YEC - 5/9 - Serious Startups

Do You Have These 4 Kinds of Mentors?

Finding a mentor or personal advisor can be intimidating to female founders. Women often have a Superman complex — we rarely seek advice because we believe we should be able to do everything, know everything, and be everything to everyone. But my co-founder Brittany and I have found that to truly harness success, it really does take a village. You need outside perspectives to stay balanced and develop an holistic view of your business.

In order to keep growing my own support network, I started grouping my mentors and advisors into four distinct categories. This trick helps me make sure I always get advice from individuals varying in age, gender, socioeconomic status, and other demographics — thus opening the door to new conversations and perspectives.

Below are the four main categories I’ve identified, and where YOU can start looking for an advisor in each:

Category 1: Inside the Industry/Knows You Personally

From in-the-trenches stories to best-practice scenarios, these are the individuals who not only know what you are going through but know how you personally handle situations. These people know your strengths and weaknesses. They can help you come up with solutions to improve your weaknesses or toss out new revenue ideas to play up your strengths. Their advice is usually very specific and is often extremely helpful for dealing with short-term goals, problems, or delicate business scenarios.

Potential Advisors: An old boss, a fellow entrepreneur/friend, or a friend at similar company.

Category 2: Inside the Industry/Acquaintance

From boardrooms to client relations, these are the individuals who know what it’s really like to work and live in your industry. While they know you, you wouldn’t call them out of the blue or invite them out for dinner. These people are great for giving you an honest look at the industry without worrying about your feelings. They give straight-to-the-point feedback, and you are often only meeting or speaking with them for around 30 minutes, so as to not clog their day. These individuals are valuable resources for bouncing new ideas off, discussing business pivots, or giving you ideas about restructuring.

Potential Advisors: A friend of an industry friend, your lawyer, or a past client you have a good rapport with.

Category 3: Outside the Industry/Knows You Personally

From fielding emotional meltdowns to trading personal workday anecdotes, these are the individuals who can lend an ear because they know you well. While they don’t work in your industry, they give a brilliant outside stance on the bigger picture. These individuals can give you personalized advice on your reactions to various situations and relationships such as clients, internal colleagues, or even overall business practices. They can also be solid sounding boards regarding a new product or service, as they have no background knowledge of your industry and likely have a consumer-based opinion.

Potential Advisors: A close friend, a relative, spouse/significant other, or a roommate.

Category 4: Outside the Industry/Acquaintance

From business-building advice to a third-person perspective on your life and your business, this type of mentor is one of the most important. For this category, I believe having a business coach is of the utmost importance. Coaches have a background and knowledge of entrepreneurship that can spark poignant conversations and drive business decisions. At ‘ZinePak, we work with a business coach named Marla Tabaka. She knows us well, but not well enough to take sides or spoon-feed us what we want to hear, and that’s what matters. These individuals can also help you gain perspective on the bigger picture, inspire long-term goals, and provide unbiased industry and personal feedback.

Potential Advisors: A recommended and trusted business coach or consultant. Make sure he or she has a current client list, so you can check references!

Kim Kaupe is the co-founder of ZinePak, a custom publication company that creates engaging fan packages for entertainers, brands, and celebrities. She graduated with a B.A. in marketing from the University of Florida and roots loyally for her Gators. Most recently, she was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30. Previously she was named to Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 List and featured in The Wall Street Journal’s Start Up of the Year Documentary.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Are You Really the Best Person to Lead Your Startup?

Are you doing your job as a leader, or are you hampering your employees’ abilities through misdirected delegation? Should you step down in order for the company to step up? Are you aware of your individual impact on the bigger picture?

You may have started out as the strong, inspirational skipper of a smooth-running ship, but everyone and anyone can potentially burn out – even founders lose interest and the ability to inspire others. Companies pivot all the time, and whether you’re a CEO, manager, or employee the same principles apply to your role as a leader.

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

If you’re a leader of a team, and asking how you should lead or follow, you may have already failed. “Lead” and “follow” are not actually mutually exclusive. Leading is more complex, sublime and decisive, but it also entails a bit of following.

Entrepreneur Mark Suster speaks of a time when his company was trying to produce too many products at the same time. One of his managers pulled him aside and advised that the company should narrow their focus. After a company-wide discussion he cut down the number of items in production from four to just one — the one that would ultimately turn out to be an industry-leading product.

Everyone remembers what happened when Steve Jobs resumed leadership over Apple. Double-down focus — minimize in order to maximize. Sound familiar? In Suster’s case, he effectively followed his employee in order to lead, and the company benefited greatly as a result.

On the other hand, when every team member is trying to tell everyone else what to do, and simultaneously listening to no one, it is no longer leading. That’s just (dis)organized chaos, and an effective leader knows how to cut through the noise.

What It Means to Lead

A leader’s job is to ensure the success of the organization — no matter who reports to whom in any given group. At every moment she should be examining, scrutinizing, and constantly asking, “Is what I’m doing helping all of us to succeed?”

Or, in the words of entrepreneur and author Jason Baptiste, ”If that means taking out the trash and picking up low fat, low carb, organic pizza for the team so they can work straight through, then so be it.” You can’t be too proud. Do what needs to be done to help your business thrive.

Leadership is also about empowering, and 31 percent of employees leave if they don’t feel they’re empowered to do their job properly. Are you empowering your employees? If not, it’s time to move out of the way and let someone else take the lead. There still may be many important jobs to do.

Do You Project Great Leadership?

There is more to leading a team of employees than simply telling them what to do. Are you perceived as more than just a manager? Do they respect you as such? Ask your employees. They will tell you.

It’s also okay if you’re not the Leader (capital L intended). Oftentimes, there’s only room for one visionary. However, equally if not more importantly so, the company and organization needs a strong Executor. The one that can see the steps to actualizing the big idea.

The doer. The hands-on manager. The person who dots i’s and crosses t’s. Every “shaper” needs a “finisher” – someone to complete the picture. Nothing is accomplished single-handedly. Just because you might not sit in the CEO seat, doesn’t mean your leadership is somehow less valid or valued. People tend to respect the ones they engage the most with and everyone on the team has the opportunity to lead, even if it sometimes looks like following.

Team Building Is Hard

Leaders are powerless without their teams. They can’t possibly do everything themselves. Finding and keeping the right people is absolutely essential.

Create small teams led by people with a wide range of skills and be generous with your knowledge. That way, if you do have to hand over the reins, you already have someone ready to take over (or at least keep the company running while you search for a successor).

As a startup, we look for ambitious (entrepreneurial-minded), flexible and adaptable people to bring into 15Five. Hiring a new employee on a 90-day mutual trial period is nothing new. What we do is put them into a position, show them what we know and then ask them to find a better way of doing it. By the end of three months, we want them to have grown into a position where they could essentially hire themselves out of the job we originally brought them on board for. And if they’re culturally a great fit, then we know we’ve found a gem.

