• www.kblee007.blogspot.com •: 2018-07-22

Saturday, 28 July 2018

It's Not About Disruption -- Industry Transformation Is About New Markets

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You can't apply the rules of legacy markets to new business models.

July 27, 2018

7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In 1995, Clayton Christensen developed the "disruption theory." Since then, the term has not only caught heat as a buzzword, but the theory's core concepts have also been extended and misinterpreted.

However, the correct definition of disruption is only a subplot. The problem with thinking in terms of disruption, whether correctly applied or not, is that it locks businesses into their legacy perspective. By definition, a disruption is an interruption of something existing.

Yet, when an industry is transformed, more often than not a completely new market is created. This new market has little in common with the legacy market. As a result, we should view the transformed market through a new lens. Instead, however, we see businesses trying to apply old tools to new rules. Most people who talk about disruption focus on the old market.

An example of transformation

For the greater part of the last century, the automobile industry was a metaphor for stability. German, American and Japanese powerhouses steadily churned out huge volumes of cars offering top performance and quality, while generating attractive profits for investors and stakeholders. For decades, there was little substantial change in vehicle design, or movement on the leader board. Some had better years than others, but the players stayed the same.

Now the space has changed. Traditional car manufacturers are in the process of adoption. Ford recently brought on CEO Jim Hackett, who previously ran design-driven office furniture company Steelcase and who has outlined a forward thinking six-point plan for Ford's future.

In this current auto industry power struggle, Tesla is viewed as the disrupting force, the David that fights against the Goliaths. Former VW CEO Matthias Müller bashed Tesla for being the champion of announcements not products, ridiculing the company for burning money and having tiny unit sales volumes compared to traditional manufacturers.

A new market

But is Tesla really the David? Can its unit sales volumes provide us with an indication of who will win this battle?

The problem is that this not about changes within the traditional market. This is a new market. Comparing the volume of Volkswagen and Tesla in the old market is like comparing apples and pears.

The automotive market of the last century has been commoditized and will decline. This is not where the competition will take place in the future. The future of transport is an emerging market, which is still tiny today, but which is set to grow rapidly. While Müller may have been quick to ridicule Tesla for its output and burn rate, in new markets innovation takes time and output is low in the early days. This is the nature of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle.

If we consider the manufacturer of "future" cars, Tesla holds the largest volume. Tesla is not catching up, Volkswagen is.

New markets, new rules

In new markets, new rules apply. For example the processes of developing and building cars will change. The machinery required to build cars will change dramatically, as electric cars will have less mechanical complexity, while automated driving will increase the software complexity.

At the same time the integration of the connected car within the internet of things will require the integration of a new mobility infrastructure, the ability to analyze the user's context information and a UX design that provides users with the best options based on that context information.

Tomorrow's car is not a mechanical car, but a software device and an information unit. The most important part of a new car will not be its engine, or its horsepower, but its analytical and design capabilities.

This will also change the criteria by which consumers will choose between car models. Factors such as auxiliary connectivity services will play as much as a role as the user interface of the "software product."

Aside from new purchase criteria, the future will also bring new ownership models. With the rise of the sharing economy, cars will have to find their place in the bustling, congested 'smart' cities of the future.

Therefore, when we look at the automotive market as a new market that is early in its life cycle, it is easier to understand why Elon Musk is not concerned at his production volumes and why Ford ramped up its design capabilities.

New rules, new approaches

The rules of this new market determine how a company has to approach its business, what type of resources the company has to build up and how it addresses customers.

If an automobile manufacturer tried to enter the aircraft business, it wouldn't even think about hiring automotive executives to manage the transition. It would look for someone who is well versed in the industry it was moving into, not out of. Yet, as Müller's statement shows, often leading car manufacturers' executives are still thinking of the current mobility market as the same market they cut their teeth in.

The current shift of automotive is often compared to the evolution from horse carriage to car. The problem is, the horse carriage served the same purpose as the car: getting from A to B with a device as quickly and safely as possible. The device that gets us from A to B, the traditional car, is a commoditized market. No matter what manufacturer you opt for, the technology standard will be along the same level. In the future, customers' purchase criteria will not be driven by which car is more reliable or faster. More important questions will be, for example, which vehicle is smarter and has the highest processing power.

Lessons to be learned

The automotive industry is just one example. The same lessons apply to any other industry that is being "disrupted" by emerging technology. We would not measure an online media business by the same standards as a traditional print newspaper business. Neither would we judge iTunes and Spotify by the same standards as the traditional music industry. Airbnb does not play by the same rules as hotel businesses.

What is required is a total shift of perspective about any industry that is being transformed. We have to view the transformed environment as a new market.

Step one is to understand the differences between the new businesses (the Teslas) and the legacy businesses in order to refresh our perspective. If we understand how these businesses differ, then we are one step closer to understanding the distinctions between the new and the old market. If in doubt, a look at their recruiting websites will already provide us with insights of what type of resources they are building up.

Step two is to assess the requirements of this new market. Before allocating resources to the new challenges, we first should figure out what customers want and what new rules exist in this new market environment. What are the purchase criteria of customers in this new market and how do they differ from the old market? What capabilities will drive the success of businesses in this new environment? Is it mechanical engineering, software or design? Is it hotel locations and service or the reviews and trust of Airbnb's website?

Step three is to question whether any legacy operation can still compete in this new market. Can the traditional Volkswagen compete with Tesla? This could mean scrapping legacy production methods or processes, or simply bringing on a new leader with experience in the new industry, as Ford did. Simply put, if our legacy business is building furniture and we were to enter a media business, we would immediately plan to start from scratch. Yet, when companies enter transformed markets, they still tend to think in terms of legacy business models.

Like any architect who designs a new building for a new environment, we first need to go back to the drawing board. We need to question existing assumptions and take steps to adapt to a new environment like Ford did, rather than resting on our laurels, and risking becoming irrelevant.

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Here Are the Key Insights From This Week's Q2 Earnings Reports

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Amazon surpassed analysts' estimates of per-share earnings by 103 percent. Here's everything else you should know.

