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10 Lessons That All New Business Owners Must Heed In The Modern Era

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Lessons for Business Owners|10 Lessons That All New Business Owners Must Heed In The Modern EraLaunching a new business is a dream shared by millions and the pandemic has encouraged more and more people to take the leap of faith. When done right, it can be the key that unlocks the future you’ve always wanted. However, you must not fall into the trap of thinking success comes easily or through guesswork.

A large percentage of startups launched in the post-lockdown era will struggle. You can give your hopes a significant boost, however, by investing in the right strategy. Use the following 10 tips to avoid the common pitfalls and you won’t go far wrong.

#1. You Need To Love The Business

When starting your business, it can be tempting to fall into the trap of chasing quick profits. After all, we’ve all seen stories of overnight successes and trends that are currently doing great. In reality, though, if you choose a company idea for the wrong reasons, it will show.

It is far better to work on something you feel passionately about. For starters, a lack of care and knowledge for a subject will prevent you from achieving success in the “easy” fields. More importantly, working on your passion makes work enjoyable. This helps you through testing moments while also promoting improved mental wellness.

Crucially, you should find that your passion and positivity are contagious. This will inspire better responses from employees and clients alike. Besides, there is no greater reward than knowing than building a company that fills you with pride.

#2. You Can’t Go It Alone

The thought of being in control of the entire business model may seem like perfection. In reality, though, even the most talented entrepreneur will lack some of the distinct skills needed to run things. Moreover, there simply isn’t enough time to do it all alone.

Consequently, then, recruiting the best team of workers should be a priority for all business owners. This can include on-site workers, remote workers, outsourced services, and temporary contractors. As well as finding talented candidates, you should focus heavily on their personality traits. Above all else, they should share your enthusiasm for the brand.

A strong team of employees won’t only lead the company to increased productivity. They will also give you the confidence to let them work with autonomy. In turn, you’ll be able to dedicate more time and effort to your personal tasks.

#3. Not Everyone Will Be Interested

If you truly love your business, you will want to share it with as many people as possible. Sadly, though, it’s very unlikely that your company will have a universal appeal. Worse still, any time and money spent trying to win over outside audiences will be a waste.

Therefore, learning how to find your niche audience is key. From here, you can ensure that SEO, ad placements, and other marketing tools are built to reach the right people. You should also find that it provides significant help when choosing products and interacting with clients. Their age, location, and financial backgrounds are just some of the key features.

Conversely, if you try to reach everyone, your brand will become bland. It’s better to resonate with your core audience and alienate others than fade into obscurity. The sooner you adopt the right mindset, the better. It will save time, money, and your sanity.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Lessons for Business Owners|10 Lessons That All New Business Owners Must Heed In The Modern Era#4. First Impressions Count For A Lot

Whether your first interactions are conducted online or offline, you only have a few seconds to create a good first impression. While getting it right won’t guarantee success, a bad one could end your hopes of a sale before you’ve started. Engaging content is key.

Nobody knows the business better than you, but that doesn’t make you the best person to promote the brand. Experts who can see your brand from a consumer’s perspective are the best choice. A skilled video production company can create visual content that wins over audiences and celebrates your USPs in style. It yields more traffic and greater conversions.

Videos are great because viewers retain more of the brand message too. However, interactive social media posts and blogs can play a huge role. In today’s climate, having a few social influencers tell their fans about the brand can pay dividends too.

#5. Clients Crave A Good Experience

Winning new clients is great, but true success stems from having a loyal fan base. It is shown to be a lot cheaper to retarget existing clients than new audiences. So, if you can increase the customer lifetime value, you should. The user experience is crucial.

Studies show that most customers are prepared to pay more for a good brand experience. This means offering better payment options and smoother transactions. It should also cover customer care as consumers need transparency and quick solutions to their problems. Supporting yourself with FAQs, chatbots, and fair returns policies will also help.

Providing a better user experience wins new clients and keeps past ones coming back because they feel valued. Better still, once you have established a community, there is a strong probability that they will spread the word to their friends and family.