An Outside Perspective

It takes some fortitude and fearlessness to step outside your role and look objectively at your involvement in an organization. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a stakeholder who is not wrapped up in the day-to-day work, like an investor or advisor. Would they determine that you’re the best fit for your current job description?

The best person for the job should be the one doing the job, and if it means that someone else needs to be the leader of your company, then step aside. It doesn’t mean you have to banish yourself and voluntarily walk out the door with your tail between your legs. It means you’re operating in the best interest of your company. Besides, there may be a capacity that is a better fit for you and ultimately you might just end up more happy, productive, and fulfilled.

Anybody know of a story where a founder or employee successfully handed over the reins or stepped into another position in the best interests of the company at large? Would love to hear from you!

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and presently Founder & CEO of 15Five, a SaaS company focused on helping individuals and organizations reach their highest potential. Hailed by Fast Company as the “15 Most Important Minutes of Your Work Week,” 15Five creates an internal communication process that enables the most important information to flow seamlessly throughout an organization.

3 Key Strategies for Pricing Your Product

When we first launched Ministry of Supply, we sold our Apollo shirt for a whopping $128. Our price for the shirt then moved down to $88, back up to $108 and finally landed on $98.

During all of these changes, we talked to our customers a lot about pricing. We watched conversion rate, listened to what our customers said, asked them what else was in their closet, and thought about the value our shirts give our customers: no more dry cleaning, lots of durability and a shirt for every occasion. Mostly, we debated about how all these factors should influence how we priced our clothing.

We get a lot of questions on pricing from fellow entrepreneurs. How’d we decide to sell our Apollo shirt for $98? What’d we do to test what prices are right? And, how should costs play into pricing analysis?

Given that my co-founder Aman and I were students at MIT Sloan when we launched Ministry of Supply, pricing was a topic that we talked to our professors a lot about. In the end, there were three main things we kept in mind when figuring out pricing:

Understand your customer’s willingness to pay. In pricing class, we learned that 80 percent of managers know how much it cost to produce their product, but only 23 percent know their customers’ willingness to pay. As a customer-centric company, we wanted to understand everything about our customers, including how much they value our products, and what prices made our customers happiest. To do this, we tested pricing a lot, and, analyzed quantitative data such as conversion rate (given different prices), as well as qualitative data, such as their sentiment after we followed up with them for feedback.
Think of the 3 C’s in tandem: cost, customer, competition. None of these individually should cause you to dictate price, but rather, they should form a comprehensive view that allows you to triangulate the price. We viewed our pricing strategy through these three lenses as we adjusted our pricing: we knew what our costs were, we developed an understanding of who our customer was (what does he usually pay for a shirt? Is he price-sensitive?), and we understood our competition’s pricing. However, rather than letting one of these factors dictate our price, we used all three to inform our final decision.
Don’t set prices based purely on cost. As any startup knows, costs depend on sales volume. Sales volume depend on prices. Because your costs will change as you scale, pricing based on cost alone is a dangerous practice. But pricing based on cost also ignores something important, which is the value you create for customers. Think about it: had Pet Rock been priced on cost alone, a lot of money would have been left on the table.

In short, pricing takes a lot of understanding — and a lot of testing. At MoS, we tested prices constantly before settling on the price that was best for us.

Remember: if people are complaining that prices are too high, that tells you something. Conversely, if nobody is complaining about your price, then it’s likely too low.

As for why all of of our prices end with an ’8′? Because it’s a lucky number and looks nice. Hey, not everything is a science – even if you are a business school student.

Kit Hickey is the co-founder of Ministry of Supply, a brand which is inventing the future of men’s professional wear. The company has been featured in NYT, TechCrunch, Inc., Forbes and Elle Magazine. In addition, Kit is a lover of mountain sports and has half an MBA from MIT. Follow her: @kit_hickey

9 Simple Tips to Actually Meet The Right People at SXSW

Learn Who’s Attending Ahead of Time

“Check in with people you want to catch up with to see when they’ll be onsite, and get on their calendars in advance. Once the event starts, send them a quick text or email to remind them about your meeting. Large conferences are too chaotic to ensure that you’ll just casually run into people. You have to make a concerted effort to ensure that the most innocuous of gatherings actually happen.”

Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work

Don’t Listen to the Talks

“Most speakers are covering material that can be found all over the Internet. If you want to meet people, hang out in the lobby and the hallways. Strategically position yourself in places that everybody has to walk through, which maximizes your likelihood of bumping into the right people. If you have friends attending, ask them for help with intros to the right kind of people.”

Emerson Spartz, Spartz

Leave Room for Serendipity

“You’ll want to line up some meetings ahead of time, but don’t forget to leave room in your schedule for grabbing lunch with the people you just met or sitting down for an impromptu talk. The benefit of being in the same place as a bunch of interesting people is that you can get very lucky and meet someone without any planning.”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Partner With Connectors

“The best way to meet interesting people is through a warm introduction. There are two ways to find introductions at events: through individuals or through brands. Figure out how to add value to an individual so he or she will take the time to make introductions. Similarly, you can volunteer to help a brand at the event so you will be around when others contact them. “

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Get Exponential Introductions

“My strategy is to always meet a few awesome people early and ask them for the best one to two people they know that I need to know. Meet new people, then repeat this process as often as possible. With the right seed connectors, this can last through the whole event.”

Neil Thanedor, LabDoor

Book All Your Essential Meetings Ahead of Time

“When we send employees to a conference, we often have up to 25 meetings set in advance for them, along with specifically tailored agendas for each contact. By doing an aggressive email campaign before the conference, you can often confirm meetings well in advance so all you have to do once you’re there is go from appointment to appointment.”

Michael Costigan, Youth Leadership Specialist

Go Without a Schedule

“I have settled on the opposite of strategy — I just go and see what happens. If you go with a plan, you’ll struggle at SXSW because there’s no way you’ll stick to it. There’s no point in setting goals you can’t meet. SXSW is a week of serendipity. Who are the right people? You don’t know yet. Random meetings turn into meeting the right people.”

Andrew Angus, Switch Video

Be a Good Date

“There is a preparation process every time you’re about to go on a date: time, place, outfit and even a prospective conversation plan! That’s true of conferences as well. See what events are happening and who will likely attend in order to plan your agenda for a big industry conference. Select a couple of key events, meet some out-of-town business prospects and let the conversations start!”

Lauren Perkins, Perks Consulting

Forget Going to the Conference

“If you are seriously interested in only meeting people, forget the $600 conference badge — just go for the weekend to hang out. You don’t meet many people sitting and listening to talks, but if you know how to work the room over cocktails or know someone to get you into the right parties, then you will have accomplished your mission.”

Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

Thankfully, the best startup conference is currently only $150, but time’s running out on early adopter tickets. Join us and some great speakers and investors on April 30-May 2. Head over to eetennessee.com to get yours now!

How to Delegate to Get the Best From Your Startup Employees

delegate

When you first launch your company, you have to micromanage to some extent – there’s little or no team infrastructure and, since you’re building a company from the ground up, every decision builds and shapes the future of the company. As you scale your business, however, there comes a time when micromanaging actually damages your organization. It also makes running and working in your business a lot less fun.

Assuming you have the right people on the bus in the first place, real growth comes in realizing when to nitpick and when to simply let go and delegate. I believe a dedicated individual delivers far more value performing in an environment of freedom than when someone is continually looking over her/his shoulder. So as my company has grown, I’ve had to learn how to be an efficient boss who lets his employees take the reins and, thus, grow personally and professionally. Doing so leads to happier employees and an overall enhanced team performance.

In my opinion, the most effective management style is summed up in the words of Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist expert and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. In his book, Suzuki suggests that the best way to control people is to give them a great deal of space, allow them to mess around, and then to just watch them. “To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them; just to watch them, without trying to control them.”

Suzuki’s suggestion may seem oversimplified or silly, but I’ve actually found that it’s dead on. If your employees feel like they have freedom to be themselves and your confidence, all they need to know is that you’re watching them. This, combined with some basic structure, will lead to the best performance.

Here are four strategies we use at my company, HUMAN Healthy Vending, to boost employee productivity without micromanaging:

Create a system to share “crucial results” across the company. Employees and managers must be able to share their daily and weekly goals. First, create a way for your employees (managers, too) to share the most important action items they have for the week and have them list, daily, what they are going to accomplish in order to achieve those weekly goals. This provides a way for employees to be accountable to their own goals, allows managers to see what their direct reports are doing (and provide adequate feedback and guidance), and provides a way for teams to track progress toward shared goals. The key here is to also go over these goals in a quick huddle every day to ensure that the goals chosen for the day and week are actually the most valuable to each department and to the company as a whole. While there are software programs like Asana that make it easy to share goals, I have found that a shared Google spreadsheet works just as well. Each employee at our company is on the same spreadsheet, though for larger companies it may make sense to break it down by department. At the end of each day, employees color-code each daily goal — a green highlight signifies the task has been completed and a red highlight signifies the task was not completed.
Start the morning with a huddle. Morning “huddles” have consistently proven to be a great way for companies to energize their team and make sure everyone is set up for success. Broken down by department, each team member has 30 seconds to list his or her number-one most important objective of the day, share any big wins, and let others know if he or she needs help or guidance on a specific issue or problem. This way, everyone is on the same page and feels aligned, and potential problems are solved much sooner than they otherwise would be.
Conduct weekly “direct report” meetings. Just like professors have “office hours,” managers should have an ongoing timeframe where employees can come to speak to them about specific projects. I have a recurring weekly appointment with each of my direct reports to discuss progress on goals and to provide feedback. This helps cut down emails since my staff knows that they have a recurring appointment to discuss action items, questions and problems in person. I always ensure that I have an agenda for each meeting a day in advance so we make the best use of our time. Recently we’ve been using 15Five software to lead these meetings, and serve as a kick-off point for our conversation together. Having a set template for each meeting, and reviewing action items from last week, is absolutely essential.
Have a company-wide email policy. It is one of my personal policies that email does not dictate my actions or my schedule. Instead, I prefer to use my time to create, rather than react. It would not make sense, however, for me to be the only one with this constrained email policy. So, we are all “mindful emailers.” We do not allow internal emails to the entire team before noon each day. This helps us ensure that the most vital hours for productivity (the morning hours) are reserved for crushing it. This is especially useful for a team with a sales staff, and ensures that people’s crucial results are handled early in the day rather than at the end.

If you’re running a startup, chances are you have your hands in everything. This is fine, and necessary when you’re in the early stage of your business. But you can only scale your growth if you hire and train employees to take over certain aspects of the business so that you can stick to your high-leverage activities. There’s a fine line between being an engaged manager and a micromanager. The above steps will help you discover where it is.

Sean Kelly is a Johns Hopkins and Columbia-University-trained biomedical engineer and nutrition-focused social entrepreneur who co-founded HUMAN (Helping Unite Mankind And Nutrition) in 2008 to make healthy food more convenient than junk food while turning the $42B vending industry on its head. HUMAN is now the world’s leading socially-responsible franchisor of healthy vending machine businesses and healthy micro-markets with hundreds of franchisees and thousands of machines and markets placed across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Sean has landed on many coveted business lists, including Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” CNN Money’s “Top 10 Generation Next Entrepreneurs,” Business Week’s “Top 25 Young Entrepreneurs” and Mother Nature Network’s “Innovation Generation: 30 Fresh Thinkers Helping Humanity Adapt to What’s Next.”

3 Simple Ways to Recruit the Best Startup Talent

Adding to your startup’s staff represents a major challenge for many small business owners. While there’s no arguing that bringing on rock star employees can help advance your business objectives faster than bottom-of-the-barrel applicants, you may not have the leverage of high salaries, exorbitant benefits and other perks to offer these top players.

So how can you overcome these challenges in order to secure the best talent for your startup? Consider the following approaches:

Understand What Your Startup Offers

Startup life represents a distinctively different culture than is found within traditional corporations which, for many employees, is actually a perk. According to Rich Sloan, the co-founder of Startup Nation:

“People get involved in a startup for three reasons. One, they like creating; being part of something new. Two, they want to participate in the upside. Three, they want to live a meaningful life, and the closer you are to the success or failure of a business, the more meaning and purpose you feel.”

Knowing that people are seeking out opportunities like the one you have to offer may make it easier to connect with the right people. For example, knowing that employees want to be a part of something “bigger” could make it easier to identify prospective candidates who are experienced, but burnt out of traditional corporate life. You could also use the desire to participate in a startup’s upside. Find recent college grads who are skilled, but not yet tied down to need salaries that support families.

Once you do start looking for new employees, remember that the best people to advertise your company are your existing staff members. Providing a monetary incentive for employees who refer successful candidates can be a good way to quickly find talented people who will fit well in your organization.

Offer Flexible Work Arrangements in Exchange for a Lower Salary

Just because you can’t offer much in the way of compensation to new hires doesn’t mean that you have nothing to bring to the table. In fact, as a growing company, you can provide one major selling point that most corporations can’t – remote work arrangements.

A 2011 study of 3,000 current and recent college students conducted by telecommunications giant Cisco found that two of every five students surveyed said that’d accept lower-paying jobs that came with more flexibility in terms of device choice, social media access and mobility – compared to higher-paying jobs with less flexibility.

Today’s workers are more conscious than ever of their work-life balance, making them especially attracted to jobs that give them the necessary flexibility to run errands, balance child care and take care of other personal business as needed, on their own schedules. As long as you put the necessary precautions in place to ensure that the work gets done, startups are in an ideal place to offer this highly-sought-after perk to high-performing employees.

