Entrepreneur.com -- I have a law degree, Masters of Business Administration and an economics undergraduate degree. But none of this formal education taught me how to generate demand and have a sales conversation. You can hang a sales sign or banner outside of your store, but none of those techniques puts you in the position of authority that’s needed to have an effective sales conversation. Authority is built one message at a time.

In July of 2002, I joined Infusionsoft.  My primary responsibility was bringing in sales, but I also did strategy, finance, marketing, bookkeeping, janitorial services and a host of other tasks. I had many different roles because, like every startup, I needed to wear any and every hat that was necessary to keep the business going.

My sales hat kept me busy most of the day. I'd spend countless hours prospecting for leads, getting them to finally answer their phones and then chase them for weeks. I felt like I was in a never-ending battle for survival, which put me in a really bad position to negotiate. Over time, I learned that effective sales conversations happen when people chase you, so I began to make the shift from salesperson to an authoritative advisor. Here are the things I've learned: 

Related: The 15 Characteristics of People Who Succeed at Sales

1. The manual sales process wastes time and money.

Spending time prospecting on social and spamming people who don't care to talk to you wastes time and money. The manual sales method that your parents passed down to you doesn't work effectively. Moving away from manual sales processes takes time, but is well worth the effort.

Most of my first year at Infusionsoft was spent knee-deep in sales and marketing. I used pay-per-click advertising to attract interest of potential customers. They’d click an ad, fill out a form on our website and I’d be notified that I had a lead. I’d then get on the phone as fast as possible to begin the sales conversation.

During the first call, I would diligently work to identify customer problems and educate them on the power of our software. More often than not, I would spend hours on the phone over weeks or months to close a sale. I used our customer relationship management functionality to keep track of the conversations and organize them based on how far they had gone in the sales process. Occasionally, I would send emails one by one to follow up after the call.

I used and perfected this manual sales process for over a year and was making slow, steady progress in the business. But, I didn't feel successful. I was wasting a lot of time chasing leads that didn’t care to talk to me. My conversations weren’t powerful or effective and didn’t leave me in a good position to negotiate. My sales weren't as large as I needed them to be and I had to figure out a way to get the phone to ring without so much effort.

Read the rest here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249829

Radio mogul John Dickey talks about how he built one radio station into a $2 billion media company.

12-5-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- You may not know John Dickey by name, but you may have heard of the company he and his brother started in the '90s: Cumulus Media. The duo bought a radio station in Atlanta then continued acquiring stations until their business, which has an estimated net worth of $2 billion, became the nation’s second largest radio company.

The brothers' journey began after college, when they founded a media buying consulting company. Dickey has seen the media industry turn upside down, and continues to stay on the cutting edge with digital video. He was recently named the new CEO of Ora TV, a digital broadcast network co-founded by billionaire Carlos Slim and broadcasting legend Larry King.

Related: 10 Ways to Build Trust and Credibility With Your Customers

I sat down with Dickey to learn how he navigated the ups and downs of a changing landscape and ended up on top. 

1. Find and fill a need.

It's worth noting that the Dickey brothers majored in English and history -- not business, entrepreneurship or broadcasting. They did have a knack for business and statistics, and after college they decided they wanted to start consulting businesses, so they searched for a need and discovered that most small businesses didn’t have access to market research data and were making misguided media buys. They formed Stratford Research going door to door to small businesses with a great hook that spoke to the pain point of the potential customer.

“When you said, 'Would you like to know which half of your marketing dollars are wasted?' They found a way to give you 10 minutes.” Dickey says.

2. Look at both sides.

The Dickeys achieved massive success later in part because as consultants, the brothers realized they could serve not just media buyers but also media properties selling ad space. Their knowledge of how to invest marketing dollars into television, radio, print ads and direct mail put them in a unique position to advise media companies on programming decisions. This addition led to continued growth of Stratford research for 15 years. Dickey realizes they entered the industry at an opportune time, but timing is only part of the equation.

“We got lucky and we were pretty good,” he says.

3. Don’t give in to marketing FOMO.

Dickey says it’s common for busy owners to just buy into what’s hot or trendy, or even simply what’s being pitched to them by a “marketing expert.” Don’t let the fear of missing out rule your marketing dollars. Trust your instincts, Dickey advises. When you see a marketing opportunity, ask tons of questions and make a strategy and avoid jumping on every new platform.

