Category: Marketing

10 Things People Who Love Their Lives Do Differently

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, finding happiness, cherishing the memories and learning through experience. In this post, I share with you 10 things people who love their lives do differently.

How many people do you know that truly love their lives? Sadly, it’s becoming a rarer thing to witness in today’s world. Many people proclaim to be extremely happy, fulfilled individuals, but feel frustrated and discontent behind closed doors. However, fulfillment isn’t something that can be faked or acted into existence.

What most people don’t realize is that in order to turn your reality into one that you truly love living, you need to learn how to do lots of little things differently. There are many small disciplines, perspective shifts and emotional states that we all have to master before we can awaken to a happier, simpler, more fulfilling life.

Here are 10 things people who love their lives do differently:

1. They Learn To Set Boundaries With Others And Create Possibilities For Themselves

Healthy boundaries define who you are in relation to others. Setting clear expectations about what you accept and tolerate can define how others treat you. It’s important to set these boundaries in order to allow yourself room and freedom to grow as an individual.

Learn to be selective and say no. Turn down requests for your time that are unwanted and unimportant. Set clear boundaries for unacceptable behavior. People often just treat you the way you allow them to treat you. By setting this precedent, you’ll deal with less drama and situations you don’t want to be in.

2. They Don’t Bother Trying To Make Others Like Them 

They like themselves and they are the only people they ever answer to. You could like them. You could hate them. You could even pay them no mind whatsoever. It doesn’t make a difference to them because they don’t care what others think of them.

They do what they do because they decided to do it. They aren’t trying to gain your approval or acceptance. They don’t want to be part of your team because they’re a team of their own. They live their lives the way they see fit and if you like them for it, great. If not, then so be it.

3. They Flow With Life, Not Against It

When everything in life seems to be going wrong, most people panic and start making dramatic changes immediately rashly. Sometimes in life, you have to go with the flow. There will be tough days and really good days. Regardless, you need to stay grounded and no that the next day can be completely different.

4. See Problems As Challenges

The word “problem” is never part of a happy person’s vocabulary. A problem is viewed as a drawback, a struggle or situation that needs to be dealt with. Meanwhile, a challenge is viewed as something positive like an opportunity, a task or something they must accomplish. Whenever you face an obstacle, try looking at it as a challenge.

5. They Eliminate The Excess To Make Room For What’s Important

Our lives are constrained by one overwhelming limitation: time. We only have 24 hours in a day to live our lives. It’s important to take a step back and think about how we fill that time up. If you’re filling that time with unwanted tasks, you’re taking time away from something you might love doing.

A good life isn’t often about having more, it’s about having less. When you eliminate things like unnecessary tasks or toxic people, you’ll find more time for the things that bring you joy into your life.

6. They Love Their Friends But Don’t Rely On Them

Friends are tricky because they aren’t really yours, are they? You don’t own them. They are their own people who have their own wants and needs. They are people who will always put themselves ahead of you and your goals. Friends are great to have, but relying on them too heavily will leave you disappointed.

Those who live happy lives have very close friends, but they keep their independence in order to avoid those moments. It’s the lack of independence and relying heavily on others that often comes to ruin friendships or all relationships for that matter.

7.  They Have Goals

Happy people are always working toward meaningful goals in life. While they care about outcomes, they are more concerned with who they are becoming than where they are going. They never stay stagnant in life and always set expectations for themselves to push towards.

8. They Follow Their Passions

Happy people have the ability to find and pursue their passions in life. They have found a way to tailor their lives in a way that allows them to spend their time doing what they love. They work hard and make sacrifices along the way, but they make sure to spare time to do follow their passions.

9. They Appreciate What They Have

In many ways, happiness is uncovering what you already have. Buried beneath your insecurities, discontentment with life and projections of what “should” be, you can find the inherent happiness within your own being. Take some time each day to be grateful and blessed for all the things you have instead of concerning yourself with what you don’t have.

10. They Live In The Moment 

One of the unhealthiest things people do is living in the past or solely for the future. As mentioned earlier, our time on this planet is limited. There is no better time than the present and you need to enjoy it. It’s great to cherish the past and set goals for the future, but don’t forget to soak in the moment that is now.

Conclusion

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, finding happiness, cherishing the memories and learning through experience. In this post, I shared with you 10 things people who love their lives do differently.

5 Business Topics To Study Closely For Aiding Your Success

While there is no “right” set of characteristics for being a successful entrepreneur, certain general traits and practical skills will help you succeed in the long run. By examining your own personal strengths and weaknesses, you can quickly get a sense of how well this career will fit with your personality. In this post, I share with you 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

What makes someone a successful entrepreneur? It certainly helps to have strong technical skills or expertise in a key area, but these are not the defining characteristics of entrepreneurship. Instead, the key qualities are traits such as creativity, the ability to keep going in the face of hardship and the social skills needed to build great teams.

