venture, you begin the same way:

Uncover your strengths FIRST: Research suggests that the most successful enterprises (for-profit or social) leverage each individual’s or organization’s strengths. Begin with your staff and/or board and brainstorm. What do you already have or know? Think broadly about your unique assets. For me, my unique asset was my speaking ability. I was a debater in high school and have always loved to craft a great speech.

Evaluate your strengths: After you identify your strengths, vote on the top five to seven strengths that are most unique, have value to others, and are closest to your mission. Then, walk through the questions below for each strength. Questions to ask:

Is it different and distinct?
Who would value this strength?
How valuable is it? Do other options exist?
What is the market willing to pay for this strength?
Is this a long-term strength?

For me, my strength was my speaking ability. Through these questions, I realized that it was valuable to many different audiences and could present a long-term strength.

Identify opportunities from TOP strengths: After evaluating your strengths, think of all the opportunities that exist for that strength. For me, I could write speeches for others, write and present speeches myself, or teach others how to speak more effectively.

Assess your opportunities: After you identify your opportunities, vote on the top five to six opportunities and then walk through each question below to assess their promise based on ease of implementation, fit, and profit. Questions to ask:

Ease of Implementation:

Do we have the right internal expertise and capacity?
How complex is the opportunity?

Fit:

Does this fit with existing businesses?
Does this fit with our image?

Profit:

What are the startup costs?
What is the market demand and/or willingness to pay?
How soon can we expect a profit?

Based on this, you will have an objective assessment of which opportunities have the most promise.

Not every venture is viable. Success requires the right opportunity, the right timing, and the right process. Once you determine that all of these are aligned, take each opportunity and conduct a feasibility assessment. The feasibility assessment allows you to “fail early and cheaply” and helps you decide on a go or no-go decision. If the feasibility assessment is promising, the next step is developing a business plan to create a roadmap for your venture. Once you go through these steps, you will have the confidence that your venture is not only the best opportunity for you, but also a viable business venture for years to come.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Suzanne Smith, MBA is a serial social entrepreneur and bridges many disciplines, including serving on the National Board of the Social Enterprise Alliance, coaching nonprofits as Managing Director of Social Impact Architects and Co-Founder of Flywheel: Social Enterprise Hub, and educating future leaders as Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas. She holds an MBA from Duke University, where she was a CASE (Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship) Scholar and continues to serve as a Research Fellow.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

6 Pros and Cons of Hiring Remote Workers

Log on to a site like Odesk.com and you’ll quickly see profiles for the tens of thousands of workers based around the globe, ready to hire out their services for as little as $.50/hour. A few easy mental calculations reveal that this hourly rate works out to just $20/week and $1,020/year for a full-time staff member – numbers that sound awfully appealing compared to standard Western salary and compensation packages.

But the maxim that “most things that sound too good to be true, usually are” should certainly be applied to this situation. While remote workers have their place in an increasingly global labor market, hiring outside staff members isn’t the right fit for every company. Much depends on the job itself, too. For example, you may not want to outsource your core competencies.

If you’re considering hiring remote staff for your business, consider the following pros and cons first.

Advantages to Hiring Remote Workers

Costs: To be clear, it is possible to hire both domestic and foreign remote workers (and there are certainly pros and cons to each alternative). If you hire remote workers from developing countries, you’ll see the greatest cost savings in terms of hourly rates. But even if you hire remote workers from within your own country, you may still see some salary relief by hiring on an independent contractor basis (which minimizes your benefits and tax expenses) or by hiring remote workers from areas with lower costs of living.
Skill set access: Beyond the potential cost savings remote workers represent, hiring external employees may also give you access to skill sets that aren’t represented in your area. As an example, if you live in a rural community, your local employment pool may not have a good supply of digital media artists or developers using up-and-coming languages. Hiring remotely enables you to find the right people for your needs – no matter where on the planet they’re located.
Time utilization: For most professionals, there’s something tremendously appealing about the idea of firing off a project request to an international worker and having the same task completed by the time they’re waking up for coffee in the morning. And indeed, when managed correctly, remote workers in different time zones can maximize your ability to ensure that productive work is occurring at all hours of the day – whether you’re at the office, at the gym, out to dinner or asleep in bed. Just be sure that, even if your remote workers operate during your time zone’s night hours, you’re able to communicate with these remote employees throughout your own work day!