July 27, 2018

4 min read

“Follow the money, and see where it goes.” That’s a line from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton, but it’s just as applicable when public companies release their quarterly earnings reports.

This week, a large swath of big names -- including Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Spotify -- divulged revenue numbers.

Some results weren’t staggering: Prominent chains including Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Chipotle Mexican Grill released Q2 earnings on par with analysts’ estimates, and telecommunications giants including AT&T, Verizon and Comcast reported revenue just slightly above predictions.

As for the outliers? SunCoke Energy, Inc. -- a raw material processing and handling company in the steel and power arena -- led the charge this week when it came to surprise Q2 earnings growth, reporting earnings per share at 650 percent above analysts’ estimates. And on the other end of the energy spectrum, solar panel manufacturer First Solar Inc. shattered predictions of earnings per share with a 2,400 percent spike.

We looked at analysts’ estimates of earnings per share, then compared them to the companies’ reported numbers. Here’s a rundown of the big names that surprised us.

Amazon

At noon on Thursday, Amazon dropped a bombshell earnings report. Analysts pegged the ecommerce giant’s earnings at $2.50 per share, but the report revealed almost double that, at more than $5 per share. That’s a positive surprise of close to 103 percent. Overall, the company reported $2.5 billion in Q2 profits, or 13 times more than it reported in the same period last year. Much of this success is attributed to its cloud and ad businesses.

Twitter

The micro-blogging platform announced its third profitable quarter in a row on Friday, raking in $711 million for Q2 compared to analysts’ expected $696 million. However, a notable drop in expected users by 1 million -- due in part to Twitter's purging of bot accounts -- meant that when the market opened Friday, shares were already down 14 percent.

Facebook

This week, the social media giant reported earnings of $1.74 per share, just about 1 percent more than analysts’ estimates. That relative steadiness is surprising in itself, especially in the wake of Facebook’s infamous and ongoing user data sandal -- and the fact that on Thursday, the company’s stock price dropped a record $124 billion in a single day, making it the largest one-day loss of value in history for a U.S. traded company.

Alphabet

Analysts predicted Alphabet stock would net earnings per share of $9.59, but after the European Union charged its subsidiary, Google, with a $5 billion fine for an antitrust violation, the company released two different sets of quarterly earnings -- including and excluding fines. If you count the fines, the company reported earnings of just $4.54 per share -- less than half of analysts’ estimates. But without taking fines into account, that per-share revenue jumps to $11.75, surpassing predictions. The company’s global digital ad business likely had a heavy hand in revenue.

Spotify

Spotify disappointed investors on Thursday with reported losses of $2.20 per share, an almost 224 percent drop compared to analysts’ estimates, which pegged per-share losses at 68 cents. This was only Spotify’s second quarter as a public company, and although it’s still not profitable -- royalties for artists and record labels are proving costly -- it did report significant gains for user numbers. The streaming service now boasts 83 million paid subscribers, up 40 percent year over year.

Columbia Sportswear

Analysts lowballed Columbia’s earnings, estimating losses of 1 cent per share, but the sportswear giant exceeded expectations on a wide scale, reporting 16 cent gains per share -- totaling a positive surprise of 260 percent. That’s especially notable when compared to foot- and sportswear company Under Armour, which reported a loss of 8 cents per share.

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Failure to Tie 'Time' to Outcomes

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Don't end up like Starbucks with its nationwide closing for anti-bias training. Devote the up-front time needed to make sure employees get it right.

July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

When customers visit Starbucks, they expect a tasty beverage in a timely manner (read: as fast as possible), and good customer service. That helps explain Starbucks' business model as a high-frequency operation that must run at peak efficiency to realize profits.

Then there's Starbucks’ commitment to racial sensitivity as illustrated by its decision to close roughly 8,000 company-owned stores for anti-bias training. This followed the incident in April of two African American men being asked to leave a Philadelphia Starbucks when one of them requested to use the restroom without having purchased a beverage. The men were waiting for an associate to arrive before they ordered.

Starbucks' subsequent training shocked the business community nationwide, due to the financial loss the chain incurred, estimated to be around $16.7 million.

While no business of Starbucks’ scale can predict something like the Philadelphia incident, businesses can use time intelligently to try to prevent similar incidents. Specifically: Had Starbucks been more proactive at time management and training, the situation in April could have been avoided.

Saving the brand

Any business dealing with an occurence of racial bias or other discrimination has to tread carefully in its search for a solution to protect its brand image. Even though the Starbucks case was isolated to one store, it quickly became a national story that prompted a nationwide response. Starbucks could easily have made a hollow gesture -- like a simple donation -- but the company understood that the issue needed to be addressed head-on.

Starbucks needed a big, bold statement, and it made one through the resource of the time it expended on the training. By doing so, Starbucks showed its consumer base that it takes racial bias very seriously. And it devoted the valuable asset of time to properly train employees on a matter that’s important to the enterprise.

The lesson here: The company wouldn't have had to expend that time and money had it, earlier on, expended more time in its standard employee training.

Time to focus on training

The resource of time can often be overlooked on the corporate level. But in a business processing hundreds of thousands of transactions a day, the failure to directly connect time to outcomes is wasted time.

Small and large corporations alike have difficulty in allotting and managing time for employee training. Spending too much time training an employee can result in lost profits, but spending too little time can leave an employee unable to properly do his or her job. In Starbucks' case, the company's leaders understood that this training was needed no matter how high the financial cost.

Once again, though, this cost could have been avoided with proper up-front time management in its training process.

Training has to consist of more than just how to mix a latte

Quality assurance and consistency across multiple locations is a top priority for international companies rolling out new food and drink on a consistent basis. This means that product training should have been, and should be, a thorough part of all Starbucks’ employees' time.

From order to pick-up, Starbucks employees must be able to do more than create drinks. Considering that positive customer interactions are a major part of the process, Starbucks misallocated the up-front time needed for training, and exposed its vulnerability; the result was that it was forced to pour more resources, that it shouldn't have had to, into fixing things later in the barista-service pipeline.

