Firas Kittaneh

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When a member of the C-suite leaves their position, it can have a ripple effect throughout the whole company. Because they’re a key leader of your business, their departure may leave employees wondering whether they were let go or left of their own accord, whether their own jobs will be affected, whether there will be significant changes to the company culture or whether new policies and procedures will be put in place.  While change is often necessary in order for companies to grow, key changes in leadership must be handled thoughtfully to help quell these fears and answer employees’ questions. To do so, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they offer their best tips for how to ensure a smooth transition and avoid any negative impacts after a C-suite exec leaves your company.

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Bringing on a business advisor can be a great way to get you or your business out of a rut, both financially and creatively. Not only can they help you rework any failing processes or initiatives, but they can also provide inspiration and insights into what might be the “next big thing” for your growing business. However, like with any new hire you make, you’ll want to be thoughtful about your choice and avoid rushing into a decision based on desperation. To help you find the best fit for you and your business, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each discuss one factor entrepreneurs should keep in mind before seeking out a business advisor and why.

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As a business owner, it’s easy to assume that you have to be a nonprofit in order to get involved in the world of philanthropy. However, your business doesn’t have to be centered around a particular cause in order to give back. By building a company culture that values generosity and doing good for the community, you can make a difference no matter what type of business you’re in. But how can you as a leader incorporate these kinds of values into your company culture? Here, nine business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their suggestions for easy ways businesses of any size can make philanthropy part of their company culture and the impact this has on your employees and your company overall.

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Negotiating contracts and terms with clients is a critical aspect of any business engagement. Whether you're a freelancer, a small-business owner, or work for a large corporation, understanding and implementing effective negotiation strategies is crucial for achieving mutually beneficial outcomes. To employ the best practices in contract negotiation—as well as safeguard your interests, foster productive client relationships, and ensure the smooth execution of projects—consider the following advice from members of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

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No business’s sales always trend upward. In fact, there may be times when you see your sales start to even out or even drop for a period of time. While this can be normal, it is also a good indication that you may need to take a look at your current processes to figure out the reason for the dropping numbers.  Stagnating sales also provide you with the opportunity to freshen up old campaigns or breathe new life into your current sales tactics. But before you start, consider the following recommendations by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they discuss steps you can take to help turn around slowing sales as soon as possible and get your customers engaging once more.

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Of all the considerations an entrepreneur has to make when starting a business—what to name it, how to price the products and more—the legal considerations are perhaps the most important. From determining a business structure, to complying with local labor laws, to ensuring you prepare for and properly file your taxes, forgetting to account for any of these aspects could lead to disastrous legal consequences down the line—ones that may be impossible to recover from. To ensure you don’t make any legal missteps as you begin your entrepreneurial journey, consider the advice of those who have experience dealing with the legalities of starting a business. Here, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council outline some of the most important legal considerations to make when starting a business and why handling these tasks should be at the top of your to-do list.

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As the modern workforce evolves, the appeal of hybrid work environments has become increasingly apparent. While fully remote work may not be feasible for every company, adopting a hybrid work solution can be an attractive perk for both potential and current employees. Transitioning from a fully on-site setup to a hybrid environment, however, requires careful planning to ensure a smooth and successful shift. If you're ready to embrace the hybrid work model for your company, read on for 11 expert tips recommended by Young Entrepreneur Council members.

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While LinkedIn is a great place to connect with others in your space and share your unique perspective on industry problems, engagement isn't always guaranteed. Because the platform boasts over 930 million members, if you aren’t being intentional about your LinkedIn strategy, your content may not even get noticed. However, if you’re looking to seriously up your LinkedIn game and give your engagement a major boost, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they outline nine steps any professional can take to increase engagement with their content and why these methods work so well.

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As artificial intelligence continues to revolutionize industries across the globe, it is crucial for young professionals entering the workforce to develop skills that will keep them relevant and adaptable in the face of rapid technological advancements. While the integration of AI may raise concerns about job displacement, it also presents abundant opportunities for those equipped with the right skill sets. Below, Young Entrepreneur Council members explore several key steps young professionals can take to not just survive but thrive in an AI-dominated work world. By honing their skills, they can position themselves to leverage AI as a tool and remain competitive in the ever-evolving job market.

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The social media landscape is in a constant state of flux, with new platforms and trends coming and going all the time—with recent uncertainty surrounding potential TikTok bans in several countries leaving businesses wondering how to best maintain their social media presence. Despite these challenges, businesses must stay adaptable and learn to navigate these changes to succeed in their social media marketing efforts. To help you ensure success in an ever-changing social media landscape, members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their tried-and-true social media marketing tips for businesses.

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As much of customer service is now conducted through live chat or social media, ensuring your teams are properly trained on best practices for written communication is paramount to your success. When your staff can not only educate and serve your customers but also connect with them in a meaningful way, you’re much more likely to build a loyal following that will want to recommend you to their family and friends. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, keeping these 11 tips in mind when engaging with customers in a written format can help ensure your communication is clear, helpful and likely to earn you the trust and loyalty of your customers.

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When it comes to training employees, there’s no one way to do it right—but there are a few ways you might be doing it wrong. Using outdated materials or failing to check in enough may not be intentional blunders, but they could prevent your employee from succeeding as quickly as you’d like them to in their role. However, after years of training new employees, business leaders are bound to have picked up a few lessons along the way. The members of Young Entrepreneur Council are here to share a few of the lessons they’ve learned over their careers about how to train effectively and the advice they would give other business leaders who are training new employees for the first time. 

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While the cloud is perhaps most notably recognized as a convenient way to store and access data, there are many other benefits of this technology users may not automatically think of—namely when it comes to business growth. From streamlining project management to reducing retraining time, there are a multitude of ways business owners can leverage cloud technology to help them scale. Here, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share nine of the most effective ways to use cloud technology to grow your business as well as other benefits you may gain by doing so.

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When you’re a small-business owner, you’re likely doing all you can to manage your schedule, stay on top of your to-do list and handle other vital tasks. Especially if you have a small team or a limited budget, you may be trying to tackle all these different tasks at once, wearing as many hats as you can to ensure your business has what it needs to be successful.  But one person simply doesn’t have the time to do everything a thriving business requires, which is why leveraging technology in the right ways can greatly improve the day-to-day operations of your business as well as your own peace of mind. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss eight ways small-business owners can better leverage tech to manage their busy lives and schedules and get better control of their time.