#6. It Takes Time To Generate Revenue

As a business owner, you may set out to achieve several goals. However, any progress made in other aspects of the business will be rendered futile if the finances aren’t in good health. You won’t necessarily start gaining immediate sales and must adapt accordingly.

Ensuring that you begin the process with enough capital to get through the initial stages is crucial. Raising funds through personal savings, private investors, or crowdfunding are just some of the options. Whatever you do, though, learning to use the available money in the most efficient ways should be high on the agenda.

It is important to check that you are getting the best value for money when buying materials, energy rates, or insurance. When supported by the right courier partnerships and help from an accountant, you should be positioned to keep your finances in a good place.

#7. Prevention Is The Best Form Of Protection

Building a successful company is one thing, but maintaining it is another altogether. The harsh reality is that the list of potential threats to the company is huge. Without the right protection, financial and reputational damage will cause you major headaches.

Preventing many of those problems can be achieved with help from an IT cybersecurity firm. Their data protection services can be supported by staff training to prevent malware and ransomware. Intellectual assets should be guarded by copyright documents and non-disclosure agreements. It should protect you from internal and external threats.

As a growing number of risks come from digital interactions, it becomes easy to overlook physical assets. Safe workspaces that are further supported by security equipment and teams will give you one less thing to worry about. Embrace it from day one.

#8. Modern Tech Is Essential

You don’t have to be a tech-based business to appreciate the value of modern tech to your venture. The right facilities and automation can boost productivity, accuracy, and financial management. In many cases, it can spearhead quicker growth and expansion.

Modern tech features can range from cloud-based software and file management to factory equipment. Meanwhile, 3D printing can be used to print small parts or complete prototypes when testing out new ideas. The functional flexibility offered by those items can have a telling influence on the overall productivity of the team.

The harsh reality is that failure to use modern tech in offices, factories, and shop floors will hit you hard. Competitors will take advantage of your shortcomings to steal your clients. And once they do, getting them back can be a very difficult task indeed.

#9. Your Approach To Operations Is Key

Both B2B and B2C customers are now invested in brands like never before, they want to work with companies that they can relate to. Given that they can conduct valuable research with ease, they will. If they have a reason to dislike your brand, they will vote against using it.

Therefore, it’s vital that you invest in corporate social responsibility. Taking accountability for your brand’s carbon footprint can have a hugely positive influence on your workers as well as the clients. This can be further supported by volunteering at local events or donating excess stock. For example, food retailers can donate food to homeless shelters.

People buy people. So, if customers can buy into your brand they will be more likely to purchase its products. Try to introduce winning concepts and actively try to build a community. Positive results should follow with almost instant results.

#10. There Is No Time To Stand Still

Finally, if you are eager to start a business, you must remember that there is no time like the present. While research helps you make calculated decisions, sitting back on an idea could mean that the ship sails without you. And once you’ve established some success, be sure to keep moving in the right direction. When you do, nothing can hurt your progress.

Are You Living Your Life Goal?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Life Goal|Are You Living Your Life Goal?We are all born with a unique life map. A plan for our lives that we realize when we become adults. We can know we reached this point when we make conscious and independent decisions. When this happens, our life plan gets activated and opportunities arise accordingly, except if we aren’t ready. There can be big traps on our path; it all comes down to becoming truly self-reliant.

When you aren’t independent enough, life can become challenging and you may realize that you are just drifting, or feel like you are living someone else’s life. Living this way doesn’t allow you to realize your true life plan. Why is it important to live what you came here for? Because we are here to learn and evolve. And we always need and should want to learn something new.

When You Don’t Enjoy What You Do

When you get off your path, don’t have your life plan within reach, you should readjust your senses. Chances are, you got so busy with other things that you forgot about your goals and the things you wanted to learn. So, you should start evaluating how much you enjoy the things that you are doing. Can you learn from them, and are these lessons adding to you? We all have a life goal, but if you aren’t living it, you shouldn’t get discouraged.