Disadvantages to Working With Remote Staff Members

Language barriers: If you choose to hire remote workers for whom your native language is a second language, be prepared to encounter at least a few challenges when it comes to translating project instructions across boundaries. Although foreign workers may be educated in basic English, they may not grasp the subtleties and complexities associated with U.S. slang or industry-specific business jargon.
Internet-based miscommunications: Even if your remote employees speak perfect, fluent English, get ready to face yet another communications challenge – the trouble associated with giving instructions for Internet-based work. When interacting with in-person employees, you’re able to provide clarifications, examples and further details on your project-based expectations. When all of your communications occur via email or online video or Web chat, some of these explanations may be misunderstood, leading to project delays and/or extra costs.
Turnover and training time: Finally, be aware that remote employees may lack the same level of buy-in as traditional employees. While it’s possible that you’ll find a worker who’s as dedicated to your success as you are, it’s much more likely that you’ll work primarily with short-term remote workers on a per-project basis. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing (depending on your company’s needs), you’ll almost certainly encounter higher turnover and training costs while working with remote employees than you would by hiring a full-time alternative.

Again, this list isn’t meant to either sway you towards or deter you from hiring remote workers. There are plenty of cases in which hiring outsourced labor makes more sense than bringing on full-time employees — and vice-versa.

However, hiring virtual employees isn’t all cheap labor and round-the-clock productivity – despite what popular books like “The 4-Hour Work Week” would have you believe. Doing your due diligence will help you plan appropriately so you can avoid some of the common pitfalls associated with taking on remote workers.

AJ Kumar is the co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media and various other marketing strategies.

Founder Spotlight: Ryan Frankel CEO & Co-Founder VerbalizeIt

Ryan Frankel is the CEO and Co-Founder of VerbalizeIt, the company that delivers instant access to a global community of translators. Ryan received his MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and a Bachelors of Arts degree from Haverford College in 2006. Ryan is a 2012 TechStars alumnus, former private equity investor for Goldman Sachs and an endurance athletics enthusiast. Follow him @rvfrankel.

Who is your hero?

My dad, hands down.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. If you find yourself at the top of the intelligence chain at your company, you’ve done something wrong. In creating a team of intelligent and driven individuals, encourage healthy debate. Disagreement is a good thing, and many times, it’s the best of things in plowing the right path forward. Encourage people to air their opinions and take a stance, even if it’s against the broader consensus.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

The biggest mistake has been spreading myself and our team too thin by chasing after too many different opportunities. One of the best pieces of advice I have received is that the worst word in any entrepreneur’s vocabulary is “and.” As in, “We’re focused on X, and Y, and Z ….” Be laser focused and avoid becoming a mile wide and only an inch deep.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I scroll through all of my emails and pick the highest value emails to respond to first. It’s my own 80:20 rule and it helps me focus on the most important outcomes. I also don’t neglect or push back emails to family and friends. When I first launched my business, family and friends naturally took a back seat and I have since re-prioritized my time to make time for those who support me beyond by business.

What’s your best financial/cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

There’s a fine line between (a) being so scrappy that you miss out on the right opportunities or are not able to hire the best talent and (b) being ineffective or inconsiderate with cash management. As a naturally scrappy person, I have found myself in situations where being pennywise and pound-foolish has detracted more value than it has saved me capital. I make a conscious effort to remain mindful of our cash position but cognizant of how my naturally scrappy personality can be an impediment to meeting business objectives.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Find someone who will absolutely rip your vision apart and engage them in a constructive debate. Even if 95 percent of their feedback is off base, you’re bound to find some real pearls of wisdom in there. Accelerate success and failure by pushing yourself outside of your preconceived notions of the right approach.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

Success for me is encapsulated in both personal and professional achievements. Finding personal satisfaction and enjoyment in my work and ensuring that I’m enjoying the journey and not just focused on the destination is important to me. I know I have a penchant for being too focused on the end result. Professionally, setting and achieving specific goals for revenue, market share and brand awareness is how I evaluate when I’ve finally “succeeded.” I constantly revisit these goals and our relative progress.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

7 Easy Ways to Improve the Way Your Startup Works

At my last 9-to-5 job, every time I thought differently from my supervisors and managers about a problem we faced, I wrote down what bothered me and how I would do it differently given the opportunity. Before long, I had a huge spiral notebook filled with ideas. I realized that all these “negatives” were actually opportunities for better leadership. And I brought many of those ideas to the company I now co-own.

You can do the same. Whether you are working in an executive position, just striking out on the entrepreneurship path, or you have already started a business, consider the following seven ideas for taking your business (and company culture) to the next level:

Location. Location. Location! (Did I mention location?) You are paying rent already, or your bosses are, so make it money well-spent and get on a prime street with high traffic. Bright signs near a freeway let everyone know you are there. If you only need a small office suite, make sure you can have your name on a sign outside the building so you are getting the exposure.
Hire slowly; fire quickly. This is a big one for entrepreneurs and business owners. Let me repeat it: Hire slowly. Fire quickly. You might be in a rush to fill a vacant spot or add a new position, but it takes more time (and money, and stress) to train the wrong person and fix their mess than it does to hire the right person in the first place. A bad hire brings down the entire company. Their effect is felt by all employees. The phrase I use time and time again is: “You never miss someone after you have let them go. You only wish you had let them go sooner.”
Inspire, develop and lead by example. Your employees are vital to your success — and payroll is also the highest cost in a company. At Star Staffing, it is our employees that make us the reputable firm we are today. Inspire your employees to be the best, motivate them, and help them grow. Make sure to provide continuing education too. Whether you send them offsite to conferences and training seminars, or offer an internal learning website or trainer, it’s important for your team members to strengthen skills and gain industry knowledge. It is up to you to make sure that they are given the right tools and resources to do their job efficiently.
Have fun, but keep it real. If it moves, measure it. Track activities that lead to results. I’m a true believer that activities done correctly and continuously lead to results. For instance, in sales, it takes an average of eight times to break into a new client. You need to see that company or person eight times before you can even begin to think you have a chance. If you continuously see that client week by week, you should gain real traction, and that will lead to a potential new client. Another great reason to track everything is that you can see how your company operates overall: what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s needed when hiring (see #2).
Operate with integrity. You will be faced with challenges to your integrity and to your company’s integrity; do not let money or greed get in the way. Your reputation counts on it. At Star, we always operate with ethics and integrity. Even when it costs us, we tell our clients the truth — and that’s why we have high loyalty and retention rates.
Strive for excellence in everything you do. From answering phones to handling collections, every task can be improved to give your client that “WOW” feeling. How do your processes look? Are your clients hanging up the phone feeling like they just dealt with the most amazing company or the opposite? We try to make every client and employee feel appreciated, valued, and taken care of. It’s important to look at every operation of your company’s front line. Are you striving to be the best in every aspect, even the smallest of tasks?
Be different than your competitors. What sets you apart from your competitors? The answer is YOU, and your people. Embrace this, and take it all the way to the bank. The main reason I chose to leave a comfortable paycheck was to do things differently, and now that I am co-owner of Star Staffing, we continue to live that philosophy. We operate 24/7, and I visit clients on a regular basis as the main sales representative. That’s right — who better to sell than the owner of a company? Half my new clients had never met their prior staffing firms’ business owner — yet they deal with me on a daily basis, cell phone number and all. I heard a great quote recently from “Good to Great” by Jim Collins: “Put your best people on the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems.” Too many owners and executives sit in an office all day submerged in paperwork. I spend my prime hours (9 a.m. – 3 p.m.) in front of clients and employees. After all, they’re people that make my company the industry leader it is today.

Nicole Smartt is the Vice President and co-owner of Star Staffing. She was recently awarded the Forty Under 40 award, recognizing business leaders under the age of 40. In addition, Nicole co-founded the Petaluma Young Professionals Network, an organization dedicated to helping young professionals strive in the business world. Nicole can be found on twitter; @StaffingqueenN.

Finally, A Sunglasses Of The Month Club!

Sometimes a startup comes along that really makes you happy in your off-the-computer life, aka, real world. I wear sunglasses, a lot, and I travel a lot too. I lose them, I break them, I forget them…

This startup is for anyone that wears sunglasses or has ever lost or broken a pair of their favorite shades. If you’re tired of your sunnies going out of style and you like surprises, then this Sunglasses of the Month Club, Freshades, is the membership for you.

This fresh subscription service sends members a new pair of sunglasses every month, to keep, for $9. They also allow active members to unlock FREE shades simply by having a friend sign up and drop their name- a pretty cool way to say thanks to supporters and advocates.

I really love Freshades because I’m guilty of breaking and losing sunglasses. My favorite type of swag from startups is sunglasses for that reason. There’s something really awesome about paying $9/mo and getting a new pair of shades to rock out every month.

You currently don’t get to pick what sunglasses you receive so this club is for those of us who truly like to be surprised and enjoy testing out different styles and trends. The styles you can choose from when signing up are Men, Women, and Uni which all come in unique colors and styles.

This young lifestyle company will continue to grow as long as there are people, like me, who constantly go through sunglasses or love to accessorize with the latest in eye-wear fashion!

This article is a sponsored post for Freshades. Everything you read is my own opinion - I only take on sponsored posts from companies that I think are awesome. If you're interested in a sponsored post on Nibletz or other industry-specific sites, contact Markerly.

3 Questions to Reevaluate Your Startup’s Marketing Strategy

If you’re like me, you’re exhausted by boring marketing campaigns, up to your eyeballs in gimmick-laden slogans, and putting your direct mail straight in the paper shredder. I just received a car dealership promotion disguised as a W-2.

As consumers, we’re inundated by more than $465 billion a year in total ad spends. The amount of money companies are spending to make us feel badly about them is staggering. But the real question is, why do companies keep competing for attention using mediocre models when they could play by a very different set of rules?

Take T-Mobile — they successfully choreographed multiple flash mobs and captured them in videos that generated nearly 100 million YouTube hits and a 52 percent sales increase. Or the CDC’s Zombie Apocalypse blog, which generated 1.2 million new Twitter followers. Both of these examples required someone recognizing the value of taking a big marketing risk, thinking creatively, and ultimately, hitting the green light.

