Startup Advice

How to Turn an Underperformer Into One of Your Strongest Employees

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Startup Advice / May 24, 2019

When your co-worker underperforms, you have the option of looking the other way. But when you’re the team leader, you’re in a different position. As a manager, you’re expected to deal effectively with underperformers — either by letting them go or helping them improve. Easier said than done, right? However, with the proper mix of patience, guidance, and tact, you can manage your direct reports to success and…

Didn’t Start at the Bottom? Here’s How You Can Still Lead Like You Did

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Startup Advice / May 22, 2019

Here's how you can cultivate a perspective that values every level's input.

Are good business leaders born or made in the trenches? Early work experience forges how a person will lead. For many successful CEOs, starting out on the company’s bottom rung has been an invaluable opportunity for learning. For example, David Cote started out at General Electric as an hourly employee when he was 21. By age 33, he’d worked his way up to a midlevel financial planner role…

Top Collision Speakers We’re Looking Forward to Seeing and Hearing

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Entrepreneur Interviews• Entrepreneurship• Startup Advice / May 19, 2019

Top Collision Speaker’s We’re Looking Forward to Seeing and Hearing This Week! The Collision Tech Conference is one of the leading tech conferences of its kind. In fact, the Toronto-based event is the fastest-growing tech conference in all of North America — now with over 25,000 attendees. Each year, Collision features some of the top faces in technology, allowing attendees to engage with industry leaders. Plan to…

5 Ways to Connect With Local Customers

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Startup Advice / May 7, 2019

For small businesses, a local customer base can be extremely lucrative. But to reach customers in your immediate area, you’ll have to develop a concrete strategy that addresses their specific wants, needs, and expectations. Try These 5 Local Marketing Tactics In a business world where large, sweeping marketing strategies dominate the landscape, there’s something to be said for adopting a simple, focused approach that prioritizes customers in your…

3 Industries Where Scale and Personality Aren’t Exclusive

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Startup Advice / April 29, 2019

Scaling and individualization can co-exist

Common wisdom says businesses can either provide personal service or create scalable systems. In the old days, that was true. Small businesses couldn’t scale without becoming impersonal — and big companies couldn’t keep up with the volume if they wanted to improve service. Fortunately, times have changed. Today’s businesses can get the best of both worlds by using better tools to improve service in scalable ways. Customers get…

Building the STEM Workforce Today’s Talent Pool Can’t Provide

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Startup Advice / April 22, 2019

How prepared are you for the next decade's hiring demands?

Today’s tight labor market is flipping the script on recruiting. Rather than job seekers trying to impress employers, the opposite is happening. Apprenticeship opportunities, in which employees are paid to be trained rather than incur student debt, have grown by 42 percent since 2013. And they’re no longer limited to blue-collar fields: Most of the growth has been fueled by companies in science and technology. The global talent…

Link Building Isn’t Lead Generation — But It Helps

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Finding Customers• Startup Advice / April 12, 2019

Links can't be your sales strategy, but they can bring leads

Lead generation is the heart of business growth. You need to drive new customers into your sphere in order to make conversions and build loyalty. When businesses talk about lead generation, though, they rarely address the role of link building. Instead, they emphasize increased lead generation through local marketing, better CRM, and predictive analytics. Without the layer of link building, however, businesses are undermining their lead generation strategy,…

4 Automation Tools That Won’t Break the Bank for Small Businesses

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Startup Advice / April 2, 2019

Automation can make or break a small business — but not necessarily its budget

When you hear the word “automation,” what do you picture? A self-driving car? A factory free of human workers? In reality, those applications represent an exceptionally small share of small business automation. The production and operation functions are actually the two least automated functions, according to a QuickBooks study released last April. So what are small business leaders automating? Among the 66 percent of those using automation tools, most…

Big Business Strategies That Small Companies Can Emulate

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Startup Advice / March 26, 2019

Some strategies benefit businesses of all sizes

Big businesses are big for a reason — they’re getting something right, usually when it counts the most. Moreover, they’ve already found their footing after making it through the early days of uncertainty and instability. That successful leadership journey alone counts as an invaluable lesson for smaller business owners. You can learn a lot by studying exactly what big businesses have done right, even if their circumstances might…

The Missing Tools: 4 Things Your Lead Generation Strategy Is Missing

by Kimberly Zhang / ⠀Startup Advice / February 22, 2019

Is your business living up to its potential? Among small businesses, the answer is almost always “no.” That can happen for a number of reasons: Owners are too anxious to take risks, fail to focus, or haven’t cultivated a strong network. Luckily, there are simple tools that can help your business overcome these barriers. These four tools enable small business owners to take control of their lead generation…

Previous 1 234 5 Next Last

Pin It on Pinterest