Kelsey Raymond

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Are there specific traits of great managers, personal qualities that are crucial to success in any managerial role? It seems that there are, and while some of these traits are innate, others can be learned. In this article, 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council list a few of the most vital traits you should possess if you want to thrive in a managerial position.

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As many professionals continue to leave their jobs in favor of new ones, employee turnover has been steadily rising, meaning many HR professionals have been working harder than normal. Whether that means fielding more applications, serving as a mediator when letting go of an employee or listening to burned out employees vent about their working conditions, HR teams often take the brunt of the emotional work at many establishments. This may mean that HR employees need more support from leaders and upper management during periods of high turnover. From offering additional time off to providing educational development tools, seven Young Entrepreneur Council members shared the best ways business leaders can support their HR departments in their endeavors.

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As the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, it's easy for your team's motivation to decline alongside it. If you don't want to see morale and productivity plummet through the winter months, it's important to take proactive steps to energize and inspire your staff. To help, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend some ways in which you can keep their spirits and motivation high all winter long.

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Investing in employee training and development is a great retention tool to ensure continued growth within your company. In the era of the “Great Resignation,” every employer is wondering how to hang on to their best employees. One smart approach is encapsulated by Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, who once said, "Train people well enough so they can leave and treat them well enough so they don't want to."  The two key lessons in this mantra are that employers should invest in employee development and also give them a supportive, collaborative environment in which they can fully utilize their skills. This type of workplace, whether in person or virtual, promotes employee loyalty and continued long-term growth within the company. Below, a group of business leaders shared their interpretation of Branson's quote with some practical tips for boosting retention through training initiatives.

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As many professional organizations shift toward a remote work environment, maintaining a supportive company culture is more important than ever. The “Great Resignation” has already upended numerous industries where employees report work environments that make them unhappy, leading to labor shortages across a variety of markets. That's why today's leaders must focus on cultivating an appealing culture that people actually want to stay in. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members offered their ideas for how leaders can bolster their workplace environment—remote or otherwise—for the better. Follow their recommendations to build a culture where people willingly collaborate and support each other.

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Great customer service is easy to spot but difficult to master. While some tactics are obvious, like treating the customer with respect and fairness, the very best techniques for improving customer service might not be what you expect. During their business journeys, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have learned some unexpected lessons about making customers happy. Below, nine of them shared surprising tidbits they've picked up along the way that can help businesses revamp and improve their existing customer service infrastructure.

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Employees aren’t the only ones who can receive feedback about their performance at work. As a manager or business leader, it’s important to receive feedback from your employees so you can understand how you’re doing and what you need to do to improve. While every manager hopes for positive feedback, they may still receive negative feedback from time to time, and it’s how they respond to that feedback that can really make the difference. If an employee thinks you're not performing at your best and lets you know about it, there are some steps you should take to address the complaint the right way. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained what leaders should do after they receive negative feedback.

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Part of creating a successful team is getting them to buy in on your company’s mission, vision and goals. Those employees who do this are likely to develop an “ownership mindset” in which they feel that they have ownership over their responsibilities and outcomes and are more willing to do what is necessary to accomplish tasks. But getting every employee to feel this way can come with its own set of hurdles, so how can leaders encourage their team members to have an ownership mindset, no matter their job description? Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council list some tips for leaders looking to achieve this very goal.

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Employees, especially when new to their positions, often need guidance to be successful in their work. However, too much direction can be less like helpful and constructive feedback and more like micromanagement. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on an employee's work performance and mental health, and they may begin to feel less confident in the work they produce. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered advice on what to do as an employee if you feel like you’re being micromanaged at work.

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Since the many layoffs, firings and career pivots of 2020, many professionals have turned their sights toward entrepreneurship. Alongside the attraction of working for oneself came the opportunity to start fresh in a new space and maybe even a new industry altogether. For women, who were disproportionately affected by the economic impact of the pandemic, that meant the chance to enter fields which have historically been lacking female voices. According to a panel of female entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council, the following seven business opportunities are areas which could strongly benefit from the involvement of other female professionals. If you’re a woman in business, consider making a difference in one or more of these sectors and lending your voice to the conversation.

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In business, making an active effort to support the entrepreneurial community can be game-changing for your company’s growth. After all, these individuals have been through similar experiences and challenges as business owners themselves, and can often help you navigate them. However, to gain the support of your fellow entrepreneurs, you have to be willing to give back to them. If you’re not sure where to begin, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members explained some simple methods for supporting other business owners and why it's important for all entrepreneurs to do so.

