Ventureweek

Posted on: womenentrepreneursecrets.blogspot.ca

Written by Kelly O’Neil: Kelly O’Neil, is the Founder and CEO of Kelly O’Neil International, best-selling author and award winning brand marketing strategist, is one of the most sought-after brand marketing and results coaches for conscious entrepreneurs and aspiring women leaders.

I believe that excellence is never an accident. This is a mantra I’ve long used in both my personal life… and my professional life. Excellence is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities.
Excellence leads to extraordinary things. But you aren’t born extraordinary. You have to work at excellence — foster it, nurture it, educate it. How? One way to effectively embrace excellence and step into extraordinary is by recognizing common traits among extraordinary individuals. Over the years of working with amazing entrepreneurs, I’ve identified these 15 traits as markers of true excellence. Recognize them — and work toward achieving them yourself — and you’ll be well on your way to eliminating mediocrity and becoming a high performer in your industry… and reaping the rewards of that commitment.

High-Performing Entrepreneurs:

1. Aren’t just working for the money. They care about their company beyond the profits and take great pride in its performance, impact on society, and ability to help others through its offerings.
2. Are truthful. They do what they say they are going to do, when they say they are going to do it. People know they can count on them time and time again.
3. Embrace opportunities. They look for — and find — opportunities to improve themselves, their work, and their business. Others? They see no opportunity.
4. Are focused on solutions. They don’t bring problems to the table without recommending a solution.
5. Focus on CAN. High performers focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t accomplish.
6. Don’t blame. High performers take responsibility for their actions and outcomes (or lack thereof). When they make a mistake they own it, fix it and learn from it.
7. Are busy, productive, and proactive. While most people waste too much time planning, over-thinking, sitting on their hands or going in circles, high performers are out there getting the job done.
8. Are life-long learners. High performers constantly work at educating and improving themselves, either formally (through academics), informally (by watching, listening, asking, reading, etc), experientially (by doing, trying)… or by employing all three educational strategies.
9. Consistently do what they need to do. No matter how they feel or what curves life has thrown their way, they get it done. High performers don’t let life become an excuse and don’t allow their personal life or mood to impact their work. They work extra hours, nights, or weekends if they need to.
10. Have a desire to be exceptional. They will typically do things others won’t do. Becoming exceptional is a choice, and high performers are committed to that choice.
11. Accept feedback. High performers aren’t just open to feedback, they are more likely to act upon it.
12. Set higher standards for themselves. The result? Greater commitment, more momentum, a better work ethic and (of course) better results.
13. Are more interested in effective than easy. While the majority of people look for the quickest, easiest way, high performers look for the course of action that will produce the best results over the long term.
14. Finish what they start. While so many people spend their lives starting things they never finish, successful people get the job done — even when the excitement and novelty have worn off. Even when it’s not fun.
15. Are resourceful. High performers don’t wait around for someone to hand hold them through something. They figure it out and get it done.

 

August Turak, Contributor

From www.Forbes.com

I write about Service and Selflessness: the Secret to Success

But failure was not an option for Mobley, and after many a dark night of the soul he hit upon the answer that turned IBM into the fastest growing and most admired corporation in the world…

In 1955 IBM’s legendary CEO, Tom Watson Jr., gave my mentor, Louis R. Mobley, a blank check and carte blanche to create The IBM Executive School. Fresh from successfully implementing IBM’s first supervisor and middle management training programs, Mobley confidently set about churning out executives as well.

The first thing he did, in conjunction with GE and DuPont, was hire the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the same company that still does the SATs, to identify the skills that make great leaders great. Once these intellectual skills were identified, Mobley and his colleagues at GE and DuPont assumed that spitting out executives would simply mean “training to the test.”

ETS dutifully rounded up a bunch of proven leaders and tested them every which way from Sunday looking for their common skills. The results were astounding and more than a little disturbing. As Mobley put it, “No matter what bell shaped curve we drew, successful leaders fell on the extreme edges. The only thing they seemed to have in common was having nothing in common. ETS was so frustrated that they offered us our money back.”

But failure wasn’t an option for Mobley, and after many a dark night of the soul he finally hit upon the answer. Unlike supervisors and middle managers, what successful executives shared were not skills and knowledge but values and attitudes. And over time Mobley identified the values and attitudes that great leaders share.

1) Great Leaders Thrive on Ambiguity. While most of us like black and white decisions, successful leaders are comfortable with what Mobley called, “shades of gray.” Great leaders are able to hold apparent contradictions in tension. They use the tension these paradoxes produce to come up with innovative ideas.

2)  Great Leaders Love Blank Sheets of Paper. Supervisors and middle managers use a framework of policies and procedures to guide them to the proper decision. They want a plan that reduces their job to filling in the blanks or what Mobley called “following the bouncing ball.” By contrast, leaders create the blanks that managers fill in. Like some business Einstein intent on reinventing the universe, every great leader relishes the opportunity to “think things through” from scratch.

3)   Great Leaders are Secure People. Successful executives thrive on differences of opinion. They surround themselves with the best people they can find: people strong enough to hold a contrary opinion and argue vociferously for it. Great leaders crave challenges, and this means hiring the most challenging people they can find with no regard for whether today’s challenger might be tomorrow’s rival.

4)   Great Leaders Want Options. Long before it became fashionable, Mobley was a huge proponent of diversity. However his definition meant a diversity of opinion rather than the kind we usually associate with political correctness. Mobley’s great leader constantly demands diverse options from his team, and uses these options to produce creative decisions.

5)   Great Leaders are Tough Enough to Face Facts. At heart Mobley was a spiritual man who valued the Truth for the Truth’s sake. Successful executives face facts, and this means being open to the truth even when it is not what we want to hear. One of the most successful executives I know offers cash rewards to anyone in his company who can prove him wrong. Great leaders have a nose for B.S and abhor it.

6)   Great Leaders Stick Their Necks Out. It is a natural human trait to fear being evaluated. We crave wiggle room so we can deflect blame and get off the hook when things go wrong. In business what is often passed off as a collaborative effort is actually just an attempt to avoid individual accountability. Great leaders want to be measured and evaluated. They continually look for ways to measure things that may seem immeasurable, and they cheerfully accept the blame when they are wrong or fail to deliver. The old adage that success has a 1000 fathers while failure is an orphan does not apply to great leadership.

7)   Great Leaders Believe in Themselves. While great leaders crave advice, options, and strong colleagues, they all share a profound belief in themselves and their judgment. Mobley described great leaders as “people stubbornly following their star who don’t know how to quit.” Holding this stubbornness in tension with a willingness to be wrong is perhaps the greatest trick that every great leader must perform.

8)   Great Leaders are Deep Thinkers. Managers get things done. Executives must decide on the things worth doing in the first place. Though very difficult to quantify, great leaders are deep thinkers. They constantly dive below surface “facts” searching for new ways to knit those facts together. Great leaders are generalists not specialists driven by an omnivorous curiosity. They know that the answers they are seeking will probably emerge from outside business and from disciplines that may seem utterly unrelated.

9)   Great Leaders are Ruthlessly Honest with Themselves. Self-knowledge is perhaps the most critical trait that all great leaders share. Leaders question assumptions and disrupt complacency by relentlessly asking the question: “What is the business of the business?” This exercise develops and refines the organization’s mission and purpose, and it is little more than the age old question “Who am I?” applied collectively. If you are not clear about the purpose of your own life how can you provide a sense of organizational purpose for others?

10) Great Leaders are Passionate. They may be loudly charismatic or quietly intense, but all great leaders care deeply about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Perhaps most importantly they care about people. Every business is a people business, and passionately caring about people whether they are employees, customers, vendors or stockholders is an essential leadership value.

Once Mobley compiled his list, he was faced with another even more difficult problem: How do you instill values and transform attitudes? He discovered that unlike supervisors and middle managers, executives shared another trait: They were constitutionally untrainable and reacted with hostility to any effort to “brainwash” them with “training.” Worse, Mobley discovered that values and attitudes are not only impervious to typical training techniques, but hectoring people to change often had the unintended consequence of hardening existing attitudes instead.

As the result some deep thinking of his own, Mobley eventually realized that what was needed was “a revolution in consciousness” rather than the kind of step by step curriculum that leads to a single “right answer.” Taking a leap of faith, he decided that the values and attitudes he was looking for could only be brought about as a side benefit or unintended consequence of what almost might be termed “spiritual work.” Rather than converging on a super set of skills, the IBM Executive School fostered the divergence that values uniqueness and individual authenticity.

The risk of failure was real, but if Mobley was going to produce people willing to stick out their necks he had to stick out his own first. He abandoned lectures and books in favor of games, simulations and other experiential techniques designed, not to “train,” but to “blow people’s minds.”

As for the personal accountability and measuring results, Mobley’s record speaks for itself. He ran the IBM Executive School from 1956-1966. It was his students that turned IBM into the fastest growing and most admired corporation in the world in the 1960s and 70s…

Written By: Marty Zwilling

From:Startup Proffessional Musings

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Driven by the recent recession, smart entrepreneurs of all ages are jumping into the fray with new ideas, new recovery strategies, and discarding outmoded business models. I see it most in the newest generation of entrepreneurs (Gen-Y), who were shocked out of entitlement into action by the recession.

Donna Fenn, in her book from a while back, “Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business,” seems certain that Gen-Y will lead the charge, bounce back from the recession, and be big winners. She describes a new generation of entrepreneurs that is highly collaborative, quick and alert when it comes to new technologies, and hell-bent on changing the world in general.

Upstarts! examines and analyses this entrepreneurial revolution to reveal critical lessons every Gen-Y entrepreneur and marketer must learn. But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages. Here are five key recession recovery strategies that both of us recommend to all of you:

1. Pursue repeat business. It’s far less expensive to nail down repeat business from your existing customers than it is to land new ones. Now is the time to reap the benefits of those good customer relationships that you’ve been cultivating. Viral marketing campaigns to lure new customers will cost you big money.
2. Focus on your core competency. Examine every cost center in your business. Maybe it’s time to outsource that call center operation, or complex manufacturing setup. Look for operations that are hogging resources without generating significant revenue. With a concentrated point of focus, your company might be well positioned for growth this year.
3. Snap up top talent. Past layoffs at big companies mean that there’s a surplus of great employees on the market now. Examine your pool of higher-paid contractors and freelancers. Now is the time to bring on board those people who would have been inaccessible in a better economy.
4. Respond rapidly to market shifts. The economy is almost certainly having a profound impact on your customers: they may have altered their purchasing habits, or found themselves with entirely different needs. It’s your opportunity to respond to those shifts. These are chances to broaden your product line, change distribution, offer new services.
5. Look for hidden sources of revenue. Sometimes your best source of new revenue is right under your nose, like services revenue in support of your products. One entrepreneur in Fenn’s book had a proprietary technology to efficiently manage vendors which works so well that she is now marketing it to other companies for a transaction fee.

Most companies I know agree that the recession has taught them the art of laser-like focus, and compelled them to make better decisions, to become more frugal, and to initiate systems and procedures that will help position them in the economic recovery. Simply deciding to lay low and “tough it out” was never a winning strategy.

I agree with Donna that this recession has actually been a good “wake-up call” for many in the new generation – it has forced them to face the reality of hard knocks. Similarly, it should be a wake-up call for the rest of us, or we will be overrun by young entrepreneurs with their burning desire to control their own destinies.

But I’m convinced that you don’t need to be an “Upstart!” to capitalize on the recession. Use your experience and your expertise to lead the way, or you will be left in the dust. The first step is to execute your own recession recovery strategy. Or don’t you even have one?

 

 

From: under30ceo.com

Jaime is a business coach and speaker and has been featured on CNN, MSNMoney, Success Magazine, Fortune.com, Yahoo’s homepage and more. Each week she interviews self-made millionaires for their business tips, advice and stories. You can sign up for the Top 10 Tips from millionaires or check out over 50 of the free self-made millionaire interviews.

Everyone has had fear. It’s human nature to be fearful of a tiger. But why does it tend to get in our way in business so much? I’ve had the chance to ask millionaires and experts about their fear and how they pushed past it. Google defines fear as:

“An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”

Fear is just an unpleasant emotion. That’s it! There are a ton of other unpleasant emotions, but for some reason this one can stop us from really becoming what we want to in life. It stops us before we start. If you want to have an amazing 2012 and beyond you need to find a way to fight your fear. Below are action items for you to do to get past the fear you have in your business. Choose at least one today to fight your fear.

You Don’t Have to Be Fearless

Earlier this year I was able to ask Seth Godin a question about fear. I asked:

“Do you use excuses because of fear? How do you recognize them and get past them?”

Seth Godin:

“Oh yeah, all the time. And the fact is, in our highly-leveraged world, where anyone can write a book on Tuesday and publish it on Wednesday, if I wasn’t using excuses I’d be a master of myself and would be producing tons of stuff. I ask myself, ‘What’s important enough to be afraid for?’ In those areas I’ll strip away the excuses. I’ll focus so much energy to do the things that I think are important enough. And in other areas of my life I will succumb. No one is Clark Kent and fearless. You don’t have to be Clark Kent to do what you want to achieve.”

You don’t need to be fearless! You just need to overcome it just enough to take action in spite of it. Millionaire Frank McKinney, who calls himself a real estate daredevil and creates $30 million dollar dream homes, said this about fear:

“The first emotional reaction to the thought of undertaking a risk is fear. So we’re afraid. That’s normal. That’s natural. Then we go and do our homework with that fear firmly embedded in the back of our minds, and as we’re researching, we are subconsciously looking for a way to say no. Realize that. Don’t let it happen. Realize there is a force at work subconsciously in your mind that is tempting you to say no. That’s the primary difference between my career and most others, especially in real estate, that I don’t let the fear that is there stop me. I’m afraid every day of my life. I admit it–I’m like an alcoholic that admits he’s an alcoholic. I admit I have fear every day, but I don’t let it stop me. That is the primary difference.”

