When a company’s growth seems to be slowing down or hitting a plateau, it may be indicative of a bigger problem. However, it’s how you address the problem that can make or break your business. To help, nine Young Entrepreneur Council members share their strategies for regaining momentum in your business, and explain why these strategies work so well to help reignite your growth. Young Entrepreneur Council members share tips for regaining growth momentum. 1. Introduce A New Service A great strategy for regaining some sudden growth and momentum is to introduce a new service. It can be any type of service, like personal delivery, one-on-one consulting or a new technique. This can often jump-start a flat business and create excitement among your current customers, as well as draw in new customers. Everyone will see it as a move toward growth and expansion. Adding a new service also creates a new promotion for your business on social media and other places, so it will generate talk and discussion. Be sure to offer an introductory price so people sign up for your new service right away. Sometimes, it's best to offer it for a limited time so people feel the immediate need to sign up. You can also reserve limited spots so people will want to sign up now to benefit from it. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure 2. Take The Whole Team To A Conference Conferences always give us new perspectives and the opportunity to meet new people, get new prospects and learn new things. Moreover, we see it as a way of doing a team-building activity while giving our team the chance to see another country. After a few days, they can look at the business from the outside and come back with innovative ideas. I've been doing this for some years, and it always works. The team always returns after a trip like this with at least one game-changing idea. - Alexandru Stan, Tekpon 3. Check In On Your Team Take a step back and evaluate the creative and mental health of your employees. I find that a growth plateau happens when my employees experience burnout and, as a result, there is almost always a lack of creativity and momentum in the business. To fix burnout, it can be helpful to give your employees a break or sprinkle in some team bonding activities. Maybe that's an afternoon off or a team pizza party or happy hour. Whatever it may be, your business cannot grow steadily when your employees are not happy and motivated to come to work every day. - John Hall, Calendar 4. Focus On Leading Well When your business reaches a growth plateau, you need to take action to reignite your business growth. One way of doing that is to focus on being a good leader who truly works for success. As a good leader, you need to be someone who knows the exact market trends and customer demands. You need to start tracking and analyzing metrics and then start strategizing, investing and executing according to your business needs. Identify the loopholes in your team and try to mend them, even if it means hiring new employees. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster 5. Reassess Your Customer Segments Your audience members all have unique goals, pain points and needs, and that's what you use to segment your leads. The thing is, the needs of your customers can change over time and can alter as new subscribers join your list. Assessing your customer profiles and comparing them to how users feel during the plateau can help you create more appealing, personalized content for your audience. If used correctly, this strategy can help you push back against stagnant sales and grow your small business. - Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights 6. Consider An Acquisition Strategy If you have hit a growth plateau in your business, you can look at pursuing growth through an acquisition strategy. Acquiring a competitor or other business in a similar industry can expand your footprint immediately and can also infuse new talent and ideas into your current operations. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs are wary of the risks of buying another company, but usually it is much less expensive than organic growth over the long term. - Jessica Fialkovich, Exit Factor 7. Get An Outside Perspective Sometimes, it's hard to see what's going on in the game when you're in the middle of the court. Get someone who is not involved with your company to give feedback on why your company may have hit a plateau. This could mean hiring a consultant, talking to an old mentor, asking customers for feedback or even hiring fresh people on the team. An outside and more objective perspective can help give an unbiased assessment of what the problem is and how you can move the company into a forward trajectory. - Shu Saito, All Filters 8. Expand Your Brand Awareness You can conquer a growth plateau by shifting your focus toward expanding brand awareness. You have several options when deciding how to make this happen for your brand. You could optimize your content for search engines, engage with prospects on social media or even pay for ads on other well-known websites. Sometimes, all you need to do to break stagnant growth is get the word out to people who may have never heard of your business. - John Turner, SeedProd LLC 9. Restart Stalled Marketing Initiatives Sometimes, a business needs to look inward at their marketing practices to kick-start growth. This is especially true if you feel like you've tried everything and have exhausted all external options. Review your successes and failures over the past year and make necessary changes. Are there any initiatives that showed promise but were never followed through with? If so, it might be time to give them another shot. The best solutions don't have to be the most complicated ones. It could be that your original marketing campaigns are no longer as effective as they once were or that you haven't been able to reach new markets. Evaluating what you have done in the past will give perspective on performing initiatives. - Tonika Bruce, Lead Nicely, Inc. Source: https://www.forbes.com Image Credit: The Individual Members