Provide Other Intangible Benefits

Along these same lines, for most people, work isn’t just about being paid to perform a set of tasks. There are plenty of intangible benefits that are considered part of the job selection process that exist outside of compensation negotiations.

For example, can you:

Offer to help potential employees secure the necessary work visas and permits to live in the U.S. Few companies offer this perk, though doing so can help give you exposure to a much wider pool of talent from around the world.
Provide outstanding training and development opportunities. In most cases, offering to assist employees with the cost of pursuing further certifications is much less expensive than providing higher salaries or better benefits – and may pack just as much of a punch. People want to be associated with companies that invest in them, and operating a training and development program is one way to demonstrate this commitment.
Give employees a percentage ownership in your company. Doing so will provide them with a potentially lucrative tradeoff that encourages taking lower salaries in exchange for future rewards.
Create an engaging, ideal workplace. Bring in a massage therapist on Fridays, treat your staff to weekly coffee outings or arrange for on-site dry cleaning pickup. All of this costs substantially less than what you’d otherwise pay top-performing employees, making it an economical way to create the type of work environment that will attract the best employees in a cost-effective way.

Remember, you wouldn’t be a startup entrepreneur if you didn’t have a creative, independent spirit. Put these virtues to work on your human resources strategy, and you should be able to find ways to bring on top talent without overstepping your budget.

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.

How to Survive a Rebranding and Still Kick Ass

Question: After you go through the rebranding process, how do you build credibility again? Do’s (and don’ts) to share?

Don’t Panic

“In my first venture, there was a partnership divorce, forcing a much-needed rebranding. Because I am in the B2B space, it was not challenging to transition the name. We simply changed our marketing materials, made an announcement and continued on with business. We didn’t make a big deal of it or act panicked, and we found that because we set that example, no one else acted negatively, either. “

Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40 / Finance Whiz Kids

Remember the Proof Is in the Pudding

“Clients, funders and other stakeholders will connect with your brand if you can prove that “who” you are as an organization drives results. Cultivate opportunities to use stories in your conversations, pitches, sales calls, press and so forth that show how you have delivered the results your new brand purports. “

Alexia Vernon, Alexia Vernon Empowerment, LLC

Start by Setting Expectations

“Let people know that you’re still the same committed business owners/team, and the only thing that has changed is the way you talk about what you do — that’s all. Your heart is still in the same place, and you want your existing customers and clients to help you continue to move forward in the right direction. Setting those expectations early on will go a long way.”

Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

Enhance Not Only Your Brand, But Your Credibility

“Levo League recently went through a rebranding process, and one of our primary focuses was to maintain credibility throughout. We took the time to host focus groups and surveys, and we used the feedback to stay true to our users’ perceptions of Levo. We wanted our rebranding to enhance the perception that Levo feels like there are real women behind the site, and that it’s a safe space to network. “

Caroline Ghosn, The Levo League

Don’t Wait for Consensus

“To me, the key lesson in branding is to always pick a select few people to be responsible for making the decisions, instead of relying on a whole team of people to come to some sort of consensus. Great design and branding rarely come from compromise.”

Derek Flanzraich, Greatist

Be Open and Honest

“Going through a rebrand is not easy; there are times when you feel like you are running multiple companies at once, working with old and (hopefully) new customers simultaneously. It’s imperative to be truthful with people as you undergo the change. If the rebrand is due in part to some previous weaknesses, be upfront with that information — you’ll be surprised how receptive people are to honesty.”

Charles Bogoian, Kenai Sports, LLC

Get Published

“After we rebranded, we ramped up our guest contributions. We wanted our company leaders to be established as thought leaders, and we wanted to draw people in to check out our company. It made our new brand appear more credible when people found our site via articles our leaders had written. “

Kelsey Meyer, Influence & Co.

Pretend the Old Brand Never Existed

“Pretend the old brand look never existed. Scrub it from the record. Bury it on the web. Pretend you are in a witness protection program, and if anyone ever calls you by an old nickname walking down the street, keep walking. Forward, but never straight. “

Michael Portman, Birds Barbershop

Use Video to Be Honest

“Most startups grow too quickly and sometimes don’t understand how important customer service is. I have seen thousands of bad reviews that will hurt the reputation of many companies as they grow. Rebrand, create a video, put it on your homepage, be honest about the past and talk about the day-to-day changes the company is implementing to avoid issues from the past. “

Ak Kurji, Gennex Brands

Explain (But Don’t Excuse) the Rebranding

“We marketed our services under different brand names and, a few years into it, we decided to consolidate under one company brand. We were clear on why the new brand was better and what changed — choosing to be transparent and using messaging with clarity — and stayed consistent thereon. “

Shradha Agarwal, ContextMedia

Stay True to Your Positioning Srategy

“Before you get into conveying your brand to the world through tactics — design, messaging, marketing — first solidify your positioning hook. At ColorJar, we call this your Golden Purpose — it’s the triangulation of what makes you remarkable, how you outplay the competition and what resonates with your audience. Stay true to this positioning, and everyone will feel your value and authenticity. “

David Gardner, ColorJar

Have a Strong Point of View

“When we went through rebranding, it was important for us to have a strong, singular point of view. We achieved this by having one person in charge of the brand identity, and then encouraged him to use bold visuals and a strong voice in order to create a brand that really grabs people’s attention.”

Kit Hickey, Ministry of Supply

Don’t Lose Your Network

“Even after rebranding, you’ll still have your original foundation of values and extensive network to enhance your credibility. Continue to grow your network and showcase your company’s values throughout a variety of channels. Remain consistent and honest to increase customer satisfaction and overall credibility. “

Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

12 Must Have Tools for Managing Leads & Contacts

Question: What do you use to share leads and contacts seamlessly among virtual team members?

WORKetc

“I use an SaaS software product entitled WORKetc. This software is customizable so all team members, or only a select portion of your staff, can have access to leads.”

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

Act!

“I love Act!; it stands the test of time. It is a very easy interface; the search functions are great, and the ability to convert the customer data to Excel to do direct mail or constant contact campaigns is very attractive. Most of our customer data is from organizations looking to book our CEO clients for events, and Act! allows us to keep organizations updated on our clients and activities.”

Raoul Davis, Ascendant Group

Streak

“We live in our email inboxes at work, so it makes sense to have a CRM system that seamlessly integrates with our email. Since we use Google Apps for Business on the Poshly team and Gmail is our preferred email provider, Streak is a phenomenal resource for us to share leads and contacts with ease among all of our virtual team members. Our correspondence and contacts are in one place. “

Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

Salesforce.com

“Salesforce.com seems like one of the “big guys” now, but it’s still a nimble tool that allows companies large and small to organize leads. The product forces your team to be disciplined in tracking, and following up with, sales opportunities. We now have a much clearer idea of the sales funnel, and we don’t let opportunities fall through the cracks, which is pretty critical to any startup!”