If you want to start a business, it’s essential to learn the specific skills that underpin these qualities. Most of us aspire to excel at our jobs and grow in our careers. However, in today’s globally competitive landscape where excellent talent is abundant, employees need to develop strong skills that enhance their performance and contribution in the workplace. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee looking to expand your knowledge of the business world, you’ll find something valuable in this post.

Here are 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

1. Sales Skills

Sales is actually the basis of almost all business success. You are always selling, even if your role does not include sales in the job description. You sell during marketing activities, team meetings, customer service, product management, conferences, business development, engineering, user experience and more. A solid foundation in how to sell can give you a wide advantage over your colleagues and competitors.

2. Leadership Traits

The traits of a good leader include role-modeling, vision setting, motivating others, accountability and developing future leaders in the workplace. All organizations want inspirational leaders and most of them develop certain individuals for these roles. However, ultimately it is also up to employees to find situations where they can use their strengths and demonstrate resourcefulness. While there is no substitute for experience, leadership training workshops and seminars are a great way to prepare for success as a future leader.

3. Focus And Discipline

We passed the point of information and communication overload long ago. Even highly focused overachievers who should know better still find that a few tweets, texts and emails later, half the day is gone and all the work remains.

Focus and discipline have always been critical to success in just about any field, but these days, managing distraction have become harder for even the most disciplined among us. Worst of all, that’s not likely to change any time soon. Now, more than ever, you have to learn how to shut out the noise without shutting yourself off from what really matters. That’s not easy to do, but you have to find a way to disconnect from the distractions and lock in on what’s important.

4. Positive Mental Attitude

One crucial quality you need for your career and life is to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals is by developing a positive mental attitude.  A positive mental attitude is very much a decision that you make. Remember, you become what you do. If you engage in activities with a confident, optimistic and positive mindset, it will reflect in the work that you do as well.

5. Interpersonal Skills

The ability to be a team player is so fundamental to your work that there are few better things to focus on. Interpersonal skills are just a fancy way of saying how you get along, relate and communicate with others. Employers hire people with domain expertise, but they also want to hire people that they feel they can get along with.

Conclusion

While there is no “right” set of characteristics for being a successful entrepreneur, certain general traits and practical skills will help you succeed in the long run. By examining your own personal strengths and weaknesses, you can quickly get a sense of how well this career will fit with your personality. In this post, I shared with you 5 business topics to study closely for aiding your success.

The Ultimate Guide For Delivering Perfect Public Speeches

Good communication is never perfect and nobody expects you to be perfect. However, putting in the requisite time to prepare will help you deliver a better speech. You may not be able to shake your nerves entirely, but you can learn to minimize them. In this post, I share with you the ultimate guide for delivering perfect public speeches.

Whether we’re talking in a team meeting or presenting in front of an audience, we all have to speak in public from time to time. We can do this well or things can go horribly wrong and the outcome strongly affects the way that people think about us. This is why public speaking causes so much anxiety and concern.

As panicked as the thought of presenting in front of a group can make us, whether we’re delivering a speech before hundreds, doing a business pitch, attending a job interview, or introducing a report in a meeting, our careers may depend on us doing it well. I’ve been able to master the art of public speaking from delivering speeches at conferences, TEDx, Universities and other events all around the world.

In this post, I will share with you the ultimate guide for delivering perfect public speeches:

1. Practice

Practice is the key to mastering virtually every skill and effective speaking is no exception. A great speech should seem effortless, authentic and often times even spontaneous. There is no way better way to deliver a great speech than to practice it. Rehearse your speech in front of the mirror, family members, friends and others.

2. Plan Appropriately

Make sure that you plan your communication appropriately. Think about how important a book’s first paragraph is; if it doesn’t grab you, you’re likely going to put it down. The same principle goes for your speech. From the beginning, you need to intrigue your audience. Planning also helps you think on your feet. This is especially important for unpredictable questions that may come up and answer sessions.

3. Seek A Clear Direction For Your Speech

Your speech must have a focus point. You won’t get lost in your words if you stay moving towards your destination. That means you’ll have to decide where you are going. What’s the purpose? What do you want your audience to take away? Without a cohesive message, the members of your audience will be twiddling their thumbs, confused, in mid-snooze, or paying attention to something else. Chances are that if they don’t know where you’re going, they’ll stop listening after some point.

4. Engage With Your Audience

When you speak, try to engage your audience. This makes you feel less isolated as a speaker and keeps everyone involved with your message. If appropriate, ask leading questions targeted to individuals or groups and encourage people to participate and ask questions. Pay attention to how you’re speaking. If you’re nervous, you might talk quickly. This increases the chances that you’ll trip over your words or say something you don’t mean. Force yourself to slow down by breathing deeply. Don’t be afraid to gather your thoughts; pauses are an important part of the conversation and they make you sound confident, natural, and authentic.

5. Entertain Their Hearts Out

Good speeches often tell a story and evoke strong emotions. Many great speakers know how to successfully use humor to their advantage. Just think about your favorite comedian. That person is often mindful of who’s in the audience and how to best deliver that well-planned punch line. Speeches don’t always have to be full of jokes, though. However, your speech should take the crowd on an exciting ride and hold its attention. If you can move your audience to tears, that speech will surely be a memorable one.

6. Watch For Feedback And Adapt To It

Keep the focus on the audience. Gauge their reactions, adjust your message and stay extremely flexible. Delivering a canned speech will guarantee that you lose the attention of your audience or confuse even the most devoted listeners.

7. Don’t Hide Behind The Lectern

The lectern is a crutch, which is a structure built to conceal knocking knees and shaking hands. It’s a barrier between you and your audience and you must step out from behind it. Not only will your movement keep folks from falling asleep, but they’ll perceive you as more open and accessible if you’re out in the open rather than hiding behind a big wooden barrier.

8. Speak About What You Know And Care About

Passion translates into energy and authenticity, which matters to your audience. If you’re not invested and engaged with your subject, why on earth would your audience care? Emotion pulls the audience in and gets them involved in the process. If you find you’re not moved by your topic, modify it until it matters to you. If you’re going to invest the energy in writing and delivering a speech, it should be on a subject that’s important to you.

Conclusion

Good communication is never perfect and nobody expects you to be perfect. However, putting in the requisite time to prepare will help you deliver a better speech. You may not be able to shake your nerves entirely, but you can learn to minimize them. In this post, I shared with you the ultimate guide for delivering perfect public speeches.

How To Leverage Instagram As An Entrepreneur In 2018

The perfect Instagram campaign requires a series of flawless Instagram posts. Fortunately, with the right know-how and a little bit of experience, you can be well on your way to capturing more leads by unlocking the power of Instagram marketing. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to leverage an Instagram as an entrepreneur in 2018.

We all know the power of Instagram. Huge companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Nike have mastered their use of Instagram. Companies with established followings seem to have no problems getting engagement and results. However, if you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, utilizing Instagram is a lot tougher.

However, you don’t have to be an enterprise-sized company to get value from Instagram. In fact, the mobile app allows small businesses to compete with the “big guys.” If you’re not using Instagram for your small business yet, you’re missing out on a potential goldmine of opportunities.

Here are ways on how to leverage an Instagram as an entrepreneur in 2018:

1. Know Your Market

The first rule for growing your business through the power of social media is to know your market. The clearer you are about your target demographic, the better you’ll be able to appeal to your customers. The less you know about your target demographic, the less likely you’ll be able to succeed through social media.

2. Start With A Goal and Personas

A solid Instagram campaign begins like many other aspects of the business, with a goal. Why are you on Instagram? What do you hope to accomplish by promoting your business on an app that’s popular with millennials?

Be sure to get specific on your goals as well. Don’t just say that you want more clicks on your website as a result of Instagram marketing. Instead, quantify that goal with a percentage increase in clicks you’d like to see. Once you’ve established your goal, make sure to take the time to create personas (models of your potential customers) to experiment with targeting the right audience.

3. Start Using Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories have been a controversial feature to say the least. In case you haven’t heard, Instagram Stories lets you string together multiple pictures and videos into a “story” that disappears after 24 hours.

Small businesses have been slow to use Instagram Stories while they try to figure out how to best weave the feature into their own strategies. However, there’s a lot of potential opportunity from Stories you shouldn’t pass up. Like with any big change, the companies that adopt and figure it out first tend to reap the biggest benefits. Start experimenting and get creative to see how you can really engage with your audience.

4. Focus On Quality Over Quantity of Posts

The goal isn’t about bombarding users with posts. It’s never about quantity, it’s always about the quality of the posts. Ensuring that the posts are targeted towards your market and that each of them conveys an important message or unique display of something relevant to that demographic will help you to gain the most traction while also adding on more followers.

5. Dive Into Your Comments

Do you publish Instagram posts and never look at them again? You’re not alone. A lot of small businesses spend little to no time monitoring their comments, partially because it’s not the easiest thing to do with the Instagram app. However, comments are an extremely way to stay engaged and learn about your audience.

6. Make Sure Your Photos Look 100% Professional

If you want to present a positive image of your brand online, you’re probably going to have to fork over some cash for professional photography. Yes, it’s an expense but keep in mind that you’re displaying yourself prominently on a network that reaches hundreds of millions of users. If you present a good image to even a fraction of that many people, that’s going to be great news for your reputation. On the other hand, if your photo looks unprofessional, people will immediately get the impression that your business isn’t ready to be taken seriously.

7. Follow High-Profile Accounts

All of the Instagram Influencers that I’ve spoken to started out by following other high-profile accounts. This created their first bits of visibility for them. It also helped them to gauge what was working for those who were already at the top of their game. By following other high end profiles, you can learn what strategies really work on Instagram.

8. Use Hashtags 

When it comes to social media marketing, hashtags can be some of your best friends. That’s why you should post your photos and videos with hashtags. It’s often the case that you’ll pick up a few extra followers from people who were just browsing through posts tagged with a hashtag that you added and those people can potentially turn into lifelong loyal customers.

There are a couple of rules to keep in mind about hashtags though. For starters, only use hashtags relevant to your niche and your post. Otherwise, your content could be considered “spammy” and will not be hitting your demographic. Finally, use the most popular hashtags relevant to your brand. You might have to do some digging to find the tags that are used most frequently, but it’s worth the effort.

Conclusion

The perfect Instagram campaign requires a series of flawless Instagram posts. Fortunately, with the right know-how and a little bit of experience, you can be well on your way to capturing more leads by unlocking the power of Instagram marketing. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to leverage an Instagram as an entrepreneur in 2018.

8 Signs You Will Be Very Successful In The Future

For many of the world’s most successful people, success is a never-ending journey. Once a goal has been reached, they chart a course for a new one. Perhaps success only ends when you believe there are no more challenges to conquer. In this post, I shared with you 8 signs you will be very successful in the future.

There are things that determine how successful someone will be. And fortunately, it isn’t the privilege, location or how much money your parents were able to spend on your education. Instead, what determines how successful a person are certain traits that mark you out from average people who are destined to live mediocre lives.

“Success is fleeting” is a popular adage in business. You simply cannot dream or wish for success. You have to work towards it constantly. Contrary to old-school management thought, the road to success is never a straight path. It is riddled with twists and turns, highs and lows, turbulence and calm. Here are 8 signs you will be very successful in the future:

1. You Celebrate Other People’s Success

It’s funny to see how different people react to the success of their friends. While some throw parties and heap praise on their friends, others are more reserved and hold back. How come? Shouldn’t we all be happy that our friends have made it? You’d think that would be the case, however some people just don’t like to see others getting ahead of them.

You however love to see your friends making it for a few different reasons. First and foremost, you should be happy for them and enjoy seeing people around you doing well. Secondly, you should gain motivation from it because their successes should push you to work even harder. Their success shouldn’t make you jealous, but instead should increase your hunger to be a success yourself.

2. You’re Aware of What’s Wrong With Your Life

The other side of knowing what you don’t want is knowing what you do. Hypersensitivity to what’s wrong with your life is really just another form of heightened intuition. It’s in the process of building the lives we want out of the ones we don’t that we really fulfill our potential. Anyone can point our their strengths, but someone who points out their weaknesses is really poised for long-term success.

3. You Lead Based On Values

If you want to succeed, it’s not enough that you know where you want to go. It’s more important to know how you will get there. The answer to the “How” can be found with the answer to “Who”. At the end of the day, who are you?

Your core values are the guiding principles for every decision you make. It is forged from your life experiences. Your values represent who you are. If you lead with your values, you will find success based on what you believe is right. Value based leadership is the key to finding long-term, sustainable success.

4. You Relentlessly Seek New Experiences

Novelty seeking, getting bored easily and throwing yourself into new pursuits or activities is often linked to gambling, drug abuse, attention deficit disorder and leaping out of perfectly good airplanes without a parachute.

Novelty seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy while fostering personality growth as you age. If you combine adventurousness and curiosity with persistence, you’ll be on a fast track for success. To succeed, you want to be able to regulate your impulses while also having the imagination to see what the future would be like if you tried something new.

5. You’re Willing To Make Sacrifices

To be successful, you’re going to have to make sacrifices. The smartest and the most successful individuals in the world have done this at some point. Kobe Bryant was in the gym shooting when he could have been sleeping. Mark Cuban was sacrificing the quality of food he ate so that he could invest every dollar into his business. Are you willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to make things happen? If you have that mindset, you’ll be successful.

6. You Make Decisions With Your Long Term Goal In Mind

If everything you do is done on a micro and a macro level with the aim of taking you closer to your goals, this is another strong sign that you will achieve success. All successful people do this. They have one major long-term goal in mind and make small, incremental moves each day that will take them closer to that goal.