“To use a military metaphor, there’s nothing wrong with standing still if you don’t know," he says. "Where you blow a leg off in a minefield is if you keep walking when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur -- You don’t become an entrepreneur because it’s easy or convenient. You decide to start your own business because you want your life to be meaningful, because you want to feel like your life has a purpose, because you are trying to build something bigger than yourself.

What does that feel like? How does it feel to chase -- and achieve -- your dream? How do you know that you are heading in the right direction?

Finding your purpose doesn’t always come with a parade and a champagne celebration. Sometimes it appears as a quiet, simple moment. That’s how it was for Adrian Gradinaru, co-founder of New York City-based boat rental marketplace Sailo. The website allows people to search, compare and book boats online.

Earlier this summer, Gradinaru was heading home one night this summer, walking through New York City after a long day at work, when he realized he truly was doing work that provided him a sense of purpose. “I felt this interior calm that was sort of amazing,” says Gradinaru. “It’s not about money, it’s not about profit, I feel like we are providing a service that people are actually using and they are enjoying it.”

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/249691

Entrepreneur -- You don’t become an entrepreneur because it’s easy or convenient. You decide to start your own business because you want your life to be meaningful, because you want to feel like your life has a purpose, because you are trying to build something bigger than yourself.

What does that feel like? How does it feel to chase -- and achieve -- your dream? How do you know that you are heading in the right direction?

Finding your purpose doesn’t always come with a parade and a champagne celebration. Sometimes it appears as a quiet, simple moment. That’s how it was for Adrian Gradinaru, co-founder of New York City-based boat rental marketplace Sailo. The website allows people to search, compare and book boats online.

Earlier this summer, Gradinaru was heading home one night this summer, walking through New York City after a long day at work, when he realized he truly was doing work that provided him a sense of purpose. “I felt this interior calm that was sort of amazing,” says Gradinaru. “It’s not about money, it’s not about profit, I feel like we are providing a service that people are actually using and they are enjoying it.”

For one of the other co-founders, that moment of clarity came in the form of a phone call.

“One of our customers called us, this was somebody we didn’t know, and they just told us that they had had the best day [of] their life. And we had created a company that provided the best day of people’s lives and that’s ultimately why we started it,” says Delphine Braas, another co-founder of Sailo.

Entrepreneur.com -- Body language should help, not hurt. Even when the chat isn’t in person, how you hold yourself impacts how you connect with others and whether you present the best version of yourself. So, when the talk is important, use these strategies to show you’re strong, capable and ready for anything.

1. Eyes up and alert. Your eyes betray your focus. So, if you’re picking lint from your pants or looking for the exits, you’ll show your interest lies elsewhere and seem dismissive. For maximum engagement, do the physical equivalent of faking it until you make it. Start with the eyes, making solid contact, then nod in assent and raise your eyebrows while you listen. You’ll look alert and interested.

2. Arm yourself. Take note of your arms. Those placed behind you can seem regal and distant, while arms crossed over your chest can seem threatening. To look like a leader, keep your arms relaxed and open, even lacing your fingers together in front of you to seem centered, comfortable and interested.

3. Tall and proud. Where are your shoulders? If they’re over your toes or your lap with your back curved into a C-shape, you’ll seem uncomfortable in your own skin, turning people off. To convey confidence, hold your shoulders over your hips. Point your toes toward the person with whom you’re speaking, not the door, and lean on nothing. Practicing power poses – like superhero stances with your arms akimbo and your legs in an ‘A’ shape – can even help boost confidence before your talk begins.

Read the rest here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245046

Entrepreneur, 9/26/2016 -- Millennials tend to get a bad rap. You hear a lot of things about them. They’re entitled. They’re not loyal to their employers. They spend too much time on social media, and they don’t know how to build in-person relationships.

We’ve been led to believe that this generation, which now makes up the largest percentage of the workforce, is completely different from any other before it. As a result, employers are scratching their heads, asking questions like, “How do we hire millennials? How do we keep them engaged? An how do we keep them from leaving?”

1. Millennials are just like everyone else. No, really.

The studies that have highlighted the contrasts between millennials and other generations have been far overshadowed by studies that discredit the disparities.

According to the Harvard Business Review, to the extent that any gaps do exist, they amount to small differences that have always existed between younger and older workers throughout history and have little to do with the millennial generation per se.

We’ve found this to be true at our company. We regularly survey our people about what they like and dislike about the organization. For the most part, the same themes appear -- regardless of age.

Related: How to Motivate Millennials, By Millennials

Everyone wants his or her work to have meaning.

A study by Deloitte found that 90 percent of millennials surveyed wanted to use their skills for good. Our own surveys show that millennials want to work for a company that cares about them, and they want to feel that their work matters.

We hear that same message from all of our employees -- so frequently, in fact, that we decided to change some of our internal programs. Throughout the company, we now hold regular standup meetings, where employees can share how their work has had a positive impact on our clients or how our people have made a difference to each other.

We also offer company-paid, volunteer time off so our people can do the things that are meaningful to them outside of work. Each employee receives eight hours a year to give back to the community in whichever way he or she chooses.

Everyone wants to grow.

One of the things I love about our people is their desire to learn, and our millennials are no exception. A study from the Intelligence Groupfound that 79 percent of millennials surveyed wanted their boss to serve as a coach or mentor. To meet this need, we’ve put together formal and informal mentorship programs and upped our emphasis on training and development.

We now offer onsite classes, ranging from emotional intelligence (EI) to servant leadership, plus a dozen or so more. We believe that career development should be driven by employees and guided by leaders. Our people determine their own development path, and their leaders work to support them in achieving their career goals.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

4-6-2017, Entrepreneur.com -- When talking about your business, it’s likely that at some point you’ve referred to it as your baby. But do you really love your business as if it were your own child? Researchers from Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, decided to put this question to the test in a recent study.

When examining the brain activity of the study participants, the scientists found that  “entrepreneurial love is strikingly similar to paternal love,” and that the parts of the brain that come alive when processing emotions, rewards and social understanding occurred with both.  

The researchers scanned the brains of 42 men divided into two groups. Twenty-one participants were fathers ranging in age from 27 to 43 and 21 were entrepreneurs ranging in age from 24 to 45.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur, 1-18-2017 -- We all want our startup businesses to hit that coveted $1 million per year in revenue. The unfortunate truth is that only 4 percent of us actually make that goal.

This past year my company scaled LeadQuizzes, our lead generation software, past the $1 million mark in less than six months. Having hit that sales mark, I now know how important it is to maintain an awareness of where you are in your business.

That means really understanding: 1) the stage of business you’re in; 2) the fears and limiting beliefsholding you back; and 3) the keys to growing into that next sales bracket. Having this awareness creates more confidence and allows you to prioritize and take action.

Here are the five stages I believe that you and your startup must go through to reach that understanding and hit that $1 million in sales.

Stage 1: Searching For Product Market Fit

Your goal at this stage should be finding a product market fit. You’re likely excited at this point, but scared. Now that you’ve jumped in to starting your business, your plan for how to grow isn’t as clear as you'd thought. What's more, you’re not making much money yet, which is scary.

You're also starting to get distracted by lots of different opportunities for making money. Don't let that happen; focus on your plan. And when talking about your business don't feel you have to “fake it” and act more successful than you actually are, even though you're worried whether things will work out.

Daniel Tyre of HubSpot For Startups told me that the key to success is to start by proving your value and attracting customers. He recommended offering discounts or doing work for free to create case studies and a track record of results. Focus on the lowest hanging fruit, he said. And ask friends and family for referrals.

Stage 2. Moving from a part-time to full-time business

You made it out of stage one. You’ve built a small reputation for getting results. Most importantly, you’ve got customers.

At this stage, you’re most likely becoming overwhelmed from having to sell and fulfill those orders. You’re finding it difficult to keep up.

You know you need to bring on some help, but you’re barely paying yourself as it is. You’re not sure how long that steady stream of referrals and sales will continue. You also worry you'll have a hard time letting someone else take over because you haven’t yet established repeatable systems.

Loren Howard of LLH Development and Real Estate told me that the key to graduating from this stage is to push through. Things will feel uncomfortable, he said, but if you can spend 70 percent of your time on sales-generating activities, you will feel more confident and able to bring on a virtual assistant, then, potentially, a full-time employee.

As your expenses and reputation increase, you should be able to increase the pricing discounts you offered your first customers, Howard said.

12-12-2016, Entrepreneur -- Start with an understanding that "the right people are worth everything."

