The EO Blog

ChatGPT vs. Radical Authenticity in Personal Branding

25 August, 2023

As a personal branding expert, I have no choice but to advise you against using ChatGPT as your ghostwriter. Here’s why.

Looking to build your personal brand, but struggling with the time commitment required to write a LinkedIn post or, even worse, a lengthy thought leadership article? You are not alone. A fellow entrepreneur recently said to me: “I would rather have another C-section than sit down and write!” That is chuckle-worthy but relatable to so many of us, isn’t it?

Enter ChatGPT. As this chatbot continues to make waves across the digital world, becoming a hot topic of conversation both in boardrooms and in coffee shops across the globe, many entrepreneurs are seeing this impressive AI tool as the perfect solution to their content creation bottlenecks. The demand for this magical wand overwhelmed the servers, making them crash or simply unable to process the load. Suddenly, we are seeing many entrepreneurs churn out social media and blog posts at staggering speeds, thanking ChatGPT for providing the content they can simply copy + paste into their platforms of choice. Enter bad news. I decided to write this article at the risk of sounding like a Grinch who stole the proverbial Christmas, but I promise to offset the mood I may dampen with some practical advice.

The risks of using ChatGPT as your personal branding ghostwriter

As a personal branding expert, I have no choice but to advise you against using ChatGPT as your ghostwriter. Let me tell you why.

When it comes to creating content with the goal of building a compelling personal brand, your strategy must rest on at least one of the following three pillars:

Thought leadership
Opinion leadership
Experience sharing

Sometimes we curate and share someone else’s content (giving them credit, of course) or share something purely for entertainment purposes. The rest of the content we put out online, however, must reflect our thoughts, our opinion and our experiences.

This is where using ChatGPT can become problematic. When you “hack” the content creation process by copying and pasting its answers, you are leveraging someone else’s thoughts and opinions rather than your own. Why is it a problem? At best, your personal brand will feel unoriginal, uninspired and lacking the emotional connector that compels audiences. At worst, you will find yourself building a personal brand rooted in phoniness, thus foregoing what a personal brand should be rooted in: radical authenticity.

The “copy and paste” approach runs two other risks.

The first is the risk of misinforming your audience. According to ChatGPT itself, it can provide inaccurate or outdated information and can make mistakes. This was the risk we took when plagiarizing from a friend’s paper during school days, and it is the same risk we take today when plagiarizing from an AI tool.

The second risk is that a multitude of other entrepreneurs might have asked ChatGPT the exact same question that you asked and are creating a carbon copy post or article to yours. I give talks to entrepreneurs across the globe, and I know that we all complain about the noise and the repetitive “trash” (your words!) that we are inundated with online. Why add to it?

How to leverage ChatGPT to build your personal brand

By now you might be thinking that I am passionately advocating against ChatGPT for content creation, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I believe it is a fantastic tool that can aid us in the exact same way that Google translate aids but does not replace the actual work a translator does. I leverage it personally and within my personal branding agency. As promised, here are four ideas for how you can leverage ChatGPT successfully:

If writing is not a strength of yours, use your gift of the spoken word instead. Ask yourself a question, and record yourself answering it. Take the recording, put it through a transcription software such as OtterAI, and then take the raw text and put it into ChatGPT. This way, you will be leveraging it to edit your thoughts, your opinions and your experiences without having to do any of the actual writing. The quality of writing might sound generic, but at least there will be nothing generic about the content itself.
Not sure what to write about? Use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas. Tell it that you are looking to write an article, specify the audience, define the overarching theme (it can be general), and ask it to give you 10 ideas. Choose the one that speaks to you, and refer to point No.1 for the steps to take.
ChatGPT is particularly useful for adding punchy opening lines or engaging closing sentences. Yes, it will typically end each closing paragraph with “in conclusion,” but that can be edited out. Specify the tone you want: professional or serious, funny or humorous, engaging or light-hearted, and ask for variations to select from.
Use it for article title ideation. I asked ChatGPT for five ideas for the title of this article and here is what it gave me:

“From Personal Branding to Plagiarism: The Risks of Relying on ChatGPT for Content Creation”
“ChatGPT: A Powerful Tool for Personal Branding or a Shortcut to Phoniness?”
“Leveraging ChatGPT for Personal Branding: Tips and Tricks from a Branding Expert”
“Radical Authenticity in Personal Branding: Why Copying and Pasting from ChatGPT Won’t Cut It”
“ChatGPT for Personal Branding: How to Use it Wisely Without Sacrificing Your Authentic Voice”

Those are five great options. I felt that they were long for my style and voice, so I asked ChatGPT to shorten the fourth option. The result is what I chose as the title of this article — an interesting, on-brand title that ChatGPT and I collaborated on for a speedy result.

I hope to see more entrepreneurs leverage tools like ChatGPT — but without sacrificing human intelligence for an artificial one. The concept of “radical authenticity” in personal branding is what resonates with all entrepreneurs. I hear it almost universally, no matter the city or country in which I am delivering a talk. Collectively, we seem to agree that “fake it till you make it” is outdated and unfortunate advice (I wrote about it here and received an overwhelming amount of feedback from you echoing this sentiment).

And yet, as we feel enamored with the impressiveness of this new tool, we suddenly forget that copying and pasting is the antithesis of authenticity. We have so much to share with the world, so many battlefield stories to tell and so many ways in which we can leverage our experience to pay it forward. Why reduce it all to the platitudes pre-generated for us, polluting the online platforms and running the risk of your readers uncovering that the posts and the articles under your name are not even yours at all?

Contributed to EO by Marina Byezhanova, an active member-leader within EO and a member of EO Canada Bridge chapter. An entrepreneur, global speaker and university instructor, she is on a mission to inspire entrepreneurs to stand out, speak up and be radically authentic. She is the co-founder of Brand of a Leader, the personal branding agency for entrepreneurs.

This article first appeared on Entrepreneur and is reposted here with the author’s permission.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Best Practices PR/MARKETING WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: best practices Brand of a Leader ChatGPT entrepreneurs' organization EO Canada Bridge Marina Byezhanova personal brand personal branding

7 Ways to Tell Whether Your Digital Marketing Agency is an Asset

23 August, 2023

Designing a results-driven marketing strategy is an essential priority for business leaders who want to stay competitive. As Gartner noted in a 2022 report, about half of CEOs planned to push growth. And it’s impossible to expand or scale without a well-executed marketing plan.