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Highrise

“We use the 37signals software program called Highrise. It’s great because everyone on our team can collaborate from wherever we are. We share a database of contacts and can constantly see an up-to-date snapshot of each team member’s outreach, share notes, and assign tasks. The mobile app is especially helpful for on-the-go access. It has helped streamline our CRM efforts in a big way.”

Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

Zoho

“Zoho is a fully customizable CRM solution that allows our team to organize and track leads to convert them into clients. The full functionality of Zoho allows our team to effectively optimize sales through customized reports on the success of leads by source, industry and other indicators. Best of all, it’s free for up to three users, and you can integrate/sync it with Outlook. “

Fehzan Ali, Adscend Media LLC

Close.io

“Close is a new tool that makes it very easy for our sales and accounts teams to seamlessly share info. The beauty of Close.io is they’ve integrated literally every key feature you can think of to make sure other team members know exactly what’s happened with any given contact. Close.io has been a complete game changer for us, and it has increased our efficiency substantially. “

Sunil Rajaraman, Scripted.com

Google Docs

“It’s old school but it works. We don’t claim to have a fancy CRM, and I expect a salesperson to call me after this article gets published, but we’re perfectly happy sharing an Excel spreadsheet and taking copious notes. We can also download segmented email lists from Mailchimp and import customer data from PayPal, Google Checkout, and Eventbrite. All the information is there for us. “

Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

ConnectWise

“ConnectWise is a customizable system that allows us to manage all of our resources in one location, facilitate collaboration, and ensure streamlined operations. It serves as a database for sales leads, opportunities, and contacts and is an efficient tool to track status and time on tickets and projects. Most recently we are integrating ConnectWise into a new quoting system for seamless end-to-end workflow. “

Dave Smith, TekScape

Salesforce and MailChimp

“We use MailChimp for all our email campaigns directed at new community members, and we use Salesforce as a CRM for potential ad sponsors. Both solutions work well with our virtual team members.”

Patrick Curtis, WallStreetOasis.com

Dropbox

“I’m a big fan of Dropbox. Being able to access documents, spreadsheets, contacts and more without having to email back and forth has made our business more efficient. We share certain folders in Dropbox. The documents and files within the shared folder are updated whenever a user makes changes to the original. Also, access to the folders is easy to obtain and can even be done off Dropbox’s mobile app.”

George Mavromaras, Mavro Inc. | Praetor Global LLC.

Ruby on Rails

“We’ve created a built-from-scratch CRM in Ruby on Rails over the last five years that allows us to seamlessly allocate leads among virtual employees. We have 35 full-time and 35 part-time employees and 1,800 tutors — all operating from home. Building a system for our own very specific needs was far more expensive, but has been far more powerful than any CRM we’ve ever tested, such as Salesforce.com. “

Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutor

4 Quick Lessons in Scaling Your Startup

My startup experience began in college at what ended up becoming a very successful company. After graduating, I moved on to a corporate role at IBM. As I learned the ropes at an established company, I continued investing and advising startups on the side. Finally, two years ago, I founded my latest company, SimpleRelevance.

Through each career move, I’ve learned the value of practicing an intentional business strategy. Putting short and long-term goals against decisions and challenging my own choices has been the best way for each of my companies to pivot and evolve. Here are few of the lessons I’ve learned in my latest endeavor and over the years:

Fast Cash Doesn’t Sell

Telling a prospect that you’ll earn them $20 dollars for every $1 dollar they spend on your solution seldom works. It seems too good to be true. While your promise might still stand, it can’t be the sole selling point of your product or service. In the customer’s experience, there probably was someone who couldn’t deliver on such a bold statement before you.

To beat a potential customer’s skepticism, it’s important to offer proof of credibility. This can be done using case studies or testimonials from past and current clients, through trial period offers or product guarantees. For SimpleRelevance, we know there is a certain amount of noise in the marketing services space, but we’ve found continuous success for each client on each campaign, and have the proof to back it up.

Find the Right Target

Make sure the person you’re talking to has a stake in the conversation. In the past, I spent time and energy explaining the importance of using my solution to the wrong person because I was looking to get my foot in the door. It never worked out well. If the person isn’t directly impacted by your value proposition, they’re not likely to make the purchase or even hand you off to the right person.

Find the person responsible for showing results in the specific part of the business your product affects. For us, it’s often a CMO, director of marketing, or person in charge of email marketing. These are the folks who feel support and recognition for increased sales directly correlated with email personalization. They’re the people who are actively seeking new, better technology to make their lives easier. Find someone who would get the pat on the back for choosing you, and you have potential for a real conversation.

Find Your Differentiator

There are a lot of industries that seem crowded, including marketing services. Recognizing the amount of noise in your space is key to fighting it. For SimpleRelevance, there is often a misconception about who our competition actually is because of the plethora of buzzwords that describe the industry: email marketing, email service provider, email optimization, digital marketing, etc. There are thousands of companies who fit in each of these buckets, but very few who are direct competitors offering the same outcome.

Going through the TechStars process taught our team the importance of being thoughtful about how we position ourselves against our competition. It’s absolutely mandatory to be crisp, concise and to the point about what we do. This eliminates confusion from jargon and shows our prospects how we can truly help them. We’ve actually got ours down to about 10 words: SimpleRelevance plugs into existing tools to optimize an email at the individual level. Spend time refining your real message and differentiating factor so when a prospect compares you to your competitors, you’re able to explain exactly why you’re the better choice.

Scale Thoughtfully

Finally, when founding a startup, the inability to scale properly is an often overlooked internal issue. There is no shortcut leading a company from under 10 employees to 40-plus. Instead, each department must mature at the same rate, or at least close to it. Product, sales, marketing, operations and customer service all require equal attention to detail and support. When things get out of sync, the business loses equilibrium, which causes unnecessary internal hurdles.

Some startups take growth where they can get it and expect things to even out on their own. That works sometimes, but more often than not, these issues can cause even a five-year old company to implode. Remember, happy employees make a company successful, and instability threatens that.

There are many more lessons I’ve learned from founding SimpleRelevance, but all of these suggestions have one principle in common – be thoughtful. Successful businesses aren’t built in a year and they don’t materialize out of thin air. But with deliberate choices, the right message and the right team, yours will come together with time.

Erik Severinghaus is the founder & CEO of SimpleRelevance, a Chicago-based company focused on digital marketing personalization. Prior to that he received a patent while in IBM‘s IT Optimization organization, and helped co-found iContact – a leading Email Service Provider.

4 Reasons You Need a Cofounder For Your Startup

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it will not be possible to clone yourself during your lifetime. Major bummer, right? That means that uttering, “If only there were two of me, I could get this done so much faster!” under your breath is never going to be a viable solution for getting something done, no matter how much you will it to happen. That includes starting a business. I’m sorry.

With that cold hard truth out there in the open, let’s talk about an alternative. If it’s physically impossible to be in two places at the same time, what’s the next best thing? As I pondered this question while trying to decide whether or not to leave my secure, well-paying corporate job to start my own company, I began to consider enlisting the help of a partner in crime.

How I Found (and Pitched) My Co-Founder

There is no shortage of stories on co-founders. For every horror story about a business partnership gone awry, there are glowing commentaries about perfect, made-in-heaven matches that joined forces to conquer the world. Don’t believe me? Do a Google search. There are thousands of thought leaders arguing passionately on both sides of the issue. As with most things in life, the truth can probably be found somewhere in the middle.

For me, the decision to start ‘ZinePak with a co-founder came down to the simple fact that I thought it would be more enjoyable with someone else. I knew that the company— which creates custom publications for celebrities, brands and VIP-style ticketing for special events — would likely start out as a home-based business with freelance partners. I didn’t like the idea of being isolated.

My co-founder Kim Kaupe and I were co-workers at an advertising agency. Although we didn’t know each other all that well, I enjoyed working with her and thought our complementary skills (my background was in entertainment and hers was in magazine publishing) would benefit the business. When I told her about ‘ZinePak, I positioned it as a soft pitch.

“I’m planning on doing this new thing,” I said. “I think it’s going to be a lot more fun than what I’m doing here. You’d be really great at it, too. What do you think?”

Formalizing Our Relationship

A few days later, she said, “About that thing you’re doing. It sounds pretty cool. I’m in.” That night we went to Starbucks after work and sketched out an idea of what the company would look like. How much capital would we need? How would we get customers? How would we get vendors? Did we need employees right away?

We made our best guesses to each question and decided we would figure the rest out along the way. We agreed on an equity split, did a Google search to determine what corporate structure was most appropriate, and set up email addresses at our shiny new domain name. And with that, our business partnership was solidified.

Could Kim and I have spent months formalizing a 60-page partnership agreement and trying to map out every single hypothetical for the next twenty years? Of course. But we focused that energy on building an amazing company instead. We still don’t have a full-executed partnership agreement. We’ll probably get around to it one day, but in the meantime, we both trust each other to do the right thing.

The Benefits of a Two-Founder Team

Although I don’t have children, I imagine that starting a company alone must be something like being a single parent. In the early stages of a business, a startup requires almost around-the-clock attention. I didn’t get seven consecutive hours of sleep in the first 18 months of ‘ZinePak. The sleep I did get was filled with dreams (and sometimes cold-sweat-inducing nightmares!) about the work awaiting me in the morning.

The same way parents divide the responsibilities of raising a child and celebrate milestones together, co-founders can divvy up the workload and share in the accomplishments of their growing company. (We like to joke that ‘ZinePak is out of the toddler stage and onto the pre-school stage. Top of the class, naturally!) The benefits to this approach are many:

You can take a (real) break. Having a co-founder is like a permission slip to be at less than 100 percent on your bad days. It makes things that are nearly impossible for a one-(wo)man-show — like calling in sick or going on a vacation — much more plausible. And it makes the best days even better, because there is someone celebrating every victory with you.
Make better decisions. And there’s no law that says you have to agree with your co-founder 100 percent of the time. In fact, it’s better when you don’t. A certain level of discord means that you’re both championing opposing views. This creates an opportunity to discuss the merits of each viewpoint and ultimately decide which direction is better for the future of the company.
Focus on what you’re good at. When Kim and I started ‘ZinePak almost three years ago, our approach to dividing workload was, “I’ll work on whatever you’re not working on!” While it wasn’t ideal, it gave us both a chance to become intimately familiar with every aspect of our company. As time went on, we learned how to focus our efforts based on our mutual strengths — which, luckily, are complementary in almost every way, so we’re both able to do the day-to-day work we love while continuing to evolve our company. This is an important ingredient to making our relationship — and our company — work.
Double your odds. While having a business partner is, admittedly, not as cool as having a carbon copy of yourself running around, it’s much less creepy — and doubles your odds of being in the right place at any given time. Whether it’s an important event where you need to talk to dozens of people or simultaneous meetings on opposite sides of the globe, having someone you can trust to represent your business with the same level of integrity and passion as you is a huge advantage.

I encourage all would-be founders to look for a partner to take the wild ride of entrepreneurship with. No one but your co-founder — not your spouse, roommate, investors, or employees — will understand the experiences you have or the impact they have on you, both personally and professionally. Just like an awesome roller coaster is more fun if you’ve got a friend sitting next to you, starting a business with a partner can mean twice the excitement, creativity, enjoyment, and reward.

Brittany Hodak is the co-founder of ZinePak, a custom publication company that creates fan packages for entertainers, brands, and athletes. She holds an M.S. in Marketing from CUNY Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business and a B.A in Public Relations from the University of Central Arkansas. In 2010, she was named to Billboard’s 30 Under 30 List. More recently, she and her co-founder Kim Kaupe were named to Advertising Age’s 2013 40 Under 40 List.

8 Tips You Should Read Before Raising A Seed Round

Minutes before the first meeting of my startup’s seed round, a wise advisor pulled me aside. “This is going to be wild,” he warned, with a knowing smile. “Brace yourself.”

Several months later, after raising $850,000 for my startup, ReelGenie, the ride has stopped (for now). I hopped off the fundraising roller coaster with memories of unexpected thrills, a few bruises, and many lessons for the future.

Here are eight things that I know now that I wish I’d known then:

Network like there’s no tomorrow. You never know where you’ll meet a future investor. ReelGenie’s investors include professors of mine from years ago, former co-workers, and individuals who I met at an event and loved spending time with. Put yourself out there. Unless you’re already rich and/or famous — and if you’re reading this article, that’s probably not the case —investors won’t just flock to you.
Cast a wide net, smartly. Most people you talk to will say no. So play the numbers game. The more potential investors you speak with, the higher your chances of success. But I say that with two caveats. First, do some homework so you’re targeting people who are likely to love your deal, rather than wasting time with those who won’t. Second, stay organized. Keep track of every communication you make. If you can’t convince an investor that you’re equipped to handle fundraising, good luck convincing them you can run a company.
Seek out points of validation. If I never hear the phrase herd mentality again, I’ll be a very happy man. But the reality is that’s how fundraising works. Investors don’t want to be alone if the ship sinks. Lock down a few smart investors early. Get early adopters and evangelists for your funding, just like you do for your product or service. And find a lead investor. He or she doesn’t have to put in the most money, but a respected investor running the process will give others more confidence in your deal and help speed things up.
Find investors who can do more than just write a check. Chances are you’re relatively inexperienced and going up against competitors with deeper pockets. So how do you tip the scales in your favor? Use the fundraising process to find helpful advisors. The best investors are those who can give you strategic guidance, make introductions, and write a big check (today and in your future rounds). Not all investors are good for your company. This is especially true in the current environment of the Series A crunch. Plan a few steps ahead. Your fundraising goal should be to find long-term partners, not a short-term cash infusion.
Valuation is what the market will bear. Just because your friend raised $5 million at a $15 million pre-money valuation doesn’t mean that you should too. Investors are willing to pay what they think the company’s worth, so don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Securing ample funding for your company should be a higher priority than your dilution. With that said, shop around. Don’t accept the first offer. The earlier you start fundraising and the less desperate you seem, the better your chances of getting multiple bids — and a valuation you’ll be excited about.
Don’t let fundraising take over your business (or your life). As the CEO of a company, your first priority is running the company. It’s not rocket science, but it’s hard to keep that perspective when fundraising season rolls around. The emotional strain is inevitable. One day you’re riding high off a great meeting, the next day you‘re sadly marveling at how many different ways someone can tell you no. It’s important to put your blinders on. Set aside time for fundraising each day. If you do, you will get things done. Finding customers and motivating your employees will come more easily. As your metrics improve, so will your odds of raising money and your valuation.
You can raise money outside of Silicon Valley. Most of our investors are on the opposite side of the country, in Washington, D.C. Listening to entrepreneurs, you’d think raising capital is harder than getting a bill through Congress. It’s not. As Tech Cocktail recently reported, the D.C. angel scene is alive and well. And there’s money to be found in your city, too. You don’t need to move to the Valley. But you do need to be tenacious in networking (see #1) and understand what investors in your area are looking for. Tailor your pitch to your environment. And if that doesn’t work, hop on a train or a bus to meet with investors in other cities. Now more than ever, capital is mobile. You should be too.
Say “Thank you.” A lot. One of my favorite books is Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Twenty-five years (and two degrees) after I graduated kindergarten, it’s amazing how the simple lessons of life haven’t changed. Remember, investors are deciding whether to give you money. A great business plan is worth less if you’re a jerk. So be thoughtful. Say thank you when someone makes an introduction or takes a meeting. Follow up. Be a giver, not a taker (and read Adam Grant’s fascinating new book to learn what that means). Put a personal touch on every call or email. By simply being polite and respectful, you’ll give yourself a leg up in fundraising, if not in all aspects of your business.

David Adelman is the Founder and CEO of ReelGenie, an online platform that revolutionizes the way stories are told and shared. David is also Founder and CEO of Reel Tributes, the premier producer of high-end documentary films. Reel Tributes’ films preserve timeless stories and memories for families and family-owned businesses.

5 Essential Leadership Lessons from a Working Mom

I have been an executive director for 10 years, a mom for three, and I have a lifetime of work ahead of me. Five key things have helped me get to where I am today and will continue to guide me in the future:

Use Your Gender to Your Advantage

Being the only woman in a room full of men makes you stand out, which makes it easier for people to take an interest in you and your cause. This can help you attract opportunities that the typical male CEO wouldn’t. As a woman, you can also serve as an example for other potential leaders and ultimately begin to change the gender ratio in leadership.

It is important to note that men and women run organizations differently; and that’s a good thing. Leaders can learn from each other. My male counterparts inspire me to be more aggressive, while they often look to me for my management skills. In my experience, a presence of both male and female leaders at the table is important. So embrace what you’re bringing to the table as a woman.

Be Resolute in Your Decision to Be a Working Mom

I recently had an emergency coffee break with my directors. We were commiserating about how, for working moms, things are either going really well or falling apart. One day you feel like you can do anything. The next, your kid is sick and crying, begging you not to go as you get in the car to leave for work. You feel like a terrible mother for leaving and a terrible ED for considering ditching your responsibilities. That is the roller coaster of being a working mom.

How do I cope? Some days are better than others. But the most important thing is to be resolute in your decision. You have to know in your heart, at your core, that working is the right decision for you. When your kid is crying as you leave for work, you better be absolutely certain about your choice. If you have doubts, it’s just too easy to rationalize staying home for your child. Accept that there will be trade-offs. I wanted to go to my daughter’s medal ceremony for gymnastics the other day, but I had to make an important call. At my core I remember that I am still a good mother, and I am still a good executive director. It’s a process of constant soul-searching, but I know I made the right decision.

Being a Mom Can Make You a Better Leader

If you don’t have a child to rush home to, you can afford to work 24/7. When you’re a mom, you have to get home at a certain time. You can’t work all night or all weekend, especially if you’re the primary caregiver. This forces you to be more efficient at work, cut out the unnecessary stuff and focus on the important things.

Being a mom also forces you to be more hands off at work, trust your team more and give them more freedom, which is ultimately good for everyone.

Embrace Your Strengths and Weaknesses

A lot of people talk about whether women, as leaders in the workplace, should be as aggressive as men. My advice: don’t be anything you’re not.

Personally, it’s not in my nature to be aggressive. Asking me to be aggressive is asking me to not be who I am. A mentor once told me to evolve, grow, and learn new skills, but not to fundamentally change who you are. In my case, I realized that in order to be more aggressive, I really needed to be less afraid of people saying no. I worked on becoming more comfortable asking people for money and ultimately became more aggressive in fundraising, but by no means did I become an aggressive person.

It is important to evaluate (and re-evaluate) your weaknesses and work on overcoming them. But make sure you make a plan tailored to who you are. If you’re just not an aggressive person, you won’t become a shark overnight. Figure out what new skills you can learn and ways you can adapt to changing circumstances to become more aggressive in a way that makes sense for you.

Most importantly, be strong – not necessarily strong-armed, but strong-standing in what you believe.

Trust Your Team (And If You Don’t, Get a New Team)

A lot of my female colleagues, myself included, struggle with control. Especially as a founder, I tend to want things done a certain way and don’t trust others to do things exactly how I want them done. I began decentralizing responsibilities out of necessity as GFG expanded. I realized that if I kept running both GFG’s operations and fundraising, we would flounder. So, over a year ago I hired our first COO. I needed to realize that I wasn’t good at everything. I looked for people who would complement my skills and compensate for my weaknesses.

When working with a team, keep your eye on the prize. Focus on the final product and don’t get nitpicky about the process. Everyone has different processes, but what matters is that you’re on the same page about the deliverable. You can’t micromanage every step of the way – you have to step back and trust your team. Trust me, it can be very liberating!

Melissa Kushner is the Founder & Executive Director of www.goodsforgood.org. She runs offices in New York City and Lilongwe, Malawi where her small team runs programs with big impact. goods for good supports over 70,000 orphans and children in need. goods for good provides goods and build businesses at community centers, Malawi’s grassroots and sustainable solution to the orphan crisis.

