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You can't just create a cool product -- you have to sell it.
6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For some reason, startup advice has always been about tips for non-technical founders -- or how they could scoop one of us up. But what about us technical founders?
Yeah, we're creative. But that creativity doesn't automatically translate to sales and marketing. A number of fellow "nerds" have developed kick-ass products that led to no more than a swift ass kicking once they hit the market. My first venture is no exception.
I tried (and failed) to launch my first software company from my home in the Dominican Republic, without recognizing that it's not only about building a great product: it's about building the right product in the right market, at the right time. It took a number of years -- with the help of hard-earned lessons from experience, some books, webinars and conferences -- to finally learn the non-technical keys to success. But, now that I have, here's how you other technical founders should approach sales and marketing:
Fill an existing market need; don't create one.
Most technical founders have it backwards; they build a product and then figure out how to market it. However, successful marketing of a tech product actually begins well before any product development takes place. The first step is to identify an existing -- and painful -- problem or need in the market, and assess how you can meet those needs far better than the current solutions.
Building your product for an existing market need is so important, in fact, that not doing so was found to be the No. 1 reason startups fail in an astonishing 42 percent of cases, according to CB Insights. This analysis highlights the fact that, ultimately, building a need for your product is a losing proposition. So, scrap the idea that you can find success by chance, and that one of your ideas will magically stick; instead, take the time to first figure out what the market wants, and how you can serve it better than the existing solutions.
In his book, Breakthrough Advertising, author and legendary copywriter Eugene M. Schwartz taught me best: "Let me repeat. This mass desire must already be there. It must already exist. You cannot create it. And you cannot fight it. But, you can -- and must -- direct it, channel it. focus it onto your particular product."
As Schwartz suggests, marketing is all about knowing the customers, and building products that specifically address their desires. So how do you come up with that right solution and guide product development accordingly? Start by mapping out the best experience that exists for customers right now, and think about how it differs from their ideal experience. Then use this mental map to pinpoint each of the pain points along the customer journey, and imagine how they currently go about relieving that pain -- and how you could eliminate those pain points altogether.
Identifying customer pain points is a crucial step, as it gives you deep insight into the shortcomings of current solutions. Accordingly, a deep understanding of what customers want creates various opportunities to drive your product development. For example, looking at negative reviews of competitors' products is an easy way to quickly recognize potential business opportunities. Additionally, by mining information from websites like Quora related to your topic, you can get a feel for certain problems that exist in the current market and gauge your ability to solve them.
Design around a pain point; validate by getting paid for it.
Even after recognizing existing opportunities in the market, you shouldn't jump straight to product development. Instead, you must first identify the one pain point that is sharpest for customers and validate that they would find your potential solution valuable.
Identifying the right pain point is not a mental exercise, though. You need to ask customers directly -- but not in the traditional sense of surveys. Customers speak loudest with their wallets, and you will know you've found a winning business opportunity when they have a pain they're willing to pay you to alleviate -- even without a product to offer them up front. For this reason, never offer your service to early customers for free; the feedback you receive by getting paid is the exact validation you need to begin developing your product.
"[I]t is about helping to shape the largest and strongest market possible, and then intensifying that market's reaction to its basic need or problem, and to the 'exclusive' solution you have to offer it," writes Schwartz in his book. Translating this to startups: It is less about building a better product, and more about exploiting an intense need, where your job is to build a product that is the ideal solution.
This approach draws on design thinking in the sense that you have to care about the customer experience, and design a solution specifically with their biggest frustrations in mind. If you're able to do this, and have confirmed the need for your solution already exists, you have already won half the battle of selling your product.
Drum up demand with a loss leader.
Selling a new invention is never easy. People who need your product don't even know a solution exists, so they might not be looking for it. So how do you make people aware that you have a solution to their problem?
Start by understanding how the market currently goes about satisfying its needs and solving its problems, and then piggyback off that to market your own solution. The goal is to tap into the existing demand of the market and use it as demand generation for your product. Sometimes this requires you to introduce a loss leader that you can give away at cost or for free. In our case with RankSense, for example, people were already searching for free SEO assessments, so we built a free tool for that as a way to reach customers and make them aware of our true offering.
Providing a solution that already exists in the market at cost or for free is the most effective way to generate demand for what you are actually trying to sell. You can find potential customers using lots of criteria in your ideal customer profile, but the best ones to sell to are the ones who have already purchased from you. Therefore, using a loss leader allows you to hook customers early in their buyer's journey and drum up demand for your other offerings.
Ultimately, a key thing to keep in mind is that marketing and sales for a tech product can and should happen well before any product development takes place. So, even for us founders who have more technical skills than soft skills, there are plenty of ways to build a successful business through this strategic approach to sales and marketing.
My manuscript was accepted, which was really exciting! Little did I know after writing 85,000 words that the real work was about to begin. In this episode, I'm with Vanessa Campos, Entrepreneur's director of sales and marketing. Campos spent two hours with my husband and me showing us the different paper options and textures for paperbacks and the different finishes for hard covers. From the beginning, I wanted my book to pop and leaned toward going with yellow as the main color. We played around with teal and blue backgrounds, too. Here is my advice for you if you're writing your first book. I hope it helps you along your journey!
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The comedian, YouTube personality, actress, producer and 'New York Times' bestselling author gets real with us in a candid conversation about her journey.
6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Editor’s note: Builders Series features no-holds-barred in-depth interviews with female leaders in different industries to give you insight into what successful women have done to push through feeling stuck, frustrated and uncreative in order to build incredible brands and businesses.
Grace Helbig is a comedian, YouTube personality, actress, producer and New York Times bestselling author. She is one busy lady, which is why I was thrilled that she took the time to sit down with me at last year’s Cannes Lions festival to discuss everything that she’s built.
I feel like "real" and "down-to-earth" are descriptors that we throw around when it comes to celebrities, but it comes across in everything that Grace does -- and it certainly came through in our conversation. Dive into my interview with Grace Helbig below to get the full scoop on the highs and lows of her journey and where she’s going next.