Though I’m no sports expert, I think of marketing like baseball. You want a steady stream of base hits to load the bases. That’s your traditional marketing. But then you want to bring up your big slugger and knock one of out of the park every once in a while, because people don’t talk about or remember the base hits. People talk about the risks that paid off (and the risks that didn’t!).

Like great baseball teams and their fans, you can create an exciting relationship between your brand and your customers if you’re willing to take a risk. Here are 3 questions to get you started:

1. What’s worth amplifying?

Zappos lives by 10 core values. The third and fourth are “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” and “Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded.” To show customers how much they embrace those values, in 2012, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh launched his best-selling title “Delivering Happiness” as a comic book. Fun and a little weird? Creative and adventurous? YES!

The result: The comic has consistently rested in the top 5 best-selling books on Amazon under Customer Service and Retail. Every copy is like a foot soldier, heading out into the world to generate connections and dynamic conversation around the brand.

Conclusion: Your core values are worth amplifying.

Sir Ken Robinson, a world-renowned education and creativity expert, developed the most-viewed TED talk of all time: “Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity.” It has generated nearly 15 million views since 2006. In 2010, a new talk called “Changing Education Paradigms,” was launched in partnership with RSA Animate, who crafted an illustrated video of Ken’s talk that generated an additional 9.5 million views.

Conclusion: Your wisdom is worth amplifying.

Starting in 2009, T-Mobile began producing choreographed experiences as part of their “Life’s Worth Sharing” campaign to promote their mission of connecting people. They orchestrated:

A flash mob featuring 350 dancers at the Liverpool Street Station
An a capella singing arrangement that welcomed home travelers arriving at Heathrow Airport
13,500 people singing Hey Jude together in Trafalgar Square.

To date, the campaign has generated close to 100 million YouTube hits, countless major media placements and incredible increases in foot traffic, Internet searches (up 38 percent) and sales for T-Mobile (up 52 percent).

Conclusion: Your mission is worth amplifying.

2. What medium makes sense for your brand?

While the goal is to create a campaign that drives conversation and ultimately revenue, taking risks together is equally valuable to your culture. It’s an opportunity to generate camaraderie and include people in something that will be “fun” to create. So look to your staff and yourself and ask what would be a blast to work on. A few ideas include: a music album, a documentary film, an animated video, wall art, a fashion show, a staged play, and a flash mob.

If you have people on staff who loved comics as a kid, or wanted to be dancers, or wished they could be rock stars, now’s the time to tap into their dreams — while also delivering for your business.

3. How will you execute your campaign?

The best way to create and realize a BIG vision is to hire a producer, agency or in-house talent. Don’t risk looking amateurish or wasting time and money; other people have devoted their lives to this kind of work. So find them, test them, and if they impress you, get to work.

You want your new partner or producer to:

Guide you in creating your vision
Hire and manage the artistic staff
Oversee regular deliverables
Capture feedback from your team
Manage the project’s momentum
Navigate emotional and tangible obstacles in the creative process
Deliver a draft for testing
Revise based on feedback
Deliver a brilliant final product you’re all proud of

Yes, there’s a tremendous amount involved in taking a creative risk, but there are people available to help you. Partner your mission, your message and your worth with their artistic talent, and give yourself a chance to stand out amongst the clutter. Don’t settle for mediocre marketing that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.

Risk being brilliant instead.

Working in Los Angeles for a decade, Corey Michael Blake was the face and voice behind a dozen Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 brands as a commercial and voiceover actor (his work won Belding, Addy, Cannes, and London International Advertising awards), before working as a film producer and director, as an author and publisher, and now as the founder and President of storytelling company Round Table Companies (RTC).

Startup Tips: How To Know When To Move On

So, you know when you know. That is, you know when it’s time to move on to better things for your business, whether that means finding a stronger vendor, hiring a new employee (and letting go of the old one), or even firing a client (gulp!).

But often we hang on far too long out of fear, worry, and plain old procrastination. Today, I’ve got your back. Because there are three terrible reasons to avoid change and two great ones that you need to remember when it’s time to let go.

Excuse #1: “I don’t want to hurt someone.”

I get it – I’ve separated from five different assistants in various capacities over the life of my business and it’s hard to do every single time. You worry that you’re saying “you’re not good enough” or “I don’t like you anymore” to the people who have put time and energy to your business for months or even years.

It’s worse if the team members, vendors or clients have become friends in that timeframe (which they very well can be if you actually like your clients and colleagues!). You’re worried that this sends a message that you’re somehow above them, too big for your britches, or maybe you’re worried that you’ll been seen as having impossible standards.

Emotions aside, this is a business decision and the only one you should be concerned about hurting is your business. Because your business is the client here – it has needs and you’re the caretaker. If something or someone isn’t serving the business anymore it’s time to make a change. Period. How that makes them feel or the guilt you take on is a moot point because your business needs to come first.

