Featured Archives - Page 28 of 97

CrowdFunding Pitch Show Episode 1: Biometric Match

We had an awesome premier episode of The Crowdfunding Pitch show on October 10th with the founders of Biometric Match coming on the show to pitch their startup.

Dal Ellinton, the founder has created an amazing platform leveraging bio-metric to enable users to determine how they match up with a potential date, person you want to hang out with or just see what you have in common with friends. The current standard is to answer long questionnaires to answer these questions, but Biometric Match is changing that process forever, rendering these long questionnaires a thing of the past, using emotion-based facial cue system powered by Affectiva.

They’re currently trying to raise $95,000 to go beyond beta and build out a more user friendly platform. Check out their crowdfunding campaign, and back this awesome new technology!

How Important is the Right Domain Name for Your Startup?

In one word: extremely. We’ve spoken in the past about what to name your startup and touched on new top level domains (nTLDs), sometimes known as gTLDs or new domain extensions, yet the chatter of what’s better for your business out of .com or .io or even .pizza, is an ongoing debate in the world of startups.

Consider choosing your website name as important as naming your child (just don’t call your kid Google), as this is something you’re going to live with for a long time. Speaking to Forbes, entrepreneur Zalmi Duchman discusses the launch of his first startup over 10 years ago, how getting the ‘perfect’ domain name ended up costing him tens of thousands of dollars, and why it’s best to get things right the first time, instead of settling for second best. He says:

“Back in 2007 when I originally wanted to purchase the domain name, I should have spent more time strategizing how I might secure the domain without writing a large check. I knew that as I grew my brand the domain would become more expensive, but I was too inexperienced to realize the importance of getting it done immediately. Putting the problem aside in the present only assured that I would have to deal with a more expensive version of it in the future.”

Buchman was simply one of many startup businessmen who were essentially forced to buy their desired domain from an owner – at an exorbitant price.

The Dawn of New Top Level Domains

It’s been foretold many times that nTLDs will be a huge game-changer in terms of web-design and marketing, but if you’re a burgeoning startup about to pick a domain name, should you go with this new trend?

It sure seems like the current is heading that way, as proclaimed on the nTLDs page by experienced domain providers 1&1: “New domains, new possibilities.” It appears that the opportunity to demonstrate what exactly your startup specializes in, is a huge draw for working with nTLDs. Just going by the 1&1 page for example, new and available domain extensions range from .soccer, .expert, .music and even .lol (so you know that site is going to be funny).

However, Google themselves want you to be aware that using nTLDs won’t give your website any advantage in terms of rankings. Google’s own Trends Analyst Webmaster wrote on his G+ account, about what exactly they can and can’t do:

“They can perform well in search, just like any other TLD can perform well in search. They give you an opportunity to pick a name that better matches your web-presence. If you see posts claiming that early data suggests they’re doing well, keep in mind that’s this is not due to any artificial advantage in search: you can make a fantastic website that performs well in search on any TLD.”

What’s So Great About a nTLD Then?

No one wants to be the startup with a cooler-than-cool name, only to find that someone has snapped up your desired .com domain. Other than misspelling your own domain name on purpose (for example, fcebook.com or twttr.com) or adding extra (and unwanted) words, you run the risk of what Zalmi Duchman went through – potentially having to spend thousands to get the name that you
wanted from the start.

Luckily, the folks over at The Next Web prepared a useful list as to why a startup should make use of the new domain extensions. Here’s a quick summary:

Represent your roots – It’s easy to know where a business is from when it’s literally part of the domain. Some companies are using .paris, .nyc, or .london, for example.
Get in the game early – As evident by .com domains being taken left and right, the nTLD-era is still essentially in its infancy, so the quicker you start, the easier will be to get the domain name you want.
Branding – With more options, the chance to keep your domain shorter and relevant to your startup results in less ambiguity, such as name.photography or name.tech.

Of course a name is just a name, and won’t necessarily guarantee success just because it’s catchy or memorable. But hey, it’s sure to be a small and positive step in the right direction for an emerging startup.

Why Customer Satisfaction is Key to Startup Success

In order to take your company to the next level and stand out from among the competition, it is necessary to champion customer success. This means building a business that offers the absolute best customer experience possible.

What is CX?

The “Customer Experience” (CX) buzz phrase is everywhere these days, but it really just means how customers perceive their interactions with a company. According to the Sales Force blog:

“Customer experience incorporates the quality, quantity, and perceived value of all experiences a customer has with you and your company over the duration of your relationship. “

Customer experience is the key to retaining repeat customers, or generating brand loyalty, which is actually more profitable to a business than acquiring new customers. Because every business is different and therefore the needs and concerns of its customer base is unalike, every business needs to employ unique methods to best cater to their customer base.

I once encountered an e-commerce company that had a good marketing scheme were good, nice product, and the shopping experience was easy and pleasant. However, once I got to the checkout, I noticed an incredibly big oversight: there was only one payment method! On top of it all, it wasn’t even a major credit card company, but was payment via PayPal.

Regardless of how popular this option is becoming, not everyone has it and therefore they automatically lose any possible consumer without a PayPal account. Furthermore, aside from generating incredibly high levels of cart abandonment, they have guaranteed that a significant amount of web traffic will never again visit the site.

It’s best to ensure that your company website is easy to navigate or like in the example above, that you include a no-hassle checkout process. It’s beneficial to be relevant to the times and offer a wide array of differing payment methods to your customers, such as paysafecard, which uses a one-time PIN that can be bought at supermarkets and convenience stores. Paysafecard is currently being used with major players like Spotify and MasterCard’s prepaid option.