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There are countless successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the world today, each with a wealth of information and experience to share. Thankfully, many of them have written books that detail their most powerful thoughts, ideas and lessons. The difficult part comes in choosing which ones to read. For the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, the following nine books have been some of the most impactful for their businesses. Below, they discuss these books and why they believe every entrepreneur should read them in order to become better leaders for their teams.

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There can come a time for many established businesses when processes become overwhelming, projects start running off track and tech stacks can get too complicated to function cohesively. All of these signs point to a need for simplification—a “decluttering” of the business and its systems. Taking the time to review what’s no longer necessary, keeping only what adds value to the business, is essential if you want to streamline your processes—but where should you begin? Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer a few suggestions for where you can start as well as what you might want to get rid of or reconsider this year and beyond.

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As your business grows, it's important to regularly assess whether your current software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor is meeting your needs. Some factors you can evaluate periodically are whether the vendor is able to scale with your business, provide necessary features and offer the level of support that you require — and if the answer is “no,” it may be time to move on to a new provider. To help you understand whether you've outgrown your current SaaS vendor, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Networking is a scary prospect for a lot of people. Seeking out events, speaking to new people and trying not to feel imposter syndrome while doing so can be intimidating for new entrepreneurs (and even seasoned ones). And while many entrepreneurs will give networking their best effort, they may end up accidentally sabotaging their efforts if they’re not careful. To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the seemingly harmless habits or actions that could actually be hindering new entrepreneurs’ networking success. Consider their advice for what to do instead in order to get the most from your networking experiences.

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Deciding to franchise your business is a big step in entrepreneurship and there are many factors to consider before doing so. Aside from ensuring that your main business has enough financing to support your overall brand, there are legal processes that need to be completed, hiring that needs to be done, and branding procedures that must be solidified. Here, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council members note some specific questions to ask yourself when thinking about franchising your company and why you need to do so.

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Though TikTok may be receiving a lot of press as of late, steadfast platforms like Instagram still reign supreme, with around 4.25 billion visits per month and 1.39 billion daily global active users alone. This means marketers and social media managers should always be thinking of ways to engage their followers and create meaningful content that will garner attention. But for new businesses especially, gaining traction on social media can be an uphill battle. To help, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend eight tips for increasing engagement on your business’s Instagram and explain why these tactics are so effective no matter how large your following.

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Whether you lead a bustling startup or an established business, as a CEO, your days are likely full of endless meetings, questions from leadership or staff, “fires” that need putting out and very little time to get any actual work done. Without an intentional plan or schedule, your day can get away from you, allowing your work—and your stress—to build up over time. But adding a little structure to your workday doesn’t have to be complicated. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council speak to their own experience as business leaders, each recommending one way CEOs can build structure into their workday to help them maximize their productivity and why this is so critical to do.

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With the right project management tool, you can save you and your team valuable time and money as well as streamline your workflow and reduce stress. Having all your project information in one place ensures deadlines and details aren’t missed, and you’re better able to keep track of who is working on what and what roadblocks they may be facing. However, not all project management tools are created equal, and this means you’ll need to be intentional about determining which tool will best fit your team’s needs. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss factors you should consider when looking for the perfect project management tool for your team and how these will help you make the right decision for your company.

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Convincing your employees to read through pages of dry policy and procedure—especially on a regular basis—is never the easiest of tasks. While documenting your business processes is important for consistency and clarity, this documentation only becomes valuable if your team members actually reference it. So what’s the key to making your standard operating procedures (SOPs) more interesting to your team? Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council explore this question and share their best tips for making your business's SOPs something your employees actually want to use and read.

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While increasing the number of visitors to your site is always the goal of any e-commerce business, it’s a goal that can quickly become overwhelming if your site isn’t properly set up first. As your e-commerce business and your customer base grows, a sudden spike in traffic or just a gradual increase in purchasers over time can result in slower load times, unprepared customer service agents, irritated customers and even a total website crash. To prevent this situation from happening, it’s vital to take steps ahead of time that can help prepare you and your site for more and more traffic. Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one step you should take to ensure your online store can handle an increasing number of visitors and shoppers and why that strategy is so effective.

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With additional time-off requests, increased shopping and urgent customer service needs, the holiday season can be a busy time of year for any business. But for those seasonal businesses or businesses where sales really pick up during the end of the year, workload management can be a juggling act of responsibilities. To help busy businesses better strategize their time and improve overall productivity, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best advice below. Consider these tips if you and your business are starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by the heavy workload of the festive season.

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Especially given the growing remote workforce, companies may be looking to tighten up their cybersecurity efforts come the new year. Hackers and cybersecurity threats unfortunately aren’t going anywhere, so finding new ways to secure your company’s technology and protect your customers’ data is a good practice to begin to ensure your business’s safety all year long. To offer up a few ideas for what you can do, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council list some of their recommendations for improving your cybersecurity efforts for the new year and why doing so is so important to the well-being of your company and its stakeholders.

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The workforce of 2023 will continue to change and evolve, from more hybrid work policies to a greater focus on global candidates. Over the last few years, businesses have grappled with decisions such as offering permanent remote work, creating hybrid work models or requiring employees to return to the office. Businesses have also faced the impact of quiet quitting and the Great Resignation, which have made them think more deeply about hiring policies, employee benefits and retention rates. In the new year, businesses are likely to see even more changes come about. Below, a group of successful entrepreneurs share their predictions for some of the workforce changes we might see in 2023 and how businesses can adapt.

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Becoming an overnight success is every entrepreneur's dream, but when it actually does happen, it can rapidly turn into an overwhelming nightmare if you aren’t prepared for the influx of new customers and orders. Rather than allowing yourself to be buried by the consequences of your success, finding a way to scale your business quickly can ensure you keep up with rising demand. But to do so, you’ll want to consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they discuss their best tips for scaling a business quickly and the steps you won't want to miss if you find yourself suddenly successful.

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In an effort to be unique, informative and persuasive, many businesses can end up with overly complicated and wordy websites that may be doing more to push customers away than pull them in. When it comes to building an effective website, often simplifying its content and design is the most effective approach, giving visitors the space they need to find the answers to their problems. But when you’re trying to ensure visitors have all the information they need to determine your product or service is the best solution for them, you may not know where to start reining it in. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each offer one piece of advice they'd give well-intentioned business owners for simplifying their websites and why these tips are so effective.

