9 Things You Should Be Doing Daily If You Want to Be More Successful in Business
9 Things You Should Be Doing Daily If You Want to Be More Successful in Business.
Always continue learning.
Know you can always learn new things and add habits (like reading industry publications) that support that mentality into your routine.
My industry, public relations, is one that moves fast.
It means I see trends before they happen, giving me a head start on others in the industry and giving my clients a competitive edge.
Starting something risky often means getting told “no” countless times.
Entrepreneurs, on the other hand learn from every “no,” refine their tactics and persevere.
People discover products and services through referrals.
Relationships are all that matter to me in business, and the key to building relationships is to be of service and lead with generosity.
Every morning, I plan out the top five tasks I want to accomplish that day, and categorize them from high to low priority.
Airbnb raises $1B, no IPO plans ‘anytime soon’
SAN FRANCISCO — Airbnb has raised more than $1 billion at a valuation of about $31 billion, helping the home-rental company put off an initial public offering.
A person familiar with the details who was not authorized to discuss them publicly said Airbnb has no plans to go public “anytime soon.”
Airbnb also turned a profit on an operating basis in the second half of 2016 and anticipates it will continue to be profitable before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, the person said.
Airbnb makes money by taking a 3% cut of each booking and a 6% to 12% service fee from guests.
With the cash infusion, Airbnb can press forward with it global expansion.
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky recently embarked on six-city tour: London, New York, Cape Town, New Delhi, Beijing and Shanghai.
Since launching in 2008, Airbnb has raised more than $3 billion.
Last fall Airbnb raised about $555 million as part of its “F” funding round.
The round was “oversubscribed,” the person said.
Since its launch in 2008, Airbnb has raised more than $3 billion.
If, Like Many Others, You’re Hesitating About Going Public, Scale This Way Instead.
The American business trend of building out to an eventual IPO (initial public offering) is changing: Companies such as Uber, which Fortune ranked No.
Some public companies have even rescinded their public offerings and returned to private ownership.
Having worked with both publicly traded and private companies, I’ve seen stark differences in each type’s interactions with consumers and decision-making processes.
If your goal, like mine, is to remain private but continue to grow, here are three tips for creating an effective succession plan: 1.
Choose someone who understands your mission and the pitfalls of going public — maybe a family member or a trusted long-time co-worker.
Rotate this person through all parts of the organization to develop a comprehensive understanding of day-to-day challenges.
Raise debt, not capital, to increase market share and money.
Before going to a lender, you need to know why you need the money, be able to articulate what you’re trying to achieve, estimate how much the loan will cost and be able to predict how much profit you can expect in return.
After going public, Groupon shifted its focus from helping small businesses promote their products to pleasing its investors.
And join the 42 percent of private companies saying no to IPOs.
VC Funding’s Gender Gap Is Hurting the Marketplace
VC Funding’s Gender Gap Is Hurting the Marketplace.
The VC decision-makers.
Female-led startups face an uphill battle to inspire confidence and win investors.
They’re also assumed to be less inclined toward the hyperconfidence and self-promotion often associated with success.
Reports such as the 2015 Kauffman Index: Startup Activity suggest female entrepreneurs are the most adept at perceiving and capitalizing on market opportunities.
It’s widely recognized that if female entrepreneurs could leverage the same opportunities as their male counterparts, the job market and economy as a whole would see enormous benefits.
Female entrepreneurs in high-growth sectors have a wide range of accelerators from which to choose.
In addition, numerous networking organizations exist to connect women to investors.
For example, Women’s Venture Capital Fund concentrates on digital media, sustainable products and services.
These new platforms and organizations — accelerators, networking groups and VC firms alike — all are crucial to help female entrepreneurs access the human and financial resources they need to launch and grow their businesses.
Why Women Entrepreneurs Have a Harder Time Finding Funding
Additionally, loan approval rates for female entrepreneurs is 15 to 20 percent less than it is for men.
Here are the top reasons why women entrepreneurs have a harder time obtaining investments and loans.
There is an issue with the profile of a successful entrepreneur.
In the venture capital world, where 89 percent of investors are male, women entrepreneurs are getting overlooked for funding in favor of giving the money to men with whom they share a connection (think same college fraternity, hometown, friend’s brother, etc.).