What have you built, and what inspired you to build it?
I have built a brand that I feel really proud of. I've built a comedy brand for myself that is one, really satisfying and fulfilling personally, and two, has been able to cultivate this young female audience that's hungry for knowledge, information and entertainment. It's been really wonderful to watch it grow across platforms.
Were you born a builder, or did you have to learn to be one?
A bit of both. I've always had an appetite for creating in some capacity. Even if it was just putting mosaic tiles on a mirror, I was constantly making something. My dad was an insane workaholic, and watching his work ethic gave me a lot of motivation. I've also met some really inspiring females that are hungry for their creative passions, and that's been a real driving force.
Who was the first woman you looked up to, and why did you want to be like her?
Tina Fey. When I was starting in comedy, she was starting to be more in front of the camera on Saturday Night Live and she was becoming this very powerful female writer and performer. Especially in such a male-dominated environment, which can be so intimidating, she seemed so strong and fearless. I always say "Follow your fear," and she embodied that so much.
Back in 2013, I left a company that I had been with for four years. I had built a brand within that company, but I didn't own it. I was in a bad contractual situation. I took a risk and left, hoping the audience I had cultivated online would follow me and not the name of the series that I had built. It worked out really well, actually. It was a big risk but ultimately had big rewards.
When have you broken down, personally or professionally? How did you break through?
There's a lot of ebb and flow in being creative, especially in this world of digital content. You can only be independently creative for so long until your brain burns out. The most important thing for me is having open conversations with my friends. Feeling camaraderie and seeing that they also felt that way gave me a lot of power to say to myself, "It's ok to be tired and ok to take a break."
My friend Mamrie gave me the best piece of advice ever: "You're outputting more than you're inputting, so you need to take a second and stop pouring things into the world, and instead do something that inspires you creatively, whether that is travel, TV, movies, playing with your dog." Do things in the world that provide experiences that provide future output.
What makes you doubt yourself, and how do you manage it?
It's easy to doubt yourself when you're an online entertainer. The wonderful and terrible thing about the internet is that the conversations can be two-way. People can leave comments on everything and really break you down in every aspect of your physical form and your opinions. Thankfully, I have this wonderful lens of comedy that can defuse anything that feels too hurtful.
How do you know when to leave someone or something?
It's about sitting with yourself and asking, "Is this making me better or happier?" If it's not doing either, then you have to leave it. I used to be of the mindset that I can make anything work, and I only recently realized that it's ok to walk away from things. It's about being honest with yourself. What helps, too, is having people that you can have an open dialogue with to get a perspective on things you may be subconsciously shielding yourself from.
When was your bravest moment? How do you practice being brave?
I once had the opportunity to take a level one improv class. I was so afraid of that. I've come to learn if you're afraid of something, it means you care about it, whether good or bad, and it's best to investigate that. So, I took the level one class, and I fell in love with it. It's really shaped me as a human.
Knowing what you know now, was it worth it?
Absolutely! Everything was worth it. My mom is a very spiritual person and very much believes that everything happens for a reason and is endlessly optimistic. I've picked up a lot from her. Things happen as they should, because better things could be coming along. Everything is going to be ok no matter what.
What can you see yourself building next?
I see myself continuing to build off the brand that I have and figuring out the most creative, exciting things I can do with it. When I first started making videos, no one I knew was really doing that. That's what made it really exciting. Now I'm trying to figure out what else no one is doing that is equally as exciting. I haven't totally figured it out yet, but I'm on the path.
Welcome to Part 2 of my series and I’ll be continuing to look at the extreme characteristics of highly successful people. These people are NOT from another planet, nor do I consider them smarter, however, they do work much harder at what they want to achieve. Anyway, with that said, I’d like to go over a few more things you can implement into your work habits to make you more successful going forward. This, again, is Part 2 and I encourage all of you to read Part 1 before going any further.
Let’s get started.
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DAILY Improvements
Successful people know that a combination of improvements is the recipe to achieve your desired results. They also know this takes time and are willing to work at it every day until they achieve their desired results. Others simply don’t want to put the day-to-day effort into making small improvements, leading to ultimate success later down the line. This is what differentiates the unsuccessful from those who achieve the greatest. In the end, successful entrepreneurs know how small daily improvements full of growth can help achieve your bottom line going forward.
Always Stay Positive
One of the greatest assets successful people have is their ability to stay positive at all times. Their ability to remain at the top of their game by staying positive will contribute to them achieving the end goal at the end of the day. It’s widely believed if you can stay positive, then you don’t go into panic mode, which, in normal circumstances, will leave you making poor decision. Some of the MOST successful have publicly stated that they always stay positive even when faced with adversity because this helps them NOT make any drastic decisions that would hurt them.
If you want to be successful in business, then I encourage you to stay positive, knowing everything will be alright no matter what. Staying positive will also:
Decrease depression
Lower anxiety
Reduce risk of death
Be able to cope better with stressful times
Lower psychological risk
NOT Afraid of Failure
This is awesome and you can learn a lot from this simple factor. Successful people are NOT afraid of failures because they consider them vital learning tools. They know with failure comes a time for growth and their ability to find new ways to do things, which improves them going forward. Other will be devastated by failure because they let it get to them psychologically, but successful people embrace it, knowing it will get them hustling, allowing them to make improvements in the long run.
Hang with Other Successful People
You’ve probably noticed that successful people have a huge network of people, all who are successful themselves. The reason is very simple and some of the reasons include the following:
First, they all have the same mind frame and this means having things in common. It means being able to stay positive and talk about the same things especially those that matter to maintaining their success in the long run. Secondly, it makes sure they have a wide network of resources when they need them. Reading the bio’s of many of these people will let you understand how they invest in each other’s business and self-improvement. For them, this is important because in the future, it means extending their wealth and opportunities going forward. However, here are some things you need to keep in mind about how they build networks:
They work hard and show each other their discipline
They work hard at making sure wealth grows and it’s a smart investment
They commit to solid communication, etc.