7. You Take Responsibility

Average people have a hard time accepting their mistakes. They don’t like to admit that they did something wrong. Successful people on the other hand have no problem admitting their mistakes. They LOVE to take responsibility. Why? Because by admitting responsibility, they can then set about finding a solution to their mistake. If you’re always willing to accept responsibility not just for your own mistakes but also for your team’s mistakes, it’s another strong sign that you’ll be a success in the future.

8. It’s Just Life 

Symbolic work/life boundaries are almost impossible to maintain. Why? You are your business. Your business is your life, just like your life is your business, which is also true for family, friends, and interests. Incredibly successful people find ways to include family instead of ways to exclude work. They find ways to include interests, hobbies, passions and personal values in their daily business lives. To be successful, your passion must become a lifestyle.

Conclusion

For many of the world’s most successful people, success is a never-ending journey. Once a goal has been reached, they chart a course for a new one. Perhaps success only ends when you believe there are no more challenges to conquer. In this post, I shared with you 8 signs you will be very successful in the future.

5 Quick Tips To Improve Your Website’s Design Skills

In this post, learn 5 quick tips to improve your website’s design skills. This is a comprehensive but helpful guide that will give you actionable advice.

The Balance Of Quality And Design

Because of the expansion of today’s technology market, a larger and larger number of developers find themselves embarking as beginners in a strange, complicated environment; according to Perth-Web-Design.com.au, when it comes to blog design: “Publishing quality content is at the heart of content marketing. It helps establish your brand as an industry authority which potentially translates to massive returns for your business.”

 

Many starting out mistake the design of the blog, and its navigability, a core prerogative. While these things are definitely important to successful blog operations, they are not nearly so essential as many realize. What’s more essential is creating a blog that readers can identify with and utilize in a way which applies to their needs.

 

Your blog must cater to your target market intrinsically, and it will become a trusted resource. With this in mind, following are five quick tips to help you improve the design silhouetting your site.

 

1. Work With Professionals

This may seem a bit obvious, but many developers somehow miss doing this. The tech world is always moving forward, and many niche industries quickly develop as a result. Collaterally, many seek to “reinvent the wheel”, as it were, pertaining to operational development.

 

When you work with professionals in terms of content creation, you can avoid a lot of pitfalls you would easily stumble into pertaining to web design—especially in terms of ROI and SEO.

 

2. Keep Solid Numbers

It can be hard to know what design features are most effective, but thankfully there are ways to determine this information in an increasingly trustworthy fashion. SEO and ROI stats come to mind, as do a variety of APM (Application Performance Management) tools which come in all shapes and sizes today. Figure out what works best for your company, and put it to work.

 

3. Don’t Leap Before You Look

There are a lot of website developers who get an idea and sort of guestimate where things are going to go. They jump into the launch and maintenance of a site without looking where such efforts are most likely to land them.

 

4. Learn From Competitors

Competitors can teach you a lot about the kind of things your demographic is looking for in terms of resources, website design, development, and forward strategy. See what is working for them, and what isn’t. Learn where you can, and apply that which is applicable to your own operation.

 

5. Be Willing To Take Calculated Risks

How does the old saying go? You have to spend money to make money. Well, that’s a calculated risk—if you’re going about it right. The idea isn’t that you’re just throwing money around like there’s no tomorrow. For example, if you’ve got a unique or cost-effective enough idea, you might want to look into designing a cloud-based web app.

 

There are quite a few effective cloud apps shaping business today, many in wide use for their applicability and effectiveness. Consider these popular ones, and look at how you might either employ such applications in your own operations, or design similar ones that could draw your demographic to you. This is tangent to website design, but can be a calculated risk that pays off.

 

A More Cohesive, Effective Website

When you’re cognizant to apply the help of professionals to your web design, take calculated risks, learn from competitors, keep solid numbers, and look before you leap, you’ll likely find greater effectiveness in that which you use to optimize your website. The more effectively you can employ such techniques, the better your site will be.

6 Tasks You Should Highly Consider Allowing Someone Else To Do

One of the most common issues with trying to run a business is trying to keep costs down without taking on too many responsibilities. Knowing how to delegate tasks will not only keep you sane, but it will also improve the mindset of your team and help your company grow. In this post, I shared with you 6 tasks you should highly consider allowing someone else to do.

Knowing how to delegate is so key because it allows you and others to spend more quality time on the tasks that really matter. You and the members of your team only have so much time, energy and brainpower to dedicate to work. It’s better to use these personal resources on fewer tasks and to do them well instead of doing too many things.

Many entrepreneurs and business owners often have a tough time being able to delegate tasks to others. Letting go is a lot easier said than done. However, it’s something you really have to do at some point if you want to grow your business and take your career to the next level.

Here are 6 tasks you should highly consider allowing someone else to do:

1. Writing Services

Running a business may require lots of writing, from proposals and blog posts to white papers and reports. Even if you’re a good writer, you might save some time by having an employee or freelancer write the first draft and then putting your own spin on it to create the final version.

Writing letters can be delegated to staff or better yet an outsourced employee. Many virtual assistants provide a wide variety of writing services, from editing and proofreading to creating press releases, articles and other materials for your business. Utilize all of these services and they will do it for you just the way you want it.

2. IT Services

Putting somebody else in charge of your tech is one of the first things you should do as a small business owner. Managed IT services can help take care of everything from communication solutions, cloud storage, hardware, software and overall technical infrastructure. Professionals can keep you from wasting valuable time and energy if something goes wrong in an area of business you might not be well-equipped to handle.

3. Administrative Tasks

Managing your calendar, scheduling appointments, returning phone calls, booking travel plans and even sorting through emails are all tasks that seem quick, but may add up to quite a bit of time in the average day. Using a virtual (or in-house) assistant may save you several hours on simple tasks that don’t need your attention.

4. Human Resources

Human resources is an integral part of any business due to the significant ramifications that can come about if mismanaged. There are things that human resources professionals can handle, so you don’t have to. Employees and the team you create around your business is extremely important. However, it’s natural that employees are going to have requests and people will quit. When this happens, you don’t want to be burdened with finding talent.

5. Accounting/Bookkeeping

You should always keep an eye on your overall financials. However, you can likely delegate the smaller daily tasks, such as sending out invoices, inputting financial information, managing payroll and maintaining records with someone else’s help. While you have to find a VA who specializes in bookkeeping to outsource this particular task, it is a fast way to eliminate an administrative chore many people dread.

6. Design

You might have some concepts in mind when it comes to your company’s logo or other types of branding, but unless you’re a graphic designer by trade, you probably want to delegate such tasks to somebody skilled in this area. Design is extremely important especially in the modern world for marketing and promotional campaigns.

Conclusion

One of the most common issues with trying to run a business is trying to keep costs down without taking on too many responsibilities. Knowing how to delegate tasks will not only keep you sane, but it will also improve the mindset of your team and help your company grow. In this post, I shared with you 6 tasks you should highly consider allowing someone else to do.

30 Mark Cuban Quotes About Business

Mark Cuban is a perfect example of what what happens with hard work and success. Following in his footsteps can help aspiring entrepreneurs to lead their business to success like he did. In this post, I shared with you 30 Mark Cuban quotes about business.

Mark Cuban always seems to come out on top in whatever it is that he does. He sold his first company, MicroSolutions, for $6 million. He did even better with his next company, Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo for almost $6 billion. Almost immediately after, Cuban sold all of his Yahoo stock, netting $2 billion in cash for himself. Weeks later, the market crashed. Since then, Cuban has continued to work and invest.

Mark Cuban is the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks basketball team, Landmark Theatres, Magnolia Pictures and he is the chairman of the HDTV cable network AXS TV. He is also an American businessman, film producer, author, investor and philanthropist. You may have also seen him on the hit TV series Shark Tank, alongside Kevin O’Leary, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran.

Here are 30 Mark Cuban quotes about business:

1. “What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.” – Mark Cuban

2. “Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is. Know your business and industry better than anyone else in the world. Love what you do or don’t do it.” – Mark Cuban

3. “Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it all away from you.” – Mark Cuban

4. “Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do.” – Mark Cuban

5. “Small businesses don’t fail for lack of capital. They fail for lack of brains, they fail for lack of effort.”  – Mark Cuban

6. “Open offices keep everyone in tune with what is going on and keep the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show him or her how to use the lock on the bathroom.” – Mark Cuban

7. “Everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than one thing. We are born with it.” – Mark Cuban

8. “If you’re going to compete with me or one of my businesses, you’d better recognize that I’m working 24 hours a day to kick your ass.” – Mark Cuban

9. “Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you’re doing against other people.” – Mark Cuban

10. “There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really, really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren’t worth a nickel.” – Mark Cuban

11. “Creating opportunities means looking where others are not.” – Mark Cuban

12. “You’ve gotta be differentiated and unique. You’ve gotta know what your core competency is and be great at it.” – Mark Cuban

13. “It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right once.” – Mark Cuban

14. “Find something you love to do. If you don’t make money at it, at least you love going to work.” – Mark Cuban

15. “If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.” – Mark Cuban

16. “Once you have found out what you love to do, there is only one goal: to be the best in the world at it.” – Mark Cuban

17. “For every one of my businesses, what would I have to do to kick my own ass? Whatever business you have, there is always someone trying to put you out of business. It’s better for you to figure how they’re going to do it, than they do it.” – Mark Cuban

18. “Because if you’re prepared and you know what it takes, it’s not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.” – Mark Cuban

19. “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” – Mark Cuban

20. “If you’re prepared and you know what it takes, it’s not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.” – Mark Cuban

21.     “A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it’s okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they’re out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.” – Mark Cuban

22. “It’s not about money or connections–it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone…And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.” – Mark Cuban

23. “I love to compete. To me, business is the ultimate sport. It’s always on. There is always someone trying to beat me.” – Mark Cuban

24. “When you’ve got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be number 10,001?” – Mark Cuban

25. “It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship.” – Mark Cuban

26. “I worked hard and smarter than most people in the businesses I have been in.”

27.  “I still work hard to know my business. I’m continuously looking for ways to improve all my companies, and I’m always selling. Always.” – Mark Cuban

28. “What I’ve learned in these 11 years is you just got to stay focused and believe in yourself and trust your own ability and judgment.” – Mark Cuban

29. “The key is having great players. But there are a lot of teams that have All-Stars and haven’t been able to put it together.” – Mark Cuban

30. “Wherever I see people doing something the way it’s always been done, the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be done, following the same old trends, well, that’s just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else.” – Mark Cuban

Conclusion

Mark Cuban is a perfect example of what what happens with hard work and success. Following in his footsteps can help aspiring entrepreneurs to lead their business to success like he did. In this post, I shared with you 30 Mark Cuban quotes about business.

How To Unlock The Power of Niche Marketing And Accelerate Your Business Forward

In this post, I share with you ways on how to unlock the power of niche marketing and accelerate your business forward. Niche marketing may not always be the sexiest way to grow a business, but it can help a business scale rapidly.

Niche marketing is the concentration of all the marketing efforts on a small but specific and well-defined segment of the population. Niches are usually created based on the needs, wants and requirements of the customers. Often, these are the needs that have not yet been tapped into. A good niche is carefully planned, thought of and crafted to cater to the needs of your target market.

The most common mistake that entrepreneurs make is falling into the “all over the map” trap, thinking that they can do everything and be good at all of them. Choosing the right niche is vital to have a successful business. In business, tapping into smaller niches might allow you to be highly focused and achieve massive success.

If you want to be successful in your chosen niche, here are ways on how to unlock the power of niche marketing and accelerate your business forward:

1. Be Very Noticeable

If you want to be successful in your chosen niche, you need to stand out from your competitors. To do this, you need to create branding that will distinguish yourself from the competitors. It is crucial that your brand appeals to your target audience. As much as possible, your product and everything associated with it should be appealing and relatable to your potential customers.

2. Look For A Partner

For entrepreneurs that are running a small niche business, it is expensive to offer customers a complete package from beginning to end. However, it’s a crucial offering that can give customers better satisfaction and get them hooked with your brand. So how can you spread awareness for your product? Look for a partner. Team up with an expert or another brand that can help you provide the entire package.

3. Utilize Offline Marketing

Too many new businesses completely forget and abandon offline marketing. However, online marketing may be the most popular trend, but offline marketing can still be extremely profitable. Some customers may want to touch, hold and sample your products. Offline marketing channels can be often inexpensive nowadays while providing really good returns.

4. Listen To Your Customers

In every business, the customer is the most important entity. As the owner of a business, never assume that you know your business better; your customer does. Asking them what they think will help you improve your business is a great way to survey and grow your venture. Always listen to what they have to say, whether it’s a compliment or a piece of criticism. Digest everything that you hear from your customers and see how you can possibly implement their feedback into your operations.

5. Accept Opportunities

Too many people are often closed minded and they don’t pay enough attention to others. If you are willing to accept opportunities and keep your eyes open, you’ll be surprised at how much you can learn. There are always opportunities available to improve or expand your business. However, too many people aren’t willing to listen and they miss out on game-changing opportunities. Be open to any possibility!

Conclusion

Niche marketing may not always be the sexiest way to grow a business, but it can help a business scale rapidly. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to unlock the power of niche marketing and accelerate your business forward.

How To Charge More For A Product & Still Get More Customers Than Your Competitors

For many businesses, competing for the price is a very important strategy, but sometimes being the highest priced seller in the marketplace isn’t a bad thing. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to charge more for product & still get more customers than your competition.

One of the effective ways to ensure that a business remains profitable is to get paid what you’re worth. The higher the margins, the easier it is to stay in business if you’re selling. However, many people find it tough to compete with overseas companies or other companies that often sell their services or products for cheap. Most people end up reducing their prices in an effort to convince customers to choose them.

