Thursday 25 October 2012

How to Make Yourself Into CEO Material

How to Make Yourself Into CEO Material

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz argues that CEOs are made, not born. Here's how he thinks you can hone your entrepreneurial skill set.
www.businesssenseng.blogspot.com

Belief in talent can be dangerous.
Decades of scientific research shows that believing your inherent aptitude for a skill is set at birth is de-motivating. In comparison to those who believe that success is mainly down to hard work, those that believe ability to excel is fixed are less able to handle setbacks and often underperform.
Which is the perverse situation many founders put themselves in when they think about occupying the CEO's chair. That some folks are simply "CEO material" and some are not is a not uncommon belief among entrepreneurs and investors. But it's dead wrong, according to veteran entrepreneur and VC Ben Horowitz on his blog recently.
In the post, the partner at Andreessen Horowtiz recalls a friend asking if CEOs are born or made, and replies: "That's kind of like asking if Jolly Ranchers are grown or made."
If you're building a start-up and worried that leading a team feels incredibly unnatural to you, don't despair, writes Horowitz. There's a very good reason for that and it's not that you'll never make it as an executive: being a CEO is highly unnatural:
It generally takes years for a founder to develop the CEO skill set and it is usually extremely difficult for me to tell whether or not she will make it.
In athletics, some things like becoming a sprinter can be learned relatively quickly because they take a natural motion and refine it. Others, like boxing, take much longer to master, because they require lots of unnatural motions. For example, when going backwards in boxing, it's critically important to pick up your back foot first, because if you get hit while walking backwards the natural way—picking up your front foot first--often leads to getting knocked cold. Learning to make this unnatural motion feel natural takes a great deal of practice. If you do what feels most natural as a CEO, then you may also get knocked cold.
Being CEO requires lots of unnatural motion. From an anthropological standpoint, it is natural to do things that make people like you. It enhances your chances for survival. Yet to be a good CEO, in order to be liked in the long run, you must do many things that will upset people in the short run. Unnatural things.
The post goes on to identify giving feedback as one of the most unnatural CEO skills, offering lots of great advice on how to perfect this tricky to develop ability. If you're struggling with feedback for your team, take a few minutes to read his nitty gritty suggestions.
But the fundamental takeaway is simpler and more powerful than handy tips: Don't give up on yourself as not having CEO potential too early. Lack of early apparent talent doesn't mean you can't make yourself into a kick butt company leader.
"If you are a founder CEO and you feel awkward or incompetent when doing some of these things and believe there is no way that you'll be able to do it when your company is 100 or 1,000 people, welcome to the club. That's exactly how I felt. So did every CEO that I've ever met. This is the process. This is how you get made," concludes Horowitz

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Ways to Make Customers Love You

7 Ways to Make Customers Love You

Follow these simple rules and you'll have customers buying from you again and again and again.

 
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The greatest compliment anyone can receive in the business world is "I just love working with you." That's especially true when that compliment comes from customers, because it means that you'll be getting their business time and time again.
Here are the seven rules for getting customers to love working with you, based upon conversations with Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the The Sales Bible and Dr. Earl Taylor, master trainer at Dale Carnegie:
1. Make building the relationship more important than making the sale.
2. Create opportunities for the customer to buy, rather than opportunities for you to sell.
3. Have meaningful conversations and never give a sales pitch.
4. Be curious about the customer as a person and let the friendship evolve from that.
5. Don't try to be a hero who swoops in to solve the customer's problem.
6. Believe in your heart that you and your firm are the best at what you do.
7. Deliver exactly what you promised to deliver, no matter what.

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How to Build a Killer Consulting Business

5 Tips to Build a Killer Consulting Business

You already have the expertise and the contacts. So what do you do next? Here's a good place to start.
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In some ways, consulting can sound like one of the easiest businesses to start. You presumably already have the expertise and the industry contacts... all you have to do is line up some gigs, right?
There's some truth to that but, of course, it's never that easy.
Here are five tips I've learned about starting up a consulting business.

1. Find a way to exploit specific knowledge gaps.
Your prospective clients likely aren't lacking smart or opinionated talent; if they were, want to hire a full-time employee, not a consultant. Rather, they seek outside expertise because they're exploring unfamiliar problems, markets, and/or methodologies. They need objective insight that their in-house people can't provide. That's where you come in.
Successful consultants fill pressing knowledge gaps. Case in point: My firm, TechSavvy, which helps customers create value and cultivate a competitive advantage on the back of emerging tech markets and trends. My clients don't hire me to provide raw data on technology; they have plenty of that. Rather, they need help translating it into actionable strategies, creating cutting-edge products and services, or adapting businesses and brands to new spaces. So that's the niche I try to fill.

2. Focus on relationships, not revenues.
This is a business based on relationships. The wise consultant always listens before she speaks. Never talk costs before first discussing your clients' specific needs and objectives. For reasons both practical and political, few businesses actively look to hire consultants on a regular or recurring basis; so, knock on many doors, make a point of keeping in running contact with connections, and above all else, maintain good rapport through your work--reputation is everything and it's vital to stay on clients' radars.
Remember, opportunities typically come in the wake of new ventures or sudden pressing issues. That's when you want to spring to mind as the perfect person to help. You must cultivate personal networks and strive for face-to-face interaction at all costs.