My Final Thoughts
You can learn a lot from what successful people do differently and you should apply these into your daily lifestyle. I want to encourage all of you to pick one factor and start implementing it into your creative process. I know it’s going to be tough in the beginning, but over time, you’ll start to see improvements, etc. Then you can shift to implement other things until you find you have the right combination. However, it’s important to start doing this right away because success does have a time limit, especially when life is NOT infinite.
How the team at Glamping Hub attracted worldwide visitors to their high-end outdoor accommodations platform.
4 min read
In this ongoing series, we are sharing advice, tips and insights from real entrepreneurs who are out there doing business battle on a daily basis. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Who are you and what’s your business?
My name is Ruben Martinez, co-founder of Glamping Hub, the world's leading platform for unique outdoor accommodations across the globe. [Glamping is camping with a splash of glamour: resort-style amenities, fine cuisine, etc.] We offer glamping experiences in safari tents, shepherd huts, wagons, bell tents, and activities like hiking, kayaking, river rafting, horseback riding, rock climbing and so on.
What inspired you to launch it?
In 2014, the trends in travel were changing. People were still going to hotels and theme parks, but an important group with purchasing power -- millennials and baby boomers -- were looking for something adventurous and unique. And we saw a gap in the people searching the word glamping and there being a place to see multiple options. There was no single platform where hosts could list their glamping site and guests could book.
What has been the biggest lesson you've learned in marketing it?
In the beginning, there was a hesitancy to be too unique. We didn't want to be too out there because then it would be harder for the consumer to adapt to a new product offering. But the lesson we learned was to embrace the uniqueness, and it wasn't long before the consumer in the U.S. market embraced it as well. So instead of running away from the idea of being unique, we ran towards it.
What does the word entrepreneur mean to you?
For me, it means that you have the ability and opportunity to be in charge of your own destiny. There are no more excuses. You can't point a finger and say, “I would have been successful, but I work for this company” or “I would have been successful, but my boss never gave me an opportunity.” My business partner and I from the get-go were extremely comfortable and happy with the idea of us being able to succeed or fail and that it would be our own fault one way or the other. The joy of being an entrepreneur really teaches you that you are in control of your future and there is no issue or problem that you cannot solve.
What was your toughest challenge, and how did you overcome it?
I think the toughest ongoing challenge is always leadership and management. At the end of the day, although we are a tech company, we are also a human company, and human companies have human people that work for them. Each individual who works with you is different: personalities, motivations, skill sets and reasons to be working. It’s a mistake to treat everyone the same. As a company grows, the instinct is to have shortcuts when dealing with employees, but when it comes to leadership and staff retention and things of that nature, there really are no shortcuts. One-on-one attention is vital.
In the beginning, I wanted to make decisions very quickly because we didn't have a lot of time, and it feels good to make decisions and get answers. But that’s evolved, because you make some mistakes along the way. And I felt the need to micromanage. You feel like you're the best person to make each and every decision, but over time you learn that that is not sustainable. I’ve learned that you have to hire the right people and give them the right type of training, the right motivation, and point them in the right direction, light the fire, and then kind of get out of their way to let them do what they do best.
Is there a particular quote or saying that you use as personal motivation?
"I didn't come this far just to come this far." What I like about that is there is always the next step. It re-energizes me to think that there is still a big piece of this journey we have not gone on yet.
I've seen my fair share of product launches fall flat. Here's how you can avoid that fate.
5 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Product and feature releases rarely go as planned. But when Apple unveils a new iPhone, or Google releases a new feature in Gmail, those launches appear to be seamless and to generate peak excitement and interest.
So, what are these powerhouse companies doing that you’re not?
As the owner of multiple companies, I’ve seen my fair share of product launches fall flat. But each time we’ve made mistakes, we’ve learned from them. And that has made our next product release much stronger.
If you’re still struggling to right some of your feature-release wrongs, don’t worry. I’ve been there and am here to help you get back on track. Here are the top five issues that I’ve run into during feature releases and how my team members, working together, solved them.
1. You’re not laying the groundwork.
Every product and feature release needs to be built on a solid foundation. That’s why you need to start from the very beginning and ensure the project is strong enough to land on its own two feet.
Start by setting the right goals for the project. What are you trying to do with your new feature? What problem will it solve? You need to make sure your priorities and requirements are clear so that the rest of the team knows exactly what to focus on.
Tip: At this stage, define the team that will be working on the project and what these individuals' roles will be. Then, build a detailed road map of what the feature release process will look like.
2. You don’t have the customer in mind.
Whenever I’m writing new content or launching a new marketing campaign, the first thing I need to know is who my audience is. The same thing goes for product and feature releases. Your product could be perfectly designed and developed, but it’s not going to work if it’s not targeted.
So, make sure you’re aren’t just targeting any customer, but the right customer. Don’t make any decisions based on assumptions. For example, if you’re releasing a new feature for a video game, you may assume that the demographic of males between the ages of 18 and 34 makes sense. However, according to Think with Google, only 31 percent of mobile users searching for video games fit that criteria.
Tip: Before you even starting mapping out your product release, do extensive market and audience research. Really dig deep and understand your customer. What are his or her pain points and how can your product or feature solve them?
3. You aren’t communicating well.
How many times has a project run off the rails because someone didn’t know his or her responsibilities? Or, because a deadline wasn’t conveyed? Or, because someone didn’t have all the information needed?
These issues can all be traced back to a lack of communication. In today’s digitally focused world, with teams spread out across the globe and working together remotely (as mine are), communication is crucial. And for a feature release, it’s critical.
Everyone needs to be on the same page and understand what you’re building, and why, how long it’s expected to take and what his or her specific role is.
