Category: Entrepreneurs

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9 Success Habits of Wealthy People That Cost Nothing

Money isn’t everything but lack of money is a lame excuse for a lot things.

Have you ever wondered how certain people have gotten so successful? Sure you have. A great idea, motivation, persistence, and a little luck help, but most successful people share certain habits. Here are nine habits that have helped place them on the top:

1. They meditate.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, told The Huffington Post  that “Meditation, more than anything in my life was the biggest ingredient of whatever success I’ve had.” Dalio, however, is not alone. Oprah, Rupert Murdoch, Russell Simmons, Arianna Huffington, Bill Ford, and Padmasree Warrior have all attributed mediation as a huge component to their success.

Taking care of your body and mind by relaxing, exercising, healthy eating and getting enough sleep are all ways to improve your chances of success.

2. They wake up early.

President Obama, Richard Branson, Jack Dorsey, Larry Schultz, Tim Cook, and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns are known to be early risers. How has this attributed to their success? Because early risers are able to start their days ahead of everyone else by responding to others, exercising, and finding some personal time, early risers also tend to be happier and are more proactive.

3. They network.

Successful people realize the importance of networking. In fact, research has found that networking can lead to people performing better at work and increase the chance of landing a job. Networking helps our successful people be more innovative. According to Dale Carnegie’s classic “How To Win Friends & influence People,” successful people rarely complain or criticize. They are sincere and try to be empathetic.

4. Keep themselves busy.

Successful people are rarely idle. Achievers like LBJ and Robert Moses were known to work 60-65 hours per work. Elon Musk works a whooping 80-100 hours per week and has said, “That’s the type of work ethic an entrepreneur needs to have.”

5. They know when to say “no.”

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” – Warren Buffett

Successful people realize that by saying “no” to negativity, extra work, and activities that waste time, they can focus on increasing their productivity. If they say “yes” to everyone or everything, they’ll be too distracted and will not accomplish tasks that have to be done.

6. They don’t watch TV, they read.

According to Thomas Corley, author of “Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits Of Wealthy Individuals,” 67 percent of rich people only watch TV for one hour or less per day. Corley also found only 6 percent of the wealthy watch reality shows, while 78 percent of the poor do.

Additionally, 86 percent of the wealthy love to read with an impressive 88 percent claiming that they read for self-improvement for 30 minutes or more per day.

7. They write to-do lists the night before.

Successful people are known for writing their to-do lists the night before so that they are able to set priorities for the following day. They number their lists as well to identify which tasks are the most important.

8. They set goals and visualize.

Joel Brown interviewed a number of high achievers for Entrepreneur and found that “Ninety-five percent of the successful achievers I have interviewed practice writing down their goals, plans, or visions for success on a regular basis.” Successful people do this the night before, or first thing in the morning so that they are prepared to tackle the challenges that await them.”

9. They manage their money.

Successful people have gotten where they are because they were able to manage their finances well. This means that they invest their money wisely, look for new opportunities and set aside emergency funds. They are more generous and willing to donate to those who need help. Here are 101 ways that I’ve put together to save money like well-off people. In addition, I’ve found that my marriage has become 10x better with enough savings in the bank for a year of expenses. That saved us when my last business venture failed.

There is an old saying that luck and preparation always meet opportunity. The most successful people set themselves up for success by preparing all the time. Successful people expect luck will find them, and it usually does.

Source: entrepreneur.com ~ By:  ~ Image: Canva Pro

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4 Ways to Max Out the 40-Hour Workweek

Entrepreneur

In today’s 24/7 world, is the 40-hour workweek still possible or is it a pipe dream?

It is absolutely possible; you just need to work smarter, not harder.

In my role as VP of Communications at Porch.com, a home-improvement network, I communicate this philosophy to my team along with the importance of adopting work-life balance principles.

So how can other businesses implement these ideologies? They need to have a plan of action.

To help people crack the code for how to create an efficient and impactful 40-hour workweek, here are four methods to set a course for successfully working smarter, not harder.

1. Ignore the visibility trap.

Over the years I have observed one consistent action that extends their workweek well beyond 40-hours: The never ending quest for visibility. The No. 1 sign you are stuck in the visibility trap is you are going to too many meetings and particularly meetings you don’t really need to go to. Why is this trap so common? I have found that many people may feel left out or left behind if they are not at every meeting with their colleagues. Ignore this trap. I know it can be hard, but if you are in meetings, chances are you are not working.

How do you ignore this? Meetings are expensive so don’t spend valuable minutes in meetings you don’t really need to be in. Do a hardcore audit of your meetings. What is being discussed in the meeting that you can’t get after the fact? Does the meeting really need to be 60 minutes or can it be 30 minutes? What are the goals of the meeting? If a meeting does not have a structured agenda, clear roles for participants and a set of desired outcomes, it is probably not going to be a great use of your time.

2. Outcomes over activities.

Throughout the day you need to ask yourself, are you producing tangible outcomes or are you just participating in activities that you think are important? If you don’t have any goals in mind for the week, you won’t know if you are on track and driving actual value to the business. When this happens you also won’t have clarity, predictability or know if the week was truly a success (and if you spent your time on the right things).

How do you do this? Set up weekly priorities and stick to them. Communicate daily with your manager to ensure you are always on the right track and your week is setup for success. Are you getting the right support and resources? Do things need to change on the priority list? Have a conversation on Monday to set the table for the week. When you get to Friday, how will you know that the week was a success? If you focus on the outcomes over activities you are halfway there.

Only you can truly control the fate of your week. Yes, things come up that you can’t plan for, but if you are focused on working with your manager on the right outcomes, you will have the air cover you need to stay focused on the task at hand. If you allow people to pull you off on the wrong path you will lose focus. Pick your spots, leverage the help of others, and control your day in a way that keeps you in the driver’s seat.

How do you do this? At the beginning of the day take a serious look at the day ahead. What MUST get done? What needs to happen to hit your daily goals? If you feel randomized call a time-out and reassess how you will carve up your time for the rest of the day.

4. Fly above the noise.

When you need to truly get work done nothing matters more than finding a way to fly about the noise. You can easily fall behind if you are spending too much time chatting in the hallways with colleagues, taking extended lunches, getting wrapped up in conversations and other activities that pull you away from the task at hand.

How do you do this? Stay heads down. Stay off Facebook and Twitter. Don’t get wrapped up in the gossip chains. Ignore the shiny objects. If you can do that you are well on your way to maximizing out your workweek to produce great results.

Source: entrepreneur.com ~ By:  ~ Image: Canva Pro

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Warren Buffett Tells You How to Turn $40 Into $10 Million

Long Term Investing

Buffett shows how investors with a little patience and understanding can turn $40 into $10 million over the course of their lifetime.

Warren Buffett is perhaps the greatest investor of all time, and he has a simple solution that could help an individual turn $40 into $10 million.

A few years ago, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 0.99%) (BRK.B 1.08%) CEO and Chairman Warren Buffett spoke about one of his favorite companies, Coca-Cola (KO 0.71%), and how after dividends, stock splits, and patient reinvestment, someone who bought just $40 worth of the company’s stock when it went public in 1919 would now have more than $5 million.

Yet in April 2012, when the board of directors proposed a stock split of the beloved soft-drink manufacturer, that figure was updated and the company noted that original $40 would now be worth $9.8 million. A little back-of-the-envelope math of the total return of Coke since May 2012 would mean that $9.8 million is now worth about $11.5 million.

The power of patience
I know that $40 in 1919 is very different from $40 today. However, even after factoring for inflation, it turns out to be $542 in today’s dollars. Put differently, would you rather have an Apple Watch, or almost $11 million?

But the thing is, it isn’t even as though an investment in Coca-Cola was a no-brainer at that point, or in the near century since then.

Sugar prices were rising. World War I had just ended a year prior. The Great Depression happened a few years later. World War II resulted in sugar rationing. And there have been countless other things over the past 100 years that would cause someone to question whether their money should be in stocks, much less the stock of a consumer-goods company like Coca-Cola.

The dangers of timing
Yet as Buffett has noted continually, it’s terribly dangerous to attempt to time the market:

With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can’t figure out when it will happen. You don’t want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you’re right about what, you don’t have to worry about when”

So often investors are told they must attempt to time the market — to start investing when the market is on the rise and sell when the market peaks.

This type of technical analysis — watching stock movements and buying based on short-term and often arbitrary price fluctuations — often receives a lot of media attention, but it has proven no more effective than random chance.

Investing for the long term
Individuals need to see that investing is not like placing a wager on the 49ers to cover the spread against the Panthers, but instead it’s buying a tangible piece of a business.

It is absolutely important to understand the relative price you are paying for that business, but what isn’t important is attempting to understand whether you’re buying in at the “right time,” as that is so often just an arbitrary imagination.

In Buffett’s own words, “If you’re right about the business, you’ll make a lot of money,” so don’t bother about attempting to buy stocks based on how their stock charts have looked over the past 200 days. Instead always remember that “it’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price,” and, much like Buffett, hope to hold it forever.

Source: fool.com ~ By Patrick Morris ~ Image: Canva Pro

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The Advantage Of Being A Female Entrepreneur

Female Entrepreneur

The tech and business worlds aren’t always seen as female-friendly places — just 37 percent of entrepreneurs are women — but female business leaders may actually have a surprising advantage over their male colleagues.

According to recent data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, entrepreneurs in the U.S. feel a greater sense of purpose than the average worker (51 percent vs. 44 percent), which contributes to greater fulfillment from their work and lives.

Among female entrepreneurs, “purpose thriving” is especially strong. Fifty-six percent of female entrepreneurs say they have a strong sense of purpose, compared to 47 percent of male entrepreneurs, 48 percent of non-entrepreneurial female workers, and 41 percent of non-entrepreneurial male workers.

Separately, the study found that female entrepreneurs are also more likely to report greater physical well-being than male entrepreneurs and male and female non-entrepreneurial workers, the study found.

The findings ring true across age, race, and socioeconomic demographics, and also account for factors like martial status, income and weekly hours worked, the researchers found.

“Demographic factors alone don’t account for entrepreneurs’ higher purpose well-being,” a Gallup press release notes. “Rather, there is something else about being an entrepreneur that relates to liking what they do each day and being motivated to achieve their goals.”

According to a recent global ranking from Gender-GEDI, the United States is the best country in the world for female entrepreneurs to prosper, followed by Australia, Sweden and Germany.

To be sure, women face a number of challenges in starting businesses — including work-life balance concerns, fear of failure, and lack of female role models in business — but they still seem to be happier than their male and non-entrepreneurial counterparts. According to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) U.S. Report, female entrepreneurs who become established business owners ranked their well-being more than twice as high as non-entrepreneurs and non-business owners.

Source: huffingtonpost.com ~ By: Carolyn Gregoire ~ Image: Canva Pro

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The Dos and Don’ts of Social Selling on Linkedin and Facebook

According to the US Commerce Department, Americans spent $453.5 billion shopping online in 2017. A lot of that sales activity originated from social media, where seven out of ten Americans spent an average of two hours per day. That means that today’s salespeople can’t expect to be successful using traditional sales methods. Thankfully, with new challenges come new opportunities—for those who can adapt.

So, where do you think that opportunity lies for today’s sales professionals? You guessed it, social selling!

We’ve written at length about why social selling beats the old sales model. Now it’s time to tackle the how. That’s why we’ve collected best practices for success to help today’s sales teams avoid common stumbling blocks with social selling on LinkedIn and Facebook—which together boast more than 2 billion users (in other words, 2 billion potential customers).

Social Selling With Linkedin

DO: Reach out to your mutual connections.

We tend to associate with people who are similar to ourselves. In psychology, this is known as the similarity-attraction theory. Now consider your LinkedIn connections; focus on the ones who are satisfied customers of your product/service. Those are your ideal customers, right? Who do you think they associate with? In other words, who are their LinkedIn connections?

According to the similarity-attraction theory, many of their connections are similar people who would therefore also fit the demographic of your ideal customer! So, start reaching out to those mutual connections to get a sense of their needs and whether your product or service can help fulfill those needs.

DON’T: Send generic connection requests.

In sales, we place great emphasis on the hook—that initial attention-grabber that convinces your audience to hear you out. You would never start a pitch without a hook, right? Don’t make a LinkedIn introduction without one either. Accompany every invitation to connect with a personalized note.

