"I have been involved in multiple partnerships at the founder level and have learned through experience it is always best to play to your strengths. While one person may have initially come up with the product or model, another may be more suited to lead the company as the CEO. Every role at the founder level is equally important, so assign them with the company's best interest in mind."
"In every team, there are dynamics that should be taken under consideration when distributing roles. In the very early stage, everyone wants to be a C-Level, but as time goes by people should be willing to drop the CxO title and take over what they can handle best."
"Most entrepreneurs never weigh their personal life and the overwhelming power it has over their business. Marriage, kids, grandkids and health concerns should all be factored in when deciding on leadership positions. They should also be re-evaluated as your business and you grow and evolve. The pace you worked at two years ago may not be the pace you're at now with differing factors in place."
"If you have to ask yourselves which role each co-founder should have, it means that the team is likely not balanced to begin with. The co-founding team should be chosen so that the expertise of each one covers a certain aspect of the business: tech development, business development and management. It's not about what one wants -- it's about what one brings to the table."
"As an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to build toward the future you want to create. When deciding who should take on what role, play to each other's strengths, but also think about what it is that you all really want to be doing. Strive to create a team and an environment where you can make that happen. You founded a company to do more of the work you love."
"Most founding teams already have complimentary skill sets (someone technical becomes the CTO, someone more business oriented becomes the CEO, etc.). The most important things is to have a delineation of roles so the founding team can get the most done, and then leave space for the other(s) to do work without micromanaging."
"Founders spend a lot of time thinking in the abstract about who will be the CEO, COO, etc. Ultimately, it's all guesswork. You just have no idea until you've tried it. At InGenius, we gave all the founders projects typically done by the CEO, and the person who performed best took that role. It takes a little longer than just choosing, but it dramatically reduced the chance of error."
The best leaders of today recognize the importance of excellent customer experience. They do their due diligence when designing great experiences and taking the steps needed for those experiences to happen. At my company, we add meaning to our customer experience by maintaining our Net Promoter Score (NPS), which is an active, fluid way of measuring customer loyalty.
The Dollar Shave Club is a prime example of a company with an above-average NPS score that contributed greatly to its value. With a consistent commitment to enhancing their core customer experience, it recently sold to Unilever for $1 billion. Here are three ways you can add value to your own customer experience and start building an above-average NPS of your own:
Most businesses will provide tools and education to help employees boost their knowledge and emotional intelligence, but they often leave out a key skillset that sets the stage for the best customer experience: personal control (AKA the control quotient). This is the ability to stay calm when things become challenging — not just once — but when handling every challenge as they come.
The key to increasing your employee’s CQ is creating the right environment. The Effortless Experience, a method for building stronger customer loyalty, defines the three necessities an employee needs to up their CQ. They include: the need to feel trusted to make the right choices, the need to feel connected to the company’s bigger mission, and a strong peer network for support. Businesses that create support and education around these three factors create a positive and supportive environment where customer experience can thrive.
If you want an NPS that tells you your customers feel great about the experience they’re having with your business, you have to go beyond simply meeting their needs. After all, customer satisfaction is only one part of the customer experience. Without focusing on how the customer feels throughout their entire experience with your business, customer loyalty is much harder to achieve.
Reduce the amount of effort required on your customer’s end to get the experience they expect. Customer experience requires constant proactive thinking to identify and prevent the next issue before it happens. This can be attained through client feedback, but a business must also continuously discover what its customers’ pain points and goals are, and apply this knowledge. Another way businesses can ensure a proactive experience is by putting together tutorials, guides and other information that answer questions your customer is likely to ask. This way, solutions are easy to find. Again, it’s about constantly getting to know and understand your customer, and nuture that relationship continuously.
Happy employees take care of customers. As Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, once said: “If you want the people in the stores to take care of customers, you have to make sure you’re taking care of the people in the stores.”