3. Sell results, not services.
Price by the hour and you'll be viewed as a commodity. Instead, keep clients laser-focused on the lasting value you create, and bill based on scope of work and end results. Never discuss whether your firm will be used, but rather how, and provide a range of possible cost scenarios and value-adds starting with your baseline requirements.

4. Employ a flexible structure.
Some consulting businesses gross millions from ongoing monthly retainers. Recurring retainers make sense when providing ongoing services (e.g. PR or marketing support, which is more of an external staffing function than consulting). But if you've done your job right, you've solved the problem--so be ready to move on.
Business will wax and wane. And because no two projects are alike, you must remain flexible by cultivating a freelance support network. Use contractors from varied industries and disciplines who can introduce additional expertise and perspective. This approach also lets you reduce overhead, minimize risk, and better staff projects to meet clients' needs.

5. Always be closing.
To succeed as a consultant, as much time must be devoted to acquiring new business as performing assigned tasks. I've found that the average time from initial contact to engagement can sit between six to 36 weeks, and close rates hover between 10% and 20%. Any downtime should be reinvested into business development.
With thousands of established, independent, and home-based businesses now vying for visibility, ultimately, partners are buying into you and your vision as much as the actual services. Presenting a mix of case studies, testimonials, and client showcases can also prove a powerful business driver--prospective employers want to see what you've done, so they know what you're capable of doing.

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How to Make Money in Your Sleep

How to Make Money in Your Sleep

You fell in love with being your own boss, but can your company scale and exist without you? Here's how to branch out into new revenue streams.
Money Sleep
 
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With the small business sector growing at a rapid pace, many people are falling in love with the idea of becoming their own boss. While the concept may be tantalizing on the surface, the demand of marketing, selling, and providing a service can become exhausting and confusing.
Service providers don't always consider the difference between being an entrepreneur and a solopreneur.
An entrepreneur typically sets his or her sights on building a scalable business that can survive without them. The business is branded and positioned to be managed by a team. And someday the company may even become a publicly traded enterprise, sold, or handed down to the founder's heirs.
A solopreneur, unlike an entrepreneur who is building a branded business, is branding themselves only—and, hence, expansion opportunities may seem limited.
"When you start layering your business with products and additional services it's advisable that you begin slowly by modifying your time for dollars services," says business strategist and author Suzanne Duret. Duret has founded a total of seven companies and has consulted with CEOs of hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses. She is especially adept at helping soloists grow beyond their personal brand to create multiple streams of revenue.
Whether you are in the early planning stage for your business or examining your options for growth, it's important to consider your long term vision. Do you intend to remain a solopreneur, branding your name and services, or will you eventually want to brand a company name so that you can someday step aside and execute a profitable exit strategy?
"Most solopreneurs can't scale to a six or seven figure business by trading time for dollars," says Duret. "You have to consider expanding into areas that include group programs, live events, webinars, and information products to name a few."
Physical fitness trainer Colleen Riddle spent more than a year researching her options for growth. "I was extremely stressed about money," she says. "I was able to pay the bills, but that was all."
Riddle decided it was time to move from operating as a solopreneur and become a full-fledged entrepreneur. She began by researching possible niches.
"I discovered that the world is full of new moms who want to lose their baby weight," says Riddle. "But not everyone can afford a personal trainer." With this discovery, Riddle's mind worked overtime, asking "how can I create a system to help them and to make money in my sleep?"
The result is a product she calls New Mommy Makeover, a post natal DVD system that took most of Riddle's savings to create. But it was money well-spent. In 2011 New Mommy Makeover was recognized by sheknows.com as the best post-natal DVD system on the market and Riddle's product took off. She is now generating a satisfying income from her combined offerings, which include her DVD system, personal training sessions, and nutritional product sales.
"By adding less expensive, group related programs and information products to your business model you will meet the masses, rather than individual clients, and your revenues will increase accordingly," Duret advises.
"One of the ways to develop products is to simply reproduce one or more of the services you are currently offering," she says. "For instance, create a group program or an event, record the informational pieces and use them to create an audio or video product."
Duret emphasizes that research is important: "Be sure to ask your clients and prospects what they need and want and do something that sets you apart from the competition."
Consider these additional options to expand your visibility, customer base, and bottom line. Be creative! Think outside of your niche and never limit the possibilities.
  • Write an eBook or self-publish your book. This will give you credibility and become a platform for other tangible products that you are going to develop.
  • Bring in other service providers to do the work. These providers will become a revenue source immediately. They may pay rent, expand your types of service to attract a more diverse client base, or commit to bringing in a specific number of clients each month.
  • Offer a compatible product line. Colleen Riddle chose a nutrition product, what options are available to you?
  • Research additional niches. Is there an opportunity to extend your products and services to a whole new demographic?
After reading this article, you may Google this topic to make more research. there are thousands of materials on this topic alone. Hope you have been Inspired. Don't forget to share with a friend.