Eleven percent of venture capitalists are women, and firms with female partners often invest in female-run startups at a higher rate.
However, black females only obtain 0.2 percent of venture capital investment dollars.
Kathryn Finney, a black female entrepreneur who started the highly successful blog Budget Fashionista, said, “I actually had a [venture capitalist] tell me that he didn’t do the black woman thing.” Finney, like many others, has run into the discrimination underlying venture capital funding.
Investors, lenders and other financial firms need greater education on the potential of women to improve the business world.
It’s clear investors need greater awareness on how discrimination only gets in the way of opportunity and progress for others as well as themselves.
The number of women-owned firms has grown 68 percent since 2007, much higher than the national average of 47 percent.
How to Set Up and Maintain Your Business Entity
How to Set Up and Maintain Your Business Entity.
In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Mark Kohler discusses the importance of setting up your business entity properly. “It’s not just one sheet of paper.
[It’s not just] online, click, click, click, I’ve got my LLC .
You need to have bylaws, or an operating agreement.
You need to have minutes and a corporate book — and that’s even with an LLC.”
Click play to see how proper financial preparation can save you from headaches later.
Watch more videos from Mark J. Kohler on his YouTube channel.
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Don’t Be Boring: 3 Tips to Trying New Marketing Techniques
I have no talent when it comes to painting or drawing.
And, the experience didn’t improve either — I had no more talent or interest when I finished than when I started.
I got an A (I’m sure it was mostly an “A for Effort” sort of thing, but I took the grade anyway).
It’s so easy for us to keep doing what we are already good at.
It’s our job as marketers to keep up with that change, which means we’re forever doing things we’ve never done before.
Good marketing begins and ends with your customers, and most marketers don’t talk to them enough.
How you react to that information will force you into new marketing techniques to keep your customers coming back.
Experiment with new forms like short-form video or animated gifs to see if they’ll spark more engagement.
How do I stay motivated to keep experimenting?
I kept that oil painting of my family dog, and it hangs in my office as a constant reminder.
Here’s What 2016 Taught Us About Content Marketing and SEO
Good news first: The big story of content marketing in 2016 is that content marketers were considerably more effective than they were even one year earlier, with 62 percent of B2B content marketers and 63 percent of B2C content marketers report that they were “somewhat more successful” or “much more successful” than they were one year ago.
Most content marketers report that they were more successful with their content marketing in 2016 than in prior years.
How to apply this: Get a mobile friendly site.
Here’s data point #1: Email is the most widely-used channel for content promotion among B2B marketers.
Here’s how well they say this works: “Of those 40,000 people, 7,500 open the email and read what’s inside, and 1,800 people click through to the full article.
Content marketing works because if people trust you, when the time comes around that they need your product, they’ll think of your company first.
They’ll trust your marketing.
How to apply this: Be a trustworthy publisher.
User generated content may be content marketing 2.0.
Content marketing always has been – and always will be – about your audience.
10 Signs Your Startup Won’t Get Funded
The question of timing when it comes to raising outside money is a key consideration for most startups.
Many entrepreneurs will also do a friends and family round of financing to help the product concept gain maturity, and establish some initial customer traction before they seek outside financing from angel investors or venture capitalists (VCs).
Such people are typically not founders of the company and are compensated with some type of equity package; they may even be early investors in the company.
You can’t get investor meetings, or when you do — because you had a friend ask her investor friend a favor — they ask very few questions.
This usually indicates that you are either targeting the wrong investors or there was no interest, typically due to one of the reasons described above.
Before trying to raise money, develop a targeted list, and use your network to get meetings with the right investors.
You need to structure things in such a way that you build interest over time in your offerings.
Regardless, you should be meeting milestones during the fund-raising process.
Before attempting to raise any outside funding, make sure that your company is a suitable candidate to interest investors.
If you have a suitable company and a compelling business model, next make sure that you have a communication and marketing plan, along with a targeted list of investors.
10 Bootstrapping Tips to Turn Your Idea Into Reality
The real numbers are eye-opening: Venture capitalists (VCs) fund only 0.05 percent of startups, and angel investors are responsible for funding just 0.91 percent.
While this isn’t the conventional way to do it, it’s an example of entrepreneurs going to extremes to be 100 percent positive they had a winner before going all in.