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Every team needs someone whom they can turn to for guidance, inspiration and motivation. Without a great leader, a business may quickly find itself directionless and producing poor results. As successful business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have learned a lot about effective leadership during their careers. Below, nine of them share some of the lessons they’ve learned recently, and explain how these lessons have helped them improve their leadership skills and, ultimately, their businesses. Young Entrepreneur Council members share their top leadership lessons. 1. Great Leaders Should Be Willing To Serve This has always been ingrained in me, but a recent incident proved it to be true. Everyone is short-staffed now, including us, and there weren't enough workers to finish a particular manual project. It had to get done, so I jumped in. It had been years since I did this kind of work, but I was capable. My employees developed a new respect for me because I was willing to work on their level. They also realized that I knew how to do it correctly. Many employees forget that business owners typically start by doing all the work themselves, and this showed them that I earned my right to own a business by doing the hard work. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure 2. It’s Important To Be Transparent With All Employees I’ve recently learned that everyone in a company should know what happens in the company. Moreover, I just discovered software that helps me create video business reports. In the following month, I will create a video report with the main things that happened in the past 30 days and share it with everyone involved in our business development team. Being more transparent empowers people and builds trust so they know they are working in a company that cares for them. - Alexandru Stan, Tekpon 3. It's A Leader's Job To Help Grow And Develop Employees A great leader encourages others, helps them improve their skills and is rewarded with competent employees who can move mountains. I always said that it's the sign of a great leader if you can help grow an employee so much that someday they leave you and go on to find great success in their own company. You'll see this trend with some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our times. Some of the most successful companies (and entrepreneurs) spawn dozens or hundreds of other successful companies from just one organization. - Andy Karuza, NachoNacho 4. You Don’t Have To Do Everything Yourself One of the greatest lessons I have learned as a leader in my company is the power of delegation. The belief that “I have to do everything” destroyed the productivity and efficiency of what I used to do. The day when I started trusting my subordinates and my fellow co-workers and started delegating tasks that can be handled in a very similar or better way, my life got so much better. Now I’m not just doing the tasks that I love to do, but I’m also expanding my wings to better learn about the industry and bring more value to the team. I can spend more one-on-one time with the team now, and do what's important for the longevity and growth of the company versus the immediate and urgent solutions. - Jay Dahal, Machnet 5. Leaders Need To Check On And Manage Employee Stress Employees may not always share how stressed they are. This makes it difficult for them to perform and for you to retain them. We lost one of our top-performing employees because they couldn't manage their stress and burned out. This made me realize that, as leaders, we need to keep a check on our employees and help manage their stress. To create a healthy working environment and encourage employees to share, we conduct monthly meetings in which we discuss our successes and challenges. We've built an environment where every team member looks out for one another. - Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms 6. You Don't Always Have To Have All The Answers There's something to be said for being a great leader who always has the answers. But I've recently learned that it's just as important, if not more so, to be a leader who knows how to listen to and encourage team contributions. One of the best ways to do this is by asking for input instead of always giving directives. I have started incorporating regular input from team members on our projects, processes and work progress. Allowing team contributions has enriched how we approach client projects and tackle internal challenges, as everyone gives input on what they find to be the greatest blocker. Creating an environment where team members feel safe to make mistakes means learning and growing. When the team members grow, the whole team succeeds. - Tonika Bruce, Lead Nicely, Inc. 7. Paths Are Rarely Linear A lesson I've learned recently is that things often take longer than anticipated—the path is rarely linear. Sometimes it is easy, but one is better served by considering that