Over and over again I hear it. You don’t need to be fearless! Frank also says you should exercise your risk like a muscle, and I think you can do the same thing with fear. Once you start to face it using the techniques below, you will get better and better at facing it.

Recognize the Fear

Before you can get past that fear, the first thing you need to do is recognize it. It’s very easy to ignore fear. Have you ever started thinking about public speaking and then automatically thought about something else? It’s as if it’s a hot oven and we can’t even get close enough to touch it! If you have tried to recognize it yourself and can’t seem to make your head go there, ask a friend for help. Ask them to pay attention and see if they can figure out what fear you have, in general conversation or when they are asking you questions about it specifically. Getting to the root of that fear–and realizing it is there–is the first step!

Putting Your Fear in Perspective

One millionaire said their mentor shared a story to put fear in perspective. He told the story of a woman who had her children kidnapped, and the kidnappers were going to kill her children. Now that is true fear. Most of the time in business we fear things that might come true. Or we have fear because we need to step out of our comfort zone and risk something. But that is not TRUE fear. True fear is life or death. So the next time you are feeling fear, replace it with feeling grateful that you don’t have a life or death situation. Your business risk is not life threatening for you or those you love. Bankruptcy is not life threatening. I’ve interviewed millionaires that lost it all and came back to succeed. Another thing I love to do to put fear in perspective is to look at this: http://scaleofuniverse.com/There you can compare the size of you to the size of the universe. How big are your fears now?

Action Item: Put Fear in Perspective

The next time you feel that fear, put it in perspective in your mind. Imagine how small your issue truly is in the world. It seems big to you right now, but it’s not as big as you think.

Lean on Your Mentors

Another great tip I’ve heard from many millionaires is to find a mentor. Mentors have been where you are and faced the fear you are facing. It’s easier to get past it with their support, and expertise. Armando Montelongo, host of Flip this House on A&E, said:

“To say that I did not have fear would be an inaccuracy. To say that I have doubt would be a lie, right? I had total fear. I had total disappointment in my life prior to that and I had feelings of anxiousness. I had the question, Can I really do this? Can this really happen? Is this pie in the sky? But I looked to my mentors for advice and started doing exactly what they told me. It helped me to almost immediately overcome the fear. I did have doubt but I listened to what they said.”

Armando had a belief in his mentors, that they knew how to get past it, and therefore he was able to get over his fear quickly.

Action Item: Lean on Your Mentors

If you already have a mentor, be honest with them about your fear. They have probably heard it before. It might feel a little vulnerable at first, but that is a good thing.   If you don’t have a mentor yet, find one! You don’t have to pay for one either. I interviewed Derek Sivers and he gave me a step-by-step plan on how to find a mentor. Plus most of my mentors (even millionaire mentors) I have found for free.

Taking Action with the Fear

It’s not the fear that is the problem; it’s the inactivity that is. So focus on just taking whatever action you need to take in spite of the fear. The inaction will end up costing you a lot more in the long run than the “safety” you received from not doing it. Ren Carlton said:

“Fear is a very expensive trait to have. It’s a dangerous emotion to deal with and you have to put it aside. If you don’t, it will kill you. Inactivity is the worst thing you can do in the business world. You have to be out there mixing it up.”

Ren admits that he has had fear too. It’s not about the fear. It’s about doing whatever it takes to move past it. Here are a few actions you can take to get past the fear RIGHT NOW:

Action Item: Commit in Advance

One technique to use to get past your fear is to make it feel farther away. For example, let’s say you know public speaking could be really great for your business but you are scared. One thing you have always wanted to try was a webinar, but you don’t know how and you don’t want to look like a fool. Look at your calendar and pick a date that seems like a far away date. It might be a month for you or even three months. Something that makes it seem so far away you might not pay attention to it. Then tell a few people. It’s far enough away that it doesn’t seem that scary. But once you commit to it and tell others you will feel obligated to do it. You don’t want to look like a fool if you don’t do it! So you do it anyway, even with the fear. (I’ve used this before myself and with clients and let me tell you, it works!)

Action Item: Logically Counteract It

Another action item you can try is to logically counteract the fear. Imagine you are listening to a great friend of yours talk about their fear. What would you say to them? I like to do this exercise on paper so I can really get an idea of what will logically counteract it. Ask questions like, “What is the worst that could happen?” or “What would your contingency plan be if that happens?” Then immediately following this exercise take the first step towards the fear. Your brain will be in a better place to take that first step. You aren’t going to be perfect in this. And that is OK! But choose one of these action items to start moving past the fear in your business. Your bottom line will thank you! Which one did you choose? Tell me below what you are committing to doing!