DO: Share valuable content and engage meaningfully with others.

Over the past few years, LinkedIn has blossomed into a powerful content marketing platform. If you come across an insightful article relating to your industry, share it (bonus points for creating original content of your own). If people consistently find the content you share valuable, they will start to see you as an expert resource and are more likely to reach out the next time they have a problem that your product/service can help solve.

DON’T: Disrupt the professional ambiance.

LinkedIn gives off a professional tone that separates it from other social channels—users expect to network in a professional manner. If you make a habit of overstepping these boundaries, you risk upsetting people or turning them off to conducting business with you. Avoid overly casual or personal posts. If you need to sound off about something, find another outlet to do so. Use the right social platform for the right purpose.

DO: Optimize your profile for higher visibility

Let your customers come to you by appearing in more relevant searches on LinkedIn. Your headline (the line under your name that typically gives your job title), summary, and contact details are opportunities to showcase your area of expertise and your brand. Your summary should explain what you’re passionate about, your skills, and how you can help others.

Include a call to action next to your contact information to let your connections know you’re available to discuss your product or service further.

Do you have a sales deck, presentation or video that does some of your selling for you? Include it in your profile as well.

DO: Consider investing in LinkedIn’s premium/Sales Navigator options

Build a better, higher quality lead pool with a premium profile. The more quality prospects in your network, the greater the sales opportunity. The premium function on LinkedIn allows you to save more searches and search based on criteria such as seniority level, years of experience, function, and company size, so you can cater your searches to align with your ideal customers.

Similarly, LinkedIn offers a paid program called Sales Navigator that provides lead recommendations based on your preferences and up-to-date insights about those leads.

Free Course: Instagram Marketing Basics

Social Selling on Facebook

DO: Participate in Facebook groups.

It can be difficult to proactively reach out and make the initial contact with customers on Facebook because the platform is rooted in a family-and-friends-first approach. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to successfully connect. There is, in fact, a vibrant community of professional networking groups on Facebook. Make a habit of being active in the ones that are relevant to your industry. As a digital marketing consultant, for example, I am a member of several Facebook groups directed at entrepreneurs and managers of nonprofits.

Members of these groups are already expecting to connect with professionals in the field and share information, so pitches about a product or service won’t be met with resistance—especially if you’ve done your homework and are offering a solution to a potential problem.

DON’T: Post without first considering how it may affect your brand.

It’s not uncommon for people who use Facebook as a social selling tool to mistakenly treat it the same way as they would manage their personal profile at first. Whether the page is under your own name or under your company’s name, when you’re using Facebook as a social selling channel, your brand’s reputation is at stake. That means any opinion pertaining to things like political or religious beliefs, rants, etc. can be severely damaging to your brand. Of course, that’s not to say that you should hide your interests and convictions. Simply be aware of how you portray yourself and your company, and carefully think through how your message may be perceived by others before you post.

DO: Make a great first impression.

One of the first things that people see on your Facebook page is the cover photo. This is the large banner that runs across the top, above your profile photo. For the greatest impact, include your company name and logo (if they aren’t already visible elsewhere on your page), your tagline or catch-phrase, and a compelling call-to-action. The cover photo is one of the most important aspects of building your personal brand.

DON’T: Come right out of the gate with a sales pitch.

People love to shop online, but they generally don’t like being sold to. So, during your first interaction with a potential customer, don’t immediately launch into your pitch. Begin with an icebreaker; establish some interests. Then, as your relationship grows, opportunities to discuss business will emerge organically.

Mastering the Art of Social Selling

These tips should get you on your way to social selling success on LinkedIn and Facebook. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless more strategies out there, and you will have to test and refine many to find the best approaches for your specific audience and product/service. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat also have their own unique considerations. The effort will be well worth it though, as 72 percent of salespeople who use social selling outperform their peers who do not.

If you’d like a jump start on your way to becoming a social selling rockstar, check out our Digital & Social Selling Certified Associate Training Course, a deep dive into the latest strategies crafted by social selling experts.

Source: simplilearn.com ~ By: Zuhayr Mallam ~ Image: Canva Pro

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