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Everyone has certain biases, but making an objective business decision requires you to recognize and set aside those perceptions. Human beings are biased by nature. Each of us forms opinions about the world based on the experiences we've had and the backgrounds we come from.  While bias itself is not inherently bad, it's important for entrepreneurs to understand their own unconscious biases and work to eliminate them from their business decisions to ensure the fairest outcomes for all involved. Below, a group of successful entrepreneurs shared their best tips for recognizing your own biases and removing them from your decision-making process. Follow their advice to achieve greater objectivity within your company.

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Long-term brand recognition and customer loyalty are common goals of almost every business. To create this kind of longevity, business owners will need to create brands that people like, remember and trust. As successful business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council understand what it takes to build a company that withstands the test of time. Below, they shared eight key steps you can take to cultivate a truly timeless brand.

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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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In recent years, technological advances and the Covid-19 pandemic have paved the way for many companies to go completely or partially remote. This type of work environment means professionals are now more responsible for protecting confidential company data, no matter where they're working. From using weak passwords to logging into unsecured networks, there are many ways for well-intentioned remote workers to inadvertently open the door for hackers. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain how remote professionals can protect themselves against cyberattacks when they're not working at a central company location.

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As the holiday season draws near, so does the chance to market your offerings to holiday shoppers. To ensure successful end-of-year sales, it's important to plan effective campaigns that will entice shoppers to buy from your business. This means getting innovative and thinking beyond the "traditional" holiday ad campaigns and promotions consumers are used to seeing. To help you do this, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one overused holiday marketing trend they'd rather not see this year. If you want your business to stand out, avoid these tired approaches and try something fresh.

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A strong manager can inspire loyalty and guide their team toward reaching their goals, helping the company reach new heights. Conversely, a manager who is ineffective or difficult to deal with can drive away talented employees, leading to high turnover rates and the subsequent loss of time and capital. That's why it's crucial for managers of all levels to focus not only on team deliverables and outcomes, but also on their own leadership skills as well. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their best strategies for business leaders looking to help their managers succeed and retain more employees.

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No matter if your company has been remote since the start or if you’re new to the remote working environment, you can always learn new remote employee onboarding tips to improve your virtual onboarding process. From potential technical difficulties to struggles connecting with your team, the issues associated with virtual onboarding can be smoothed over with the right strategies in place. Here, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council list out what those strategies should include in order to be successful.

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A public relations crisis is a common incident many companies face at some point. The lasting impact of the incident is not so much about the crisis itself, but the way it’s handled. In the midst of the crisis, it’s important to approach your audience and the issue at hand with careful consideration. This is often achieved by delivering the right communication at the right time through the right medium, such as your social media channels. Below, 15 members of YEC shared some of the ways you can use social media to help resolve negative PR situations as they occur.

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The Internet of Things (IoT) has been gaining more and more traction over the past few years as connected devices and smart home and office gadgets dominate the market. According to Statista, the IoT market revenue worldwide is projected to climb to over 1 trillion dollars by 2030. With this increased revenue comes a number of new ways for businesses to leverage IoT technology. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared some business opportunities they see emerging in the IoT sector. Keep an eye out for these 10 growing trends in the B2B IoT space.

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As social media becomes a go-to communication platform for consumers across all demographics, it’s important for companies to increase their brand awareness on the platforms their audiences use. Leveraging these social media platforms effectively can help create strong connections with customers, draw them to your business, and build brand loyalty. To help businesses boost brand loyalty, 14 Young Entrepreneur Council members offer their best advice.

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A normal part of running a business is having ideas fail. However, sometimes these circumstances lead to crises within the business. When this happens, employees look to business leaders for guidance on how to respond. To help your company handle crises in a competent manner, you need to have a level mindset. Professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council offer eight ways you can calmly manage a company crisis.

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Chatbots can enhance the customer experience on your company website if they’re designed well. But all too often, these little bots have features that disrupt the user experience, resulting in bounces and a feeling of poor customer service. Avoid creating annoying and frustrating customer experiences with chatbots by following the insights from these 10 YEC professionals. They’ve pinpointed the most irritating features and designs of chatbots and offered ways to instead maximize their usefulness.

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One of the most common complaints in the business world is about being forced to attend unnecessary meetings. Nobody wants to sit through an in-person meeting or video conference to hear things that could have instead been summed up in an email message. To help business leaders run more purposeful meetings, we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share their best tips for how to make meetings more efficient and useful.