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Both social media and the internet as a whole are ever-changing digital landscapes—and that means the companies that advertise on them must advance alongside them. With new platforms, changing regulations and evolving user preferences, advertising is likely to experience a few changes in the coming new year—but to what extent? While no one is certain what changes will take place, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their predictions for the future of advertising below, and explain why 2023 could be the year these new trends will start to take shape.

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One of the best ways to ensure your company is always in good hands—whether you are at the helm or not—is to make sure your team is made up of great leaders. And while careful hiring can deliver a similar result, another and perhaps more effective strategy for achieving this is to create those leaders through your company culture and values. Whether it’s by giving employees more autonomy or encouraging curiosity, there are a multitude of ways you can ensure your company culture breeds successful leaders. To share a few of their favorites, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council list their recommended methods for building leaders within your company and why this is important for the long-term retention of your employees and overall growth of your business.

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When it comes to defining success, there’s no one right answer. It can mean owning your own business, making over a million dollars, driving a particular car or even just having more freedom with your time. But when broken down into a single workday, success can sometimes be a little more difficult to measure. Its definition can even change throughout your career as you develop both professionally and personally. This change has certainly been the case for the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, they each share what they consider to be the biggest indication of a successful day and why, and why their definition of success has evolved over time.

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Many entrepreneurs start new businesses while also balancing full-time jobs. When there’s limited time to work on developing a new company, you need to pick and choose what tasks to focus on first. Here, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members each share one task that should take priority over all others when you have limited time to work on your startup.

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Maintaining good relationships with your vendors helps ensure that you consistently receive the goods and services you need and achieve mutually beneficial goals. But when the buyer-supplier relationship begins to sour for whatever reason, it may be best for your business to cut ties and move on. To help you determine whether it's time to seek out a new vendor partnership, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members shared their insights on the following question:

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As companies continue to face supply chain issues across the board, many are looking for solutions to help them get back on their feet and heading toward “business as usual.” Even when the current supply chain storm passes, savvy business leaders will be looking ahead and preparing for the next time processes go awry.  To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their advice for how entrepreneurs can weather the current supply chain storm, and explain how these tips can help them build better processes for the future.

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The partnership you have with your co-founder is arguably the most important relationship you'll build as an entrepreneur, so it's important to keep it healthy. Constant arguments or disagreements about how the business should be run will only divide your relationship and your company, weakening them as well as your chances of success. To achieve a healthy relationship, then, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have a few tips in mind. Below, they each share one piece of advice they have for building a healthy co-founder relationship and how these tips will help you maintain a healthy relationship for the long term.

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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. Here, ten members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss these skills and more, and share why they think working on the following skills can have a major impact on your career.

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Negotiating your salary—especially when you haven’t officially gotten the job—can be a frightening prospect. Obstacles like imposter syndrome or inexperience can make you feel as though you should just accept the company’s original offer and move on, but it’s important to know your worth and to advocate for yourself if you believe you deserve a higher salary. However, even if you build up the confidence to negotiate, knowing exactly what to say—or what not to say—is yet another obstacle to overcome. To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one thing you should never do if you want to successfully negotiate your salary, and why doing them might actually hurt your efforts from the start.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share how changing these habits could bring you greater success in the marketing field. Marketing is a key part of any business that helps connect customers to your product or service and increases your bottom line. But even the most experienced marketers on your team may have developed bad habits throughout the years that hurt your business. Whether trying every new tool or taking on too many projects at once, some bad common practices persist among many professionals in the industry. To that end, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council members share some common bad habits they’ve seen in marketing and what you can do to change them.

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No matter the industry, there are many different hard and soft skills a leader should develop to be an effective and inspiring presence on their team. While some required skills will be field-specific, skills like managing your time, speaking publicly, motivating and listening apply to all leadership positions. To help their fellow leaders hone the right capabilities, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members weighed in on the following question:

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When you have an idea—whether it’s a simple tweak to an ongoing project or a major overhaul to an ineffective work process—and you want to share it with your manager, pitching it can be as simple as walking into their office or messaging them on Slack and explaining the idea. However, if you want to ensure your pitch is successful, you may need to think through your overall strategy first. As business leaders, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have listened to many pitches from their employees. In order to help you succeed, they recommend the following 11 tips for pitching an idea to your manager and explain why this advice will help you sound a lot more convincing.

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In 2022, employers are still feeling the effects of the Great Resignation as employees continue to quit their jobs in droves. Research points to burnout and dissatisfaction as two of the main reasons people are leaving their organizations in favor of more "meaningful work." If you want to define and achieve meaningful work for yourself, read on for some key insights from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, 10 of them share how their definitions of “meaningful work” have changed throughout their careers and how other professionals can achieve their own versions of meaning in current or future jobs.

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When your business is one of the most important things in your life, it's hard to trust others to handle any aspect of it. No matter how good a candidate looks on paper, you likely won’t have a good idea of how trustworthy they are until you’re able to meet them face-to-face. Luckily, there are some productive questions you can ask a potential hire to help you gauge their trustworthiness. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members share their thoughts on the following question:

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There are many crises that a company can face during its lifetime, and they happen for many different reasons. Whether it's a financial crisis, an economic crisis, an environmental crisis or any other type of crisis, it's important for business leaders to have a plan in place to manage the situation quickly. If well thought-out, a business leader's first step when faced with a company crisis can set the course for an effective solution. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the first steps a business leader should take when faced with a company crisis and why they should take them.

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Marketing is both an art and a science. It requires acute attention to detail, in-depth analysis, an understanding of mass psychology and a level of creative thinking that not many people possess. There are, however, several things that the best marketers all have in common. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss these things and explain how they make marketers so good at their jobs.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss website elements that could help boost customer engagement and overall sales. Often, when entrepreneurs think of trying to boost customer engagement and sales, they start brainstorming marketing campaigns they could run or different social media techniques they could implement to get customers more interested in their business. Not as much thought is given to the business’s website as a way to increase engagement, however. More than just the place of transaction, a business website can serve as an information hub, a community and a place customers will want to return to again and again — all with the right design. To help get you started, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council each discuss one website design element you’ll want to consider in order to increase your business’s sales and engagement.