You should find a goal that makes you happy. Like helping others, feeling content with yourself, learning skills to improve yourself, living by faith, learning to control your mind and get rid of your fears, and so on… What is my goal in life? Everyone asks this question at a certain point in life. Some people earlier, and some on their deathbed. If we would all strive to live our life plans and could make them happen, there would be greater order in the world.

Seeing Your Goal

If you are just trying to see and realize your goals, it is hard to achieve them. What matters is that there are people who realize their goals and learn from their experience, it doesn’t matter who will become a soldier, lawyer, or teacher… The worst thing can be when you forget living, let alone realizing your goal. If you don’t move ahead, life cannot happen, and you can regret not experiencing things.

You shouldn’t want to keep figuring out what your life goal is or asking this constantly. What should you do instead? Take action, try different things. Start something new today. By going through it, you can find a route that better works for you. A happier path in your health, learning, relationship, faith, or whatever. Don’t forget, living is moving; if you do not move, you don’t honor your life and its opportunities to develop yourself and help others who cross your path do the same.

Strive to Live Authentically

When you make new friends, it should come from your heart. When you pray, do your best to be present. If sports make you happy, give your all into that. Remember that whatever you want to achieve, you make it happen through your body. Therefore, you can only become great at something, if you learn to listen to your body and are ready to work together. Each pain is a signal, and we are so good at neglecting it. Because we seem to be weak and problematic.

But this leads to numbness. Does it solve anything when you learn to suppress your feelings? Just because you wanted to appear strong and painless. Where does this state lead? Can you live in an emotionally suppressed body? Yes, of course, but only much shorter. When your car or washing machine breaks down, you contact the repair service immediately.

We only don’t do so with our bodies but wait until the problem is really serious. When your body signals, you need to ask for help. Help from a doctor, masseur, a chiropractor… Anything answering to the signals of your body can be helpful. Don’t be afraid of what’s going to happen if it turns out that there’s a major problem; the sooner the better and the easier to help.

About the Author

Russell Ridgeway is an American writer based in Budapest, Hungary. He writes in business, tech, and fashion as well as creative fiction. He also writes regularly for Lensa – A job company with soul! You can reach him by email ([email protected]), or on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

The Gender Pay Gap & the Importance of Retirement Planning

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StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article |Gender Pay Gap|The Gender Pay Gap & the Importance of Retirement PlanningWhile there has been progress made in terms of gender equality in recent times, it is clear that there is still much more that needs to be done. The gender pay gap is one of the biggest issues in the workplace right now, especially when you consider that it is not just career earnings that this will impact as it will also result in women having a smaller pension at retirement.

The Retirement Gap

The gender pension gap is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Additionally, it means that women need to plan their retirement finances and make sure that they have taken action to try and bridge the gap as best they can. Key Advice CEO, Will Hale, commented on the worrying issue of the gender pay gap and its impact on retirement finances:

“With women typically earning less over the course of their careers, more likely to work part-time or need to juggle their career and caring responsibilities, the gender pay gap quickly becomes the gender pension’s gap at retirement. It is disheartening that in 2021, women still expect 25% less than their male counterparts and nearly a third expect their income to fall below Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s (JRF) Minimum Income Standard. There is no quick fix to this situation but it does illustrate how important it is to consider all your assets at retirement.”

So, what are a few of the best steps that women can take to plan their retirement finances?

Equity Release

Many people are turning to equity release these days and it can certainly be an effective way to give your retirement income a healthy boost. Essentially, equity release is a way of freeing up the value in your home. The loan amount and any interest are paid back by selling once the last borrower dies or they move into long-term care. Equity release can be a great solution for many homeowners, but there are key considerations so you should always speak with an equity release specialist to see if it is right for you.

Passive Income

Anyone looking to grow their wealth and build towards a brighter retirement may also want to look into passive income streams. This can be a smart way to boost your income while you work and requires little effort once it is up and running. There are a few passive income options, such as rental properties, affiliate marketing and dropshipping businesses.