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As a new small business, engaging your community is crucial to getting your business off the ground. The goal is to nurture lasting relationships that will drive your revenue and increase brand awareness; however, forming genuine connections with members of your community requires strategy and patience. To help you do this, 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council answered the following question:

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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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With so many people accustomed to working in remote environments, businesses no longer need a centralized location to find success. If they make strategic choices about which technologies to adopt, ambitious entrepreneurs can launch, run and grow a successful business right from their own home. One important part of the equation in building a home-based business is having the right tech tools in place. Below, ten members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss key ways for entrepreneurs to leverage technology to help their home-based business thrive. Follow their tips to set yours up for success.

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It's an inevitability in any business; you can't please every customer and, eventually, someone will get upset. But what matters is how you deal with their expectations and come to a common solution. Dealing with an angry customer doesn't necessarily have to mean the end of your relationship with them. In fact, with the right techniques and strategies, you may be able to steer the conversation in a positive and productive direction. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their best advice for doing just this.

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When a business posts a job online, it aims to garner the interest of the most qualified professionals in the field. Just like advertising, getting the job in front of the right eyes is crucial to its success. But with thousands upon thousands of job postings out there, what can a business do to ensure that their online job listing doesn't get buried under the clutter? To share their insights, nine experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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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 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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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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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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Many businesses rely on software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to help them run their everyday operations. However, with so many specialized vendors, it's easy to lose track of the number — and price tag — of the SaaS providers you're working with. To help, members of Young Entrepreneur Council weighed in on the following question:

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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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Communication is one of the most essential skills that a business leader needs to master to be successful. Great leaders may develop their communication skills early on in their careers, but they also have created and maintained habits that help them communicate more effectively. When you watch great leaders address an audience or interact with others, the practices they cultivate to help them communicate so well may not be immediately apparent. Even so, their effectiveness is unquestionable. Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the habits they believe all great leaders have and explain why these help make them such powerful communicators.

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As the new year signifies new beginnings, most people come up with things they want to change as the January rolls around. If these resolutions stick, they could lead to an entirely new way of life. Yet so many people let these goals falter, and within the first few weeks of the new year, these resolutions are relegated to the proverbial garbage heap. However, some people really do manage to attain their goals. Some entrepreneurs have developed great success by sticking to their New Year’s resolutions, but what's their secret? Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some helpful tricks to ensure that you can achieve your own New Year’s resolutions this year.

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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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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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Influencers are the newest way of reaching out to social media audiences. Unlike traditional advertising, these influencers have their own goals and ambitions. Influencers thrive on building relationships between themselves and their audiences. Microinfluencers tend to have fewer followers but an even more close-knit community. In many cases, this closer relationship makes it easier for them to convince users of their perspective. When dealing with micro-influencers, businesses should understand what makes this particular relationship work so well. To help, we asked 13 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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A truly timeless brand sticks with people for a long time, no matter how many trends emerge or how the world around them changes. Not every business ever reaches this stature, but it’s something your brand should work and strive toward if you want to be memorable. To that end, there are a few steps you can take to make your brand feel timeless as you’re developing it. We asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share the key to creating a timeless brand. Here’s what they had to say.

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With each passing year, demographics change. Where a company's core demographic might have been millennials a few years ago, today it's shifted to Generation Z. Unfortunately, there's a marked difference in values between generations, and businesses need to revamp their marketing strategy to reach out to their newest client base without alienating their other followers. If the wrong strategy is applied and a company’s messaging reaches the wrong part of its audience, it can cost the business valuable sales. To help avoid such situations, these 11 entrepreneurs from YEC share their insight into how companies can reach out to their Gen Z audience while remaining marketable to their existing clientele.

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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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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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Each company gauges the contribution of its employees differently. Some focus on deliverables, while others rely on employee loyalty and worked hours to determine a worker's contribution to the business. All of these assessment methods have the same goal in mind -- to determine whether an employee deserves a raise or not. But how can a business determine which of these systems is best and most suitable for its own workforce? To shed some light on the issue, we asked eight entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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Entrepreneurs have some bad habits, one of which is not knowing when they need a break. With many young entrepreneurs, it's almost impossible to take a step back and relax. