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A heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the teacher who impacted my entrepreneurial journey

8 September, 2021

Richard Levychin is an EO New York member and chairperson of EO OneWorld, a membership platform affiliated with EO’s New York chapter which believes that a diverse EO is a stronger EO. EO OneWorld will add value to EO by attracting more EO members from the Black, Hispanic/Latino(a)(x), Asian and LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurial communities. Richard is also a partner in Galleros Robinson Certified Public Accountants and Advisors, where he heads the firm’s Commercial Audit and Assurance practice. Richard is grateful to the mentors who inspired him to succeed, and wrote a touching tribute to a college professor who had a lasting impact on him. The following article originally appeared in Business Insider and is reprinted here with an addendum, as noted toward the end.

When I received a letter from my alma mater, Baruch College, awarding me with the Baruch College Alumni Association Leadership Award for Business, which was to be presented as part of their annual meeting, I was deeply humbled.

I did a flashback in time to when I was the 18-year-old immigrant kid from Jamaica, living in Springfield Gardens, Queens in New York who, in his sophomore year at Baruch, was enrolled in two back-to-back advanced accounting classes taught by Diane Gold, a 25-year-old Jewish woman with a BA, an MBA, a CPA, and a PhD.

She was close to 300 pounds. So the Black kids in the class, in our infinite smart-ass wisdom, nicknamed her “Slim.” Not much older than us, she was part hard-ass teacher and part smart-ass teacher.

Class was a combination of intense accounting content and jokes flying across the room between her and mostly the Black students. The other students simply didn’t have the courage or the material to participate in the jokes. The thing about Slim was that as long as you did your homework, did the classwork, and got good grades, you could make as many smart-ass comments as you liked.

She took a special interest in me and was unimpressed with my 90-plus test scores, choosing instead to focus on the 10% I got wrong. (“Richard, 90% in college gets you an “A.” 90% at work gets you fired”). She would do a deep dive with me on the 10% I got wrong, usually ending our conversations with “What were you thinking here? Come on. You are smarter than this.”

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Categories: Coaching Entrepreneurial Journey Inspirational Legacy Member Spotlight

Tags: Baruch College Diane Gold EO OneWorld Galleros Robinson Richard Levychin

10 Valuable Instagram hacks and features

3 September, 2021

Contributed by Harikrishna Kundariya, CEO at eSparkbiz Technologies, a SaaS development company that provides world-class solutions to help clients grow digitally.

Instagram, with its massive audience, is still growing day by day. People feel incredibly engaged by and spend so much time on this social media platform because of its unique and ultracool features that allow users to share stories with the world in a creative way.

Is your company maximizing its Instagram presence to grow and scale? There are features available on Instagram that are yet undiscovered by most users.

Here are 10 Instagram hacks and features you probably haven’t used yet.

1. Shortcuts for common responses

Responding with the same reply to everyone becomes annoying and time-consuming. A better strategy is to save pre-written responses so that you can quickly respond without wasting a second.

How it’s done:  Go to your IG profile and click on the three-line icon. Then go to settings, tap “creators,” and then click “saved replies.” Add your common response and save it along with a shortcut to identify the message when you need it. You can use pre-existing replies by typing the shortcut into the direct messages (DM) of any user.

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Categories: Best Practices BUSINESS GROWTH Guest contributors Media PR/MARKETING

Tags: eSparkbiz Harikrishna Kundariya Instagram hack Instagram presence social media hack

Why your company requires both brains and brawn to succeed

1 September, 2021

Contributed to EO by Robert Siegel, who teaches two of the most popular courses at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He’s also a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, sits on the boards of several startups, is a many-time entrepreneur himself, and was previously an exec at GE and Intel. Siegel’s recent book, THE BRAINS AND BRAWN COMPANY: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical, explores how (and why) many business owners in digitized industries overlook and underappreciate traditional competencies like logistics, manufacturing, customer service, and quality control. We asked Siegel about his research; here’s what he shared:

We’re constantly told that digital transformation is the most important issue facing companies today. You’re a Silicon Valley veteran who’s tired of hearing that. Why?

Because this message has become trite and simplistic. Digitization is a massive and massively important trend. Leaders in every industry need to wrestle with it. But despite fervent preaching from the Silicon Valley faithful, it’s not the only competency that matters. The less flashy, more grounded aspects of business, such as logistics and manufacturing, are still crucial to the success of any company, large or small. Amid the insistent drumbeat of digital transformation, those traditional, old-fashioned competencies are easily overlooked and underappreciated.

A cultural gulf has opened up between the realms I call brains and brawn. Others may call this dichotomy digital versus physical, the disruptor mindset versus the incumbent mindset, start-up world versus Fortune 500, or tech culture versus industrial culture. Whatever terms you prefer, it’s time to bridge the gulf and reframe the dichotomy.

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Categories: BUSINESS GROWTH Guest contributors INNOVATION STRATEGY

Tags: Brains and Brawn Company digital transformation entrepreneur Robert Seigel Stanford Stanford Graduate School of Business venture capital

Daria Tsvenger

4 tips for hiring your first personal assistant

27 August, 2021

Daria TsvengerContributed by Daria Tsvenger, a recent guest on the EO Wonder podcast. Daria is a life coach for high achievers and a neuroscience nerd who founded The Dream Sprint, a personal growth challenge aimed to motivate and inspire people to fulfill their goals. She is also a mentor at 500 Startups, where she helps entrepreneurs manage stress, increase confidence and supercharge productivity.

“The inability to delegate is one of the biggest problems I see with managers at all levels,” said Eli Broad, an American businessman ranked by Forbes as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world.

He’s right, of course. As entrepreneurs, we know that delegation is essential. In theory, it sounds awesome and makes sense. But in practice, it’s hard to find the right person you can trust and manage well.

Smaller business owners may think hiring a personal assistant is a luxury, and it would be wiser to save money and do everything yourself. In larger companies, executives have the resources to hire, but nobody teaches them how to manage a personal assistant’s time and delegate daily work beyond calendar management.

Hear more from Daria Tsvenger as she speaks with Kalika Yap on the EO Wonder podcast.

I hired my first personal assistant in 2019—and it’s been a game-changer. I’ve been a one-woman show since 2018 when I started my first business. I hired freelancers for specific tasks, including website design, copywriting and SEO. But, managing those freelancers was always on me, on top of the actual client work and content creation. In 2019, I realized that I wanted somebody to be my right hand and essentially replace me on specific tasks.

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Categories: Best Practices Entrepreneurial Journey Lessons Learned PEOPLE/STAFF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: conflict resolution Daria Tsvenger delegate wisely delegation structure Eli Broad EO Wonder The Dream Sprint wonder podcast

Simon Says: Have “The Talk” with your parents

25 August, 2021

Contributed to EO by Saul Simon, a certified financial planner, a registered representative of Lincoln Financial Advisors and founder of Simon Financial Group. This article is the second in a series of three about having “The Talk” with your business partners, parents and adult children.

As we get older and hopefully wiser, more responsibilities fall upon us. We are often referred to as the Sandwich Generation—caught in the middle between aging parents and children.

We, as children of aging parents, have to look toward the future, and with that comes the delicate “talk with our maturing parents” (and/or senior relatives who may not have children or other involved family).

Brace yourself—this may not be easy for you to do or for your parents to hear, but to avoid serious issues in the future which could make a difficult time even more frustrating, this talk is necessary. It goes without saying, this conversation should not happen at a family birthday party, anniversary, Thanksgiving, or holiday celebration. It is very personal and should be scheduled at a quiet time when you, your parents, and any siblings are all together.

Setting the scene

This is a conversation that comes from a place of love and caring. It is meant to fulfill your parents’ wishes for the distribution of their most valuable and precious belongings. In addition, it will enable you to distribute their valuables and sentimental belongings to whom they want, when they want, and in the manner they want. The intention is also to create asset protection strategies so creditors, predators or ex-family members, cannot access the monies that your mom and dad worked so hard to accumulate.