To ensure good communication, identify one central person accountable for the entire project. Given a clear "owner" to consult, team members will know exactly whom to turn to with questions; and the project owner will be able to keep lines of communication open and running smoothly.
4. You aren’t organized.
Organization goes hand in hand with communication. If you aren’t practicing good communication, you probably aren’t very organized, either. Here are some signs of a lack of organization:
Your team is wasting time searching for information.
You’re using disconnected documents and spreadsheets.
You’re holding constant status meetings.
Tip: Have all the information for the feature release in one centralized location. Instead of 50 different documents in 50 different places, make sure everything is in the same place so that it’s easy to find. That way, your team will also always be updated on the status of the project, necessitating fewer meetings.
5. You haven’t properly prepared.
While you can’t predict everything that will happen on the day of your feature release, you should have some idea of what the potential issues will be. A “we’ll see how it goes” attitude isn’t going to benefit you.
Tip: Identify and address those risks in advance. Make sure you’ve planned and prepared for every possible contingency and failure you can think of. And then, test, test and test some more. With enough preparation, you can rest easier, knowing you’ve done everything you could to ensure success.
What issues have you run into during product or feature releases? How did you address them? Share your thoughts in the comments:
Here's how to change your mind about failure. And learn to enjoy it.
5 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
People with entrepreneurial mindsets cannot help but see the impossible solution at the next possible supernova. We laser-focus on differentiated innovation, often losing hours and friends in the process. We also sometimes lose our mojo and the ability to cope with the anxiety entrepreneurs often feel during times of failure and stagnation. While some forms of anxiety require the help of medical professionals, entrepreneurs can learn to enjoy and even benefit from flops or even catastrophic attempts at innovation by knowing which levers to pull to change how they view and experience failure.
Get to know your neurons.
Our brains contain 1 billion neurons that ignite each of our five senses. Neurons learn from the past to create the present. Someone with entrepreneurial tendencies, you will have tried something new several times in your life. Sometimes, those new things work out well and sometimes they do not. In either case, the experience leaves a footprint of positive, negative or indifference that get transmitted and translated as fact by your neurons. Every time you enter a similar experience, your neurons send signal to your brain of what to feel based on previous experiences and mounting, resulting perceptions.
As you enter into a potentially anxiety-inducing experience, learn to preemptively orchestrate a new conversation in your head. You are not the victim of your neurons. You can control what your neurons signal to your brain. Be willing to question your fears as well as your sources of inspiration. Neurons create habits. Your job is to test your repetitive reactions, get rid of habitual feelings that no longer serve you and replace them with ones that do.
Identify the “why” of your mindsets.
Once the signals from neurons create habits, our mindsets get cemented. Mindsets are the most critical ally and enemy we possess. Mindsets are critical because they determine what we believe, what we value, and the actions we take. Our mindsets are also riddled with unconscious biases that are informed from our neurons. There are about 150 different unconscious biases swirling around in our brains just at work! If your mindset is one that values comfort, trying something big for the first time may not happen. If your mindset believes that being uncomfortable for periods of time indicate that you are doing something big and may be on the verge of a big breakthrough, then you possess and can act upon your trained grit.
When faced with debilitating failure, think about your values and your beliefs.Do you believe that risk is an enabler or inhibiter? Do you value transactions over relationships? Do you equate your personal worth with being the smartest person in the room or with possessing a personal culture of learning? Identify those mindsets that can transform how you translate and respond to opportunities, challenges, and outcomes. Learn from other innovators; study and practice the values and beliefs that they hold to be true.
Disrupt unconscious bias in your decision-making.
Entrepreneurs get so focused on the problem they want to solve or the innovation they want to birth that they forget to get outside of their heads. For most entrepreneurs, this has always been the way of life. My late teens through to my early twenties were particularly tough years. Everything was hard. Everything I tried or did failed. I started focusing on the wrong things. I worried about what people thought of me. I worried about failing all of the time. How could I not? It felt like everything I tried failed and therefore I was doomed to live a life of a failure. During what was probably a daily lamentation to my sister, she asked me a question that turned out to be a tipping point: “Will this matter five years from now? Will this matter a year from now?” My job was not to worry about being a failure or to worry about the distant future. My job, as an innovator was to focus on the problem I was aiming to solve; not to focus on myself. Rather than dreading or lamenting about my perceived failures, I learned that I had the power and the responsibility to address my resulting fear and anxiety associated by interrupting my decision-making with the knowledge that “this too shall pass”.
Use every opportunity to detect, prevent and eventually replace your harmful unconscious biases that hinder progress and induce anxiety. Those words my sister uttered to me nearly 30 years ago were a tipping point. Without knowing it, she taught me how to interrupt my own thought process with objectivity instead of judgement. I was the one who was making things positive of negative. As I would learn during my doctoral studies of post-modernist philosophy, experiences, people, and things were not good or bad, they just were. I was the one assigning anxiety, elation or something in between. Nothing, the perceived good or the bad, lasts forever so why let your neurons and mindset believe otherwise.
You'll only know with a high degree of confidence that everything's good at your company if you measure and listen to employee perceptions.
7 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In the last year, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have helped give a strong voice and support to those who've suffered sexual assault, harassment and bullying in workplaces at the hands of (usually white) men in power.
Workplace trauma like sexual assaults, harassment and bullyings occur far too frequently in workplaces around the globe. A 2018 study on sexual harassment and assault found that 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men surveyed had experienced some form of sexual assault and/or harassment in their lifetime.
Sometimes these cases reveal strange cultural twists: In one recent instance, two civilian women reported harassment by a Marine major who, they said, had made sexual overtures on a number of occasions in 2013. The women didn’t make formal complaints at the time, they said, because they feared retaliation. Ironically, though, the division they all worked in designed and delivered sexual assault-prevention training for Marines.
Alternately, breaking the silence has had positive results: It's raised society's awareness of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace and is bringing serial harassers to justice. In addition, these movements have generated more open conversations about what constitutes assault, harassment and bullying.
These movements have also generated another frequent and unfortunate refrain, from leaders of organizations who have said, “We don’t have a problem here. No one is complaining. We’re good!”
The reality is that “no complaints” does not mean “no harassment.”
If a company makes it difficult -- or impossible -- for assault, harassment or bullying to be reported in a safe environment, free from retaliation and likely to be investigated thoroughly, the number of complaints will be minuscule. That doesn’t mean that sexual assault or harassment or bullying isn’t happening; it means it’s not being reported.
If a company or its leaders retaliate against those who report these issues -- thus forcing them to continue working for the boss who harassed or bullied them -- the message is clear: “Don’t report harassment. It’ll only get worse for you if you do.”
Again, a low report rate doesn’t mean harassment or bullying isn’t happening.
Takeaway: The best organizations are those that ensure they’re getting accurate insights into the employee experience at their companies by doing two things -- measuring and listening.
Measure employee perceptions accurately and frequently.
Measurement happens with formal assessments and surveys. Frequent assessment means at least twice a year. Some of my clients are using pulse surveys, where one question is posed to every employee once a week. Response takes two minutes -- literally -- on smartphones and computers. Different questions are asked each week so a variety of data can be gathered in a very short time; and the result is high response rates, because the procedure is so fast and easy.
If you follow this path, make certain you’re getting accurate data. Use assessments that have been proven to be valid and reliable. That way, you can trust the accuracy of the data being reported. Creating survey questions from scratch may not provide accurate or actionable information.
And, once you gather survey data, promptly share the data you get back. Hiding this information does not build confidence in the company or its leadership. An example of the potential fallout? Twenty years ago, a global automobile company did a survey of company morale (which it did every other year).
The results came back with very low scores: low trust of senior leaders, low employee engagement, lack of respectful treatment across the organization and more. Instead of publishing the results and inviting conversations about how to improve the work environment, senior leaders chose to not share the results. For 18 months.
Employees knew full well that the work environment was unhealthy. They lived in it daily! And as a result of withholding the survey results, senior leaders lost a great deal of credibility. It took them years to gain that credibility back.
Takeaway: Open the kimono. Share the good survey results and the not-so-good ones. Celebrate what you’re doing right and revise systems, policies and procedures. That way, you can address hurdles or bad actors, to ensure workplace safety, sanity and civility for everyone.
Listen to understand -- frequently, and without defending yourself.
Being heard and having your experiences, successes and concerns validated is a powerful human need . Unfortunately, it’s a human need that is rarely satisfied in our fast-paced, digitized lives.
Authentic listening -- without defending themselves -- is what the best bosses do naturally. Leaders need to create safe avenues where team members can express their hopes, ideas, efforts, fears and even dreams without fear of ridicule.
Listening needs to happen in one-on-one meetings, informal connections, team meet-ups and the like, and it needs to happen often. If you have ten direct reports, you need to create safe, casual discussions with each of them at least once a week.
After all, you’re listening to learn. Don’t defend anyone’s behavior or even the company’s policies. Simply listen and ask how whatever is being discussed impacts the team member (for better or worse). Ask employees what they themselves would do to fix a problem or celebrate a success.
By engaging with team members, you’ll see themes emerge from their perspectives. You’ll learn about hurdles that inhibit progress or success, about team members or leaders that treat others badly and about successes that are being ignored and deserve recognition.
Listening helps you keep your finger on the pulse of how your team is operating. What you hear in these daily conversations should match up with the survey results you’re conducting. If they don’t match up, you’ll need to dig deeper to learn where the disconnects are, and attempt to address them as best you can.
Recognize that employee happiness matters.
By measuring employee perceptions and listening to employee concerns, you’re going to learn a lot about what’s working and what’s not working in your organization.
Translating what you learn into a more civil work experience is vitally important. People will believe that you not only ask for insights and concerns but you act on them.
Addressing issues will take time, energy and focus. Fixing stupid policies is usually easy. Fixing bad behavior -- sexual assault, harassment or bullying -- requires a greater investment. But one thing is certain: You can’t tolerate bad behavior anymore.
Employee happiness won’t happen by default. It only happens by design. Investing in a purposeful, positive, productive culture brings tremendous returns. TinyPULSE analyzed data from over 10,000 employees and discovered that happier employees:
Are more likely to continue working for the same organization
Are more likely to refer someone else to work for that organization
Feel more valued at work
Believe more strongly in their company’s future prospects
Are less likely to leave the organization for even a 10 percent raise
Takeaway: Don’t accept silence and assume it means everything is OK. It might be OK -- but you’ll only know with a high degree of confidence if you measure and listen, to learn employee perceptions. Once you learn those perceptions, you'll be better able to address problems, leverage successes and validate employee experiences, every day.
Investing is one second job that allows both freedom and, possibly, great return.
2 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Phil Town breaks down the benefits of taking on a second job in investing.
Investing as a second job affords ample freedom and is perceived as relatively low-commitment, as well as being a job where your boss is not constantly looking over your shoulder. Similar to other side jobs, the more you put into investing, the more return and difference you will see out your of side job.
To build up your skills and preparedness to invest, Town recommends the simple practice of learning to invest. An educated investor is someone who can master one basic practice: knowing when there is an edge. In most cases, that means spotting instances of fear or greed that can take over the market. Engaging in research and ample amounts of reading are a great way to build up this investor muscle. Before you realize it, you will have built a sizable amount of extra income.
Click the video to learn more about treating investing as a side job.
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In the Women Entrepreneur Series Up Your Game, we scope out the best products, apps and services to help make it easier to take your game to the next level.
If you’re getting tired of you’re daily playlist, and the radio isn’t cutting it either, podcasts are a great way to wake you up and keep you entertained on a long -- and sometimes stressful -- commute to work. They’ll distract you from all the traffic and keep your road (or subway) rage in check. But they can do more than just make your morning travel more enjoyable; they can get your brain juices flowing, too.