By Martin Zwilling is the founder and chief executive officer of Startup Professionals, a company that provides products and services to startup founders and small business owners. Check out his daily blog at http://blog.startupprofessionals.com.

Posted on youngentrepreneur.com

After working with dozens of startup founders, I’m still amazed that some seem to be able to do the job easily and effectively, always in control, while others always seem to be struggling, out-of-control, and fighting the latest crisis.  I am more and more convinced that it is the right founder behavior that leads to success, rather than some exceptional intelligence or training.

In that context, startup founders should carefully review the points made by Denny F. Strigl, former CEO of Verizon Wireless, in his last book, aptly named “Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?” He outlines the behavioral habits he has seen in managers who are successful, versus the bad habits of ones who struggle. These habits apply even more directly to entrepreneur startup leadership:

1. Failure to build trust and integrity.

Poor executives often fail to build trust initially, or they erode trust during daily interactions and operations. Without trust, there can be little cooperation between team members.  This results in little  risk taking, diminished confidence among employees, and a loss of communication      throughout the company.

2. Focus on things that don’t really matter.

Executives who struggle spend too much time focused on things that don’t really matter. If it doesn’t fit into one of the Four Fundamentals: growing revenue, getting new customers,  keeping the customers they already have, or eliminating costs, they should rethink what they are doing.

3. Shirk accountability and role model.

Founders need to realize their behavior  is in a “fishbowl” and thereby highly visible for the team to see and imitate.  What the founder says and   does in stressful situations sends a signal to imitate that behavior, even  when they are not under stress. Poor performers thrive in an unaccountable work climate.

4. Fail to consistently reinforce what’s important.

Managers often stress a particular message or a program for a couple of weeks, and then assume everyone gets  it.  When they change their message too often, team members become confused about what’s important.  People perform best when what they hear  is consistent and frequent.

5. Over-rely on consensus decisions.

Some founders go too far to become consensus builders.  This takes too much time in our super-competitive environment, and the result of a total buy-in is usually a watered-down version of the original decision or action they intended.  Informed decision-making is not the same as consensus decision-making.

6. High priority on being popular.

The first priority of a founder is to  deliver results, rather than building friendships.  Happy team members don’t necessarily  bring you stellar results, although stellar results almost always bring   you a happy team.  Good managers   don’t worry about shaking up the status quo, and realize that change is  never initially popular.

7. Get caught up in self-importance.

Many founders fail because they get caught up in the “aura” of their position, and seek recognition and  glamour for themselves.  They love  to give speeches to groups and in places that don’t really matter.  These people seldom see what is causing their own demise in their attention to “all-about-me.”

8. Put their heads in the sand.

Many founders struggle because they only want to hear good news.  Team members quickly learn to report positives, while hiding problems.  As a result, productivity suffers, employee   morale decreases, and targeted results are missed. Encourage open, honest,  direct, and specific communication always.

9. Fix problems, not causes.

Don’t fix a problem without addressing the reason the problem occurred. The most common excuses given  include lack of time to immediately address the cause, lack of resources   to address the cause, or problem is outside of their control. Good  managers always find the means to fix the cause.

In order to stop struggling and start delivering, founders need to close the gap between what they know and what they do.  Avoid the bad behaviors outlined here. Do the good things, day in and day out, until your behavior becomes habit for both you and your team.  This can override pure intelligence and create real success and positive results from everyone on the team.

Written by Greg Muender who is President of of Ticket Kick

From: entrepreneurinmaking.com

Getting your startup off the ground takes cash. There are a number of ways to raise funding for your business, but with every investment dollar you accept you sell a piece of the startup’s soul. You want to be able to focus on building a great product, not on balancing the ideas and priorities of a pool of investors.

That means bootstrapping. Bootstrapping opens up a whole new set of possibilities that you just don’t have with investors. Here are some of the ways bootstrapping can help your startup shine:

 By :Royale Scuderi

From openforum.com

No two businesses and industries are alike, but successful leadership principles are largely universal. So, learn by emulating what successful business owners and leaders have done to succeed.

We asked several successful business owners for their best leadership advice. Some fundamental concepts were cited over and over again.

1. Communicate vision and goals

It’s not enough for successful leaders to simply have a clear vision. A true leader must communicate that vision and those goals to employees, investors and customers. Without a clear sense of goals, it is easy for everyone involved to lose sight of the larger picture and get lost in the details.