How to Succeed Against the Odds

How to Succeed Against the Odds

Struggling against difficult odds in business? Consider this wisdom from an Inc. 500 entrepreneur who came through a life-threatening illness.
rabbit and turtle

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monte lee-wen
 
As a coach, I help entrepreneurs through the issues that keep them from their dreams. For the most part I see these individuals as driven, passionate, unstoppable human beings. But after my recent discussion with one entrepreneur, the bar has definitely been raised.
Monte Lee-Wen entered the United States from Canada with few resources and little money. But he had a dream, and that was enough to keep him going. It wasn’t long after coming to the United States that Monte built his commercial real estate company, growing from four employees working out of his home, to more than eighty employees occupying an impressive office building in Austin, Texas—all self-funded! He even made the Inc. 500 list in 2009 for revenue growth of 670.3 percent in the previous year. He then went on to make the Inc. 500 list in 2010, moving up to the 20th fastest growing company in all of Austin. Outstanding results for any business person, but what I find particularly amazing is that this young entrepreneur achieved all of this against some very significant odds.
Now 35, Monte was just 28 years of age when he established The PPA Group, a commercial real estate investment company. He maintained his company’s growth during the downturn in our economy while most commercial real estate companies were crumbling. And, as if that wasn’t challenging enough, Monte achieved all of this while battling a life-threatening illness. In fact, he suffered a temporary loss of his voice during surgery and proceeded to close the biggest deal of his career without being able to utter a single syllable aloud. Today, after months of rehabilitation to recover his ability to speak, Monte’s voice is strong, and he has a message to share.
“I was the least likely to succeed in my peer group and extended family,” says Monte. “But I refused to allow my problems, adversity, and health issues define me.” Monte came into this world with a rough start and from it he built an undeniable mental toughness. “I was fortunate to learn from an early age what it means to have mental fortitude and it made me tough all around,” he says. But Monte believes that not everyone has to suffer to attain the fortitude to build upon their dreams.
“I believe in strong leadership,” Monte says. “Every entrepreneur must learn to become an effective leader. If you don’t grow as a person, your business won’t grow either. Remember that your business grows in direct proportion to your own personal and professional growth.” Monte devotes a good portion of his time attending workshops and seminars, as well as reading relevant books and publications. Networking is key to his success. “Meet new people,” he says. “You can’t run with the giants and stay small. I wouldn’t have made it without growing myself continually through learning and meeting new people.”
I spoke with Monte about facing adversity, his journey down the road to good health, and succeeding in business—despite the odds. The pieces of information garnered from that conversation are the gems that I share here with you today. Monte Lee-Wen’s philosophies and guidelines to life and business success:

Always look at the big picture in the economy and in your industry. What may be coming down the pike that will affect your industry? What indicators in economy could trickle down into what you’re doing? Take note of these possibilities and plan and prepare ahead.

 Make sure not get bogged down. It’s important to create efficiencies, processes, and systems to get and keep yourself out of the rut. Don’t ever be afraid to take a step back to do this. Things may pile up in the short term but if you find solutions and work on the problem by building efficiencies into your business you will have the time to dedicate to other, more critical initiatives. Entrepreneurs who get bogged down in the daily requirements of their business often believe that there isn’t a solution. There are always solutions ; the real problem is that you don’t want to take the time to fix the problem. Stop. Fix it. Execute the solution. There may be a little bit of pain at first but will provide for long term success.

 Don’t work on the day-to-day, month-to-month, or even year-to-year. If you want to be viable you can’t afford to think only of the short term. Have a long-term strategy and vision and build contingencies for the “what ifs”. Dedicate money in your budget toward initiatives that will work toward long term strategies. Pay attention to the big picture; don’t get blindsided.

 After any setback, always review the circumstances and look for lessons. Ask yourself, and your team, a series of questions to gain perspective. Learn from failures, fail your way into success. Ask questions like, What did we do right? What did we do wrong? How could we have done it differently? After you identify the critical components put the exercise away, learn from the experience, get over the challenge and move forward.

 Take calculated risks. Evaluate your decisions by looking at the cost vs. benefit. Make sure that your assumptions are grounded in reality and fact. Look at rewards and benefits; surround yourself with the right people to get the job done. Plan ahead and keep your risks in check mitigating them along the way. Don't get paralyzed in the analysis; be decisive. Do this and the probability of success goes up dramatically.

 Trust yourself and apply a strong work ethic. More than you realize is within your control when you believe in yourself and work hard. Trust is a big factor in the decision- making process, as is your willingness to take risk. It’s also important to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you; people you can trust.

 Create multiple revenue streams to build a strong revenue model. Look at larger, more successful companies in your industry. Evaluate how those organizations would succeed if and when anything changes in the economic environment. What fuels their growth? Study their revenue models and, if you find a stable one, improve upon it and build your own.

 Perform due diligence in hiring employees. Interview your candidates thoroughly, check references, spend time getting to know them on a personal level. Also ask your team for input. Before considering anyone for partnership, make sure they prove themselves and always have an out.