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Local shoppers can become a business's most loyal customers by helping spread the word about the business to other community members. It's important, then, for businesses to establish these local connections early on to see the best results from local marketing. To help businesses create more meaningful interactions with local community members, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their favorite tech that's come about in response to ongoing culture changes. The ongoing pandemic has permanently changed the way we behave. Working remotely more and leaving the house less means that our whole culture has had to adjust in order to meet new and ongoing needs. As a result, a whole host of innovative technologies have been created or improved upon, giving people the chance to more easily adapt to a world turned upside down. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share a few of their favorite new or improved technologies that came about in response to the pandemic and why they’re excited to see them grow in the future.

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One of the first things a business owner might do when starting their business is determine their target audience. Even after narrowing down your target audience, however, you'll still find a lot of diversity in your customer base. Whether they’re of various ages, genders, careers, cultures or needs, there are many different types of people who may be interested in and find value in your product or service. In order to appeal to them all, then, you’ll need to design your website thoughtfully. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the strategies you can use to make your website more appealing to a diverse audience. Try out one of their methods to ensure everyone has a positive experience with your business.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for moving your physical retail store online. As the popularity (and necessity) of online shopping continues to rise, many business owners are choosing to transition their brick-and-mortar stores to an e-commerce model. However, running a business online can differ dramatically from running a physical store, and it may require new approaches to and new mindsets about selling and advertising goods. To help make the transition easier, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council experts share their best advice for moving into the e-commerce space. Follow their tips to get your online business up and running the right way — the first time.

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Many entrepreneurs find it particularly difficult to recover from financial mistakes. Small businesses especially often run on very tight margins, meaning that one slip-up can be detrimental to a young company. Here, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members share some steps an entrepreneur should take in the event of a financial mistake. Here’s why they believe these actions can help an entrepreneur to recover and learn from their errors to ultimately grow their business.

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Sales challenges are unavoidable in any business, regardless of industry. From curating an effective sales process to pinpointing your ideal customer, solving these sales challenges is crucial during the early stages of your company. As business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have faced their fair share of sales obstacles when starting their companies. Below, nine members discuss challenges new businesses often face in selling their product or service and how they can work  to overcome those difficulties.

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There may come a time during your entrepreneurial journey when you need to decide whether or not to sell. Maybe business is booming and sales are thriving — so how will you know when it's time to hang up your hat and walk away? Regardless of the circumstances, it can often be difficult to see the signs that will lead you to the correct decision for your business. To help, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained what leaders should be looking for as an indication that they should sell their businesses.

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Jumping on the latest cultural trends can be a good way to make some quick money or earn some fast fame. However, steering your ship off course to try to take advantage of passing trends isn't always the best long-term decision.  It often happens that businesses try to profit from what's trending just to end up wasting time and resources in the end. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their arguments for why it’s actually better to stay the course with your business and let the trends pass you by.

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During the first quarter of the year, businesses often start to notice what’s been working and what hasn’t, what goals have been accomplished and which haven't quite yet. Maybe an initiative started in the first few weeks of the year still hasn't gotten off the ground or a campaign launched at the end of January didn't show the results you expected. Whatever the case, now is the perfect time for your business to do some “spring cleaning.” Whether it's a full reworking of your business plan or reviewing your SOPs, these steps and more could be great ways to refresh your business moving into the next portion of the year. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared what they recommend you do to “spring clean” your operations and the impact it'll have on the rest of your year.

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While some entrepreneurs are content with one business under their belts, there are many others who run two, three or even several businesses all at once. Some business owners are simply brimming with ideas and, at some point, they may find themselves itching to launch their next venture. Others see success in their first business and want to replicate it. If you're contemplating serial entrepreneurship, it's important to make sure you're up for the challenge. To help you make this decision, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some clear signs that you may be ready to get your next business off the ground.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council suggest the information you should try to find when researching your business’s competition. Every business faces competition. In order to succeed in the marketplace, companies must do what they can to stand out from each other. An important step in this process is analyzing the competition to figure out what they do well — and what they don’t — so you have a better idea of where your company stands and what you need to do to get ahead. To help get you started, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared a list of helpful pieces of data or information you’ll want to find out when studying your competition and why those things will help you succeed.

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Hint: organization and time management go a long way. Any leader, entrepreneur, business owner, or working professional will be the first to tell you that there aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done. No matter what industry you work in, the feeling of being overwhelmed with various tasks that all seem to have the same level of priority is a common one. However, if you don't get a handle on things, you can find yourself burning out fast. Organization and time management are a couple of key factors to focus on when you want to maximize your efficiency at work. But what are the best ways to get organized and manage your time? Here, 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in with their best advice. Whether you’re just getting started or are already running your own business, here’s how to get more work done in less time.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the steps you should take when seeking an investor for your business. When bringing on an investor to your business, you’re doing more than securing financial assistance — in many ways, you’re bringing on a business partner. To protect their investment and ensure they make a quick return, investors will likely want to have a hand in the business and how it runs. In the same way you wouldn’t bring on a co-founder without first making sure they were the right person for the job, you’ll want to vet potential investors prior to any sort of agreement. In order to vet them properly, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members recommend taking these 10 steps before sealing the deal.

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As a new entrepreneur, getting your product out into the market is hard enough, but when there is a lot of competition in your market, it can make things even tougher. When trying to differentiate their products in a situation like this, entrepreneurs are bound to make mistakes along the way. Many members of Young Entrepreneur Council have gone through this themselves and have learned some valuable lessons from the experience. Below, eight of them explained the most common mistakes entrepreneurs tend to make when trying to differentiate their products in an oversaturated market and offered advice for how to remedy this situation.

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With 2021 now at a close, it's the perfect time of year to start looking forward to the year ahead and setting goals for success. As you set your personal resolutions, don't forget to focus on your career aspirations for the coming year too. From earning a promotion to taking the lead on a project or upping your skills in a specific area, there are plenty of career goals you can set for 2022. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their top tips for anyone who wants to crush their career goals in the year ahead.

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E-commerce has steadily risen in popularity among aspiring entrepreneurs who want a simple business model with less overhead than a traditional retail store. Selling online is a great way for inexperienced entrepreneurs to make money, test their business acumen and interface with customers online. However, like any business, creating an e-commerce site isn't as easy as paying for a domain and letting the website sit. You have to ensure a positive customer experience with great products and excellent service. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council give their best advice for building a successful e-commerce site for those with no or limited business experience.