Had Starbucks incorporated thorough racial bias training beforehand, it could have called Philadelphia an isolated incident. Instead, the company was backed into a corner, to save its reputation by training most of its employees at over 8,000 stores. While this was an impressive way to call attention to and work its way out of a corporate image crisis, the massive training the coffee giant hosted proved wasteful in terms of attaching time to outcomes.

How can you avoid being wasteful? That is what corporate "time intelligence" should look like on a preemptive, rather than reactive, basis.

Using time strategically

While time is not a renewable resource, a business employing a proper platform for time management can harvest time with ease.

Businesses looking to be smarter about this resource must rethink time as a corporate asset that is unified through all levels of the organization. From the C-suite to the retail employees who interact with customers daily, time can be reallocated and better managed using the same data analytics that are helping businesses to become more efficient.

Once a business is able to understand where its time is being spent, it can take an objective look at where employee time is being mismanaged, and reallocate those workers' work efforts without needing to add more staff.

In an ideal world, businesses won’t need a major incident like the one in Philadelphia to start down the path to more strategic time use. Starbucks has seen that it needs to be more time efficient, and instead of closing down for large-scale trainings, it could have implemented a long-term anti-bias training initiative that wouldn't have to be done in one time slot nationwide.

This newfound awareness may not be enough for the company to rebound, however: It recently announced the closing of 150 stores over the 2019 corporate year. Instead of looking for stores to close, perhaps Starbucks would benefit more by streamlining its workforce processes and training process. Also required there would be intelligent time-tracking to ensure that the company was receiving the most output from its time input.

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How to Get Your Money to Work for You

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So, you’ve decided to go into business for yourself online. That’s great. Maybe you’ve already purchased your domain, set up your web hosting, designed your website, and nabbed all of the important social media handles. Maybe you’ve already converted on your first affiliate offer too. Or maybe you’ve converted on your 50th affiliate offer. That’s all terrific.

Now that your online business is generating some positive cash flow, you may be tempted to go out and treat yourself to something nice. Maybe you want to take your significant other out for a fancy seafood dinner or maybe you want to splurge on that big screen TV you’ve been eyeing. You deserve it, right?

Even if we were to ignore the profound pitfalls of lifestyle inflation for just a moment, we’re already sweeping right past a much more important lesson to learn. The profits that your online business are not yours, at least not entirely. If you want to continue to grow that business and if you want to continue increasing your bottom line year over year, you need to reinvest back into your business.

Would it be at all reasonable if John’s blog continued to operate on the lowest level of shared hosting? Would it be at all reasonable if he used a default WordPress theme and relied only on himself to write all the posts that appear on this site? Of course not. He was able to grow his business, because he was willing to reinvest those profits back into the business.

Don’t get me wrong. It can certainly fill you up with a sense of pride when you see your bank account balance continue to increase month after month. It can feel awfully rewarding and motivating when you see that your online business is “working” and that you’re really start to bring in some real money. That’s good. But simply having the money sit there doesn’t do you much good (you should set aside an emergency fund, but that’s another discussion for another day) and splurging on all sorts of unnecessary purchases won’t move your business forward either.

You need to reinvest.

When you reinvest some of your profits back into your business, you give your business a much better chance at moving up to the next level. It’s all about scale. If you spend $100 in an AdWords campaign and it nets you $1,000 in profit, you can theoretically spend $200 in AdWords next month and net $2,000. It’s never quite so simple, of course, but that’s the fundamental idea.

What’s more, when you reinvest those earnings back into your business, you make it far easier for you to plan for growing expenses moving forward, which can then lead to different income expectations in the future too. It takes money to make money, they say, and you want to make sure your money continues to work for you.

How you choose to reinvest that profit is up to you and it’ll depend on your individual circumstances. Maybe you want to move from shared hosting to a virtual private server. Maybe you want to invest in some software to streamline your workflow. Maybe you want to invest in a service so you can better optimize your campaigns. Maybe you want to hire a freelance to write excellent copy for you or to help you develop a better optimized website theme.

These all cost money, but they all have the potential for tremendous return on investment (ROI). These kinds of growth projects are what will ensure the future success of your business. They may reduce your take-home pay today, but they will help you earn more money over the long term.

Just as having all of your cash sit in a checking account that earns zero interest is probably not the best idea (you should consider all sorts of other investment vehicles for far better returns), you shouldn’t just “cash out” all the profits of your business and reap the immediate rewards of your hard work. Put that money back in and it’ll come back several times over.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, and Live The Dot Com Lifestyle!

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Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh.

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Find the funny people in your life and keep them close.

July 27, 2018

2 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This video is part of a series brought to you by Entrepreneur’s book division, Entrepreneur Press, the publisher of Jessica Abo’s book Unfiltered: How to Be as Happy as You Look On Social Media.

As I hit nine months of my pregnancy, working on my book just kept getting tougher and tougher. I was uncomfortable sitting in a chair for too long. I couldn't type in bed because my belly was so big, and it was hard for me to sit up with my computer on my lap because I couldn't reach the keys. When you work on something for so long, and in such an intense way, sometimes you just need to laugh! I looked like crap on most days, felt like I was about to pop and pretty much waddled to get from point A to point B.

My husband happens to be hilarious, so I was lucky he kept me laughing throughout both labors of love. Find the funny people in your life and keep them close! Laughter will pull you through the days your deadlines are making you go bananas and you find yourself still in your pajamas at dinner time.

Watch more videos from Jessica Abo on her YouTube channel here.

Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We provide expertise and opportunities to accelerate brand growth and effectively monetize video and audio content distributed across all digital platforms for the business genre.

EN is partnered with hundreds of top YouTube channels in the business vertical. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices.

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We Need to Start Educating Students and Hiring Teams About Blockchain. Why That's Crucial.

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Blockchain's global market is predicted to hit $60.7 billion by 2024. What's your H.R. team doing about it?

July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It is often said that we are going from the internet of things to the internet of value and that by applying blockchain technologies, the rate of data propagation will become instantaneous.

Various global networks -- proprietary and distributed -- are changing the way we deliver value, whether the use be monetary or an offer of an agreement or vital information. Technological advancement across our digital planet continues to occur at an exponential rate.

In this context, blockchain technology and distributed ledger networks have constituted the latest revolution in information infrastructure, akin to what email and the internet were in the 1990s.

Blockchain and distributed ledgers, in fact, are transparent databases that allow network participants to share, verify and secure value, data and information. Cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin, introduced the world to a new form of data management infrastructure and is based on conventional theories, programming languages and software-engineering principles.

This technology is already being applied across industries, finding niche applications in finance and logistics, as well as in places like the IBM and MAERSK partnership, and Bank of America’s patent portfolio.

So, just as email revolutionized the way the current generation of students, learn and the way today's employees, work, adaptation of blockchain adaptation at a cross-industry level is going to completely change things.

That means change the way we teach, hire and plan for our careers and our companies' futures. Here are some of those ways:

Blockchain in education

Fostering education in the computer sciences needs to be a priority of our education systems. Enabling students pursuing computer science, business and law to enhance their education with blockchain-centric electives will not only help them better prepare for the current work landscape, it will offer students alternative career paths.

By removing the issue of delay in our 24/8 society, blockchain-based industries -- with their decentralized applications, token economies and new database technology -- can streamline various industries and by extension the global economy.

Already, computer science is one of the most popular majors in U.S. colleges. And specific languages learned in tandem with that major, like Java, C++, Python and more, are the same language-skills needed to create blockchains (at a base level).

While the structure of these applications is new and evolving, allowing students to specialize in the space could benefit colleges and universities by opening new R&D opportunities while preparing students for a new digital economy. If blockchain electives become available, they could go hand-in-hand with a computer science major, for example. Students could then leave college with a better understanding of our current technological landscape and be better equipped for job openings.

Global organizations and industrial powerhouses have stepped up to this vision of our technlogical future. IBM, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others are contributing to the development of the space every day; but with a skills shortage, blockchain specialists are in high demand.

What human resources professionals need to know

All this being said, not every situation requires a blockchain and not every application will be fully developed.

Blockchain based electives, both theoretical and practical -- rather than entire programs -- will benefit institutions, businesses and students. Mastery of the computer programming languages and best practices will remain hugely important and ensure cross-discipline training.

For some organizations, blockchain is, or will be, immensely important. For others, it won't necessarily be needed. One HR team may be looking to fill the role of a technologist with a candidate whose knowledge base is central to the organization’s needs. An HR team for a grocery chain, on the other hand, may simply require a technologist or C-suite executive with a basic knowledge base.

An IT firm or logistics powerhouse may have a dedicated team looking to fill specific niches.

The takeaway here is that H.R. professionals need to carefully craft job descriptions to ensure a potential hire with blockchain-based expertise. If companies consider blockchain technologies part of their "data infrastructure," the decision of human resources managers will immediately be simplified.

From there, hiring teams can evaluate candidates based on their data/IT experience. Those needs may change as blockchain continues to evolve and transform various industries. Proof? Blockchain's global market is predicted to hit $60.7 billion by 2024.

When an open position demands it, then, candidates, then, should be properly vetted to see if they are able to build and maintain a blockchain, whether they have cross-discipline abilities, whether they can manage IT infrastructure and/or work within blockchain frameworks.

Working toward a future of blockchain technology

In sum, blockchain is going to help accelerate societal and economic growth, by changing the way we create, transfer and verify data through a self-managing data infrastructure. Already, society is 24/7 and globalization is integral to economic development for nations around the world.

Blockchain is going to be an important part of these trends, as a technology space that can create jobs, drive microeconomics and offer a solution to the current limitations in technology infrastructure.

Embracing the opportunity to help both students and business capitalize on blockchain's potential is not just prudent; it is our duty as a society to evolve, and train generations to adapt to these changes.

However, rather than forcing students to strictly learn blockchain and distributed-ledger technology, we should create complementary electives open not just to computer science majors but also to business and law students. These moves will help mature the workforce of the future and ensure that students can explore career paths in the new digital economy.

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6 Companies With Amazing Office Layouts to Inspire Your Office Redesign

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Wide open spaces, a petting zoo, a napping space? What will it take to make your employees stay forever?

July 27, 2018

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Creating the perfect office environment is a major challenge for new and experienced entrepreneurs alike. Your workplace environment affects the morale of every member of your team, including you, and is responsible for forming that important first impression of every prospective client who walks in the door.

But rather than sit and speculate about how to make your office better, why not look to some great examples of companies that have already mastered it?

Key principles

Throughout the following examples, you’ll see the following principles in action:

Adherence to brand values and personality. First, every office seems to “fit” with the overall culture and personality of the brand offering it. This provides the groundwork for better team cohesion and establishes a more powerful identity for the company.
Sensory experiences. There are interesting sights, sounds and even pleasant smells, making each office seem both unique and welcoming. Small environmental changes here can make a big difference.
Comfort and convenience. Finally, most of these office designs aim to make life more comfortable and convenient for these businesses' employees. Comfort and convenience lead to higher employee retention and better on-the-job performance.

Now let’s dig into six companies whose offices make work more appealing to everyone involved:

1. Google

Google has become synonymous with epic employee perks, so as you might imagine, most of its eight locations offer amazing features to keep its employees happy. The original Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., provides hundreds of bikes and scooters for quick office transportation, and activity centers with features like a climbing wall, a bowling alley and even a court for beach volleyball.

Other locations offer quirky design choices, like jungle-decorated office spaces, and 1960s-era caravans that can serve as meeting locations.

2. Carbon Black

A fast-growing company in the computer security industry, Carbon Black has headquarters in Waltham, Mass., that are a dream come true for many of its employees. With an upscale feel, the entire office radiates the brand’s image with cool, earthy tones and an occasional flourish of bright colors. The office overlooks the natural scenery of the Cambridge Reservoir, and even has an outdoor patio, where employees can take lunch or work.