“Much time is wasted in the entrepreneurial process, because the entrepreneur is not clear on the desired outcome,” says Dr. David Washington, founder of Washington and Company. “The lack of clarity is then passed down to the followers, which results in missed objectives.” Washington is the author of Life is a Choice: A Guide to Success in Life.

2. Listen

Leaders must be able to listen and understand, as well as communicate.

“Leadership has a core fundamental for me, and that is dialog,” said John Spiridigliozzi, vice president of business development at Infinit Technology Solutions. “I have had instances where I was sure I was communicating only to find out I was publishing.

“Engaging in a dialog with team members [is an] opportunity for clarity…. Learning to listen is not simply keeping quiet while others talk. It is comprehending what is being said, assessing the value and responding accordingly.”

3. Build relationships

People are your greatest resource: clients and customers as well as employees. Find ways to strengthen the level of trust you have with everyone involved in your enterprise.

“Be considerate. Be transparent and consistent. Be fair. Be constructive. Be realistic. Be decisive,” says Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFPR and founder of Palisades Hudson Financial Group. He says it all comes down to trust. “We all say we want team players, but many leaders forget to act as part of the team. It is not only important that your workers trust each other: It is vital that they trust you as their leader.”

4. Set the tone

Company culture, tone and attitude come from the top down. A passionate and compassionate leader can energize an entire company. Set an example of cooperation, trust and openness. Focus on solutions and positivity instead of blame and backstabbing.

“You can go through thousands of dollars in consultants to shape your culture, but it will still come back to the owner’s approach,” says Kristi Hedges, leadership consultant and coach at The Hedges Company.

Hedges favors a hands-on approach. “If you’re motivated and happy in your role, then others will follow your lead. And if you’re burned out and tired, that energy will permeate everything. Owners need to make sure they shape their role, and their company, to make them fulfilled and excited. If you put yourself last, you’re hurting the entire organization.”

5. Share ownership

In a tough economic climate, it is more important than ever to be open-minded and employ a community-style approach to leadership. It’s a “many heads are better than one” approach.

A good leader allows both employee responsibility and creativity to encourage growth and new ideas. Successful leaders understand the value of customer and community input. Soliciting and listening to feedback and suggestions can lead to a better understanding of what needs to be done and also generates company loyalty and a brand following.

“In our business, we’ve learned that a little transparency can go a long way toward increasing employees’ confidence, commitment and energy,” said Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Inc. and co-author of “The One-Minute Entrepreneur.”

Royale Scuderi is a freelance writer and success coach. She is the founder of Productive Life Concepts and has been featured on Stepcase Lifehack and The Huffington Post. You can find her musings on life and business at GuardWife.com and Twitter.com/RoyaleScuderi

From youngentrepreneur.com

The road to business success can be a fairly rocky one. But as with most rocky situations, there is a lot to be learned along the way. Unfortunately, one of the lessons many entrepreneurs learn the hard way is the proper way to handle their finances. As financial issues, including lack of funds and financial mismanagement, are among the most common reasons for business failure, this is an area that deserves some thought and planning.

Below are 7 financial habits that can help your road to success feel a whole lot smoother:

1. Create Proper Financial Statements: A lot of people have the misconception that financial statements are a simple listing of all business expenses and income. Proper financial statements don’t stop there. In order to get a realistic grasp on your company’s cash flow, value of assets, and any debts you have, generate complete financial statements on a quarterly basis. By doing so, you’ll have the opportunity to see that your checkbook’s balance isn’t always an indication of the financial health of your business or income earned.

2. Engage an Accounting Expert: Put forth the money and effort required to find a good accounting firm to help you with your accounting needs. Although this may seem like an expensive proposition, business failure will be even more costly. By hiring an accounting firm, not only are you saving yourself the hassle and space of having an in-house accounting department, but you’ll also be ensuring that the money end of your business is running as efficiently as possible.

3. Utilize Financial Management Software: Even if you’re using a professional accountant, managing and reporting your business finances will require some sort of financial management software. Using this type of application will provide you with the information required to make informed business decisions. Items such as savings and profits will be outlined clearly so that you can instantly see where any improvements need to be made.

4. Track Sales-to-Expense Ratios: By tracking your sales-to-expense ratios, you’ll have the tools and knowledge required to make any changes where necessary. For example, by tracking advertising expense-to-sales ratios, you can clearly see if your advertising dollars are being spent wisely. If you notice an increase in advertising expense-to-sales ratios, it very well may mean that your current method of advertising is ineffective and needs to be reexamined.

5. Monitor Inventory Levels: A very important aspect of any product-centered business is inventory management. By monitoring inventory levels closely, you’ll be able to protect your business from simple yet destructive issues, like running out of goods or materials.