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Over the past year, there have been many changes in the world of marketing. As technology continues to advance and businesses find new ways to be creative with the way they promote their products and services, other companies are faced with the choice to keep up or fall behind. Throughout 2021, entrepreneurs have learned some important lessons about how to market themselves. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share the best marketing lesson they learned last year and discuss how this lesson will impact their approach to marketing moving forward.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend using these e-commerce tricks for lowering shopping cart abandonment rates. Losing money is never at the top of any business owner’s to-do list, but when eager shoppers suddenly back out of the checkout process and abandon their online shopping carts, that’s exactly what happens. Implementing strategies to reduce this rate of cart abandonment, therefore, should be a top priority for every e-commerce entrepreneur. To help get you started, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their top “hacks” for lowering online shopping cart abandonment rates and why implementing these tricks is so effective.

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When you first started your business, you may have found a few trustworthy team members to back you up. As the business is growing, you may be noticing your original startup team isn't aligning with your overall vision or perhaps you've simply "outgrown" the need for the roles you hired them to do. This misalignment can ultimately lead to stagnation within all facets of your company as well as an unhappy workforce. So, how do you know when it's time to bring in fresh perspectives? Nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered some signs that may indicate your original startup team is no longer suitable for your current business direction.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some important qualities companies should look for in their CTO candidates. Because the chief technology officer position is so important, you need to ensure that the right person assumes the role. A CTO needs to not only have a strong command of technology, but also project management, organization and team dynamics, among other things. If you’re hiring a CTO for the first time, you may not know exactly what to look for when reviewing applications and interviewing job candidates. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared 14 traits they look for when hiring a CTO and why each quality is so essential to the job. 

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Email marketing can be extremely effective for advertising products, whether through sale announcements or updates highlighting new items. But this marketing channel can also be leveraged in a number of other ways to connect with customers on a more direct and personal level, ultimately leading to more purchases. If you're looking to expand your current email marketing efforts, it's important to explore and execute the right strategies for your business. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some of their favorite email marketing strategies that go beyond just selling a product.

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Getting your voice out there is an important part of becoming a successful thought leader. However, it can be difficult to know the right way to convey your perspectives on different topics without a strong writing foundation. For those entrepreneurs who have never written before, the thought of publishing a piece can seem like a far-off goal—but it doesn’t have to be if you have the right strategies in place. To help guide you in the right direction, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best writing tips for aspiring thought leaders.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss why doing these things could do more harm than good for your business. Even the best businesses are bound to get a bad review at some point, and yet, for new business owners, this can be a difficult reality to face. No business leader wants to hear that a customer had a bad experience with a product or service, especially after all the time and effort put into getting it just right. This situation can lead entrepreneurs to become frustrated or dejected, and they may end up responding in a way that they come to regret later on. If you want to resolve the situation, retain your customer and boost your company’s reputation, there are certain things you should never do in response to a bad review. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council list several of these “don’ts” and explain what you should be doing instead.

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Every aspiring entrepreneur starts out with a great idea. Some people turn this idea into a side hustle and sell a small amount of their product or service, while others succeed at expanding their businesses quickly and widely. However, many quickly discover that running and growing a business is hard work and may struggle to sustain their fledgling startup. Those who have business ideas that start off slowly may wonder if the struggles they're facing are obstacles that can be overcome. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council weighed in on some reasons why someone might not be cut out for entrepreneurship.

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Now more than ever, people are skeptical about the products and services they want to purchase. Prospects will spend a lot of time researching everything there is to know about a brand before they commit. With technology to the point where augmented reality and virtual reality can be applied to a website easily—and at low cost—many brands and businesses are using it in different ways to enhance their websites' user experience. Here, members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the ways any company can use augmented reality and virtual reality for their sites.

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Turning a poor customer experience around continues to be one of the main struggles customer service professionals face daily. When the service experience goes poorly, a company can risk losing that customer forever. The key to success is having go-to strategies for remedying the situation and regaining that customer's trust and loyalty. To demonstrate how to turn unsatisfactory experiences into satisfactory ones, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their top-recommended ways to improve customer service.

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Just because a piece of advice is common doesn't mean it applies to every entrepreneur. Follow your passion. Always be hustling. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Every new and aspiring entrepreneur has likely heard common pieces of business advice like this repeated over and over again. The problem is that these types of tips are rarely universal; each business is unique and needs to find its own path to success, regardless of what has worked for other entrepreneurs. Below, eight successful entrepreneurs shared some common business principles that they believe are overrated. Here's why they think you shouldn't necessarily follow these tips, and what they would advise doing instead.

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Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, coming up with a winning business concept isn’t always easy. You may already have some ideas for a new business brewing, but how do you know if it will be successful or if it’s something you’ll enjoy? Where do you even find inspiration in the first place? Fortunately, coming up with an idea for a business doesn't have to be a challenge. There are millions of entrepreneurs who have started out in the exact same place, and below, eight leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council share how they got the ideas for their businesses and what you should do or think about to find the inspiration for your next business venture.

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When establishing a startup, it can be difficult to know which metrics you should be focusing on. You may be watching and reporting on basic key performance indicators (KPIs) such as your gross profit margin, but are there metrics you're overlooking? The answer is most likely yes. These eight Young Entrepreneur Council members have learned through experience that not measuring certain metrics could mean missed opportunities for company growth. So review this list of often overlooked KPIs to see if you're missing any important metrics from your reports.

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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. Pushing past fatigue and lack of motivation takes a unique investment in yourself in order to see your tasks through to the end. To offer some guidance, nine associates of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their strategies for accomplishing their daily tasks even when they don’t feel motivated to do so.

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A successful business sale takes careful planning and preparation, so make sure you're ready before you start negotiations. For many entrepreneurs, selling the company they built from the ground up is a lucrative opportunity that will set them up for retirement or their next business venture. However, a successful sale is not as simple as finding a buyer and signing some paperwork. There's a lot of preparation and planning that goes into an acquisition, and any founder who wants to sell their company must be ready for that process. Below, a group of entrepreneurs shared eight best practices founders should follow when they're looking to sell their business. Follow their recommendations to ensure a smooth transition into the next phase of your career journey.

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When you've spent tens or hundreds of hours preparing for a deal, there's a distinct sense of relief when it gets to the point of closing. Yet, even in these situations, the deal still can go sideways if not handled carefully. Using the wrong negotiation tactic here could mean all your hard work goes down the drain or the deal remains open. So how can a professional ensure that the deal gets closed? To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss negotiation tactics that have been instrumental for closing deals in their own experiences and why they worked so well.

