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You’re sitting there at your desk with a pit in your stomach. You know you really blew it–and your boss does, too. Maybe you forgot to follow up with an important client and they chose someone else’s proposal. Maybe you didn’t prepare the right documents in time for a super-important meeting. Or a careless typo you made on a spreadsheet or purchase order led to an expensive mistake. Whatever it is, your boss isn’t happy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you don’t need to start job-searching. In fact, there are a few simple steps you can take right away to rebuild the trust you’ve lost–as quickly as humanly possible. Here’s what to do and when to do it.
Via The Learning Factor
Successful entrepreneurs have a lot of things in common; one is knowing how to make the best use of their time. When the clock is ticking and they are under pressure to deliver, many have a favourite productivity hack to ensure things get done on time. Here, seven entrepreneurs share their tried and tested ways of being more productive. Create artificial deadlines Business expert and author of The Startup Coach Carl Reader uses a clever technique of creating artificial deadlines to guarantee a productive finish. “One of my favourite tricks is the ‘train journey to nowhere,” he said. “I book a return train ticket, don't take my mobile phone, and set a completion target for the journey. With a clear deadline and no distractions, I find that I often produce more than I would in the office in a whole day. It's great if you can tie this around meetings that you need to travel to, but if not, the productivity boost is well worth the cost of a train ticket.”
Via The Learning Factor
When you’re pitching investors, you need a great product and a great story–that much is a given. But those aren’t the only things venture capitalists are looking for. Just as emotional intelligence (EQ, or EI) has steadily crept to the fore in hiring, it’s also “a critical part in the process that we go through when deciding whether or not to invest in a company,” says Janet Bannister, general partner at Real Ventures. As Bannister sees it, “A leader with strong EQ can hire people to complement their skill set and cover for areas where they are weak. However, someone low in EQ will never be able to attract, retain, and motivate high performers–and therefore will have huge difficulties in scaling a company.” She isn’t the only VC who’s thinking this way about sizing up founders’ emotional intelligence. Here are a few key questions that seven other investors like Bannister typically ask to assess entrepreneurs who pitch them for funding.
Via The Learning Factor
More people are working for themselves than ever before, but that doesn't mean the new ranks of gig workers, so-called "solopreneurs," and everybody in between are finally freed from experiencing the corporate world—far from it. The clients that independent workers take on inevitably put them (back) into contact with work cultures, expectations, and financial pitfalls that many had hoped self-employment would mean a clean break with. And that's true not just of the businesses independents contract with but also of the third-party platforms that match both parties up. Here's a look at how to navigate that dynamic and some of the risks it contains.
Via The Learning Factor
Here's an experiment: Name five iconic entrepreneurs. Actually, don't bother, because we can pretty much predict your answer. Every year, we ask the Inc. 500 honorees to name the entrepreneurs they most admire. The answers: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, and Bill Gates. We've also seen Mark Zuckerberg and Tony Hsieh. The list varies a bit each year, but one constant remains: They're all men. That may not seem like much of a problem. After all, the entire country, and in many cases much of the world, has benefited from the contributions of these men: the jobs they've created, the technologies they've built, the instant access to European footwear. So what does it matter if they're all sporting a Y chromosome?
Via The Learning Factor
You are a twentysomething entrepreneur ready to launch a new business and your emotions are running wild. You're frightened, intimated, and stressed, but at the same time you're enthusiastic and confident about what the future holds. At this point, it's time to step back and listen to those who have been in the same situation. It would be a foolish mistake and a missed opportunity not to value the advice, experience, and knowledge a mentor can offer. Put your ego aside; be a sponge and soak up as much wisdom as possible. I was in this exact position prior to launching SDC Nutrition Inc. I was confident and probably a little too self-assured, but I knew I had to set aside my ego to listen and absorb as much invaluable advice as possible from my advisers.
Via The Learning Factor
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Let’s not waste any time. The simple solution that we’re all looking for: It doesn’t exist. Want your business to thrive like Amazon’s? Want to emulate Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? Follow the road map of Nike or Warby Parker to build the next brand that matters? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. What succeeded for them may not work for you. Too bad. Get over it. One-size-fits-all strategies just aren’t effective in today’s age of flux (and maybe they never were). That’s one of the insightful messages in senior writer Austin Carr’s feature The Future of Retail in the Age of Amazon. It’s become common practice to refer to billion-dollar startups as “unicorns,” but there is no more one-of-a-kind business than Amazon: hard-driving, customer-focused, yet broadly directed, from books and groceries to entertainment, consumer electronics, and web services. Carr explains that competing with Amazon today–trying to beat it at its own game–is largely a fool’s errand. Instead, what increasingly defines retail success, and points the way toward the businesses of tomorrow, is a bespoke model, one that is crafted to deliver on a focused need, proposition, or brand essence.
Via The Learning Factor
While clear-cut introverts and extroverts may be few and far between–with most people falling somewhere on the “ambiversion” spectrum–there is such a thing as an “entrepreneurial personality,” broadly speaking. That doesn’t mean all successful entrepreneurs are the same, of course. But for all the personality traits they don’t have in common, there are a few core characteristics successful founders share–and some of those traits are more obvious than others. After all, whenever you read about or personally encounter a successful entrepreneur, you’re observing only the surface of where they are in the present moment. These are some of the more decisive internal qualities that drive founders’ success, no matter which qualities they outwardly project.
Via The Learning Factor
As entrepreneurs, we often work late into the night, only to roll out of bed the next morning, picking up where we left off. One day bleeds into the next, making it seem as if we're always doing, doing, doing and searching for new and novel ways to do more. The truth is, your desire to do more and get more done will lead you not toward greater productivity, but toward burnout, if you don't take time each day to check in with yourself, and set your intention for how you want your day to proceed. Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, "If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe." There is no evidence to suggest that Lincoln actually said this, but the point is not lost on us. How we prepare to do the task before us determines our success.
Via The Learning Factor
A few days ago, I shared my thoughts on what billionaire entrepreneurs do to stay productive in their spare time. What I didn't know is that there's a recent productivity trend on the rise. A number of successful leaders and entrepreneurs, I have found, are declaring that they are most productive while the majority of us are still under the covers in a deep sleep. The 4 a.m. productivity shift A new report published in the Wall Street Journal says that 4 a.m. may be the most productive time of the day. The reasons behind the increased productivity at such an ungodly hour include: Minimal distractions (like kids or work) before the sun rises.No one is emailing or texting you.There's less to see on social media. Productivity in this context may not necessarily be work-related. The trend seems to be pointing toward reserving this "sacred time" for things that will energize you and set you up for success the rest of the day -- self-care, exercise, family time, personal growth, and spiritual connection.
Via The Learning Factor
The foundation of Sinek's work is his examination of the why, an exploration of who we are and what inspires or compels us to act. His early experience in advertising and his innate curiosity about the divide between successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns led him to develop his own theory. This theory, which was developed out of his own struggle to comprehend his greater purpose, led him to the answer. “I lost my passion for what I was doing,” he told me. “The reason I was in my malaise was because I knew what I did and how I did it, but I didn’t know why.” Human psychology is complex, and we are driven by competing, even contradictory, impulses of fear, desire, ambition, envy, and the need to connect. Why posits a clearing of the decks, a stripping down that sharpens our focus and helps us achieve a greater self-realization. “It was a tool that explained me,” he says.
Via The Learning Factor
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This step-by-step action plan will help get you out of the doghouse–and on the right track going forward–after a major work screwup.
You’re sitting there at your desk with a pit in your stomach. You know you really blew it–and your boss does, too. Maybe you forgot to follow up with an important client or a careless typo you mistake. Whatever it is, your boss isn’t happy. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you don’t need to start job-searching. In fact, there are a few simple steps you can take right away to rebuild the trust you’ve lost–as quickly as humanly possible. Here’s what to do and when to do it.