But it can be tough to do it alone. That’s why so many companies — including 90% of smaller companies — outsource their most pressing marketing needs, like graphic design, copywriting, and video production.

But remember: Your strategy is only as good as the people executing it. No amount of “special sauce” add-ons, such as unique processes and proprietary technology, can overcome the limitations of a lackluster team.

So how can you judge the effectiveness of your agency partner? Look to your account manager.

4 Qualities of a Good Account Manager

From the start of your agency partnership, you’ll want to make sure you experience the following qualities of a good account manager.

First, your account manager’s communication should be clear and consistent. Your interactions with your account manager should be like clockwork. This regular cadence of communication lends peace of mind and ensures you and the agency are up to speed. It also ensures both sides are alerted to any problems. The best account managers run at problems, not from them. For example, when your account manager hears your article was turned down by a publication or your SEO strategy is lagging, they should tell you ASAP.

Second, your account manager should be inquisitive but consultative. You should be asked a lot of questions, but you shouldn’t be left with the burden of all the creative thinking. Your agency partner should bring ideas to the table for your input. If your account manager keeps asking, “What do you think we should do this month?” they are just a “yes person” and probably won’t contribute to pushing your business forward.

Third, your account manager should be a great listener — and honest. They should listen to your concerns and thoughtfully consider them, but they should also be willing to say when you’re wrong. This is incredibly healthy and productive as long as it’s done respectfully and tactfully.

Finally, your account manager shouldn’t take all the credit. The best account managers are proud of the talented individuals who are designing and deploying your Facebook ads or crafting the copy for your next landing page. Confident account managers give credit where credit is due and tell you who’s working on your projects. They’ll also allow you to speak to those individuals if it’s needed (though this should be rare to save you time and keep your workflow efficient).

3 Green Flags That You’ve Found a Great Agency Partner

Knowing the qualities that make a good account manager and actually seeing them play out in reality are two different things. That’s why I’ve outlined three “green flags” below. These scenarios indicate that your account manager — and, in turn, the agency — is a great fit for your business:

1. Your calls, texts and emails are acknowledged.

Few things make your heart sink faster than having an account manager who refuses to respond. You can only conclude that you’re being ghosted. And you’re hardly alone. A Harvard Business Review article notes that ghosting is on the rise — but it shouldn’t be tolerated.

You shouldn’t be relegated to just getting robotic monthly updates without any touchpoints in between. In this case, you’re being treated like a number, and that’s a bad way to ensure your marketing strategy is effective. Instead, you deserve some give and take. This doesn’t mean you can expect your account manager to work 24/7 and respond immediately. Getting a response within 48 business hours or less is reasonable.

2. You’re learning.

World-class account managers love to share insider details with clients. Having a better understanding of not only what’s happening, but also why it’s important puts you in a stronger position to make decisions. It also helps you better understand the customized strategy your digital marketing agency is executing on to reach your company’s goals.

At my company, we constantly strive to share knowledge when we collaborate on projects. Consider our content creation workflow with clients. We strategize together and have an open forum for brainstorming and knowledge sharing. Our objective is to help clients feel more comfortable with common terms and digital marketing tactics they might not have been familiar with before. At the same time, we tap into their profound experience to better understand them.

3. You receive reports consistently.

Reports are essential to make sure your strategy is moving forward. Unfortunately, only 53% of most marketing decisions are based on analytics. If your account manager backs up strategic decisions with data, they’re a keeper.

Even if you don’t understand all the nuances of such reports, you should still receive them, and your account manager should explain them to you. It should be a huge concern if your account manager never sends you data-driven reports on at least a monthly or quarterly basis (depending on your contract). Without reports, you are in the dark as to what’s working and what’s not. You could be losing out on countless opportunities — and money, too.

You need a solid strategy to keep your business moving in the right direction. However, you can’t put your faith in just any digital marketing agency. One of the wisest ways to judge your agency’s fit is by reviewing your interactions with your account manager. When it’s green flags all the way, you’re more likely to enjoy smooth sailing — and success.

Contributed to EO by Kelsey Raymond, the COO of Intero Digital, a 350-person digital marketing agency that offers comprehensive, results-driven marketing solutions. Kelsey has over a decade of experience helping businesses achieve their growth goals through digital marketing strategies. She leads a team of experts in content marketing, PR, web design and development, Amazon marketing, social media, video, and graphic design.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: BUSINESS GROWTH PR/MARKETING STARTUP WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: entrepreneurs' organization Intero Digital Kelsey Raymond

Run Your Business for the Present

17 August, 2023

How Entrepreneurs Can Create Meaningful Impact through Philanthropy, Part II

A three-part series showing alternative paths to the traditional model of making a boatload of money at all costs and then giving it away. Read Part I: Run Your Non-Profit Like A Start-Up.

Contributed to EO by Brandon Hatton, an EO member in Miami and the founder and CEO of Conscious Wealth, which helps its clients live abundant, intentional lives. Brandon is on a quest to build a conscious wealth movement at scale, so he created Conscious Wealth Living to provide actionable tools for people to heal their relationship with money, facilitate healthy intergenerational dialogues about money, and overall help individuals and families find confidence in having enough money.

I wrote the book Conscious Wealth because I realized how hard it is for people to answer the question, “How much is enough?” As an advisor and family facilitator, I’ve had thousands of conversations about money, and they all revolve around that one question. Since joining EO, I’ve heard from entrepreneurs time and time again that they can’t stop working because it is in their blood. They’re not going after the next big exit, the next bell ringing or unicorn because they need the money; they feel a deep-seated need to keep working.

In this series, I’ll share the stories of three entrepreneurs who have quenched their entrepreneurial fire while doing some real good in the world. You’ll hear how they have found alignment in their work, life and society. And, while they still ask themselves the question, “How much is enough?”, it’s no longer in regard to money, but rather how much positive impact is enough for one lifetime.

Case study of Monish Budhrani, an EO Accelerator in EO South Florida

The path to ‘un-delayed’ gratification, an often-forgotten path

Going public. Creating a unicorn. Changing the world with a new technology. All of these things define a textbook entrepreneur, both in our minds and in the media. Although it is true that painstakingly planning the big exit for years, perhaps decades, and walking away with a pile of cash is the dream of many entrepreneurs, Monish Budhrani has other dreams. His brand of entrepreneurship, along with others like him, focuses on impact beyond the traditional models.