If you truly want to serve your customers and offer them the best solutions, you must adopt an employee-centric management strategy. When employees aren’t treated well, they’re too frustrated to focus their time and energy on providing a good customer experience. Richard Branson said it best: “If the person who works at your company is not appreciated, they are not going to do things with a smile.”
Employees also give customers clues into what your company really stands for. If your customers see employees who are mistreated and undervalued, it speaks volumes far beyond what any marketing campaign or product solution could repair.
In order to achieve the highest NPS score, businesses need to prioritize employees first, customers second and shareholders third. When you follow this model, all three stakeholders get exactly what they were looking for out of your brand.
]]>"At Company Folders, we have tried many loyalty and referral programs over the years. However, one has stood out above the others. We estimate the time when a customer will run out of folders, then call them at that time and offer them a discount to reorder with us. This works well because it's personalized to each customer, rather than being a mass marketing effort."
"Some of the best referral programs come with a good jingle and make it as easy as possible for the referrer. Living Social has a good "Buy Three, Get One Free" program that is as easy to participate in as sharing a deal on social media with a unique trackable URL. You can set up your own similar system by generating unique URLs for a user that shares. Then reward them after X redemptions are achieved."
"Make sure that not only the person doing the referring gets compensated, but also make sure that they can offer their leads a nice incentive as well. It should be a win-win. For example, we offer bonus VIP memberships for both the person that does the referring and for the person that accepts their referral. They each get something free that we normally charge for. It motivates everyone."
"As a B2B company, it's important to develop and foster healthy relationships with competitors. While this may seem counterintuitive, it's quite valuable. Larger companies can refer clients that are too small, and you can refer clients that are too small for you to smaller companies. You can incentivize by giving and getting a commission as well. It grew our business by more than 150 percent year to year."
"We spent too much time and money cold calling and emailing leads. We prevented interested users from using our product until they signed contracts. And then one day, we opened up a completely free, limited version of the product. Within 12 months, we went from 100 customers to over 20,000. Make your product easy to use, try and buy, and consider whether freemium might make sense for your business."
"I like Referral Candy because it is a seamless, easy-to-use online system for leveraging the power of referrals. It allows for custom referral and reward systems that fit your business and budget."
"I host networking events for young professionals and one successful referral program we've created involves having our ambassadors utilize trackable links and compete against one another to refer the most people to attend. It piggy-backs on our loyal and excited attendees to spread our message while also leveraging their competitive spirit."
"Capturing email addresses in the referral loop tripled the conversion of our referral program. We have an otherwise standard referral program: both customer and guest get credit when guest purchases. But for the guest to claim the referral credit, they need to provide their email address. This allows us to provide timely reminders and product updates, increasing conversion."
"Your loyalty program doesn't have to be a pay-per-referral model. One of the best ways to make your clients feel valued and bring in new ones practically for free is by setting up product experience sharing. Let your client know that if they post photos or video of them using your product, they'll get a discount on their next purchase. Shared experience sells better than shared opinions."
"We sent gift certificates to everyone who had worked with us for a full year to reward their loyalty. The gift certificates could be applied to any of our membership levels, and they were a huge hit that got people talking. We achieved a high retention rate, and we will definitely do something like this again in the future."
"We run a service industry business, meaning that personal relationships with our customers are a critical component of our marketing efforts. Generally speaking, I've found that the most effective way to build and sustain a referral program is to invest some time with our referring customers. A lunch or a dinner goes a long way — and each person will refer customers for years to come."
The survey found that today’s entrepreneurs are very optimistic about the current and future state of their business, including the potential to grow. Many attribute this confidence to the current economic climate. Yet, there are issues related to digital transformation processes, a lack of government support and the need for more resources. This includes the need to improve infrastructure, minimize the regulatory environment and continue improving the tax structure.
The survey also revealed that female entrepreneurs tend to struggle more during their first year of business than their male counterparts. Many noted that the challenge of leaving the confidence and financial security of their jobs to create their startups was the biggest issue. However, over time, this faded and those that have continued to build out their startups have mostly been able to survive and continue growing.