Here are five podcasts to listen to on your commute to prep you for a productive work day and give your brain a little extra nourishment -- just in case you skipped breakfast.
Name: GirlBoss Radio with Sophia Amoruso
Average reviews on iTunes: 4.5 Stars
Why we love it: Sophia Amoruso sits down with some of the world’s most successful women entrepreneurs to have an honest conversation about the steps they took to get where they are today. She takes you into their everyday lives for a laid back and humor-filled chat about confidence, asking for what you want, taking your time and being a GirlBoss in a man’s world.
One of our favorite episodes: “Tamara Mellon” Tamara Mellon, founder of Jimmy Choo, walks listeners through getting fired from Vogue and how she started one of the most popular luxury shoe brands straight out of rehab.
What others say about it:“It’s become a thriving website for young women trying to become badasses in their own way. It didn’t take long before they launched an inspiring career-oriented podcasthosted by Sophia, where she talks to women making their mark in the world in whatever way possible. With an aim towards ‘redefining success,’ the show does exactly what it says.” -- Marie Claire
Why we love it: You’ll be surprised by how practical, everyday actions can be a springboard for jumping into the career of your dreams. Forget about finding your purpose through shamanic retreats in Thailand or birth-chart horoscope readings. Todd Henry and his myriad of successful guests provide simple guidance to feed your creativity, along with doable tips to take control of your life, both in and out of the office. Plus, the host wrote a killer book, The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice, to help you bring your A-game when you least expected it.
One of our favorite episodes: In “How to Plan Your Day in 10 Minutes” Henry discusses how entrepreneurs must think about their day differently than most. He shows how important it is to have your own definition of success for each day, and how to quickly and efficiently plan your upcoming tasks to best feed your creativity and boost productivity.
What others say about it: “Having been running for over a decade, it’s a solid choice for artists and designers seeking inspiration.”-- Creativeboom.com
Why we love it: Named the “Entrepreneurial Guru for Women Entrepreneurs” by Business Daily News, Ali Brown’s podcast helps you rewrite the rules for success. Her insightful discussions with thought leaders from around the globe will encourage you to think outside-of-the-box, and to maybe even throw away the box entirely. She focuses the interviews on how to shape your day, and life, to make it look exactly how you want it to, despite what other people are doing.
One of our favorite episodes: “Episode 133” Brown chats with Liz Dennery Sanders, founder of SheBrand, on the importance of creating a clear brand for yourself, not just your business.
What others say about it“Her personal story of perseverance and faith in herself is inspirational from her rocky start to the success she has today. Give a listen and find your own path to success.” -- Inc.
Why we love it: Do you ever wonder what it takes to be great? New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur and former athlete, Lewis Howes, tells the stories of some of the world’s most brilliant minds and greatest achievers. He chats about the factors that got them where they are today, and how you can apply them to your own life. With episodes ranging from “The Beauty of Breaking” to “The Morning Habits of the Rich,” any episode is guaranteed to give you a daily dose of inspiration.
One of our favorite episodes: “Hustle for a Purpose” Ryan Holmes,CEO of Hootsuite, discusses how the hustle never stops. In fact, the more successful you become, the more you’ll want, and need, to hustle. Holmes shares his tips and tricks for staying on top of the game and avoiding burnout.
What others say about it: “[Lewis] Howes is best known for starting with nothing, educating himself and then turning that knowledge into a million dollar online business. Since then, he's been able to leverage his experience, and success, into a platform that focuses on helping people become great.” -- Forbes
Why We Love It: Already having a bad day and it’s only 8 a.m.? This podcast will show you that sometimes the best ideas come from the worst days. John Lee Dumas sits down with successful entrepreneurs (think: big-wigs like Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss) to discuss their worst entrepreneurial moments and the lessons they learned along the way.
One of iTunes top ranked business podcasts, Entrepreneur on Fire will help you ignite your startup journey. From email lists to color-coded presentations to how to become a millionaire in one step, Dumas provides you with all the tips and tricks to take your business game to the next level. Plus, the host himself is quite the entrepreneur, earning over $250,000 a month from just his podcast alone.
One of our favorite episodes: “Hack Your Health” with Allison Melody. This eco-entrepreneur talks about how focusing on your physical, emotional and spiritual health will up your financial success. She gives you an excuse to get up from your desk and have fun.
What others say about it: “After more than 1,500 podcasts, John is the model of consistency and has been rewarded with a multi-million dollar business.”-- Forbes
This week’s roundup includes tips to create effective Email subject lines, promote your brand consistently on Social Media, and optimize new websites from an SEO standpoint.
Learn how to increase Conversions from landing pages, and improve your Mobile page load time. We’ve covered all of this news and, much more, below!
Peter Hortonshares a quick guide to understanding the Video Production process.
Jordan Satary discusses the 3 strategies to jump start your Video Marketing efforts.
Hope Horner goes over how to determine what type of Video is best for your brand.
Content Marketing:
Ana Gotter emphasizes the need for setting up KPIs, optimizing Content and measuring performance, to create an effective Content Marketing strategy.
Follow the valuable tips from Jessica Holmes to enhance your Content Marketing efforts.
Ryan Kh lists the ways that can help marketers to achieve success with Content Marketing.
Conversion Optimization:
Rachel Summers emphasizes the need for including CTAs, implementing social proof and working on written content, to increase Conversions from landing pages.
Learn how strategies such as using strong headlines and creating goal oriented call to action buttons can improve the Conversion rate of your website, from Deepika Mehra’s blog.
Email Marketing:
Volodymyr Zastavnyy offers guidance to help marketers achieve the primary objectives of their businesses with a proper Email signature marketing strategy.
Learn how to create effective Email subject lines, from Nathan Isaacs’s blog.
Mike Zarella offers helpful tips to improve the performance of your Email Marketing campaigns.
Allison Quirk discusses how Email Marketing can positively impact your SEO results.