In a way, Monish rings the bell every day, but not the bell most entrepreneurs think of. He rings the Taco Bell in the same three-tier mall where his parents owned a shop during his formative years. Although not exactly sexy, the place feels like home as he meanders the mall corridors and navigates the guts of the building, greeting other shop owners as they shout: “Hey, Mo!”

What stands out the most to me about Monish is his lack of ego and unflinching focus on the present moment. Monish currently operates a Taco Bell, two Pandora jewelry stores, and a thriving Amazon delivery service. He enjoys running franchises because they provide him the freedom to work on the processes needed to run a business. Witnessing his first-generation Indian-American parents struggle to compete with larger jewelry chains, he understands the value in having a company arrange marketing, pricing, sourcing, logistics, computer systems—you name it. And the magic, he explains, is that when you let go of all of that, the only thing you have to focus on is your people.

Build people up

“So, to me, if I don’t have good employees, or if I don’t even have enough employees on a given day, my business does nothing,” Monish says. “I’m not worried about customers — they will come. The employees are, in fact, my customers!”

And with that simple logic, a company culture that truly builds people up is born. Turnover in Monish’s franchises is low but, even better, there are rags-to-riches stories that echo his own. Monish speaks with pride as he describes the eight-year journey of one of his most trusted leaders, who started at US$8.75 an hour and is now on track to make US$90K in another franchise. With low turnover, his companies are filled with internal hires earning more money, experience, and skills in a dignified work environment. All this leaves Monish with the ability to focus on the other parts of his life, including spending time with his family and his newborn, Om.

Be present in your company — and in your life

You see, Monish started as an auditor in the corporate world where he earned his chops in processes, accuracy, and consistency, but he still remembers the day he got chewed out by a work superior for a calculating error he did not commit. Today, he visits multiple stores a day, six days a week, and makes sure to spend time on the loading docks, taco line, and jewelry counters. He spends time with his employees because he cares about them and because it is in the act of loading a truck where he can see if processes are breaking down or what needs to happen to make his employees’ work easier (and more productive). I get the feeling his workers see him as a cross between a boss, a mentor, and a corny uncle.

“How much is enough?” I inquire.

Monish grins and gently explains, “I’ve never started a business with an exit goal in the future. I live for my family. I don’t want to miss basketball games, school ceremonies, or whatever because my business is not running efficiently. I also don’t want my employees to have to miss big birthdays or anniversaries. That’s what’s driving me right now.”

Uplift humanity in the present moment

To be clear, the traditional entrepreneur’s path of idea, struggle, and exit is valid, but it comes at a price. The glorification of this model glosses over the real toll it takes on the workers, the entrepreneurs, and their families. How many times have we seen a founder elated in the excitement of an exit only to be awakened to discord in the family, a sinking feeling of despair, and a frantic search for what is next?

Monish’s drive to create more time with his family as well as a nourishing working environment for his employees illustrates a beautiful path to prosperity and entrepreneurship that uplifts humanity in the present moment. He exemplifies how to build a sustainable business and create an impact! To be sure, this path has struggles, hard work, and costs beyond dollars and cents, but I find it a path of greater ease, prosperity, and an ‘un-delayed’ gratification – a path all too often forgotten.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Entrepreneurial Journey Impact PEOPLE/STAFF WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION

Tags: accelerator Brandon Hatton Conscious Wealth Conscious Wealth Living entrepreneurs' organization EO Accelerator EO Miami EO South Florida Monish Budhrani

Why It’s Crucial to Go All In On Yourself As an Entrepreneur

16 August, 2023

In December 2022, my co-founder and I closed a friends and family seed round for Popsmith, raising US$1.53 million from 84 investors in under 45 days during arguably one of the worst times to raise money since 2008.

I’ve founded several companies over the past 20 years, but this was my first time raising money. Over the years, I have learned a lot of important lessons as a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Million Dollar Sellers and eCommerceFuel.

Arguably the most important lesson I learned is how critical it is to go all in on yourself as an entrepreneur. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?

Working-class roots taught me grit

I come from an uneducated immigrant working-class family. We lived in Coney Island government-subsidized housing for the first few years of my life. My parents divorced when I was young, and we fell into poverty. We had no health insurance; we shopped with food stamps.

My mom was left to raise two young boys essentially on her own with very little support. She did everything she could to make ends meet — cutting hair during the week and making and selling jewelry at night and on weekends. I spent many late nights alongside her, piecing together earrings and pendants on a folding table in our tiny apartment. We would wake up pre-dawn every Sunday, drive to the local swap meet, set up our booth, and sell our goods until sundown. Talk about grit! She had it in spades, and I picked it up from her.

We were homeless for a stretch. My kid brother and I slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the hair salon where our mom worked while she took the couch. We showered twice a week at a local hostel. Meals were either fast food or cooked in a microwave.

I had a very low sense of self-worth growing up. I was overweight and debilitatingly shy. I had few friends and very little guidance. I was bullied and teased incessantly. I was largely ignored, which stung the most.

Bootstrapping by age 12

I learned self-reliance early. I discovered that I had a knack for business at a very young age. Looking back, it seems like entrepreneurship was my destiny.

I started selling gumballs at school when I was 12 years old. I traded sports cards, delivered pizza, worked in fast food restaurants, waited tables, sold used cars, flipped burgers, and ran a vending route. I put myself through school and was the first person in my family to earn a college degree (and a high school diploma).

Work became my salvation, and I slowly built myself up, mentally and financially.

I started Gumballs.com at 21 years old with $2,400 — my entire life’s savings at the time. My kid brother, Ron, gave me $1,700 to help out, nearly everything he had, and against my wishes. I cried when I got that check.

My initial financial goals were humble: I needed to make US$3,000 per month in profit, enough to cover my basic living expenses, including a $10 per day food budget and rent for the trailer where I lived at the time.

My goals — and my self-confidence — grew as my business grew; 100-hour workweeks were the norm. I set a lofty goal: To become a millionaire by age 30. I got there at age 26, yet I still felt I had more to prove to myself.