How to Evaluate CX

The secret to being able to better understand the wants and needs of your customer base, is to utilize CRM analytics software and incorporate that data into your business development and marketing approaches.

Analytics software might sound complicated, but it is really just a tool that produces data surrounding all of the activity on your site and around your brand: it produces what you have probably heard referred to as ‘big data’.

Ultimately, though, your data is important to track because it gives you all of the answers that you
seek. By seeing who is engaging with your brand, you get insight into your customer base and see who makes it through to purchase and re-purchase vs. those who don’t. This can give you insight into your product and the effectiveness of your presentation and marketing tactics. Even seeing where possible customers drop off can help you understand why and help you improve your business effort significantly in these weak areas.

Purposeful Communication

Tracking how people react to your product and brand while on your site is one thing, but tracking what people are saying about your brand is equally important. Often customers will abandon their cart without you ever really knowing why. If, however, they voice their experience with your company or products in some way, then you have insight into the why, which can help you improve your product, process, and business.

Something like a social CRM tool can help you track discussion over social media platforms and forums and not only be able to listen to what your current or potential customers are saying, but also to be able to respond to them. You are better able to control the conversation and maintain or preserve your brand identity. An Email customer experience survey to those who have made purchases is also a significant source of insight into what is working and what might work better as well.

In the end, success in B2C sales in this day and age is no longer achieved through smooth-talking, slick sales personnel; it is achieved through personable business professionals who take time to listen and react to their customer base.

Why Intrapreneurship Is Vital To Innovation

Until recently, employees with a great idea to solve an industry problem often were faced with having to leave their job to bootstrap a startup. While being experts in their field, most have never built a business from scratch, and get overwhelmed with all the hats required to grow a startup.

Enter Intrapreneurship

Thankfully, as acceptance of technology has grown, not to mention how quickly pivots need to be made, many corporations are starting to latch onto the concept of “intrapreneurship”. Helping their employees take an idea from start to finish and turn into a profitable business extension. This enables vital expertise and vision to be coupled with funding, potential clients, mentorship, and a plethora of other opportunities which make bootstrapped startup founders green with envy.

Now why is intrapreneurship so vital to company growth and longevity?

Well, it’s pretty simple actually. As a business leader, you become consumed with time imperative decisions, negotiations, client demands and managing day to day activities. You have hired employees to handle day to day operations and removed the need to focus on individual tasks. Therefore the ability to identify easier and better ways to operate is often removed, and basic logic supports the argument that they will be the ones to find superior ways to improve productivity.

Without leveraging the imagination, professional experience, entrepreneurial fire and ambition to grow beyond just being a cog in the business wheel, as the demand for new business solutions to be developed, tested and implemented grows, those leaders who do not utilized their assets in this manner are destined to be left behind.

Call To Intrapreneurial Action

Acceptance of this reality by business leaders has led to a plethora of improvements, new companies and significant advancements in both technology and normal human existence. However, it ultimately falls upon those with ideas to strap on the entrepreneurial spirit, take the time to define their idea with logic not emotion, and approach leaders inside the company with confidence about how their idea can provide competitive advantage and ROI.

So consider this a call to action for both business executives and those with great ideas coupled with true ambition. Open your minds to the opportunities staring you in the face on both sides. Reward ambition. Subjugate ego. Make a difference. Outthink the competition together. The sky’s the limit!

Becoming A Leader Through Failure

The ability to lead is forged in the fire of failure.

Try saying that fast three times.

We’ve all heard sayings like that and most of us, just as I did in my early days as an entrepreneur, rebut them with things like “I will learn from their mistakes” and “I will see things like X coming”.

While it’s true you can learn from the past mistakes of others, and if you’re paying attention can anticipate many issues, there will always be things that happen outside your bubble of control. How you respond to them is what enables you to achieve success, and ultimately what forges a real leader.

But What Is Failure?

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. – C. S. Lewis

It’s often viewed as closing the doors to your business, or for startups not getting backed by investors. Are those “big” failures? Of course they are and there is plenty you can learn from them, but in reality we fail at things on a daily basis. Not closing a deal, messing up a relationship, not doing our best and coming in second. The list of “micro-failures” could go on and on, but micro or macro, they are still failures we can learn from.

It’s important that we learn from these and don’t just wait for a big one that requires massive emotional upheaval to force change. To that end I’d like to address a two examples of personal failure, one micro and one macro and what I’ve learned from them.

Failure To Communicate

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure. – Abraham Lincoln

This is one of my greatest failures. Which is ironic given that I am a public speaker, have been very successful in business development, grown multiple companies, employed over 100 people, and the ability to connect is one of my greatest strengths.

However, responding to requests promptly is by far my biggest flaw. Whether it be email, phone calls, texts. Sometimes I’m an instant communicator, sometimes it takes me a week to get back with you. Very often it’s not that I can’t respond, it’s that I let my mind zip off in a million directions and forget to remind myself to respond.

When I had a business full of employees, I would spend so much time bringing in business and responding to clients that I wasn’t addressing issues inside the company. Thankfully I had a partner that handled a lot of the internal drama, but very often I was finding out about things after the fact.

What I Learned

Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.
Morihei Ueshiba

After getting angry about not being informed of things going on inside my company, it dawned on me to just take time and have conversations with my team.

I began to make it a point to have a conversation with a different employee everyday, and find out about what was going on in their lives outside of work. This worked to different levels of success, but it enabled me to gain their trust, share ideas, and with quite a few of them build relationships that continue to this day. There are several that have become true friends, and would do anything I asked of them.

