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Given the amount of great content on YouTube, you’d think it would be easier to find a video you want to watch. If you are frustrated with YouTube’s limited search functions or weird video suggestions, here’s how you can search for videos or find amazing things to watch.

In the recent past, YouTube has become better with some new features. But discovering new videos to watch is still difficult, especially since YouTube’s suggestions aren’t always great.

However, with the right third-party sites and apps, this is easy to fix.

Trinding (Web): Find New and Undiscovered Videos

There are so many videos on YouTube that some amazing footage is probably being ignored right now. Trinding is a community of YouTube enthusiasts looking to fix that by giving more exposure to such awesomeness.

Based on a subreddit about undiscovered videos, Trinding shares videos that have less than 50,000 views. The videos are sorted by mood or genre, and you can further check trending, new, and hall-of-fame videos.

The community has over 40,000 users, which leads to a whole bunch of great submissions of hitherto undiscovered gems. You might be the among the first few to watch something that goes viral later. How cool is that?

Popular 50 (Web): Real-Time Trending Videos by Country

For some reason, YouTube makes you have to jump through hoops to find trending videos. It’ll give you recommendations and suggestions based on what you’ve already seen. Even when you find something trending, the next auto-playing video will be what YouTube thinks you should see, not the next most popular clip.

Popular 50 breaks this relentless cycle with a simple list of the 50 most popular videos on YouTube at any moment. Hot Trends, Popular Trends, and Rising Trends divide the videos. The list is further classified by country, as well as categories (autos and vehicles, comedy, entertainment, film and animation, gaming, how to and style, music, pets and animals, science and technology, and sports).

Spend a few minutes on Popular 50 and you’ll end up thinking that this is how YouTube should look and behave.

Tele.Rocks (Web): Turn YouTube Into Safe-Viewing Channels

TV is ideal for kids or to put it on in the background. On TV, you never have to think about what to watch next. Channels are set up, and the program will be playing. And most of the content is safe for viewing by anyone. Tele.Rocks brings a similar experience to the internet with YouTube videos.

There are six “channels” on Tele.Rocks:

• Do It Yourself: For DIY videos and life hacks.
• Black and White: For funny old black-and-white movies like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin.
• Music: For the latest pop songs from music charts.
• Nature: For beautiful scenery and nature documentaries.
• Chill Out: For calming and relaxing songs.
• Kids: For children-friendly cartoons.

Pick a channel and it starts playing. You don’t have to interact any further. Plus, the channel works like a TV channel, in that everyone in the world is watching the same thing at the same time.

Tele.Rocks is ideal for anyone who wants safe videos from YouTube playing endlessly, without worrying about what will start next.

Utters (Web): Find Videos of Any Person Saying a Word or a Phrase

How many videos do you think there are of President Trump saying “huge” on YouTube? Find out with Utters, a cool app that searches for words or phrases said by a certain person.

It’s quite easy to use. Type in the name of the person, followed by the word or the phrase. It’s not a fool-proof app, and you are likely to get some bad results if you have misspelled the name or the phrase.

The charm is in the search results, which skip directly to an endless stream of all the videos that match your query. The video will also automatically skip to the part that you searched for. You can go back and forward between the videos, or open a clip in a new tab to watch the full video.

It’s nice to see search results playing as videos of the relevant part, rather than a list of different videos that can be hit or miss. Utters won’t always be useful as a search tool, but it is great for discovering videos you would not have come across otherwise.

Old YouTube (Web): Search Videos From Oldest to Newest

Despite being owned by search giant Google, there are weird restrictions on how you can search on YouTube. One of those is that it won’t let you list search results from oldest to newest.

Old YouTube is a simple web app that gives you chronological control over YouTube search. When you perform a search, by default, it will show results from the oldest video matching your keywords.

You can add a starting year for the search results, or just go all the way back to the beginning of YouTube in 2005. It loads about five results at a time.

Or Just Watch YouTube’s Most Popular 15

One of these websites will definitely give you something awesome and new (or old) to watch. But these are better for people who have been on YouTube for a long time and seen the classics.

In case you are new to YouTube and haven’t seen the best of the best, here are the 15 most watched videos on YouTube, and why they are so popular.

Read the full article: 5 New Ways to Search YouTube and Find Trending and Awesome Videos

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who operates a traditional business (not tech, not venture backed, not “growth”) last week. He buys a lot of software from tech companies and he observed that not one of them operates profitably. And that makes him a bit uncomfortable as he has always operated his businesses profitably. He mentioned to me that when he has taken capital from investors he has paid them back in full in less than a year each time, from the profits that the business is generating.

It got me thinking that there is something about tech, particularly venture capital-backed tech, that allows us to operate for what seems like forever without a need to generate self sustaining profits.

This can be a fantastic way to generate value when the opportunity is large enough (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc). But it is not a fantastic way to generate value when the opportunity is constrained, either by a smallish market size (TAM) or by a ton of competitors (little to no barriers to entry) or a number of other factors.

Value is generated when the capital required to get a business to sustainability (usually positive cash flow, but I will include exits here) is meaningfully less than what the business is worth when sustainability is reached.

As the capital requirements go up, because of sustained losses year after year after year, the business needs to become worth ever more money at sustainability.

The mistake I think we make in the startup/tech/VC sector is that we look at things like Google/Amazon/Facebook/Twitter, or more recently Uber/Airbnb/Slack, and we think that every business can execute the same playbook. The sad truth is that not every business can execute that playbook and, as a result, many startups consume way too much capital on the way to sustainability and value is lost, not created.

The never ending question that founders and management teams and boards face is whether to invest for growth (aka lose a ton of money) or work towards profitability (but constrain the growth of the business). It seems like every board I am on and every company in our portfolio is always asking this question.

Where I come out on this issue, and always have, is that the growth has to be responsible (positive unit economics on growth spend) and that the path to profitability needs to be well in sight. I would add to those two constraints that a management team ought to be able to get a business profitable in a pinch without killing the business, if necessary. Clearly these “rules” should not apply to very early stage companies. They become relevant and possible once a business has a growing customer base and revenue stream.

I think very few companies in our portfolio and any VC firm’s portfolio will pass these tests right now. Some do but not many. We have a few companies in our portfolio that are operating profitably. We have a few more that are in operating with profitability well in sight and could get there in a pinch without hurting the business too much. But the vast majority are burning money like its water and there is plenty more where it came from.

Perhaps it is true that there will always be money to fund burn. Or perhaps it isn’t. But even if there is endless capital, many founders and teams will wake up one day and realize that all of that burn they accumulated is now a hurdle they have to overcome. And many won’t overcome it.

The profit motive is what makes capitalism work. Businesses are ultimately valued as a discounted set of future cash flows. Positive cash flows. If you can’t generate profits in the future, your business will not be worth anything. So profits are key. And yet we don’t seem to value them in the tech/VC/startup world very much. Maybe we should.

Many founders believe in the myth that the first steps of starting a business are the hardest: Attracting the first investment, the first hires, proving the technology, launching the first product and landing the first customer. Although those critical first steps are difficult, they are certainly not the most difficult on the arduous path of building an iconic company. As early and late-stage funding becomes more abundant, founders and their early VC backers need to get smarter about how to position their companies for a looming valley of death in-between. As we’ll learn below, it’s only going to get much, much harder before it gets easier.

There will be an abundance of capital at the two ends of the startup spectrum. At one end, hundreds of seed and micro VCs, each armed with dozens of $250,000-$1 million checks to write every year, are on the prowl for visionary founders with pedigrees and resumes. At the other end, behemoths like SoftBank, sovereigns, as well “early-stage” firms raising larger funds are seeking breakout companies ready for checks that are in the mid-tens to hundreds of millions. There will be a dearth of capital to grow companies from a kernel of a business, to becoming the clear market-defining leader. In fact, we’re already seeing deal volume decreasing significantly as dollars increase, likely evidence of larger checks going into fewer companies.

Founders should no longer assume that their all-star seed and Series A syndicates will guarantee a successful follow-on financing. Progress on recruiting and product development, though necessary, are no longer sufficient for B-rounds and beyond. Founders should be mindful that investors that specialize in leading $20-50 million rounds will have a plethora of well-funded, well-mentored, well-staffed startups with slick presentations, big visions and some early market traction from which to choose.

Today, there is far more capital chasing fewer quality companies. Fewer breakout companies and fear of missing out is making it easy to raise growth rounds with revenue growth, which may not be scalable or even reflective of an attractive business. This is creating false realities and prompting founders to raise big rounds at high prices — which is fine when there is an over-abundance of capital, but can cripple them when capital later becomes scarce. For example, not long ago, cleantech companies, armed with very preliminary sales, raised massive financings from VCs eager to back winners toward scaling into what they characterized as infinite demand. The reality is that the capital required to meet target economics was far greater and demand far smaller. As the private markets turned, access to cash became difficult and most faltered or were acquired for pennies on the dollar.

There is a likely future where capital grows scarce, and investors take a harder look at the underpinnings of revenue, growth and (dis)economies of scale.

What should startup leadership teams emphasize in an inevitable future where the $30 million rounds will be orders of magnitude harder than their $5 million rounds?

A business model representative of the big vision

Leadership teams put lots of emphasis on revenue. Unfortunately, revenue that’s not representative of the big vision is probably worse than no revenue at all. Companies are initially seeded with the expectation that the founding team can build and sell something. What needs to be proven is the hypothesis that the company can a) build a special product that b) is inexpensive to convince customers to pay for, and c) that those customers represent a massive market. It should be proven that it is unattractive for customers to switch to the inevitable copycats. It should be clear that over time, customers will pay more for additional features, and the cost of acquiring new customers will go down. Simply selling a product to customers that don’t represent that model is worse than not selling anything at all.

Recruiting talent that’s done it

Early founding teams are cognitively diverse individuals that can convince early investors that they can overcome the incredible odds of building a company that until now, shouldn’t have existed. They build a unique product, leveraging unique tools satisfying an unmet need. The early teams need to demonstrate the big vision, and that they can recruit the people that can make that vision a reality. Unfortunately, more founders struggle when it comes to recruiting people that have real experience reducing a technology to practice, executing on a product that customers want and charting the path to expand their market with improving unit economics. There are always exceptions of people that do the above for the first time at startups; however, most of today’s iconic startups knew what kind of talent they needed to execute and succeeded in bringing them on board. Who’s on your team?

Present metrics that matter

The attractive SaaS valuation multiples behoove all founders to apply its metrics to their businesses even if they aren’t really SaaS businesses. Sophisticated later-stage investors see right past that and dismiss numbers associated with metrics that are not representative. Semiconductors are about winning dedicated sockets in growing markets. Design tools are about winning and upselling seats in an industry that’s going to be hooked on those tools. Develop a clear understanding of how your business will be measured. Don’t inundate your investor with numbers; present a concise hypothesis for your unfair advantage in a growing market with your current traction being evidence to back it.

Find efficiencies by working in massive markets

“Pouring fuel on the fire” is a misleading metaphor that leads some into believing that capital can grow any business. That’s just as true as watering a plant with a fire hose or putting TNT in your Corolla’s gas tank: most business models and markets simply are not native to the much-sought-after venture growth profile. In fact, most later-stage startups that fail after raising large amounts of capital fail for this reason. Most markets are conducive to businesses with DIS-economies of scale, implying dwindling margins with scale, which is why many businesses are small, serving local, fragmented markets that technology alone cannot consolidate. How do your unit economics improve over time? What are the efficiencies generated by economies of scale? Is there a real network effect that drives these economies?

I expect today’s resourceful founders to seek partners, whether it’s employees, advisors or investors, to help them answer these questions. Together, these cognitively diverse teams will work together to accelerate past any metaphoric valley and build the iconic companies taking humanity to its fantastic future.  

Six Ways to Enhance Your Sales Pipeline with a CRM written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Your sales pipeline is quite literally the thing that keeps you in business. That’s why managing it effectively is so critical.

CRMs provide you with all the data and functionality you need to make sure you’re talking with leads and closing the deal in the most efficient way possible. Plus, they allow you to see the bigger picture and to set strategic goals for your business based on your existing sales pipeline and how you hope to see it grow.

Here, we’ll take a look at six ways to enhance your sales pipeline with a CRM.

1. Don’t Let Leads Slip Away

When you’re juggling all of the many priorities that come with operating a business, it can be easy to lose track of leads. You’re so focused on delivering for your existing clients, that when a lead reaches out to learn more or you don’t hear back from someone immediately after you’ve initially made contact, you quite frankly might just forget about them.

But when you have a promising lead in your sights, you need to remain proactive about reaching out. They have a problem that needs solving and their own deadlines they need to meet, so if you’re too slow in getting back to them, they’ll go with your competitor that was quicker on their feet.

Fortunately, CRMs are a great way to stay on top of all points of contact. You can easily track and visualize when you last spoke with a prospect—without having to hunt through your email inbox or search through your call history on your phone—so that you can make sure you respond to inquiries in a timely manner and are on top of following up with those prospects who have gone radio silent over the last few weeks.

Of course, not all leads are created equal, so there’s value in assessing each lead and deciding how you’ll most effectively divide your time to attend to existing clients while also catering to your most promising leads.

2. Use Lead Behavior Scoring to Focus Your Efforts

There are some leads who will never convert, no matter what you do and how hard you try. You need to wipe those leads off of your radar screen so that you can spend your time wooing those who actually have a shot at becoming clients.

Lead behavior scoring is the process of evaluating your leads’ profile and actions and assigning a score that corresponds with how likely they are to convert. By using the data you’ve assembled on your current client base, you can establish a method for taking an educated guess about the value of a given prospect.

If a prospect shares nine out of 10 characteristics and behaviors with your current client base, that’s someone who could very likely need your services and want to do business with you! If it’s a prospect who only lines up on two of the 10 points, though, don’t spend copious amounts of time and effort speaking with them. They’ll likely never become a customer.

3. Analyze Your Pipeline Data

CRMs are great at collecting data about your current processes and allowing business owners to slice and dice the information in a way that makes sense for them.

You want to track the way your business guides prospects through the first part of their customer journey. What’s working and what’s not so effective?

Once you begin looking for patterns, you’ll likely see some room for improvement. Let’s say you’re a contractor whose homepage has a call to action button inviting prospects to sign up for your newsletter. The newsletter contains lots of tips and tricks on renovating, and when you analyze the CRM data, you notice that the CTA button gets a lot of clicks. But you also notice something else: you’re not seeing a lot of newsletter subscribers taking the next step and reaching out for a consultation.

This information alerts you to an issue in your pipeline and allows you to do a deeper dive into what’s not working. Maybe the newsletter is sent too frequently and so people aren’t reading it, or it’s ending up in spam folders. Maybe you don’t provide a clear next step for readers—adding a big, bold button at the end of the newsletter inviting prospects to reach out for a consultation might get their attention. Or maybe you already have a button there, but prospects are hesitant to do it because they don’t understand the terms of the consultation. When you add language clarifying that it’s free and has no obligation attached, you might see yourself getting some traction.

4. Set Informed Goals for Growth

Putting together an annual plan is a critical step in running your business. But it’s hard to set goals when you don’t know where you already stand. Fortunately, CRMs allow you to see what your typical pipeline is like at the moment and how you can work in the future to improve it.

Take a look at where you stand now. What are your conversion rates? How long is your sales cycle? What is the average deal size you see with first time customers? How many customers come back, and when they do, are they spending more money on bigger and better products?

Using this information, you can identify potential areas of growth. Let’s go back to the contractor example. Right now, you see that a lot of your first time customers are hiring you for smaller jobs like refinishing projects or building decks, and your customer return rate is low. Again, armed with this data you can begin to do some digging into the why behind the issue and then take steps to remedy it.

Maybe what you learn is that there’s a local architect who’s partnered with your biggest competitor, and as a team, they’re going out and winning the majority of bathroom and kitchen renovations in the area. If this is the arena you want to work in, you need to change your strategy. Establishing your own partnerships with suppliers of materials or another architectural firm could help to boost your visibility in this arena. Or maybe there’s a local interior designer who you can partner with and display your work jointly in a big design showcase.