I went on to found a half-dozen additional businesses, all 100% bootstrapped and self-funded. Some failed; some succeeded. Life and business can beat you up. Developing a tough skin while maintaining a soft heart becomes essential.

Today, I am the culmination of a lifetime of learning, pain, therapy, self-exploration, coaching, failures and triumphs. Many men suffer from imposter syndrome, including myself. Through patience and grace, I slowly realized that I am no longer that scared little boy who everyone ignored, ill-fated to follow in my father’s footsteps and repeat his transgressions. I know now that I am a competent man, worthy of love and support, a person who gives back to his community and is capable of leading a team toward success.

Betting on myself

A few years ago, I divested myself of all of my businesses to go all-in on what would eventually become Popsmith, investing millions of my own capital.

I wouldn’t ask my friends and family to bet on something I’m not willing to make a big bet on myself.

People asked me, “Why raise money?” That’s a valid question. Between my own capital and debt, I didn’t need to raise money. I chose to do so, in part, to mitigate risk.

But the larger reason was that I was excited to have my closest friends and family alongside me on this journey. I wanted us to win together.

Can Popsmith fail? Definitely. Business is hard. A lot can go wrong.

But I believe deeply in the company, the incredible team we’re building, and in myself.

I think we’re stacking the odds heavily in our favor to win. And after my friends and family invested in my company — which literally brought tears of gratitude to my eyes — I can’t wait to prove to them how heavily invested I am in making our shared future a tremendous success!

Contributed to EO by Tal Moore, an EO Los Angeles member who is founder and CEO of Popsmith. A version of this post first appeared on Tal Moore’s LinkedIn page and is reposted here with permission.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Entrepreneurial Journey Inspirational

Tags: entrepreneurs' organization eo los angeles EO US West Popsmith Tal Moore

Five Noes

13 August, 2023

For the past eight years, I’ve been privileged to be part of an EO program called the Entrepreneurial Masters Program, or EMP. Every year, I’ve joined 70 extraordinary classmates from over 25 different countries for an immersive four-day learning experience. Essentially, we revert to being students again, spending 10-hour days absorbing insights from expert practitioners and professors on how we can enhance both our personal lives and our businesses.

Each year, I leave with pages of notes, ideas and takeaways. But among those notes, I try to focus on two or three ideas that I can put into practice quickly.

When I left the most recent EMP installment, one of my most impactful takeaways came from one of our concluding speakers, a globally renowned mentalist named Wayne Hoffman. One of Hoffman’s points of emphasis was the importance of understanding that getting more “yeses” in life also involves getting more “noes.”

To demonstrate his theory, Hoffman invited a volunteer from the audience to join him at the front of the room. He presented them with a two-sided yes/no coin he’d purchased from Amazon. He then offered the volunteer a deal: They had thirty seconds to make as many flips as they could and would win $20 every time the coin flipped to “yes.” There would be no negative consequences for flipping a “no.”

The volunteer took the deal, and as soon as Hoffman said “go,” started flipping the coin with fervor. Eventually, the volunteer churned out seven yes responses and an approximately equal number of no responses. Hoffman promptly handed over $140 in cash to the participant. I was wishing I had raised my hand first.

Once the exercise was complete, Hoffman imparted the lesson: “yeses” matter more than “noes,” and taking more chances generates more of each. While there’s a near equal chance of getting told “no” in our endeavors, in virtually all cases, there is no penalty for that rejection beyond some brief discomfort or embarrassment. On the other hand, when you get a “yes,” there is likely a positive outcome on many fronts.

This was why Hoffman made it clear there was no financial loss or penalty for flipping a “no.” In a real-world example, with the same yes/no construct, but without the same level of clarity, the individual would likely have overthought the situation and may not have taken action. This is counterproductive; if you take more chances, the ratio of “yeses” to “noes” does not change. While you’ll get a lot of “noes,” you will get more “yeses.”

If you see a person who appears to have received a lot of “yeses,” you can be sure they’ve also received plenty of “noes” as well. A critical element in getting more of what we seek is enduring plenty of rejections along the way.

Hoffman also suggested that we often have a higher probability of getting a “yes” than we expect in even the most outlandish cases. During his session, to illustrate this point, Hoffman asked me for the name of a local restaurant and then called on speakerphone to see if they would give me a free meal for mentioning the restaurant by name to a room full of company leaders. The person answering the phone didn’t reject Hoffman immediately and took a message and offered to check with the manager.

Hoffman closed with one last challenge: He urged each member of the audience to try to get five “noes” over the next week. He also shared that, from his experience, it would be harder than we imagined. Sometimes a request is so crazy that people are too intrigued or thrown off to say “no.”

In the following days, our EMP WhatsApp group was flooded with tales and pictures of these various attempted “noes.” Some were hilariously outlandish, yet the principle seemed to hold true. The more the group members asked, the more “yeses” they accumulated, even if they were accompanied by some “noes.”

While I knew this lesson instinctively, it was a huge reminder for me that one of the biggest keys to getting more “yeses” in life is becoming desensitized to “noes.”

In life and business, we can all have more success if we commit to taking more initiative, being less indecisive, and being willing to endure some emotional discomfort. This seems like a small price to pay for getting more of what you want.

This week, I challenge you to get to five “noes” yourself, and maybe challenge the team you lead to do the same.

This post originally appeared on Robert Glazer’s Friday Forward newsletter and is reprinted here with permission.

Contributed by Robert Glazer, a former EO Boston member who is the founder and chairman of the board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency and the recipient of numerous industry and company culture awards. He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward and No. 1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of five books: Elevate, Friday Forward, How To Thrive In The Virtual Workplace, Moving To Outcomes and Performance Partnerships. He is also the host of The Elevate Podcast.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Best Practices Entrepreneurial Journey LEADERSHIP Lessons Learned

Tags: acceleration partners emp entrepreneurial masters program entrepreneurs' organization eo boston robert glazer Wayne Hoffman

5 Entrepreneurial Trends That Never Go Out of Fashion

9 August, 2023

Fast money, big dreams, and never-ending hustle. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about, right?

I take a different view.

To me, entrepreneurship is about more than making a quick buck. It’s about building something that lasts. Something that makes a difference in the world.

