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- 11 Ways to Boost Employee Morale and Productivity During the Cold Days of Winter
- Don’t Make These 6 Big Mistakes When Starting a Business
- Improve Your Sales This Year by Following These 3 Guidelines
- It’s Time for More Latinas to Break Through the Glass Ceiling
| 11 Ways to Boost Employee Morale and Productivity During the Cold Days of Winter Posted: 21 Jan 2021 08:40 AM PST For many companies, boosting employee morale and maintaining a high level of engagement and motivation among team members during the dark winter months can be quite a challenge. And with a growing remote work environment, it is even more difficult to make sure your team stays engaged and productive, while also ensuring they make time for self-care. To help, 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council reflect on the following question: What’s your best advice for keeping your team motivated and productive during the dark winter months? Why is it effective?1. Maintain communication and recognitionConstantly maintain communication and create a work environment based on cooperation, and also recognize the processes fulfilled by each of the team members. This will encourage productivity because they'll see that their efforts and the continuity of their actions are recognized and appreciated by the leaders, and a commitment to compliance is established. —Kevin Leyes, Leyes Media
2. Don’t lose track of your goalsOne way of staying productive and keeping the team motivated during winter is to not lose track of your goals and to come up with more incentives to finish strong. Team-building activities are also a good idea for people to reconnect and to remind them of the core company values and the “why” of your company. —Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME 3. Improve employee morale with team-building activitiesEven virtually, team-building activities can help your team boost their motivation and encourage their productivity. It’s easy to lose those things during the bleak winter months, but when you have others encouraging you and working with you, it’s even easier to stay focused and on track. —Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
4. Switch to a four-day weekA great way to keep remote employees motivated during winter months is to reduce your week to a four-day workweek. In other words, everyone is expected to do the same amount of work they did in the office, but since commutes are completely eliminated, they have to do it in four days. If they can, they can take Friday off. This system keeps people accountable, despite all those pesky cat videos. —Han-Gwon Lung, Tailored Ink 5. Encourage positive collaborationUse unique digital software tools to create a positive experience when collaborating. Zoom meetings can be tiresome after a while, and team members can get burned out. Encourage virtual team-building exercises or virtual events on a weekly or monthly basis. —Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
6. Offer bonuses and rewardsBonuses are always a great motivator during the winter months. I think that you can make the season fun and interesting by also adding other types of rewards that are monetary and nonmonetary. For example, have a “best Zoom background” contest or something similar and gift people branded swag. A few seasonal-themed activities can also make a world of difference. —Blair Williams, MemberPress 7. Recommend they get much-needed lightEncourage them to get as much light as possible, from either the sun or an appropriate therapy lamp. In places like Florida, encourage regular walks or bike rides and visits to local parks on the weekends when possible. In places with freezing winters, you can use heat and therapy lamps to prevent seasonal affective disorder. Schedule safe outings to enjoy the snow. —Duran Inci, Optimum7 8. Encourage them to stay activeI am all about staying active! Even if my team is working from home, I encourage them to take walks on their lunch breaks or move around in the space they have. We’re a small team and operate best when we’re all in energetic, creative frames of mind—keeping that blood flowing is key! —Diana Goodwin, MarketBox
9. Offer flexible work hours to improve employee moraleAllow flex work hours to fit people’s needs. Humans are not meant to work under fluorescent lights and most people would prefer to have some free time during daylight hours. Allow employees to shift their work schedules to exercise or play with their kids when it is light out. We’ve shifted our work hours to start earlier and have disregarded daylight saving time so we can stay productive by honoring our bodies’ circadian rhythm. —Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences
10. Promote healthy eatingWinter is a lazy season. But if you don't want your team to feel even lazier and less productive, encourage them to maintain a healthful diet. Eating unhealthful food that’s high in sugar and fats can make you feel more lazy and unproductive. Also, drink lots of hot water, soups, tea, or anything warm. This will keep your body warm and help you stay active during the day. —Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster 11. Focus on the joyful aspects of the seasonThere are foods, celebrations, and changes in one’s environment that only happen during winter. Celebrate these things by holding themed meetings or by sharing family pictures and the like. It will make the dark winter months something to look forward to. —Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner RELATED: 8 Popular Office Perks That Aren't Worth the Investment The post 11 Ways to Boost Employee Morale and Productivity During the Cold Days of Winter appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about YEC. Copyright 2020 by AllBusiness.com. All rights reserved. The content and images contained in this RSS feed may only be used through an RSS reader and may not be reproduced on another website without the express written permission of the owner of AllBusiness.com.  |
