Tips for Organizing Your Personal Brand

Organization. It’s the one thing so many of us let go when times get busy. From unkempt desks to computers cluttered with files from projects no one remembers anymore, it’s no wonder that entrepreneurs are forever stereotyped as flying by the seat of their pants. Yet, in a world where technology is taking on more and more responsibility, it’s becoming easier to hand off time management and organization to programs designed to make sure you don’t misplace yet another crucial bit of information.

The Clutter Myth

Before we get going, it’s important to realize that desk clutter isn’t inherently a bad thing. After all, most of us maintain an organized mess only our brains are capable of sifting through properly. For further proof, just look at Einstein’s desk the day he died. That man was far from a failed entrepreneur.
In the same vein, you do have to have some sort of rhyme and reason to your clutter. Maybe all “to-do” items pile up on the left side while all of the “to file” projects sit on the right. This at least gives you a general map of where to find things. Ideally, though, you want a system that reduces the time it takes for you to find documents. Time is money and if you’re wasting too much time searching for a contract, you lose money.
As far as email is concerned, organizing your inbox is not too big of a deal as modern search functions do a great job of finding things for you. So long as you remember who sent you the email, its subject, the day it was sent or even a sliver of the body, you will be able to find it. Your responsibility, however, is to make sure you clean it up when it starts to run slowly.

Time is Money

Once you start treating your time like you would treat your dollars, you begin to see your worth in terms of the current economic situation. It also makes it easier for people to put their foot down against things that will end up not benefitting them in any capacity.
Your first step in this mission, should you choose to accept it, is to cut out all the fat. Useless meetings, chats at the water cooler and browsing mind-numbing websites severely detract from what you are capable of accomplishing throughout the course of one day. And before you ask, yes, it is important to take breaks from daily stress. This gives your brain time to recharge for the next event. However, this recharge time can be turned into something useful, such as watching YouTube videos about history or reading up on the latest scientific advancements.
Only through practicing this can you teach yourself the temperament necessary to truly succeed as your own boss.

Technology to the Rescue

Once you finally have organization and time management down, you can push them further with technology. Coded by those seeking to make everything run smoother and more efficiently than any human could ever hope to match, specialized software gives the entrepreneur a leading edge.
Here are three of my favorite mainstays to organization and effectiveness.
The question to ask is: Is it necessary?
Why is it on your schedule? Does it move you closer to your goal? Can it be eliminated, simplified, or combined with something else?

Passion Planner

While it may seem like a regular planner, this handy notebook takes scheduling a step further by having you enter your goals into the space at the start. It’s a great psychological trick to help keep you focused on your ultimate goal, making it easier to spot and avoid potential deterrents along the way. The end of each month has also been fitted with reflection pages to fill out for you to continually reassess where you are and how that relates to your plans.

Cam Card

It used to be that business cards where stored in a Rolodex. Then they had to be hand entered into a database. This was followed by buggy scanning software. Now, the technology has finally progressed enough to make card scanning accurate, organized and easy on your phone. An app optimized to work on any device with a camera, the business cards are stored on a cloud database where you can add notes and set reminders.

Calendly

Calendly is a relatively revolutionary scheduling device that has shared the responsibility of scheduling with others. Once you’ve denoted your availability, you share your personal Calendly link with your contacts. They then pick an available time and you now have a scheduled appointment sans 10 emails trying to agree on a time and date.


culled from:smallbiztrends.com

5 Elements That Shape the Core of a Strong Startup

Alex Iskold

Contributor

In my yoga classes teachers spend a lot of time on the core exercises. If you do any competitive sports, your coach works obsessively on your core. Strong core is needed for overall body strength and resilience. It makes sense, because, by definition, the core is at the center.
Same is true about startups. The core defines what you made of, and how you are going to grow. The core defines how your startup will withstand extreme pressure and competition -- and survive and win.
Here is what shapes the core of a startup:

1. Vision

Strong body starts with the strong mind. Strong startup core starts with strong vision. Why do you exist? What is your purpose? Why do you get up every day? What is your true north? Having clarity around your vision is the foundation of having clarity around execution, hiring, fundraising and every other aspect of your company.
Vision is the very foundation of the company's core.