 Be cautious about partnerships. People often bring in partners because they don’t trust themselves to do it on their own. Once you bring in a partner you’ve created a marriage in a sense. Be careful because this is hard to undo. Protect yourself legally and never give away too much when your bring people on board. Also, be very careful about creating partnerships with family and close friends - these often do not work very well. Only introduce a partner into the picture if you have to and never conduct business on a handshake; avoid ambiguity in these business relationships; ambiguity will cause conflict down the road.
“Starting a business is a scary thing,” Monte concedes. “It takes a lot of faith in one’s self. I see too many people questioning their abilities; they didn’t finish college, don’t feel smart enough, and so on. But none of that really matters. If you come up with an idea that you find value in and can take to market, just believe in yourself and do it. There are so many things that people will spend money on. Remember: just because you may have experienced disadvantages or a disability doesn’t mean that you can’t get past them. I believe that I am living proof that it doesn’t matter where you come from, just as long as you can believe in yourself and are willing to put in the necessary time and effort to succeed. “
I hope you have been inspired by this article. feel free to comment and share with a friend.

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Web tools

7 Web Tools Every Start-Up Needs

Whether you're just starting up or need a way to manage existing operations, these tools have you covered.
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My inbox is constantly cluttered with announcements about the latest newfangled Website that will change how we all do business. Some of them, like the inbox fixers I wrote about in my recent magazine column, really do help.
But there are a bevy of sites that have stood the test of time and gained a foothold with many entrepreneurs. If you just started a company, or you are looking to beef up your arsenal of sites to help with daily operations, these seven tools deserve a look.
1. ZenDesk
This customer service engine seems to pop up everywhere, which makes sense: It's used by about 20,000 companies and 65 million users. You can integrate the service into your own site, so when a customer has a complaint and support issue, you can track the ticket. Best part: The service works through multiple channels like Facebook, Twitter, and on mobile devices.
2. FreshBooks
I'm a big fan of FreshBooks because it seems to understand how real businesses work. Instead of offering a cheaper alternative to QuickBooks Online, this service includes features small businesses need, like a way to generate an estimate on services (branded with your logo). Then, when you send out the estimate, the customer can go to Freshbooks and approve (or request changes to) the estimate.
3. MailChimp
MailChimp is more than just a way to send out an email newsletter. You can import your contacts and create email marketing campaigns, but the real power is in tracking your success. For example, you can see who has opened your newsletters, and then decide to target those customers for a more aggressive campaign. The service also integrates with business dashboards like GeckoBoard that offer a snapshot of your campaign's performance, including details such as how many people left your newsletter unopened.
4. Google Analytics
Still using a simple hit counter your ISP loaded for you automatically? That can tell you a simple count for visits, but Google Analytics goes much further. You can find out how long people are staying on your site (that measures engagement) and see which pages are getting the most traction.
5. Sprout Social
Most small companies understand how important it is to "Tweet" their own horns about company services and major news. Sprout Social makes this much easier. In a previous column, I wrote about how the service won me over because I could see a history of my Twitter success and send tweets to multiple accounts at the same time.
6. Shopify
Even if you do not sell a physical product, you might consider offering something to customers anyway, even if it is just a branded T-shirt or a coffee mug. (Note to the dissenters: Homestar Runner, a online gaming and cartoon site, still makes most of its money from selling T-shirts and other gear.) Shopify is one of the best e-commerce options and integrates with many other Web services.
7. GeckoBoard
I mentioned how MailChimp integrates into GeckoBoard. Well, Geckoboard (and similar dashboards like GoSquared) is valuable in its own right. It's a business dashboard that shows site traffic levels, Salesforce success, MailChimp campaigns, and many other data metrics. You can run the site in a tab and see, at a glance, how your entire company is doing. (By the way, I'm also keeping my eye on Domo, another business intelligence tool that is geared for bigger companies but might work for start-ups.

Web Tool

Apple Unveils the iPad Mini

The highly anticipated pint-sized version of the iPad has arrived: It's smaller, lighter, faster--and cheaper.
iPad mini
Courtesy of Apple
 

Apple just announced several huge new products and one very thin, 7.9-inch tablet.
At a media-only event in San Jose, the Cupertino-based tech company announced an ultra-thin iMac desktop, a new MacBook that's a bit cheaper than its predecessor, and a more powerful Mac Mini. Apple also updated the iPad with a faster processor and a new screen. But the big news is the iPad Mini, which measures just .28-inches thin and weighs only .68 pounds. The most important spec? For cash-strapped entrepreneurs trying to stay current with technology, the iPad Mini costs only $329, about N51,000 using N155 to a USD.

The Other Notable Launches
First, the bigger computing products. The iMac is an ideal all-in-one computer for people who do not want to bother with a notebook they can lose or damage while away from work. The new model is 80% thinner than previous iMacs, or not that much wider than the iPhone 5. There's a 21.5-inch for $1300 (out in November) and a 27-inch model for $1800 (out in December).
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro comes in two versions, one with an Intel Core i5 processor for $1,699 and an Intel Core i7 version for $1,999. The cheaper model has 8GB of RAM and a 128GB drive. The big news is the retina display, which runs at a super-crisp 2560×1600. For businesses that do fine detail work editing photos and videos, or work in Adobe Illustrator and need precise artistic viewing, the new MacBook pro is a bit more affordable. I think the 13-inch MacBook Air for $1,199 is a better buy.
A new Mac Mini gets a refresh with the latest i5 and i7 processors as well, with the i5 starting at just $600 with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB drive. That's a good starting point for a corporate desktop unit you can dole out to employees, who will probably not complain too much about the speed. At the same time, I prefer the Google Chromebox at just $329 for lightning speed and low IT maintenance.