Starting a business -- or even getting involved as a professional -- when you’re young can be intimidating. You might have knowledge about business from school, books or practical advice from sources online, but there’s a big difference between understanding business fundamentals on paper and gaining wisdom through actual experience.

By the end of your career, you’ll have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and hundreds of lessons, but there are some lessons that you should learn early on -- ideally before you turn 30.

1. The right people are worth everything.

It’s almost impossible to build a successful business by yourself. Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, there will be mentors, partners, vendors and peers alongside you helping you achieve your long-term vision. So, recognize how valuable other people will open you up to more opportunities, help you keep an eye out for new contacts no matter where you are and make you more discerning in decisions like hiring and long-term deals.

Learning this lesson early will prevent you from wasting time on the wrong people and give you more time to work with the best people you find.

2. You’re going to fail -- and that’s okay.

No matter how much you know or how much you prepare, failure is going to be inevitable for you. Your business may become successful overall, but there will be individual strategies and campaigns that crash and burn, and ideas that fizzle out entirely. Facing failure with the realization that it is, in some contexts, unavoidable, makes it. easier to accept.

You can view it as a lesson and an opportunity to improve, rather than an end point or a sign that you should give up entirely.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur -- Last April, the city of Seattle began rolling out an incremental minimum-wage increase. Employers with 500 workers or fewer would bump hourly wages up to $15 over the course of seven years; larger businesses would have to reach the mark in three years, with an immediate raise to $11 per hour. (The federal minimum wage is $7.25.)

It has been a controversial law on many fronts, but no more so than in the franchise world. For the purposes of the law, any franchised business is considered a large employer -- even if the local franchisee has only a handful of employees -- because, the city argues, franchisees that are part of a larger system have the financial wherewithal to absorb the pay raise sooner than other small businesses can.

Seattle is not alone in putting pressure on franchisees. In June, the Los Angeles City Council voted to increase the minimum wage there to $15 per hour by 2020. In September, the state of New York raised the minimum wage for fast- food workers to $15 per hour, to be phased in over three years in New York City and six years in the rest of the state. Other municipalities, including Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore., are looking at similar increases.

Opponents say significant minimum-wage increases will be the death knell of franchise growth, and could lead to unit closures. Proponents argue that increasing the minimum wage will lead to lower employee turnover and better customer service, and will reduce the burden on government programs like food stamps and housing assistance that many low-wage workers depend on. It’s a sticky situation, and one that economists have argued about for decades with no real consensus.

Representatives of the International Franchise Association -- which, along with five franchisees, sued and lost an appeal to amend the Seattle statute -- claim the law is part of an orchestrated effort to get fast-food employees unionized.

“The mayor and head of organized labor said as much,” says Matthew Haller, the IFA’s senior vice president of communications and public affairs, who argues that along with last year’s National Labor Relations Board ruling that franchisors can be treated as joint employers with franchisees, the wage increase is part of a multipronged attack on the franchise model. He says the IFA is working to educate other jurisdictions considering similar ordinances to Seattle’s, pointing out that most of them don’t completely understand the franchise model and don’t realize that franchisees are, in essence, small-business owner. 

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253836

Entrepreneur -- If you Google “daily habits of successful people” you’ll find almost every business-focused media outlet represented in the results. But if you’re looking for a guaranteed roadmap to success, don’t get excited just yet. If you read all of those articles, or even a few of them, you'll soon realize that successful people have a wide range of daily habits.

Some say you have to rise early, some sleep until noon then work from their bed for another hour. Some say to get the toughest thing out of the way first, some start their day in an easy flow of reading over coffee and don’t “eat the frog” until later. Some plan out their day the night before, some start their day by devising a plan. Some hit the jogging trail first thing, some barely take time for a stretch before hitting social media and email.

So how are any of us supposed to figure out which daily habits are critical to success, and which are personal preference and idiosyncrasy?

If you take a look at all the different lists of habits, routines, principles and priorities among successful entrepreneurs from Ben Franklin to Mark Cuban you’ll find these three universal success factors.

They spend time getting to know themselves.

If you know who they are, chances are they devote a lot of their daily practice to knowing themselves better than you can even imagine. Successful people are self-aware on multiple levels.

They know their energy patterns, so they know how much sleep is optimal. They know when they get their best rest they are at their best when they are awake. They know what fuel their body needs, and what kind of exercise it takes to feel the way they want to feel. They know what environments they need to be creative and productive, and they know the difference between those two states.