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As a new business owner, it's wise to work with someone who has been in your shoes and possesses the experience to help you navigate any uncertainty you might face. Launching and running a successful business requires time, energy and seasoned insight. However, many budding entrepreneurs tend to shy away from spending money on a consultant. If you're unsure whether it's worth investing in a business consultant, there are some clear indicators that might suggest you could benefit from one. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared 10 signs you should hire a consultant for your business.

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Today's consumers are more skeptical than ever. They crave authenticity and often demand it from the companies they buy from. Today's most successful B2B and B2C organizations across many industries have learned to meet this expectation head-on. When your company comes across as authentic and trustworthy, it helps you build strong, lasting relationships with customers and clients. To help you achieve this, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered their top tips for how to be more trustworthy to your customers.

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Pinpointing a target audience is one of the most crucial steps in launching any successful business effort, including creating marketing campaigns and increasing sales. However, determining your audience is often much easier said than done. Before you can narrow down your ideal customer, you need to know how to do it correctly. To that end, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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With so many professionals now leaving their current jobs and rethinking their future career goals, companies are looking for ways to retain their employees for the long term. However, it can be difficult for leaders to identify a clear strategy for loyalty-building and employee retention, especially with larger teams.  To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared strategies for leaders to build or earn loyalty from employees. Follow their advice to keep your best workers on board and satisfied for years to come.

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Entrepreneurs who are operating and maintaining a business all on their own have a ton of work on their plates. Often, the duties of a solopreneur can seem daunting or unmanageable as they tackle every task, big or small. Even if you can outsource some tasks to vendors and contractors, however, it's still important to streamline your to-do list and make the most of your time. Many members of Young Entrepreneur Council have experience being the sole leader at the helm of a growing business. Below, 10 of them offered some tips for busy solopreneurs who want to make their days more efficient.

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A critical aspect of gaining recognition online is mastering the all-important blog post. While blogging has been around for decades, many people still struggle with understanding how to utilize blog posts to attract readers and gain more recognition. If your blog isn't performing optimally but you're not sure why, you're not alone. Here, 14 members of YEC share the most common blogging mistakes companies make and their expert advice on what you should be doing instead.

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Time management can be a challenge when you’re faced with work that’s piled up over a period of time. It can be overwhelming to look at a list of tasks and determine which are priorities and which can be temporarily moved to the side, causing some employees to stress or panic about where to even begin.  To alleviate this situation, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained what an overwhelmed employee should do to get back on track. From actionable advice like speaking with management to tips for adjusting your mentality, these entrepreneurs share their best habits for better managing your time despite an overwhelming workload.

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Communication breakdowns can occur at any time and in any work environment, but can seem especially prevalent in remote work situations. While remote work has its own unique benefits, it also means employees and managers are relying more on written, phone or video communication and less on the in-person communication and body language cues that can be so helpful for clarity.  So when that clarity is muddled and an employee is consistently feeling like they and their manager aren't on the same page about a project or expectations, what route should the employee take to remedy the situation moving forward? To provide the answer, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members offer eight ways employees can seek to resolve this miscommunication and gain more clarity in the future.

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Starting a new job can be difficult for anyone, but it can be especially daunting for someone hired for a managerial position. Integrating yourself into an established culture and work environment as a leader can be nerve-wracking and raise a lot of doubts and fears. Will your new employees accept you? How can you earn their trust and respect? To help start the job on the right foot, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members each detail one step a new manager can take to establish strong relationships with their team. Here are their recommendations and why it’s so important to follow these steps when you're starting out. 

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Scaling a business usually means employees will be taking on new tasks and responsibilities and new rules or processes may be put in place. Depending on how fast the company grows, the employees may become frustrated with all the changes, leading to disengagement and low team morale. If not addressed, this lack of connection with the business and its goals can be the first step to losing those employees. Business leaders who want to retain their talented employees should figure out the best techniques for keeping this frustration to a minimum. To help, ten members of YEC discuss how a business can make employee retention a high priority while growing the company.

