Member Since 2014
BAM
San Diego Area
A born and raised San Diegan, Beck graduated from UCLA in two years, going on to become the University of Pittsburgh’s youngest MBA graduate at 21. Beck started BAM Communications while working as a news anchor in San Diego. After winning an Emmy in 2011 for her TV work, she focused entirely on her entrepreneurial interests, growing BAM while starting Bite. Bite became San Diego’s top-rated and largest food tour company in the country. Beck sold Bite in 2016. As BAM’s founder, Beck splits her time between San Diego, San Francisco and New York in pursuit of talent and hot companies that are seeking PR superheroes for help growing both mindshare and market share. Beck is also an investor with Plum Alley and Backstage Capital, two groups that support investing in diverse founders. Best part of Beck’s role: I’m thrilled by finding and growing great talent, and by exposing the stories that serve as rocket fuel to our emerging technology clients’ brands. What Beck reads: The New York Times, The Skimm, Term Sheet and BBC. I like a wide perspective on global and technology stories. One top career highlight: Whenever I’m flying helicopters on the weekend, and when I’m on a panel contributing to a discussion in support of others’ business goals.
Your fundraising is notable to you as the founder, but funding rounds occur every day, even in a down or corrected market.
No matter how far along you are in your career, there are always going to be opportunities for you to learn. This is especially true when it comes to leveling up certain skills that only increase in importance as you climb the corporate ladder. Skills like empathy, adaptability and even active listening all require constant practice and refinement to truly master—even for those who already feel like they have a solid grasp on them.
Innovation drives a business forward, so it’s important to know how to tap into it as well as harness the creativity of your team. To help you create an environment that’s conducive to brainstorming and new ideas, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips below.
As the Great Resignation continues, one in five employees say they are planning to switch jobs in the next year. Experts have cited a few reasons why so many people are making the switch since the start of the pandemic, with one of those reasons being poor management or leadership.
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur trying to level up your skill set—or even a seasoned entrepreneur looking to learn something new—you’re bound to come across a wealth of information about your industry and business and leadership in general. Whether it’s in the form of books, podcasts, articles, videos or any other medium, it can be a lot to sift through, and determining what content (and what format) to focus on can be challenging for those who are unsure where to start.
Everyone struggles with self-doubt at some point in their lives, especially if they own a business. Self-doubt as a business owner can be daunting to overcome and may sometimes derail you from your goals. But part of being an entrepreneur means learning how to grow a thick skin in order to take on the adversity, rejection and low confidence that can often come with the job.
As your startup grows and you hire more employees, you may find it's time to make your first human resources hire. Founders often take on this role early on in their business journey, but with more employees comes more HR administration and responsibilities, and it's important to find a well-qualified professional.
In the current hiring market, competition is fierce. With so many options available to job seekers, companies must attempt to out-compete others in their industry in order to attract and hire talent, and this has led to many companies struggling to fill roles—and wondering what they can do to make the top of candidates’ lists.
Every successful entrepreneur has one special "something" that has made a unique, lasting contribution to their achievements, be it a former mentor, a previous role they held or an event that impacted their life. Our lived experiences help define who we are as individuals and hone our perspectives throughout life. As we advance as professionals, these experiences take shape as new traits, resources and accomplishments that help drive our ongoing maturity and achievement.
Many employees are intimidated by salary negotiation, especially if they don’t have any prior experience with it. However, managers are more open to negotiation than you might think. In fact, 75% of managers expect to negotiate when making a job offer; however, workers often don’t take them up on the opportunity.
Many professionals look for meaning and purpose in their work—their "true calling." Passion is a great motivator for business owners, and being intentional with your work will help generate great outcomes.
In every career, there are things to be thankful for—things like meaningful moments with co-workers, the opportunity to learn and personal growth that can put the challenges and difficulties in perspective and help you find a renewed sense of purpose at work.
In the chaos and busyness of the holiday rush, it can be easy to spend so much time focusing on your customers and how you can best meet their needs that you lose track of how your employees are handling the stress. The holidays are one of the most stressful times of year for many companies, and taking time to check in on the mental health and well-being of your employees can ensure you have a thriving workforce to help your business succeed.
Performance feedback is an important way for your employees to know how well they are doing in their role, especially in a growing company. While annual reviews help your employees see how they’ve been doing throughout the course of the year, they could also benefit from receiving regular performance feedback.
As the holidays quickly approach, it's almost time for you and your team to set your “out of office” auto-replies and get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. However, this is easier said than done when many professionals continually feel the need to be productive.
Firing an employee for the first time in your career can be a difficult and emotional process. But whether an employee’s performance has been consistently subpar or a difficult downsizing decision has been made, sometimes it has to be done. To help you do it in the most effective, kindest way possible, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members weighed in on the following question:
A normal part of running a business is having ideas fail. However, sometimes these circumstances lead to crises within the business. When this happens, employees look to business leaders for guidance on how to respond.
It’s important for leaders to know that, when it comes to teams, just because the weekly team meetings are quiet or the suggestion box hasn’t seen a valid recommendation or criticism in a while, doesn’t mean no one has anything to say. In fact, more often than not, employees have thoughts, suggestions and criticisms to offer, but they don’t share because they’re not sure how their leaders will respond if they do.