2. Values

The second thing that helps shape the core of your company is your values. It can be speed. It can be exceptional customer service. Some companies have work-life balance as a core value, although it tends to be difficult for early startups. Values help you shape the culture. They provide the blueprint for the kind of people you may or may not hire -- and for the kind of company you may or may not want to become.
Ultimately, the founding team's values become the company's culture.

3. Product and engineering

In the past, great companies were about great sales and marketing. In the future, more and more companies will become great because of their product and engineering. A great product is necessary to win in today's market. To build a great product you need to have engineering excellence and focus.
Companies that have strong product and engineering core tend to win.

4. Feedback loops

The company core is constantly influenced by relationship between employees inside the company, its customers and business partners. Every single interaction is a small feedback loop. The sum of all interactions over time becomes a force that helps shape and evolve the core of your company.
Truly great companies have a core that evolves to be stronger over time.

5. Resilience

Strong core is a resilient core. You get knocked down a lot -- when the product isn't working right, when the sale wouldn't close, when competition is breathing down your neck, when the funding doesn't come through. When you get knocked down, does your core help you get up? Is your core truly resilient?
Winning the startup game means not dying. Is your core strong enough to survive?
What is the core of your startup?


culled from:entrepreneur.com

6 Challenges Women Entrepreneurs Face (and How to Overcome Them)

By Nicole Fallon

Entrepreneurship was once considered a man's territory, but each year, more and more women set out on the journey to launch and lead their own companies. These business-savvy ladies inspire other women with dreams of founding startups, but many female business owners face still face significant obstacles because of their gender. Female CEOs shared a few of the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs face today, and how to overcome them.

Women entrepreneurs think they need to act like men.

Most female business owners who have attended networking events can relate to this scenario: You walk into a crowded seminar and can count the number of women there on one hand. When women entrepreneurs have to talk business with primarily male executives, it can be intimidating.

To compensate and protect themselves, women often feel as though they need to adopt a stereotypically "male" attitude toward business: competitive, aggressive and sometimes overly harsh. But Hilary Genga, founder and CEO of women's swimwear company Trunkettes, said this is the wrong approach to take. [5 Lessons for Women Leaders]

"Be yourself, and have confidence in who you are," Genga said. "Don't try to be a man. You made it to where you are through hard work and perseverance, but most importantly, you're there. Don't conform yourself to a man's idea of what a leader should look like."

Sharon Rowlands, CEO of digital marketing firm ReachLocal, agreed that confidence is the key to success, even when you're up against a boardroom full of men. Rowlands noted that when she was a newly appointed CEO, she often felt her ideas received more scrutiny than those from her male colleagues. However, she didn't let that discourage her from being a great business leader, she said.

"I had confidence in my abilities to run the business," Rowlands told Business News Daily. "I just made sure that any initiative I was trying to move forward was backed up by a solid business case. I was never unprepared for the questions that I knew would come. I [also] think many women naturally have extraordinary common sense, a sharp intuitive sense and a great focus on people. These are extremely valuable in business and can help to set us apart as leaders."

Women-owned startups receive significantly less investor funding.

Not every startup founder looks for investors to help his or her business get off the ground, but those who do know how difficult the pitching process can be. Raising capital is even more difficult for women-owned firms: A 2014 Babson College report found that less than 3 percent of venture capital-funded companies had a female CEO.

Bonnie Crater, CEO and founder of Salesforce performance management solution Full Circle CRM, said that venture capitalists tend to invest in startups run by people of their own "tribe" — for instance, a Stanford-educated investor will want to back a Stanford alumnus's business. This means that VC firms with female partners are more likely to invest in women-run startups, but according to Babson, that only accounts for 6 percent of U.S. firms. If a woman is looking for business investors, Crater advised building confidence through a great team and business plan.