6. Manage Accounts Properly: By understanding how to properly calculate and manage accounts receivable and accounts payable, and understand their relationship to each other, you’re better able to get a handle on your company’s financial health. Your accountant will help with this, but you need to know it yourself too. It’s your business, and you want your finger on the pulse of your finances at all times.

7. Have a Capitalization Strategy: Business planning and capitalization strategy should go hand-in-hand. By understanding what will be needed in order for you to acquire the resources and amount of capital necessary to accomplish your business goals, you will be able to plan much more effectively for the end result that you desire.

By implementing these habits, your business will stand a much better chance to avoid becoming part of the failure statistics. You certainly don’t have to be an accountant in order to be successful with your business, but if your finances aren’t managed properly, your chance of success is greatly diminished.

FROM MASHABLE.COM

Alex Goldfayn’s new book is called Evangelist Marketing: What Apple Amazon and Netflix Understand About Their Customers (That Your Company Probably Doesn’t). He is CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute, a marketing consultancy with clients that include T-Mobile, TiVo and Logitech.

You remember, don’t you? The emails magically appeared while you weren’t looking. That blinking light turned us into addicts. And that keyboard — copied often, but never matched.

It was the BlackBerry, the glorious, beloved, and life-changing BlackBerry. It made us feel good, and it never let us down.

Long before the iPhone the took the world by storm, and before Google even dreamed about getting into the phone business, Research in Motion was on top of the consumer electronics mountain.

Today, sadly, it is buried under it, and industry insiders everywhere wonder whether RIM will survive.

What happened? Harmful strategy. Unforced errors. And, mostly, really bad marketing. On this, RIM is in good company in the consumer electronics industry, where so many manufacturers market poorly. But few have made so many marketing mistakes so quickly.

Here are seven marketing lessons from RIM’s dark and difficult journey.

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1. Make Great Products

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Consumer electronics success begins with excellent products. The BlackBerry was once perceived as the very best smartphone — or, at least, “emailing phone” — available. It was exciting, emotional and it made people feel good. RIM sold BlackBerries on the strength of word-of-mouth recommendations. BlackBerries were aspirational, and people wanted to own one because friends and colleagues were so passionate about them.

Now, fast-forward to today.

Consider the excitement and energy around the iPhone and all those Android handsets. RIM enjoys none of that today. Not one percent of it. In part, it’s because it stopped making good smartphones in favor of a poorly received tablet called the PlayBook.

Successful marketing begins with having a tremendous product or service to market. Nothing happens without this.

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2. Build on Strengths Instead of Improving on Weaknesses

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I’m constantly telling clients that they should build on strengths instead of trying to improve their weak areas. For RIM, the BlackBerry was a great strength, and they all but abandoned its development and marketing for a year or longer to create the tablet. RIM did this to try to prevent the world from passing it by in the tablet space — which it did anyway. Tragically, as a result of diverting talent, attention, resources, investment and innovation from the BlackBerry to the Playbook, the consumer smartphone world has also passed RIM by.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. If you focus on developing weaknesses, your strengths will atrophy due to neglect. If you want to market well, identify your strengths — products, services, techniques, approaches, relationships — and exploit them relentlessly. This technique overcomes nearly all weaknesses.

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3. Gravity Pushes Backwards

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If you’ve attained a measure of success, you must continue innovating your products, services and your marketing just to maintain your position. Because you can bet the competition is innovating aggressively, and they’ll pass you by in three seconds if you stop doing the things that brought you success. RIM not only stopped releasing new BlackBerries while focusing on its PlayBook, it basically stopped talking to its customers about them for an extended period. We’ve seen this story before with Palm and many others. Gravity pushes backwards in business. Consistent and aggressive innovation is required not only to attain success, but to maintain it.

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4. Know Precisely Who Your Customer Is

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RIM’s management famously disagreed on who their customer was. Then co-CEO Mike Lazaridis felt the customer was the corporation. Others, probably including his counterpart Jim Balsillie, wanted to aim BlackBerry products at consumers. If you don’t know exactly who your customer is, it is impossible to market. Language, messaging, platforms, branding and public relations change completely depending on the customers you target. So identify your customers as precisely as possible, and aim all of your marketing efforts at them.

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5. Executives Set the Marketing Tone

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Consider the most successful companies in consumer electronics (and two of the most successful companies in all of business): Apple and Amazon. Their chief executives set their marketing tone, and everyone follows. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch this YouTube video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPad, and listen to how everybody who followed him on stage used exactly the same words.

