POST CATEGORY : CEO Leadership

Business Lessons You Don’t Need to Learn the Hard Way!

There are several lessons that business owners throughout history have already learned for you.

Why would anyone readily agree to learn these lessons the hard way?

Business lessons

1. Niche Selection: Pick One You Actually Understand

Like Tony Robbins has famously said many times “find something that gets you outta bed early and keeps you up late at night.”

That’s the first step. You also need to have intimate knowledge of your chosen niche industry – the products that sell, positives and negatives that will affect a successful operation, and most important: the types of customers you’ll be serving.

Even venture capitalists who make a dozen deals a week still make sure they know the industry they’re investing in, or have a trustworthy expert at their side advising them on the nuances of the business.…

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Tips for Getting an Underperforming Team Back on Track

When a team member starts to perform poorly it will affect your company’s business but when the whole team slips off track it can be a lot more serious.

In this sort of situation it is important to take the initiative and try to resolve the problems as soon as you can. Thankfully, there are some simple and sensible tips to let you do this quickly and efficiently. The following are some excellent ideas for getting back on track as soon as possible.

Lead your team to get back on track

Talk to Them More

A common problem in many businesses is that the staff feel that their bosses don’t talk to them enough.…

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Don’t Waste your Money Hiring Consultants: There are Better Alternatives

Hiring a consultant is expensive, and not all small business owners have the privilege to hire one due to budgetary constraint. Before you decide on hiring one, you need to ask yourself this question: Do you really need to hire a consultant?

Business consulting

Please be clear early on: I personally think that small business owners need to find as much help as possible in order to improve their businesses. However, help often doesn’t come cheap.

Consulting fees usually come in the hundreds of dollar an hour. A typical 6-week engagement with McKinsey will easily cost over $500K. This is not ideal for many – even most – small businesses.…

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How to Plan a Successful Office Party

Although a smoothly run office party won’t make or break your career, there are many benefits to having a nice bash. It’ll show that you have a versatile range of skills including your ability to understand social dynamics. That’s the kind of transferable skill that’s useful in almost all industries. Consider the following tips in the days leading up to the event.

Office party planning

The Nature of the Event

Not all events will be the same. A member of senior management’s birthday might be handled differently than a someone who was hired to fill in someone’s shoes while on maternity leave. Think about the following questions:

  • What is the history of the event?
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Packaging Like a Pro: How to Streamline, Save and Stand Out

Taking the order and making the sale should not be the end of the customer experience journey. If the item that they have ordered from you arrives in poor condition due to cheap or inappropriate packaging, all that goodwill can soon disappear.

Amazon shipping packaging

This article takes a look at how you can enhance a professional image for your business by making sure your goods arrive in good condition and tell the customer that you care about them.

Think like a buyer

The first thing you should do when assessing your shipping policy is to think like a buyer. If you were ordering from your company you would want a number of key requirements to be fulfilled.…

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3 Unique Tips for Growing Your Business Beyond 2014

In order to keep profits flowing and to take advantage of expansion opportunities, a business owner or CEO needs to take a big leaping step into the Information Age.

Strategizing for the future

A new era where everyone – rich, middle income, the less fortunate – all have access to way more choices than they did 10 years ago. More choices about how much they pay for a given product, choices about what sources they should trust to make buying decisions, and more access to see what other real people are saying about your product or service.

They don’t have to settle for something that’s just “so-so” or which “sort of” meets their needs because of the limited access to different markets like in the pre-Internet era.…

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Don’t Give Them All the Answers: Putting Autonomy to Work

If you’re a business leader who feels more like a schoolteacher, you’re doing something wrong.

When an employee comes to you with a question, it may seem counterproductive to tell him to figure it out on his own, but sometimes that’s the best thing a leader can do.

It might be easier and make you feel more comfortable to give them all the answers, but by allowing employees to find the answers themselves, you’re empowering them to be resourceful and learn from their mistakes, which is more beneficial in the long run.

Leader assigning responsibilities

The Benefits of Withholding Answers

Having all the answers is great, but that doesn’t mean you have to share them.…

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Survey: Most Business Owners Remain Optimistic in California

Most California-based entrepreneurs want to invest more resources to grow their company, according to a recent survey by California Bank & Trust (CB&T). About 60 percent use social media and Web marketing to promote their business, and many business owners believe their products and services will see growing demand.

Downtown San Francisco

photo credit: Adam Kuban

Nearly 38 percent of small business owners want to conduct international sales efforts, while 53 percent want to hire new employees in 2014.

These plans reflect optimism among entrepreneurs: Over 86 percent say their business is heading in the right direction, while 63 percent expect their company’s growth rate to increase in 2014.…

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Better Together: Essentials for a Successful Business Partnership

Modern society glorifies individualism and the concept of self. Innovative platforms have enabled us to become self-taught in numerous fields, making education more accessible to people worldwide. The rise of feminism has liberated women from the singular, purely domesticated trajectory that once epitomized the gender; women, once expected to acquiesce to a life at home, are now encouraged to pursue their own interests. Mediums of expression, such as YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, spurned a trend of online divulgence that revolves around users’ eagerness to publicly display their personal lives.

Partnership

This cultural shift, one that characterizes the new millennium, has trickled over to the world of business as well.…

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Take Out Your Notepads: 7 Media Moguls to Learn From

Discovering the next trending media story or topic before exposure to the world isn’t simply about being in the right place at the right time. Social media journalism requires creativity, gusto, and persistence. The top media moguls are relying on more than chance. Here to teach a lesson on entrepreneurship are some of the greatest media moguls of all time. Sharpen your pencil and take a seat. Class is in session.

Walt Disney

1. Benjamin Franklin

Everyone’s favorite patriot, Benjamin Franklin, was more than just an inventor and politician. He was America’s first media mogul. A prolific speaker and journalist, Franklin’s various newspapers, almanacs, and other texts inspired and entertained readers.…

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