3. Nokia

Nokia’s R&D offices are located in Sunnyvale, Calif., and they offer a host of features for employees. Attempting to foster creativity and establish the unique vision of the brand, Nokia’s office has an avant-garde style, with colorful, contemporary furniture and full-on nap stations for employees wanting to take a break. There’s even a built-in arcade.

4. HomeAdvisor

HomeAdvisor’s New York City office is located in the middle of busy Times Square. It features a lush, green terrace, which hosts a living wall and furniture (including hammocks) for employees to enjoy. As an added bonus, the company provides lunch and dinner to all its employees. And throughout the day, you can find employees hanging around the ping-pong table or riding around the office on scooters.

5. Moz

One of the foremost authorities on search engine optimization (SEO), the Moz office in downtown Seattle tries to foster creativity while presenting a professional image. The office is notable for its wide open spaces, which make collaboration easy, and exposed brick walls for extra character. There’s also plenty of natural light, boosting morale and mood throughout the day (even if it’s cloudy).

6. Domino’s Pizza

The Domino’s Pizza shop around the corner from you may not offer much style to its employees, but the Domino’s headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a sight to behold. With an enormous interior and plenty of kitchen space, these offices are roomy and sleekly designed. The company even offers a built-in art gallery and a petting zoo to help employees relieve stress.

As a new entrepreneur, you may not have the cash or the resources to invest in your own bowling alley, or an office with an enormous interior. However, with a few tweaks, you can provide your employees with the comfort, flexibility and creative stimulation they need to help you turn your vision into a reality.

Keep your brand top of mind when designing or finding the right office for your team.

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How to Launch Your First Email Marketing Campaign and Get the Results You Want

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Email isn't going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users. Wouldn't you like all of them to be your customers?

July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Email isn’t going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users, and that number is expected to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021. What's more, this communication channel is supremely popular: People check their emails multiple times a day, and when you're trying to market your company, you can get your name into thousands of inboxes just by launching an email marketing campaign.

The cost? Email marketing is also super-affordable, which makes it great for small businesses.

But just sending an email message promoting your business isn't enough. People are inundated with a ton of promotional emails every day, and many get deleted without ever being read. That's why you need to make sure your emails will stand out through the noise.

So, where do you start and what can you do to be successful with your first email campaign? Let’s jump into it: Here’s how to launch your first email marketing campaign, which will boost engagement for your company and its sales.

Build your email list.

In order to have a successful email marketing campaign, you’ll need people to email. That’s why you have to build up your email list to be a moneymaker for your business. Having an email list allows you to have a ton of qualified leads at your fingertips, and you can email them any time you want to promote your business. But how do you get people signed up?

Shinesty uses this attention-grabbing pop-up to encourage visitors to sign up for its email list.

Email List Pop-up from Shinesty. http://www.workbetternotharder.com/2015/

Using a nonintrusive, exit-intent popup on your site is a great, attention-grabbing tactic to get more email subscribers. Offering an incentive in your pop-up will convince users to hit that subscribe button, so consider offering a discount or another freebie in exchange for a prospective customer's email address. Building a substantial email list is the backbone of any successful email campaign.

Choose an email marketing service provider.

Once you’ve built up your email list and gotten tons of users ready for you to send a message, it's time to get your email campaign in motion. Using Gmail or Outlook is strongly discouraged for sending bulk emails. That’s why you need to choose an email marketing service provider. Some great options are Constant Contact, MailChimp or ConvertKit.

By using an email service provider, you’ll get a number of benefits, including the ability to send bulk emails and manage your email database, campaign-management services and customizable email templates. You'll also be able to ensure you’re compliant with CAN-SPAM laws.

Define the goal of your campaign.

Before you send out any emails, you have to figure out why you’re sending out the emails in the first place. Not defining a focus for your email marketing campaign will make that campaign appear all over the place, and confuse readers. So what is the goal of your campaign? Typical goals include:

Educating users about your product/niche
Promoting products or announcing a sale
Upselling customers
Increasing engagement on your blog/social media

Pinkberry’s goal with the following email campaign was to target its “inactive” users with a surprise incentive to return:

Pinkberry Email Campaign. https://mailbakery.com/blog/email-marketing-campaign-examples/

Remember: Not only do you have to decide "why?" but also "whom?" Will you be sending this campaign to customers who have already purchased, users who have never purchased or everyone on your email list? How you design your emails depends on what you want out of your campaign, so determine your goal and plan your campaign around it.

Craft your email.

After deciding what type of email marketing campaign you’re going to launch, start crafting your email. The first tip is to create a catchy subject line that will grab attention and make people want to open up your email. You can use a free tool like CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester to see if your subject line makes the grade.

Other tips that will get your emails opened include personalizing them to each user; people will pay closer attention if you say their name. Designing an eye-catching email with a good mixture of text and images is also important. Design experts often recommend that emails employ a 60/40 text-to-image ratio.

Finally, when writing copy for your email campaign, keep it short and snappy and show some personality. You want to get your point across without boring readers by making them scroll through a long email to find out what you’re actually talking about. You should focus on content that shows readers how they will benefit, instead of just telling them how great you are.

Now you’re ready to launch your first email marketing campaign. Don’t forget that once you hit "send," you can start to measure your results, like your open rate and your number of orders or registrations, for example. When you measure your results, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not; and the next time you send out a campaign, you’ll get even better results than the first time around.

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What Every Disrupter Needs to Know About Transformation

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Beyond the buzzword, disrupting the status quo requires insight into the art of transformation.

July 27, 2018

3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Leading transformation is the responsibility of leaders. With complex changes happening all the time, if we humans are not changing ourselves and the world around us, we can't adapt, we won't keep up and we certainly cannot thrive.

Why should we care about this thing called transformation?

In a time period of constant innovation, our lives are always being transformed by outside factors we do not control. In order to be the kind of leader who makes change happen and who can adapt to change happening to us and the people around us, we first have to define what transformation looks like and how it’s different from everyday change.