Investing

Investing is also a smart move for anyone looking to improve their retirement fund. Obviously, there is risk when it comes to investing, but options like index funds can be a smart way to diversify and build wealth over time.

There is no quick fix to the gender pay gap issue, which means that it is important that women are planning ahead when it comes to retirement and doing all that they can to boost their finances.

10 Examples of AI In Our Everyday Lives

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |AI|10 Examples of AI In Our Everyday LivesPerhaps you think that artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) are concepts that do not concern you at all or are too complicated for everyday use? In theory, you may be correct, but in practice, these concepts are already an indispensable part of your daily life, though you may not be aware of them. In this article, we will give you ten examples of AI in our everyday lives.

Do you remember the image of artificial intelligence you had in 2010? At that time, for most of us, artificial intelligence was reserved mainly for science fiction works. It was not yet anchored in our daily lives. It was, in fact, a research discipline. Over the past eleven years, this technology has made great strides in many industrial sectors. It has also burst into our daily lives and has materialized in the form of smartphones and autonomous cars, robotic vacuum cleaners, and self-propelled lawnmowers. Based on a few particularly relevant examples, see for yourself how much artificial intelligence has changed the world in recent years.

Email Messaging

Electronic messaging relies heavily on AI to optimize its performance and increase user satisfaction. Our email boxes have been learning over time thanks to advanced algorithms—for example, spam filtering. Spam filters rely heavily on artificial intelligence, which can process large amounts of messages and detect new spam flooding of your inboxes very quickly.

The publishers of these spam emails change their strategies regularly. As a result, having a few keywords is not enough to identify adverse content. Hence the need to use AI solutions. A perfect example is Gmail from Google, which uses TensorFlow and blocks over 99.9% of spam.

Search Engines

Search engines could hardly function without AI, given the massive size of the web. The AI is deployed in robots that crawl the sites to index them, classify them, and ascertain the display order according to the search expressions. As a result, search engines are fully harnessing the benefits of AI: Technology is helping to understand user behaviors better and drive better outcomes for brands and internet users alike.

Social Networks

AI largely determines the way information is displayed, especially on social networks. For instance, Facebook distributes posts from followed pages, then filters them to highlight those considered most significant while covering the rest. However, no matter what social media platform you use, what you see and do in these applications is primarily influenced by machine learning. As a result, AI controls the channels you see when browsing these platforms or the notifications you receive.

E-commerce

While it’s impossible to predict the future with precision, an excellent data-driven strategy allows marketers to get a more holistic view of upcoming consumer trends. As a result, consumers receive more personalized purchase suggestions based on research conducted by sellers and based on their purchase decisions made so far. As a result, online retailers increasingly use AI consulting companies to take full advantage of the available data and provide their customers with more personalized offers, thus generating higher revenues.

Banking applications

When discussing online shopping, you cannot ignore online banking. Banking is one area that has adopted technological inventions earlier than most other areas. Secure payment is possible in particular thanks to artificial intelligence, as systems continually learn to recognize fraudulent transactions. Have you ever got information from your bank when you purchase using the new device? That is a case where banks used artificial intelligence to detect any potential fraud. Notifications from banks and financial institutions regarding their services and products are examples of artificial intelligence that allows you to understand your preferences, requirements, and financial condition to propose appropriate products.

But the process goes further. Banks use artificial intelligence in many areas, including analyzing customer investment trends, providing customer service, and more.

Chatbots and Customer Service

For most retailers, dealing with many inquiries and comments from consumers through multiple phones, email, and social media channels can be challenging even for the most experienced marketing departments. For this reason, brands are increasingly using chatbots.

With chatbots, the customer experience is smoother. Social media and customer service teams can free themselves from tasks like scheduling appointments and focus on more strategic activities. They can seek out brand ambassadors and create interaction with user-generated content (UGC). Through intelligent learning, chatbots can better understand the language used by each customer, which makes interactions more authentic and easier to navigate. It also allows brands to respond more quickly to micro-moments–targeted junctions where consumers look for specific products or information.