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Not every online storefront is the same and, when looking to set up and maintain their own online store, business owners can end up spending hours researching various components, add-ons, features and capabilities to find the right software to use.  So what unique features should business owners be zeroing in on? What capabilities are likely to come in handy after the store is up and running? Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the most valuable online store management software features and why these elements are so vital to online business owners.

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With the increasing awareness of the need for diverse workplaces and teams, diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies have become a pressing issue in the business world. Yet, not every business owner knows where to begin or what to do to ensure their company is hiring for diverse backgrounds and skills. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the steps a business owner can take to ensure that they have a hiring process that embraces diversity, as well as explain why this is so important to creating a truly successful business.

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Public relations can be a delicate balancing act. If your business does PR right, it could skyrocket in popularity overnight. If, however, you run afoul of public opinion, you may find your company falls as fast as it grew. Startups, especially, may be at a disadvantage. They don't have dedicated PR firms behind them and have to develop unique ways to engage the public that get them noticed and ensure their relevance. For a discussion on some of the methods startups may not have considered, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share what they’d recommend to boost PR efforts and how these approaches can result in a better company image.

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Devastating occurrences sometimes happen in business without a lot of forewarning. Entrepreneurs can leverage insurance to protect themselves from things such as fire or theft, but there are other less obvious disasters that are more difficult to prepare for. And yet, these negative situations can often be blessings in disguise, pushing the business to regroup, rethink and grow in the process. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the devastating occurrences that have affected their organizations and the lessons they learned that helped them move forward and achieve success.

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If you're looking for business advice, there are a lot of different places you could go. There are countless books and seminars that promise you success with your business, but many of them are built on the achievements of their creators. No two entrepreneurs or businesses are precisely the same, and because of this, their advice may not apply or resonate with you. Yet, some advice is universally valid, no matter the industry, area of focus or target audience. Here, nine leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council talk about some of the best advice they've encountered throughout all their years as entrepreneurs and explain why any business founder could act on these tips to achieve success.

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Many professionals have been fired from positions in the past. Getting fired from a job can be embarrassing and anxiety-inducing, especially when you have to explain the reason why you were let go to a potential new employer. While some employers won't bother to broach the subject, others could view the termination as a questionable part of a candidate’s work history unless the issue is brought out into the open and discussed with transparency and honesty. So how should a candidate approach this topic? Below, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council offer some advice about how to discuss your previous job loss so that you won't dissuade a potential new employer from hiring you.

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Encouraging and maintaining a high level of audience engagement is critical for any brand keen on building a loyal following and a tight-knit community of reliable customers. Engagement serves as a foundational pillar to growing a business’s presence in the broader market, and those happy customers are often your best form of advertisement. However, building a loyal community is only possible if the brand is strong enough and forges a robust relationship with those customers. To offer guidance on how to achieve this goal, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss a few lesser-known ways brands can encourage engagement and why those methods are so successful.

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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. It’s important to find the best ways to prioritize your time so you can accomplish everything you want to do. To help you find what works for you, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best time management and prioritization tips.

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When heading a company, there are certain budget items that should be of critical concern. Basics like payroll and product costs are easy to figure in to your operational budget. But business is nothing without its unexpected expenses, and there are bound to be a few that CEOs will forget to account for. While you won’t be able to anticipate everything, with the right information and resources, you can avoid a potentially big financial problem. To help, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council offer insight into some of the unexpected expenses that CEOs should look out for and what could happen if they don't.

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When it comes to small and large businesses, not every encounter has to be about competition. Sometimes, interactions could result in a mutually beneficial partnership. The path to getting there, however, isn’t always so clear. For small businesses to ensure they are heard and that they don't get the short end of the stick in the deal, there are certain steps they should take. To provide some insight on exactly which steps you should consider taking first, 10 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on what a smaller company should do to get noticed and strike a beneficial partnership with a larger company.

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When a leader leaves your organization, even on amicable terms, it could prompt a significant upheaval in the department that they were a part of. Depending on how intrinsic they were to that department’s function, their departure may even shift the company's operations. For a business to weather this issue, the organization should try to achieve a smooth transition to the new leader. But how does a company ensure that both the new leader and the current staff will successfully adjust to this change? Below, eight entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice on how businesses can ensure a smooth transition of duties for all involved.

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Building a brand takes a lot of time, effort and resources—but so does monitoring the competition. No business can perform both at the maximum possible effectiveness, and so compromises must be made. Companies must balance their time and other resources to ensure they can achieve both. However, how companies balance these responsibilities differs. Some prefer a more brand-centric approach, while others prefer to know what the competition is up to. Below, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on how they think businesses should approach competition monitoring and how to balance these demands to best benefit the company.

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The goal of any recruitment effort is to find a candidate who would be a good fit for the company. This would mean that the hire would not only be proficient in their role, but would also do well within the specific company culture. But beyond an interview, how can leaders ensure new hires will be the right choice? One strategy is to give the potential new employee a trial period during which you are able to evaluate their performance and personality. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for how to conduct an effective trial period and ensure you’re setting the candidate up for success.

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When doling out praise, leaders never expect it to have a negative effect on the team culture. But if a leader offers praise to one employee and not the others, those employees may begin to resent their teammate or even the leader themself. This envy can end up causing a negative domino effect that could impact the whole team. However, that’s not to say that excellent work should go unrecognized. To offer guidance on how to praise employees the “right” way, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on how leaders can showcase an employee's good work without eliciting resentment or generating feelings of favoritism among team members.

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Hiring for a senior position at a company usually requires a lot more time and effort than hiring for other positions. In many cases, business owners may have a hard time finding the most effective way to source senior talent for their organization. You don't want to lose out on great talent, but you also need to spot the best talent out of the field of applicants, because making a wrong hire at this level can spell disaster for the organization. To offer some guidance, 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) use their own experience hiring for senior-level positions to reflect on the following question: “What's the best recruiting lesson you've learned when it comes to hiring for a senior position within your company? How has it affected future hires?”   Here’s a few of their most important tips.

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While it's not a common thing, some businesses do explode into popularity overnight. For the companies that do, it can be a completely new landscape to navigate. Suddenly, consumers want your product and they can't get enough of it. Your supply lines and logistics may not be able to handle the traffic at its new demanding level. Successful businesses always prepare for the possibility of growth. Still, so much expansion in such a small span of time can leave a company reeling and result in unsatisfied customers. So how should a company approach newfound success? Below, nine leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how a company can scale up to meet demand following sudden success that thrusts the business into the spotlight.

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The easiest part of opening a business is coming up with the idea and filing the paperwork. The most challenging part often might not be apparent right away. No leader can predict or prepare for every obstacle they might encounter as a business owner, and hurdles can vary by industry and by each entrepreneur. However, with a little insight from more experienced entrepreneurs and the right mindset, you can successfully guide you and your business through any challenge. Below, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council talk about the obstacles they never predicted they’d have to overcome when starting their companies and share ways other leaders can prepare to face similar blockades in their entrepreneurial journeys.

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16 entrepreneurs from YEC share their favorite sales automation tools and strategies and explain why they work. Businesses have all embraced the reality of a technologically advanced society. Emerging technology has made it easier than ever before to interact with customers and shorten the time it takes to get processes done. A significant amount of businesses have embraced cutting-edge technology because they see it as a way of making their systems more efficient. One of the best examples is the adoption of artificial intelligence bots in customer service scenarios. However, as widespread as this usage is, it's not the only way companies have engaged emerging tech to make their business operate better. Sales automation is another practical use of emerging technology that businesses have managed to latch on to. Automating the sales department requires a bit more involvement, but it covers several different areas. Sales automation covers automatic lead generation and sequencing, development of automated reports using analytics guidelines, and alerts for data coming in that affects the sales process. These areas are crucial in determining the viability of prospects and in generating new leads. Throughout the business community, the idea of sales automation has pushed individual companies to look at many different methods of doing this task. Thanks to the demand, there are a vast number of sales automation tools available for businesses nowadays. We asked 16 experts from YEC to talk about the software suites and strategies they use for sales automation and explain why tools suites work so well for their own companies.

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When you first start your business, every member of the “founding team” -- i.e. you and your first employees -- is crucial to its early success. As your business grows and changes, there may come a time when you feel yourself starting to outgrow your original employees. If you want to retain these valuable employees, you must ensure they’re evolving in their roles with your business. Otherwise, it may be time to phase them out and look for fresh talent. To help you navigate this situation, we asked 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members how employers can assess employee growth and ensure they’re evolving in step with the company.

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There's no question that retail is a challenging industry to master. However, for investors or manufacturers, the challenges it presents are more than worth the rewards. Retail distribution allows a business to serve its offerings up to a much broader population than direct distribution, thus increasing an enterprise’s visibility and revenue. However, entering retail distribution is complicated and requires a carefully planned strategy. To help, eight business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights into what steps a company can take to move its invention or product close to retail distribution and why those steps are likely to result in success.

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When you set out to pitch your idea to an investor, you usually go through the most common questions that they're likely to ask. Discerning investors are careful about where they put their money, but a well-prepared entrepreneur can quickly answer a surprising amount of what they ask. However, sometimes, a businessperson may encounter smart questions that they never prepared to answer. Intelligent questions indicate investors that are on-the-ball, and who could be a priceless addition to your business. Ten members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the smartest questions they've gotten from an investor and how they handled them.

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No matter how diligent a person is, they will, at some point, receive negative feedback in their career. Whether it’s an unsatisfied customer, an upset manager or a tense situation with a colleague, you can’t make everyone happy 100% of the time. But negative comments don’t mean you’ve failed. In fact, you can use them as a learning tool and an opportunity to build a positive outcome with the other party. To help you do this, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council their strategies for responding to negative feedback the right way. Their best responses are below. 

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We all have biases that affect our decision-making. These biases can sometimes be minor and have minimal impact, but other times they can have an outsized and potentially negative influence on your business and how it’s run. To become more mindful of your biases and how to recognize them, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their advice. Below they shared 10 steps leaders can take to make less biased decisions and why each step is so important.

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As more people are working from home and staying in, online shopping has become the dominant means of commerce. It’s more important than ever for small brick-and-mortar retailers to get their products online and accessible to their customers. However, with so many large e-commerce competitors like Amazon, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. To give these smaller businesses a leg up, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council how brick-and-mortars can still thrive in today's digital landscape. Here’s what they had to say.

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17 leaders from YEC share the tools and processes they use and why they work. In the digital age, a company not tapping into automation is losing time and productivity. Relying on human contributors to produce content is still the best approach. However, in distributing this content, automated processes, tools, and strategies are always more efficient. In marketing, efficiency means a better return on investment because it speeds up turnover time and costs less than manual methodologies. Companies can ill-afford to waste time on manual methods when automated means of getting the message out to an audience exist. In the world of marketing, time is money. Automation utilities save time, and as a result, increase the company's ROI on their marketing budget. How does a business automate its marketing? Some entrepreneurs think automation is complicated, requiring a long process of learning how to use new tools. Others fear it requires adding a specialized IT department to their company, which might be a considerable upfront cost to the company. Neither of these things is true. In fact, some of the best automation tools that you need to use are both simple and cost-effective. Even those with an associated price tag usually pay for themselves in the savings the business makes through its automation. Automation doesn't have to be a scary, unknown landscape. To help, we consulted 17 entrepreneurs from YEC about the marketing automation tools, strategies, and processes they utilize to make life easier and increase their marketing ROI.

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Disagreements and conflicts are inevitable in the workplace. As a leader, it’s your job to mediate any issues between workers so your company culture remains positive and productive. However, this is often easier said than done: It takes a truly empathetic and effective leader to listen to each side and help both parties come to a mutually-beneficial solution. To help you, we asked Young Entrepreneur Council members about the most effective ways to confront conflict in the workplace. Here’s what they recommend.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain how companies can optimize their mobile shopping experience. As every successful business owner knows, it’s important to meet your customers where they are. In today's world, that means creating a top-notch mobile shopping experience.  The majority of e-commerce traffic (65%) comes from mobile devices, so optimizing your sales page for mobile is crucial to keeping your business thriving and accessible to your audience. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared tips for creating a mobile-first e-commerce experience. Follow their tips to ensure your customers will love shopping with you, no matter what device they're using.

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It’s easy to have an “always-on” mentality when you’re an entrepreneur. You own a business that depends on you to survive, so you never really get a day off – right? This attitude can be detrimental both to your business and to you as the owner. While you might feel uncomfortable or guilty taking time off, it’s essential to give yourself time to rest so you can come back strong and rejuvenated. Otherwise, you're likely to end up burning out and being a less effective leader. We spoke with members of Young Entrepreneur Council about their experiences with stepping away from their businesses for vacation. Here are some strategies they shared for feeling confident leaving your company in others’ capable hands while you’re taking much-needed time off.