more an exception to the rule. Knowing this reality, businesses can be built more resiliently. As opposed to overpromising and underdelivering, more realistic timelines and expectations can be set. If one is able to overdeliver and beat estimates, even better! By accepting the fact that things don't always go according to plan, leaders are also able to become more emotionally resilient to setbacks because they acknowledge them as part of the process. Having an outlook of the future that is more realistic and grounded in reality will make one more prepared and ready for the future when it comes. - Akshar Bonu, The Custom Movement 8. Mistakes Are Opportunities For Learning If you make a mistake, it's okay. All too often, when we're starting out, we think in black and white and believe that a single win or success defines who we are as a whole. However, this isn't the case. We're human, and we all have off days. It's important to learn from our mistakes so that we can improve. Being comfortable with changes in my situation and embracing both failures and successes has helped me become a better leader in my business. It's helped me to be more flexible and adaptable, which is an important skill. - Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner 9. Doubling Down On Your People Pays Off When the pandemic hit and so many businesses let workers go, I doubled down on websites and work. I made sure that my team knew I was invested in them and their future, no matter what. In turn, this doubling down and trusting my instincts really paid off as my clients appreciated how I handled the situation and my team developed more loyalty. We are stronger than ever, proving that doubling down on your people really pays off. It is also a lesson in trusting your instincts. My business improved because I listened to my instincts to really dig into our services and keep our team together. - Matthew Capala, Alphametic Source: https://www.forbes.com Image Credit: The Individual Members
If you’re looking for green business ideas, you’re in luck. There are more and more sustainable small businesses popping up every day, and many of them can be started on a shoestring budget. In this article, we’ll look at 20 of our favorite environmentally friendly ideas to help you start your own business. What is a Sustainable Business? A sustainable business offers eco-friendly products that use sustainable materials and practices to minimize its carbon emissions. The goal of a sustainable business is to have a minimal negative impact on the environment, both now and in the future. This can greatly help to reduce carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Business Sustainability and Green Businesses in 2022 In recent years, there’s been a growing awareness of the need for businesses to operate in a more sustainable way. This has led to an increase in eco-friendly businesses in 2022, which are using renewable energy sources to minimize their environmental impact. Why You Should Start a Green Business Starting a business that follows green practices is not only good for the planet, but it can also be good for your bottom line. Here are five reasons to start a sustainable business:
Best Green Business Ideas for a Reduced Carbon Footprint If you’re looking for a green business idea, you’re in luck. There are more environmentally conscious businesses popping up every day. Let’s take a look at some! 1. Green Business Consultant For this business model, you would help businesses transition to practices that are greener. This could include helping them choose energy-efficient products, implementing recycling programs, or developing sustainability plans. 2. Solar Panel Installation This is a growing industry as more people look to energy sources that are more renewable. As a solar panel installer, you would help customers choose and install the right solar panel system for their home or business. 3. Wind Turbine Installation Like solar panels, wind turbines are also an energy source that is renewable and becoming increasingly popular. 4. Recycling Business There are many recycling businesses you could start to benefit the local environment such as a home pick-up service, a commercial recycling service, or a waste management consulting service. 5. Plant Delivery Service If you have a green thumb, you could start a plant delivery service. You could specialize in delivering houseplants, office plants, or even garden plants. 6. Green Restaurant Owner As a green restaurant owner, you would make sure your eatery is as eco-friendly as possible. This could include using locally sourced organic food and ingredients, composting food waste, and using energy-efficient appliances. 7. Beauty Salon Owner You would be at the forefront of the green beauty movement. You would make your beauty salon more eco-friendly by using green products, recycling, and conserving water. 8. Energy Efficient Appliances Retailer With this business, you would sell appliances that are designed to save energy. This could include energy-efficient refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, and more. 9. Green Building Contractor With the rise in green building, there is a growing demand for contractors who specialize in this area. Green building contractors build homes and commercial buildings using sustainable materials and practices. 