What Everyone Was Waiting For
The big news is for the new, small tablet. The iPad Mini costs just $329 for the 16GB model, which is about $170 cheaper than the iPad but still about $130 more than the Kindle Fire HD.
The new iPad Mini is decked out with all the features you'd expect from the bigger iPad: a 5-megapixel camera, an A6 processor, 10 hours of battery life, and arguably more portability. The tough part is making a decision about rolling out a tablet to employees. The new 7.9-inch model has a clear advantage in being so light and thin. Apple says it is thinner than a pencil, and weighs the same as a paper notepad. The issue for some could be handling. A small, thin tablet might be harder to grip. As technology advances, gadgets have become thinner and smaller, but they might also be easier to drop and more of a magnet for fingerprints, since there is more screen and less bezel.
Then there is a decision about the competition. The Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire are similar in size and speed, but they cost about $130 less. What you gain with the iPad Mini is an ecosystem: Many of the best apps debut on the iPad and iPhone first, following the market share. A few features on the iPad work more reliably than they do on Android tablets, which are a bit more crash-prone.
Will you buy an iPad Mini? Post in comments to let us know.

Monday 22 October 2012

4 Secrets to Get Inside Your Customers' Heads
"Extreme research" can help you build products customers love. Here's how one company does it.

Would you shoot yourself with a laser to make a better product? Researchers at the design firm Continuum have--to test the effect of a treatment for toe fungus. They've also rappelled down the side of a building, ridden in milk trucks in Bangalore, and performed operations on cadavers, all in pursuit of one thing--empathy with a product's customers.
That empathy is what leads to better, more compelling products, explains Anthony Pannozzo, managing principal, Research & Innovation at Continuum. "What's the experience someone is having on a day-to-day basis?" he asks. "We look at what the best experience could be, whether it's digital, or a physical product, or a combination of the two."
To get to the heart of user experience, Continuum researchers use four extreme research tools. Try them  yourself to get a better idea of how customers interact with your products:

1. Use technology to get an inside look.
When Continuum set out to help Tetra Pak improve its juice boxes, researchers wondered, How do people drink juice? "It's an odd question because people don't really think about how they drink juice," Pannozzo says. The company turned to technology to find out, designing a special prototype bottle with a camera in the bottom of it to observe what juice drinkers actually do.
"One of the most surprising things we learned was that in India, there's often sharing of beverages, and the actual lip of the dispenser never touches the person's mouth," he says. Instead, people there tip back their heads and pour the beverage into their mouths from above. Armed with this knowledge, Tetra was able to provide a slightly different container for that market.

2. Try it yourself.
One of the best ways to tell how consumers use a product is to use it yourself. So to help create the first hands-free disposable insulin pump, Continuum researchers went through a diabetic's routine, injecting themselves with harmless saline solution daily to see what the experience was like and experiment with different gauges of needles.
"We found out what it was like to switch to the other arm because one arm was too sore," Pannozzo says. "We learned how painful it can be to hit muscle." They never could have learned these things as well by simply observing diabetics, he adds.

3. Build a life-size prototype.
One problem with architecture, Pannozzo says, is that its prototypes for buildings are small enough to fit on a coffee table. Instead, he believes in building life-size prototypes and seeing how people actually use them.
This approach helped Hilton Garden Inns redesign their lobbies with cafes that help the company capture some missed revenue opportunities when guests would go to a nearby cafe or restaurant for meals or meetings. "A lot of people might think prototyping a 4,000-square-foot hotel lobby was daunting. We rented an airline hangar and were able to recreate that experience using foam," Pannozzo says.
Using what Continuum had learned, Hilton knew to design cafes with plenty of space between tables, allowing for private conversations, and with good sight lines to the hotels' playgrounds so that parents can easily keep watch on their kids.

4. Head to the field.
Sometimes the best way to learn about customer behavior is to go where customers are. That's the approach Continuum used when Procter & Gamble asked the company to help design a new cleaning product.
P&G thought of cleaning products as something you put in a bottle, but Continuum went out to people's homes to observe their cleaning routines up close. They found people prided themselves on having a clean floor, but that cleaning the floor was a dirty, time-consuming job that involved a lot of getting down on hands and knees.

Cybersecurity: 3 Steps Every Business Must Take

C'mon; you know this stuff is important. Don't wait until you're hacked before you try to protect your company.