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Among the many major impacts the pandemic has had on the status quo, none have so disproportionately affected women quite like its impact on the labor force. Whether they were laid off, furloughed or forced to choose between family and work when alternative child care was no longer an option, millions of women left the workforce during the pandemic, outpacing the rate at which men were leaving. And not all of them are coming back. But from entry-level workers to solopreneurs and CEOs, women make up an important segment of the workforce, and to encourage women to return, these six leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council have a few ideas in mind. Below, they outline a few of the steps companies can take to remedy some of the ongoing women’s issues brought to light by the pandemic and how to better support women in the workplace moving forward.

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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. If you find yourself in this situation, follow this advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council:

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For many professionals, making a mistake at work can be a big hit to their self-confidence. The scenario can weigh on your mind and cause you to feel like you’re bad at your job or that you’re not cut out for your particular profession. Recovering your self-confidence after a mistake takes some time, but it can be done, and the faster you do so, the more effective you'll be in the future. But forgiving yourself isn’t always so easy. Below, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how to bounce back after a mistake and how not to be too hard on yourself going forward.

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Effective task management can be quite a challenge for many professionals and businesses, especially when dealing with complex assignments or a large volume of projects, each with its own specific requirements, deadlines and deliverables. Luckily, advances in business technology have created a significant increase in the number and availability of task management solutions. It can, however, be challenging to know which tool to choose, and a user can quickly get bogged down by the number of options in front of them. To help, eleven professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on the most effective tools and solutions they've used to get organized and explain what about those solutions helps them stay on track.

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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. For years, women have been making massive strides in the realm of business, reaching further and higher than ever before—and the support of other female entrepreneurs is a great way to boost that growth even further. For tips on how to show your support, eight leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how female entrepreneurs can better support fellow women in business and create pathways for change.

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Writing a business email? Don't hit "send" until you've completed these key steps. Crafting an effective business email has become something of a lost art. More and more professionals are receiving correspondences with misspellings, lack of structure, and unclear content. These poorly-written emails may reflect badly on the sender or even discourage someone from doing business with them.  That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to best practices when communicating with business contacts, colleagues and employees via email. Below, a group of business leaders shared their tips for writing the perfect business email and why each is so effective.

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In a market with hundreds (maybe thousands) of competitors, it becomes more challenging for businesses to make a mark that'll impact the core audience they’re aiming for. This is why it’s so important for a business to develop a strategy that will give them an edge over the rest. Saturated markets can still be profitable, but only if the company makes its value proposition known to the target audience in such a striking way that it deeply resonates with them. To offer insight on how to do that, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council look at a few strategies businesses can adopt to stand out in a crowded market and how each tip helps make the company more visible to the consumer.

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In addition to the position itself, company benefits are one of the most important elements that candidates carefully consider when gauging whether they want to join a company. Once an employee is on board, these perks can also play a role in whether or not an employee chooses to stay and whether they get the sense that the company values their contributions. To help leaders determine which benefits to offer, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) explore the following question:

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When you're running an organization, communication breakdowns can lead to severe efficiency and productivity problems. While smaller teams may be able to quickly deal with the difficulties of communication inefficiency, this problem becomes harder to solve as the business grows and evolves. Cross-departmental communication is at the heart of a business's ability to respond to issues effectively. Without proper communication channels, the business runs the risk of losing customers and appearing unprofessional. So how can a company make sure that all its departments are on the same page? Seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend a few tips you can use to ensure your organization's departments are communicating well.

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When you run a business and hire employees, it’s essential your new staff members feel like they are valued members of the team. Your efforts should begin on day one with an onboarding process that will help new employees feel welcome, and that will set them up for success as they start their work. To learn their best advice on how to onboard new employees successfully, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council answered the following question:

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When your business starts seeing success, it's natural to want to ride the momentum and build upon it. However, it's possible to grow too fast, too soon.  Even if your business is thriving, growing too quickly can tire out your staff and burn through your resources. New companies experiencing their first "growth spurt" may try to scale up before they have the team or infrastructure to support it, and this path rarely ends well. To help you scale at a reasonable pace, 12 members of YEC shared their tips for properly managing your growth rate.

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Putting together a book takes time, energy and a lot of effort. And while it accounts for a lot of the book's labor, writing isn't the only thing an entrepreneur needs to concern themselves with. Publishing the book and the marketing associated with it also have a place in the overall success equation. But not all new writers know what to expect from the writing process. To help, 11 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answer the following question:

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There may come a time for certain employees when they notice that their skills or interests are better suited to another part of the company and they ask to switch to a different department to better serve their goals. When this happens, managers may not know how to react as the request may come out of the blue or it could be taken as a slight on their current department. However, it’s important to keep a few key ideas in mind and help this employee grow and develop the most positive way possible. To help managers keep perspective, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss what managers should do when an employee asks to move to a different department and why facilitating these moves could be to the benefit of the employee and the company as a whole.

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The world of work has changed significantly over the last year, with many companies moving to fully remote work. With this new environment comes a new way of managing. As teams are physically separated, it becomes even more important for leaders to find ways to bring them together. To offer some ideas on how to build such camaraderie, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their thoughts on the following question:

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Sometimes, even employees who have a track record of excellent work can have bad days. But when bad days become bad weeks or even months, leaders should take the time to investigate. However, because it could be a sensitive situation, it may be best to take it slow and follow a few key steps. Below, seven leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the first steps they'd recommend taking when trying to figure out why a normally high-performing employee is suddenly off their game and what you can do to help them get back on track.

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Finding a core audience to market to is a crucial part of making a business profitable. Many marketing departments spend thousands of dollars building a picture of their ideal customer to inform how and where they should market. Once they do that, it's just a matter of unifying their content and media planning to target their product's most viable buyers. But how exactly should they go about this? What’s the best way to unify these two plans? To offer some guidance, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council examine some of the strategies they recommend for combining content and media planning to target a specific market and explain why they’re so effective.

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Between investors, customers, employees and all other people with particular interest in a company, business leaders can have a difficult time trying to please all their stakeholders. But because the performance of a business is directly related to how the stakeholders feel about the company, aiming for overall stakeholder satisfaction is a necessary goal. So what is the key to impressing them? Stakeholders each have their own points of view on what counts as success in the industry. Yet, they still share some overlap, and finding that common ground will be key for any entrepreneur. Below, six members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine some strategies for ensuring stakeholders are satisfied with company performance and explain why these techniques are helpful in impressing them.

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Managers have the difficult responsibility of achieving their own goals to meet the business objectives of their company while simultaneously overseeing the performance of its employees. As a leader, you want to make sure you’re there for your team when they have questions or need guidance. However, it’s important to strike a balance between meeting your own goals and making yourself available to your staff. To help, members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered 10 steps managers can take to achieve this balance.

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If you’re trying to attract highly qualified professionals to your company, it’s likely that they’re mulling over multiple offer letters in addition to yours. To incentivize a top job candidate to accept your offer, you have to find a way to make it stand out. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Email lists are fantastic tools for keeping in contact with consumers, sharing information and generating leads. But putting together an email list and figuring out how to attract customers to your list can take a lot of time and effort if not done thoughtfully. So how does a company go about creating an email list that will yield a good return on investment? What's the first thing an entrepreneur needs to do to ensure that the list is successful? Here, 11 experts from YEC look at some crucial first steps to setting up an email list that will offer a good ROI, and why these steps are so critical to the list's (and the entrepreneur's) success.

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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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When a client signs on with your business, they have certain expectations about what your performance will be. The best way to end up with a happy client, however, is to manage these expectations early on. If you don't, and a client feels as though they should have gotten more from your business but didn't, their testimony could severely damage your future business and your reputation. To ensure you don’t end up in this situation, 12 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their insights on the following question: “What's one rule you'd suggest for better managing client expectations early in a business relationship, and why?” Follow this advice to avoid disappointing your client and instead provide even better service.

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An entrepreneur is only as powerful as the people they surround themselves with. Starting and attempting to grow a business can be a difficult journey, and the sheer amount of outside challenges you need to tackle can be overwhelming. That is why a solid support network is one of the most important things a business owner should create. With the right team behind them, an entrepreneur can overcome almost any obstacle. Below, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on the strategies they use to hire the right people and why those strategies are so vital to building a dream team.

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As a new business owner, it isn't easy to sort out which business strategies work and which ones don’t. There's no standardized roadmap that guarantees success. Instead, success in business is a series of trial-and-error tests that result in a positive outcome, with plenty of mistakes along the way. When it comes to marketing, many business owners make mistakes without even knowing they’re doing so. If not addressed, these issues can lead to failed campaigns, unjustified expenses and very few results. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council look at some of the most common mistakes new entrepreneurs make when planning their marketing efforts and the best ways to remedy them.

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Information can be a valuable resource, and having enough of it is key to helping business owners make smart decisions. But lack of information or experience can also have an impact. Even seasoned entrepreneurs have regrets or moments when they wish they had done something differently if they knew at the beginning what they know now. Here, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council reflect on their current knowledge and business experience in order to share some of the steps they wish they would have taken before starting their businesses.

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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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Email marketing is still among the most effective ways to target an audience. However, for email marketing to be successful, you need to encourage people to sign up for your email list. This step might seem like a simple task, but recently consumers are extra-protective about their email addresses. Individuals have been flooded with spam and have become a lot more cautious about who they share their information with. Even so, there are a few handy tips and tricks that you can use to get people to trust you enough to give you their email -- most notably by being transparent and showing the value you will provide them with. These 12 experts from YEC discuss some of the most effective methods and take a look at why they're so good at convincing people to sign up for your email list.

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It’s already well-known that entrepreneurs spend a lot of their time working on getting their businesses off the ground and keeping them solvent. It's not uncommon to hear a business owner working 50 or 60 hours a week. Many of us know how 10- and 11-hour workdays feel and the negative impact this amount of work can have on one’s mental and physical health. To address the issue, busy professionals need to find a way to work smarter and gradually reduce the number of hours spent to run the business. That’s why we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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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. We asked nine Young Entrepreneur Council members how younger founders can demonstrate their thought leadership and novel viewpoints to others in their field. Here's how to step up and show your expertise, even if you haven't been in the industry for long.

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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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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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These 20 entrepreneurs discuss the best features for remote management of a displaced workforce. Remote working isn't anything new. Many businesses have been leveraging the power of remote workers for years. Industries have replaced onboard hires with freelance workers who operate from anywhere globally, where they can have an uninterrupted internet connection. But with this year’s shift toward an almost entirely displaced workforce, many businesses are struggling to find the best strategies and tools for managing a fully remote team. Industries around the world have grappled with a change in the status quo before. Those businesses that had managers able to adapt to these changes were the ones that survived. With change on this scale, it's impossible to keep holding onto the traditional way of interacting with employees. The office has changed, and managers need to change with it or be replaced by those that do. Typically, upper management develops techniques that they can use in person-to-person interactions. As global offices have moved online, many of those techniques no longer work. As a result, managers are frantically searching for the right technology solutions that can allow them to run a virtual office with the same efficiency as a physical one. To help, 20 members of YEC discuss the innovative software they use to interact and manage their teams and why it's suitable for any company facing the challenges of a displaced workforce.

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A company blog isn't anything like a personal blog, yet many businesses look to individual bloggers to inform their choices on topics and content. Some strike on their own, coming up with their own ideas and fleshing them out by themselves, but the result can be just as underwhelming. Business blogs need to have a strategy behind them and clearly defined goals before the first post even hits distribution. But what exactly do these companies get wrong about their blogging? Below, 16 professionals from YEC explore some of the most common mistakes and issues they’ve seen with company blogs and suggest ways to address those problems and help ensure blogging success.

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It's often said you only get one chance to make a first impression, and that holds true for your company website. The visual appearance and written copy on your sign-up and landing pages must be compelling enough to grab a visitor's attention and convince them to take the next step in their relationship with your brand. This can be easier said than done, so to help, we asked 16 members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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Taking risks is always intimidating. It can be scary to leave comfort and safety behind and leap toward a potentially difficult and life-altering decision. But anything worth having rarely comes from taking the easy path. To inspire you to take that "big chance" you've been dreaming about, we asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council about the biggest career risks they’ve ever taken. Below they shared their stories about what happened and what they learned from following their instinct.

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A loyal community of followers can help your brand and business grow.

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You may measure your effectiveness with several metrics. However, not everyone has the time to dedicate to figuring out their level of daily effectiveness and productivity. As professionals, most of us have to learn how to spot the red flags indicating that we are being ineffective. Once we manage to catch on to these signs, we can safely estimate whether we're doing more or less than we expect to be doing. As an entrepreneur, effectiveness could mean the difference between achieving something concrete and simply wasting another day while getting nowhere substantial. These nine professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the signs they keep an eye out for to determine whether they're making a difference and the steps they take toward being more productive.

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Working from home requires paying attention to many small details regarding your mental and physical well-being, with work-life balance tending to be significantly higher among remote workers compared to traditional office workers. Most companies have now opted to offer remote work packages for their essential staff in response to the global pandemic. But when you're only just getting into the remote working lifestyle, it can be challenging to figure out a proper work-life balance. Remote work, especially, tends to infringe upon your daily life incessantly, making it hard to set boundaries and stick to them. Below, these eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council share the habits they rely on to achieve a better work-life balance while working remotely and explain why their strategies can help other entrepreneurs, as well.

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Being able to close a deal is a crucial part of an entrepreneur’s skill set, but sometimes, vendor agreements and partnerships can fall through due to unavoidable circumstances. Knowing that a deal is about to fall through before that actually happens can be quite beneficial for a company, as it gives the opportunity to choose its next steps in advance: pursue the agreement more aggressively, back off and let it fail, or do nothing and see if it corrects itself. However, before the business can take any action, it must be able to identify the telltale signs of a deal collapsing. To help, we asked 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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Remote working has taken the world by storm, as more and more businesses are looking at hiring workers and having them operate remotely. Aside from the convenience of the workers, the company also benefits from higher productivity and worker morale. However, getting those employees onboarded can be a challenging task. Businesses can't rely on the tried-and-true formulae they've used for years to onboard on-site employees and should instead adapt their techniques to cater for remote hires. To help, we asked 10 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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Many companies that shifted to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic have helped employees eliminate their daily commute. However, some professionals do still need to make regular trips into the office – and spending time commuting to work can feel stressful and counterproductive. If you use your time wisely, though, there are plenty of ways to maximize your commute and make it a productive one. We asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they maximize their commute time and how it helps them in their professional and personal lives. They shared their insights with us below.

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expert panel

As a business owner, you know your company can't remain stagnant and stuck in its ways if it hopes to grow. That growth requires innovation and creativity, both of which are best sourced from everyone on your team. To help you put your staff in an innovative mindset, we asked 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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After a user likes or shares one of your posts on social media, you've got them interested in your brand or product. But how do you leverage this engagement and keep it going? Commitment is a fickle thing since people tend to have short attention spans. In the modern age, those attention spans are even further limited because of a society based on instant gratification. If you want to keep users liking, sharing, and commenting on your posts or blogs, you're going to need a strategy to drive that engagement. We asked 11 entrepreneurs from YEC to offer their own insight into how an organization can keep the commitment going after that initial like or share.

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[long-form emailed to Kelsey]

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For online businesses, a high-performing website that encourages engagement and conversions is the key to successful growth. It often takes time to build up a steady stream of website visitors and consistent buyers. However, there are some things you can do to help accelerate the process. If you want to scale your site visits and engagement, try these 13 growth hacks recommended by the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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If your company has a blog and social media presence, you know how challenging it can be to keep up with the constant demand for new content. Recycling and updating existing content is a great way to put a fresh spin on what you’ve previously published without the hassle of coming up with a brand-new idea. However, there’s an art to repurposing content: The best brands don’t just copy and paste across platforms; they recontextualize their content and adapt it before reposting. To help you do this, we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council for the best ways to get more mileage out of their online content. They gave their tips below.

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Having the right clients can make all the difference in your business’s success. Of course, finding those ideal clients isn’t always easy. You don’t want to be too selective and turn down a good business opportunity, but you also don’t want to overextend yourself for a client who won’t stick around in the long run. We asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they’ve managed to attract -- and more importantly, keep -- the right clients in their roster. Here are their best strategies.

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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. When you only get a few hours per day to tackle your most important tasks, it’s critical to find ways to keep your focus. To help you, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their advice. Below they shared nine strategies for stretching your productivity and why each is so effective.

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Today's world is more stressful than ever. The fast-paced, always-on environment many of us operate in is enough to cause anxiety among even the most organized leaders. Throw in the current global pandemic and an economic recession, and it's no surprise that many people are experiencing doubts and fears in their personal and professional lives. While stress is an inevitable part of life, it doesn't have to consume you and get in the way of your success. That's why we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they manage to overcome the mental and emotional stressors of living and working in the modern world. Try their practical, actionable strategies the next time you're feeling overwhelmed at work or at home.

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Motivation works cyclically. There are moments when you feel as though you can take on the world, punctuated by moments when you feel like it makes no sense to do anything. If you've been feeling unmotivated at work recently, you're not alone. Workers worldwide go through the same moments of "boom and bust" when it comes to their motivation. However, one of the hallmarks of a successful entrepreneur is to power through those feelings. The success of an enterprise hinges on its leader being able to escape the doldrums and remain focused throughout their projects. Here, 11 associates of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the methods they use to remain motivated and stay at the top of their game as industry-leading entrepreneurs.