"Investors are [typically] looking for businesses that can grow to over $1 billion in valuation," Crater said. "Think about how to do that. If you have experts on your founding team that can execute the business [operations] well, investors will have confidence in those people. [You also] need a good product market fit."

Emotions and nurturing skills can affect women's businesses.

Though trying to act like a man doesn't guarantee success for a female entrepreneur, allowing her "feminine" qualities to stand in the way of getting things done isn't necessarily recommended, either. By nature, women are more emotional and nurturing, which can sometimes be a hindrance to running a business.

"For men, a business is mostly about the bottom line, but for women, it's more than that," said Delia Passi, CEO of WomenCertified, home of the Women's Choice Award. "We get emotionally connected, and that can hold us back from making the tough decisions. Male board members and investors get frustrated when we're not as quick to fire or make dramatic business changes that could impact employees' families."

Passi noted that women also tend to place a high premium on building up relationships that they hope will naturally lead to sales. Connections are highly important to success, and nurturing strong professional relationships can go a long way. However, Passi reminded female entrepreneurs to also be direct and stay focused on their business goals. 

Women often lack the support of other female business leaders.

Long before she founded online women's eyewear boutique Rivet & Sway, CEO Sarah Bryar worked with undergraduate female engineering students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These "trailblazers," as Bryar described them, felt insecure about being in the minority as women who excelled in math and science, and longed for more camaraderie and support from female peers in their fields.

"The main challenge for female entrepreneurs is just like the challenge for female engineering students: There just aren't enough of us," Bryar told Business News Daily. "There aren't enough women to be role models, act as sounding boards, do deals with — in short, to create normalcy for women in leadership positions."

Despite the quickly growing number of female executives and business owners, finding fellow women entrepreneurs to connect with isn't always easy. Women-focused networking events like American Express OPEN's CEO BootCamp are good places to start, as well as online forums and groups specifically created for women in business.

"Opportunities to lead do exist for women," Bryar said. "We just need to continue to support and promote women in the limelight to encourage others to come along for the ride."

Many women have to balance raising families with running their businesses.

Work-life balance is often a goal of entrepreneurs across the board, but mothers who start businesses have to simultaneously run their families and their companies.

"Being a mother while running a business is very challenging," Genga said. "There are ways to balance your time, but the perception is that you could be more effective running your business if you didn't have to deal with kids."

Genga said she has learned to not take shortcomings on either front too seriously, and to not beat herself up over the little things, like missing a class trip with her children. "Momtrepreneurs" have dual responsibilities to their businesses and to their families, and finding ways to devote time to both is key to truly achieving that elusive work-life balance.

Women entrepreneurs are afraid of failure.

According to Babson College's 2012 Global Entrepreneur Monitor, the fear of failure is the top concern of women who launch startups. Failure is a very real possibility in any business venture, but Passi said it shouldn't be viewed as negative.

"You need to have massive failure to have massive success," Passi said. "You may need 100 'no's' to get one 'yes,' but that one 'yes' will make you more successful tomorrow than you were today."

Bryar offered similar advice for female entrepreneurs, encouraging them to work through the moments of self-doubt that every business owner faces.

"Work hard at ignoring that inner voice that may discourage taking action, speaking up or getting outside your comfort zone," she said. "It's something I struggle with myself, but I know fundamentally that I wouldn't be a CEO today if I hadn't taken chances to assert myself."