It's fitting that October--the month when ghouls and goblins hide behind masks and play their tricks on unwitting victims--is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It's time to step back and assess the risks you face at the hands of villains in cyberspace.
Turns out, the risks are immense. This year alone, giants in the tech, banking, and defense sectors have been hacked and lost confidential customer data and top-secret information at the hands of cybercriminals.
What You Need to Know
According to research by the National Cyber Security Alliance, two in three small businesses say their operations are dependent on the Internet daily; meanwhile, more than three-quarters do not have a formal written security policy for employees, nearly half of owners surveyed don't provide Internet safety training, and only half completely wipe their machines of data before disposal. And now, the convenience of doing business on mobile phones only adds to the risk.
From where I'm sitting in the heart of Silicon Valley, the idea of a central office is a relic of the past. Employees work from home, planes, and remote locations all over the world. Yet there are plenty of CEOs out there with remote and mobile teams who aren't aware of the growing threats they face. Because I own a security company, I'd encourage executives to educate their work force about the many risks that go along with working remotely.
In a recent CTIA MobileCon in San Diego, where executives from multibillion-dollar companies such as Symantec and IBM presented on the importance for employees to secure their mobile devices and communications. The challenge is that employees now have both personal and corporate apps on their devices, making it critically important for IT departments to be able to lock down or erase corporate information should a smartphone be lost or infected by malware. Mobile is the future, and thus protecting smartphones and tablets is extremely important for corporations and individuals.
If you don't know where to start, here are a few ideas:

Tech up
Make sure you have the latest technology on your computers and smartphones to proactively protect your apps, browsing, and identity online. Ensure that both your personal and corporate data are protected by using strong and up-to-date security tools, making yourself anonymous when you browse, and locking down Wi-Fi networks with a personal VPN. Whenever possible, protect your Web communications by conducting your business over HTTP(S) and using the latest malware protection technologies.

Lock down
Educate your employees about the importance of ensuring all data is under lock and key. Most people have antivirus protection on their devices, but what about the valuable information exchanged online that isn't protected by antivirus? From creating strong passwords and changing them often to using encryption tools that secure every webpage your employees visit, education and awareness are key.

Speak up
This month, devote a few extra minutes to helping others--your families, friends, and teams--understand how to stay private and secure online. See one of your team members surfing the Web without using a firewall or antivirus? Recommend your favorite one. Got a friend who's logging on to a free, unsecured hot spot to check his account balance? Remind him that can probably wait until later. We as a whole online community can spread awareness of cybersecurity. Do your part to take a stand against the bad guys.

The Golf Swing Theory of Making Decisions: 3 Rules

Before you roll your eyes, check out these three simple rules, which were inspired by golf swing mechanics.


Success in business comes down to just one thing: making the right decisions.
Think about it. Making decisions is what you do all day, every day.
Do I hire this person or not? What's the right pricing structure for this product? Should I choose this supplier or that one? These and a thousand other decisions--from the seemingly mundane to the monumental--are the very fabric of your daily life as a manager or leader.
Get the majority of those decisions right, and you win. Get the majority (or even a crucial minority) of them wrong, and you lose.
So important is effective decision-making that you would think by now we would have developed a standardized way of making business decisions. And yet, after two millennia of what we might view as the modern era of organizational design, we don't even share a common vocabulary around the decision-making process.
That's not to say there isn't an enormous body of literature on the topic. There are in fact, as you may have noticed, so many decision-making books, classes, courses and models that making a decision about how to make decisions is, well, hard to do. So, in the spirit of not adding to that voluminous body of work, let me be succinct and share with you the simple subliminal pattern which every highly effective leader uses to make high-quality decisions.

Investigation
Effective decision-making is a relatively simple three-part process, and investigation is the first part. Think of it as the backswing of a golf swing--we'll see the other two parts shortly.
Investigation means making this simple commitment: we will take time to identify and understand the underlying data we need to make an effective decision.
What this means in practice will vary, of course. We might uncover all we need to know about a simple issue in 90 seconds or less by simply asking one or two questions, whereas gathering the information needed to decide about opening a new plant or launching a new product might be a major months-long project involving multiple teams of people.
Of course, the secret is in getting the balance right. Most of us are either too cavalier (rushing into a decision without really taking the time to gather and understand all the underlying information) or too risk-averse (edging toward "paralysis by analysis").

Interpretation
If investigation is like the back swing, the second part, interpretation, is the equivalent of the club hitting the ball: it's the point of impact. The point when we take the information we gathered and analyzed in part one and use it to make an actual decision.
Again, this step will vary from decision to decision. A water-cooler discussion about whether or not someone can have next Friday off may move seamlessly through investigation ("Is there anyone in that day who can cover for you?") to decision ("OK, then, sure") in a nanosecond; whereas interpreting all the information gathered to back up that new plant decision might take weeks or months.
Again, the key is in getting the balance right. Great leaders match the interpretation time to the size of the issue, whereas micromanagers grind over every decision, large or small, and cavalier leaders get bored easily and too often press for quick decisions.

Implementation
Finally the third, and co-equally important part, the follow-through: implementation. As many of us experience regularly with New Year's Resolutions, making a great decision isn't enough--you have to actually implement it.
This may seem a no-brainer, but think about it: how many perfectly good decisions or initiatives have you seen made in the last year, but not followed through on properly?
Except in the smallest of organizations (where there is nowhere to hide and therefore transparency and accountability is inherently high), a frighteningly large percentage of otherwise excellent decisions are never fully implemented.
There's no mystery to this three-part decision-making process. As you can see, it's a simple, natural rhythm we all subliminally work through when we're faced with any decision, large or small. The trick is in recognizing which of the three we're least good at, and disciplining ourselves to work harder at those areas.