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Categories: Best Practices FINANCES Lessons Learned Other

Tags: Aging Parents lincoln financial advisors Lincoln Financial Group Sandwich generation Saul Simon Simon Financial Group Simon Says The Talk

Renee Rouleau

25 Lessons In 25 Years: Tips for Success from a Self-Made Beauty Entrepreneur

19 August, 2021

Renee RouleauRenée Rouleau, an  EO member in Austin, is the founder and CEO of Renée Rouleau Skin Care, whose products and personalized skincare are respected by celebrities, bloggers, and skincare obsessives. As she marks 25 years in business, Renée shared what she’s learned along her entrepreneurial journey.

I cut the red ribbon at 4:10pm on August 17, 1996. It was my 26th birthday, and I was officially starting my company, Renée Rouleau Skin Care, in Dallas, Texas (though I would eventually relocate the company headquarters to Austin).

Why did I choose this exact date and time? They would never teach this in business school (not that I went to business school!), but I wanted all the luck I could get, so I consulted an astrologist named Iris. She chose this specific date and time to ensure success. Fast forward to today—a full 25 years later—and I’m proud to say my company is thriving and better than ever.

Do I owe all my success to the astrologer? No, not entirely. Over the course of a quarter-century, I’ve learned a lot of lessons about how to successfully run a company. These lessons are what made the biggest impact on my business. Here they are, just in time for the 25th anniversary of Renée Rouleau Skin Care.

1. Treat Your Vendors as Partners (and With Kindness)

Anyone with whom you do business and who provides you with what you need to operate should be treated as a valued partner. You need them, and they need you. It’s that simple. I’ve always cultivated respectful working relationships with my points of contact, and depending on the vendor, I would even fly to meet them in person to establish a connection. The importance of treating vendors as partners was confirmed by the Covid pandemic when so many vendors shut down and the supply chain ground to a halt. It was a stark reminder that we don’t have a business without them. Once they opened back up, they put their “favorite” customers at the front of the line to get their goods, which goes to show that it pays to be nice!

2. Manage All of Your Crazy Ideas and Review Them Each Quarter

Like most entrepreneurs, I have no shortage of ideas. With so many swirling in my head, paired with my naturally high sense of urgency, I have a tendency to be all over the place, creating unnecessary chaos for my team. I manage this by keeping an “idea bank” where I write down every idea I come up with. Once a quarter, I review the list with my team to determine which levers are the next ones to pull. Over the years, this has taught me that just because an idea is good doesn’t mean it’s worth pursuing now (or ever). Timing is everything, and it’s incredibly beneficial to slow down and consider all options instead of acting immediately.

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Categories: Best Practices BUSINESS GROWTH Company Culture Entrepreneurial Journey general WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: eo austin renee rouleau Renee Rouleau Skin Care Renee Rouleau Skincare

Chris Beyer photo credit

Unemployable: 5 Realizations from my entrepreneurial journey

18 August, 2021

Chris Beyer photo creditContributed by Lauren Messiah, former president of EO Los Angeles, and the founder and CEO of Lauren Messiah Inc. She currently serves EO as president of EO OneWorld, a virtual membership platform with the goal of creating a more socially conscious, culturally diverse and inclusive experience for all EO members. Because a diverse EO is a strong EO. Lauren shared the following realizations from her entrepreneurial journey:

(Photo credit: Chris Beyer)

There is a moment in every entrepreneur’s life when you realize you are “unemployable.” Not due to a lack of intelligence, but because we’re like wild horses that can’t be tamed. We have to go off on our own and do our own thing; it’s the only way for us to thrive.

My unemployable moment arrived in 2004. After graduating college with a degree in fashion design—it was always my dream to work in fashion—I experienced the rudest of awakenings: Earning a degree did not guarantee a job in your industry.

That was news to me. I thought if I did the time, got good grades, and graduated, I’d have my pick of the litter when it came to employment. Not so. I ended up working retail at the mall where I shopped as a teenager. 

I was not living the dream.