10. Farmer’s Market Vendor If you’re a farmer, you could sell your produce at your local farmer’s market and local grocery stores. This would give you the opportunity to connect with customers and sell your produce in an environmentally friendly way. More Sustainable Business Ideas We’re not done yet! Here are more ideas to help you start an eco-friendly business: 11. Composting Business With this business, you would collect food scraps and other organic materials to create compost. This compost could then be sold to farmers, gardeners, or anyone else who is interested. 12. Packaging Design Business For this business, you would create sustainable packaging for other businesses. This could include using recycled materials, biodegradable materials, or even edible packaging. 13. Eco-Friendly Kids Toys You could start a business making eco-friendly toys for kids made from green materials that would be safe for the environment. You’ll also be helping to teach the next generation about being eco-friendly. 14. Wind Farms Wind farms are becoming increasingly popular as a renewable source of energy. You could start a business developing, constructing, or operating a wind farm. 15. Ink Refill Business You could start a business refilling ink cartridges. This would be a much more sustainable option than buying new cartridges, and it would also save customers money. 16. Green Cleaning Service Starting a business that uses green cleaning products and practices would be a great way to help people live a more sustainable lifestyle. 17. Sell Energy Efficient Lighting You could start a business selling energy-efficient lighting. This could include LED lights, CFLs, or even solar-powered lights. This is a great way to help people save energy and money. 18. Recycled Furniture Business You could start a business selling furniture made from recycled materials. This is a great way to repurpose materials that would otherwise be thrown away. Plus, it’s a great way to furnish your own home or office in a sustainable way. 19. Master Herbalist As a master herbalist, you would be an expert on the use of medicinal plants. You could start a business growing and selling these plants, or you could provide consulting services to those who want to use them. 20. Reclaimed Wood Business You could start a business selling reclaimed wood. This wood can be used for furniture, flooring, or other purposes. It’s a great way to repurpose materials and give them a second life. What Makes a Business Green? Any business that wants to be considered “green” needs to meet a certain set of standards regarding energy consumption and sustainable practices. These practices include recycling and composting, using energy-efficient lighting, appliances, and methods of transportation, and supporting renewable sources of energy. What Is the Most Sustainable Business? The most sustainable green business is one that can balance environmental, social, and economic considerations to create long-term value. To do this, sustainable businesses need to have a clear understanding of their impact on each of these areas and how they can create positive change. Source: https://smallbiztrends.com Image Credit: Getty
There is no value in ideation without execution. Without the intention and action that takes an idea from conception to success, it’s just an idea and ideas are everywhere. Many people have multiple ideas over the course of each day and most of them aren’t put into practice. What separates those who succeed from those who never quite make it is the steps they take to turn the idea into income. Carrie Green is the founder and CEO of the Female Entrepreneur Association (FEA) and author of the international bestselling book, She Means Business. Since starting her first business, a phone unlocking company, at age 20, Green has built one of the largest online platforms for female entrepreneurs, with over 600,000 fans worldwide. FEA’s work helps ambitious women build wildly successful businesses and turn their ideas into reality. Passionate about personal development herself, Green’s TEDx talk, Programming Your Mind for Success, has amassed over 8 million views. I interviewed Green to hear her 12 steps to turn your idea into income. 1. Do your research With any idea, it’s important you start at the very beginning. Before you buy any domain names or talk to anyone about your brainwave, get to work with planning. “First start by defining, validating and researching your idea,” said Green, who focuses on this in week one. She added, “I would be really digging into it, looking on Google, Reddit, on the app store and every social media platform, I'd be researching what's already out there.” Based on what you find, work out how your idea can uniquely add value and progress to step two. 2. Define your idea Next comes defining your idea in more detail and assessing demand. Summarize your idea in a title and a headline. State in simple terms what it does. Green recommended you ask, “Are people already buying something similar?” Are people using workarounds for the problem your idea solves? Ask your friends and ask the internet. She said that if they are, take this as a really good sign that demand exists. It means you are likely to find people who want to buy what you’ll offer. 3. Define your audience After the what comes the who. “Who would be your dream customer and why?” said Green. “Who are they and where are they at in their life?” Find out their desires and struggles or pain points in relation to the solution your product or service provides. Green advised that you, “tap into who they are on an emotional level, so you can understand how your offer is going to resonate strongly.” 