Acknowledge those fears, but don’t let them hold you back.

Excuse #2: “Maybe it’ll get better.”

If you really believed that then you wouldn’t be entertaining the thought of making a change. Quite often the problems have been growing for months, slowly driving you crazy until you just know that it’s time for a change.

I get it. You don’t want to be a perfectionist entrepreneur that no one can get along with and who goes through assistants faster than the devil who wears Prada.

The compromise is a test. You simply state what you need — “Please give confirmation you’re working on this project” or “Please invoice me this week so I know how much time you’ve put in” — and if the other person does not reply within three days, you know it’s time to move on.

Maybe you’ve read “When do you know it’s time to fire?” and you’re wondering if you’re actually going to fire someone over not responding to an email. These small tests are just confirmation that the problem exists. You don’t need to explain why you came to this decision.

Listen: the reasons that you end an agreement are your own. Simply state that the relationship has ended and move on. You don’t need to give a reason, explanation or justification for your decision. See above: the only thing to be concerned about is the health of the business.

Excuse #3: “I don’t want to get bad-mouthed.”

Here’s the thing that mature adults recognize: there are two or more sides to every story. If a client relationship ends or an assistant leaves, it doesn’t mean that someone is at fault, wrong or even bad at their job. It means that needs change, availability shifts, and not everyone meshes.

Imagine if we felt this way about personal relationships: “What do you mean you’re not still friends with those kids from kindergarten? What are you, defective?” or “Since you didn’t marry the first person you ever dated clearly you’re unreliable and not trustworthy.”

People change, needs change and businesses grow – no one has to be ‘at fault’ when a relationship ends.

I know it’s a very real fear that the person who has your Twitter ID, Facebook page profile and platform is going to stand up and shout out how horrible you were. So instead of firing by avoidance or just ending the contract without a conversation (this goes both ways too), actually have a conversation. Thank the other person or agency for their support and share your decision to move on without inviting a negotiation, debate or argument.

Most of the time, both parties will understand it’s for the best.

Okay — are your excuses for not moving on out of the way yet? Because there are two great reasons why you need to let go:

Reason #1: You can’t go higher if you don’t let go.

Imagine a trapeze artist who just keeps swinging and swinging, never to make the leap to the next bar.

Is it scary? Yep. It is necessary? Yep.

In the very basic sense, you can’t fully commit to a new team member when an old one is still hanging around, not doing their job well. While there may be a little overlap, you need to let go of the people and practices that are keeping you from reaching where you want to go.

Reason #2: Your business is a unit and weak links will break the whole.

In college, I was on a large debate squad that had 20-30 teams producing evidence. If just one team didn’t complete their assignment, the whole squad was weaker. If the quality wasn’t there, then we were all going to fail. We worked together and mentored the younger students, knowing that we could only be as strong as the weakest link.

Your business operates the same way.

If the copywriter doesn’t show up, then your campaign is going to suffer. When the technical VA doesn’t check all the links, sales will suffer. When you don’t show up fully prepared because you’re frustrated or distracted, then the content isn’t as good as it could be. At every turn, you have the ability to turn your business into a well-oiled machine, with working systems and caring team members who are there to serve the client. Weaknesses can’t be coddled for long or your business will suffer in reputation, sales, continuity and trust.

Remember, the business is the top priority – not the feelings of the team member who isn’t well suited for the position, or the company you hired years ago that is no longer serving you well or the client who isn’t a good match for your model. When you serve the business first, you’ll recognize that sometimes it’s just time to let go.

Be honest and answer this question: “What relationship do you need to move on from in your business?”

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Kelly Azevedo is the founder of She’s Got Systems, a custom coaching program that leads clients to get support, documenting and dominating in their fields. She has worked in startup, successful six-figure and million-dollar online businesses, helping owners create the systems to serve their needs.

Photo: Mayflower

iPad, A Great Tool For Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, it’s likely you have a lot going on with getting your business up and running. With the mountain load of tasks, it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed. Luckily, there is a way for you to lessen the stress. You could use your iPad!

Your iPad is the little business manager you take with you everywhere you go. Whenever you meet with a client, you can conveniently take it out, show off your services and products or take notes. If you have a few minutes on public transportation, take it out to get some work done. It’s better than waiting until midnight to email that potential client, right?

iPads are quickly taking the place of a laptop for a reason. They are portable, reliable, and they can do virtually anything you want it to do.

But wait, you don’t understand how to use it with your business, you say? Well, it’s time to make friends with the App Store because it holds just about everything you need for your startup.

The following are some of the best apps that entrepreneurs are using:

Evernote

Who needs notebooks anymore? You can use Evernote for anything you want to record. Type in notes from a meeting. If you have an idea in the middle of the night, mumble the idea into your Evernote app, and you can listen to it in the morning. See a flyer, billboard or some other marketing tool idea you’d like to use for your business? Take a picture of it, insert it into an Evernote page, and type in what you like about it and how you would like to change it. Evernote is a great place to figure out your business plan, keep accurate records of expenses and revenue, and just doodle when you need some time to be creative in other ways.