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Brand loyalty forms a core concept of marketing in the 21st century. In a paradigm shift, thanks to better interactivity with consumers, brand loyalty is now easier to achieve than ever before. With a medium where the brand can interact directly with clients in the form of social media, all a company has to do is use their social media presence cleverly. Once they leverage their following and provide value to the audience, brand loyalty is sure to follow. To help, we asked 14 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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All entrepreneurs are excited to see their businesses grow, but this growth isn't infinitely exponential. Occasionally, the company's growth may become stalled. This contraction might happen due to any number of factors affecting either the business itself or the industry as a whole. For a company to continue growing, it needs to regain its momentum. But how does a business restore the initial force that set it up for a significant growth spurt in its early development? Here, 15 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council share a few tips about how a company can regain its drive and continue to grow at a massive rate, even after stalling.

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Professionals, regardless of their work environment, sometimes find their focus flagging. If you're someone who has to deal with divided attention between multiple tasks, the amount of effort you put into a job will start telling on your psyche before too long. To deal with this situation, you'll have to figure out how to retain your focus and discipline within the workplace. Luckily, there are several approaches to reestablishing your focus at work. Productivity is linked to your mindset and your environment, after all. Below, 14 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of their favorite and most effective approaches.

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There are more accurate (and less overused) ways to tell the world what you do.

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An employee referral program is a win-win for you and your team. Referral candidates tend to be well-qualified, since they're pre-vetted by staff members you know and trust, and hiring referrals shows you value your employees' input. To help you build a great referral program, we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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In today's always-on, digital-first world, consumers increasingly expect companies to offer fast and convenient channels for customer support. To this end, many brands now offer live chat so customers can reach them faster than an email or phone call. While live customer chat may be an attractive option that sets you apart from competitors, it's important to understand the commitment involved and how to best serve the customers who reach out to you through this channel. We asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members what businesses should keep in mind when implementing live chat functionality. Follow their advice to ensure your customers are satisfied, no matter how they reach out to your company.

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18 leaders from YEC discuss what elements business leaders should keep in mind before selling their company. Selling a business is a significant step and one that entrepreneurs usually spend hours agonizing over. There are just too many uncertainties when it comes to a transaction. Is the estimation of value correct? Are you exiting the market at the right time? How do you ensure that you get the amount that you think the company's worth? Growing a business from humble beginnings to the point where it commands a decent value takes time, effort and a bit of your soul. For many small entrepreneurs, it's like selling a part of themselves. For an entrepreneur to be able to sell their company, they need to sever the emotional bonds they have with its growth and approach the sale without emotion. The best way to do this is to examine the elements that make up the sale critically before even putting the business on the market. But what features are the important ones to consider, in this case? Eighteen business owners from YEC delve into the elements they think entrepreneurs should consider before they decide to list their business for sale, and why those elements are so crucial to the decision.

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Despite the overwhelming preference for digital media among modern marketers, traditional advertising methods are still being implemented today and driving great results. Newspaper, TV and radio spots can offer tons of potential for businesses looking to reach a local market -- if they're used the right way. To help with your next traditional media campaign, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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The culture of the modern workplace has changed drastically, and far more businesses are looking favorably at work-from-home arrangements. Industries that have traditionally depended on employees coming in no longer need to conform to the archaic principle of in-office work. The result is a lot more freedom for workers, as well as potentially increased productivity. However, that benefit only happens if teams manage to coordinate appropriately within the online space. Luckily, other groups have succeeded as remote teams before remote working became a necessity and can share their experiences. Eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council explain how companies or industries new to the remote working paradigm can ease the process of shifting into a non-office-based approach.

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Making a major spending decision in your business, whether that be a new hire or a new marketing campaign, is often intimidating. You want to make sure you’re investing your money wisely, in a way that will yield a worthwhile return. To help you, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members how to make financial decisions with confidence.

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Competition among companies can be fierce, especially those in the same field with similar messages. With so many other brands out there, it can be difficult to make your story stand out among the crowd. However, you need to identify that “something special” about your business that truly makes it shine. To help you, we asked 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members how to captivate customers through the art of storytelling. Here’s how they recommend crafting a brand story that captures attention and engages your target audience.

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If prompted, there's at least one employee that business owners can point to definitively and state that they are one of the most high-performing hires at the company. However, these high-performing employees sometimes go through issues that can put them off their game. For the company, this can impact performance and efficiency. The business must understand that the employee is still human, not a machine. Getting them back on their game will require a more individual approach. Below, eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council examine what a business owner can do to help their prized, high-performing employees get back in gear after a personal or professional struggle.

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Technological advancement offers us lots of tools that can make our lives easier as entrepreneurs. Mass communication, social media and the ability to connect are hallmarks of the 21st century. Even daily work is a lot simpler, thanks to products such as Slack or Github, which allow remote management of teams. More than anything else, constant connectivity ensures that everyone within the business can be "in the know" at all points in time. Even so, tech is such a wide-ranging field that it's easy for a business owner to be spoiled for choice. To help young entrepreneurs have a better grasp of what's going in the world of tech, eight associates of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tech hacks for getting more done in their daily work life.

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Entrepreneurs usually don't have enough hours in a day to get everything done. That's the primary reason why prioritizing tasks is a common trait of the most successful business owners. However, many entrepreneurs overlook the importance of hiring great talent to their team and place the priority of hiring new employees way down their list. A business's success, however, depends on how well its employees perform, and that should be reason enough to raise this task up a busy entrepreneur's task list. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shed light on how busy business owners can (and should) find time to locate and hire the best talent, without neglecting their other responsibilities.

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Online videos are one of the most successful marketing materials that a business has at its disposal. However, crafting an online video to draw people in takes a bit more skill than merely recording something and adding branding to it. A company should consider doing a short video ad like doing a mini movie. Just like a professional production, it should communicate a message and know who its target audience is. Aimless video production will only create something forgettable, the exact opposite of what a successful video should be. To help, we consulted 11 associates of Young Entrepreneur Council about what they consider to be the most vital aspects of successful online video creation.

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Investing in each and every customer's happiness takes time, but the ROI is unmistakable.

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The impact of 'burning the midnight oil' is more far-reaching than you think.

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Brick-and-mortar retailers would do well to model the best practices of their online-only competitors.