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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. Once you get the right eyes on your project and have them interested in what you're doing, you need to follow up and keep the momentum. But what is the first thing an entrepreneur should do after landing the pitch to a potential investor? We asked seven contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council what their first step after landing their pitch is, and why they take that road. Here's what they told us.

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Despite the numerous digital communications channels available today, email is still one of the best ways to get and stay in touch with your customers. Email marketing is notorious for its high return on investment, and with nearly 4 billion active email users, there’s a huge potential audience waiting to receive your messages. However, email is only effective if you follow a well-planned strategy -- one that doesn’t involve bombarding your subscribers or sending sales pitch after sales pitch. If you want to improve your email marketing efforts, follow these 10 tried-and-true methods recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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“Thought leadership” is a big buzzword in the business world right now, and it’s easy to see why it’s become such an important focus for leaders. When others look to you for your expertise and insight, you can become a leading, recognized voice in your industry. But what does it take to become a thought leader, and what actionable steps can you take toward that goal? We asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share some specific factors that define an industry thought leader and what actions people can take to start stepping in the right direction. They shared their responses below.

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Entrepreneurship is a journey that no one is fully prepared to take. No matter how much time you spent researching and learning things before you started, there are always things you’ll wish you had done differently in hindsight. While you can’t prepare for every possible scenario, you can arm yourself for some common challenges and circumstances by learning from other’s experiences. We asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council what they wished they knew before they launched their businesses and what difference it would have made. Ten of them shared their insights below.

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As an entrepreneur, it’s important to create and implement a branding strategy for your business. This will help you better connect with your customers and share your company’s story/personality with your target audience. Developing a branding strategy can be challenging if you don’t know where to begin, so we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share some specific brands or personalities whose top-notch branding strategies are worthy of emulation. Read their responses to familiarize yourself with these successful branding tactics.

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Being honest and truly helpful is a surefire way to gain your prospect's trust.

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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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Social media is constantly evolving, as are the ways people use it. What was once primarily used for connecting with old friends and family has morphed into a platform for sharing perspectives and launching campaigns. As an entrepreneur, it’s important to be aware of these changes so you can adapt accordingly. Your business’s social presence can make or break your reputation. That's why we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members how they keep up with evolving social media functions. They offered their best tips for using such changes to engage your audience.

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These tools and strategies can make email marketing more efficient and less time-consuming. Email marketing is still a handy outreach method for businesses. It offers something unique in how companies can interact with their clientele. The big problem many companies have with email marketing is how much time it takes up from its staff. But does email marketing have to be that time-consuming? One of the things that businesses have realized over the years is that anything which used to take time can become more efficient. Email marketing isn't an exception to this rule. Where research meant digging through tons of questionnaires and noting results, today you can simply access an automatically-compiled list of preferences, sorted by an algorithm. These lists enable businesses to develop targeted, personalized emails that resonate with their target audience. These tools are only the tip of the iceberg, however. As more and more companies are looking into developing personalized marketing techniques, research needs to finish faster than ever before. Specialized tools and software exist to help businesses realize results more quickly. However, many companies are still in the dark about how they could streamline their email marketing to take up less time. We asked 17 thought leaders from YEC their take on the best tools and strategies to make email marketing a more efficient enterprise. Here's what they had to say.

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Within an organization, some skills are far more valuable than others. If your business is looking at hiring new employees, then these skills should be a primary focus for your interviews. Knowing what skills are crucial for an enterprise to grow and thrive helps you figure out if an employee may be worth hiring, even if they don't fit the ideal. Sometimes the company needs more than just the right qualifications for their employees. That's why we asked 16 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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Every job candidate’s goal is to stand out from the rest. However, it’s not enough to talk about your education and work experiences, which may be very similar to other qualified applicants. Great candidates shine by saying things that are truly unique. To help you stand out, we asked Young Entrepreneur Council members to share some memorable things past candidates have said that really impressed them. Be sure to bring up these 15 things in your next job interview if you want to make a great impression.

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Running a business is not easy, especially as a young entrepreneur. It always feels like the industry is stacked against you, and that you're destined to fail. Keeping hold of your morals while navigating a field like this can be a challenge. Making hard decisions is part of the job. That doesn't mean that making them gets any easier with time. However, the perspective that these decisions need to happen for the good of the company and yourself can help you navigate them easier. To help, these eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the hard decisions they had to make, including the circumstances that led up to them, to help other young entrepreneurs learn from their experiences.