They know their priorities, too, and they know that all of their decisions must start with the highest level of their vision, mission or purpose. Benjamin Franklin’s documented daily schedule starts each day with a question; “What good shall I do this day?” Steve Jobs said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005 that he spent 33 years asking the same question every morning; “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Bottom line, no matter how many articles, interviews or opinions you read, you’ll find that successful people are always tuned in to the one most critical success factor in their business -- themselves.

They spend time improving themselves.

Speaking of being tuned in to themselves, successful people know that to increase their net worth they must increase their personal worth. They’ve mastered the personal SWOTT analysis and they consistently invest in themselves.

It’s no secret that successful people read. They read story books, they read how-to books, they read news, they read industry articles. They read to improve their knowledge, their mind-set, even their mood.

But they do more than read. Successful people study. They study trends in their industry and outside of their industry, they study things that interest them and, most of all, they study people.

Read more HERE.

Ignore the resume, focus on problem-solving skills and offer remote options as well as performance-based incentives. A team member who feels valued will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

9-21-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- Growing a startup in today's competitive industries isn't easy -- especially for a bootstrapped solo founder building and managing a small team.

Your team is not disposable. In fact, its makeup is one of the most important things to get right. If you assemble a motivated team full of the right people doing the right things, you drastically increase your chance of success.

I know because it worked for me. In less than three years, I grew my startup more than 2,300 percent using these management hacks.

1. Don’t look at resumes.

Whether I’m hiring an employee, advisor or freelancer, I strictly follow my no-resume rule. I find resumes to be bloated and exaggerated. I don’t want to read how great applicants say they are. I want to interact with them and decide for myself if it’s true.

Instead of asking for a resume, I ask applicants to tell me about themselves. I ask follow-up questions and stress I’m not asking for a list of their accomplishments. I want to know about them. Yes, personally.

Then, like an FBI behavioral analyst, I make a judgment based on less-traditional facts. It’s not as hard as you might think. One very easy test: Ask an applicant to complete a task designed to showcase the important problem-solving skills needed for the position at hand.

I've been a Rubik's Cube freak my entire life. My fastest time isn't record-breaking, but 30 seconds isn't too shabby, either. I love handing an applicant a Rubik’s Cube and telling him or her to “do whatever it takes to solve it.” My directions are just vague enough to encourage interpretation. I hope candidates hunt down a solution online or do something other than just sit there and struggle with it. The moment they take out a smartphone to search for a resource, I'm won over.

Related: 4 Ways to Make Sure You Aren't Hiring the Wrong People for Your Startup

2. Always share the pie.

Paying people what they're worth is the baseline. Combined with consistent incentives to do more, sharing the pie has dramatically improved my company's bottom line.

Regular incentives go a long way. If all team members are getting some percentage of the upside, they'll be driven to keep working toward increased revenue. Extra performance pay is a solid start, but realize that yearly bonuses don't have the same impact as a more timely reward.

Sharing equity is another strong move. You don’t have to give away the farm -- just a few points here and there gets the job done. Avoid offering equity-only compensation to employees who are used to getting a fixed salary. Even if you can convince them to try the new model, you put them in an uncomfortable position if they need to return to a regular paycheck. They might opt to leave the company rather than initiate an awkward conversation. 

Most startups love to blame team members for failures big and small. It's easier on a founder's ego than the reality: The leader always is accountable. If you picked the wrong team members to do the wrong job or chose the wrong people to manage them, then it's still your fault. 

Assuming you made reasonably good hires to start, poor employee performance typically lies with an ineffective leader, lackluster motivation tools or both. 

Read the rest of the story HERE.

9-3-2017, Forbes -- A company is like a great sports team: The coach leads the way and coordinates the team with his leadership skills, and the players score the points needed to win the game. But what makes a good player better than constant training?

A wise manager knows that an efficient employee needs to be adequately trained. Even the best athlete will eventually grow weak if he’s not consistently challenged in training. But training doesn’t just occur during an employee’s first few weeks; effective training is an ongoing process.

However, sometimes even organizations that decide to embrace a culture of learning can fall into common misconceptions about education: The learning process is either experiential or theoretical instead of a blend of the best of both.