8 Common & Costly Website Mistakes You Don't Want to Make

Don't bother to have a website if you're making these obvious, fundamental errors.

When you design or redesign your website, don't overlook the basics. Educate yourself and ask a lot all the questions you're entitled to.
To get you started, here's a checklist of common website mistakes:

1. Your site doesn't look right on phones.
Mobile now accounts for 12% of global internet traffic and it's scaling faster than the desktop did. If your website is not mobile-enabled, you're going to miss out on a growing population of users. You can perform a simple test of your website's mobile-friendliness at Google's GoMo site.

2. It has too much Flash.
Flash is really cool for visuals, but it doesn't work well with search or Apple devices. So if you're the kind of business that relies on search to be found, or if iPhone and iPad hipsters are your target audience, don't be MIA with a Flash-heavy website.

3. You've over-optimized it for search.
It may be a natural impulse to load up your website with keywords and keyword hyperlinks, but what you'll probably create is an SEO nightmare. But if it looks like overkill to you, it's probably overkill to a search engine spider, too.


4. Your content is boring.
You don't want too much flat, dull, uninformative text. Try to include a lot of images, graphs, videos, polls, downloads, or other forms of interactivity so your visitors have a reason to stick around. Here are some ideas.

5. You forgot a 'call to action.'
If you're paying someone to market your website and attract visitors, be sure to ask those visitors to do the thing you want them to do. I'm talking about: "Call now," "Request a quote," or "Complete this survey."

6. You left off or buried your contact information.
How many times do you visit a website and want to call the company, only to find the only option you have is to complete a form. Do you become suspicious of the company's legitimacy or interest in helping you? Make all contact information--including social media icons--readily and repeatedly accessible. I recommend putting these details "above the fold" and present on every page of your site.

7. You skipped social media content or tools.
These days, if you're not pulling in some aspect of social media--Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos--into your website, or giving users an easy option to disseminate your content onto these networks, you'll look like you're living in the Dark Ages.

8. You didn't register in local search directories.
If you do the majority of your business locally and you're not taking advantage of free listings in important go-to local resource directories like Google+ Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp, or others, you'll have to pay for better visibility through advertising.

6 Infallible Ways to Earn Respect

There's no management tool more important than respect. Here's how to make sure you're getting it.

Business may be all about money, but the "currency" that's traded inside every organization is respect.
If you command respect, people listen when you talk and take action when asked. If you don't command respect, well..., everyone's just laughing behind your back.
Contrary to popular belief, a fancy job title never commands respect. In fact, there are six, and only six, ways to earn respect:

1. Be Authentic
People will not respect you when they know you're pretending to be somebody or something you're not. Human beings have a natural ability to detect fakery and see fakers as untrustworthy, insecure, and ultimately insignificant.  On the other hand, humans are always drawn to individuals who truly are what they seem to be. Being yourself (and at your best) is therefore the foundation for earning respect.

2. Be Curious
If you're truly curious about other people, you listen, truly listen, to what they have to say. When people realize that they're really being heard, they'll tell you what's really important (to them) about their jobs, their dreams, their fears, their goals. That knowledge not just gives you perspective into how to do your own job better but also helps you see how you can best help others.

3. Be Discrete
Workplaces are hotbeds of petty gossip, not just about work but also people's personal lives. While it's easy to use gossip to work office politics, nobody respects somebody who can't keep a secret. When people realize you can safely be told anything in confidence, you'll become the one person everyone seeks out when they really need some perspective and advice.

4. Be Unique
People respect expertise, especially if when it's hard to find. Pick a segment of your business or industry that's relevant and essential. Make it your avocation and hobby to learn everything you can about that subject matter.  Learn more on a daily basis; make it part of your routine. When you become the "resident expert," everyone will depend upon you when they need solid inputs and good decisions.

5. Be Helpful
People respect contributors, disrespect lay-abouts and despise narcissists. Being a contributor means making your primary goal to help others to achieve their goals. It means making every job and project a form of service--to customers, to co-workers, to employees and to bosses. Remember: the degree to which you can help others is always the degree to which you're valued and respected.

6. Set Boundaries
Nobody respects a pushover, so earning respect also means setting limits. If you're given an impossible task, explain up front what CAN be accomplished and commit to accomplish that and no more. If someone becomes dependent upon your constant help and reassurance, wean them away by defining exactly how much you're capable of giving. The stronger your boundaries, the more respect you'll earn.

Which Comes First, Work or Passion?

Think passion precedes hard work when it comes to building a successful career? It might not be so simple.