culled from:businessnewsdaily.com

To compensate and protect themselves, women often feel as though they need to adopt a stereotypically "male" attitude toward business: competitive, aggressive and sometimes overly harsh. But Hilary Genga, founder and CEO of women's swimwear company Trunkettes, said this is the wrong approach to take. [5 Lessons for Women Leaders]
"Be yourself, and have confidence in who you are," Genga said. "Don't try to be a man. You made it to where you are through hard work and perseverance, but most importantly, you're there. Don't conform yourself to a man's idea of what a leader should look like."
Sharon Rowlands, CEO of digital marketing firm ReachLocal, agreed that confidence is the key to success, even when you're up against a boardroom full of men. Rowlands noted that when she was a newly appointed CEO, she often felt her ideas received more scrutiny than those from her male colleagues. However, she didn't let that discourage her from being a great business leader, she said.
"I had confidence in my abilities to run the business," Rowlands told Business News Daily. "I just made sure that any initiative I was trying to move forward was backed up by a solid business case. I was never unprepared for the questions that I knew would come. I [also] think many women naturally have extraordinary common sense, a sharp intuitive sense and a great focus on people. These are extremely valuable in business and can help to set us apart as leaders."
Women-owned startups receive significantly less investor funding.
Not every startup founder looks for investors to help his or her business get off the ground, but those who do know how difficult the pitching process can be. Raising capital is even more difficult for women-owned firms: A 2014 Babson College report found that less than 3 percent of venture capital-funded companies had a female CEO.
Bonnie Crater, CEO and founder of Salesforce performance management solution Full Circle CRM, said that venture capitalists tend to invest in startups run by people of their own "tribe" — for instance, a Stanford-educated investor will want to back a Stanford alumnus's business. This means that VC firms with female partners are more likely to invest in women-run startups, but according to Babson, that only accounts for 6 percent of U.S. firms. If a woman is looking for business investors, Crater advised building confidence through a great team and business plan.
"Investors are [typically] looking for businesses that can grow to over $1 billion in valuation," Crater said. "Think about how to do that. If you have experts on your founding team that can execute the business [operations] well, investors will have confidence in those people. [You also] need a good product market fit."
Emotions and nurturing skills can affect women's businesses.
Though trying to act like a man doesn't guarantee success for a female entrepreneur, allowing her "feminine" qualities to stand in the way of getting things done isn't necessarily recommended, either. By nature, women are more emotional and nurturing, which can sometimes be a hindrance to running a business.
"For men, a business is mostly about the bottom line, but for women, it's more than that," said Delia Passi, CEO of WomenCertified, home of the Women's Choice Award. "We get emotionally connected, and that can hold us back from making the tough decisions. Male board members and investors get frustrated when we're not as quick to fire or make dramatic business changes that could impact employees' families."
Passi noted that women also tend to place a high premium on building up relationships that they hope will naturally lead to sales. Connections are highly important to success, and nurturing strong professional relationships can go a long way. However, Passi reminded female entrepreneurs to also be direct and stay focused on their business goals.
Women often lack the support of other female business leaders.
Long before she founded online women's eyewear boutique Rivet & Sway, CEO Sarah Bryar worked with undergraduate female engineering students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These "trailblazers," as Bryar described them, felt insecure about being in the minority as women who excelled in math and science, and longed for more camaraderie and support from female peers in their fields.
"The main challenge for female entrepreneurs is just like the challenge for female engineering students: There just aren't enough of us," Bryar told Business News Daily. "There aren't enough women to be role models, act as sounding boards, do deals with — in short, to create normalcy for women in leadership positions."
Despite the quickly growing number of female executives and business owners, finding fellow women entrepreneurs to connect with isn't always easy. Women-focused networking events like American Express OPEN's CEO BootCamp are good places to start, as well as online forums and groups specifically created for women in business.
"Opportunities to lead do exist for women," Bryar said. "We just need to continue to support and promote women in the limelight to encourage others to come along for the ride."
Many women have to balance raising families with running their businesses.
Work-life balance is often a goal of entrepreneurs across the board, but mothers who start businesses have to simultaneously run their families and their companies.
"Being a mother while running a business is very challenging," Genga said. "There are ways to balance your time, but the perception is that you could be more effective running your business if you didn't have to deal with kids."
Genga said she has learned to not take shortcomings on either front too seriously, and to not beat herself up over the little things, like missing a class trip with her children. "Momtrepreneurs" have dual responsibilities to their businesses and to their families, and finding ways to devote time to both is key to truly achieving that elusive work-life balance.
Women entrepreneurs are afraid of failure.
According to Babson College's 2012 Global Entrepreneur Monitor, the fear of failure is the top concern of women who launch startups. Failure is a very real possibility in any business venture, but Passi said it shouldn't be viewed as negative.
"You need to have massive failure to have massive success," Passi said. "You may need 100 'no's' to get one 'yes,' but that one 'yes' will make you more successful tomorrow than you were today."
Bryar offered similar advice for female entrepreneurs, encouraging them to work through the moments of self-doubt that every business owner faces.
"Work hard at ignoring that inner voice that may discourage taking action, speaking up or getting outside your comfort zone," she said. "It's something I struggle with myself, but I know fundamentally that I wouldn't be a CEO today if I hadn't taken chances to assert myself."
- See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5268-women-entrepreneur-challenges.html#sthash.IXa0l6CL.dpuf