My most recent business venture has our company selling products directly to consumers. While a lot of our counterparts and competitors are often times 75% cheaper than us, we have built a brand around being the higher priced product. While there are still many consumers who prefer the cheaper price point, we have built a really strong customer base that prefers our offerings.

If you’re struggling to stay afloat because your margins suck, try increasing your prices. Most people will always advise you to keep lowering your price point until you’re ready to go out of business, but I’ve helped some businesses become really successful by advising them to do the exact opposite, which is increasing their prices. In this post, I will be sharing with you some ways on how to charge more for product & still get more customers than your competition.

1. Stand Out

Imagine a world where your product is so damn good that people don’t even notice the cheaper alternatives or offerings of your customers. How can you stand out in such a way? There are tons of ways to do this. Whether it’s your branding, marketing, story, partnerships or another factor, see what you can do to stand out in comparison to your competitors.

Having a product or service that is extremely unique will give you the opportunity to price yourself significantly higher. Let me give you an example. The backpack company Herschel  charges $75 for a basic backpack with two pockets. I went to local retail store by my house the other day and saw the exact same replica for $9. Why has Herschel been able to price the same item 8x higher and acquire so many customers? They simply created a marketing strategy catering to hipsters. Their competitors were marketing to youngsters who were going to school and Herschel decided to cater to an older market who could afford to spend more on a backpack.

Imagine going to your local retail store and seeing the two bottles in the hand soap isle. Which one is catching your eye? Which one is more expensive? While Method is obviously the more expensive choice, it’s also the one that catches your eye. Inside both bottles, you have regular hand soap. However, Method can charge a higher premium due to their modern branding, better labeling and approach.

2. Offer Quality That Can Be Seen 

When you aim to be a low cost provider, it’ll limit how good your quality can be. However, some people will really shell out some serious cash for higher quality items. I used to be a bargain hunter, but recently I’ve also been valuing quality over quantity. When I go to the grocery store, I’m looking for the product with the highest quality and I look into the little details.

If you’re a company that prides itself on creating products in the USA or using a special ingredient that is better for your health, advertise that. While people may be shocked at the higher price, they’ll understand why you’re charging it. If you can showcase your higher quality products or services to consumers, they will be far more open to the idea of it.

3. Specialize And Dominate

A big way to differentiate yourself from the competition is to specialize. When you specialize your products or services, you force your competitors to either follow suit or you leave them hanging out in the dry. Let’s jump into the Herschel backpacks example from earlier.

People have been selling backpacks, purses and other goods of that sort for decades now. Why was Herschel successful? Well, they decided to specialize and cater their products to a specific niche. They saw this trend of ‘Hipsters’ on the rise and they decided to specialize their backpacks towards them. Today, more than just hipsters are buying their products. However, when they first decided to specialize, they dominated by focusing on one niche/group they knew were willing to pay a higher price.

4. Smarter Marketing

With my latest company, we realized that intelligent marketing alone can allow you to charge a higher price point. My competitors have such a low price point that they can’t afford to spend much money on marketing. Bingo, that’s my advantage. I can outspend my competitors due to my higher margins and get a wider reach for my products.

Look at your business, products, services and offerings to see how else you can market your business. Is there a marketing method that you think would work well but you haven’t been able to try due to budget constraints? This is the time to charge a higher price point and test that marketing method out. Often times, you’ll find your business being more profitable even though you may be selling less items.

5. Be Confident

Part of the reason that a product or a service is worth more is that the team offering it is extremely confident. Believing that your product or service is worth more will make it easier to convince your customers. I remember I had a consulting client a long time ago who was offering personal training and meal prep coaching. When I met him initially, he was extremely timid and would say things like, “$15 a session would be fine, I mean if that is okay with you.”

After servicing a ton of clients, but being barely profitable…he decided to reach out to me for my consulting help. I saw his confidence level low and even worst, he didn’t value himself highly enough. I knew he was offering a great service because all his clients were getting results, but he just didn’t command enough respect. I coached him on declaring his prices instead of asking and increasing his self-confidence, which enabled him to charge $75 a session.

6. Know Your Competition

One of my best skills in business has been knowing my competitors inside and out. While knowing your business and industry is important, having a jump on your competitors is just as important. You can study your competitors and learn a lot.

For example, I’ve studied my competitors to see what mistakes they made and what things didn’t work for them. That enabled me to save a ton of time trying the same things that they had already failed at. If you’re looking to charge a higher premium, use your competitors as a measuring stick to see what worked and didn’t work. Understand why, improvise from there and take control from that point forward!

Conclusion 

For many businesses, competing for the price is a very important strategy, but sometimes being the highest priced seller in the marketplace isn’t a bad thing. In this post, I shared with you ways on how to charge more for product & still get more customers than your competition.