At age 21, I took control of the debt-burdened family business my parents started many years earlier. I was young, inexperienced, and way over my head. The business was on the verge of bankruptcy. Over 35 years later, Absco Solutions is one of the most respected firms in our industry. We have weathered recessions, market crashes, and challenges that would have destroyed most businesses.

The key to our success is how we leveraged certain entrepreneurial strategies that are often misinterpreted as mere trends. In reality, these tried-and-true concepts have always worked—and will continue to work—no matter what the economy or business landscape looks like.

If you want your business to thrive, here are five practices that have the power to fundamentally transform your business:

1. The Power of a Handshake

A handshake is much more than just a physical gesture. It’s a sign of trust, respect, and cooperation. When you shake someone’s hand, it means you are willing to work together for mutual benefit. This simple act imparts a sense of confidence and goodwill and can be the foundation for a strong business relationship—one that will weather any storm.

The handshake remains one of the most powerful business tools you have at your disposal.

2. Core Values (And How they Pay Back)

We can’t achieve great things without a clear purpose. Even so, the journey can take a thousand different paths. But if we don’t have a clear sense of why we do something, how can we expect others to rally around it?

When we know our “why,” everything else falls into place. “What” and “how” become easier to figure out once we know “why.” Simon Sinek’s often-quoted phrase sums up the importance of “why” perfectly: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”

The first part of Sinek’s quote is the part most people remember. Yet it’s the second part that ties into the driving force behind any remarkable business, person, or movement: Core values.

None of us make decisions based exclusively on logic. Emotions factor in. Does the other person feel good about doing business with us? Do they trust us? Do they feel like we have their best interests at heart?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves. The only way to answer them is to have a strong set of core values that guide everything we do. If our “why” is a beautiful and loving home that people love spending time in, our core values are the foundation on which it rests.

3. Hybrid, Remote, or In-Person? Look Within for Answers

I have personally seen the value in supporting flexible work environments. It doesn’t apply to everyone, though.

Remote, in-person, and hybrid deployments each come with their own hurdles.

I’m not in the position to dictate what works for other businesses. Doing so would take away your chance to learn from those within your organization who know it best. Why miss out on such a great learning opportunity?

Personally, I’d rather leverage well-informed internal insights than act on what worked for someone else. Data over dictation.

I will say that now is the time to experiment if you have the resources to do so. Source feedback from team members to make well-informed decisions.

Don’t be afraid to dig deep; are there compliance risks tied to going hybrid or fully remote due to your industry or application? What about security, permissions handling, and otherwise? Can these be addressed in a remote setup, or do you require an in-person office where file sharing, sensitive meetings, and other tasks can be done in a centralized location?

The Harvard Business Review poses important questions to ask that can be retooled to help determine the type of setup that would work best for you.

4. Find the Right Growth Pace for Your Business

We humans are impatient. We want things to happen quickly and efficiently, especially in our businesses. We want to see results, and we want to see them now. Often, the way we operate our businesses directly reflects this mindset.

The moral of the rabbit and the turtle’s tale remains relevant. The rabbit may have been faster, but the turtle won the race in the end. That being said, it won’t be the case for every business. Slow and steady growth isn’t the guaranteed ideal approach for all. Every business is unique.

The takeaway from that tale isn’t about speed, but rather healthy and sustainable growth. If you’re growing in a financially stable, sustainable manner and are happy with the pace, that’s great. The same applies if you’ve experienced more rapid growth than expected but have a happy, well-supported team and can handle it. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

To find a pace that works for you, refer to an internal, financeable rate of growth, based on your cashflow and profit. Trust raw internal data and your team rather than the dictations of others.

I find the golf adage, “Drive for show, putt for dough” to be applicable. While we all want to grow our top-line revenue, what goes to the bottom line is more important. A 300-yard drive is wasted if it takes four puts to finish the hole.

5. Truly Take Care of Employees and Teams

Aristotle once said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This is especially true for businesses. A business is more than just a collection of individual employees. It’s a team, and each member plays an important role.

When you take care of your employees, you’re not just taking care of individuals, you’re taking care of the entire team. And when you take care of the team, you’re taking care of the whole business.

This sounds simple, but it’s not always easy to do. Here are a few tips to help you take care of your employees (and your business) in the best way possible:

1. Communicate regularly and openly.

2. Ensure everyone feels like they’re part of the team and that their contributions are valued.

3. Show employees that you care about them as people, not just workers.

4. Encourage a healthy work-life balance for all team members.

5. Invest in employees’ development and growth.

When you take care of your team, you’re investing in the future of your business. And that will pay off for years to come.

These “trends” may wax and wane in popularity, but they will never go out of fashion. These five practices (among others) will always hold true and be relevant in today’s business landscape. A business that’s meant to last will always be built atop a strong, stable foundation. Often, that has absolutely nothing to do with “trends.”

Contributed to EO by Erick Slabaugh, a long-standing member leader of EO Seattle and former director on the EO Global Board, who is a serial entrepreneur, board member and advisor. He serves as the CEO of Absco Solutions, a 40+ year market veteran in the facility security and fire-life safety industry, as well as CEO of FCP Insight, a cloud-based enterprise software solution for electrical contracting businesses. Erick recently shared 5 Timeless Principles of Entrepreneurial Success on EO’s Inc.com channel and Reflections on the Origin Story of EO Global Leadership Academy (GLA).

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Best Practices BUSINESS GROWTH Lessons Learned

Tags: absco solutions entrepreneurs' organization eo seattle erick slabaugh FCP insight

How Entrepreneurs and Founders Can Avoid “Capital Tunnel Vision”

4 August, 2023

As an entrepreneur or founder starting a business, you may think of capital as purely monetary. Capital is often viewed only as an opportunity for an infusion of money into a business to get it started or grow and scale your company.

Unfortunately, without a solid grasp of how capital — in its many different forms — can influence a business, too many founders make decisions early on in their companies that have unintended consequences down the line. This can negatively impact the growth of your business and hurt your chances for a healthy exit — whether you’re selling to a buyer or passing it on to the next generation.

Identify the right track for your goals

Entrepreneurs must align business goals and long-term objectives at the outset of founding their company in order to attract the right type or combination of capital to support success.

Starting a new business can be frenetic; as a founder, you may be charged with emotional determination to succeed. Many entrepreneurs leverage a uniquely laser-focused mindset to bring their vision into reality. As a new business begins to take shape, it is not unusual for the founder to accept outside sources of funds to support business growth. That often occurs after the dogged effort that got you to that point.