A leader is not a leader without those who will follow and do what they are asked without hesitate. But you are also not a leader unless you have the ability to gain trust and not just a have a pack of “yes men”.

While failure to communicate is something I still battle on a regular basis in context of emails and phone calls, my ability to connect with people, inspire trust, encourage innovation and help others expand their vision of life has grown exponentially.

Failure To Suppress Ego

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
John Wooden –

This one required a massive upheaval in my life.

While I’ve never been an obnoxious jerk talking down to people, my true failure came from the mindset of not recognizing that achieving your dream requires the help of others. This is an extraordinarily common train of thought for most entrepreneurs.

We’re out there to win, make big things happen, and it’s get on the train or get out of my way. It’s very easy to have this mindset in the early stages of leadership. Fewer responsibilities, not too many employees, and the energy of youth.

In my case, it took near death to realize my own limitations. I went from riding high to the depths of despair in a very short period of time.

Before having a massive brain hemorrhage I had a near perfect memory. Not that I always used it correctly, but I could recall conversations verbatim. Suddenly this was gone.

Strategies, client contact information, next steps in different projects, gone. Not wiped completely from my memory but I couldn’t recall them. Thankfully over time my memory has returned close to it’s former capacity, but at that time it was a significant hurdle to overcome.

What I Learned

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. – Napoleon Hill

As the world I had built for myself began to crumble, the realization that refusing to suppress my ego and bring others in to support my role in the company was a massive failure. The reality that your world can change at a moments notice became very apparent, and ironically my failure to communicate had additional ramifications.

As a leader, it is very likely you have been gifted a variety of areas, and when it comes time to turn over responsibilities to others it can be very difficult. You feel like it will get done better if you do it, that they just need to catch up, how can this possibly be hard to figure out etc.

While this may be true in the short term, in the long term it will come back to bite you.

It Doesn’t Take A Comeback

I don’t know what leadership is. You can’t touch it. You can’t feel it. It’s not tangible. But I do know this, you recognize it when you see it. – Bob Ehrlich

The point of this article is to inspire others to learn from their mistakes, but not rely on massive failures that require a comeback from nothing. In truth, you can learn more from the mistakes made on a daily basis than the big ones.

Sure the big ones can make a bigger impact, but they are also more difficult to overcome. If you build a track record of recognizing your weaknesses as a leader and doing something about it, over time your confidence will expand.

When the big decisions come, issues outside your control arise or suddenly your own abilities are reduced, if you have successfully become a leader, those who follow you will be there. They will help you overcome roadblocks and rise to a whole new level of leadership.

So does becoming a leader require failure? Absolutely. But what is your definition of it?

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel

3 Things About Raising Capital That Piss Me Off

Raising capital is ridiculously complicated and incredibly frustrating.

Anyone who has gone through it will tell you this. Heck, investors admit it. Thank you SEC for finally allowing equity crowdfunding. Fingers crossed you won’t over regulate it, and make that insanely complicated as well.

Before going into the 4 things I’m currently annoyed about, let me preface this with the following: I have built 5 companies without a dime of investor capital, been an investor myself, been a vendor for investors, and have personal relationships with quite a few angel investors. I have voiced all of these frustrations on a regular basis to them.

I also don’t want this rant to appear to be from someone who is mad about being turned down for investment. While I’m using personal experiences for examples, I have witnessed these and others happen to quite a few startups. My frustration with this is what led me to invest time and personal capital in several companies over the last 3 years.

Annoyance Number 1 – Needing To Making Up Projected Revenue Numbers

A while back I went on a road show for a venture I was involved in. We had a finished product, revenue, had bootstrapped it well beyond the need for seed capital, and were ready for scale.

We put together a fantastic deck, pitch videos, and the ROI projections were very reasonable. With our revenue model we literally needed .001% of our target market to be a $20 million company with a 75% profit margin. Recurring revenue model, and that .001% equaled about 6,500 customers. So not a massive undertaking to reach the initial goals.

After the first pitch, the head of the investment group pulled me aside and recommended that I increase my revenue projects and said:

Fudge the numbers and make it look ridiculously attractive, it doesn’t matter if you’re lying.

I was marginally stunned about this and thought he was joking. Nope. Dead serious.

Now I was faced with both a business and moral dilemma, do I lie on the front end and hope an investor will bite, while also setting myself up for backlash with unreasonable projections, or do I stick with reality and pray someone will invest.

I went with option 2 and let’s just say it didn’t turn out well. We got to watch companies that needed significantly more capital to get started, had lower profit margins, and had much longer timelines for ROI successfully raise money. All while we weren’t able to close the round.

Annoyance Number 2 – Not Listening To Your Answers

This one really fired me up.

At the first stop on the road show, a concern was raised when I outlined the industries we wanted to target. Several investors thought we wanted to go after 6 markets simultaneously. I clarified to them that wasn’t the case. We just wanted to showcase that the opportunity of scale was reasonable, and that we were thinking big picture.

However, to avoid that being a roadblock in the future we made pitch modifications to account for it. Both in the deck itself and during the pitch, a very strong caveat was issued that Industry A was the one we were targeting, the others weren’t going to be touched until well down the line.

Come Q&A time after the pitch, the question was asked if we were going to go after all these markets at the same time. Answer again – not anytime soon. Down the road. Only after dominating the first one.

Fast forward to the answer on the ask. No.

Key objection. You guys want to go after to many markets to fast.