When you know where your weakness lie, you’re able to take a strategic approach to addressing them.

5. Establish a Clear Process for Managing Pipeline

Sometimes businesses that don’t have a CRM in place can become a bit like the Wild West. Salespeople are left to go out and do their thing with little supervision, and you don’t have any visibility into what tactics are working, what’s not effective, and whether or not the sales team is taking the most effective approach to managing their workload.

Once you’ve taken a look back at the aggregate data in your CRM, you’re able to see what exactly is effective and what isn’t. From there, you can establish a clearcut system for dealing with leads.

The best way to find leads and stay in contact with them will vary from business to business. You also want to understand how the sales pipeline functions so that you can be sure you’re providing your team with the tools they need to succeed. Maybe that’s asking your marketing team to create white papers that address concerns prospects often mention to your sales team. Maybe that’s establishing best practices for how frequently the sales team follows up with prospects.

Salespeople often possess traits that would serve them well in any sales position, but every business is different and has their own unique needs and effective approaches.

You’ll want to provide training to your salespeople on best practices for your industry and your business. Maybe they relied heavily on email communications in their last job selling software to tech companies, but here you may have found that phone calls are the most effective way to generate business. Even small tweaks like that can help to improve the overall effectiveness of your sales approach.

6. Managing a Referral Program

We’ve dedicated a number of articles on the blog to the importance of referrals for any business. CRMs can help you to establish the most effective referral program and ensure that you have a steady stream of referrals coming into your sales pipeline.

Using audience segmentation tools to target your happiest customers with offers to join your referral marketing campaign is a great start. From there, you want to use the CRM to group those prospects who are coming to you via referral together so that you can be extra sure you’re providing them with a great experience. These leads are hot because they’ve already heard great things about your business—if you’re able to prove their referrer right, you’re very likely to successfully close the deal here (and maybe even generate future referrals from them)!

A sales pipeline can be an unwieldy thing to manage, and if you’re trying to keep track of your prospects and manage the customer journey without a dedicated tool, things can easily get out of hand. A CRM allows you to easily store, track, and analyze the data that you need to not only provide the best service for each and every prospect, but to more efficiently manage your big-picture business decisions.

If you liked this post, check out our Guide to Customer Relationship Management.

Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg obsessed over the wrong bit of history. Or else didn’t study his preferred slice of classical antiquity carefully enough, faced, as he now is, with an existential crisis of ‘fake news’ simultaneously undermining trust in his own empire and in democracy itself.

A recent New Yorker profile — questioning whether the Facebook founder can fix the creation he pressed upon the world before the collective counter-pressure emanating from his billions-strong social network does for democracy what Brutus did to Caesar — touched in passing on Zuckerberg’s admiration for Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.

“Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace,” was the Facebook founder’s concise explainer of his man-crush, freely accepting there had been some crushing “trade-offs” involved in delivering that august outcome.

Zuckerberg’s own trade-offs, engaged in his quest to maximize the growth of his system, appear to have achieved a very different kind of outcome.

Empire of hurt

If you gloss over the killing of an awful lot of people, the Romans achieved and devised many ingenious things. But the population that lived under Augustus couldn’t have imagined an information-distribution network with the power, speed and sheer amplifying reach of the internet. Let alone the data-distributing monster that is Facebook — an unprecedented information empire unto itself that’s done its level best to heave the entire internet inside its corporate walls.

Literacy in Ancient Rome was dependent on class, thereby limiting who could read the texts that were produced, and requiring word of mouth for further spread.

The ‘internet of the day’ would best resemble physical gatherings — markets, public baths, the circus — where gossip passed as people mingled. Though of course information could only travel as fast as a person (or an animal assistant) could move a message.

In terms of regular news distribution, Ancient Rome had the Acta Diurna, A government-produced daily gazette that put out the official line on noteworthy public events.

These official texts, initially carved on stone or metal tablets, were distributed by being exposed in a frequented public place. The Acta is sometimes described as a proto-newspaper, given the mix of news it came to contain.

Minutes of senate meetings were included in the Acta by Julius Caesar. But, in a very early act of censorship, Zuckerberg’s hero ended the practice — preferring to keep more fulsome records of political debate out of the literate public sphere.

“What news was published thereafter in the acta diurna contained only such parts of the senatorial debates as the imperial government saw fit to publish,” writes Frederick Cramer, in an article on censorship in Ancient Rome.

Augustus, the grand-nephew and adopted son of Caesar, evidently did not want the risk of political opponents using the outlet to influence opinion, his great-uncle having been assassinated in a murderous plot hatched by conspiring senators.

Under Augustus, the Acta Diurna was instead the mouthpiece of the “monarchic faction.”

“He rightly believed this method to be less dangerous than to muzzle the senators directly,” is Cramer’s assessment of Augustus’s decision to terminate publication of the senatorial protocols, limiting at a stroke how physical voices raised against him in the Senate could travel and lodge in the wider public consciousness by depriving them of space on the official platform.

Augustus also banned anonymous writing in a bid to control incendiary attacks distributed via pamphlets and used legal means to command the burning of incriminatory writings (with some condemned authors issued with ‘literary death-sentences’ for their entire life’s work).

The first emperor of Rome understood all too well the power of “publicare et propagare.”

It’s something of a grand irony, then, that Zuckerberg failed to grasp the lesson for the longest time, letting the eviscerating fire of fake news rage on unchecked until the inferno was licking at the seat of his own power.

So instead of Facebook’s brand and business invoking the sought-for sense of community, it’s come to appear like a layer cake of fakes, iced with hate speech horrors.

On the fake front, there are fake accounts, fake news, inauthentic ads, faux verifications and questionable metrics. Plus a truck tonne of spin and cynical blame shifting manufactured by the company itself.

There’s some murkier propaganda, too; a PR firm Facebook engaged in recent years to help with its string of reputation-decimating scandals reportedly worked to undermine critical voices by seeding a little inflammatory smears on its behalf.

Publicare et propagare, indeed.

Perhaps Zuckerberg thought Ancient Rome’s bloody struggles were so far-flung in history that any leaderly learnings he might extract would necessarily be abstract, and could be cherry-picked and selectively filtered with the classical context so comfortably remote from the modern world. A world that, until 2017, Zuckerberg had intended to render, via pro-speech defaults and systematic hostility to privacy, “more open and connected.” Before it got too difficult for him to totally disregard the human and societal costs.

Revising the mission statement a year-and-a-half ago, Zuckerberg had the chance to admit he’d messed up by mistaking his own grandstanding world-changing ambition for a worthy cause.

Of course he sidestepped, writing instead that he would commit his empire (he calls it a “community”) to strive for a specific positive outcome.

He didn’t go full Augustus with the new goal (no ‘world peace’) — but recast Facebook’s mission to: “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

There are, it’s painful to say, “communities” of neo-Nazis and white supremacists thriving on Facebook. But they certainly don’t believe in bringing the world closer together. So Facebook’s reworked mission statement is a tacit admission that its tools can help spread hate by saying it hopes for the opposite outcome. Even as Zuckerberg continues to house voices on his platform that seek to deny historical outrages like the Holocaust, which is the very definition of antisemitic hate speech.

“I used to think that if we just gave people a voice and helped them connect, that would make the world better by itself. In many ways it has. But our society is still divided,” he wrote in June 2017, eliding his role as emperor of the Facebook platform, in fomenting the societal division of which he typed. “Now I believe we have a responsibility to do even more. It’s not enough to simply connect the world, we must also work to bring the world closer together.”

This year his personal challenge was also set at “fixing Facebook.”

Also this year: Zuckerberg made a point of defending allowing Holocaust deniers on his platform, then scrambled to add the caveat that he finds such views “deeply offensive.” (That particular Facebook content policy has stood unflinching for almost a decade.)

It goes without saying that the Nazis of Hitler’s Germany understood the terrible power of propaganda, too.

More recently, faced with the consequences of a moral and ethical failure to grapple with hateful propaganda and junk news, Facebook has said it will set up an external policy committee to handle some content policy decisions next year.

But only at a higher and selective appeal tier, after layers of standard internal reviews. It’s also not clear how this committee can be truly independent from Facebook.

Quite possibly it’ll just be another friction-laced distraction tactic, akin to Facebook’s self-serving ‘Hard Questions’ series.

Revised mission statements, personal objectives and lashings of self-serving blog posts (playing up the latest self-forged “accountability” fudge), have done nothing to dim the now widely held view that Facebook specifically, and social media in general, profits off of accelerated outrage.

Cries to that effect have only grown louder this year, two years on from revelations that Kremlin election propaganda maliciously targeting the U.S. presidential election had reached hundreds of millions of Facebook users, fueled by a steady stream of fresh outrages found spreading and catching fire on these “social” platforms.

Like so many self-hyping technologies, social media seems terribly deceptively named.

“Antisocial media” is, all too often, rather closer to the mark. And Zuckerberg, the category’s still youthful warlord, looks less “harshly pacifying Augustus” than modern day Ozymandias, forever banging on about his unifying mission while being drowned out by the sound and fury coming from the platform he built to programmatically profit from conflict.

And still the young leader longs for the mighty works he might yet do.

Look on my works, ye mighty…

For all the positive connections flowing from widespread access to social media tools (which of course Zuckerberg prefers to fix on), evidence of the tech’s divisive effects are now impossible for everyone else to ignore: Whether you look at the wildly successful megaphoning of Kremlin propaganda targeting elections and (genuine) communities by pot stirring across all sorts of identity divides; or algorithmic recommendation engines that systematically point young and impressionable minds toward extremist ideologies (and/or brain-meltingly ridiculous conspiracy theories) as an eyeball-engagement strategy for scaling ad revenue in the attention economy. Or, well, Brexit.

Whatever your view on whether or not Facebook content is actually influencing opinion, attention is undoubtedly being robbed. And the company has a long history of utilizing addictive design strategies to keep users hooked.

To the point where it’s publicly admitted it has an over-engagement problem and claims to be tweaking its algorithmic recipes to dial down the attention incursion. (Even as its engagement-based business model demands the dial be yanked back the other way.)

Facebook’s problems with fakery (“inauthentic content” in the corporate parlance) and hate speech — which, without the hammer blow of media-level regulation, is forever doomed to slip through Facebook’s one-size-fits-all “community standards” — are, it argues, merely a reflection of humanity’s flaws.

So it’s essentially asking to be viewed as a global mirror, and so be let off the moral hook. A literal vox populi — warts, fakes, hate and all.

It was never selling a fair-face, this self-serving, revisionist hot-take suggests; rather Facebook wants to be accepted as, at best, a sort of utilitarian plug that’s on a philanthropic, world-spanning infrastructure quest to stick a socket in everyone. Y’know, for their own good.

“It’s fashionable to treat the dysfunctions of social media as the result of the naivete of early technologists who failed to foresee these outcomes. The truth is that the ability to build Facebook-like services is relatively common,” wrote Cory Doctorow earlier this year in a damning assessment of the Facebook founder’s moral vacuum. “What was rare was the moral recklessness necessary to go through with it.”

Even now Zuckerberg is refusing the moral and ethical burden of editorial responsibility for the content his tools auto-publish and algorithmically amplify, every instant of every day, using proprietary information-shaping distribution hierarchies that accelerate machine-selected clickbait through the blood-brain barrier of 2.2 billion-plus users.

These algorithmically prioritized comms are positioned to influence opinion and drive intention at an unprecedented, global scale.

Asked by the New Yorker about the inflammatory misinformation peddled by InfoWars conspiracy theorist and hate speech “preacher,” Alex Jones, earlier this year, Zuckerberg’s gut instinct was to argue again to be let off the hook. “I don’t believe that it is the right thing to ban a person for saying something that is factually incorrect,” was his disingenuous response.

It was left to the journalist to point out InfoWars’ malicious disinformation is rather more than just factually incorrect.

Facebook has taken down some individual InfoWars videos this year, in its usual case by case style, where it deemed there was a direct incitement to violence. And in August it also pulled some InfoWars pages (“for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies”).

But it has certainly not de-platformed the professional purveyor of hateful conspiracy theories who sells supplements alongside his attention-grabbing lies.

One academic study, published two months ago, found much of the removed InfoWars content had managed to move “swiftly back” onto the Facebook platform. Like radio and silence, Facebook hates a content vacuum.

The problem is its own platform also sells stuff alongside attention-grabbing lies. So Jones is just the Facebook business model if it could pull on a blue suit and shout.

“Senator, we run ads”

It’s clear that Facebook’s adherence to a rules-based, reactive formula for assessing speech sets few if any meaningful moral standards. The company has also preferred to try offloading tricky decisions to third-party fact checkers and soon a quasi-external committee — a strategy that looks intended to sustain the suggestive lie that, at base, Facebook is just a “neutral platform.”

Yet Zuckerberg’s business is the business of influence itself. He admits as much. “Senator, we run ads,” he told Congress this April when asked how the platform turns a profit.

If the ads don’t work that’s an awful lot of money being pointlessly poured into Facebook’s coffers.

At the same time, the risk of malicious manipulation of Facebook’s machinery of mass manipulation is something the company claims it simply hadn’t thought of until very, very recently. 

That’s the official explanation for why senior executives failed to pay any mind to the tsunami of politically charged propaganda blooming across its U.S. platform, yet originating in Saint Petersburg and environs.

An astute political operator like Augustus was entirely alive to the risks of political propaganda. Hence making sure to keep a lid on domestic political opponents, while allowing them to let off steam in the Senate where a wider audience wouldn’t hear them.

Zuckerberg, by contrast, created the most effective tool for spreading propaganda the world has ever known without — so he claims — bothering to consider how people might use it.

That’s either radical stupidity or willful recklessness.

Zuckerberg implies the former. “I always believed people are basically good,” he wrote in his grandiose explainer on rethinking Facebook’s mission statement last year.

Though you’d think someone with a fascination for classical antiquity, and a special admiration for an emperor whose harsh trade-offs apparently included arranging the execution of his own grandson, might have found plenty to test that theory to a natural breaking point.

Safe to say, such a naive political mind wouldn’t have lasted long in Ancient Rome.

But Zuckerberg is no politician. He’s a new-age ad salesman with a crush on one of history’s canniest political operators — who happened to know the power and value of propaganda. And who also knew that propaganda could be deadly.

If you imagine Facebook’s platform as a modern day Acta Diurna — albeit, one updated continuously, delivered direct to citizens’ pockets, and with no single distributed copy ever being exactly the same — the organ is clearly not working toward any kind of societal order, crushing or otherwise.

Under Zuckerberg’s programmatic instruction, Facebook’s daily notices are selected for their capacity to emotionally tug at the individual. By design the medium agitates because the platform exists to trade attention.

It’s really the opposite of “civilization building.” Outrage and tribalism are grist to the algorithmic mill. It’s much closer to the tabloid news mantra — of “if it bleeds it leads.”

But Facebook goes further, using “free speech” as a cloaking mechanism to cross the ethical  line and conceal the ugly violence of a business that profits by ripping up the social compact.

The speech-before-truth philosophy underpinning Zuckerberg’s creation intrinsically works against the civic, community values he claims to champion. So at bottom, there’s yet another fake: no “global community” inside the walled garden, just a globally scaled marketing empire that’s had raging success in growing programmatic ad sales by tearing genuine communities apart.

Here confusion and anger reign.

The empire of Zuckerberg is a drear domain indeed.

Fake news of the 1640s

Might things have turned out differently for Facebook — and, well, for the world — if its founder had obsessed over a different period in history?

The English Civil War of the 1640s has much to recommend it as a study topic to those trying to understand and unpick the social impacts of the hyper modern phenomenon of social media, given the historical parallels of society turned upside during a moment of information revolution.

It might seen counterintuitive to look so far back in time to try to understand the societal impacts of cutting-edge communications technologies. But human nature can be surprisingly constant.

Internet platforms are also socio-technical tools, which means ignoring human behavior is a really dumb thing to do.

As the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, said recently of modern day anthropogenic platforms: “As we’re designing the system, we’re designing society.”

The design challenge is all about understanding human behaviour — so you know how and where to place your ethical guardrails.

Rather than, per the Zuckerberg fashion, embarking on some kind of a quixotic, decade-plus quest to chase a grand unifying formula of IFTTT reaction statements to respond consistently to every possible human (and inhuman) act across the globe.

Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker made a related warning earlier this year, when she called for humanities and ethics to be baked into STEM learning, saying: “One thing that’s happened in 2018 is that we’ve looked at the platforms, and the thinking behind the platforms, and the lack of focus on impact or result. It crystallised for me that if we have Stem education without the humanities, or without ethics, or without understanding human behaviour, then we are intentionally building the next generation of technologists who have not even the framework or the education or vocabulary to think about the relationship of Stem to society or humans or life.”

What’s fascinating about the English Civil War to anyone interested in current day Internet speech versus censorship ethics trade-offs, is that in a similar fashion to how social media has radically lowered the distribution barrier for online speech, by giving anyone posting stuff online the chance of reaching a large audience, England’s long-standing regime of monarchical censorship collapsed in 1641, leading to a great efflorescence of speech and ideas as pamphlets suddenly and freely poured off printing presses.

This included an outpouring of radical political views from groups agitating for religious reforms, popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, common ownership and even proto women’s rights — laying out democratic concepts and liberal ideas centuries ahead of the nation itself becoming a liberal democracy.

But, at the same time, pamphlets were also used during the English Civil War period as a cynical political propaganda tool to whip up racial and sectarian hatred, most markedly in the parliament’s fight against the king.

Especially vicious hate speech was directed at the Irish. And historians suggest anti-Irish propaganda helped fuel the rampage that Cromwell’s soldiers went on in Ireland to crush the rebellion, having been fed a diet of violent claims in uncensored pamphlet print — such as that the Irish were killing and eating babies.

For a modern day parallel of information technology charging up ethnic hate you only have to look to Facebook’s impact in Myanmar where its platform was appropriated by military elements to incite genocide against the minority Rohingya population — leading to terrible human rights abuses in the modern era. There’s no shortage of other awful examples either.

“There are genuine atrocities in Ireland but suddenly the pamphleteers realise that this sells and suddenly you get a pornography of violence when everyone is rushing to put out these incredibly violent and unpleasant stories, and people are rushing to buy them,” says University of Southampton early modern history professor, Mark Stoyle, discussing the parliamentary pamphleteers’ evolving tactics in the English Civil War.

“It makes the Irish rebellion look even worse than it was. And it sort of raises even greater levels of bitterness and hostility towards the Irish. I would say those sorts of things had a very serious effect.”

Stoyle says pamphlets printed during the English Civil War period also revived superstitious beliefs in witchcraft, leading to an upsurge in prosecutions and killings on charges of witchcraft which had dipped in earlier years under tighter state controls on popular printed accounts of witch trials.

“Once the royal regime collapses, the king’s not there to stop people prosecuting witches, he’s not there to stop these pamphlets appearing. There’s a massive upsurge in pamphlets about witches and in no time at all there’s a massive upsurge in prosecutions of witches. That’s when Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, kills several hundred men and women in East Anglia on charges of being witches. And again I think the civil war propaganda has helped to fuel that.”

If you think modern day internet platforms don’t have to worry about crazy superstitions like witchcraft and devil worship just Google “Frazzledrip” (a conspiracy theory that’s been racking up the views on YouTube this year which claims Hillary Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted a girl and drank her blood). The Clinton-targeted viral “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory also combines bizarre claims of Satanic rituals with child abuse. None of which stopped it catching fire on social media.

Indeed, a whole host of ridiculous fictions are being algorithmically accelerated into wider view, here in the 21st (not the 17th) century.

And it’s internet platforms that rank speech above truth that are in the distribution saddle.

Stoyle, who has written a book on witchcraft and propaganda during the English Civil War, believes the worst massacre of the period was also fueled by political disinformation targeting the king’s female camp followers. Parliamentary pamphleteers wrote that the women were prostitutes. Or claimed they were Irish women who had killed English men and women in Ireland. There were also claims some were witches.

“One of these pamphlets describes the women in the king’s camp — just literally a week before the massacre — and it presents them all as prostitutes and it says something like ‘these women they revel in their hot blood and they deserve a hotter punishment’,” he tells us. “Just a week later they’re all cut down. And I don’t think that’s coincidence.”

In the massacre Stoyle says parliamentary soldiers set about the women, killing 100 and mutilating scores more. “This is just unheard of,” he adds.

The early modern period even had the equivalent of viral clickbait in pamphlet form when a ridiculous story about a dog owned by the king’s finest cavalry commander, prince Rupert, takes off. The poodle was claimed to be a witch in disguise which had invested Rupert with magical military powers — hence, the pamphlets proclaimed, his huge successes on the battlefield.

“In a time when we’ve got no pictures at all of some of the most important men and women in the country we’ve got six different pictures of prince Rupert’s dog circulating. So this is absolutely fake news with a vengeance,” says Stoyle.

And while parliamentarian pamphlet writers are generally assumed to be behind this particular sequence of Civil War fakes, Stoyle believes one particularly blatant pamphlet in the series — which claimed the dog was not only a witch but that the prince was having sex with it — is a doubly bogus hoax fake.

“I’m pretty certain now it was actually written by a royalist to poke fun at the parliamentarians for being so gullible and believing this stuff,” he says. “But like so many hoaxes it was a hoax that went wrong — it was done so well that most people who read it actually believed it. And it was just a few highly educated royalists who got the joke and laughed at it. And so in a way it was like a hoax that backfired horribly.

“A classic case of fake news biting the person who put it out in the bum.”

Of course this was also the prince’s dog pamphlet that got the most attention and “viral engagement” of the time, as other pamphlet writers picked up on it and started referencing it.

So again the lesson about clickbait economics is a very old one, if you only know where to look.

Fake news most certainly wasn’t suddenly born in 2016. Modern hoaxers like Jones (who has also been at it for far longer than two years) are just appropriating cutting-edge tech tools to plough a very old furrow.

Equally, it really shouldn’t be any kind of news flash that free speech can have a horribly dark side.

The overarching lesson of history is that propaganda is baked indelibly into the human condition. Speech and lies come wrapped around the same tongue.

The stark consequences that can flow from maliciously minded lies being crafted to move a particular audience are also writ large across countless history books.

So when Facebook says — caught fencing Kremlin lies — “we just didn’t think of that” it’s a truly illiterate response to an age-old problem.

And as the philosophical saying goes: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

That’s really the most important history lesson of all.

“As humans we have this terrible ability to be angels and devils — to use things for wonderful purposes and to use things for terrible purposes that were never really intended or thought of,” says Stoyle, when asked whether, at a Facebook-level scale, we’re now seeing some of the limits of the benefits of free speech. “I’m not saying that the people who wrote some of these pamphlets in the Civil War expected it would lead to terrible massacres and killings but it did and they sort of played their part in that.

“It’s just an amazingly interesting period because there’s all this stuff going on and some of it is very dark and some of it’s more positive. And I suppose we’re quite well aware of the dark side of social media now and how it has got a tendency to let almost the worst human instincts come out in it. But some of these things were, I think, forces for good.”

‘Balancing angels and devils’ would certainly be quite the job description to ink on Zuckerberg’s business card.

“History teaches you to take all the evidence, weigh it up and then say who’s saying this, where does it come from, why are they saying it, what’s the purpose,” adds Stoyle, giving some final thoughts on why studying the past can provide a way through modern day information chaos. “Those are the tools that you need to make your way through this minefield.”

Starting a small business has never been easier. Whether you're looking to break free from traditional employment or simply want to supplement the salary from your day job, there are countless business opportunities to turn your passion or skills into profitable ventures.

In this post, I’m sharing 30 business ideas across various industries, grouped into categories to help you find the right opportunity based on your resources, interests, and goals.

Table of Contents

• Online Business Opportunities
• Low Barrier to Entry Business Opportunities
• Entrepreneur Opportunities
• Service-Based Business Opportunities
• Emerging Business Opportunities

Online businesses have exploded over the last 10 years. With 5 billion people online and global ecommerce set to surpass $4.1 trillion in revenue by the end of 2024, the internet has unlocked a global market open to anyone ready to seize the opportunity.

As Tommy Landry of Return on Now explained, “While many older workers were taught to pursue security in the form of a full-time job, that is no longer the only way to make a living. In fact, it has become super easy to make the leap to independence.”

If you're ready to get in on the action, here are seven online businesses you can start today.

1. Web Design

Finding great web designers and developers can be challenging, and that's why freelance web designers are highly sought after.

As Ashley Faulkes, founder of Mad Lemmings, explains, one of the biggest reasons behind this is that the industry is overrun with cheap yet underskilled designers and developers.

“Web design and development has gotten a bad rap lately with so many cheap options available, but I still find clients who want a personal and professional touch,” she says.

“You can start with the basics and produce top-notch sites using online tools, or start with WordPress and good themes and page builders. Focus on quality and great communication, and you will soon make a name for yourself.”

2. App Development

More than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. As more people turn to their phones for daily tasks (myself included), the demand for mobile apps to fulfill those tasks continues to grow. This creates a massive opportunity for anyone looking to tap into this space.

Whether you’re building an app for yourself or developing apps for others, mobile app development is a business idea worth exploring. With the mobile app market projected to reach a staggering US$781.70 billion by 2029, now is the perfect time to get involved.

3. Amazon Selling

In 2023, Amazon generated nearly $575 billion in revenue, with third-party sellers accounting for 60% of the total paid units on the marketplace.

Selling on Amazon is incredibly straightforward, and services like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which handles packing and shipping, make it even easier.

But if you’d rather not deal with the hassles of selling physical products, consider self-publishing a book on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform (you can learn more about writing books that sell here) or promoting existing listings to earn commissions as an affiliate.

4. Etsy Selling

If you're looking for a business opportunity that allows you to tap into the growing market for unique, handmade, and vintage items, Etsy could be the perfect platform for you. This online marketplace brought in over $ 2.9 billion in Q3 2024 alone and has created success stories like Hannah Gardner, who made over $945,000 in her first year.

If you’re unfamiliar with the platform, think of it as an online art fair combined with the reach of a marketplace like eBay. Best of all, setting up a shop is simple and affordable, making it a great starting point for newbies.

5. Course Creation

Platforms like Udemy, Whop, and Coursera make it easy to create, market, and profit from courses you design yourself. While most courses aren’t accredited, that’s reflected in the more accessible pricing for students.

Online courses are more popular than you might expect. “Online courses are huge right now,” says David Hoos, Head of Marketing at The Good marketing agency. “They can be incredibly helpful to develop niche skills, and businesses often use them for professional development. If you have a unique skill that you can organize and share, a course is a great way to do it!”

I’ve taken a few Coursera courses and loved the flexibility of learning at my own pace from anywhere. So, it’s no surprise to me that the online education market is projected to reach an astounding $279.30 billion by 2029.

The demand is clear, and the opportunity is growing. If you have knowledge to share, consider creating a course and getting a piece of the pie.

6. Social Media Influencing

A few years ago, making money through social media might have sounded like a pipe dream. But now? It’s hard to ignore that countless people are turning their online presence into real income by having an engaged audience.

The influencer marketing industry is booming — it’s grown over three times since 2019 and was valued at $21.2 billion in 2023.

And here’s something I’ve learned: you don’t need millions of followers to make it work. Micro-influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers are doing really well by focusing on small but loyal communities. Check out this video if you’re curious about what influencers at different levels are earning.

Sure, it’s not for everyone. But if you’ve got the personality, patience, and passion for creating content, making money as an influencer is a real possibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-BXKQmkoc

7. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a business model that allows you to earn money without creating or delivering any products or services. The idea is simple: You promote an existing product or service through online platforms like your blog, social media, email, etc., and you earn a commission whenever someone clicks your link and makes a purchase.

HubSpot's affiliate program, for example, offers affiliates a 30% recurring commission for every referred customer.

What I find so appealing about affiliate marketing is the potential for passive income. You don’t have to create products — just share the ones you already use and love. If you’ve built an engaged audience, it gets even more seamless and profitable. With just one post, your followers can drive income straight to you — without worrying about inventory, service delivery, or customer support.

A Shopify survey of 150 aspiring entrepreneurs and 300 small business owners in the U.S. found that small businesses spend an average of $40,000 in their first year.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty hefty amount to invest in a new, untested venture — especially when you’re just starting.

The good news? You don’t need that kind of capital to get started. Here are eight business ideas you can launch with little to no money upfront.

1. Freelance Writing

As more businesses come online, there's a real opportunity to put your skills to work for clients who need text for their websites, blogs, or digital marketing materials. Some of the most common freelance gigs in this space include:

• Content Writing. Creating articles that drive traffic to websites.
• Copywriting. Writing compelling sales copy that boosts conversions and revenue.

You can even narrow your focus further, specializing in case studies, whitepapers, or other specific forms of content.

The best part? Freelancing lets you pick the projects that interest you while enjoying the flexibility to work from wherever you choose.

If you decide to explore this idea, here’s some solid advice from Jeremy Noronha, former head of SEO at Foundr: “Go where your customers are, not where your competition is. Many freelancers who get started tend to hang out in online communities with their peers and not their potential clients. The best way to develop and build the right relationships is to provide value in all the places your ideal clients spend their time.”

2. Resume Writing and Career Coaching

I remember my first resume — it wasn’t terrible, but it could have definitely been better. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if a little guidance and polish might have led to more callbacks.

This is where business opportunities like resume writing come in.

Most employers expect candidates to submit a polished, up-to-date resume when applying for jobs. However, many job seekers struggle to create high-quality CVs that stand out.

If you have experience in human resources or a talent for crafting compelling resumes, resume writing could be a great small business opportunity for you.

There are plenty of people on platforms like Upwork who’ve successfully offered this service to thousands of clients, earning thousands of dollars in the process.

Career coaching could also be an excellent next step if you want to expand and offer a more comprehensive service. As a career coach, you can help clients map out career plans, provide valuable tips, and offer guidance as they navigate their professional journeys.

What’s great about this is that you’re leveraging the skills and experience you’ve built throughout your career to create a profitable venture. Plus, you can work from anywhere, set your hours, and connect with clients via phone, email, or video chat.

3. Tutoring

What in-demand skills do you have that you could teach to others? Whether it’s teaching a language, offering music lessons, or helping with reading and writing skills, you can start offering these services today as 1:1 or group sessions.

I’ve personally worked with tutors for everything from math lessons as a kid to piano lessons as an adult. Tutoring is a market I don’t see disappearing anytime soon, and the research backs that up. The private tutoring market is projected to reach $157 billion by 2024.

It’s important to note that your rates will depend on factors like your experience, location, and the subject you’re teaching. But the great thing about tutoring is that most clients will need ongoing support, which can provide you with a reliable, steady income. Plus, virtual tutoring allows you to work from anywhere and dictate your schedule.

4. Pet Sitting

As someone who’s had pets for most of my life, I’m more than happy to invest in their health and wellness. And I’m not alone — the pet industry reached $300 billion in revenue in 2023.

Pet sitting is one of the fastest and easiest ways to serve devoted pet owners like me and earn an income. Millions of folks want the peace of mind of knowing that someone is there for their fur baby, ensuring they‘re comfortable and safe while they’re gone.

You can begin by connecting with pet owners in your neighborhood, but if there’s not enough demand nearby, platforms like Petsitter and Rover are great for finding potential clients.

5. Thrifting

Have you ever spotted something on Craigslist that just needed a little TLC? That’s not just a hidden gem — it’s a potential business opportunity.

Plenty of people are cashing in by finding bargain pieces, refurbishing them, and selling them for a profit. Sophie Riegel is a great example — she made over $123,800 in sales last year by thrifting and reselling items on online marketplaces.

And the market is only growing. The global secondhand market is projected to reach $350 billion by 2027. Getting started is simple: visit your local thrift store, snag some great finds, and list them on eBay or Craigslist. With time, patience, and a good eye, you can tap into this booming market and start earning.

6. Home-Based Child Care

Childcare is and always will be essential to many families. Daycare centers don't come cheap and also present health concerns for families with immuno-compromised or at-risk family members or children.

If you're already spending the day watching your little ones, why not pocket a little extra cash by providing childcare to friends and neighbors, too? This can be a welcome solution for parents who need care but want to avoid the concerns of daycares with large gatherings, high prices, or strangers watching their kids.

7. Virtual Assisting

Working as a virtual personal assistant requires many soft skills that most of us already have or can pick up quickly. Plus, businesses are always looking for people to take on day-to-day tasks without the cost of hiring an assistant in-house.

Virtual assistants are helpful for entrepreneurs and small businesses that want to avoid dealing with the cost of office space yet need help with the grunt work. Once you narrow down your niche, it’s also pretty easy to get started. Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn are fantastic for finding your first client and building some work experience.

8. Lead Generation

Almost every B2B company needs leads, but not all have the time or resources to acquire them. I’ve personally seen many businesses — whether agencies, software companies, or freelancers — struggle to find qualified leads to pitch their products or services.

While some companies offer automated lead data, the quality of those leads can often be questionable. That’s where the opportunity lies: there’s good money to be made sourcing high-quality leads for businesses too time-strapped to do it themselves. Take Alex West, for example — he’s grown his lead generation business, Cyberleads, to a solid $500,000 annual revenue.

If you’re looking for advice on getting started, Pushkar Gaikwad of AeroLeads has some great tips: "Partner with local marketing agencies and provide them with B2B data, prospects, and leads based on their needs. You can gather this data using various free and paid online tools. Once you’ve built a good process, you can even start a lead generation agency.”

If you’re looking for opportunities to challenge yourself, take complete ownership of a project, and build something exciting, entrepreneurial opportunities might be the right fit. These businesses are more than side gigs — they’re scalable projects that can grow into thriving multimillion-dollar ventures.

1. Consulting

Consulting is an incredibly lucrative industry. In 2023, the management consulting market alone was valued at $1.8 trillion.

What makes it even better is that there’s room for everyone in this market — from small teams to giants like McKinsey. Whether you intend to work solo or hope to one day build a team, there’s potential to scale (or not) at your own pace.

That said, don't expect finding work in this industry to be easy. You’ll need to show clients you’re the real deal — usually through years of proven experience. Sometimes, a master’s degree or PhD might even be required.

2. Tech Startup

Launching a tech startup is one of the most exciting and rewarding ventures you can take on. Think about it — there are nearly 1,500 unicorns (companies worth over $1 billion), and every single one started as a simple idea in someone’s head.

What excites me most about startups isn’t just the profit potential — it’s the journey. It’s about building something from nothing, solving meaningful problems, and pushing yourself to grow. Even if you don’t create the next unicorn, the skills and experiences you gain can be transformative.

With so many emerging industries, from AI and virtual reality to renewable energy, the opportunities are practically endless. And thanks to today’s tech tools — like no-code platforms and AI-powered marketing software — it’s never been easier to bridge skill gaps and bring your idea to life quickly.

There are also tons of valuable resources like Hubspot’s Business Startup Kit and Startup Resource Bank to guide you through launching your company.

3. Creative Agency

Like consulting, creative agencies offer a lot of flexibility — you can remain a profitable boutique agency or scale up to become a powerhouse like Ogilvy. You also have the freedom to work across industries and focus on projects that genuinely excite you.

Compared to freelancing, a huge advantage of running an agency is partnering with people with complementary skill sets. This lets you offer clients more comprehensive solutions, making your agency more competitive and allowing you to take on larger projects. Additionally, agencies can typically charge higher rates because clients see them as a one-stop shop for specialized expertise and strategic insights.

4. Fashion Design

The fashion industry is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2029, making it a prime space for new entrepreneurs like you.

If you’re passionate about design but worried the market is too saturated, the truth is there’s always room for fresh, creative ideas. Personally, while I have a few favorite established brands, I’m always excited to see what new designers bring to the table.

What’s great about starting your fashion brand today is that consumers are increasingly looking beyond just the design. They want brands committed to ethical labor practices, sustainable material sourcing, and environmental responsibility.

The good news is these values don’t have to come at the expense of profitability — brands like Patagonia and Eileen Fisher prove that you can balance purpose with success.

If you’ve ever thought about turning your passion for design into something bigger, starting a fashion brand could be the perfect way to do just that.

5. Food Truck

Running a restaurant can be risky due to high startup costs and overhead. However, I’ve found that food trucks offer a great way to reduce those expenses while giving you the flexibility to take your business on the road. This flexibility lets you test your concept in different locations and adapt to customer demand.

Izaak Crook of AppInstitute sums it up nicely, sharing, “Food trucks are a great way to showcase your culinary skills without the hefty costs of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Plus, you can take your food to different events and festivals, helping to raise awareness for your brand.”

He also suggests creating a mobile app for your food truck to help build customer loyalty, offer rewards, and even enable pre-ordering.

A prime example of a food truck's potential is The Cinnamon Snail, founded by Chef Adam Sobel. What began as a vegan food truck in New York City evolved into a celebrated brand, offering a food truck, a blog, an online culinary academy, and a cookbook titled “Street Vegan.”

If you enjoy interacting directly with customers and “getting your hands dirty,” consider starting a service-based business. Here are some ideas.

1. Trade Work

If you‘re skilled in DIY, you can start leveraging your skills for cash right away. Don’t know a hammer from a hacksaw? Then, enroll in a course and learn.

Whether you want to start on your own or by working for someone else, the pay is good, the work is rewarding, and job security is pretty much guaranteed.

A few trades you might want to consider:

• Carpentry
• Plumbing/HVAC
• Iron work
• Cabinetry
• Auto repair
• Auto detailing

2. Driving

The global ride-hailing market is projected to reach $212 billion by 2029. While findings from studies on average earnings vary, becoming a driver for a ride-sharing app is still one of the quickest ways to build a reliable side income today.

I’ve spoken to drivers who work part-time and earn more than their 9-to-5 salaries by being strategic about the types of rides they accept and timing their drives to coincide with surge periods.

What makes this business particularly appealing is how “hands-off” it is. The platform takes care of most of the logistics; all you need is a car.

If you’re interested in this idea, signing up for well-known platforms like Uber and Lyft is a great place to start. Most countries also have local competitors to explore.

3. Makeup and Hair Styling

From weddings to photo shoots, there’s always demand for skilled stylists and makeup artists.

While startup costs — such as purchasing tools or renting studio space — can be daunting, the good news is you can start small. Offering specialized services with your existing tools is a great way to keep expenses low and perfect specific skills.

Additionally, providing services from home or traveling to clients provides flexibility and reduces overhead as you build your reputation and client base.

4. Personal Training

The fitness industry has exploded over the past decade, evolving into a billion-dollar market. What excites me the most, though, is how fitness has evolved with technology.

E-fitness is booming, with over 100 million Americans using fitness apps or devices to stay in shape. This is a massive advantage for those looking to become personal trainers, as it opens up new opportunities to connect with and service clients.

So, how do you get started as a personal trainer?

Unfortunately, your 3-year gym membership isn’t enough to qualify you to train others. Personal training is regulated, so you’ll need to get certified through a reputable course, often followed by a certification exam.

Once certified, you can package your services and decide whether to work one-on-one with clients, run virtual sessions, or host group fitness classes.

5. Recruiting

Do you have a knack for connecting the right people with the right job? If so, recruiting could be a fantastic business for you. In my experience, many companies are open to hiring external recruiters to find top talent and supplement efforts from their in-house HR teams.

The internet boom and remote work phenomenon have also opened up new opportunities for recruiters. As more companies begin to embrace hiring remote talent, there’s a growing need for recruiters who can connect businesses with suitable candidates, no matter where they are.

6. Elder Care

The elderly care industry will be worth nearly $2 billion by 2032. Much like childcare, elder care is an essential service that will always be in demand.

For those with healthcare experience, starting a business in this industry can be a natural fit. Offering specialized services, such as palliative care and physical therapy, can provide a steady stream of clients who need professional assistance.

However, even if you don’t have a healthcare background, there are still opportunities. Non-medical services like helping clients with day-to-day tasks — such as shopping, cleaning, and cooking — are crucial and don’t require medical qualifications.

There will always be demand in traditional industries. However, getting in early or innovating in an emerging industry can be highly profitable.

1.Cybersecurity

As more companies rely on remote work and cloud solutions, the risks of cyber threats have grown significantly. Phishing scams, malware, and data breaches are more common than ever, costing businesses massive losses. Cybercrime cost businesses an estimated $12.5 billion in 2023 alone.

This rising need for protection has made cybersecurity one of the fastest-growing industries, projected to reach $562.72 billion by 2032.

If you’re worried that learning cybersecurity might be too difficult, I get it — I used to feel the same way. But, when I actually took a course, I was surprised by how practical the field was despite its technical nature.

If you’re considering starting a business in this space, this is where I recommend you start. Certifications like CompTIA Security+, Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) are a great way to build credibility and expertise.

2. Virtual Reality

The virtual reality (VR) industry is on an impressive growth trajectory. The market is projected to nearly double in value in just a few years, from $12 billion in 2022 to $22 billion by 2025.

The most obvious way to break into the VR industry is by developing consumer products like VR headsets or immersive gaming experiences. There’s also incredible potential in targeting specific niches and applying VR technology across diverse use cases.

What’s less talked about, though, are the other ways you can build a business in VR without focusing on consumer products. There are opportunities to build the tech that powers VR, create custom VR content, and even offer consulting to businesses seeking to implement VR solutions.

3. Airbnb

While Airbnb has been around for a while, I consider it an emerging opportunity because the short-term rental market is still evolving, and the platform is at the forefront of the growing demand for unique travel accommodations.

In 2023, Airbnb was the third most visited travel website worldwide, and today, it boasts over 5 million hosts.

The appeal for hosts is simple: Airbnb provides an easy way to earn extra income by turning something they already have regardless — a home — into a revenue source.

However, before jumping in, there are a few important things to consider. If you’re renting, make sure your lease allows short-term rentals. Additionally, many cities have specific regulations for Airbnb hosting, so it’s essential to familiarize yourself with local laws.

Overall, I think Airbnb offers a great opportunity to generate a substantial “real estate” income without the typical capital investment.

4. Digital Publishing

It’s no secret that several arms of print media have been steadily dying out for years. As a result, digital publishing is quickly becoming one of the most promising business opportunities for new entrepreneurs.

If you‘re not already part of the digital publishing wave, there’s still plenty of time to hop on — the digital publishing market is projected to grow to over $27 billion by 2027.

One straightforward way to get involved is by directly publishing ebooks on platforms like Amazon KDP, but it doesn’t stop there. Digital publishing also includes blogging, writing a newsletter, or even launching a digital magazine.

Whether you’re an aspiring author, expert, or creator, there’s an opportunity to carve a unique niche for yourself and build a lucrative business.

There’s an online business opportunity for everyone.

No matter your industry, skills, or expertise, you can find an opportunity to make money and be your own boss.

The perks of time flexibility, location preference, and a stable income will be worth it. Start planning your online business today to start seeing earnings tomorrow.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Emails are still the prevalent form of communication for salespeople. As much as 50% of customers also prefer to receive offers via email.

A recent survey by Edison Software revealed, however, that 74% of customers find themselves overwhelmed by the email overload. These people also stress that they will miss an important email because of the overload.

The problem for a marketer arises when you want your recipient actually to read your email.

To prevent your email from ending up in the spam folder or remaining simply unread in the inbox, you must learn the most effective techniques for making people read what you have to say.

If you want to learn more about how to write successful emails, you can read our earlier post about writing cold emails for sales prospecting and outreach.

Here are 12 techniques you may want to consider to see if they generate the desired results for you:

1 Create attractive subject lines

Improve your chances of having your email read by creating a subject line that leaves the recipient craving for more.

People these days have a knack for detecting sales promotions. So formulate your subject line so that it promises them some real value.

Try to keep it short, too. If your subject line is 8 words long or more, it will be cut short on mobile devices with smaller screens.

2 Make it concise and easy to read

Since you already drafted a killer subject line, you passed the first stage of making your recipient open the email.

Now you need to be concise to deliver the message effortlessly to your busy recipient who’s on the verge of dismissing the rest of the email if things get boring.

Remember to stick with your topic. Don’t cover other topics in the same email. If you have more topics, save them for another separate email.

At times, there are cases where you simply cannot avoid writing longer emails. In these situations, focus on making your email at least easy to read. This means:

• Using headlines and short paragraphs
• Creating bulleted lists
• Highlighting important parts in bold
• Avoiding jargon and using simple terms

This makes it easier to scan through your text. In fact, when we read a text such as email, we spend only 20% of the time on processing the content and 80% on moving our eyes around to scan the text.

3 Pay attention to your first sentence

Your readers will make the critical decision whether to continue reading or not after the subject line and the first sentence of your text. To persuade them to continue, your first sentence needs to be captivating and engaging.

Many phones will show you not only the subject line of your emails but also a preview of the first few words of the text before you even open anything.

A recent survey reported that 55% of people opened their emails on mobile devices.

This makes your first sentence all the more important.

4 Be honest – no hard sell

We already established the fact that most people suffer from email overload. So forget about the hard sell and direct promotion. Explain why you’re contacting them, what you have to offer, and how they could benefit from it.

Remember that you’re offering a solution to a problem. Be honest about your intentions and convince them that they need your help.

5 Get personal

Generic emails are the ones that will forever remain unread. Try to connect with your potential client to gain insight into who they are and use this information in your email.

When we receive something personal and meaningful, it has more potential to strike a chord with us. People want to know that you’re speaking specifically to them.

Add value to your email by approaching your recipient with relevant information that shows you know what you’re talking about and to whom.

Being personal can include using your recipient’s first name in the subject line, which is generally a good practice.

6 Provide motivation

Let’s face it. Most people are not excited to receive email promotions, no matter how much they stand out. That’s why sometimes you need to offer motivation.

Motivation can take the form of a free trial or discount on your products or services to those who subscribe to your newsletters. This gives a reason for your recipient to read further.

7 Optimize your signature

Most people don’t put much thought into their signature. That makes it an undervalued tool in email marketing.

A generic signature that includes the sender’s name, title, company logo, and contact information isn’t doing much at all. Instead of being like everyone else, try to sell in your signature.

Here’s what you can do: include links to relevant articles and videos and pitch your social media and products or services that you’re offering.

8 Optimize your postscript

Similar to the signature, the P.S. section is another undervalued tool in email marketing. A good postscript has the potential of increasing click-throughs and conversions.

The P.S. allows you to promote something not directly related to the rest of the email. It can catch your readers’ attention and serve the function of encouraging them to give another glance at your email.

For example, you can add a personal touch by mentioning something about the recipient if you have the information. Or you can share news about the achievements of your company.

9 Polish your text

We all know how easily bad grammar and spelling mistakes can put us off. Spam emails are notorious for their grammatical errors. You don’t want your email to end up in the same folder with them.

In case you aren’t confident about editing your own content, there are many tools and services that can help you polish your writing. Proofreading and editing tools such as Grammarly and Handmadewritings help you avoid some of the common mistakes.

First impressions matter. So make sure to proofread your email before sending it.

10 Forget about emojis

You want to convey an expression of warmth by finishing off your email with a smiley face? Think twice.

While smileys can work well for internal communication within your company, reaching out to potential clients is a whole new ball game.

A recent study published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal about the impact of smiley use in work-related situations concluded that smileys don’t increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence.

This is in contrast with actual smiles when people meet in person. Don’t let emojis give your recipient the wrong impression that you’re not a competent communicator, skip the smileys.

11 Enhance your design

Your goal is to engage your reader, and as we know, text is not always enough. Consider embedding images in the overall layout if it makes your email easier on the eyes.

Keep in mind, however, that images should only complement your otherwise valuable content. Exploit your visual skills to get the desired response. Your reader wants to feel engaged from the start to the end.

You can make your visual elements clickable so they will direct your reader to your product or service pages.

12 Use email-tracking software

Thanks to recent technological innovations, it has become possible to install tracking software that tells you when a recipient opens your email.

You will receive a notification when the recipient opens the email or clicks one of your links. As a follow-up, you can increase your chances of selling by contacting the person directly by phone. Test it out and see if it generates more sales.

Remember that your email is only the first point of contact. You’re not trying to close a sale. If successful, your email should lead to further communication, for example a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting.

It’s a good practice to end your email with a question that’s easy for your reader to answer and doesn’t require too much time. Be sure not to overwhelm your reader with too many questions. One is enough.

Be also careful that you remain consistent in your communication.

If you represent a brand, people have expectations about you. Make sure that your email is in line with these expectations. You want to portray your company in the best possible light.

Conclusion

All of these techniques mentioned above do not require any special technical skills and are easy to implement.

We hope that these 12 steps will help your emails stand out from the bulk of emails that go unnoticed and never the see the light of day.

Now it’s your turn to try these email writing tips in practice. Engage your readers and get the desired responses.

We are always excited to hear any suggestions from our readers. Don’t hesitate to share your ideas with us. You can leave your comment below.

Every month, hundreds of new affiliate programs are being launched. Most of them, however, aren’t meant to succeed, and not because there’s something wrong with affiliate marketing. The reason why many advertisers fail at affiliate marketing is rooted in the poorly done work when setting up their affiliate programs.

Having analyzed more than a thousand of affiliate programs in the past eighteen years, I’ve noticed that some of the deadliest mistakes are committed with unfortunate frequency. It is to eight of these mistakes (committed by advertisers at the setup phase) that I am devoting this post.

1. Launching Too Quickly

You’re eager to get it out there — for affiliates to start joining and promoting you and your products — and hit that “Go Live” button much earlier than the program is really ready. You’re thinking: “Oh, I’ll just launch this thing and work out the kinks on the fly.” Since the flaw of this way of thinking isn’t evident to some, let me illustrate my point with a real-life story.

A few weeks ago, I was flying out of Washington, DC which got hit by an unexpected snow storm. They kept delaying our flight — to clear the runway of snow, deice our plane, and perform the other routine tasks that the situation called for. Many of the already-boarded passengers were grumbling…

When we finally took off – with a delay of more than 90 minutes – I couldn’t help but wonder: would any one of us, who were unhappy with the delay, be happier if something important wasn’t sorted out before the take-off? Clearly, a rhetorical question.

2. Ignoring the Competition

When bringing a new product to market or conceiving an idea of a new business, analyzing the competitive landscape is a common-sense thing to do. Why, then, is this integral component so frequently missed from the affiliate program setup tactics?

To ensure that your new program really stands out (from the myriad of other affiliate programs out there), you must know what it would take for it to stand out. We recommend compiling a competitive intelligence spreadsheet and documenting every major element of your competitors’ affiliate programs. Your competitive analysis should study:

1. Platforms on which they run their affiliate programs
2. Payment models employed
3. Payout structures (expressed either as a percentage of pre-tax and pre-shipping total, or as a flat dollar amount)
4. Any differences in payouts for new-to-file vs returning/reengaged customers
5. Performance incentives, bonuses, or tiered payout increases, if any
6. Cookie life [consider this]
7. Locking period [more here]
8. Any indicators of their programs’ success (be it EPC, rankings, or anything else)

Don’t rush through this phase! Do a thorough work which will enable you to understand how to truly shine when your affiliate program launches and starts being to those of your direct competitors.

3. Casting Your Net “Wide”

There is a common misconception — especially prevalent among businesses that are new to the affiliate space — that the more affiliate networks they join, the better.

Let’s get one thing straight: affiliate networks are primarily technology platforms to handle tracking, reporting, and payments to affiliates. In the majority of cases, an “affiliate network” is not a “network of affiliates” that will start working with you as soon as you launch the affiliate program on that network. Affiliates from the network may join your affiliate program (if it stands out) but nothing guarantees their participation in it.

Furthermore, if you take American affiliate networks, for example, there is a significant overlap of affiliate pools between some of them (for example, between CJ and Rakuten Affiliate Network, ShareASale and AvantLink). So, adding a second affiliate network to the first will never double your affiliate base.

4. Copying the Big Guys

When setting up your affiliate program’s payout and cookie duration, do not copy the big brands, assuming that you would thereby replicate their success. Let me illustrate this using one of the world’s oldest and largest affiliate programs – that run by Amazon.com.

When Amazon’s affiliate program pays 4-5% commission at a 24-hour cookie life, it doesn’t mean you should copy this. Here is why:

• 2.5% to 3% is considered to be a solid conversion rate for any affiliate program
• It isn’t unusual for Amazon’s affiliate program to convert at 10% or higher [source]
• The difference in conversion rate (between your online storefront’s and Amazon) should therefore be offset by an equal difference in the commission rate. Otherwise, many affiliates would prefer promoting a comparable product on Amazon, making more money from it

5. Missing Rules and Policies

When a brand accepts affiliates into a program that lacks rules or policies they are entering into business relationships without any contractual obligations in place. You wouldn’t do this in any other business context. Why, then, so many businesses make the affiliate marketing context an exception?

Here is a perfect example of an affiliate program whose “Terms and Conditions” field is just left blank:

Do you really want to give affiliate a carte blanche to market you wherever they wish and however they see fit? It sets your business up for one thing — trouble (especially when combined with the mistake that I list next). After all, when nothing is prohibited, everything is implicitly permitted.

6. Setting to Auto-Approve

Many new affiliate programs automatically approve all affiliates that apply into them. The main reason why auto-approving everyone is always a bad idea lies in the immediacy of consequences. As soon as an affiliate is approved, they get access to your links and can start promoting you immediately. But what if their promotional tactics are incompatible with your idea of how your business, brand, or product should be marketed? What if they start promoting you via email spam or cookie stuffing? What if your brand ends up on porn or hate sites?

Yes, affiliate marketing programs provide for the ability of reversing any unqualified or (even) fraudulent transactions. Just remember: the potential damage (that some rotten apples may bring about) could be irreversible.

7. Forgetting About the Driver

Just as any marketing campaign, every affiliate program must be managed.

Imagine setting up a paid search campaign. You put in your keywords and the respective bids, tying specific ads and landing pages to them. Then you enter your credit card to be charged for the clicks, and go live. What would happen if you left it to fly on its own: for a day, week, month, or even longer? You see where I’m going here… You could potentially drain a lot of money down the drain. Just as irrelevant keywords should be eliminated from your paid search efforts, so should unsuited affiliates never be approved into an affiliate program (or removed from it if they somehow got in). Just like you would prevent paid search ads from generating untargeted traffic, so should you monitor where and how your accepted affiliates promote your brand and product. I would even argue that with an affiliate marketing campaign the stakes are higher, because you are entrusting affiliates with the most valuable asset you will ever have — your brand.

Back in 2013, in an interview to a European affiliate network, I emphasized: “Just as a ship with a sleeping helmsman is doomed to crash, so is an affiliate program which isn’t being actively managed.” My opinion remains unchanged.

8. Failing to Recruit

I was lucky to enter the world of e-commerce at its very dawn. Back then, the mantra “If you build it, they will come” was often on the lips and minds of the early e-businessmen. With time, however, we had all learned that it takes much more than merely building a good website. There must be marketing, search engine optimization, advocacy, and other components of website promotion — for the customers to come your way.

Similarly, in present day, it isn’t sufficient to merely set up your affiliate program on a popular platform. Once the program launches, your affiliate manager must spend (a large chuck of his/her) time on identifying prospective affiliates to onboard, reaching out to them, and following up with them… all with the purpose of recruiting good affiliates that would market you and your product. Otherwise, your program is doomed to just end up with a lot of “thin affiliates” that add no or little value.

So there you have them: the deadliest mistakes to avoid when setting up and launching an affiliate program. If you have anything to add to these, please do so using the “Comments” area below. I’d love to hear from you and learn from your experience. Paraphrasing the wise Eleanor Roosevelt, to get to the goal faster, you must “learn from the mistakes of others” as it would make the path to success unnecessarily long and painful if you choose “to make them all yourself.”

The post 8 Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Up an Affiliate Marketing Program appeared first on Affiliate Marketing Blog by Geno Prussakov.

“But wait…there’s more!”   We’ve all heard the infomercials with the two for the price of one special.  Or the five accessories we theoretically should never need since the first one is supposedly indestructible.  All of this for only $19.99 plus shipping

Sales managers often motivate their reps with SPIFFs and sales contests that award cash prizes. This is a tried and true sales motivation strategy, and monetary rewards generally produce results.

However, they don't really motivate the entire sales force -- only the top performers likely to win. And while it's good to motivate your rock stars, the top line would be better served by getting everyone striving for the prize.

So if monetary prizes don't do the trick, what does? Here are five creative sales motivation tactics managers can use to fire up their entire team. And the best part? They won't cost a dime.

5 Creative Sales Motivation Tactics

1. Provide coaching.

In my opinion, "coaching" and "feedback" aren't the same thing. While feedback (good or bad) is valuable for the employee, it's rarely motivating. Coaching, on the other hand, can be a motivational force if presented correctly.

I recommend that sales managers treat coaching like a gift. Instead of just serving it up to every employee like it's no big deal, frame it in such a way that the employee understands its value.

For example, instead of simply saying "I'll put some coaching time on your calendar," ask the employee with a bit of fanfare:

"I would love to coach you in X area. You could test some different approaches on me and I can share a few insights I have. Together, we can figure out what works. Would that be beneficial to you?"

Coaching gives reps the opportunity to try out sales tactics in a no-fail zone, and this exercise can be extremely motivating.

2. Use leadership.

I mean this in two ways. First, tap leaders in the company to donate their time and resources that you can then dangle as a prize. Second, extend leadership privileges to high-achieving reps.

Here are three ideas as to how you can use leadership for sales motivation:

1. Your boss will do your calls. Try a sales contest where the prize or a mid-way bonus is … you! You will work for the leading rep for a few hours doing whatever they direct you to -- calls, demos, presentations, etc. Not only does this motivate your team, but it also shows you aren't afraid to roll up your sleeves and get in the trenches. Plus, it's fun.
2. CEO takes you out to lunch. Or any C-level executive. Most sales reps crave one-on-one time with a senior leader to share their thoughts and get an inside look into company strategy.
3. Present at the next sales meeting. Ask a high-performing rep to present an innovative tactic or new approach at the next sales meeting. This kills three birds with one stone -- you're celebrating the rep, their colleagues see that reps who do well earn prestige, and you can delegate some of the responsibility of leading the meeting.

3. Bring in clients.

Your clients possess incredible motivational power. I often bring customers into the office or arrange conference calls so reps can hear how the product they sell is changing someone's life.

Invite customers to team meetings or events to chat with the reps about how they're using your offering, why they chose it over the competition, and what they liked and didn't like about your sales process. Allow for some Q&A where reps can ask questions that will help them optimize their process or messaging.

Not only does this client face time reaffirm to reps why they do what they do, but it also reminds them that it's all about the customer. After spending some time with clients, they'll be excited to get back on the phones and start selling.

4. Invest in education.

Help your reps continue with their personal growth and learning. Check and see if your human resources department has an educational stipend they can use.

If there's a class or course your rep is interested in, you can give them the day off to attend. This will encourage them to keep learning and develop their personal and technical skills.

5. Provide additional opportunities.

If a rep is performing particularly well, provide them with new opportunities. For example, you could give a high performing rep a lead from a different region or territory to test their skills and keep them challenged.

Another opportunity would be to help the rep present a sales pitch at a field marketing event. This will give them exposure to marketing professionals in their region. And the sales rep could also shadow a channel manager -- this allows them to network with more people in their area.

Sales motivation doesn't have to carry a price tag. The most motivating moments are priceless -- literally.

For more sales motivation, check out these motivational sales quotes next.

There I was, sitting down with a nice cup of coffee and watching a ballgame. An advertisement came on the air from not just any bank, but my bank. It turns out that Capital One bank is really going to shake up the banking industry.

According to Capital One, “all banks feel the same” and that’s why “Capital One is building something completely different; Capital One cafes.” Sounds good so far! The commercial continues to give you a visual look of what they call, “banking reimagined,” and they aren’t kidding! The lobby looks more like a WeWork facility, with couches, bar tables, snacks, juices, coffee, and more. What an amazing way to reimagine banking… and then it all goes wrong for me with one, irresponsible statement:

“Ready to help you; not sell you.”

Really? You want to help us, but not sell us? Pardon me, but that sure sounds like an oxymoron. How can you help us if you are unwilling to sell us? Could it be that you are misinformed as to what good, well-trained salespeople can do?

I get the fact that some of the public is misinformed, and many believe that being sold something is some sort of evil and devious act. But one of the largest banks in the country? Could it be that the leadership of Capital One bank doesn’t understand how misguided a statement like that is?

As the customer. I understand that you don’t want to be sold something. That’s your nature. But do us both a favor and try this little experiment. Take out a pad of paper or open up a blank document and write down the five biggest purchase mistakes you’ve made when you’ve made those purchases entirely on your own. Remember, I’m looking for decisions that you made without the aid of a skilled salesperson.

Rather depressing, isn’t it? It’s not really your fault. Your instinct has always been to fix small problems; not big ones, so you may have waited a little too long, worked with flawed information, got hung up by that pesky fear of change, or maybe even let price rule your decision and hold you back. You weren’t lacking information; you were lacking a well-trained subject matter expert to help you sort through that information. You didn’t have someone who knew how to problem solve, create urgency, not take “no” for an answer, and not be afraid to ask questions that might have made you feel uncomfortable. Coincidently, I just described what a well-trained salesperson does. Do you still want to go to a bank that’s afraid of the word, “sell?”

But where are my manners? Maybe Capital One is right. Perhaps people who are “ready to help you; not sell you” would better serve us. They would merely be acting on the instructions you provide them. For the record, that’s the definition of an order-taker. Make sure you study up so you can be the one to tell your order taker how to handle your finances. Study up because we’re only talking about your hard-earned money, your home, your car, your children’s education, your retirement, and more. But hey, it looks like they’re serving coffee and pastries just like Starbucks, and who doesn’t like a nice, hot cup of coffee!

Personally, I not only value the assistance of salespeople, but I would also gladly pay extra for their help. I welcome their support because I don’t want an order taker handling my banking or any major decisions I may have. Ask your tougher questions and push me when I need to be pushed.

As for Capital One: For goodness sakes, stop telling people you’re not there to sell them. It’s a ridiculous statement, and it’s disrespectful to those in the sales profession. If you’re actually serious, you are doing a tremendous disservice to your clients. I love the idea of a café, and I’m not afraid of “reimagining banking,” but I truly hope you reconsider amending your catchy little slogan. I’d suggest this one:

“Ready to help you; and not afraid to ask the tougher questions.”

Originally published here.

Taking an order when a client reaches out to you to place an order is order-taking, not selling. Asking the questions necessary to create value for that client, shape their order, and cause them to engage with you on a more strategic level is selling.

Skipping right to proposing a solution—even when your prospective client asks for a proposal—is not selling. It’s straight pitching. There is a time to pitch, and when you have done the work to put the pitch in context and win, pitching is part of selling.

Providing your prospective client with pricing because they asked for it is not selling. It’s giving up the opportunity to sell and is akin to transacting, as if there were no greater value than the product and no compelling differentiation. Pushing for a meeting that would better serve the prospect in helping them make a good decision is selling, and a lot of the time you need to sell a meeting to sell at all.

Replying to an unsolicited RFP is not selling. It is sometimes necessary, and it is mostly administrative work, but because there is no real interaction with a human being outside of the written word, it isn’t a conversation, and it isn’t selling. Doing the work to position yourself as the right partner before an RFP is selling, especially when you have shaped the primary questions that make up the RFP.

Avoiding the difficult conversations to not have to deal with conflict between what your prospective client wants and what is the right thing to do is not selling. The difficult conversations are important, and the fact that you have to change someone’s mind is why we call it selling.

The things that you might do to make selling easier and faster tend to slow things down and make things more difficult. Like any other profession, the best performers work on their effectiveness. That means doing what is right over what seems to be easier.

The post Not Selling appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Summary List Placement

This is a preview of a research report from Business insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. 

Telehealth — the use of mobile technology to deliver health-related services, such as remote doctor consultations and patient monitoring — is enabling healthcare providers and payers to address the US healthcare industry’s growing list of problems.

The proliferation and rapid advancement of mobile technology are spurring telehealth adoption, and many believe that 2018 could be the tipping point for the telehealth market.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence defines the opaque US telehealth market, forecasts the market growth potential and value, outlines the key drivers behind usage and adoption, and evaluates the opportunity telehealth solutions will afford all stakeholders. We also identify key barriers to continued telehealth adoption, and discuss how providers, payers, and telehealth companies are working to overcome these hurdles.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Telehealth is enabling healthcare providers and payers to address the US healthcare industry’s growing list of problems, including rising healthcare costs, an aging population, and the transformation of healthcare from service-centric to consumer-centric, which is straining healthcare system resources and threatening to drive up payer costs.
• Although telehealth solutions aren't suitable for all patients, right now, about 45% of the US population, or 147 million consumers, falls within the addressable market.
• Despite low usage rates, most consumers are open to using telehealth solutions, according to the 2018 Business Insider Intelligence Insurance Technology Study. 
• A range of companies are well-positioned to generate savings in terms of revenue and avoid potential pitfalls by deploying telehealth solutions.

 In full, the report:

• Offers an overview of different types of telehealth services and their applications in the US healthcare ecosystem. 
• Highlights the growth drivers and opportunities of these applications.
• Includes exclusive data and insights from the 2018 Business Insider Intelligence Insurance Technology Study. 
• Provides examples of key players in the telehealth market, including insurers, medical device makers, and health networks. 
• Gives recommendations on how health networks and payers should approach using and deploying telehealth solutions.

Join the conversation about this story »

Branding requires coordinated efforts between various moving parts to create a perception in the marketplace that drives your business forward. Your brand’s strength is directly connected to the effort put in and one of the most critical and foundational components of a broader brand-building process is Brand Positioning.

What is Brand Positioning? And, why is it important?

Brand Positioning is the practice of exploring, identifying, and refining your distinctiveness with your target audience. It is the strategy of defining the position where you want to exist in the mind of your audience.

Why is Brand Positioning so vital to include in a marketing strategy?

Developing your personalized stance in the marketplace may seem obvious, but without understanding the significance, it’s easy to dismiss the value of Brand Positioning and make the mistake of skipping important steps before choosing colors and a logo.

Here are seven reasons why you need to implement Brand Positioning.

1. Brand Positioning helps break through the internet noise
   When executed well, Brand Position gives you the opportunity to speak directly to your target audience, breaking through all the noise on the internet. Instead of throwing darts at random targets you Brand Positioning helps you speak to the right crowd.
2. Brand Positioning creates market differentiation
   With thousands of similar products on the market, advertising competition is fierce. Brand Positioning helps you clearly explain the differences in your products or services.
3. Brand Positioning makes it easier for people to purchase your products and services
   Consumers want to make quick decisions without having to hunt through multiple options. Brand Positioning initiates an emotional response from your target customer helping you earn trust. If you are able to trigger the right responses quicker (either conscious or subconscious) and clearly explain what you have for them to buy you increase the opportunities for completed sales.
4. Brand Positioning enables you to communicate your value
   Your value is what you offer customers. Value includes the aspects of your company or product that best satisfy customer needs. As well as the superior offerings to your competition. Brand Positioning clarifies your specific value. Regardless of your how large your target audience is, Brand Positioning allows you to cut through the vagueness and talk specifics.
5. Brand Positioning directs your messaging, storytelling, and copy
   A core part of all marketing is messaging, but if don’t have a clear idea of your Branding Position how do you know if you are telling the right stories? You will not communicate effectively with your audience if you don’t understand your brand’s individual value or that of your competition.
6. Brand Positioning makes your design more intuitive
   Every color choice is weighed for visual design. But those choices must go further. Brand Positioning helps you identify the foundational story from which to begin and also helps you best communicate with your target audience with colors they are drawn toward. Similarly to copywriting, imagery is another medium from which to communicate.
7. Brand Positioning justifies pricing strategies
   Even the most valuable products and services occasionally require price justification. Brand Positioning helps you identify your price point in comparison to your competition. Is your pricing justified? Brand Positioning helps you clarify why you are higher or lower than your competitors. You will also gain an idea as to whether consumers will see your justifications positively.

As you can see, Brand Positioning is one of the most important aspects of building a brand. It enables you to define where you fit in amongst your competition.

Managing the Sales pipeline is a well-developed executive skill in any company selling large ticket items to business customers. Each sales person has to gather data and input their reports and forecasts. Some of the key actions in managing the pipeline include:

1. Qualification questions have to be answered. Does the customer need our product? Do they have a budget? Are we in contact with the decision maker? Who is the competition? Etc.
2. What is the dollar value of each item in the pipeline? What is the likelihood of closing the deal? What is the timescale? Estimates for each of these questions enable a total sales forecast to be assembled and reviewed.
3. What are the barriers to each sale? What are the key actions planned? What additional resources are needed to win the deal?
4. We look back at the history of the pipeline. What are the conversion rates from prospects to sales? Why did we lose the deals we lost? What is the sales velocity i.e. how long does it take to convert prospects into sales? What could we have done better?
5. Every member of the executive team is involved and aware of the key issues. They contribute ideas and resources to help close sales.

The pipeline is regularly reviewed at executive level. It is an essential tool in running the business. Lessons are learned, and changes are made to constantly improve the sales process.

The pipeline of innovation projects for new and improved products and services is also strategically vital for the business but typically it is not treated with the same attention or importance. Let’s use a similar approach to the one above.

1. Qualify. Is there a customer need for each innovation? Will they pay for it? Are we in touch with customers who can evaluate the prototype and give us feedback? What will this innovation compete with? Will customers like it? Can we crack the technology?
2. For each item in the pipeline we need an estimate of its cost to develop and projected payback. This is reasonably straightforward for incremental innovations but particularly hard for radical innovations. Nonetheless estimates are essential. We can then evaluate the total projected impact of our innovation pipeline.
3. What are the barriers for each project? What are the key actions planned? What additional resources are needed to bring this initiative to completion? What technology challenges do we face? Do we need external help?
4. Again, we look back at the history of the pipeline. What are the conversion rates from promising ideas to implemented innovations? Why did so many projects not make it to market? What is the innovation velocity i.e. how long does it take to convert an approved initial idea into a new product or service? What is the failure rate at each stage in the gating process? What could we have done better?
5. Every member of the executive team should be involved and aware of the key issues. But often they are not – they leave it to the Chief Innovation Officer or equivalent responsible person.

The innovation pipeline should be regularly reviewed at executive level but how often does this happen? Because the revenue impacts are hard to assess and the technical barriers are tricky the innovation pipeline review tends to slip down the priority list. We need to appraise it with the same rigour that we apply to the sales pipeline. We can then use the insights gained to constantly improve and speed up our development programmes.

Based on a presentation by Charlie de Russet, Founder of Idea Drop.

Originally published here.

The term “social network” has become a meaningless association of words. Pair those two words and it becomes a tech category, the equivalent of a single term to define a group of products.

But are social networks even social anymore? If you have a feeling of tech fatigue when you open the Facebook app, you’re not alone. Watching distant cousins fight about politics in a comment thread is no longer fun.

Chances are you have dozens, hundreds or maybe thousands of friends and followers across multiple platforms. But those crowded places have never felt so empty.

It doesn’t mean that you should move to the woods and talk with animals. And Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn won’t collapse overnight. They have intrinsic value with other features — social graphs, digital CVs, organizing events…

But the concept of wide networks of social ties with an element of broadcasting is dead.

From interest-based communities to your lousy neighbor

If you’ve been active on the web for long enough, you may have fond memories of internet forums. Maybe you were a fan of video games, Harry Potter or painting.

Fragmentation was key. You could be active on multiple forums and you didn’t have to mention your other passions. Over time, you’d see the same names come up again and again on your favorite forum. You’d create your own running jokes, discover things together, laugh, cry and feel something.

When I was a teenager, I was active on multiple forums. I remember posting thousands of messages a year and getting to know new people. It felt like hanging out with a welcoming group of friends because you shared the same passions.

It wasn’t just fake internet relationships. I met “IRL” with fellow internet friends quite a few times. One day, I remember browsing the list of threads and learning about someone’s passing. Their significant other posted a short message because the forum meant a lot to this person.

Most of the time, I didn’t know the identities of the persons talking with me. We were all using nicknames and put tidbits of information in bios — “Stuttgart, Germany” or “train ticket inspector.”

And then, Facebook happened. At first, it was also all about interest-based communities — attending the same college is a shared interest, after all. Then, they opened it up to everyone to scale beyond universities.

When you look at your list of friends, they are your Facebook friends not because you share a hobby, but because you’ve know them for a while.

Facebook constantly pushes you to add more friends with the infamous “People you may know” feature. Knowing someone is one thing, but having things to talk about is another.

So here we are, with your lousy neighbor sharing a sexist joke in your Facebook feed.

Facebook’s social graph is broken by design. Putting names and faces on people made friend requests emotionally charged. You can’t say no to your high school best friend, even if you haven’t seen her in five years.

It used to be okay to leave friends behind. It used to be okay to forget about people. But the fact that it’s possible to stay in touch with social networks have made those things socially unacceptable.

Too big to succeed

One of the key pillars of social networks is the broadcasting feature. You can write a message, share a photo, make a story and broadcast them to your friends and followers.

But broadcasting isn’t scalable.

Most social networks are now publicly traded companies — they’re always chasing growth. Growth means more revenue and revenue means that users need to see more ads.

The best way to shove more ads down your throat is to make you spend more time on a service. If you watch multiple YouTube videos, you’re going to see more pre-roll ads. And there are two ways to make you spend more time on a social network — making you come back more often and making you stay longer each time you visit.

And 2018 has been the year of cheap tricks and dark pattern design. In order to make you come more often, companies now send you FOMO-driven notifications with incomplete, disproportionate information.

This isn’t just about opening an app. Social networks now want to direct you to other parts of the service. Why don’t you click on this bright orange banner to open IGTV? Look at this shiny button! Look! Look!

And then, there’s all the gamification, algorithm-driven recommendations and other Skinner box mechanisms. That tiny peak of adrenaline you get when you refresh your feed, even if it only happens once per week, is what’s going to make you come back again and again.

Don’t forget that Netflix wanted to give kids digital badges if they completed a season. The company has since realized that it was going too far. Still, U.S. adults now spend nearly six hours per day consuming digital media — and phones represent more than half of that usage.

Given that social networks need to give you something new every time, they want you to follow as many people as possible, subscribe to every YouTube channel you can. This way, every time you come back, there’s something new.

Algorithms recommend some content based on engagement, and guess what? The most outrageous, polarizing content always ends up at the top of the pile.

I’m not going to talk about fake news or the fact that YouTubers now all write titles in ALL CAPS to grab your attention. That’s a topic for another article. But YouTube shouldn’t be surprised that Logan Paul filmed a suicide victim in Japan to drive engagement and trick the algorithm.

In other words, as social networks become bigger, content becomes garbage.

Private communities

Centralization is always followed by decentralization. Now that we’ve reached a social network dead end, it’s time to build our own digital house.

Group messaging has been key when it comes to staying in touch with long-distance family members. But you can create your own interest-based groups and talk about things you’re passionate about with people who care about those things.

Social networks that haven’t become too big still have an opportunity to pivot. It’s time to make them more about close relationships and add useful features to talk with your best friends and close ones.

And if you have interesting things to say, do it on your own terms. Create a blog instead of signing up to Medium. This way, Medium won’t force your readers to sign up when they want to read your words.

If you spend your vacation crafting the perfect Instagram story, you should be more cynical about it. Either you want to make a career out of it and become an Instagram star, or you should consider sending photos and videos to your communities directly. Otherwise, you’re just participating in a rotten system.

If you want to comment on politics and life in general, you should consider talking about those topics with people surrounding you, not your friends on Facebook.

Put your phone back in your pocket and start a conversation. You might end up discussing for hours without even thinking about the red dots on all your app icons.

Sometimes things can get a little boring (or a lot boring, in some cases). You get stuck in a routine, even though you didn’t try to create or maintain that routine. You are doing the same things over and over, and what was once interesting no longer interests you. Nothing is riveting about a status quo that has lived on longer than it should have.

Maybe I am talking about your work life. Alternatively, maybe you are reading this, and it calls some other part of your life to your mind’s eye. In some area, you have likely been lulled to sleep by comfort and competence, the combination that creates stasis in human beings. Comfort and competence are how one stops growing; you know how to do what you need to do, and you accept your current results.

Giving Up What You Know

But what if you were no longer competent? What if you raised the bar you set yourself higher than anyone else would dare to set it for you? What would you have to change to improve what you are doing so much that your current level of competence wasn’t good enough for the new standard you set for yourself?

What if the level of performance of which you are capable is so far beyond what you have accepted that it would be worth pursuing? Could you give up the comfort of your current state—and the greater comfort of your competence? Could you adopt the beginner’s mind and look at something with new eyes, accepting that you have to let go of what you have to have what comes next?

Post Traumatic Growth Syndrome

I believe in post-traumatic growth syndrome, the adversity that causes people to grow from the experiences and challenges that life throws at them. However, you don’t have to wait for adversity to find you. You can challenge yourself.

You can set new goals that require you to rethink and reimagine everything you know in order to produce results that are far greater than anything you have produced up until now. You can set new standards for yourself and your performance in some area where you lack the knowledge and skills and disciplines to reach that standard. You can challenge yourself, and in doing so, create your own adversity—the kind of adversity through which you transform into the better version of yourself, you 2.0, or 3.7, or 5.1, or whatever.

The post The Value In Challenging Yourself appeared first on The Sales Blog.

John Chambers, chairman emeritus of Cisco (now founder of JC2 Ventures), knows a thing or two about tech acquisitions: he bet his career on a first one in ’93, and went on to complete 180 M&As during his 20 years tenure.

His latest message for large corporations is an alarm bell. In a fireside chat at the HAX M&A Masterclass that followed the publication of his book: Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World, Chambers issued a clear warning: learn about tech M&As or the future might happen without you.

Here are the key lessons to take away (video and transcript are here):

1. M&As Are A Vaccine Against Irrelevance

When stepping down from Cisco in 2015, John Chambers said that 40% of companies will be dead in 10 years. And 10 years might now be conservative.

It took about 20 years to Amazon to challenge WalMart, barely 10 to Airbnb with hotels and to Uber with taxis and car ownership. The next wave might just take 4–5 years. Since no company can invent everything — even Apple or Google buy startups routinely — you’ll need to either buy or partner seriously with startups (more on that later).

2. Tech Is Entering Every Sector

‘Every company you’ll acquire over this next decade will probably be indirectly or directly a tech company’, said Chambers.

Non-tech companies need to get up to speed on how to work with tech, and startups. Many of the corp dev executives who attended our last event were not from tech.

I met recently power tool companies from US and Europe . They had just set up CVC arms. They were looking into acquisitions, saying ‘we don’t know software’. They’d better tackle that M&A learning curve quickly!

3. Your Customers Can Tell You What To Buy

There was only one Steve Jobs, who just knew what to build. For others, your customers will might you what to buy. Listen to them and pay special attention to market transitions to buy next generation products.

Like Chambers experienced early in his career at IBM with mainframes, and at Wang Laboratories with mini-computers, missing a critical shift might be the end of you! The corollary for startups is: do something cool for key customers of a corporate, and you’ll get on their radar in no time!

4. Pick The Right Match

“When you buy a company, everything is negotiable except strategy and culture”, said Chambers.

Oracle has mastered takeovers but for most others, acquisitions can fail due to a poor alignment of vision for the industry and each company’s role, cultural mismatch, geographic distance or lack of integration of systems (once you scale your number of acquisitions, having different divisions or subsidiaries use different software will make your CFO insane).

There is generally more than one possible M&A target, and Cisco often walked away from potential buys for the above reasons. It also developed efficient processes: ‘I used to view process at bureaucracy, but process done right can give you speed that others cannot match’, Chambers added.

5. Build Your Playbook(s)

Back in the 90’s tech M&As were often failures. Chambers and his team researched why and built Cisco’s playbook, then tweaked it for 2 decades. According to Chambers, most of it can apply to other companies. So save yourself some time and costly attempts by getting his book ;)

Interestingly, they approached the leadership transition in the same way: they studied what made them work or fail, and made it as smooth as could be when John stepped down in 2015.

6. Do Your Homework

One common trait of experienced corp dev teams is the amount of work they put in before they approach a startup.

Not only are they aware of many through their own research, their customers, business units, CVC arms or the media, but also via extensive networks, including with VC firms.

Like investors, you’re only as good as your deal flow. Corp devs then model the value a startup might bring, and pay the right price for it (more on this below).

7. Pay For What The Value Is To You

A hot startup can command a high price, but is it worth it for you?

If it offers no complementarity or synergies, it might in fact be of negative value. On the opposite, the current revenue of a startup might be irrelevant if you can blow their product through your channels and make it 10x or 100x.

The company Chambers bought in ’93 for close to US$100million only had US$10 million in revenue. It paid off in droves.

8. Keep The Talent

When you buy a tech company, you must try and keep the talent — especially founders, emotional leaders and engineers.

Understand ‘Leaders Currency’: Track record, Trust and Relationships. So involve your HR team to answer key questions and help define attractive career paths within your organization for the acquired teams. If you fail to do so, people will leave or underperform, and you will not get the new products you hope for.

At Cisco, about 1/3 of the top leadership came from internal promotions, 1/3 from recruiting and 1/3 from acquisitions. At peak it likely had about 100 former CEOs on payroll!

9. Expect Some Failures

Despite its stellar track record, about 1/3 of Cisco’s were failures. Reasons may vary, and some might be caused by market changes. When it decided to shut down Flip Video within 2 years after its $590 million acquisition: Apple had just added cloud video capabilities, it was game over.

Expect them, learn from them, and be ready to cut losses and, ideally, redeploy people.

10. In The Future, M&As Might Not Be Enough

As the pace of innovation accelerates, and top talent joins startups rather than large companies, startups might become threats faster than you can buy them.

Chambers suggested that the next-level skill to develop is the ability to form strategic partnerships very early on with startups, such as this recent JV between Boeing and the much smaller 5-year-old A.I. startup SparkCognitionfor urban aerial mobility.

Thanks to speakers, participants and supporters of this Masterclass series, in particular: Natasha Ligai (Logitech), Todd Neville (IBM), Christina LaMontagne(Johnson & Johnson), Anne Samak de la Cerda (former CFO, Withings), Dan Fairfax, (former CFO, Brocade), Amanda Zamurs and Larry Chu (Goodwin), Kate Whitcomb and Ethan Haigh (HAX).

This story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence "Fintech Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

A year ago, Business Insider Intelligence drew up a list of our top five fintech predictions for 2018. As we enter 2019, we’re revisiting them to see how they stood the test of time. Here is what we got right about 2018:

• Open banking will cause major disruption, particularly in Europe. We predicted that the implementation of data-sharing requirements, namely the EU’s PSD2 and the UK’s Open Banking regulations, would spark a compliance frenzy for banks. That's certainly been the case — banks in Europe have spent the last year working to develop open application programming interfaces (APIs) to comply with the new regulation, and many are still struggling to cope. In fact, 54% of financial institutions (FIs) say they don't have enough information to ensure compliance with open banking regulation, even now, according to according to a Fiserv-sponsored survey. That said, open banking has also brought some successes — UK banking giant Barclays launched an account aggregation feature powered by open banking, while Nordea expanded its Open Banking initiative to Sweden. Additionally, startups like UK-based personal finance management (PFM) chatbot Plum have integrated with multiple banks. In the year ahead, we expect more firms find their footing when it comes to open banking, with an eye toward how they can turn the movement into an opportunity. Meanwhile, other geographies, including the US and Canada, may start to enter the arena.
• Global regulators will put a damper on the initial coin offering (ICO) boom. ICOs definitely saw a downturn in 2018, especially in the second half of the year. In Q3, companies raised just $1.8 billion via ICOs, compared with $8.4 billion in Q2, according to ICORating. Moreover, in Q3, 57% of ICO projects announced that they weren’t able to raise over $100,000. However, while regulators were busy issuing warning notices to investors and upping their efforts to police the sector — the SEC ceased the operation of over a dozen ICOs in the year ended September 30 — very few took a firm stance on the funding method. As such, while some of this downturn can be attributed to regulatory initiatives, it's likely also tied to cryptocurrencies’ sudden drop in value January, from which they've struggled to recover.

 

SEE ALSO: These were the biggest developments in the global fintech ecosystem over the last 12 months

Join the conversation about this story »

Have you been a good SEO all year long? If you’ve been following Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and creating super helpful, unique content, the search engine might give you the greatest gift of all: organic results.

But before you wait by the tree for those improved rankings, put down your cookies and milk. You might not see your website on the search engine results pages (SERPs) if you have been naughty this year!

Here’s six things that could put your URL on Google’s penalty list:

1. Copying a Page Verbatim, Without Permission

This one seems like a no-brainer, but Google won’t be putting you at the top of its ranking tree this holiday if you are stealing like a big, ol’ Grinch!

Even just copying a few lines from another page shows the search engine that your content isn’t unique. Your copied content is likely taken from a source that’s already ranking (because that’s how you found it!), and you certainly won’t be adding more value than the original source by regurgitating what was already said.

You’re simply not going to improve your organic results this way, and you could be reported to Google’s DMC and be involved in legal action, if the theft is severe. Not exactly the best way to start the new year!

If you are piggybacking on an idea from another source, be sure to give credit where it’s due by linking out. Then, get creative with your personal take on the matter, using your words— not theirs.

Does this apply to posting your own written content on different domains? That’s called content syndication, and when done strategically, is very different from stealing someone else’s work. Google is smart enough to discern the original source and won’t penalize you if you follow the steps outlined in the linked article.

2. Misleading Redirects

If a page is already ranking well, some sneaky SEOs might try to steal that page’s link juice and authority by placing a misleading redirect on the URL. Black Hatters do this by displaying content that’s different than what Google’s crawlers see.

How does it work? Tricky coders can mask the redirect so that the search engine indexes the original page, not the new content. Google (and Santa) don’t like being lied to, and users don’t like being taken to somewhere different than expected.

FIX IT: If you are redirecting a page, make sure you are sending users to a relevant page and not trying to trick the Googlebot or your audience.

3. Shady Link Building

If you’re singing “All I Want for Christmas is Backlinks,” you’re not alone. SEOs understand that a huge Google ranking factor is backlinks. In fact, it’s one of the eight reasons small businesses aren’t showing up on page one of the SERPs.

The problem is, building backlinks takes time. Users naturally link to your content because they find it helpful— and it can take months, or even years, to build a strong backlink profile for your domain.

Sometimes, naughty SEOs don’t want to wait, so they find themselves on Fiverr buying mass backlinks from some stranger in a foreign country, promising “1,000 quality links in 24 hours!” This effort to boost your PageRank violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, qualifying as what the search engines calls a “link scheme.”

For those who break the rules, hope you like coal this holiday. Not only will these sudden mentions alert Google’s algorithm of strange activity, but Google will likely send you a message that Manual Action has been taken to punish your site, like the message above. You’ll have to disavow these bad links and then hope you’ll get back on good terms with the search engine once the Webmasters reassess your site.

FIX IT: Ensure you don’t have spammy backlinks by following the instructions under their “Unnatural links from your site” dropdown. Then, get links the right way with this expert advice.

4. Keyword Stuffing

When you flood your content with a high volume of keywords, you not only risk being seen as spammy or inauthentic by your audience, but you will face Google’s punishment.

Keyword stuffing comes in many shapes and sizes, but it’s usually engulfing your content repetitively with one phrase or term, over and over.

This ties in heavily with our warning against shady link building, although the two don’t have to be exclusive. Creating many keyword-heavy anchor text links is just asking Google to penalize you, as the search engine will see your suspicious backlink profile.

If caught keyword stuffing red-handed, the search engine might revoke your rankings. Remember, the only kind of stuffing you want to do this holiday season is stocking stuffing, so avoid packing your content with excessive or irrelevant keywords.

FIX IT: Rank with the right keywords by incorporating them appropriately. It also helps to understand that Google is changing the way it ranks— and while keywords still matter, content which addresses topical association is taking the lead on the SERPs.

5. Abusing Structured Data Markup

Elite SEOs think they can outsmart Google by manipulating their website’s code. Google Search uses this structured data to enable special search result enhancements, like featured snippets, which often rank above the organic results on the SERPs.

Basically, these Black Hat SEOs sometimes interlace strings of commands to tell the search engine how to organize and prioritize the data, thinking they’ll game the ranking system.

They code the markup so that nothing is visible to viewers (only bots), to be sneaky— which is a big no-no in Google’s structured data guidelines. In many instances, the structured data is not representative of the actual content, or is intentionally misleading.

Let’s say you don’t even know how to do this, could someone with previous access to your website have manipulated your code, hurting your current rankings?

FIX IT: Give your team the gift of peace of mind this holiday by running your URL through Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. If there’s any naughty penalties, the search engine will bring them to light.

6. Duplicate Metadata

If you run a report through Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider or a similar website screening tool, you might be surprised to find that your domain has something called “duplicate metadata errors.”

If all your metadata is the same, you’re not offering a unique experience to tell users what your information is about— and this duplicate data could affect your SEO and confuse viewers.

Your meta description, for instance, is served whenever your site appears on the SERPs, to help users learn more about your company before clicking through. If it’s not relevant or enticing enough, it could deter visits.

Or, if your images aren’t optimized with original file names or alt text, every file will look the same in the eyes of Google. Not to mention, if an image doesn’t load correctly, the alt text will display something inaccurate to viewers.

FIX IT: Once you run your URL through Screaming Frog, replace your duplicate metadata with unique, relevant descriptions.

Having Trouble with Your Rankings?

Have you made any of these six SEO mistakes? If so, don’t panic. You still have the chance to make amends and improve your rankings for next holiday!

If you’re having trouble with your local rankings, that’s a whole different beast. Even if you don’t have any Google penalties, you need the right mix of ranking factors to land page one results.

Download our Google Ranking Casserole e-book for an 8-ingredient recipe to whip up one irresistible website.

TRANSCRIPTION:

I want to ask you a question. What’s the strategic business purpose of your social media? Woah – have you thought about it? Have you considered what it is? There are really five solid substantive reasons why you might want to use social media.

The first one of those is networking. The social media can be an efficient way of online networking, just like you network in the real world. Developing relationships, getting to know people, exchanging information – the same things you do face-to-face at networking at or conferences, you can also do online. And guess what, you don’t need to ravel to another city or take time away from the office. So it’s an efficient way too doing that.

The second one is something that’s becoming more popular recently and that is content promotion. You’re developing this content that people are anticipating, and that’s educating them on what you do and what kind of value you can bring to an engagement. But how do you promote that? How do you get that out there? Social media is probably one of the vary best ways to do that, to get that information out to the world so they can pass that along to where it works for them.

The third thing is Search engine optimization, or SEO. You may not realize it, but promoting content and using social media as a tool for distributing that content can actually help in your social media. IT’s not direct, but when you promote your content out there and people link back to it, or they share it with others who link back to it, that really helps your organic or naturally occurring SEO.

The fourth way or thing that you can use social media for in a strategic purpose is research. Actually understanding something about your target audience. People ask us all the time, you know, how can you research my target audience. Well, social media is a low-cost, low-time commitment way to track what’s going on with your target audience. You’ll understand them better and you can research individual companies. There are a lot of tools out there to make that a reality.

Finally, you can use it in recruiting. There’s a war out there for talent. How do you get the best talent? Well, social media is one of the ways people look for positions, they look for the culture. What’s the fit they’re going to have with your firm and sharing that with social media is a great way to supplement your recruiting efforts.

So choose which of those five or what combination of those possible strategic goals you want to use.

• Many millennials wonder: "Should I have a baby?"
• The struggle to decide has prompted them to pay for coaches, classes, and books, The New York Times reports.
• One such online group course costs $397.
• Many women are worried about juggling parenting and their careers, and about giving up their freedom.

Over the summer, The New York Times' Hannah Seligson wrote an article about the growing number of millennials who are plagued with indecision about whether to have kids.

The result is the proliferation of classes and coaches to help people choose, and book-long accounts of individuals' struggles to figure out where they stand.

"The pendulum is swinging toward more focus on this gray area," clinical social worker Merle Bombardieri told The Times (her practice has for 30 years focused on people who are uncertain about having kids). "There used to be a lot of either/or, either parenthood is wonderful or it's terrible." Now, many people find themselves stuck between different visions of their future.

Bombardieri runs a one-day workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called "The Baby Decision"; the cost for one person is $115 (couples get a discount). 

Meanwhile, Ann Davidman is a so-called "motherhood clarity mentor." An online group course with Davidman costs $397; one-on-one coaching presumably costs more, though the price isn't listed on the website.

And San Francisco Women's Therapy (not mentioned in The Times) offers counseling for those considering motherhood, with the goal of helping women "overcome feelings of guilt, regret or fear attached to your decision" and "recognize patterns from your own childhood and break through unhealthy ones." (The website doesn't list the cost, but indicates that they don't directly bill insurance companies.)

Many women worry about juggling the demands of work and parenting

Reasons for indecision around having kids vary, but research suggests that for many women, the paralysis often has to do with worrying about work/life balance (or lack thereof). In a survey conducted by Bustle Trends Group, EJ Dickson writes, many respondents said they were so anxious about juggling parenthood and their careers that they weren't sure if they wanted to have kids.

Read more: Top execs in banking, retail, and tech are saying they don't practice work-life balance — because they found something better

Indeed, a Pew Research Center survey published in 2015 found that 58% of working millennial mothers said being a parent made it harder for them to get ahead work, compared to 19% of working millennial fathers.

If you find yourself among the undecided-and-freaking-out, an expert's four-factor framework can help you move (slightly) forward. Business Insider previously spoke to Carl Pickhardt, a psychologist who's published multiple books about parenting and he said that four factors determine whether you're prepared to have a kid: a solid partnership or support network, the ability to take care of yourself, self-discipline, and a vision of parenting as self-fulfillment. Most people, Pickhardt said, only consider that last factor — but "love is not enough."

SEE ALSO: Millennial parents are doing things differently than any other generation before them

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Barbara Corcoran on Donald Trump: 'He is the best salesman I've ever met in my life'

I just read a provocative post. Sales Talent Is A Problem, Is it Worth Solving, by the folks at CSO Insights. It’s an interesting view, in the spirit of “Yes, and…..” I’d like to add to the discussion.

I suppose answers to the question depend on your mindset. A closed mindset would probably say, “No!” The article presents a few points of view that reinforce that.

People with closed mindsets would tend to address things from an internal orientation. How do we structure the sales organization to be most efficient? How do we reduce the variability in sales people and what they do, creating the lowest cost ability to acquire customers.

Many would also cite technologies that, supposedly, diminish the need for sales talent. After all, AI and ML will solve all the problems of the selling world. It will tell us who to call, when, what their problems are likely to be. It will scripting the perfect conversation making sure we limit our discovery questions to 4, and our discovery pitch to 9.1 minutes (some how the concept of a discovery pitch seems odd, how do you do discovery if you are pitching. But one AI vendor has the data supporting this. You just do one for 9.1 minutes and you win. If it stretches to 11.4, you lose.)