| Don’t Make These 6 Big Mistakes When Starting a Business Posted: 21 Jan 2021 08:20 AM PST By Kendra Martin There are so many different articles on how to be successful when starting a business. Most of them, in my experience, are either too long or they are outdated. I am a millennial female entrepreneur—I don't have the patience for lengthy documents and I think that most of what worked for a company that started 20 years ago is antiquated (sorry, but it's true). The biggest mistakes I made in starting my own company were not any of the things I could have read in one of those articles. In fact, they were random, big mistakes that have cost me a lot of time and money to correct. So here it is, for all you nuevo go-getters out there, a short and not-so-sweet list of my six biggest mistakes when starting a business. Please don't make them. Mistake when starting a business #1: Not solving a real problemLots of people have lots of great ideas. A new technology, a contraption that saves you time cleaning your house, etc. One of the fundamental check-the-boxes you need to do before you invest in your great idea is to make sure you are solving a real problem that NEEDS to be solved. Ensure the problem that needs solving is intuitive, so that when people hear about your great idea they will intuitively agree that they need help solving that problem, because it is, in fact, a problem for them. To be fully transparent, I'm living in this mistake right now. I started a company that has a unique value proposition through product experiences that have never been sold before. I thought that was enough for success. What I'm realizing, three months into my startup venture, is that what I'm selling isn't exactly a necessity, and the problem I think I'm solving isn't intuitive to my target demographic. They come to the website, they look, but they don’t buy. I thought they would get it immediately, but sales are not where I want them to be. So now I'm in a position where I have to shift my philosophy and think about how I can market what I'm selling such that people feel my product is solving a real problem that they have. It's not enough to have a cool product. Why should they spend their precious dollars with my company instead of at the grocery store to buy food for their family? There's more work I need to do in order to connect the dots. Mistake when starting a business #2: Don't take "the bro deal"As you share with people that you're an entrepreneur and tell them about your business, people will want to help. They will offer you discounted pricing, AKA "the bro deal," which will be extremely tempting when you're bootstrapping your way into launching your company. Every dollar counts, and a deal from someone you know may sound like a great idea, when it’s not. Select your help with extreme caution before committing to a vendor. More often than not, if a product or service is more expensive it's because the quality is better, and in most cases, that is worth the extra cost. Don't penny-pinch and cut quality corners, because it could come back to bite you. I made the mistake of hiring a photographer that I knew through mutual friends, and it was a disaster. I was quoted one price from my friend, then a different price from the photographer, then an even higher price from the photographer at the last minute before the photo shoot. I agreed to pay, begrudgingly, and was thoroughly disappointed with the work, from start to finish. The truth of the matter is I didn't really know the guy; I just trusted my friend when she said "he's an amazing photographer," and I paid the price. Mistake when starting a business #3: Pay attention to complianceThis part is not fun; in fact, it's an excruciating part of the job, but it is essential to your success. When I say compliance, I am referring to laws, which could be anything from collecting the proper amount of sales tax all the way to annual greenhouse gas emissions. The last thing you want is for your production to be interrupted or a huge unplanned expenditure due to an oversight in the realm of compliance. Get it right the first time. I underestimated the importance of this topic when I first launched my website. I thought filing for business and sales tax numbers with the state would be straightforward, and I didn't think it would be required BEFORE I launched my website. I thought I could figure it all out later, and truthfully, I just didn't want to deal with all that bureaucratic nonsense. More articles from AllBusiness.com:
As I started to develop my website and get ready for launch day, I realized that in order to properly collect sales tax and purchase supplies without paying taxes twice, I would need both. I went into “expedite mode” and hired a company to file all the paperwork to get these things completed so I could launch my company properly. But had I known ahead of time, I would have prioritized this sooner. I also had these grandiose ideas about launching products that involved regulated goods (e.g., alcohol and CBD). I quickly was put in my place when I started researching these industries and realized it takes a long time to get the appropriate permits required to sell regulated products. Those product dreams are now on the back burner. I had to pivot quickly and start developing products that I knew didn't require additional compliance steps. Mistake when starting a business #4: Do your research BEFORE you choose a website platform providerI'm embarrassed to admit this, but I totally screwed up when I chose my e-commerce platform. I spent weeks developing my e-commerce website, and then just as I was about to launch my business, I realized that the platform had a major flaw if you are selling products—it didn’t auto calculate the local tax rates for the state(s) requiring businesses to collect sales tax. For me that was California, which meant that in order to collect sales tax properly, I would have had to enter over 2500 lines of unique sales tax rates for all the zip codes in California. This was so demoralizing to discover just as I was getting ready to launch my website. I am currently in the process of switching over to a new platform, and basically had to start from scratch and build an entire new website. Mistake when starting a business #5: Lessen your assumptions to the lowest common denominatorThis is going to sound harsh, and maybe it is harsh, but don't assume ANYTHING about your customers. For example, if you are providing instructions for a product, do not assume people are going to understand what you provide. Reality check: We live in the generation of ADD, and most people are distracted by at least 10 other things at the same time as they are reading your instructions. Keep all written text extremely straightforward and simple. Think of everything you write as if you were writing the "[Insert product here] for Dummies" guide. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than attempting to read your instructions but not being able to understand them. They will feel defeated, and that's the absolute last thing you want your customers to feel. Use guinea pigs (ideally), but at a minimum use research to validate all assumptions before making decisions you can't reverse. My company sells experiences—hands-on activities that require the customer to follow instructions to make something (e.g., a candle, a necklace, etc.). I made the mistake of assuming that my customers would easily be able to follow my instruction guides that I put in my product kits. This was not the case from the get-go. I went through iteration after iteration of the instructions until I stopped getting feedback that people were confused. Mistake when starting a business #6: If you have to choose, focus on profit over revenueOkay, of course both are important, but it frequently happens that huge companies go out of business because they make the mistake of driving revenue over profit. Think of it this way: if my company makes $1 million per year in revenue but it cost me $950,000 to get that revenue, then is that really a lucrative business? The answer is probably not, because the chances are that $50,000 of profit is already spoken for, in the form of expansion cost (e.g., buying new equipment, investing in R&D, etc.). Focus on building out impressive margins from the start. This will be HUGE for you in later years, because typically, through economies of scale and efficiency, your productivity and margins will expand as you grow. If you bake in a solid margin from the beginning, then all that additional margin is icing on the cake that makes your company very attractive to investors and gives you the ability to pay yourself. This has been a hard lesson learned for me. I am embarrassed to admit that I am currently struggling with the outcome of not focusing enough on profit over revenue. I knew that I should because I read an article about the founder of Spanx, and she shared that from day one Spanx focused on profit over revenue. I wanted to emulate this model, which is why I set up my supply chain with low quantities from the start so that I'd be able to show margin expansion over time as the company grew. Now this puts my business in an extremely uncomfortable position financially. I should have built out more solid margins from the beginning and invested in larger purchase order quantities. I didn't, and I'm currently in the middle of trying to figure out how to remedy that. Like I said, embarrassing, but if admitting my mistakes helps someone else avoid them, then it's worth it. RELATED: 14 Startup Tips From Small Business Pros: Time-Tested Small Business Advice The post Don't Make These 6 Big Mistakes When Starting a Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Guest Post. Copyright 2020 by AllBusiness.com. All rights reserved. 