Over a quarter of black first-year startups and a quarter of Hispanic first-year startups have one or fewer business owners they can turn to for support or advice within their network. Financial support also appears to be an area where all entrepreneurs, including startups and older businesses, could use greater assistance.
There is a lack of support when it comes to understanding the basics of business setup, such as how to get payment systems and benefits for employees up and running, selecting a business structure, getting the appropriate licenses and becoming compliant with all regulations. Lack of advisory and support has even prohibited many from pursuing loans or grants that might help them continue to grow their startups and businesses during an economic environment they view as positive.
In serving as a business advisor myself, I see that there is a big opportunity for more current and retired business leaders to take on roles and fill in these gaps, providing support in the form of mentoring, networking and connections, education and strategic direction. First, you need to locate these entrepreneurs like those within this survey.
Reach out online through networking groups and share your interest in advising or mentoring any startup or company that needs help. If you participate in conferences, this is another good place to announce on stage or throughout networking at these trade shows.
Focus on an industry where you believe you can provide the type of support these entrepreneurs are seeking. Or, if you have any type of regulatory or government experience with lobbying or other connections, you could focus on this level of support. Look for the places where you can deliver the support rather than seek out a leadership role just because that’s where your experience lies. This goes beyond making a list of recommendations. Any consultant can do that.
I realized early on as an advisor that businesses didn’t necessarily need another leader — they could really benefit from an expert who could bring them up to speed on a particular area or build plans to propel the business forward. That means rolling up your sleeves and working wherever needed to help that entrepreneur. Even if you are pitching in with someone who has considerable experience, identify what they may not see and focus your assistance there. It’s a temporary position where you are filling a gap, not taking over the company.
Entrepreneurs are very much like the customers you seek among a consumer or business audience. They are unsure, untrusting and unaware that they may need a business advisor. That means presenting your value-add to them. Personalize what you can provide for them. Utilize past experiences and provide specific examples of what you have done in terms of various types of support. It helps to put together a list of references they can check. All this points to your capabilities and builds a case for how you can help.
If you don’t want to go it alone as a business advisor, work as part of nonprofit or operate in conjunction with other organizations designed to help these entrepreneurs. Getting involved gives you more opportunities to build knowledge and experience across an industry or business niche. Also, it provides you with a sense of satisfaction that you are giving back or paying it forward in relation to all the support you might have received when you were in the same shoes.
For example, Techstars is an accelerator who created a nonprofit division called the Techstars Foundation to directly support minority tech entrepreneurs. They offer financial support, such as grants and scholarships. They also partner with numerous other organizations that have initiatives, programs and advisors directed at helping minority entrepreneurs. They are always seeking business experts and seasoned entrepreneurs to assist their efforts to support these entrepreneurs and work past these issues.
]]>While the reality is that most people do not dream about being in an office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., what if they were able to make steps toward fulfilling their personal goals while meeting the goals and necessities of the business? This may seem taboo, but I believe there’s something here.
When co-founding my e-learning company in 2012, the No. 1 goal I knew I wanted to embed into our culture was employee happiness. I asked myself, “What do people need to be happy?” With this top of mind, my co-founder and I developed a culture that allows employees to feel like they don’t have to hide plans to travel — or maybe even start their own company one day — from their bosses.
This leads us to one of the most important pieces of designing a business with a focus on employee happiness: Leadership must be 100% committed to this vision, and have a willingness to see people succeed at what they love doing.
With this commitment, we then adopted a management philosophy supporting this vision called Positive Leader, developed by Paul Fayad (my father and business partner) and Chak Fu Lam, which helps businesses design a positive work environment that promotes creativity, happiness and positive thinking. Here are five takeaways we’ve gleaned from this experience.
1. Hire For Culture Fit
We realized that personality was as much a part of the hiring process as education and experience. We use a personality assessment called the Positive Assessment Tool (PAT) that allows us to hire individuals with who have high amounts of empathy and compassion, embodying a service attitude. We call our team members “rowers,” because they are constantly in motion, steering the company in the right direction.