Entrepreneurship was once considered a man's territory, but each year, more and more women set out on the journey to launch and lead their own companies. These business-savvy ladies inspire other women with dreams of founding startups, but many female business owners face still face significant obstacles because of their gender. Female CEOs shared a few of the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs face today, and how to overcome them.
Women entrepreneurs think they need to act like men.
Most female business owners who have attended networking events can relate to this scenario: You walk into a crowded seminar and can count the number of women there on one hand. When women entrepreneurs have to talk business with primarily male executives, it can be intimidating.
- See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5268-women-entrepreneur-challenges.html#sthash.IXa0l6CL.dpuf

7 Strategies for Tailoring a Custom-Fit Sales Pitch for Each Prospect

Leyl Black

Contributor

We all know the feeling of zoning out during a sales presentation, but you can probably recall a time when the pitch had you nodding your head in agreement. Every once in a while, the presentation seems like it was designed just for you. How can you replicate that feeling every time you deliver yours?
Here are seven pitch strategies that will make your prospects nod in agreement instead of nodding off.

1. Get to the point.

It’s tempting to kick things off by talking a bit about your background, your company, your customers, maybe a few high-level trends you’re seeing. These elements seem like you’re establishing credibility, but actually you’re distracting from your real mission.
Don’t let these intros drag on, or turn into an elaborate set-up of the “industry context.” This is a sure-fire way to sap all the energy out of the room. Introduce yourself quickly, then get right to the point.

2. Make the story about them (not you).

Many years ago, I worked at an agency that brought in a consultant to review our new business pitches. About halfway through a lengthy overview about our agency’s capabilities, he interrupted to ask, “That’s great. But when are you going to talk about me?”
People want to hear a story about them, not watch a dog-and-pony show about your company or product. Orient your narrative around what they need, and position your offering in the context of how it can solve their specific problems.

3. Understand their needs.

According to a 2014 study by Qvidian, salespeople often lose deals because they haven’t customized their content to their buyer’s needs. Do your homework ahead of time so you know what’s important to your buyer.
Ask , “What keeps you up at night?” This gets at their known business needs, but may also uncover deeper needs that don’t show up on the RFP.
If someone says, “We’re getting crushed in the media by our competitor… and our CEO is really breathing down my neck about it,” I know that I should orient my pitch around how we can help him build share of voice, but also how we can help him measure and report on results to his CEO.

4. Feel their pain.

People rarely make buying decisions based solely on the facts. Their emotions also play a part. Try to empathize with how someone in your prospect’s role might be feeling.
For example, a Wall Street analyst will care about how she can use your data to uncover new opportunities, but maybe she’s also eager to look smarter than the rest of the team. Talk to her about how your solution will give her an advantage or make her a hero.

5. Show, don’t tell.

To deepen engagement, allow your prospects to experience something and come to a conclusion on their own, rather than having a point painfully laid out for them.
Instead of succumbing to the urge to recite a long list of features and benefits, show your product or service in action.
For example, instead of descriptive bullet points when I’m recommending a particular communications strategy, I’ll often show a few screenshots of media coverage that resulted from the strategy, then talk through how we got there. If you have some good examples, show how similar customers are taking advantage of your product’s relevant features, through screenshots, charts or pictures.