So, what exactly is transformation?

This seems like a good place to start the conversation. Many forms of change require process alterations where people-to-people transactions look different. For example, call center employees are frequently given new metrics to work toward, such as the time it takes to resolve a customer’s issue. While this change is important, it’s not life-altering. The type of variation represented by transformation I am addressing is the kind of change that results in a paradigm shift. The kind of paradigm shift that takes a status quo, challenges it and creates a new reality, a new status quo. The kind of transformation we are focusing on makes change from the inside out. It alters personal values, collective cultural values. The scale of change may be massive, but the scope might be relatively micro. Your personal life may be going through a state of transformation, such as breaking a cycle of bad decision-making. Or maybe, it’s a large-scale transformation, such as experiencing a shift in your organizational or industry culture. The most important and critical piece of the transformation is that it sustains the change. It’s a movement that is built to last.

Is all transformation the same?

Transformation tends to come in one of two forms. Although there are different forms of lasting transformation, there are two that stand out in industrial and societal disruption. One way is top-down change where a leader or leaders of a business or government creates a top-down change. It may seem big, but tends to be evolutionary and part of an overall, big picture strategy. This is the type of transformation that tends to happens to us. Then there’s the bottom-up, revolutionary change, that comes from the ranks where transformation tends to be more disruptive. Whichever transformation we are talking about or experiencing, there is one thing in common -- and it’s not processes or procedures. It’s people. People must be at the center of every strategy and plan for large scale, disruptive transformation.

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5 Apps to Boost Your Brain Power

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Make the most of your smartphone addiction.

July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

We are glued to our iPhones, staring at our screens walking on the sidewalk, sitting at the office, eating at the dinner table and even in the powder room. But what if instead of losing brain cells while mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, you could actually use your phone to become smarter?

Check out five apps to boost your brain power.

Elevate

Image credit: Elevate | Entrepreneur

Average rating on App Store: 4.7 Stars

Platforms: iOS, Android

Why we love it: Elevate is a personal trainer for your brain -- minus the price tag that typically accompanies. Selected by Apple as App of the Year, Elevate uses AI to design customized brain workouts based on your interaction with the app. The more you use it, the better it knows you. After determining your goal, the app creates a personalized set of exercises tailored to your desired results. You’ll be given short, and rather enjoyable, mini games to improve your memory, focus, reading comprehension, writing and more. You can track your progress along the way, see which skills are improving and which ones need a little extra love.

To see if Elevate really was affective and not just a waste of time (and phone data), California State University conducted a research study in collaboration with Elevate. Results showed that Elevate users improved 69 percent more than non-users in key skills over a four-week period.

Cost: Free, with the option for in-app purchases.

Happify

Image credit: Happify | Entrepreneur

Average rating on App Store: 4.5 Stars

Platforms: iOS, Android

Why we love It: Can your smartphone really make you happy? Well, Happify is certainly trying -- and succeeding. This app wasn’t designed by your typical programmer. Rather, leading scientists and experts in fields of psychology, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy developed the app to make sure each game will bring about positive change to your life.

By keeping track of your emotions while using the app, you can see just how far your happiness and emotional intelligence have improved. Happify isn’t promising all sunshine and rainbows. You’ll have your bad days, but overall the app will train your brain to abandon its negative wiring and think positively. If you’re skeptical, Happify doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It lets you know up front that it’ll take a lot of work to kick your bad habits to the curb, but Happify is there to assist you along their journey with a few easy, fun games each day. Results can’t be falsified since they are coming from you.

Cost: Free, with the option for in-app purchases.

CogniFit

Image credit: Cognifit | Entrepreneur

Average rating on App Store: 4.2 Stars

Platforms: iOS, Android

Why we love it: If you can’t remember your email password or where you put your phone, give CogniFit a try. Aimed on improving your short-term memory, CogniFit tests your brain for 23 different cognitive skills and provides a detailed report of your results. You then have the option of playing different brain games and mental challenges to stimulate and/or rehabilitate the cognitive skills of your choosing.

Using the same technologies as hospitals and medical centers around the world, CogniFit also offers specific exercises for people with a diagnosed mental impairments, like dementia, chemo-fog, Alzheimer's, ADHD, multiple sclerosis and more.

Cost: Free, with the option for in-app purchases.

Peak

Image credit: Peak | Entrepreneur

Average rating on App Store: 4.6 Stars

Platforms: iOS, Android

Why we love it: Peak helps you make the most of your play time by pushing your thinking to its peak for a short interval of time. Think of it as the high-intensity interval training routine of brain training: short bursts, lots of energy, quick results.

When you first sign up for the app, Peak asks you which skills you would like to improve to make your experience as efficient as possible. Taking into consideration your personal interests and game performance, Peak puts together sequences of games specifically for you. Benefits include sharper focus, increased mental agility and a stronger memory. If you’re really pressed for time, play the “Coffee Break” feature. All the brain benefits, but you can play in the amount of time you’ll wait in a Starbucks line. Forgot your phone at home? No worries. Peak is available on your Apple Watch. Plus, Peak encourages you along the way with positive reinforcements to motivate you to keep going.

Cost: Free, with the option for in-app purchases.

Duolingo

Image credit: Elevate | Entrepreneur

Average rating on App Store: 4.7 Stars

Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows

Why we love it: No, you are never too old to learn a new language. Though you are more prone to pick up a foreign language as a child, Duolingo makes it possible for you to learn to read, write and speak in the language of your choosing. From French to Indonesian, Duolingo offers over 32 different foreign language courses in the form of fun games and quizzes. Haven’t spoken Spanish since middle school but still remember bits and pieces? Duolingo allows you to pick up where you left off, so you don’t have to go all the way back to the beginning. A private tutor in your pocket, Duolingo is a fun spin on traditional foreign language education.

Cost: Free

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3 Ways to Optimize Your Sales Funnel with Videos

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In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Vibrant Media Productions is featured as one of the Top Video Production Companies in Orlando . Check out their profile here.