Agenda

This is a favorite among entrepreneurs because with all of the online calendars out there today, people need one they can use that is simple. This one will sync with all of your calendars, so you have the notifications you need no matter where you are or what you are doing.

Skype

Get in touch with your outsourced workers or clients quickly with Skype. You can call or video chat with them wherever you have an Internet connection.

Dropbox

Share files with anyone you need to by uploading them to Dropbox. You can share folders and files easily. You can even send a link to people, so they can easily bring up the content in a web browser.

PDFPen for iPad

If you need a document signed, you can use your iPad. Simply install this app, and you’ll be able to hand over your iPad to have the person sign the document. Save it and either keep it on your iPad, upload it to an online server, or print it out.

Other Ideas to Run Your Business with an iPad

Don’t forget that you have mail with your iPad, so connect all of your addresses to it. You’ll be able to get through those emails in record time when you don’t have to wait until you get to your computer.

Set up your device to print. Most printers these days run on a network, and by downloading the app for your particular printer, you can easily print out anything you would like a paper version of for filing.

Organize your files by creating folders. Create folders by holding down the Home button until the icons wiggle. Put your finger on each icon of the file you want in a folder and place it over another icon. This will place the two files in a folder. To add another one, simply put your finger on the icon and drag it in.

Start Using Your iPad Today

You can do so much with your iPad, so start using it to its full potential. Before you know it, you’ll have so much of your business information on it that you won’t be able to put it down.

Marcelina Hardy is a content writer for iResQ, which specializes in iPad repair as well as other repairs for mobile devices and MacBook. Hardy is based in Clarksville ,Tennessee.

5 Investment Mistakes Even Smart People Make

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?

A lot of smart people ask themselves that question, especially as they struggle to keep up with the bills and worry about an inadequately funded retirement. In my work consulting with entrepreneurs, I commonly find that they spend so much time juggling the competing demands of their business that they take little time to analyze their personal saving, spending, and investing behaviors. And yet giving attention to these areas is vital if one hopes to achieve long-term financial success.

Here are some common mistakes that can derail even the smartest individuals:

The Status Chase: You’ve worked hard, earned your degree and paid your dues. Now you want to show the world how far you’ve come. But the massive house, the new car every two years, and custom-made suits might keep you from building your nest egg. Instead of seeking status through material possessions, pursue excellence in your field or seek to free yourself from status concerns. Ultimately, it’s more satisfying and better for your bottom line. Warren Buffett lives in a very modest house and is hardly known as a snappy dresser and no one seems to hold it against him.
Overconfidence: More than once, financial journalists have highlighted that some of the smartest people in the world have the worst performing portfolios; doctors are a classic example of this. This could be because smart people are used to being able to figure out the system and use it their advantage. They’re not used to playing in a game like the financial markets, where so much of the action is due to chance — and where an inability to admit mistakes is your worst enemy.
Target Marketing: Some unscrupulous financial services firms target professionals, hoping to manage their cash, sell them complicated financial products, and make an unfair amount of money from them. In such cases, their victims would be better off managing their money themselves, or selecting a financial advisor more carefully.
Insufficient Time: Investments require a bit of attention now and then. When you’re busy all the time, it’s easy to ignore things for years on end, to your detriment. It’s better to hire help than to simply ignore everything, but even hiring someone requires that you take the time to research your choice.
The Expert Trap: Investing isn’t like neurosurgery. Investment managers with very impressive credentials often do just as badly — or worse — than those with more modest backgrounds. Because so much of market success depends on being able to buck the trend, exercise self-control and stay calm. The performance of a Harvard MBA may not be as good as that of a no-name university, newly minted graduate. Bright and accomplished people tend to rate others according to a scale of academic and personal credentials that may be largely irrelevant when it comes to managing money. One thing is certain, though: The people with the fanciest credentials will have the highest fees, whether their results justify it or not.

In short, smart people can do better with their nest eggs if they avoid overconfidence and stop seeking to buy status. They should choose their investment advisors carefully and not rely solely on impressive credentials.

Robert Sofia is a best-selling author, award winning public speaker, and financial industry thought leader. He has developed marketing strategies for Fortune 500® companies, personally coaches hundreds of financial advisers nationwide, and is the COO and co-founder of Platinum Advisor Strategies.