2. Prioritize The Onboarding Process
This is where you get to know an employee, and they get to know you. This window of time filled with enthusiasm is often squandered and neglected by businesses. We’ve found great success in pairing our new hires with mentors. It’s also important to make sure you take this time to educate them about whatever else they need to be successful, such as your company’s culture, policies and products.
3. Use On-the-Ground Leadership
To put it simply, being an “on-the-ground” leader means being both visible and available to your team. To understand what employees want and need, you have to be around — which is why we work alongside our teams in all three of our offices across the country. We make ourselves available via office hours every day, and also conduct weekly one-on-one meetings with leaders on our team. Never underestimate the impact of employee facetime.
4. Be Transparent When You Communicate
Communication is the “make or break” component of every company: communicate too sparingly, and your employees will feel like they have no say in the company. Unless you’re dealing with personal, private information, there shouldn’t be an element of secrecy in the company. You either have transparency or you don’t. Transparency only works when everyone is on board and comfortable being open with their communication.
In one-on-one meetings, we not only set company and department-specific goals, but we have employees write out their personal achievement aspirations so we can understand what gets them excited. We also have found great success in our monthly all-hands meetings for company-wide transparency, and Slack communication for the day-to-day transparency.
5. Look Towards The Future
One of the most important elements of our company’s culture is that it gives employees the freedom to be able to create and shape their future. This includes reinventing their job duties and responsibilities.
Throughout my career, I’ve made it my personal mission to seek out what it means to be a leader and develop a culture where employees don’t drag their feet every morning to wake up. Now more than ever, we’re choosing to embrace the dreams and goals that employees have outside of the office, and empower them to work towards those and apply them to their work for us. This is what will open up the floodgates for engaged, fulfilled, and happy employees contributing to the success and future of your business.
]]>"A company needs to bring something unique to the world. That means it contributes value that other organizations don't. This is the company's unique value proposition. You should be able to describe this value clearly and succinctly to potential customers. You don't need this proposition to be a tagline, but if it makes a great tagline, go for it. I would avoid creating taglines without meaning."
"If your brand says it all, a tagline isn't necessary. "Bob's Best Burgers" doesn't need the tagline "The best burgers in town!" We know, Bob, you've already told us. Taglines communicate ideas and themes relevant to your business, which your brand may be failing to do. If you find your brand does the job, don't over-communicate your message on principle. Taglines aren't a necessity."
"If your company name is self-explanatory, a tagline isn't necessary. A tagline is beneficial for a company whose name isn't descriptive or is ambiguous. The trick is to make sure that it evolves with your company. Businesses often change their value props or their goals over the years, so your tagline needs to adapt to match who you are today — not who you were 10 years ago."
"Some companies do fine without a tagline, and if your tagline is horrible, it could actually hurt your business. Lazy taglines don't do much for your business either. Restaurants who use the tagline "a great place to eat" aren't demonstrating what their unique purpose is. If you can create a great tagline that speaks to why you're the best at what you do, it can do wonders for your business."
"Deciding if an organization needs a tagline is based on several factors. Ideally, there are very few instances where a tagline shouldn't be present because it rarely does damage to a brand, and if effectively deployed, it helps the company be more memorable. Whenever possible make a tagline short, powerful, and reflective of the organization's value to the client."
"At Round Table Companies, "Vulnerability is Sexy" has emerged as our tagline. It wasn't created from a strategy; we simply took an internal conversation and directed it outward. As a result, we now sell branded T-shirts, are launching a card game under the same name, and I recently delivered a TEDx talk with that title. A great tagline tells the world what you stand for."
"Developing a strong tagline forces you to synthesize your story into an easy soundbite. This is critical if you want to build word-of-mouth referrals. When you deliver a great experience, your fans will talk about your brand. Creating a compelling tagline gives them the language to use and allows you to control how they introduce new folks to your company."