However, entrepreneurs can benefit from pausing before launching their company to define what types of capital would be ideal to achieve the overall goals and objectives they have for the business. For example, founders may benefit not only from having a vision for setting up the company but also from foresight in terms of how they intend to exit or pass on their business, which is often impacted by how they accept outside capital from inception.

To raise or not to raise?

Outside investment is not mandatory when starting a business. It’s a misconception that to IPO or exit successfully, you must have outside financing and investor capital. It isn’t even a priority for many new business owners: Institutional Investor reports that only 16% of 3,400 polled entrepreneurs want to go public.

Because many founders do not plan to exit with an IPO where outside financial capital would help reach that goal, it’s necessary to consider other options that may be better for the long-term health of the business. What’s often lost when capital raise decisions are made is that taking external funding shifts the ecosystem of your business. For example, an entrepreneur whose company offers a premium product or client experience may not decide to focus on operating lean and mean, but an outside investor may add pressure to hit operational efficiencies that do not align with the company’s goals.

It’s also often in the best interest of founders to make a strong effort to bootstrap for as long as possible. In other words, be wary of capital investments from a source that may shift control or dilute objectives.

Taking outside financial capital can impact your company’s capital table or ownership structure, and it can increase pressure to perform in areas you otherwise might not have defined as fundamental to long-term success. This can be destructive to company value.

Find the right capital combination

When you think about capital, don’t be constrained by its traditional monetary form. There are non-monetary ways to interpret what is of value to a business — whether it is in the form of human, social, intellectual, reputational, operational or cultural capital.

It’s a best practice to consider that embracing several types of capital may lead to better outcomes. Finding the right combination of two or three types of capital that are critical to achieving milestones can serve as an investment in and of itself.

For example, in a client-centric business, human capital and reputational capital are a winning combination. Focusing on those areas is more likely to lead to growth than taking on an outside investor who expects cost-cutting measures to improve profit.

Considering different forms of capital not only helps to pinpoint what may help the business succeed, but also whether the business model is sustainable. Also, it can inform natural synergies or strategic partnerships.

For example, it can be next to impossible to acquire cultural capital — such as deep relationships and reputational strength — but intellectual capital (like patents) or operational capital (such as a similar business with stronger short-term cash flow) could be harnessed from a strategic investor or acquired at the appropriate time. So, defining what modes of non-monetary capital are critical and unique to the business can help determine where and when taking an outside investment makes sense.

Your company may require outside capital in various forms over the course of your journey and in different economic cycles. However, be acutely aware that accepting outside investors can have long-term consequences that might take the business in a different direction if not aligned with the business owner’s goals and objectives as defined from the get-go.

Options like bootstrapping can help a founder retain control and look more creatively for ways to reinvest back into the business to expand or grow, while protecting control, ownership interest, and the non-financial capital that is the company’s secret sauce. Also, diversifying the type of capital you acquire — whether human, intellectual or other — can help you build your business in a way that truly meets your vision and creates durable wealth.

Contributed to EO by Diane Johnston, Senior Vice President of Wealth Management, Institutional Consultant, and Financial Advisor at UBS.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: FINANCES general STARTUP

Tags: Diane Johnston entrepreneurs' organization UBS

5 Activities That Require Hybrid Employees To Come To The Office

2 August, 2023

Hybrid employees don’t hate the office — they hate commuting to it, surveys show, since commuting can take over an hour per day and cost several thousand dollars per year. Peer-reviewed studies find clear associations between longer commuting times and lower job satisfaction, increased stress, and poorer mental health.

Given that data, when I consult for organizations on determining hybrid employee work arrangements, a primary consideration involves minimizing staff commuting time. That means using data-driven methods to determine what endeavors offer the best return-on-investment for in-office work to make them worth the commute. Then, we develop a communication strategy to convey the value of these face-to-face tasks to hybrid employees, to get their buy-in on coming to the office for high-impact work pursuits. In turn, we convey a commitment to minimizing their time spent in traffic by bunching as many activities requiring face-to-face presence together as possible. Doing so helps improve hybrid employee retention, engagement, and morale while reducing burnout.

What kind of work should hybrid employees do at the office?

The large majority of hybrid employee time is spent on individual tasks, such as focused work, asynchronous communication and collaboration, and videoconference meetings, which are most productively done at home. There’s absolutely no need for employees to come to the office for such activities. Still, the office remains a key driver of value for high-impact, lower-duration activities that benefit from face-to-face interactions.

1. Intense collaboration

Intense collaboration involves teams coming together in person to solve problems, make decisions, align strategy, develop plans, and build consensus around implementing ideas they brainstormed remotely and asynchronously. Face-to-face interactions empower team members to observe each other’s body language, picking up on subtle cues like facial expressions, gestures, and posture they may miss when communicating remotely. These nuances carry much more weight during intense collaborations.

2. Challenging conversations

Any conversation that bears the potential for emotionality or conflict is best handled in the office. It’s much easier to read and address emotions and manage conflicts face-to-face, rather than by videoconference. That means any conversations that have performance evaluation overtones should rightly occur in the office. The content might range from weekly 1-on-1 conversations between team members and team leads that assesses performance for the past week and what they will do next week, to quarterly or annual performance reviews. Similarly, it’s best to handle in-person any human resource concerns.

3. Cultivating team belonging and organizational culture

Our brains are not wired to connect and build relationships with people located in small squares on a videoconference call, they’re wired to be tribal and connect with our fellow tribe members in face-to-face settings. In-person presence thus offers an opportunity to build a sense of mutual trust and group belonging that’s much deeper than videoconference calls. As a result — whether at the level of small teams, mid-size business units, or the organization as a whole — in-person activities offer the opportunity to create a sense of group cohesion and belonging.

4. In-depth training

A survey by The Conference Board reveals the key role of professional development for employee retention. While online asynchronous or synchronous education may suffice for most content, face-to-face interactions are best for in-depth training, by allowing trainees to engage with the trainer and their peers more effectively. Physically present trainers can “read the room,” noticing and adjusting to body language and emotions expressed by trainees. In turn, peer-to-peer learning helps create a learning community that builds trust and facilitates mutual understanding and retention of information by adult learners.