How to Know Your Strengths Before You Start

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Maybe you are just thinking of starting a business. Or perhaps you have already begun, but are quickly realizing you can’t do everything yourself. If either of these scenarios sounds familiar, I’d like to share with you a great approach I’ve discovered for soliciting honest opinions without stepping on any toes — and learning which weaknesses I need to address, stat.

Only the Strong Survive

Getting to know your strengths and weaknesses is easier said than done. Many of us think we’re great at certain things, whereas others would perceive us as being “C” or “D” students at best. So how do you get an accurate picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and why does it matter?

Accuracy in perception is important. Knowing where you excel will guide you through your goal-making process, and knowing where you are weak will steer you towards the right moments to ask for help. Plus, if you know where you are weak, you can also figure out where your money will help you the most. For example, hire an accountant or bookkeeper if you’re not great with numbers. Hire a writer if the world of words doesn’t tickle your fancy. This method can even be applied to choosing a partner or team members, both which are very important aspects of the business-planning process.

How to Conduct a “No Blame” Survey

Start your self-assessment by making a simple list of every business skill you can think you have. Then, add other skills that you think make a good leader/business owner. Add any additional questions you think would be helpful.

To get you started, these are a few questions I ask my team to answer at the end of individual projects:

Did I make you feel comfortable about making your own decisions pertaining to the tasks you were responsible for throughout the project?
What could I have done on this project to be a better leader?
What did you most appreciate about me as a leader throughout this project?
What’s one thing you think we could do differently as a team on the next project?
Now ask as many people as you dare to rate you in the same way through an anonymous survey. You can do this using an online surveying tool like SurveyMonkey, or use Forms in Google Drive.

Tell people not to put their name on it. This way, you won’t be offended by anyone’s opinion and they will feel safe to tell the whole truth. I’ll never forget a programmer’s expression when I asked him to fill out an anonymous survey about me so I could improve on my leadership and management skills. He laughed out loud and said, “Wow, you take this personal development stuff very seriously!” I do, and you should too.

Do not open any of the surveys until you’ve collected at least 10, and only ask people that know you or have worked with you directly.

Tip: Take a deep breath before you open them and keep an open mind about why you’re doing this: to become super-honest with yourself and to find teammates who can account for your weaknesses. I’ve personally had a few responses that left me wanting to scream, but I’m better for having received the honest feedback.

Knowing what you need to put energy into and where you can relax can mean the difference between a smooth ride and one full of potholes. Why not take the smooth road?

A Note for Survey Newbies

To find your range, look at all the results (except for your own) for one skill. Now write your lowest and highest score. That is your range. Ranges can tell you how much or little people agree about your results. If most everyone agrees (meaning a short range of numbers like 4-6), I would take that as good information and use it to your advantage.

To find your mean score (or “average”) you simply take all the results from one skill and add them together. After you get the total, write that number down. Now count how many survey respondents answered the question. You then divide the total score number by the total number of surveys filled out. This means if you scored 200 and 20 people filled out the survey, you scored a perfect 10! Your mean is helpful for finding an overall number, especially if the results are all over the graph.

There are many other ways to look at the information, but calculating the mean should give you a good overview of the answers you want. You will be ready to gain helpful insight for your business.

Now get out there, and ask away!

Natalie MacNeil is an Emmy Award-winning media entrepreneur, Founder of SheTakesOnTheWorld.com, and the bestselling author of She Takes on the World: A Guide to Being Your Own Boss, Working Happy, and Living on Purpose. SheTakesOnTheWorld.com was featured by Forbes on its list of “10 Best Sites for Women Entrepreneurs.”

5 Easy Steps to Define Your Sales Funnel

salesfunnel

Most business owners want to grow as quickly as possible. While there is no one-size-fits-all acceleration model, having a clearly defined sales funnel early can help. In fact, behind every decision our company makes today is the original white-boarded funnel from our early days.

The purchase funnel is essentially what the industry commonly refers to as a ‘customer journey’ – which starts with the moment when a customer first makes contact with your brand. It includes each subsequent step and eventually leads to an end goal, purchase and monetization. In general, this journey is composed of a process around awareness, education, trial, adoption, and sharing. Putting the customer first provides the focus and prioritization needed to move every company to the next level.

Here are five tips for defining your customer funnel for success:

Determine your industry funnel. The top of the funnel is where a customer first enters into your experience. I run a web company, Porch, so most people enter from other places online. The first step in determining your industry funnel is to look across the board and outline what valuable user actions (VUA) your competitors care about. For example, on Twitter, these actions might be creating an account, uploading a profile picture, tweeting, re-tweeting, creating a group – or other measurable representations of end-user engagement. This exercise will give you a general benchmark for what the industry competition is doing, so you can start prioritizing your business growth strategy.
Choose where to focus marketing efforts. You can wrap your business and marketing around a number of places in the funnel. The most common are the top and the bottom of the funnel, but they have different problems. For example, the top of our industry funnel is all about inspiration – beautiful pictures that attract and retain customers on the website. Inspiration has a lower customer acquisition cost and better engagement. But it’s also difficult to monetize. If you start marketing at the bottom of the funnel, you monetize more easily, but it is often a challenge to acquire customers inexpensively. Assess the tradeoffs and pick a starting point to focus your business on.
Minimize your risk. When you are building a business, you are bringing financial and Excel models to life. Focus on proving out the risks in your model first. This starting point will help clarify your thinking about where the challenges lie. For example, if you start at the bottom, focus on how you acquire consumers in a cost-effective way to create an arbitrage opportunity (where you can repeatedly acquire customers for less than the revenue you produce).
Limit upward movements. Move customers down the funnel and limit moving them back up. For example, if a consumer is almost through your funnel and about to transact, limit the noise around them on the page (advertisements, pop-ups) so they finish. You will have time to cross-link them later. Retaining a paid user is much more valuable than entertaining a free user. This philosophy needs to be intentionally built into your product. Focus on user experience and prioritize building feature sets that guide customers down the funnel at a raw level. Everything else is a nice-to-have.
Build defensible differentiators. After you pick your marketing poison and define your priorities, put the pedal to the metal. Build out features or strategies to ensure your key funnel positions are completely defensible through intellectual property. Figure out what you want to be the best at and optimize and test different consumer acquisition tactics that meet your business goals. This is where the fun starts!

In the long term, you should turn your funnel into a sphere – create circular revenue streams with emphasis on retention and viral coefficients. But that is only after you have nailed your funnel fundamentals.

Matt Ehrlichman is the CEO of Porch, where you can get inspired by the best home projects your neighbors have completed, see what any home project will cost, and find the best service professional your neighbors and friends recommend. Previous to Porch, Matt was a founder and CEO of Thriva (acquired by Active Network) and Chief Strategy Officer of Active Network (2011 IPO). Matt lives in Seattle, WA.