"I tried to think of a tagline for taglines and came up with: "What's not to love about taglines?" After all, every time an announcer runs through the list of sponsors, the ones that stick in my mind are the ones with taglines. "Love. It's what makes a Subaru." I find that infinitely more memorable than just the name "Subaru.""
"Taglines are important for smaller companies who are not as widely recognized as their larger competitors. When a user is searching for a product or service, they often quickly browse through search results, briefly stopping on your site. You only have a few seconds to capture this user’s business. Your tagline needs to sum up what your company is all about in a very small fraction of time."
"We created the tagline "Make Driving Safe" for our new product Fensens. This tagline clearly demonstrates that we are automotive safety-related and that we have the vision to make our roads safe. If you can sum up your product/service and make it clear what your vision is in only a few words, you are miles ahead of the competition."
There are different levels of intrapreneurship: Unofficial intrapreneurs are individuals in an organization who take responsibility for driving end-to-end product development — potentially up to and including bringing the product to market. These are essentially the “star product managers” in an organization. In some instances though, these intrapreneurs may spin up independent businesses within the parent organization. These quasi-independent intrapreneurship situations are the ones that have the most potential, but also pose the greatest danger.
Keeping this in mind, here are the five most common issues plaguing intrapreneurship today:
Intrapreneurs usually start out by identifying a new or previously missed opportunity for the parent organization, and then pull together the resources to capture the opportunity. In these instances, the strategic alignment between the intrapreneur and the organization is obvious. The problem is traditional entrepreneurs at the idea/seed stage rarely (if ever) make it to market with the original product they envisioned.
As an intrapreneur, my team and I developed an interesting piece of advertising technology that modestly surpassed our industry’s benchmarks. We soon realized the modest improvements we could deliver weren’t compelling to our customers, but our ability to gather data across tens of thousands of websites was. Unfortunately, our parent organization was averse to data-centric business models and we weren’t given the freedom to pivot. Intrapreneurs are plagued with an inability to respond to the needs and demands of the market, which takes an already difficult task (finding product-market fit) and makes it almost impossible.
One of the few red flags that will always kill an investment deal with a venture capitalist is when a company’s founders claim to be “co-CEOs.” This doesn’t work. In the context of intrapreneurship, there are always multiple CEOs. At a minimum, there are two: the intrapreneur and the parent organization’s CEO. In some instances, there might be someone like a VP of Product, complicating matters even further.
With multiple CEOs, strategy and priorities are bound to shift over time, and team members could get confused and ultimately frustrated with dealing with inconsistent leadership. The parent organization’s CEO of one intrapreneur I have worked with dictated a list of product development priorities to the intrapreneur’s team, while the intrapreneur gave the team another set of priorities. In an environment like this, progress cannot be made.
Top talent can choose between two kinds of companies: They can pick blue chip organizations, which while maybe less interesting can offer larger salaries and clear paths to advancement and stability. On the other hand, they can pick a startup where they will earn less in salary and where advancement options are less obvious, but they’ll have substantial control over company’s direction. Intrapreneurial companies usually end up with the worst of both worlds.
As an intrapreneur trying to hire talent, I was always asked what kind of equity package we could put together for prospective hires. Unfortunately, the answer wasn’t a particularly attractive one. This meant we couldn’t attract the kind of diehard talent startups typically seek. Rather, we attracted people interested in a corporate culture. Without the tools or structure to hire and retain top talent, intrapreneurial endeavors are operating at a disadvantage from the start.
Intrapreneurial companies have complicated capitalization issues. Often, they are funded from corporate cash flows. This can be great when times are good, but it introduces uncertainties entirely outside the intrapreneur’s control. If the parent has a bad quarter, funding may dry up for the intrapreneurial endeavor. Similarly, a slight shift in the parent organization’s priorities may result in engineers or other resources being taken from the intrepreneur and put into other projects. I’ll admit that when I was overseeing intrapreneurial teams, I would occasionally “steal” resources for other projects I was working on. Even with the best of intentions, these kinds of resource shifts happen all the time.