Local Optimization:
Michaels Wilder discusses ways for optimizing your Google My Business listings to rank in Local Search.
Going Clear’s blog presents effective strategies to rank in Google’s Local pack.
Andrei David highlights the significance of Local SEO for businesses in today’s scenario.
Mobile Optimization:
Christopher Benitez offers useful tips to optimize your site for Mobile and bring in more Mobile traffic.
Learn how to improve your Mobile page load time, from Dawn Parzych’s blog.
Reputation Management:
Brian O’Connell discusses how strategies such as securing private information and cleaning up family social media platforms, can improve your Online Reputation.
Search Engine Optimization:
Sam Romain highlights the reasons for sites to not rank on Search Engines and offers guidance to help marketers improve their SEO rankings.
Jason Acidre discusses ways to optimize new websites from an SEO standpoint.
Social Optimization:
Samir Mohandes highlights the significance of influencer marketing, multi platform Social Media advertising and chatbots via Facebook messenger for small businesses in the year 2018.
Learn how to promote your brand consistently on Social Media, from Michael Sallander’s blog.
Follow the tips from Adam Greene to use Social Media for furthering your brand.
Krishna Shastry offers guidance to create effective Social Media landing pages.
Jade Anderson draws special attention to strategies that can help marketers leverage Social Media to their advantage.
UX/UI:
Samiul Huque highlights the importance of UX from an SEO standpoint.
Abdul Suleiman emphasizes the need for understanding the customer journey to create an effective UX Design.
Website Design:
Gary Ross offers guidance to help marketers identify the right stage for redesigning their websites.
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You can build a powerful customer connection if your emails are personalized, relevant and perfectly timed.
7 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It’s happened to all of us, and no one likes it.
You visit a banking site to research home refinancing options. Later, you receive an email from that bank about credit card rates. You browse men’s golf shoes on a retail site and then receive an email about a sale in women’s bathing suits. It just doesn’t make sense.
Email is such a powerful channel for engagement that companies across industries continue sending more and more of it. The problem is when the content of the email is irrelevant, or there’s just too much of it: It turns people off. To leverage the best one-on-one engagement channel they have, companies need to understand the right and wrong ways to do email.
Email is alive and kicking.
Email is certainly not dead. It remains the most effective channel marketers have for initiating a conversation and reaching out to their prospects and customers.
Texting/SMS messages and push notifications share many similarities with email, but people tend to expect push notifications to be both urgent and important. People expect email to be important but not urgent, so they don’t get nearly as annoyed by a non-urgent email as they do by a non-urgent text.
Thus, the best way to reach out to an individual and initiate a conversation with them on a one-to-one level -- without irritating them -- is email. So why do companies keep abusing the power of email?
Years ago, you could achieve email click-through rates of around 5 percent. These days, you’re lucky to get click-through rates of 0.5 percent. But even that 0.5 percent makes an impact, though, so companies keep emailing.
And then they get caught in an email death spiral. They find that open and click-through rates keep declining while opt-outs keep increasing. To get the same impact, they hit the list harder and send more frequent emails. But those emails lead to fewer opens, decreased click-throughs and more opt-outs. So they grow the list and send even more emails. And so on...
If this is you, take a deep breath, step out of the cycle, and do email differently. “One size fits all” emails cannot be nearly as relevant -- and therefore never as engaging -- as they might be if they were individualized. You have an excellent, one-to-one channel that allows you to reach out to a particular person, to appear in their inbox (the same place where they communicate with friends, colleagues and customers), and to begin a conversation with them, but instead, you sent the same communication you did to a million other people. Well, they noticed.
It’s a sign that you’re abusing email by sending me ads for women’s bathing suits when I want to look at golf shoes. Repeat after me: Bulk email is not relevant or engaging -- and it is increasingly ineffective.
How to do it better.
You cannot keep emailing everyone the same thing, but you definitely shouldn’t stop sending emails. So what should you do?
To save yourself from the email death spiral, you need to focus on sending emails that recipients will actually care about. Make each email so relevant and compelling that people click through at a higher rate, and you will start to reverse your sliding click-through rate, from your 0.5 percent back up to 5 percent or more.
There are two types of emails that help you provide a great experience to the customer.
Try triggered emails.
Triggered emails allow you to reach out only when you have something relevant to say. Various criteria can trigger the sending of an email: when a person’s actions indicate it’s an appropriate time to send an email; when something changes in your business that the person would be interested in, such as inventory or price changes; or when outside circumstances have changed, such as weather conditions.
Triggered emails increase the importance of all the email you send because they establish that you communicate only when you have something meaningful to say to that person. For example, if a shopper had recently engaged with a particular appliance on a retailer’s site or mobile app but has not purchased it yet, the retailer can trigger an email informing him when there are only a few left in stock to drive prompt action.
Or, a newly published blog article could trigger an email. No, not to everyone on the subscriber list, just to those who have shown an interest in the content area the blog post discusses.
Try mass-personalized email.
When you still want to send emails to a lot of people at a certain time, during the holiday season, for example or on a regular schedule, perhaps weekly or monthly, you should use open-time email personalization. This method of mass email personalization utilizes machine learning technology. You might email part of your list or all of it, but at "open time," the email can be populated with relevant, personalized content that is truly individualized and unique to each recipient.
Machine learning is a popular buzzword, but it’s simply a form of AI that uses a scalable way to select the most relevant content to show someone based on what you know about him. Using machine learning is the best way to return your email to what email is meant to be -- a meaningful conversation with a person.
And by meaningful, I mean truly personalized. This doesn’t just mean mail merging a person’s first name or company name into the email. Real personalization means tailoring the content of an email dynamically for each individual: the message, the offers, the recommendations. To be good at doing this, you need to know who you’re emailing and what their interests are. That knowledge comes from in-depth data combined with machine learning.