(this one ended up being acquired later on – zero capital raised)

Annoyance Number 3 – Ignoring Low Risk Investments & Backing Small Market, Ludicrously Expensive Ones

This example is from a couple of years ago, and I’ve since seen quite a few similar ones.

A technology company I was a consultant for had an incredible opportunity to seize market share. By opportunity I mean a federal regulation had just been issued requiring the target market to buy this type of healthcare software or face a 5% gross revenue penalty.

84% of the market was currently controlled by 3 companies. Market research had returned 67% of potential customers were looking for alternatives to existing options, a giant list of competitive advantages, and all we were looking for was marketing capital to scale. Just over $1 million of personal capital by the founders had been invested to build, test, and prove market viability.

To generate $50 million a year in recurring revenue they would need to grab 2% market share.

This venture was immediately rebuffed by investors, while a company that needed $47 million and 5 years just to go to market was funded instantly. By instantly I mean commitment was made by multiple investors on the spot.

Now that wasn’t my cause of frustration. There are plenty of great ideas needing that amount of time and capital. What blew my mind was the entire potential market was $100 million. Even more mind boggling was a profit margin of only 20%. Mathematically it would be almost impossible to gain reasonable ROI, and the capital risk was huge.

(never raised of dollar of investment capital and is now doing $6 million a year)

Annoyance Number 4 – Easier To Raise Big Money Than Small

Angel investor or Venture Capitalist, I’ve never understood why you would want to risk larger sums of money than smaller ones. It really doesn’t make sense.

If you only expect 1 in 10 investments to provide ROI, then to me it’s logical to reduce the initial capital outlay, and if need be invest more down the line. That however isn’t how it’s done. Raising $500k is incredibly difficult, but needing several million opens a lot of doors.

As technology advances, outsourcing lowers cost, and ability to market test is growing tremendously. This has led to a reduction in the amount of capital needed to grow a company.

So with this being reality, why aren’t investors increasing the number of smaller gambles, rather than chasing the proverbial unicorns? To mix metaphors, why would you put all your eggs in one basket, when for the same capital risk you could have 10?

On the flip side, if you can’t justify needing huge investment, then you can’t raise it. This circles back around to my earlier annoyance in needing to make up numbers to justify investment.

Annoyance Number 5 – Needing A Full “Team”

CEO. CFO. CMO. CTO. COO. Plus a few other C** roles for good measure and why not add in 5 big name advisers and a few strategic partners.

This seems to be what investors are looking for these days, but if you’re looking for early stage investment capital it’s A) unlikely you’ve been able to secure all of these in anything other than name, and B) there are plenty of resources out there that can service these roles in the short-mid term and significantly reduce the amount of capital needed.

For example, there is a great company called Conserv here in Nashville that can offer you a CFO and accounting services all under one roof. But since they are a third party vendor, and not on your cap table, questions immediately arise about needing to fill that role.

If in the short-mid term you can remove the need for $300-400k in salaries by outsources different services, save equity options for the future, and in reality have access to additional resources for less expense, why is this seen by a lot of investors as a risk, versus a smart use of their money?

Rant Summation

Hopefully this hasn’t been taken as a complete evisceration of investors.

There are plenty of forward thinking investors being very progressive in the risks they take. When it’s their money on the line, it’s ultimately their prerogative in what they invest in and how often. I know this on a very small scale with my investments compared to the “real” investors.

That said, I truly hope these kinds of issues can become mitigated in the future. The need for seed and scale capital is never ending, and the number of people willing to risk entrepreneurship is falling.

Without a significant rise in the number businesses starting and growing to replace the ones shutting down, our economic issues are going to continue to exacerbate.

So to investors reading this, please don’t hate me.

For entrepreneurs needing to raise capital, don’t let this rant cause trepidation.

You must approach entrepreneurship without fear, and be willing to accept rejection without losing your drive to succeed. You will experience ups and downs every day you are a business owner. It’s part of the responsibility.

Now get out there. Take risk. Don’t be afraid of rejection. Live the American Dream. We only have one life to live. Go make the most of it!

Success Requires Overcoming Emotional Life Upheaval

All of us go though times of emotional upheaval. Whether it be losing a business, losing a job, being betrayed by those close to you, divorce or breakup, health issues; the list goes on and on.

In the last 2 years, I’ve experienced all of these, and while it is very easy to look back and wish things were different, I would like to share a few of these and what I’ve learned through experience, and encourage others to get up and keep going!

Health Problems – Why ME!

When we face unexpected health problems, its very easy to become depressed, feel sorry for yourself, and ask the “why me” question.

Two years ago, in one phone call I found out it was a miracle to be alive. I was having a massive brain hemorrhage, and had to have emergency brain surgery. While laying in ICU I found out that hemorrhages the size of mine had a 98% fatality rate.

Ironically, before surgery I had no fear, but after surgery my main concern was would I ever be what I was before? While I’m truly blessed to have no cognitive deficient, my level of energy has not returned to the levels it was before. To this day I have moments of acceptance that I’m not quite what I once was, and have to accept my limitations.

Have there been moments of depression wondering why this happened? Absolutely! Have I asked “why did this happen to me”? You bet! Have I felt sorry for myself? More than once!

What Did I Learn?

Having my sense of immortality ripped away put life in a completely different perspective. Am I still an extremely driven entrepreneur. You better believe it. I’m currently involved in 3 different ventures, Ideashares, TrustedResponse, and Serious Startups.

But what I learned was simple. Focus your life on influencing those around you in a positive way, and what are the best ways to use your time. This can be on a personal level or business, but it’s vital you realize the impact you have on others is worth more than money.