5. Mentoring, leadership development, and on-the-job training

Whether integrating junior staff and providing them with on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching current staff, or developing new leaders, the office provides a valuable venue for such informal professional development. If team members are in the office, mentors and supervisors can observe the performance of their mentees and supervisees, and provide immediate feedback and guidance. Doing so is much harder in remote settings and can result in biases.

Similarly, mentees and supervisees can ask questions and get answers in real time, which is at the heart of on-the-job training. It’s certainly possible to do so remotely, but it takes more organization and effort. Mentoring and leadership development often takes subtlety and nuance, navigating emotions and egos. Such navigation is much easier in person than remotely. Moreover, mentees need to develop a sense of real trust in the mentor to be vulnerable and reveal weakness. Being in person is best for cultivating such trust.

Conclusion

The best practice for hybrid work involves helping employees reduce commuting by asking them to come in to the office only for high-value face-to-face activities. These tasks include intense collaboration, challenging conversations, cultivating belonging, professional development, mentoring, and building weak connections.

Contributed to EO by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, who helps leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He is the best-selling author of 7 books, including the global best-sellers Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters and The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships. His newest book is Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox, and over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill and Ohio State. A proud Ukrainian American, Dr. Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: Company Culture PEOPLE/STAFF

Tags: Disaster Avoidance Experts entrepreneurs' organization Gleb Tsipursky Hybrid Office Strategy hybrid work hybrid work culture

How to Leverage Customer Referrals for Business Growth

28 July, 2023

Word-of-mouth is a key factor when it comes to growing a business. In fact, referrals and recommendations make up 65 percent of new opportunities — a percentage no business can afford to ignore.

If you’re a small business leader, it’s a best practice to ensure client referrals are an integral part of your marketing and sales strategy. With a strong incentive program in place, your business will be able to generate more leads and increase customer loyalty in one fell swoop.

Before discussing how to put an effective referral strategy in place, however, it’s important to understand why customers find referrals so compelling and why some companies’ referral programs fail to get off the ground.

Why Referral Programs Work

In the quest to grow and scale, it can be easy to forget that there are actual people behind sales numbers. When that happens, the focus moves away from bolstering customer relationships and toward boosting those numbers in any way possible. While this might spike numbers for a little while, it will ultimately harm growth in the long term.

A strategy that centers around referrals can help businesses avoid this pitfall. It focuses on the people behind the numbers and makes it clear to clients that you believe you deserve their business.

A word-of-mouth approach can lead to higher conversion rates than other marketing strategies, especially for younger generations. According to McKinsey, 63 percent of Gen Zers trust recommendations from friends more than any other source. Because the internet has made it easier than ever for people to provide such recommendations, the value of referrals is only trending upwards.

So, if recommendations are so powerful, why do some referral programs fail to generate growth?

Why Some Referral Programs Fail

More often than not, a company’s referral strategy fails because it commits the cardinal sin of marketing: Failing to consider what the customer wants.

If your incentives aren’t something your customers are interested in, your referral program will never get off the ground. In order to create a successful referral strategy, you must first understand what your customers care about and what they want from you. This is the foundation upon which you can build a truly reliable program for growth.

Once you have that solid foundation, you can move on to the next steps in creating a referral program that will speak to your customers and help drive growth for your business.

4 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Referral Program

Here are four insights to help maximize the effectiveness of your referral program:

1. Create a robust incentive program.

While some customers might be happy to recommend you without expecting anything in return, you need to make your program transactional to develop a consistent stream of referrals.

Create an incentive program based around data on what your clients want. Make sure that it ties in with what you do best. Because this can vary significantly between industries and target demographics, it’s crucial to conduct your due diligence before rolling out a program. If you can demonstrate to customers how referrals benefit them, you’ll have a much better shot at success.

2. Encourage customer loyalty.

The longer people have been customers, the more likely they are to refer you to their families, friends, and colleagues. Likewise, when you create a customer loyalty program, you build up a base of brand evangelists you can rely on.

Offer incentives such as discounts or exclusive offerings for loyal customers. This encourages more people to stay with your company and increases their likelihood of telling others about these benefits. You can even tie your referral strategy into this loyalty program by offering long-term customers bigger incentives for bringing in new customers.

3. Work on your timing.

Believe it or not, the time and place you choose to ask a customer for a referral can make the difference between a yes and a no. Make sure the person you’re approaching is currently happy with your service. Remember: A long-time customer isn’t necessarily a satisfied customer.

Consider asking for referrals during regular check-ins or carving time out for reps to make referral-centric calls. This way, you can gauge the satisfaction of each person before you ask for a recommendation. Don’t send out referral requests to new customers. They are unlikely to recommend your product, and your request may leave them with a bad impression — something that can be extremely damaging when your relationship is new.

4. Take advantage of social media.

While social media is an excellent way for customers to get their recommendations out to large audiences, its usefulness goes beyond its ability to scale.

For one, social media can be extremely helpful in qualifying the leads that customers bring you. If you’re a B2B organization, for example, you can visit company pages on Facebook and LinkedIn and even look up information about the specific members of an organization that you’ll be dealing with. This research will help you separate real leads from red herrings and provide information that can help you figure out precisely what potential new customers want.

Social media also provides another avenue to reach customers and ask for referrals. Rather than targeting a specific customer, you can have your marketing team post messages that inform everyone of your incentives for referrals. This will help you push your request out to a broad audience of people who can then choose whether they want to participate. It’s a low-risk approach that can yield high rewards.

A successful referrals program is essential to healthy growth. This is especially true for small businesses working with limited time and budgets. By making the effort to set up a program that benefits both you and your customers, you can set your business up for long-term success and create a base of satisfied customers who will be with you for the long haul.

Contributed to EO by Eric Watkins, the president at Abstrakt Marketing Group, a business growth company that provides lead generation solutions.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: BUSINESS GROWTH PEOPLE/STAFF STARTUP

Tags: Abstrakt Marketing Group best practices entrepreneurs' organization Eric Watkins

Audience Research 101: The Key to Creating Marketing Videos That Convert

26 July, 2023

Whenever I try to convince someone to do something, I show them how it will benefit them. I address fears or pain points, anticipate objections, and ensure they have all the information needed to make a decision.

All of which require me to know and understand that person very well.