A well implemented sales funnel is critical to any company’s success and can be optimized in many different ways. Today, with more than 57% of people watching one or more videos a week on their smartphone alone, marketing videos can easily help you optimize your company’s sales funnel.

In a simplified sales funnel, the main phases include: the awareness phase, the decision phase, the purchase phase and the repurchase phase. Your funnel should be taking in lots of prospects at the top (awareness phase) and letting out only qualified leads at the bottom (purchase and repurchase phases). Most people drop out between the phases as unfruitful sales opportunities’. By optimizing your sales funnel, you should be getting only the highest quality leads that are ready to buy or repurchase.

Awareness Phase Optimization

This is the phase where potential customers become aware of the existence of your brand or product. At this stage, you get to make a first impression. Your objectives at this point should be to reach as many members of your target demographic as you possibly can and to make a good enough impression so that you can get many of them to stick around for the remainder of the stages.

This is where product videos or demo videos help inform and attract prospects into your funnel. A product or service video explaining what your company does, how it does it, and what makes it different is the key here. This type of video is great for optimizing the awareness phase, but it’s still effective in optimizing all the other phases of your sales funnel.

BlueBird Turf builds tough and reliable turf care products for a wide range of applications. Their demo and product videos help attract customers to their brand and show the superior durability of their products. This awareness has helped increase awareness of specific products and attract new customers to the brand.

When you show people what your company does, you are essentially introducing them to your brand. When you tell them how your company operates, you are letting them know what your values are, and many customers consider this when they are making purchase decisions. Telling people what makes your product or service unique helps them understand why you are better than your competitors, or why it’s worth it to upgrade to a newer version of your product.

Decision Phase Optimization

After prospects are aware of your product, they will show an interest in it, and evaluate it (by comparing it to products from your competitors) before deciding to buy. The decision phase is pivotal, and you should do everything you can to optimize it. You can achieve this by putting out videos that provide useful information on your product, extol its positive attributes, and offer testimonials from other customers. According to Vibrant Media Productions (https://vibrantmediaproductions.com), 61% of clients surveyed said that product videos helped increase sales, as opposed to no videos. This falls in line with similar research on product videos.

Prospects are more likely to purchase your product if they connect emotionally with your brand. These types of marketing videos can help spark that emotional connection with your customers, and it can help transition them from the awareness phase to the decision and later the Purchase phase.

Rosco Vision Systems is a manufacturer of automotive vision safety products and uses product videos to inform customer’s of product features and build awareness.

Culture videos are effective in sales funnel optimization because people want to know that the products they purchase are made by companies that care about their workers, and are dedicated to innovation and excellence.

Purchase Phase & Repurchase Phase Optimization

The Purchase and Repurchase phase are when goods or services are purchased. The repurchase phase doesn’t apply to all products and services, but it’s essential in lots of areas e.g. software subscriptions, consumer products, and even electronics that require periodic replacement. In these phases, customers decide whether to keep using your product, or whether to purchase a new and improved version of your product. To optimize this phase, you have to make it as easy as possible for your customers to get their hands on your products.

Big Ass Fans – iG Center Testimonial from Vibrant Media Productions on Vimeo.

Big Ass Fans is a leading producer of fans for both commercial and residential use. They use their testimonial videos in marketing material and on their site to assure potential clients of their efficiency and effectiveness. This builds trust in the Purchase Phase.

Marketing research indicates that people tend to trust customer testimonials more than endorsement messages from the makers of a product, so a video that showcases the effectiveness of a product from the point of view of real customers can go a long way in convincing prospects to purchase your product. Testimonial videos are particularly effective in optimizing the decision phase of the sales funnel.

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Alex Cascio

Alex Cascio is the founder of Vibrant Media Productions and is passionate about helping businesses succeed through producing visually stunning imagery that tells their unique stories. He has produced various video content for organizations such as National Geographic, 3M, Microsoft, LYFT and American Express, among others.

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ClickFunnels Actionetics Vs Aweber Vs Constant Contact

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I continue my video series on ClickFunnels by giving you a closer look at Actionetics. This is ClickFunnel’s contact list management tool. I show you all the unique features and compare it to Aweber and Constant Contact. How does it stack up? Watch the video to find out.

ClickFunnels is more than just a landing page creation software. It’s actually a complete business automation tool that brings your entire marketing system into a single, and tightly integrated, service. ClickFunnel is one of my foundation business tools and I wouldn’t be able to do what I without it.

If you wish to find out more about ClickFunnels and how it can help your business, then I recommend registering for a free webinar Russell and I are doing for ClickFunnels. If you wish to try out the service, then go sign up for the 14 day free trial.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model!

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5 Steps Entrepreneurs Need to Take to Overcome the Fear of Rejection

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If you want to truly overcome your fear of rejection, it's not a one-off; it's an everyday practice.

July 27, 2018

8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The fear of rejection is so strong that most people choose to live half versions of their lives rather than risk someone telling them no.

It’s so painful, most people don’t risk it. Trust me; I know.

As a mindset and success coach for entrepreneurs, I’ve coached brilliant people -- visionaries with big missions and powerful mastery -- and every single one of them has had to face the fear of rejection at some point in their journey, and some, more than once. More than that, even though sales (the ultimate rejection practice!) is my mastery, I still feel the fear of rejection in my own life.

But I have learned to not take it personally: It’s our old fight, flight or freeze response.

Do you know you are meant to be on camera, doing Facebook Lives and talking to your audience, but feel paralyzing stage fright knowing that others will be watching you? That’s your freeze response in action.
Do you procrastinate making the calls, sending the emails and building the relationships that you know will help you in your business because your feelings of nervousness and insecurity are so intense? That’s your flight response taking charge.
When you show up for your business, do you feel constricted, scared and pinched in your physical body? Does it seem like all your negative beliefs and fears are screaming in your face? That’s your fight response, making everything into an enemy.

For entrepreneurs, it’s guaranteed rejection will happen.

Here are five steps to overcome your fear of rejection and claim your own power, mastery and success -- all at the same time.