When looking for a new job, getting an offer is only half the battle. The most nerve-wracking part of the process may come when it's time to negotiate the offered salary. Many don’t know how to do it and many more are simply too afraid to ask for fear of appearing pushy. However, negotiation doesn’t have to be an intimidating process.
Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of time, effort and resources, and all that work can sometimes be a major drain on your energy and your happiness. While the overall achievement of being an entrepreneur is fulfilling enough to many, sometimes it can be difficult to look at the big picture when feeling stressed by day-to-day problems.
Most entrepreneurs set daily goals for themselves in order to move their businesses forward. Yet setting those goals and meeting them are two completely different things. Loss of motivation, fatigue, listlessness and a general lack of energy are common barriers to accomplishing goals, but they are also challenging to overcome without the right strategies.
Sometimes an employee just doesn’t work out within an organization and needs to be let go. Firing an employee is a task that needs to be handled with delicacy and care, and the process can be intimidating for someone who has never been responsible for terminating an employee before.
Regardless of how many hours you work in a day, not all of that time is going to be completely productive. Sometimes it's because of procrastination, other times it's because you've been so bogged down in "busy work" that you haven't made progress on important tasks. Whatever the reason, it's important to find ways to optimize your to-do list to maximize your time for important strategy work as well as personal endeavors.
The pandemic has made remote and hybrid work arrangements mainstream. But it has also given managers a unique opportunity to bring different talent to their teams from all over the country and the globe. That being said, it's also important to think about how those new hires will work and be managed in a remote setting.
It’s no secret that having the support of other leaders can make a major difference to a person's entrepreneurial success. When your network contains others who can identify with your struggles, they can then help motivate you from a personal perspective and deliver timely advice when you need it most.
Remote work has quickly become the norm across much of the corporate world. Yet, with so many professionals used to in-person interaction, this shift to digital messaging has rapidly and fundamentally changed workplace communication.
When you're a busy entrepreneur, there never seems to be enough time in a day. You likely have long lists of tasks that require your full attention, but little time to sit down and focus on them. This can be overwhelming and, in turn, send your productivity levels into a slump.
Being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is an end goal for most people. It's a thrilling end result -- the fact that you're your own boss, you set your own hours, and remain accountable only to yourself can be a heady mix. Yet, the benefits of the position usually overshadow the more pertinent considerations that would-be entrepreneurs overlook. Although there are significant benefits to being a business owner, there's also a considerable amount of background work that rarely gets highlighted but needs to be done.
The backbone of a company is its employees, but the brain of a business is its leadership. The best leaders inspire and encourage the employees working under them, but even these leaders need positive reinforcement from time to time. While a lot of this reinforcement comes from those above them in the hierarchy, it has special meaning when the employees under them reach out to show their appreciation.
[LONG FORM EMAILED TO KELSEY]
When you’re young and inexperienced, stepping up to a leadership position can be more difficult than usual. Without a strong standing in their industry, a new entrepreneur may not be able to navigate the terrain as easily as others. However, these leaders can still bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the table.
Working for a startup is vastly different than working for an established company. Established companies have steady processes and defined operations, while startups often wade through a constant stream of pivots and unknowns.
Every professional knows that an eight-hour workday rarely means eight straight productive hours of “real” work. Sometimes there are distractions and emergency situations to attend to throughout the day; other times, your calendar is so booked with meetings that it’s hard to find time in between to concentrate on your to-do list.
No other feeling comes close to hitting the ball out of the park for your investor pitch meeting. Unfortunately, many business owners see these small wins as overcoming the largest hurdle. The truth is that nailing the investor pitch is only the first significant hurdle.
For many growing teams, in-person leadership conferences have been the go-to method for training and developing the organization's future leaders. In today's world, though, there's a lot of uncertainty around when these types of conferences might return.
Building your brand is an important part of running a business. To truly connect with your audience, you must define and express who you are and your goals as a business. Often, the best way to do this is by telling your story.
When launching a startup, business owners often receive a lot of advice from everyone around them. As a new entrepreneur, it can be difficult to parse through it all and determine what truly applies to your business.
Business advisers have the potential to be instrumental to a company's success. Unfortunately, not all business advisers make a positive impact, and it's up to the entrepreneur to decide which adviser they want to work with.
Every company has both the need and the potential to grow over time. Whether a business must adapt to new trends or is simply looking to improve its internal processes, high-level change is simply part of a company's journey.
When you spend time in the business leadership world, you start to hear a lot of cliché phrases and vague terms that other managers frequently use. Sometimes they use them sound smart; other times they're not sure of a better alternative. Either way, these overused words begin to sound like jargon over time, and may lose their meaning when you're communicating with your staff.
Over the years, multiple studies have shown that employee happiness is a crucial factor in developing a successful business. Employees who are happier tend to be more productive and also stay with the company long term.
Practice makes perfect when you're nervous for your next media interview.
Public relations doesn't need to be a mystery.
Do your homework on a PR firm's credentials before bringing them on board.
PR doesn't require hiring a PR firm, but it does require research, time and a commitment to building relationships with the right media contacts.
Corporate retreats, intended to be a needed break for your team, often end up inspiring dread instead. What's a CEO to do about it?
Hiring a PR firm isn't a silver bullet. And if you do it for the wrong reasons, you will regret the expense later.
Standard small talk leads to uninspired exchanges that barely create a memory, let alone a good impression.
Public Relations