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One of the most significant elements in helping a business get to know its customers is their data. Over recent years, consumers have started to take notice of how businesses use their data. While many aren't bothered, a few are against a company getting its hands on their information. As a result, they are averse to sharing access to their data. By limiting the data you collect to just the most pertinent bits, you will still be able to extract useful knowledge about clients while also  earning their trust for not asking access to all of their information. To help businesses wondering what kind of data to collect, we asked 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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Employees who work on small teams may need to play multiple roles to ensure everything runs smoothly. With such limited resources, you may not be able to have a dedicated full-time marketing person to help you reach your full potential as a brand. That's why we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council 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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As a leader, you know your workplace dynamic directly impacts employee morale and, in turn, your bottom line. No matter how great your company culture might be, there is always room for improvement. But to make impactful changes, you’ll have to first understand which areas warrant the most attention.  To help you identify those areas, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members this question:

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Leaders should seek out ways to consistently express appreciation and ask for feedback.

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Internal meetings can be a fantastic strategic tool to help a business get all stakeholders of a project on the same page, but they can easily turn into massive time sinks if they are not properly scheduled and managed. Unfortunately, many companies don't strategize their meetings. The result is a once-weekly report that doesn't have any noticeable impact on the business.  There are ways to leverage meetings to be more efficient and practical, however. To help, 12 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council offer several strategies for using corporate meetings more efficiently to help business growth and productivity.

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The only way a business can garner new customers and retain current ones is by laying out the benefits that its product or services present to the consumer. In the past, all it took was a flashy headline and a few bullet points that punched home the usefulness of the product or service. Today's world has evolved to a point where traditional advertising no longer makes the same impact. Even newer, more modern methods of advertising are having a hard time getting traction among some demographics. How, then, can a company educate its target audience about its latest products or services and their benefits? Eleven contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council look at the approaches a business can take to create engaging yet informative content to attract consumers.

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Businesses have seen a period of massive growth, especially those that deal solely with online sales and services. While this development is promising, it also opens up a business to another problem -- that of having their growth outscale their ability to communicate. Business communication deals with how the company interacts with clients including their overall branding promise. Naturally, a small company is likely to have a different approach to a larger one, simply because of the scale of the communication involved. We consulted 14 entrepreneurs from YEC to ask them about the best ways for a business to ensure that their communication scale keeps up with their business growth. Here's what they had to say.

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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. While a good idea can come from anywhere in the organization, it must have the full support of the leadership team for it to be sustainable. This notion can be discouraging for some entry- and mid-level employees who might feel there's too much "red tape" to have their ideas heard, validated and implemented. However, you don’t have to necessarily be at the top of the totem pole to enact lasting change -- there are plenty of ways you can present your ideas to the right people and convince them of the need to change. We asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share their best tips for making a high-level impact, regardless of your place in the organization. Follow their advice to start making a difference today.

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When your company's growth is gaining traction, make sure your culture grows right alongside it.

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Within any company, the ambitions of individual team members should aid the overall organization. However, it takes a leader to fuel, direct, and inspire this ambition into a way that helps both the team members and the organization as a whole. One way leaders can get their team members to realize their ambitions is by guiding them toward self-teaching and taking initiative, as a way of expanding their knowledge and skills while also seizing new opportunities within the company. To help, we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following:

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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. We asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council to each share one word leaders often use, but shouldn't. Here are some key words and phrases to avoid as a manager, along with a few suggested terms to use instead.

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Innovation can change how a company does business and significantly improve its bottom line. That is why innovation should be a core value for any organization, and leaders should spare no efforts to encourage their teams to come up with innovative ideas. However, the stigma in some companies not to appear too "out there" keeps many creative ideas from coming to the fore. Managers that can put their staff at ease during brainstorming sessions of innovation-focused conversations have a much higher chance of getting them to reveal their innovative ideas. For managers who want to learn how to encourage employees to be more open and embrace their creativity, eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council speak about their own experiences within their companies and the most effective ways to have more conversations that lead to innovation.

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A great digital marketing strategy can drive potential customers to your website. But high traffic doesn't always translate into revenue. Once you get people on your site, you need to ensure they have a reason to follow through on their purchase. To help you do this, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they optimize and convert web traffic into real dollars. Their best tips and insights are below.