This is not to say you shouldn’t make money and strive for success. In reality, it becomes easier to make money in business if your mind is focused on solving problems for those around you. This could be for your job, startup, or personal relationships.

Losing A Business

In fairness, the business didn’t fail, but there was doubt by partners that I would ever be what I was after surgery. This led to disagreement and ultimately selling my stake.

Having put my heart and soul into building that company, it was a truly devastating life changing event. Was I worried about pay bills? No. But what to do with myself, and what I wanted to do next weighed heavily me. The next six months was spent trying to figure out who I was, and more importantly, who I wanted to be.

It is very common to become defined by what we do professionally. When things change dramatically, you can feel lost and begin to question your value. I faced this question many times while battling depression. On the outside I was moving forward with a new venture, but internally I hadn’t recovered emotionally.

What Did I Learn?

After hitting a very low point emotionally about a year after my surgery, it took baring my soul to people I greatly respected, and asking their advice. What surprised me was their openness and help to get back on track emotionally, and how many of them had gone through similar emotional upheavals in life. Suddenly I realized it was totally normal to be feeling down.

Putting up a facade and acting like everything is OK is normal, but if you’re going through serious trials, don’t be afraid to talk with others and ask for help!

Betrayed By Those You Trust

I’m not going to talk about what happened specifically, but while getting back on my feet and taking several large financial gambles, people I trusted to help build a new future stabbed me in the back. This resulted in a significant loss of money, but more importantly a serious emotional scar.

What I Learned

It’s amazing how so many people are consumed by the here and now, and don’t look at the big picture of what success truly means. This often leads to only looking out for themselves, and when money is involved compromise their principles.

However, there are people out there who share values, appreciate who you are as a person, and share similar dreams. It’s just a matter of opening yourself up, sharing who you are as a personal and what you want to achieve. When you do this you’ll be amazed at the doors that will open and relationships that will be forged.

You Can’t Change The Past

The most important thing I’ve learned in the last two years is that it’s pointless to feel sorry for myself, or waste time wishing I had made different decisions.

Of course it will take time to overcome these types of problems, we’re only human after all. But the key to success and basic happiness is appreciating the opportunities we have ahead of us, not dwelling on what we can’t change.

We only have one life to live, and every second that goes by is one we will never have again. We must learn from the past, but be focused on the future!

This is what I have learned. What will you do?

How Honest Feedback In Your Startup Can Lead to a Happier Team

This interview was conducted by Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice. They provide expert comparisons on the best hr software, strategic employee engagement software, innovative employee programs, and much more.

Claire Lew just wants people to become happier at work, so much so that she started a company to make that happen. KnowYourCompany.com has helped businesses like Kickstarter and Airbnb learn more about their employees. Lew talked about her company and a simple way to increase happiness at work while being interviewed at Converge FL.

When asked about a recent interview she did with The Iron Yard’s Gio Difeterici, Lew elaborated on a key point she made in that video: the success of a business lies within the success, and even the happiness, of its people. More than worrying about its products, services, competition, or customers, a business ought to concern itself with engaging its employees. When such a focus occurs, the rest should take care of itself.

The Art of Truthful Feedback

One of the ways she believes companies can help engender a happier atmosphere is by learning how to offer better feedback. Such feedback doesn’t sugarcoat the truth; rather, it delivers constructive criticism in a thoughtful manner. Lew said that the following three questions can help any worker, whether a manager or an employee, learn how to provide better feedback that solves problems without sacrificing employee morale.

What result do I want to see occur?
Know the ultimate result you want to see happen after offering your feedback. Without clearly knowing what outcome you want to see, getting the person who needs the feedback to also see the goal will be difficult.
How should the other person feel?
Lew smartly encourages people by ensuring that she talks about the problem, not the person. In other words, she’s careful to use phrases like “This is what the company means” or “From my perspective.” By doing that, she removes the focus from an employee’s skills or personality and onto the issue at hand. This makes the person feel empowered to actually make the change being requested.
What obstacles are in the way?
Such obstacles could be many in number, but they must be addressed before getting to a viable solution. For instance, if an employee always displays defensiveness when getting feedback, that hurdle has to be overcome before any real solutions to the problem at hand can be discovered.

Cheesin' at my first podcast interview with @ClarkBuckner @Technology_Adv in sunny Jacksonville #ConvergeFL! pic.twitter.com/CB8X0cET2S

— Claire Lew (@cjlew23) November 7, 2014

When giving feedback, Lew said that “you just have to be relentless about wanting to tell the truth, and you have to believe that it does no good to hold the truth it.”

While providing feedback can oftentimes be challenging, especially from one co-worker to another, utilizing Lew’s tips can help you give feedback that’s both helpful and increasing both you and your co-worker’s happiness.

To learn how your company might increase its employee happiness, visit KnowYourCompany.com or email claire[at]knowyourcompany.com. She can also be contacted on Twitter at @cjlew23 or @knowyourcompany.

***

This interview was provided by TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company that connects buyers and sellers of business technology through meaningful relationships. Interview conducted by Clark Buckner.

EP16: John Lee Dumas Pitches The Freedom Journal, Then Pitch Of The Dokiwatch For Kids

Download | Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher

Entrepreneur on Fire Host John Lee Dumas pitches his new journal for startups, and we hear a great pitch of the Dokiwatch for kids!