4. Share your idea When you know the what and who, the how will start to become apparent. Now it’s time to “immerse yourself in the fact that you are creating something.” Green explained this involves, “building excitement, sharing the concept, talking about your idea with anyone who will listen to you.” At this stage you’ll begin to gather feedback on how your messaging lands with your target audience. She also advised you keep track of whoever you speak to, and “start a waitlist, get people signed up and looking forward to the exciting thing you’re going to launch.” 5. Involve an audience If you have an existing audience, share your idea on a larger scale by bringing them on the journey with you. Green said, “get them involved really early on. Tell them you’re creating something and you can’t wait to share it, then say you’d love their help and ask them questions.” When Green was building her membership offering, she was constantly quizzing people over social media and in emails. Questions about their challenges and what they needed meant Green was “co-creating with my audience.” She then used the answers to build the exact membership platform they needed and by the time it was ready they were fired up to join. 6. Visibility plan Being crystal clear on your offering and priming an existing audience is followed by preparing to launch to an even bigger audience. “What are you going to be doing over the next few weeks to create visibility?” asked Green. Work out how you will “share more about your idea, bring more people behind the scenes, ask them questions, and tap into the knowledge that will help you build out your idea and create.” The more people you know and understand, the more you know the direction your idea should take. Don’t miss any opportunity for visibility and conversation. 7. Build and nurture your audience Step seven involves building up your core audience and nurturing people so that when you launch it’s really powerful, “even if there is only a small handful of people.” Green believes that “all of us can go out there and connect with 5, 10, 20 or 3000 people. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest give us the ability to connect for free.” Start small, aim to make a personal connection with one person at a time, keep track, build your waitlist and see your audience snowball. By now, you understand the desires and pain points of these people, so you know how to talk about what they care about. 8. Plan your creation With your audience building nicely, here’s where is gets real. “There's going to be laser-focused creation.” This is where you plan your product, your website, your launch strategy. Everything you’ve learned from quizzing and chatting to your audience goes into this. You plan your timelines, write your checklists and set the wheels in motion for production, which is the next phase. Green wants you to have “full understanding of what you’re creating, who it’s for and what you need to do to bring it to reality.” 9. Focused creation Now you know what you need to do, step 9 is where you do it. Green recommends you make use of deadlines. “Give yourself a really short timeframe, for example two weeks.” She warned against dragging your idea out for months or years and is sure “if you’re really focused with your time, you can create something amazing in two weeks.” During that two-week period, sit down at your desk and don’t move until you’ve made progress every day.” Be disciplined and focused around creating your course, your downloads or products. By the end of that two weeks, you’ll nearly be ready for customers to buy. 10. Prepare for launch Now your idea has been created into reality, it’s nearly time to launch. Prepare for launch by “writing your sales page and email copy, set up your sales page and automation,” said Green. “Now is where customers should be able to actually buy from you.” Test this process from the point of view of your audience. What will they think, where will they click? How much does your process resonate and how simple is it to complete? See it through their eyes before pressing go. 11. Launch your product When your ducks are in a row it’s time to launch. Green said this is where you, “talk about your product to even more people, share the posts you already wrote and click send on your first email. You could do a live workshop. Put your creation out there and give people the link to the checkout.” If you’ve laid the groundwork, they’ll be waiting for it to arrive. Put the link in their hands and tell them it’s ready. 12. Assess and keep going While you’re launching, have an idea on the numbers. Look at how many units you sold on launch day and during launch period. Then, said Green, “plan the next 90 days to 6 months so you know where your focus should go next.” Green recommends your 12 steps happen over a 12-week period of intense focus, then you’ll have a product, metrics, cash in the bank and you’ll know what to do next. Green believes that, especially If it’s a digital idea, it “doesn’t need to take a really long time to take your idea and get it out into the world.” 12 weeks and 12 steps to turn your idea into income is doable if you set yourself the challenge and commit to its completion. Having carried this process out many times herself, Green knows the hardest part is overcoming doubt and fear to keep moving forward. Her final words of advice are to, “keep taking tiny, tiny little steps, keep learning, and keep surrounding yourself with the right people.” You can do this. Source: https://www.forbes.com Image Credit: Carrie Green
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