6. Write slide titles that tell the story.

Journalists learn early on not to “bury the lede.” The same rule can be applied to sales decks. Make it easy for your prospects to follow along. Whatever you do, don’t bury the most important points midway through a slide, or rely on your voice-over to convey the message.
To ensure each slide packs a punch, write slide titles that tell the story on their own. Instead of “Company Overview” as a title, you might try “20 Years of Impact” or “A Leader in the Community.” This will also help you weed out extraneous slides. If you can’t summarize the point of the slide in the headline, it probably doesn’t have one.

7. Make it portable.

Congratulations! You’ve wowed your prospect with your pitch, they’re excited to move forward... now they just need to get approval from their manager. Uh oh.
Even the most straightforward sales may have gate-keepers and people who influence the buying decision, but you might not have a chance to get in front of them. If your sales pitch tells a clear story about your prospect’s needs and shows how you can address them, it can actually create a lean-forward experience on its own. Write your deck so you're confident that it sells, with or without you.

culled from:entrepreneur.com

Being All Things To All People Is a Marketing Dead End

Dixie Gillaspie

Contributor

It’s true that pretty much everyone wants the same things. If you’re selling to businesses you already know that your prospects share some universal desires; they want more clients or customers, more income and less stress. If you’re selling to consumers you know they have universal desires as well; they want to save money, have more life enjoyment and satisfaction, and less stress.
So why is it that when you have a product or service that you know will deliver on one or more of those desires people aren’t jumping at the opportunity to do business with you?
Usually the answer I get from entrepreneurs is, “They just don’t understand what we can really do for them.”
No, that really isn’t why. The real reason is they don’t believe what you claim you can do for them.
If you’re promising you can save them money or make them money, just think about how many similar promises they hear every day. For that matter, think about how many similar promises you hear every day, then ask yourself how many of them you believe.
There are two reasons people don’t believe in your promise. Fortunately, there is one method you can use to overcome them both.

They have limited imaginations.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re promising more money, less stress or a better life, if they can’t imagine it they won’t believe you can help them achieve it. They might understand what you do, and they might believe that you can do it for other people, but until they have that vision of what that would look like in their own life they aren’t going to buy something or hire someone to help them make it happen.

They’ve heard it before, they’ve bought it before and it didn’t work.

No matter what you promise, if your message speaks to these universal desires you can bet there are others making a similar promise who don’t deliver. Maybe they’re the classic “snake oil traveling salesman,” or maybe their solution just wasn’t a match for the buyer’s problem, but we’ve all been “had” by someone making that all-encompassing promise. It’s no wonder people are skeptical.

The key is to be specific and relevant.

In creating your brand story and marketing message, rather than make big promises of solving universal problems, paint a picture for your prospect of what their life will look like when those solutions are in place. To be relevant you’ll need to have a concise grasp of who you’re marketing to. A life with less stress doesn’t look the same to a mother of three who is a VP in a large bank as it does to a single, childless new college graduate who is interning for a startup tech company.
But when you use your marketing message to communicate a picture to the working mother of how, with less stress, she can arrive at the office organized and ready for the meeting with a smile on her face, or you illustrate for the new college graduate how he’ll replace the dread of making a mistake with the confidence that he’s building a good reputation, you’re demonstrating a unique selling proposition by being more specific and more relevant than anyone who has made similar promises before you.
The same is true when you create a message that helps the overwhelmed project manager imagine what it would be like to have a team that is dependable, self-sufficient and highly collaborative versus the message that helps the new solopreneur imagine what it will be like to delegate and outsource some of the more tedious tasks on his list.
Once you’ve developed a story for each market segment you’re pursing that allows your prospect to imagine how their life will change because of their choice to hire you or buy from you, you’ve got a strong foundation for overcoming both the limited imagination and the skepticism. Because chances are no one has ever promised exactly what you’re promising in exactly the same way, and just as likely, no one has ever taken time to show them the life changes they’re really buying into when they buy from you.

culled from:entrepreneur.com