Here’s a simple example. Assume a financial services firm sends out an email promoting an upcoming webinar to prospective clients. A recipient who learned about the webinar elsewhere has already signed up for the webinar before opening the email. At open time, the content of her email should be updated to acknowledge her registration and suggest a few relevant resources to check out in advance of the webinar.
The quality of your email will not go unnoticed as people respond by clicking through.
If you use email marketing, now is the time to begin transitioning from the outdated batch-and-blast method to emails triggered at the optimal moment and mass-personalized at open time. True one-to-one email will enable you to unlock the full potential of the most effective engagement channel for businesses.
People appreciate the right communication at the right time. By initiating meaningful email contact, you can transform thousands of unsubscribes into millions of click-throughs.
Investing in video marketing can be extremely rewarding, but at the same time it can be a costly, time consuming and risky investment. Especially if it’s your first video project and you’re depending on outside help to produce your content. We’ve found that the key to helping content marketers minimize those risks is to have a basic understanding of the video production process.
Having a general understanding of the process behind what it takes to produce video content will help you and the production company you end up working with establish a stronger dialogue, help ensure a smooth production process and ultimately lead to better content being produced.
Video Production 101
When it comes to creating video content, the video production process can be broken down into three key stages. Each stage is made up of a sequence of interdependent steps, each of which play an important role. The three key stages to video production are “Pre-Production”, “Production” and “Post-Production”.
Pre-Production – Before you film
Production – While you’re filming
Post-Production – After you’ve filmed
To help you better visual all three stages and the overall process in its entirety, I’ve provided an infographic style process map of the production process our video production company shares with its customers. Most professional video production companies will have an outlined process which you should always ask to see.
Depending on the type of video that you’re creating, some steps will be less challenging than others, but as small of an importance you think a certain step may play, it’s important that you give it the full attention it deserves. The slightest oversight of any detail can have costly effects on the outcome of your video and ultimately lead to your producing ineffective content.
Below is a quick overview of the three stages of the video production process to help get you up to speed. Each stage plays a critical role in the overall success of your video.
Stage One: Pre-Production
For those of you who are new to video marketing and video production, the “pre-production” process is basically everything that takes place prior to the actual filming of your video. As a content marketer, this is the stage of the video production process where you’ll be able to have the biggest impact and provide the most direct value.
Viewer Targeting
Video Conception
Storyline Creation
Script Creation
Storyboard and Shot List
Location Scouting
Talent Scouting
It’s during the pre-production stage of the process where you’ll define your overall all strategy for the video, write the script, find the perfect talent and discover the best location to film it. And when it comes to strategy, it’s extremely important to define your target viewer, just as you would define your target audience for any other marketing initiative you invest in.
Stage Two: Production
When most people think of video production, it’s the “production” stage that usually comes to mind. It’s during this part of the production process where your pre-production efforts will really begin to pay off. But it’s also important to keep in mind that a lot of critical things need to take place during this stage before you hit the record button.
Set and Subject Lighting
Talent Preparation and Makeup
Audio and Narration Set-up
Filming and Directing
Scene Blocking
You’ll want to make sure that scene looks perfect and is framed appropriately for the shot. In order to do that you’ll need to perfect the lighting of both your talent and the entire set. Another critical step is testing the audio, and of course making sure that your on-screen talent is ready to be filmed. Video cameras are great at picking up the slightest detail, but unlike photography, correcting errors is a bit more complicated and can quickly lead to additional hours in the editing booth or costly re-shoots.
Stage Three: Post-Production
The final stage of the video production process is the “Post-Production” stage and includes things like preparing the footage, editing it and then adding things like on-screen motion and titling, background music and sound FX.
Footage Logging
Initial Edit – Rough Cut
Second Cut – If Needed
Sound Design
Motion and Titling
Color Correction
Final Cut
This is the part of the process when all of the different footage you had captured is reviewed, perfected and assembled together to tell your company’s story.
How It All Comes Together
Now that you have a better understanding of the production process, take a look at the types of videos that are most beneficial for businesses. Here are four videos that we created for clients in a range of industries:
Testimonial Video
Fitness Together is a national health club brand that specializes in 1 on 1 personalized training in a private environment. Because many of the franchise owners are trainers themselves and tend to play a personal role in their clients transformations, they wanted to kick off this year’s national conference by sharing some impactful client testimonials to help inspire the audience.
Brand Inspiration Video
The mission of the Colorado State Patrol is to ensure a safe and secure environment for all persons by utilizing the strengths of its members to provide professional law enforcement services that reflect their core values of Honor, Duty and Respect. The CSP wanted to capture its mission in a way that truly demonstrated what it means to be a Colorado State Trooper.
Hand Illustrated Explainer Video
Drud Technology is an independent software vendor whose DDEV development software helps make digital experience development simpler and more efficient. Because their solution is complex by nature, we felt it would be best to illustrate their value proposition by using animation, however, we wanted the video incorporate some level of humanization which is why we ultimately decided upon a hand-illustrated stop-motion video that contains both live and digital production components including a real hand to introduce some of the video’s creative assets.
Animated Explainer Video
MSM Solutions is a US based Independent Software Vendor and Solutions Integrator whose PortalTrack software solution has been deployed globally by some the world’s most recognizable retail, automotive and health care brands. They wanted a way to easily explain how RFID tags are printed and encoded to non-technical decision makers. In addition to posting this video to their website and sharing it with targeted prospects, MSM also invested in a YouTube campaign to support the launch of this video which has resulted in over 16,000 views.
Connect With Your Audience
Once your video is produced, all you have to do next is put your video marketing plan into action and drive traffic to your new asset. The easiest way to do that is to place it on your website, get it on YouTube and then integrate it into your digital marketing, paid advertising and corporate communication efforts.
Peter Horton is the Co-Founder of Telideo Productions, a Denver-based video production company. Prior to Telideo, Peter spent the majority of his career in various marketing leadership roles helping B2B technology companies achieve their strategic marketing communication, channel marketing and video marketing goals.
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