This is no accident. The next day, thousands of articles used the same words to describe the amazing, remarkable and awesome iPad. Amazon’s Bezos is the same way. The best marketers have high-level executives setting the tone. They not only teach the rest of the company how to talk about their products and services, but the customers, the media, and the market itself. Obviously, RIM’s co-CEOs did not set this tone. They couldn’t even agree on who the customer was.

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6. Avoid Unforced Errors

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Most marketing problems are self-made and entirely avoidable. Consider the major developments from RIM’s recent past:

• It voluntarily stopped focusing on the BlackBerry to make a product it had no experience with.
• It could not identify its customer.
• It stopped marketing to consumers, allowing competition to roar past.

Not convinced? Consider Netflix’s recently concluded horrible-terrible-no-good-very-bad year:

• A dramatic price increase.
• An extended period with no action to placate angry consumers.
• Spinning off something called Qwikster and then spinning it back in.
• A remarkably poor response to it all by the CEO, Reed Hastings.

None of these things happened to these companies. They did it to themselves. Don’t try to outsmart yourself. Avoid unforced errors.

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7. Keep Talking to Your Customers

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My work with clients often involves conducting qualitative conversations with their customers to deeply understand how they feel about what the company is doing and what the company is thinking about doing. If RIM had talked to its customers like this, it would have quickly learned that they probably weren’t particularly interested in a BlackBerry tablet without built-in email, messaging or contacts!

If you’re not talking to your customers, you’re just guessing from a conference room.

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I believe RIM has enough of a corporate and government customer base to sustain it through this most difficult period. To recover, the company must precisely identify its customer, make terrific products for it, and orient all of its marketing and messaging toward it. In the meantime, we can all learn from the mistakes that brought the BlackBerry maker to this point.

You remember the Blackberry, don’t you?

From Forbes.com: Jason Ross is the founder of member’s only men’s e-commerce site Jackthreads.com, launched in late July 2008.  Jason Ross’ vision was to develop an online space where the best in men’s contemporary fashion and streetwear brands could be sold at a better price than retail with a member’s only premise

If you’re considering entrepreneurship, think about it like this: you can spend the next ten years working for a corporation, or you can spend the next five or ten years learning how to start and build companies. The latter may be harder, but also that much more rewarding and valuable for the rest of your life. At a young age, with nothing to lose, it’s the perfect time to give it a shot. Here are five key things that catapulted my company, Jackthreads, from a one-man operation out of my bedroom to a multimillion-dollar company with over a million members:

1. Passion
   Early on, I realized the importance of choosing an idea that I’m passionate about. When I graduated from Ohio State in 2003, I knew I wasn’t headed toward corporate America; I wanted to start something. I launched a small business with a friend, selling promotional merchandise to college athletic departments. It was successful, but nothing huge, and I decided to walk away because I wasn’t excited by my work. I’ve always been into men’s fashion and online shopping, and when I began to parlay this interest into a business, it never felt like work. I was spending more time on hobbies I already enjoyed, making it much easier to wake up and push myself harder everyday.
2. Audience
   While online shopping, I noticed a huge hole in the market for guys who wanted to buy cool brands at affordable prices—which is a massive audience. After some research, I realized the brands in this space didn’t have a partner to turn to. Though the private shopping club model was taking off in Europe, I set out to bring it to the U.S. and address the lack of off-price retail options for 18-35 year old guys. Our niche targeting and unique audience is now what separates Jackthreads from other e-commerce sites.
3. Cash
   No matter how passionate you are, cash is crucial to being able to create and scale any successful business. Access to capital is usually exceptionally difficult to gain; not everyone is lucky enough to attract the attention of an angel investor, but that’s not the only way to succeed. I used credit cards and worked night and weekend jobs to get my company off the ground. That funding source, combined with a very frugal mentality, allowed us to invest only on activities that directly supported the growth of the business.
4. Team Selection
   For the first two and half years of developing JackThreads, I worked alone. The day I launched, the website was a mess—the e-commerce site wasn’t accepting any credit card payments! Thankfully, a young developer who had just graduated from Ohio State fixed the website within two weeks. He was hired immediately, and for the first nine months after launching, it was just the two of us. Whenever a certain job in the company got to be too much for us to handle on our own, we’d hire to fill the position. This came back to haunt me a few times, since I’d hire just to fill the role without ensuring it was actually a good fit. Hire slowly to make sure you get the right people on board for long-term success. A great team goes a long way, and we have that today.
5. Role Models
   Though sometimes it may seem embarrassing or intimidating, never be afraid to ask for advice. Along the way, I constantly sought advice from mentors, retail professionals, e-commerce experts, etc. Whenever an issue arose, I would seek an expert on the subject to bounce ideas off of, and this helped me avoid mistakes I probably would have made otherwise.