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Categories: general Inspirational Member Spotlight WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Tags: EO Accelerator EO LA EO OneWorld lauren messiah womentrepreneur

healthy conflict

Is the 9-to-5 workday dead? What employees seek in return-to-office plans

11 August, 2021

healthy conflictWhat do employees want in returning to the office? 

Business owners often assume they know what their employees want due to a dangerous judgment error termed the false consensus effect. This problematic mental blindspot causes us to perceive others—especially teammates—as sharing our beliefs. That’s often not the case.

The false consensus effect is one of over 100 misleading mental patterns that researchers in behavioral economics and cognitive neuroscience call cognitive biases. Fortunately, by learning how to defeat the harmful impact of these dangerous judgment errors, we can make the wisest and most profitable decisions.

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Categories: Best Practices Company Culture Crisis PEOPLE/STAFF WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION

Tags: 9 to 5 workday behavioral economics disaster avoidance Disaster Avoidance Experts false consensus effect gut feelings

Cashless payment

5 Steps to prepare your business for a cashless future

6 August, 2021

Cashless paymentWith the advent of technological innovations, including dedicated servers and cloud hosting, businesses of all shapes and sizes are shifting to a more digital way of working. From international companies to locally owned small businesses, the landscape of how business is done has been gradually changing for some time now.

One of the most significant changes—hastened by the global pandemic where contactless payments gained traction—is the switch from cash-in-hand transactions to cashless. In the UK, for example, the volume of cash being used has dropped by an astonishing 60%—and the trend seems set to continue.

As cashless culture becomes more readily available thanks to features like contactless pay becoming commonplace, now is the best time to get your business ready for these changes.

Here are 5 things entrepreneurs need to do now to prepare for a cashless future. 

1. Spread the word about cashless payments

There’s nothing worse than walking into your favorite coffee shop, only to realize it doesn’t accept cash and you don’t have your bank card. Such small moments can severely tarnish your brand reputation.

It’s vital to keep customers well informed of any changes you make or plan for your business, including the transition to cashless. Post signs and share information on social media to inform customers of upcoming changes so that they can prepare for the update.

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Categories: Best Practices FINANCES STRATEGY

Tags: cashless future Cashless payments contactless payment Hansen Ross Media paypal Ross Hansen Venmo

Where there’s a will, there’s a way: My journey setting up a Covid ward in India

4 August, 2021

Contributed by Saravanakumar Periyasamy of EO Oman, director of Zawawi Powertech Engineering. In 2019, he became the director of Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai, India.

My journey begins

In 2019, I was sent to Chennai, India, as part of the team assigned to turn around a once prominent, now ailing, hospital brand in South India. Personally, transitioning from the oil, gas and energy industry to the healthcare realm alone was a significant adjustment. And then, in early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic struck before I had fully acclimated to my new environment. 

The magnitude of the pandemic, both globally and personally, was unprecedented and beyond any scale of imagination. There wasn’t one economy or region that was immune to the ravages of Covid-19. 

While most citizens were advised to remain indoors to tame the virus spread, some of us―the frontline workers―had to answer the call of duty. And though I had not worked in the healthcare industry before, suddenly, I was a frontline worker in an essential job who had to show up in person to work. 

The first wave

Although the first wave of Covid was daunting, we would eventually learn it was mild compared with the gravity of the second wave. As the second wave hit, something inside me said, now that my family had invested in the healthcare industry, not playing our part in the pandemic wasn’t right (in terms of not having a designated Covid ward in our hospital to help to save lives). 

One year into the crisis, people had grown complacent and adopted a lethargic attitude―which gave birth to the second wave. By the time the second wave hit, the healthcare system was overstretched and overwhelmed.

Our hospital, Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai, has a single specialty―cardiac care. Therefore, we didn’t have a designated ward where we could treat Covid patients. As a non-medical professional, I lacked many of the necessary skillsets to set one up. Even so, I resolved to make my contribution to the crisis by setting up Frontier Lifeline Hospital’s new Covid ward and ensuring its smooth operations.

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Categories: Crisis Entrepreneurial Journey Make a Mark

Tags: EO Chennai eo community EO India EO Oman Frontier Lifeline Hospital frontline worker

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