Create a business model that produces quick revenue If you’re bootstrapping, you need to make sure your business model generates revenue quickly.
Handle your own public relations in the beginning Startups can benefit greatly from major media exposure in the beginning, but journalists and editors receive press kits from PR firms around the clock.
Allow them to unlock a discount coupon by sharing your website on social media, or create a branded hashtag and randomly select winners for prizes.
You can even share images of your customers using your product with a designated hashtag on the company social media pages.
Once you have positive cash flow and a proven business model, revamp your website.
The video went viral on social media and got more publicity than an actual commercial would have.
Monitor your cash daily — there’s no excuse for lazy accounting.
Bootstrapping a business isn’t an easy task.
5 Steps to Raise Startup and Expansion Capital
What is the one thing that stops many potential entrepreneurs from chasing their dreams?
Within 10 minutes I laid out a plan to help her raise the $20,000 she would need to start her business.
We quickly identified what value she can bring: knowledge and expertise in the hair industry.
After a few minutes of brainstorming Sarah and I found a small niche that she could target: people that are about to enroll in hair and beauty school.
If someone was willing to spend that kind of money on hair and beauty school, surely they would be willing to spend a few hundred dollars to be fully prepared when class begins.
So, Sarah put together a weekend “crash course” program designed to help students prepare for school.
Hustle to get those sales (and startup capital).
When we broke down her startup capital needs and then created a plan to raise those funds we determined that Sarah needed to attract 80 students that would pay her $250 for her course.
No business debt and Sarah gets to keep 100% of her business.
Lack of startup funds is the number one obstacle that prevents entrepreneurs from chasing their dreams — but it doesn’t have to be.
Making Your Pitch for VC Funding Means Facing a Very Tough Crowd
Making Your Pitch for VC Funding Means Facing a Very Tough Crowd.
Things are looking pretty bleak for startups trying to raise seed and A-round funding.
Networking is an integral part of building a startup in busy ecosystems like Silicon Valley, but less so in more ‘conservative’ business cultures in Europe.
This means contributing regularly, making connections, doing favors, getting involved, and generally giving more than you take if you want to be noticed by the right people.” said Dea Wilson, esteemed Silicon Valley networker and founder of Lithograph.
2015 saw the highest level of VC funding since the dot com boom, with more than $27.35 billion invested on private companies in the Bay Area alone.
But good things don’t last forever, and funding tapered off over the last three months of the year, suggesting investors were getting cold feet about investing in startups.
In the same way as investors are commonly looking past products at company’s vision and big missions, they are also looking under the hood at the team which drives the company.
“Interestingly enough, most investors focus on the team more than anything.
“They know that the idea might change, the market conditions might turn, etc.
For most growing companies, seed funding is essential to get turn their great ideas into realities, and gather a team which can push their product forward.
The New Model for Career Success in an Ever-Changing World
To ensure ongoing growth and career progression, tomorrow’s leaders must become more forward-thinking, resilient and able to improvise.
Feedback indicates that the new formula for career success is simple: Stay ahead of shifts in your industry by constantly broadening your experience and perspective.
Cultivate flexibility and resilience in your career.
Be purposeful and forward-thinking about the choices you make.
As a simple example, one successful marketing executive guards against career upheaval by taking smart risks.
To cement his ability to execute forward-thinking advertising and promotions strategies, he graduated to the role of VP of marketing and commercialization.
sidestep, into a position of equal rank and pay (into an organization that offers more opportunities for advancement) or take a backstep by moving backwards and accepting a less prestigious title or less pay (say, leaving a Fortune 500 business to work for a start-up for the chance to gain new skills or experience working in emerging markets).
Alternately, you can take a slingshot by making both a sidestep and a backstep while staying focused on your ultimate career target: When you apply the knowledge, experience and skills gained through these moves, you’ll leap far ahead.
As the concept of stretchwork (measured professional growth and expansion) illustrates, finding career success isn’t about instant gratification.
It’s about constantly building bridges to future opportunities.
4 Easy Ways to Help Women Succeed in Business
Clients, even if they are female, prefer to hire male consultants rather than female consultants.
Why don’t we support each other like men do in the old boys’ club?”
This helped everyone, both men and women, recognize the contribution coming from the woman who first proposed the idea.
Rather than just looking out for your own career, take time to find other women who are climbing up and reach out to help: Advocate for their promotions, mentor their careers or coach them through a life decision.
It can be as easy as a meeting every month to serve as an advocate for a fellow woman to discuss ideas on how to address situations at work, switching careers or pitching for promotions.
By posting or advertising services to friends via word-of-mouth, social media posting, writing blogs or engaging communities online, women can promote their products and businesses at lower cost with greater targeted impact than traditional mass advertising.
Whether it’s connecting women to other customers, consultants or coaches, we can all help in offering opportunities through referrals, networking and social media.
If a woman pitches an idea or sends you a deck, instead of dismissing it as an opportunity that you’re not interested in, how about meeting with her to discuss how the business opportunity or pitch could be improved?
“My passion to empower women and women-led organizations has driven me to use my expertise to offer one-on-one coaching to female entrepreneurs, pitch deck reviews and business consulting.
In these ways, we can all help a female colleague, consultant or entrepreneur take steps to rise up and build a successful business.
How to Become a Millionaire, Explained in 1 Minute
How to Become a Millionaire, Explained in 1 Minute.
On this episode, Entrepreneur Network partner Scott Duffy, host of Business & Burgers, says the most important factor in determining your business’s success is its environment. “You are nothing more,” says Duffey, “and nothing less than the average of the five people you spend the most time with .
.
so, if you want to build a million-dollar business, make sure those five people have built a million-dollar business.”
Watch the video to learn more.
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Click here to become a part of this growing video network.
9 Steps to Launching a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign
Share your story Let your potential funders know how your product or business idea can benefit them.
Set a funding goal If you’re launching your campaign on Kickstarter, be aware that it has an all-or-nothing funding model.
Promote your campaign There are many different ways to make people aware of your crowdfunding campaign.
Crowdfunding platforms generally have built-in tools that allow you to update your project backers and send messages to them.
Backers want to know that you can actually deliver on your project and the rewards you promised them.
Fulfill your promise Your crowdfunding campaign isn’t over if and when you reach your funding goals.
This means completing your project, delivering on your perks or rewards and making sure you’re communicating with your supporters every step of the way.
For a crowdfunded product to be successful — and for any product to be successful — people must believe that it can alleviate one of their pain points.
This is only possible if you have a firm grasp of what the entire manufacturing process will entail from start to finish — and that begins with finding the right manufacturer.
Make changes based on feedback One of the most important things you can do before you try to crowdfund your product is make sure you’ve taken the time to have people test and review your product.
Tory Burch’s Top Advice for Women Entrepreneurs: Trust Your Instincts
Tory Burch’s Top Advice for Women Entrepreneurs: Trust Your Instincts.
Around the world, women hold 22 percent of seats in national parliaments.
In Washington, D.C., women occupy 19.4 percent of congressional seats and 21 percent of Senate seats.
There are only 21 women CEOs on the Fortune 500 list, and even Hollywood reflects this disparity: The number of female protagonists headlining the top movies of the year reached a whopping historic high of 29 percent in 2016.
In honor of International Women’s Day, to encourage women across all fields to pursue their goals, CEO, designer and philanthropist Tory Burch has joined forces with big names such as Sheryl Sandberg, Anna Wintour, Laila Ali and Reese Witherspoon.
They’ve launched a new campaign through the Tory Burch Foundation which aims to highlight the power of ambitious women.
When women are ambitious, it’s somehow negative and derogatory,” Burch tells Entrepreneur.
“It’s a cultural stereotype and harmful double standard that we need to change.
Equal rights and equal pay for women should not be a favor, it should be a given.
It’s about humanity, it’s about half the population.
Silicon Desert Insider: It’s time for Arizona startups to grow up
Silicon Desert Insider: It’s time for Arizona startups to grow up.
It is time to grow up.
We focus on getting ready for success instead of achieving success.
And we support far too many startups that are just not going to make it.
That just means those other places make more stupid investments along with good ones.
They have to work for that funding, but that’s part of being an adult.
Another big step we need to take is that local startups should simply ask for more money.
But now it is time to go big, or go home.
This is about getting smart people together on a team and working to exhaustion to achieve something that is really hard.
We have come a long way and success is happening, now we just need our startup community to grow up and make our mark as a not just a place for innovation, but a place where innovation succeeds.