Brad Lea, owner and founder of LightSpeed VT, is an entrepreneur who set the benchmark for employee training. After he’d failed at becoming an actor — getting cut from a movie three days before production — Brad decided to start a business as a path to becoming a Hollywood star. Today, his online training platform is the largest in the world, and he is the father of “virtual training,” having coined the term himself. He shared with me some expert insights into how some companies miss the mark and what leaders can do about it to effectively train their teams.

Read more HERE.

12-20-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- True entrepreneurship involves a mindset of solving problems. But real success goes well beyond the bottom line to impacting lives and leaving a legacy.

Many global challenges need innovative solutions that, no doubt, will be solved by entrepreneurs. Established industries like health care, education, and alternative energy are ripe for disruption. This creates abundant opportunities for those who want to step up and become the next Larry Page, Elon Musk or Bill Gates.

1. Find your purpose or 'why.'

The pioneering entrepreneur Peter Diamandis says, "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

People often say to me, "Kunal, I’m 30 years old and have no idea what to do with my life." Lacking clarity can waste years of your life. People who change the world have a strong why, and their purpose is clear. For example, Elon Musk said the goals of his companies SolarCity, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX revolve around his vision to change the world and humanity.

If you don't know your purpose, use this moment as an opportunity to start working on yourself. Ask yourself these questions:

• What matters most to you and why? (Maybe improving well-being in your community, access to education and ending suffering or poverty.)
• What have you been called to do with your life? What do you think you should do?
• What gets you excited every morning and why? (Tip: extrinsic motivators powered by someone else’s values will not sustain you, but intrinsic motivators from your deepest values will.)
• What do you enjoy so much that you’d do it for free? 
• How do simple everyday problems frustrate you and what can you do to solve them?
• If you won the lottery, what would you do differently with your life?
• What are you here to do? What legacy do you wish to leave on the planet?

2. Revisit your purpose often.

Any plan is worthless without execution. At times, you'll feel out of alignment; that’s the human experience—plans and reality often contradict each other. Frequently revisiting your purpose will keep you on track.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

11-8-2017, Entrepreneur.com -- Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks you carry out as an entrepreneur? The reality is that you can automate more than you think. By taking advantage of the right tools, you can take tasks off your plate, automate the ones that remain and either delegate or eliminate tasks altogether -- to start working smarter -- not just harder.

More times than not, a SaaS solution is available to help with these goals. Here are several that will make you and your business more productive.

1. Work on conversion-rate optimization: GrooveJar.

You're probably already driving traffic to your website but the problem may be that most of that traffic isn't converting. GrooveJar notes that most websites have a conversion rate of less than 3 percent. That means 97 percent of your traffic is leaving your site without buying. But, what if you could lower that rate and convert 4, 5 or even 6 percent of your traffic? Just think how much of an impact that would have on your bottom line.

GrooveJar is a tool that helps you optimize your conversion rate. It offers several tools that can aid in email collection, highlight social proof and promotions and determine why your customers are leaving your site without buying just to name a few.

A/B tests are a valuable tool, and an easy way to free up your time and resources as you test to see what doesn't work and what takes your conversion rate even higher.

2. Share notes and documents remotely: Evernote.

Evernote is like a digital file cabinet. Unlike what you do with the physical real thing, Evernote lets you search and find your documents in seconds. You can also share them with your team members or contractors, collaborate on projects and keep the lines of communication open. Notes can be viewed on any device from any place with internet access by using the tool's app, website and desktop download.

Every note within Evernote can also be tagged with specific keywords, so they never get lost. Some users prefer to add acronyms within the title of their notes, to categorize them. There's no right or wrong way -- only methods that suit your specific style.

Related: 7 Tools to Increase Productivity and Efficiency

If you're still relying on handwritten to-do lists, whiteboards, sticky notes and other physical or paper-based tools for productivity and collaboration, you might find it useful to move your documents to the cloud for quicker and easier access -- especially if you're working with contractors or remote workers.

3. Keep track of your team's capacity/tasks: ToDoist.

Project management can be a hassle, especially if weekly meetings are still your go-to for disseminating information and delegating responsibilities. Things almost always fall through the cracks, even if everyone on your team has the best of intentions.

That's where a tool like ToDoist comes in. If you've tried project-management systems before and failed, don't worry, ToDoist's interface is clean, simple and free of distractions. It's also straightforward to use, which means that whether your is a team of one or many, you won't need to spend hours training on it before deriving results.