The same is true for high-quality digital marketing content. The better you know your audience, the more effective your posts and videos will be at converting leads — making audience research crucial to achieving your marketing goals.

Whether we’re talking about a person or a company, there are multiple aspects you’ll want to uncover: your clients’ demographics, behaviors, motivations, frustrations, life goals, needs and wants.

To start, let’s explore four excellent audience research channels you can use to build more accurate client profiles. These profiles will ultimately help you create outstanding video content that contributes to your marketing strategy.

1. Client Comments and Testimonials

One of the best ways to find accurate information about your audience is to examine your current client data to build an “ideal client profile”. Here’s how:

Use your current client database. Start by identifying your best customers. Ask: Who’s your oldest client to date? Who buys the most from you? Which client generates the most referrals? Then, find common characteristics shared by those loyal clients and group them. What is their age range? Their professions? Where do they live? How’s their buyer journey? Use these commonalities to start outlining what your ideal customer looks like.

Use your clients’ communication history and feedback. For a more fleshed-out profile, review your clients’ emails and past communications. Pay attention when they express suggestions, complaints, questions or problems about your products or services. Outline these elements to learn about FAQs, side benefits you hadn’t thought of, and common hurdles they face.

Survey your clients. Don’t settle for archival data! Reach out and ask clients to rate their experience. Send them personalized questions and include a reviews feature in your online store. Create a profile representing the characteristics, wants, and needs of the type of person you love doing business with. Then, use it as a baseline reference whenever you make content choices on things like FAQs, targeted ads, and explainer videos geared toward conversions. Check out these 14 explainer video styles to determine which might be best for your company.

2. Leverage Metrics and Analytics to Expand Your Profile

Metrics are your best friend when trying to understand potential clients’ characteristics.

Platforms such as Google Analytics and social media management tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social can help you gather data about your clients in bulk and expand your profile to represent a broader segment of your audience.

For social media:

Engagement rates: What kind of posts get the most engagement from your audience? Find aspects shared by those posts and build content around them.
Comments: Always review the comments on your posts, which often contain questions and feedback. Sometimes you’ll find unkind words. Those can also be valuable in pointing to areas where you can improve.
Click-through rate: This is the number of clicks your posts get, indicating which calls-to-action drive the most engagement from your type of audience.

For your website:

Average visit duration: The average time users spend on your website. It shows whether or not people find your site interesting or engaging.
Average time on page: Similar to visit duration, this is the average time people spend on one specific page or post.
Bounce rate: This indicator reveals whether people stay on your site or leave right after landing on it.
Conversion rate: This metric shows what percentage of people take a specific action on your website (such as clicking on a particular button, subscribing, or buying).

Analyze these metrics and consider A/B tests with your site to better understand the elements that resonate with people and apply those same principles when working on your videos.

3. Keyword and Topic Research Tools

Finding trends in your niche is another great way to determine what your audience engages with the most. And there are plenty of popular digital marketing tools you can use to find and analyze these trends:

Google Trends: This tool analyzes what people talk about in niches and regions relative to specific topics. You can even set up notifications to inform when the search for a particular keyword or topic arises to coordinate content releases around that surge.
Answer the Public: Insert two or more words into this savvy tool, and it reveals the questions people are searching for that are related to them.
Quora: A place to share knowledge. It’s similar to a forum but focused exclusively on asking and answering questions, which can provide a wealth of insights surrounding what potential clients are curious about.

Use the data you collect to inform your content marketing strategy, creating short videos around news or trending topics in your niche and sharing answers and insights your core audience would be interested in.

4. Your competition

Knowing your competition can be a great source of complementary information for your audience research. By definition, their audience is similar to yours, and they may have tried different content ideas — which can save you time and resources by learning from their results.

Browse your competitors’ social media, blog, and YouTube channel profiles to find posts about similar products or services. Read comments from their audience, and note what resonates the most with them. Then, use that information to deepen your understanding of your audience’s fears, pain points, problems and questions.

Time To Take Action

Conducting effective audience research is a crucial step in your content marketing strategy if you want to set your videos apart from the crowd.

Use the data you gain from audience research to guide your video production decision-making, and you won’t be disappointed with the results!

Contributed to EO by Victor Blasco, an audiovisual designer, video marketing expert, and founder/CEO of the explainer video production company Yum Yum Videos. Besides running the business, he’s a lifelong student of Chinese philosophy and a passionate geek for all things sci-fi. He has also shared his expertise with EO on How To Leverage Video Content To Enhance Internal Communications and 5 key elements of effective whiteboard videos and How to use creative videos to transform email marketing from basic to bustling.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.

Categories: general PR/MARKETING Video

Tags: entrepreneurs' organization Victor Blasco Yumyum videos

INSIGHTS FROM

LEADING ENTREPRENEURS

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As a personal branding expert, I have no choice but to advise you against using ChatGPT as your ghostwriter. Here’s why.

The risks of using ChatGPT as your personal branding ghostwriter

How to leverage ChatGPT to build your personal brand

4 Qualities of a Good Account Manager

3 Green Flags That You’ve Found a Great Agency Partner

1. Your calls, texts and emails are acknowledged.

2. You’re learning.

3. You receive reports consistently.

How Entrepreneurs Can Create Meaningful Impact through Philanthropy, Part II

Case study of Monish Budhrani, an EO Accelerator in EO South Florida

The path to ‘un-delayed’ gratification, an often-forgotten path

Build people up

Be present in your company — and in your life

Uplift humanity in the present moment

Working-class roots taught me grit

Bootstrapping by age 12

Betting on myself

1. The Power of a Handshake

2. Core Values (And How they Pay Back)

3. Hybrid, Remote, or In-Person? Look Within for Answers

4. Find the Right Growth Pace for Your Business

5. Truly Take Care of Employees and Teams

Identify the right track for your goals

To raise or not to raise?

Find the right capital combination

What kind of work should hybrid employees do at the office?

1. Intense collaboration

2. Challenging conversations

3. Cultivating team belonging and organizational culture

4. In-depth training

5. Mentoring, leadership development, and on-the-job training

Conclusion

Why Referral Programs Work

Why Some Referral Programs Fail

4 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Referral Program

1. Client Comments and Testimonials

2. Leverage Metrics and Analytics to Expand Your Profile

3. Keyword and Topic Research Tools

4. Your competition

Time To Take Action