7 Stocking Stuffers for the Serial Entrepreneur

Maybe it’s the health of my two boys, maybe it’s the sparkly lights and inescapable sound of sleigh bells…maybe it’s the hot buttered rum (hiccup!). Whatever the cause, I’m feeling particularly generous this holiday season and am going to give you some entrepreneurial coaching for free. Stop worrying about what to buy your clients, employees, or investors. Here are seven fantastic items you, or the serial entrepreneurs and startups in your life, need now. As a serial founder, entrepreneurial coach, and an avowed tech junkie, each product below has been used, abused, and approved by moi.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a MUST for any entrepreneur, and really any manager who wants to work more effectively in an innovative organizational culture. Full of practical advice and case studies, Eric Ries creates a blueprint for allocating resources as efficiently as possible, suggests actionable ways to avoid product failures, and science-based methods to thoughtfully evaluate whether to persevere or to pivot. There is truly no better guide to improve the odds of a startup’s success. Furthermore, you’re going to need the vocabulary in this book to converse with other ‘treps, so get it!
Google Apps. I have founded dozens of startup companies with only Google Apps as my IT infrastructure (literally). Google Apps for Work provides a variety of Google’s web productivity tools at a price point that is affordable for even the smallest budget. Since it your domain name, each application within the suite (Gmail, Google Calendar, Hangouts, Drive, Docs, Sites, etc.) is independently customizable to put your best collaborative (and branded) foot forward.
LastPass. I refer to the years before I started using LastPass as the Dark Ages. Just think of all the time I wasted trying to remember every single login and password (or, gasp, using the same password on every site)! LastPass Password Manager is a convenient program to help you keep all of your login information secure without having to memorize it. I create really long, esoteric passwords for all my accounts and use the Share feature to share them with my Virtual Assistant (see #5 below). Delegation with security is a critical feature of my productivity.
Freshbooks. If you want to make money (and you do), you have to bill your clients. Freshbooks does this easier and better than any other. There are a lot of online invoicing services out there, but none provide such ease of use on the important tactical tasks like invoicing and expense billing. I love the thing, especially on mobile. Sure it can create customized invoices and quotes, but the real genius of Freshbooks is in the extensibility. Don’t believe me? Here’s what Kathy Yakal at PCMag.com thinks, “Besides a host of add-ons, it integrates data with sites like Outright (Free, 3 stars). It incorporates time-tracking and support tickets, and it lets you upload documents to a shared area, something competitors don’t do. Basically, it does everything that everyone else does, and a lot more. Multiple subscription levels are available, ranging from free (three clients, unlimited invoices) to $39.95/month (unlimited clients and invoices).” You’ll want to pay for it just to get recurring invoices which saves a ton of time. Being able to see who owes you money, who has viewed your invoices, and quickly being able to mark who has paid is awesome. The graphs of your revenue are great, too.
A Virtual Assistant. Without Ellen, my Virtual Assistant (VA), I would be a hamster stuck endlessly running in my wheel. Sure I’d be working hard, but I wouldn’t be getting anywhere. Virtual assistants are particularly well-suited for startup CEOs and serial founders because they’re easily reachable and are paid only for time spent on task; talk about using resources efficiently! With virtual assistants there is no overhead: no office space, no benefits to cover, no sticky HR policies, and on. I interviewed seven different agencies and went with Worldwide101.com. Check ‘em out and decrease your workload as a gift to yourself! I’m not kidding — Ellen pays my bills, orders clothing for my kids, and schedules all of my meetings. It saves me TONS of time and doesn’t break the bank. Do it!
A sit/stand desk for better ergonomics. If you’ve paid any attention to health news over the last few years, you’ve by no doubt heard that sitting day in and day out at a desk is more detrimental to your health than smoking cigarettes. Fortunately, even if you need to be tethered to your computer for your business to be successful, there is something you can do. About two years ago I bought a sit/stand desk and have never looked back. It’s pricey but it’s amazing. I can crank the desk up and down and I have multiple monitors for making my work easy to see. I’m the envy of the office.
Voxer. Back in the day, I admired the direct connect capability of Nextel phones, but man was that beep annoying! Enter Voxer. Voxer is a push to talk (PTT) free app for your smartphone that improves team communication, regardless of whether your crew goes iPhone, Droid, or Galaxy. Voxer offers its trademark walkie talkie function, but also includes a text function, a group chat (perfect for telling multiple people you’re running late), and the ability to save those walkie talkie audio messages for later listening (on the Pro plan). Have a colleague who can’t help herself from dropping the eff bomb (mine is a consultant living way up in Maine)? No worries. You can opt to disable the speakerphone function so you only listen to audio messages like a phone call. The ability to do asynchronous voice communication has saved me so much time and effort. It’s perfect for remote teams.

Why Should Your Company Adopt Social CRM?

The following summary is from TechnologyAdvice, a free website service saving small business owners time on finding the right crm lead management software, marketing automation tools, SaaS platforms and much more.

In this Business Technology Whiteboard video session, TechnologyAdvice Content Manager Zach Watson covers the basics of Social Customer Relationship Management, or Social CRM. He outlines why all companies should care about Social CRM and the three general methods that companies employ when using social media as a customer relationship management tool.

Traditionally, CRM refers to collecting prospects’ data in order to better target them so as to get them into a sales funnel and move them toward a purchase. Social CRM is a bit different because on social media the customer, rather than the company, controls the conversation. Of the millions of social media users in the U.S., 90 percent expect brands to have a social media profile. The ones that leverage Social CRM the best are those that respond and take a “customer-centric approach” to meeting their consumers’ needs.

Often, companies believe that posting marketing content on Facebook, Twitter, or the dozens of other social media channels is enough. Yet 60 percent of American social media users expect companies to interact with them through social media. Consequently, companies need to understand and deploy Social CRM tactics in order to be effective and successful in converting social media follow to real-world dollars.

Three Methods for Social CRM

Social CRM can be broken down into three broad categories:

Text Analytics and Social Media Monitoring – Using Social CRM software, a company can specify what keywords it wants to follow, whether that’s the name of its own product, the company name, or even their competitors’ names. The CRM tracks those keywords and alerts when the brand is mentioned online, allowing the company to see real-time reactions and quickly engage with social media users. Such online conversations help companies position themselves as experts in their field or as a helpful resource, as well as taking a proactive stance against negative feedback.
Paid Media – This CRM method is more traditional in nature, though it takes on a modern look when social media is included. By using the data it has accrued about its prospects, a company can pay Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to show highly targeted ads in users’ newsfeeds.
Granular Data – Lastly, Social CRM can take advantage of accruing granular data about consumers and their habits based on the company’s social media interactions with its customers. A company can add social interactions to its list of email and phone interactions in order to gather a more robust view of its customers.

Social CRM can be an invaluable tool in a marketer’s toolbox, providing a customer-centric approach that allows companies to get to know their customers on a one-to-one basis. Social CRM isn’t just software; it’s a methodology that all companies should put into practice on a consistent basis in order to better serve their customers.

9 Ways to Measure Your Branding

Group of Multiethnic Busy People Working in an Office

Question: How do you measure whether your branding efforts are working or not? What do you look for?

Using Fresh Web Explorer

“I measure our branding efforts explicitly with Fresh Web Explorer. I use it to track every mention of our brand and branded terms across the Web, including tweets, comments, forums, blogs, etc. It helps me discover conversations I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed, and it enables me to keep a pulse on the broader reach of our marketing campaigns.”

MATT EHRLICHMAN
Porch

Seeing Strangers Recognize Your Logo

“Branding is an important part in marketing because it means you’ve made a personal connection with your audience and inspired some level of longevity for your brand. It’s not just about a number, but rather the feeling you invoke in your target audience. They say that if you capture their hearts, you have them forever. You know this when strangers recognize your logo or company during conversation.”

ANDY KARUZA
SpotSurvey

Using Google Analytics

“We use Google Analytics to check our branded keywords and how they grow weekly, monthly, etc. It’s a good way to measure branding efforts to see how many times people are typing your brand into the search engine.”

PABLO PALATNIK
ShadesDaddy.com

Being Recognized

“It sounds simple, but the best way of knowing if your branding efforts are working is to ask someone to say (or spell) the name of your company. If fellow business colleagues, industry insiders or consumers can say or spell your company name correctly, then half of your battle is already won. Recognition is key to recall efforts.”

KIM KAUPE
ZinePak

Talking to People

“If people are likely to get on the phone with you when you reach out — or better yet, if they are coming to you — then your branding efforts are working. We’ve seen a huge change in the last year of businesses coming to us instead of us reaching out because of the articles we’ve published that build credibility for our brand. “

KELSEY MEYER
Influence & Co.

Asking for Feedback

“We directly ask our potential business partners and customer leads how they heard about us. I’m always asking for feedback on our creative work like mailers and infographics in every business-related meeting. It helps me to keep thinking about how to improve and open the conversation to learn what branding efforts other businesses are pursuing. “

PHIL LABOON
Eyeflow Internet Marketing

Checking Your Conversion Rates

“If your conversion rates have increased, it can mean that the same visitors who have never purchased before are now excited to get to know your product or service. Branding helps soft sell to potential customers who weren’t ready to make a purchase initially but might give your business a chance after repeated exposure. If your conversion rates go up, your branding efforts are not in vain.”

DANNY WONG
Blank Label

Tracking Leads

“We keep a very close eye on our metrics — particularly lead gen. If our subscribers, opt-ins and sales are increasing, we know that we’re doing a good job promoting our brand. We are particularly interested in tracking referrals from clients because we are intensely focused on providing excellent customer service. If our clients are referring friends, we know that we’re doing a great job.”

PATRICK CONLEY
Automation Heroes

Seeing Company Growth

“We help our clients assess branding efforts through seeing increased leads, higher lead conversion rates, faster close rates, higher paying customers and overall company growth. If you aren’t hitting all four cylinders, get some outside expertise to help you!”

RAOUL DAVIS
Ascendant Group

5 Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make On Social Media

You’ve been hard at work all day on your startup; chatting with investors and developing a marketing campaign. You finally have a couple minutes to yourself and decide to log in into your social media outlets to post a status about your shiny new venture. Next thing you know, you’re completing BuzzFeed quizzes and cursing silently at your friends who just got back from vacation in Hawaii. Does this distraction validate all the naysayers who claim that entrepreneurs shouldn’t be on social media?

Absolutely not.

While it’s easy to get distracted or even depressed while browsing through a news feed, social media is an incredible resource for entrepreneurs. And what better way to communicate nowadays than through social platforms?

The problem then isn’t in the game, it’s the player. From investing time in the wrong platforms to over sharing, you can make many mistakes when it comes to your social presence. To help, I’ve outlined five things every entrepreneur should stop doing on social media.

1. Focusing on Your Past Accomplishments

We know that you’re proud of your past accomplishments, but you don’t have to share every single feat with all of your peers throughout all of your social media outlets. While you may be excited about your achievements — whether it’s that perfect GPA, that time you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity, or the five previous startups you successfully launched — things are always better in moderation.

Instead of trying to constantly validate yourself, focus on the present and remember why you are on social media. Devote your time to mapping out a social media campaign for your current project so that it will lead you to future success.