If we structure our engagement process to be more transactional, the assembly line process becomes very attractive. We specialize our various sales roles, moving customer widgets from sales specialist to sales specialist. SDR to BDR to Demo’er to AE to Closer to Customer Care—-rinse, wash, recycle. This mechanized view of selling, means our view of talent is very different. We are looking for people that can execute their specialized roles very well, train them to do those without deviation. Ultimately, we can look at displacing many of these with Chatbots, and as buyers develop their capabilities, our Chatbots will engage with their Buying Chatbots.

People with closed mindsets will interpret the data, “Buyers are used to getting minimal sales involvement,” or other data that says “Buyers will leverage 3+ channels through their buying process,” (Gartner), coming to the conclusion that buyers have a preference to minimize sales involvement.

But dive into the research more deeply, what it really tells you is that buyers are agnostic on channels. They have no preference of digital, sales, or any other. What they want is great insight, timely, accurate and relevant to their specific needs.

If anything, one could interpret the data as sales having driven the customer to the alternative channels because of our inability to do the things they need. Which, at its root is a talent problem—do we have the right type of people, are we equipping the with the right skills/tools/processes to create value in every interaction with the customer? It seems the customers are voting by their actions and they are voting no.

A closed mindset will lead you to certain conclusions about sales talent, inevitably, it will lead to an answer , “Meh!”

A growth oriented mindset would approach the question slightly differently. First, people with a growth oriented mindset would start in a completely different place.

Rather than starting with an internal, efficiency oriented focus, they would start with an external focus. They would start with customers, They would ask the question, “What are our customers facing?” They would follow that with the question, “How can our sales people best help our customers deal with what they face?”

We would see two major trends emerging. Many “buying processes,” are, in fact very transactional. In looking at the transactional buying processes, much of what I’ve discussed will apply–ultimately, these should all be handled untouched by human hands–on both the buying/selling sides.

But the major issue we would see confronting our customers is massive turbulence. This turbulence is characterized by all sorts of terms, a few or which are: Transformation (digital and otherwise), complexity, disruption, information overload, overwhelm, confusion, distraction, massive change, confusion.

They would also see that no customer, no market, no function is immune to this turbulence. It impacts every organization, every individual.

Growth mindset people would see that helping our customers make sense of what they face, helping them navigate their way to solving these problems, is what great sales people and organizations do.

If anything, they would see a massive increase in the demand/need for help from their customers.

At the same time, they would recognize, it takes a different kind of sales person to be able to deal with these issues. Different skills, capabilities, experiences.

They would also come to the conclusion that the sales talent problem isn’t just worth solving, it becomes a key differentiator in capitalizing on the demand from customers looking to make sense of the turbulence they face.

The organizations/leaders that recognize this opportunity, that want to provide leadership in helping customers address “turbulence,” will capture huge share.

The organizations/leaders that recognize this opportunity will recognize that sales talent is THE problem worth solving!

In addition to our Sunday App of the Week feature, we also summarize some of our favorite B2B sales & marketing posts from around the Web each week. We’ll miss a ton of great stuff, so if you found something you think is worth sharing please add it to the comments below.

The Meeting Agenda Sample That’ll Help You Run Productive and Efficient Meetings
Unnecessary meetings can be maddening. Here’s how to run a more effective and productive meeting that won’t waste anyone’s time. Thanks for the advice, Clifford Chi.

Four Ways to Prospect More Effectively During the Holidays
The holidays don’t have to be a dead time in terms of business development and relationship building. Thanks for your insight, Dave Mattson.

5 Things to Consider When Implementing a Lead Scoring Program
Lead scoring is a great way to takes away some of the uncertainty that comes with not being able to speak directly to your leads, but if you’ve never used it before, it can be hard to know where to start. Thanks for the tips, Helen Veyna.

Why I’m So Optimistic About The Future Of Selling
The future of selling is looking up! But it will likely be different from what it is now. Thanks for your thoughts, David Brock.

Most People Use LinkedIn Wrong
Are you using LinkedIn in the most effective way you can? Thanks for your insight, Chris Brogan

Why are Half of All Sales Reps Still Missing Quota in a Booming US Economy?
Some of the many reasons sales reps still might not be making their quotas. Thanks, Dave Kurlan.

3 Tips for Motivating Millennial Salespeople Beyond Compensation
Some of the secrets of what really motivates your millennial salespeople. Thanks for the tips, Danita Bye.

Why attribution can be overrated & create unintended consequences
Sure, attribution can be helpful, but you must keep your eyes on your ultimate goal to avoid getting distracted. Thanks for your thoughts, Scott Vaughan.

A Brand Storytelling Framework From Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Something to be learned from a classic holiday story. Thanks, Ann Handley.

The post B2B Reads: Holiday Prospecting, Lead Scoring, and Lessons from Rudolph appeared first on Heinz Marketing.

There’s been a fundamental shift in the B2B buying process over the last 5 years. So why has the way we measure success stayed the same?

Your customers can find everything about your company online — via product videos, reviews, your website, analyst reports, press releases — without ever filling out a form or talking to you.

As a result, leads are getting harder and harder to come by. And as the number of decision-makers involved in the sales process increases, even good leads aren’t as valuable as they used to be.

Enter account-based marketing. By focusing on the right accounts throughout the entire customer lifecycle, your marketing team can have a bigger impact on revenue than ever before. And you can prove it.

Why Measure ABM Differently?

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: we’re not suggesting that you dump your existing funnel. Instead, you should be operating separate funnels for your target and nontarget accounts.

If this sounds scary to you, don’t worry! It’s easier than you think.

To give you a jumping-off point, we’ve put together a customizable Google Slides deck that will walk you through account-based reporting. The templates in this deck make it easy to track your target account pipeline and communicate your results to your board, your C-suite, and your team.

But before you start reporting on your ABM strategy, it’s important to understand why your target accounts should exist within their own distinct funnel. There are three primary reasons you need to measure ABM differently.

ABM looks at accounts holistically instead of focusing on individual leads.

As Eric Wittlake puts it in TOPO‘s Account-Based Measurement Model, “The demand-centric measurement model doesn’t support an account-based approach because it is focused on individual leads while the account based approach is focused on the entire account. As a result, organizations wrongly conclude their programs are ineffective and get a distorted view of their account-based strategy ROI.”

The top of the account-based funnel is static.

With inbound marketing, you start by casting a wide net to generate leads at the top of your funnel. With account-based marketing, you start with a list of strategic accounts that marketing and sales will pursue together. Unlike a traditional funnel, your ABM funnel won’t continually widen at the top. You’ve got your list of accounts, and it remains the same until you decide to refresh it — typically on a quarterly basis.

With ABM, there is no marketing-to-sales handoff.

Leads and accounts in your ABM funnel will never be passed from marketing to sales. That’s because the two teams are working those accounts in tandem throughout the entire buyer’s journey. At no stage should marketing say, “This account is sales’ responsibility now. We’ve done our job.”

Defining the Stages of the New Account-Based Funnel

We all know what the traditional B2B funnel looks like, from awareness to purchase. Now, let’s take a look at the new ABM funnel and what each stage means. As you can see in the graphic below, we recommend operating two unique account-based funnels — one for new business, and one for expansion revenue. These funnels share the same key stages, with the only difference being the types of accounts in each one.

Target Prospect Accounts: Net-new target accounts and target accounts in your acquisition funnel

Target Customer Accounts: Existing customer accounts in your expansion funnel

Engaged Target Accounts: Target accounts that have demonstrated meaningful engagement with your company and are ready for one-to-one outreach. This stage of the funnel, which can also be called marketing qualified accounts (MQAs), can serve as a proxy for the MQL stage of the lead-based funnel.

Tip: Meaningful engagement is about quality, not just quantity. For example, you might consider an account “meaningfully engaged” when 4 individuals visit 8 product pages on your website. This will be your threshold for turning target accounts into engaged accounts.

Target Account Opportunities: Target accounts that are in an active sales cycle

Won Target Accounts: Target accounts with closed-won deals — the ultimate goal!

Report on the ABM Funnel with this Template

Now that you understand the stages of the account-based funnel, it’s time to start reporting on them. The ABM Reporting Template includes customizable scorecards, dashboards, and reports that make communicating the value of your target account strategy simple. Download it now to get started.

Well, December 13th was a good day for me. It was my birthday – had a great time with my family and a chocolate peanut butter pie!

Google also announced the option to pay for conversions with display campaigns. For many, this is a welcome new bidding feature that may encourage people to re-examine how they run display campaigns.

Many advertisers tend to use display more for branding/awareness or micro-conversions (think e-mail sign ups or increasing your pool of people for remarketing). Having said that, display campaigns have proven to be a good way for some advertisers in different industries to generate direct conversions. But, I think most advertisers begin with search campaigns as a means to drive direct leads and sales.

Pay Per Click vs Pay Per Conversion

Before this new pay per conversion was an option, you could use pay per click (or impressions) with display campaigns. With pay per click you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. You also have the option to set a target cost per action (CPA). When you do this, Google will use automated bidding strategies to try and hit your target CPA. So, if you set a target CPA of $50, Google will try and hit that target.

In reality, this is hit and miss. Just because you set your target CPA to $50 does not mean that is what is going to happen. Your actual CPA could be lower or much higher. Google simply has a target to try and hit.

Display Pay Per Conversion

With this new bidding strategy, you no longer pay for clicks (or impressions). You only pay when you get a conversion. Here’s an important line from Google’s announcement:

“Paying for conversions means you only pay when someone converts on your website or app – and you’ll never pay above your target cost per action (CPA).”

That last part is especially interesting. You’ll never pay above your target CPA. Pretty cool.

However, don’t go thinking that you’ll be able to set a ridiculously low CPA and watch the conversions continue to role in. Let’s say you currently get conversions from your display campaign at about $50 each. You’ve been in that ballpark for a while and you’ve been testing different ads and optimizing it the best you can.

If you go and choose the new conversion-based bidding option and decide to set your target CPA at $5, you’ll probably be disappointed. If you set your target CPA unreasonably low (relative to what you have already proved you can get conversions for) you’ll probably experience a drop in click & impression volume.

Why?

Google is now trying to hit your new and very low CPA target. Something has to give in order to try and hit that target. Most likely, volume is going to give way.

If Google continued to show your ads at the same rate they did when your target CPA was $50 (and they were getting paid for every click!) they would lose money with their ad inventory. It simply would not make financial sense for them to keep this same level of ad volume when your new target CPA is $5 (and, they no longer get paid for clicks).

But, this is why you test. Let the data have the final say.

Some Final Details

If you bid for offline conversion types, then your account will not be eligible for conversion bidding on display.

If you use shared budgets, it does not work.

Pay for conversions does not optimize for the following:

• Offline conversions
• Google Ads Conversion Import
• Cross-device conversions

You can read more details here

Are LinkedIn Groups Dead? Not According to LinkedIn.

You may already be aware of the value that LinkedIn brings to your small business social media efforts, especially in a B2B space.

And for several years, another benefit to using this social media channel was the ability to create your own branded LinkedIn group that helped boost brand visibility.

But in 2017 LinkedIn made several changes to their layout and groups seemed to take a back seat. They were suddenly hard to find plus their API was altered preventing social scheduling apps like Hootsuite from connecting.

These changes drastically reduced the engagement and activity that was once found in many thriving groups.

As a result of these changes, many assumed the death of groups was imminent.

But LinkedIn issued a release in September 2018 stating they have rebuilt groups from the ground up. This announcement boasted new features with promises of more to come.

Maybe LinkedIn groups aren’t dead after all! I certainly was a fan of them and found a lot of value in the community of like-minded professionals found there.

So in anticipation of LinkedIn groups being resurrected, keep reading to learn about creating your own LinkedIn Group so your business can benefit from the increased brand visibility it brings.

Benefits to Owning a LinkedIn Group

A LinkedIn group enables your business to have a discussion board related to your industry. It gives you the opportunity to create a special interest group of like-minded individuals that is specific to your product, service and/or expertise.

Groups also provide excellent visibility for your business since every member who is a part of your group will have your logo visible in their profile. One of the upcoming promised features is having the group discussions show up in the member’s LinkedIn feed, which will help foster meaningful engagement.

Group owners also now have the ability to post different types of media such as videos and images. Immediate notifications are also new where real-time conversations can happen easier than ever before.

There are well over a million groups in LinkedIn so to make yours stand out, you will want to encourage active participation by having members of your group post articles and updates for other group members to benefit.

How to Create a New LinkedIn Group

Log into your account and click on the “My Network” tab in the top navigation and select “groups” from the left-hand side menu. These groups are the ones you are currently a member of.

At the top right side of the page, click on the “Create new group” button. This will open a pop-up window for you to fill out.

Use your company logo or a logo specific for this group. Your logo will serve as an identifier of your group on the main group page.

When creating your group name, be sure to select a name that clearly represents your group’s mission or subject area.

Fill out a brief summary that will concisely describe what your group is about. When writing this, be sure to emphasize the benefits for someone to join- why should they join and what will they get out of being a part of your community?

The longer “Group rules” description gives you room to fully explain what topics will be discussed, how people can participate and the rules you set for such participation.

Standard or Unlisted? You Decide Which Access Type

When determining the Privacy option, the “Standard” selection means it is open for anyone to join your group. Your group will be found in the search results and existing members can invite others to join.

The “Unlisted” option does not appear in the group search results and only group owners and managers can invite people to join.

Now you’re ready to click “Create” and your group has been formed!

Invite New Members to Join

Your next step is to invite people to join your group showcasing the benefits of being a part of your community.

Create an initial welcome post inviting new members to post an introduction about themselves and encourage them to be engaged and keep the discussions going.

Keep the momentum going by adding posts and being engaged with others. With consistent effort, soon your group will be a thriving community.

Do you have a LinkedIn group you want to share? Post it below and invite others to join!

Being a sales leader is something we all desire to be. I don’t think anyone who is committed to being in sales wants to be seen as a sales follower. Can you imagine walking up to a customer and saying, “Hi, I’m your new sales follower.” I can only imagine how the customer would respond. Your job, regardless of your title, is to be seen as sale leader.

A few years ago, I was working with a sales team in Trinidad. As we dug into a particular issue, it set me on a mission to simplify and narrow things down.  After that meeting, I created the 9 traits of a sales leader.

Great sales leaders:

1.  Demonstrate trust

2. Create a motivating environment

3.  Set and communicate clear goals and objectives

4.  Support and empower others

5.  Commit to follow-through and execution

6.  Listen attentively

7.  Remain vision focused

8.  Foster a team environment

9.  Focus on people not tasks

To make it easy for you, I’ve created the 9 Attributes of a Great Sales Leader info-graphic. I am happy to share.

Take a few minutes to review the list and put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Ask yourself:

” Would I appreciate having salespeople call on me to exhibit these traits?”

“As a salesperson, would I like my manager to exhibit these same traits?”

Sales at all levels is about leadership. This coming year, I’m committing myself to be more focused than ever on these. Leadership is a journey; it’s never a destination for one simple reason— it’s about people. People are anything but consistent.

In the months to come, I’m going to challenge you to take one of the 9 traits and focus in on it. Work to define what it means to you and to those you lead. The world is crying out for leaders who value others. As you take time to reflect on these traits, you will notice a common point in all nine —people. Leadership is about being 100% focused on others. How focused are you on others?

One of the best ways to be focused on others is to ensure you are fully prepared. This is one of the main reasons I’ve been talking so much about my Master Class on Setting Goals, Achieving Goals, and Mapping Your Plan for Success in the New Year. I’m encouraging you to take advantage of this valuable information now to help set you up for your best in the new year. To gain access to the Master Class content and ensure you are preparing yourself for 2019 and beyond, check out the Master Class: https://lp.thesaleshunter.com/order-mc

Are you planning a sales kick-off meeting for 2019?  If so, give me a call and let’s talk about how I can help your team not just achieve 2019 goals, but blow past them.  I still have some available dates, so call and we will make it happen.  Sales is not a solo activity. Sales is a team sport. Let’s make your team the best it can be. You can call me at 402-445-2110 or email me: Mark@TheSalesHunter.com.

Don’t forget a coach can help you excel in your sales career. Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results