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| Improve Your Sales This Year by Following These 3 Guidelines Posted: 21 Jan 2021 07:45 AM PST If you made any New Year's resolutions this year, how many have you already broken? Resolutions are often made but then quickly forgotten. What if you resolved this year to focus on one important thing: to improve your sales? Here are some helpful sales guidelines you can follow to get better sales results. Sales guideline #1: Focus on the process, not the resultsA resolution often focuses on the end result, but that's not empowering. Instead of focusing on results (sales numbers) focus on the sales process. You need to think like a quality engineer who sets guidelines that improve processes. In sales you could create guidelines for the types of prospects you will call on: “I will only call on prospects who match 80% of my ideal customer description.” Of course, that means you first need to have a prospect description that clearly defines who your ideal prospects are. (Write one now if you don’t have one.) Once you’ve done that, set guidelines to use while you prospect. They could be getting digital materials organized by type of customer or making a list of questions to ask during a sales call. Come up with guidelines that are focused on the process instead of the final result. Sales guideline #2: Assume a neutral attitude when you hear a problemFor some of you, it becomes “red alert” when a customer calls with an issue. Your heart starts beating faster and you assume the absolute worst. In contrast, some of you are always calm in the face of a challenge. For those who are cruising for a heart attack, you need a guideline for dealing with the unexpected. One good guideline to improve your sales is to always assume a neutral attitude at the start of a challenging meeting or phone call. Tell yourself it’s not going to be a wonderful situation, nor will it be a disaster. This guideline will serve you well and can help your selling. More articles from AllBusiness.com:
When you have a neutral attitude, you will respond calmly when a customer calls with a problem: "Please tell me more and I’ll take notes while you speak." A calm response can pacify someone who is in an emotional state and de-escalate a potentially troubling situation. Another benefit of a neutral attitude and keeping the conversation calm is you avoid wasting energy. But what if the conversation does escalate? At least you started from a calm place and have further to go before getting agitated. That will serve your health better, too. Sales guideline #3: Do something each week that brings you joyAll too often, sales professionals who work hard tend to put their customers first. These salespeople will also put everyone else before themselves, too. This must change. It's important for you to receive some joy in your life on a regular basis. Imagine how you would feel if you ate a steady diet of junk food every day. You wouldn't feel all that great. If you don't nourish your spirit with some joy on a regular basis, you won't feel so great either. Start with something that makes you happy. Your guideline can be: "I will do what makes me happy at least one time each week." Schedule an activity if you think you won't follow through. It’s important that you take care of yourself this year. Improve your sales by setting sales guidelinesForget about setting sales resolutions this year. Instead, set sales guidelines that will actually guide you to make more sales. RELATED: 5 Things You Can Do Today to Sell More The post Improve Your Sales This Year by Following These 3 Guidelines appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Maura Schreier-Fleming. Copyright 2020 by AllBusiness.com. All rights reserved. The content and images contained in this RSS feed may only be used through an RSS reader and may not be reproduced on another website without the express written permission of the owner of AllBusiness.com.  |
| It’s Time for More Latinas to Break Through the Glass Ceiling Posted: 21 Jan 2021 06:57 AM PST As a woman, I was heartened by the recent historic breakthroughs of the glass ceiling in two major institutions in our country: the election of Kamala Harris as the first female Vice President of the United States and the appointment of Kim Ng as the first female General Manager of a Major League Baseball team, the Florida Marlins. Even more positive is that Vice President Harris is a woman of color from an African American and South Asian background and Ms. Ng is an Asian American. But, despite these incredible milestones, as a Latina tech entrepreneur I know there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done by Hispanic women to further break that glass ceiling. African Americans have and continue to lead the charge for civil rights and equality in the United States, for which everyone of color has benefited from and we should all be grateful: however, it is time for Latinos and Latinas to more aggressively advocate for equality in the halls of government, on main street, and in the C-suite. A fast-growing demographicIt is important to understand the size of Hispanics as a demographic group, albeit not a monolithic one, in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, Latinos are the second largest racial or ethnic group behind white non-Hispanics. Between 2010 and 2019, the Latino population share in the United States grew from 16% to 18% and accounted for over half (52%) of all U.S. population growth during this time frame. By contrast, African Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population and Asian Americans 5.6%. Despite these numbers, on the political side, to put into perspective Vice President Harris's achievement, there are currently a "record" 26 women serving in the United States Senate with only 57 total who have served in the history of our country. There is only one Latina in the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and only four total Hispanic Senators currently serving