Create the Work-Life Balance That’s Right for You

As a time coach, I talk to people who want to live a more balanced life on a daily basis—including startup founders. It can be a struggle, but my real-world experience has uncovered that founders can achieve work-life balance IF all five of the following conditions are met:

You Want It: Not everyone wants traditional work-life balance, typically meaning that you have enough time for basic self-care like sleep, exercise and nutrition and a connection with key people like friends and family members. Instead, as a time coach, I focus on trying to help entrepreneurs achieve their definition of work-life brilliance – meaning your time investment aligns with your priorities. However, I can’t bring about lasting behavioral change if you don’t intrinsically want it.
You Believe It: To have true work-life balance, you need to not only believe it’s possible in a theoretical sense, but also believe it’s possible personally for you. In my experience, this belief comes from a combination of seeing an entrepreneur whom you relate to experiencing work-life balance and/or starting to attempt it yourself and witnessing positive results. Without a sense of hope, it’s nearly impossible to stick it out through the uncomfortable process of breaking old habits and forming new ones. To make it through this difficult withdrawal stage, you need to have faith that the changes will really pay off in the end.
You Value It: We have a limited amount of time each day, and how we invest it determines what kind of life we create. Work-life balance comes at a professional cost for most people, but especially for founders. The choice to invest in activities outside of work may mean that you can’t start certain types of businesses, take on specific categories of funding, work with particular clients, or expand at as rapid a pace. For those who highly value life outside of work, these macro-level decisions that give them the opportunity to live a balanced life are worth the potential cost and risk to their business.
You Know How: Many people want, believe in, and value work-life balance, but they just don’t know how to change. If you’ve always seen startup founders work crazy hours, you don’t have good role models to show you how to behave in a balanced manner. And it’s hard to know how to think and act differently if you’ve always operated in one way. As the quote often attributed to Einstein goes: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
You Can: After working with clients around the world with many different personality types, including some with ADD/ADHD, I believe that almost anyone who meets the above four criteria can see improvement in their work-life balance. But for people who thrive in high-pressure environments, achieving traditional work-life balance and moving their company forward effectively may or may not be possible to the same extent as others.

For individuals who fit this profile, the best strategy is to clarify action-based priorities in key areas. This includes things like seven hours of sleep a night, working out five days a week, or having family dinner six days a week. Then you need to focus on making these priorities into routines that allow them to consistently invest their time in these core areas while still keeping up a fairly high level of intensity in your work during the remaining hours.

Work-life balance is possible for founders who meet the above five criteria, but for those who don’t, it’s not.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders is the founder and CEO of Real Life E®, a time coaching and training company, and the author of “The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success With Less Stress.”

5 Reasons To Startup In College

The catchphrase “you only live once” or YOLO is the modern-day version of “carpe diem,” and it usually involves doing wild and risky recreational activities. But an increasing number of college students have taken YOLO to the next level by doing something their parents may find even more unsettling — turning down cushy corporate jobs and internships, and starting their own companies instead.

For what it’s worth, I believe these graduates are jumping into entrepreneurship at exactly the right time. For one, most college students don’t (yet) have families to feed or mortgages to pay. And although they may not have much money either, that means they have very little to lose. Plus, college students are used to keeping their costs of living low — Easy Mac, anyone?

Personally, I couldn’t have started PerBlue without the resources college provided. It’s where I found my future employees, and it’s where I could make mistakes without much risk. For PerBlue, college was like a startup petri dish — sheltered from the toils of the “real world” — where smart people and crazy ideas ran rampant (and still do).

Here are some of the lessons I learned from starting up in college and how you can apply them to your own dorm room startups:

Hire your friends. Find co-founders and future employees within your group of college friends; they will be your most loyal and hardworking employees. In PerBlue’s case, my friends were the ones willing to skip class for two weeks straight prior to launch, and work for sweat equity during the early days to get the company off the ground. Starting out with a very passionate team establishes a strong culture that will be extremely valuable as you grow your employee base. The people you surround yourself with will both teach and help you along the way.
Use (free) campus resources, including mentors. Resources vary from campus to campus, but college is a great place to find free legal and financial advice, clinics and networking opportunities, every day of the week. If you’re starting a Web business, keep an eye out for Startup Weekend, 3 Day Startup and other hackathon-style events held on campus. Chat with your advisor or stop into the business school to get connected with entrepreneurial resources. And don’t be afraid to seek out and talk to students outside of your major — those studying engineering, business and other subjects can provide new perspectives and insights for your startup. In college, my mentors were both professors and other college entrepreneurs. Today, they are my board members and leaders of hugely successful companies.
Parlay your startup skills into other companies (or a “real” job). The experience you gain as a young entrepreneur, whether your startup grows or stalls, will be invaluable later on. Many leaders of successful businesses didn’t major in, or even study, business. But they had the passion and the ability to execute their ideas, rewiring their brain to start thinking and learning from a business perspective along the way — invaluable leadership skills in any job. For example, while I double majored in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, I’ve only coded a few lines in the past two years. Instead, I’ve transitioned to leading the PerBlue team and steering the vision for our products and business. Soon you’ll stop worrying and start strategizing instead. Get in this frame of mind by practicing negotiation, pitching your startup to friends, or even budgeting and balancing your finances — whatever it takes to get your brain focused on becoming a great leader.
Make mistakes early and often. Starting a business will allow you to wear many hats and pick up many new skills you otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to. You will probably stumble a little at one (or more) of these roles, but that’s where delegation and hiring great people plays into the equation. No matter what happens, know that you’ll still be learning more by spending a year working on a startup than you ever would working at an entry-level position in a big company. And even if you fail epically, failure is often the best teacher. You will be that much smarter when you set off on your next project.
Save the job offer for later. The experience of being a college entrepreneur is priceless. Maybe you’ve already been offered an attractive internship or full-time opportunity — some kind of nice, cushy job at a large, established corporation. Well, I challenge you to turn that offer down. Bootstrapping and building a startup is an exciting and sometimes rocky road. Yes, there will be long nights and weekends spent working, a steady diet of Ramen and Red Bulls, and times of absolute burnout. (To this day, the thought of pizza from the restaurant below our first office at 2 a.m. brings back a wave a nostalgia.) As hard and tiring as those days were, I miss them. No matter how difficult or exhausting the work is, it will be worth absolutely every minute. You always have the option go back and work a “real” job later!