If you’re an intrapreneur and you manage to avoid all the above problems, you’re then likely to fall victim to culture issues. Running an intrapreneurial endeavor inside a larger organization successfully requires setting your own culture and following your own strategy. It might mean different face-time expectations, and it almost certainly means a more nimble operation. People in the parent organization who are not part of the intrapreneurial endeavor could potentially develop feelings of resentment.
Being an entrepreneur is extremely difficult, so it’s not surprising many are attracted to the idea of intrapreneurship. It promises the same creative outlet as entrepreneurship with the stability of a traditional career. However, given the additional hurdles faced by intrapreneurs, most entrepreneurs would be better off taking the plunge and launching their business as an independent company.
]]>These are lessons I take with me every day. They provide a general framework to help push me through whatever each day throws at me.
]]>In our quest for growth, we often find ourselves overlooking simplicity. Now, I’m not suggesting that you take a shortcut down the path of least resistance. Instead, embrace the chaos of entrepreneurship, look for patterns, make sense of the details and adjust and refine your approach.
One way to start is by learning some key truths about business. Here are 10 things you should never forget in business – useful reminders to keep you sharp.
It’s often the simple things that we learn along the way that make the most impact in our lives. Consider what entrepreneurship has taught you so far. Simple reminders are often hidden it what seems to be chaotic complexity.
]]>When I launched my online travel company back in 2008, I got serious about networking, and it helped me create the successful company I have today.
Since then, I’ve gathered some of my favorite networking methods that continue to work for me.
Modern-day networking begins with a strong online presence across your company’s website and social media channels. Thousands of worldwide connections can be made in a click, so make sure your online presence is up to par.
Keep your web platforms seamless and consistent with your brand’s image. From LinkedIn to Facebook and your company’s website, make sure they each consistently tell the story of your brand. Your personal social media channels should be even sharper: After all, this is where most connections will come from, so make sure you have a clean profile void of any nonsense on these platforms.
A few of our latest business partners came from my personal LinkedIn connections. For business-oriented social media, you can’t beat LinkedIn. Start there with a strong personal profile, and build connections with notable names in your industry.
When networking, keep in mind that you’re the product. People want value, and a first-person view of the person running the company is what they will see first. Regardless of whether you’re selling wine or travel arrangements, you’re at the front line, so be knowledgeable and enthusiastic. This means respectfully carrying yourself both online and at events.
At events in the past, there have been a few people I couldn’t wait to meet based on their success, but once I met them, the idea of creating any type of business relationship with them — or even meeting them for dinner — went out the door.
Don’t just wait for planned events to network. Frequent places where others mingle and build a rapport there. Go to as many events as possible in your industry, from fundraisers to major conferences.
The travel industry is loaded with events all around the world. If I’m at a conference or meeting in one city, I’m always checking to see if something is happening in that area. I’ve made some of my biggest connections at events I initially didn’t even plan on attending; I ended up there simply from being in the right place at the right time.
So far, we’ve discussed opportunities for serendipitous networking. But what if you’re looking to meet someone specific? First, find out where you can meet, then create a strategy with planned goals. Treat it as if it were a meeting. But remember, sometimes events or even social media messages can get chatty, and many leaders and CEOs are extremely pressed for time.
When creating your strategy, ask yourself a few questions: How will this person add value to your company? When’s the best time to reach them? How will you open up a rapport with them? The biggest question you need to answer — mostly for them — is why you are creating rapport. It’s not just about what type of value they can bring, but what type of value you can deliver.
Networking never ends. Whenever you make a new connection, make it a habit to immediately follow up, either that day or the next. It can be a simple email, text or call, as long as you make sure to follow up while you’re still fresh in their minds. This shows motivation and further solidifies your passion, not just for your company, but also your personal brand.
If content is king, then networking is queen. Never miss an opportunity to network, whether it’s a huge industry event or meeting with someone who reached out on LinkedIn. Put your personal brand out there and keep it at the top of everyone’s minds.
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