out of a total of 9 historically. In the House of Representatives, since the first Latina Congresswoman, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), was elected in 1989, only 20 Hispanic women have served. Latinas in businessOn the business side, pre-Covid 19, Latina-owned businesses were doing quite well. There were 2.3 million of them, which accounted for 18% of all women-owned businesses, according to a 2019 American Express study. These businesses were growing at a healthy 10% per year. Latina-owned businesses also accounted for almost half of all Hispanic-owned businesses; however, they generated on average only about one third the revenue of women-owned businesses as a whole: $51,000 compared to $143,000 annually. This discrepancy is due to many reasons, but perhaps the greatest cause is lack of access to capital. This deficiency was exacerbated as Covid hit our economy. As the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was rolled out, it quickly became apparent that women- and minority-owned businesses were having a tougher time accessing these funds. According to the Latin Business Action Network (LBAN) at Stanford University, Latino-owned businesses were approved at half the rate of white businesses for PPP loans. The main reasons were lack of adequate financial record keeping, a dearth of legal or accounting services, and the absence of a close banking relationship. RELATED: The State of Hispanic-Owned Businesses This last reason was perhaps most important, as initially the PPP program was mainly run through large banks and aimed at their existing customers. According to a Brookings Institution report, this created challenges for Latina businesses, which average 10 or fewer employees and are often under-banked or unbanked. Many Latina businesses were, therefore, shut out when the program closed on August 8. Now, without further aid, some estimates predict 30-40% of Latina-owned businesses will not survive the Covid pandemic. Breaking into the C-SuiteOn the large corporate side, Ms. Ng's achievement of breaking into the ranks of one of the most exclusive "old boys' clubs" also can't be overstated. It took her 30 years to become the first woman to lead a team in the 151-year-old baseball league. Achievements like this create possibilities for other women. Yet we can't ignore the stats: Hispanic women continue to be very underrepresented in the C-suite and board room. Overall, while Hispanics represent 17% of the overall workforce, they occupy only 4.3% of executive positions. And, while the number of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies hit a record high in 2020 with 37, only three are women of color and none are Latina or African American. Further, there is a significant wage gap with Latinas earning 46% less than white men and 31% less than white women. There are many causes for these lagging numbers, not the least of which are bias and unconscious bias, which are stereotypes and underlying attitudes we hold towards certain groups that result in adverse reactions without realizing it. For example, a recent study by the Network of Executive Women found that Latinas in corporate America believe that promotions and executive presence are still based on white male norms. Women in the study reported being told they were "too colorful" or "drama queens," that they were "too familiar" with co-workers, and that they weren't "hungry" enough due to an emphasis on work/life balance. These are some of the typical biases negatively impacting Latinas in the workplace. Leveling the playing field for Latinas and all women of colorSo, what can be done to reverse these trends and have more Latinas reach new heights in government and business? Hopefully, the examples of Kamala Harris and other new lawmakers will make many more young Latinas and women of color consider entering politics, because we can't be what we can't see. On the business side, Latina entrepreneurs need access to the resources and information necessary to position their businesses to grow and scale. And that includes knowledge and know-how related to venture capital. A widespread education campaign is critical to make Latina business owners aware of these resources and how to secure business-changing access to capital. With large corporations and other organizations, it is now possible to identify unconscious bias, track it, and mitigate against it with measurable and quantifiable data. Improving unconscious bias is not just a "feel good" exercise. Numerous studies show that companies doing poorly with gender and racial bias face high turnover rates, low morale, lower profitability, and higher legal risk. While it is not possible to overcome all of the biases ingrained in ourselves, we can work hard to change behaviors and to create a more level playing field for Latinas and all those trying to break through glass ceilings. Thanks to Kamala Harris and Kim Ng, now we know it's possible. RELATED: The State of Minority-Owned Businesses: Women Entrepreneurs The post It's Time for More Latinas to Break Through the Glass Ceiling appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Michele Ruiz. Copyright 2020 by AllBusiness.com. All rights reserved. The content and images contained in this RSS feed may only be used through an RSS reader and may not be reproduced on another website without the express written permission of the owner of AllBusiness.com.  |
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