The claim that finding your passion is the key to a happy and successful work life is so often repeated that the idea has attained the status of annoying old saw (and inspired plenty of impassioned rebuttals). But a couple of recent opinion pieces by career experts suggest that the standard wisdom on work and passion isn't so much dead wrong as totally backwards.
You don't find your passion and then work. Instead, you work--and then find your passion.
That's the gist of computer science professor Cal Newport's recent piece for The New York Times anyway. In it, Newport tells how, during his senior year of college, he had to choose between three possible life trajectories. His first impulse, as per the standard advice on these occasions, was to look for his passion. Was there a rumbling in his gut that showed him one of these paths was the one he was destined for and to which he would give his impassioned all?
There was not. But that's fine, writes Newport. Instead of listening for passion to lead us to work, we should let work build us a passion. He explains:
As I considered my options during my senior year of college, I knew all about this Cult of Passion and its demands. But I chose to ignore it. The alternative career philosophy that drove me is based on this simple premise: The traits that lead people to love their work are general and have little to do with a job's specifics. These traits include a sense of autonomy and the feeling that you’re good at what you do and are having an impact on the world. Decades of research on workplace motivation back this up. (Daniel Pink's book "Drive" offers a nice summary of this literature.)
These traits can be found in many jobs, but they have to be earned. Building valuable skills is hard and takes time…. Today, I'm a computer science professor at Georgetown University, and I love my job. The most important lesson I can draw from my experience is that this love has nothing to do with figuring out at an early age that I was meant to be a professor. There's nothing special about my choosing this particular path. What mattered is what I did once I made my choice.
This advice may befuddle generations of guidance counselors with their insistence that love should precede career choices rather than follow them, but Newport isn't the only person challenging the passion orthodoxy. Founder Kent Healy recently said something similar on the Young Entrepreneur Counsel blog.
Addressing the great many people who despair early in their careers that they're unsure about their passion, Healy writes:
Passion is one very important element (of many) that produces extraordinary results.
What frustrates me is that the process to attaining this "transformational" passion is often overlooked or described as though the gods endow it….
It's time to stop searching and start doing. And no, they are not the same thing.
Searching for your passion is not proactive; it’s actually quite passive, because embedded in the pursuit is the erroneous belief that when seen, it will be immediately recognized. The reality is that a lifelong passion is most often revealed through working passionately on something you have immediate access to.
He concludes, like Newport, that "before passionate (and successful) people find their true life's passion, they are passionate about doing great work--whatever that work entails. On but rare occasions is the subject matter alone the cause or origin of passion."
Waiting around hoping your passion will dawn on you not only can make you miserable, it's also often an excuse for not putting in the hard work to achieve extraordinary things--and with them, find your passion.

How would you advise a young person who is worried that they haven't yet found their passion?

5 Ways to Get People to Actually Listen to You


You may be a fact- and logic-driven leader, but others don't think like you do. Learn to get your point across through emotional connection.

Have you ever stood before an audience, uncertain whether you are truly connecting with them? Or, have you spoken to an employee who appears to be getting the message--but whose actions later tell another story?
To you, it's simple: Communicate your thoughts and the facts quickly and concisely and anyone will understand.
Not true. Facts and statistics may tell a story, but if you truly want to effect change and influence the way your audience thinks and feels, you will have to go beyond straightforward communications. The key to really getting people to listen--and act: Touch them on an emotional level.
Author Helio Fred Garcia, who is executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, reminds us that members of a typical audience don't think like leaders do. According to Garcia, your audience must be able to feel and experience your communications, or you simply won't have the impact that you set out to achieve.
"Humans are wired to connect with each other," says Garcia. "And we connect with one another by feeling, not thinking."
Why? Because of the structures in the brain that allow people to experience someone else's plight as if it were their own. These structures, called mirror neurons, are also referred to as empathy neurons.
"Emotion is now increasingly recognized as the key to moving hearts and minds," says Garcia. "All too often leaders assume that facts matter," he says. "That if only we let the facts speak for themselves, people will understand and agree with us."
In his latest book, The Power of Communication, Garcia notes that when leaders know they are not actually connecting they tend to double down and push more data and facts instead of trying a new approach. That's where things get really toxic. Here are five strategies Garcia says can help you stop reciting facts--and start making a true connection.

1. Keep your mouth shut--for a couple of moments.
Don't say anything substantive until you have an audience connection. Note that their first impression is visual, not verbal. You, the speaker, whether you are in front of a large group or a single employee, prospective investor, or prospect, have to be in complete command. You can gain that command by the way you carry yourself, before you even open your mouth. The body speaks before the mouth is open. Avoid rocking, looking down, and fidgeting. Stand and walk with confidence.

2. Get your audience engaged.
Get the eyeballs looking up before you say anything. Move with quiet confidence and smile, inviting people to look up and pay attention. Invite your audience to engage on the emotional level by offering a warm greeting. You might even ask them a question that prompts a response. It can be simple, as in: "How is everybody doing today?"

3. Grab their attention to make it memorable.
People remember the very first substantive that you say. Once you have their attention, jump right in to the most important thing you have to say. This powerful beginning will stick with your audience, creating the impact you're looking for.

4. Use verbal cues.
Use attention-provoking signals when you move from one part of the speech to the next. For instance, you might verbally number your key points or use other verbal signals like "Let's move on" or "My next topic is..."  Always give the audience verbal cues to look up at you.

5. Recap what matters.
Take all of the substantive points from your talk and group them all together at the very end of the presentation. Remember your provoking signal and say something like, "In summary," then recap everything from your presentation that matters the most.
"In summary," your audience must be able to feel and experience your communications, or you simply won't have the impact that you set out to achieve.