Managing projects manually is a burden on you and your managers, because you have to keep track of multiple tasks assigned to multiple employees, and follow up for updates. Lengthy weekly meetings can waste time and kill productivity. Try a different approach, and put project management on virtual autopilot to relieve yourself of that duty.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

2-27-2017, Entrepreneur -- HBO's new documentary Becoming Warren Buffett covers the billionaire's journey from an entrepreneurial boy to one of the wealthiest people in the entire world (including, depending on the year, being the wealthiest person in the world).

The documentary also focuses on his friendship with another of the world’s wealthiest men, Bill Gates. There’s a scene where Buffett and Gates had met early on and were sitting at a table, when they were both asked to write down on a piece of paper the one thing that they each felt attributed most to their success.

Surely enough, Buffett and Gates had written the same word down on their respective papers: focus.

In fact, it’s how we often determine success. Historically, renaissance men who were well-rounded in a number of pursuits were well-regarded for the breadth of their knowledge and endeavors. Now, we often equate success with being the best or amongst the best in a peer group.

I am the poster child for “do as I say, not as I do,” given my sheer number of current varied pursuits, but early in my career, I made my first million from very specific focus. Over the past two decades, I have been the most successful when I have been the most focused.

So, how can you stay focused in a world with so many distractions?

Set a concrete goal or focus. When I was in college, accumulating $40,000 in college debt, I set a goal to have a $1 million net worth by age 30. I knew exactly what my goal was. Then, I created a plan of milestones to achieve that goal, and I did not deviate from it until I had reached it. It’s much easier for you to focus if you set a clear path for yourself up front and stay relentlessly committed to it.

Follow your own path. Warren Buffett has had more success as an investor than any other individual in history. Daily, there are recommendations to act a certain way, but Warren says that he doesn’t follow the path or the advice of other investors. He sticks to exactly the types of businesses he understands well and only acts on an investment if he feels there is a need to, which means he has made very few investments or “trades” over the course of his many decades-long investment career. If you know what works for you, you shouldn’t be distracted by what others are doing.    

Read the rest of the story HERE.

When customers want to stand out, small brands can cash in.

11-30-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- Benji Wagner knows a dirty little secret about the outdoor apparel industry: Big brands like Patagonia and The North Face may advertise their gear being put to the test in the highest mountains and at the ends of the Earth, but 83 percent of all camping trips in the United States actually take place within a few feet of a car or a house. So Wagner is going straight at those consumers -- people who want to feel comfortable inside a tent perhaps just a few feet above sea level.

“The outdoor industry was founded on mountaineering, but most people are wearing their jacket to go grocery shopping,” says Wagner, cofounder and creative director of Poler Outdoor Stuff, which, since its 2011 launch, now sees double-digit growth every year. “The industry went down the rabbit hole in terms of creating more and more technical products for a consumer that’s essentially a weekend warrior. Poler makes a great jacket, but we’re not going to pretend you’re gonna climb Mount Everest in it.”

It may have once seemed impossible to go up against giant, established brands, but that increasingly just isn’t the case. Poler, and the apparel industry at large, tells an important story that’s true across all types of businesses: Broad but overlooked segments of consumers are being forgotten by big brands’ mass appeal, and even the smallest of players can use the internet to build strong personal connections with those left behind. The key is to tell seductive, inspiring (yet realistic!) stories that resonate and to give customers what the biggest companies can’t: a sense that Yeah, we get you.

“What many brands have nowadays is the ability to communicate who and what they are,” says Marshal Cohen, a retail analyst with The NPD Group. “Customers today are not looking to be one of a million people -- they’re looking to be one in a million. They want to stand out.” 

Communicating that doesn’t require big-budget money. Tracksmith, an upscale running apparel brand from Wellesley, Mass., doubled its social media reach in the past 10 months with less than $5,000 in ad spending, and has netted a $4.1 million investment from Pentland Group, which owns a stake in Speedo and licenses for Lacoste footwear and Ted Baker. Here’s how: It saw that household names like Nike, Adidas and Puma have conflated running with health and wellness in an effort to win the attention of gym rats -- so Tracksmith, which launched in 2011, celebrated the tradition of running as a stand-alone sport. It chased the habitual runner, creating a visceral brand story with photography that portrays everyday runners training, sweating and looking exhausted rather than triumphant.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur -- The economy is improving. Consumer confidence, although still volatile, has returned to pre-recession levels and business confidence has rebounded to near-record highs. A majority of small business owners anticipate revenue and profit increases in 2015. So, why isn’t small business access to credit improving accordingly?

In that piece last year, I expressed concern about the "choke point" in small business financing. I'm still concerned. The 2014 Year-end Economic Report of the National Small Business Association cites an uptick in small business owners’ overall positivity about the economy, but also notes that “nearly one in five small firms cannot meet increased sales demand due to inability to garner financing.” Perhaps the most appalling statistic I’ve seen recently is that 50 percent of small businesses ($250,000 to $1 million) received none of the financing they had applied for in the first half of 2014.

The relationship between credit and growth is particularly significant for small businesses. The NSBA survey reveals that 47 percent of the businesses denied credit were forced to delay business expansion. Twenty percent of small business owners relied on credit cards and business earnings to finance their credit needs. Other businesses delayed hiring.

It confounds me that in a year of record lending by the Small Business Administration, entrepreneurs still struggle to get the financing they need even when all indicators point to the opportunity for growth. In a positive move, the SBA recently launched the LINC program, an online matchmaking service that helps connect creditworthy small business borrowers with interested lenders. You start by filling out a simple online form to answer 20 questions. Your completed form is sent out to LINC’s network of local, statewide and national lenders, and potentially puts you on a fast track to consideration and approval.

But if you are denied traditional bank financing, don’t give up! Follow the lead of many of your fellow entrepreneurs, who are finding funds through well-established financing alternatives. In fact, my own company, Guidant Financial, created a tool for entrepreneurs to pre-qualify online for traditional and nonstandard forms of small business financing.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247506

Entrepreneur -- You can tell a soon-to-fail entrepreneur by the tired, haggard look in his eyes. Like extras from "The Walking Dead," they stumble around looking not entirely alive.

Because they aren’t.

Despite covariance in the rate of startup failures with overworked CEOs, the problem persists. Some founders are fanatical when bragging that they work 60 to 80 hour weeks. Their sense of building “sweat equity” blinds them to the sacrifices they make -- to their health, to their marriages, to their families and communities. What they mistake as a successful lifestyle is actually a massive failure.

Related: Here's Why the 8-Hour Workday Doesn't Work

Personal fatigue.

People are not designed for 80-hour work weeks, at least not over the long term.

Various studies show that we humans operate efficiently for maybe 10 hours a day, and that is if you sleep well, eat right and exercise regularly. As you will quickly see, attempting to work more than 10 hours is an exercise in diminishing returns, as it keeps you from being at your peak performance for those 10 top hours.

Most people need a solid eight hours of sleep to rejuvenate. This leaves 16 waking hours in a day. A fair amount of that time is spent in maintenance: eating, bathing, brushing teeth, walking dogs and other mundanities. Subtract also from these 16 available hours the minimal family interaction and duty time (driving kids to school), special events (seeing your doctor for that chest pain that has been nagging you), your commute time (which for most people is non-productive). Pretty soon, you may only have 10 hours in a day to do real work.

The only ways you can do more is to either work seven days a week (and that only buys you a maximum of 20 extra hours of productivity) or you skip doing those things called life. You ignore your spouse, miss your kid’s soccer game, renege on volunteer work, avoid the gym and live on fast food since you don’t have time for real food. With this lifestyle you soon won’t have a spouse, won’t see your kids because they live with your ex, are mutually ignored by people in your community -- and you will be found dead of a heart attack with a McDonald’s sack clenched in your fist.

Related: Working Long Hours Could Kill You

Why entrepreneurs work too hard.

Impatience is a universal trait with entrepreneurs. They have a vision and want to achieve it before the weekend. They also lean toward perfectionism, and pay close attention to the myriad of details in their business. Between wanting it done now and wanting it done right, they often choose to do it themselves. All of it.

But life doesn’t work that way. You don’t scale that far. Yet you start down the road of overworking yourself because you make many of the common entrepreneur mistakes:

• You don’t prioritize: Not everything is equally important, and you let B’s get in front of A’s.
• You don’t tackle "Tough Things First": Dread of big problems and distasteful tasks keep you from launching important initiatives.
• You don’t delegate: Fear of other people not performing tasks the way you think they should be done causes you to micromanage or otherwise add to your workload.
• You obsess over unimportant details: You cannot get your head out of the weeds long enough to see that the grass needs mowing.
• Read the rest of the story HERE.