Now is the perfect time to take the risk and start practicing the skills it takes to be an entrepreneur — or a leader. I think it’s a clear win-win for those brave enough to venture outside of their comfort zone. What are you going to do today that will enable you to take the leap and start your own company? After all, YOLO!

Justin Beck is the Co-Founder and CEO of PerBlue, a mobile and social gaming company in Madison, WI. PerBlue is best known for its flagship product, Parallel Kingdom. The popular location-based massively multiplayer role playing game for mobile and web platforms has over one million players worldwide. Founded in 2008, PerBlue is now home to 40 full-time software developers, artists, and business specialists.

Madison is getting a new startup epicenter called Starting Block, read about it here.

Entrepreneurs Have Smart Ideas And Smart Phones

The best entrepreneurs usually aren’t organized. Sure, they may keep their paperwork in order and clean up after themselves, but inside, their wheels are cranking out a thousand ideas per minute.

Luckily, modern entrepreneurs have a number of tools to help them keep things running. The most indispensable accessory? Smartphones. These powerful devices keep entrepreneurs productive on the road, at home, and wherever else the job might take them.

Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry when it introduced iPhone in 2007, but Samsung, HTC and Blackberry have also emerged with impressive devices in 2013. Your smartphone is your closest companion. Choose wisely and you’ll keep your business on track

Apple iPhone

The iPhone is a design marvel, but the App Store is what peaks startup owners’ interests. Android and Windows also have app stores, but they don’t quite stack up. Apple owns a 73% market share in app industry, according to Forbes.com. Google is next at 27%. For entrepreneurs, that means Apple is still king of the apps, with such titles as Evernote, a cloud-based note-taking app, and Osito, a personal-assistant app. Apple’s iPhone isn’t the cheapest device ($200 with a two-year contract), and it usually doesn’t come with the cheapest service, but if you spent much of the day on your smartphone, iPhone offers the best overall experience.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Samsung made the year’s biggest mobile splash to date when it released the Galaxy S4, a massive device in size and ability. But entrepreneurs may prefer the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, an even larger device with a few extra business-friendly features. The Galaxy Note 2 comes with a stylus for note-taking, a common habit for entrepreneurs. Techradar.com lauded the Galaxy Note 2’s strong battery life, an especially important trait for on-the-go business owners. T-Mobile offers the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for $130 down payment and $20 per month.

HTC One

Plain and simple, the HTC One is the best piece of hardware on the market today. With it’s aluminum body, frontal speakers and Ultrapixel camera, the HTC one took its place with iPhone and Samsung Galaxy on the top echelon of smartphones. Startup owners may wonder if the HTC One has the apps to back up great hardware, but HTC uses the Android operating system, which boasts the fastest-growing app store, Google Play. HTC appears to have business owners in mind, too. A may press released noted that the HTC One offers firm 256-bit encryption for strong security and Sense-enabled productivity opportunities.

“Customers want the freedom to choose the device they use on the job, and companies want to know that devices brought into the workplace are enterprise ready,” HTC executive director David Jaeger said in a press release. HTC appears to be on the rise, making the HTC One an appealing option for entrepreneurs.

Blackberry Z10

Experienced entrepreneurs probably have a soft spot for Blackberry. These devices reigned supreme in the business world before Apple changed the game. Unfortunately, Blackberry held on too long to the QWERTY keyboard, and now it’s playing catch up. The Z10 is Blackberry’s latest touch-screen flagship. The Z10 is particularly interesting for businesses who use Blackberry Enterprise Services and Blackberry Balance. All three can sync together, simplifying life for entrepreneurs.

Andrew White is a mobile app developer and freelance writer originally from the Pacific Northwest.