Artificial Intelligence and Smartphones

Imagining life without cell phones seems like a challenge. However, the various applications in our cell phones are now an integral part of our daily life. Many of these applications are based on artificial intelligence. The intelligent assistants built into our phones, such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, are the most prominent examples of AI that most of us know and use.

In addition, more and more mobile technology platforms are developing solutions that use artificial intelligence to manage various aspects of the device, such as battery management, event suggestions, etc. One of the standard functions, such as unlocking the screen with the image of a face, also uses artificial intelligence. As a result, AI-enabled services are now an essential part of iOS and Android platform updates.

Smart Homes

Alexa and Bixby come to mind when it comes to using AI in the development of smart homes. However, these applications of artificial intelligence are not limited to these intelligent voice assistants. A great example of smart homes are AI apps that save energy by automatically turning lights based on human presence. And we also have intelligent speakers, apps that change the color of light according to today. These are just some of the applications where AI is used to make homes smarter.

Navigation

In the morning, you leave your apartment and log into your favorite navigation app. What happens most often? Without even typing a single character, it offers to take you to your work or school, if that’s where you are used to going at that time. Artificial intelligence has changed our traffic habits. Thanks to navigation applications like Waze or Google Maps. These determine the shortest route and estimate the time of arrival. They can even take real-time traffic into account to automatically change the trajectory to avoid traffic jams.

There is no doubt that AI will grow more and more, and thanks to it, people will become more productive and lead a more comfortable life to a higher standard. The possibilities offered by artificial intelligence seem endless. Therefore, we should enjoy them and use them instead of perceiving them as a threat.

What Is The Difference Between An Academic Coach And A Tutor?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Academic Coach|What Is The Difference Between An Academic Coach And A Tutor?If you are a student interested in pursuing academic assistance, you may have considered academic tutoring or academic coaching. The differences between the two titles can be confusing and leave you scratching your head. To sort out this conundrum, we’ve outlined the differences between academic coaches and tutors so that you can hire the professional that is right for you.

The Differences: Tutoring vs. Coaching

The puzzle of academic coach vs tutor stems from the similarities that both professions share. Both have a common mission to help students reach academic success, but, in many cases, these successes are achieved by focusing in on skills that are more specific to each respective profession. Academic coaches, for instance, may not have course expertise, but they do have the organization skills that academic tutors may not.

When To Consider Either Approach

Academic coaches are best suited for students whose struggles are due to:

  • poor student organization tactics
  • poor schoolwork management
  • difficulty balancing school and personal life

Academic tutors are a better fit for students whose struggles stem from:

  • ongoing course-related challenges
  • consistent trouble staying concentrated
  • persistent inability to keep up with peers

Key Objectives: Academic Coaches

Academic coaches are tasked with the following objectives to support their students:

  • enhance student wellbeing by guiding evidence-based progress
  • guide students on foundational skills for mastering course content
  • help students plan to achieve academic goals

Key Objectives: Academic Tutors

Academic tutors execute the following objectives to guide student achievement:

  • help students overcome academic obstacles through independent learning
  • use their expertise to teach material
  • encourage personalized approaches to reaching one’s academic potential
  • integrate motivation to facilitate student interest in academics

The Overarching Factors

Every student carries their own strengths, weaknesses, and learning style(s). It is up to the academic coaches and the academic tutors to seriously consider these individual factors while creating ways to help students advance to the next level of learning and academic achievement. Sometimes factors of academic coach vs tutor lack distinction; tutors consider themselves to be coaches and vice versa when they possess the skills for both professions.

The Main Takeaways

Some academic professionals hold no distinction between tutoring and coaching, whereas others maintain a fine line between educational assistance and academic organization. Consider the similarities and differences in the objectives mentioned above to decide which approach is right for your academic needs. The right tutor or coach is waiting to help you thrive.