2. Being Negative

To be brutally honest, no one wants to hear you complain. We all have those days; we all get sick; we all get frustrated and angry with something or someone. In other words, we all have problems and we don’t need our newsfeeds filled with negativity. That’s not saying that your nearest and dearest don’t care, it’s just that negative posts aren’t effective. In fact, studies have found that positive posts on Facebook are more influential and contagious — which is what you want on social media.

On that note, you also shouldn’t share articles that bash your competition or are overly political. By doing so, you’re automatically eliminating a good portion of your followers as most people don’t want to read political rhetoric or anything that opposes a brand for which they may also feel loyalty.

3. Too Much Talking, Not Enough Listening

It’s widely accepted that social media is a conversation; the whole point of being on social media is engaging with other people. Unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs are only on social media to talk rather than listen. Instead of just pushing your business, take a couple of minutes every day to find out what’s going on with your followers and engage them. For example, if someone just got a promotion, acknowledge that major accomplishment. This shows that there is a real person behind your account who actually cares about the people who are supporting their up and coming business.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be promoting your business at all. It’s just shouldn’t be all of the time. As a general rule, make sure that four out of every five communications on social media are non-sales or business posts. That doesn’t mean that your posts can’t be relevant to your field. They should just be content your followers can enjoy and engage with, like an infographic, video or list.

4. Not Taking Advantage of Tools

Did you know that there are a lot of great tools available that can optimize your social media accounts? If you did, why aren’t you using them?

For example, there are free or reasonably priced tools that can perform analytics. This is important because it can inform you which posts have gotten the most feedback, as well as show feedback from your followers. This can be a great way to test ideas without investing a lot of resources into research. While social media may not be the best way to perform high-level market research, it’s a start. It can give you some insight into the wants and needs of your customers.

Furthermore, there are tools that can schedule posts, create graphs and track your growth. Since there are so many options out there, we suggest that you check out these eight.

5. Promoting Multiple Things At Once

While I understand that there are literally a million things running through your mind (since “adults with ADHD are 300 percent more likely to be entrepreneurs”) you shouldn’t promote more than one business at a time. People will get confused. Instead, put all of your energy into the product or service that is ready to go. Once that’s been identified, plan and market only that product or service.

Although ADHD can be an awesome trait for an entrepreneur to have, it doesn’t exactly translate well on social media. So focus on just one venture in order to be clear and not confuse the market.

Improving the way you interact on social media can not only lessen your likelihood of distraction, but also enhance your business. Have you noticed any other social media mishaps from your fellow entrepreneurs?

An entrepreneur and connector, John Rampton is the founder of Palo Alto, California-based Host, a hosting company specializing in helping businesses with hosting their website for free, for life.

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.

The Startup Cult is Redefining Success (And Not in a Good Way)

I often joke about the “startup cult” spreading across the world.

The coolness of entrepreneurship is on the rise, but so much of it is compartmentalized into just raising capital, getting some PR and having “founder” as your job title. Not he true nature of being a business owner, leader, and innovative thinker that is required to be truly successful.

While there are amazing organizations all over the world helping startups, sometimes is seems like many of them exist to salve egos, take advantage of wantrapreneurs, and look good on paper from an economic development perspective.

Accelerators and incubators are popping up everywhere, but with so many of the hardships of launching a company accounted for – seed capital, office space, mentors, business networks etc – why is the success rate of these companies not significantly higher than those bootstrapping? What truly is success?

Enter Startup Cult

The vast majority of businesses will never exceed $1 million in yearly revenue, and most currently operating were started with $5,000 or less.

The startup cult I’m talking about encourages and teaches entrepreneurs to raise capital and chase the billion dollar unicorn, but much less attention is spent on how to actually operate a business. Few people want to learn about how to deal with cash flow issues, employee politics, horrible clients, partnership conflict and so on.

Looking back at a decade of serial entrepreneurship, the hardships, rewards and disappointments, it disturbs me to see so many founders obsessed with, and feeling euphoric when, they raise capital. Not getting clients, not achieving growth goals or even making a profit, but getting investors to write them a check.

While a select few will become founders of legend, most will fail and some will become successful on a smaller scale.

What Is Success?

Don’t for a second think I’m saying you don’t have a billion dollar idea, or not to chase the dream. What I’m saying is there are tons of great small business ideas, and just because you “only” turn it into a million dollar company doesn’t mean you failed.

In reality the average household in America makes $54,000 a year with two incomes. Make $100,000 and you’re in the top 10%.

While in the short term it might not be as cool as chasing a billion dollar idea, in reality you have much greater probability of building a $1, 2, 3 million dollar company in a fraction of the time needed to raise capital, get to market, grow, and maybe have an IPO. Is the potential ROI massive, of course it is, but is it smarter to go for the single or double versus a home run?

This goes back to what truly is success? Is it making enough money you’re not worried about paying bills, having freedom to make your own schedule, spend time with family and friends, watch your children grow up, see the world, make a difference?

Or is it being one of the few with more money than you know what to do with, and going down as the Steve Jobs of your era?

What Does Success Mean To You?

It may seem like I’m saying you shouldn’t apply to an accelerator, that entrepreneur centers are a waste of time, not to raise capital or swing for the fences. Nothing could be further from the truth. The point of this article is to inspire entrepreneurs to look at life from a different perspective, and define what success means to them.

This is something you need to think about and let it become a serious foundation of your life. There are many ways to make a difference and to become successful.

Happiness and satisfaction with life is controlled by your own personal definition of success. What is yours?