1. Name your fears.

Acknowledge what’s really going on inside. Get your writing materials and make a concrete bullet list of all the things you’ve been avoiding because you’re afraid you’ll be rejected. Go even deeper, and add to your list all the things you don’t want someone to say no to. These are all the things you don’t ask for, won’t ask for and maybe don’t even acknowledge you truly want.

For instance, if you’re looking for new romance, you have to be willing to ask someone on a date. When you ask, they might say no. Or if you want a raise or a promotion in your company, you must be willing to make a proposal to your boss. Again, when you ask, they may turn you down.

Be honest about what you’re avoiding. Once you have the fears named, they’re less likely to surprise you and take you out.

2. Face your fears and welcome rejection.

Once you know what you’re afraid of, the next step is to confront those things head-on.

For each of the fears you wrote down in step one, write down a concrete action that would be the opposite.

For example, are you avoiding sales? Make a plan to make 50 cold calls in one week. If you are hiding out and avoiding interacting with others, plan on doing 30 days of Facebook Lives. Plan them, improvise, it doesn’t matter. Just make a plan to get on the camera and let yourself be seen. Or if you are spending too many nights alone? Challenge yourself to ask 10 people you are attracted to out to coffee.

Get creative and radical. If your action steps seem comfortable to you, challenge yourself to get even more bold.

New results demand new action. Now you’ve got a game plan.

3. Get uncomfortable -- every single day.

For each of the action steps you listed in no. 2, do at least one every day.

It will be massively uncomfortable for you (or you would have done it already). The discomfort is normal, but remember, you can do it.

When you make getting uncomfortable a daily routine, you’re retraining your mind to get comfortable being uncomfortable. A little bit goes a long way. Over time, the big, scary things that have been looming large will seem manageable … and maybe even exciting!

When you’re in “fight, flight or freeze” mode, you’re letting your fear sit in the driver's seat.

And while this biological response is completely normal, it runs counter to your vision and goals.

When you’re in flight mode, you go away from whatever you’re afraid of. You want to get as far away from it as possible. Your fear is moving you. When you’re in freeze mode, you feel numb and stuck. You don't know how to move forward, so you don’t move at all. Your fear is keeping you stuck. When you’re in fight mode, you attack your clients, friends, boss, co-workers. Your fear is determining your emotional reactions.

When fear is doing the driving, you’ll end up going away from the thing that you want.

As soon as you flip that switch and act through fear, rather than from fear, you will see opportunities for money, sales and clients that were invisible to you before. Fear was obscuring the view.

Confront what you’re afraid of and take the steering wheel back -- habitually, repeatedly, daily.

If you want to truly overcome your fear of rejection, it’s not a one-off; it’s an everyday practice. The goal here isn’t to stop being uncomfortable; it’s to know that the discomfort can’t stop you from creating what you want in your life. Similarly, true freedom doesn’t mean never being rejected. It means knowing that even when you are rejected (because you will be!), the world won’t end and your life will continue to grow and expand as you move toward your goals.

4. Celebrate.

We all live fast-paced lives and tend to focus on our problems. Train your mind to feel resilience and even joy in the face of possible rejection by making time to reflect and celebrate your growth. Look at your list of action steps. What did you do? Which fears did you face? Which actions pushed your comfort zone? What did you learn? Acknowledge yourself for doing this deeply uncomfortable work.

Taking the time to celebrate will train your mind to respond to the results of your bold action, rather than the fear of taking the action in the first place. And then, the next time you challenge yourself, you’ll feel the excitement of the end result.

And keep going. The more you consciously choose to face your fears, the easier it will be to do it. Celebrating yourself for your action and growth will rewire your brain to not only be more resilient in the face of discomfort, but to actually get excited for the next opportunity to get uncomfortable. Why? Because you’ll know you’ve been able to do it in the past, it wasn’t as bad as you thought, and the result that you were doing it for made it all worthwhile.

Related: Breaking Free of Fear

5. Let fear guide you, not drive you.

An amazing colleague of mine, Kristina Hallett, recently shared, “If my first reaction is to want to vomit, I go for it immediately.”

Make this your M.O.

Here’s the truth that will guide you through this: Fear is an indicator that you are right on track. Fear only emerges in the face of the unfamiliar. When do we face the unfamiliar, the new? Every single time we change.

Fear emerges in response to growth; it’s a sign you’re doing something new. If you’re here for growth and transformation, fear will come up over and over again -- a sign that you’re doing just what you set out to do. The emergence of fear means you’re on the right track. It’s part of your guidance system.

One of the most amazing things about entrepreneurship is that it demands that we move past our fear of rejection. It’s simply not possible to go big, be successful in sales and make the money that’s required to be a sustainable business without getting past the fear that stops most people. Say yes to all of that -- and welcome the rejection as part of the process, a tool to guide you to more mastery and success.

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Slide Images

Saturday, 28 July 2018

An example of transformation

A new market

New markets, new rules

New rules, new approaches

Lessons to be learned

Amazon

Twitter

Facebook

Alphabet

Spotify

Columbia Sportswear

Saving the brand

Time to focus on training

Training has to consist of more than just how to mix a latte

Using time strategically

Blockchain in education

What human resources professionals need to know

Working toward a future of blockchain technology

Key principles

1. Google

2. Carbon Black

3. Nokia

4. HomeAdvisor

5. Moz

6. Domino’s Pizza

Build your email list.

Choose an email marketing service provider.

Define the goal of your campaign.

Craft your email.

Why should we care about this thing called transformation?

So, what exactly is transformation?

Is all transformation the same?

Subscribe to the UpCity Blog!

Elevate

Happify

CogniFit

Peak

Duolingo

Awareness Phase Optimization

Decision Phase Optimization

Purchase Phase & Repurchase Phase Optimization

Alex Cascio

Subscribe to the UpCity Blog!

1. Name your fears.

2. Face your fears and welcome rejection.

3. Get uncomfortable -- every single day.

4. Celebrate.

5. Let fear guide you, not drive you.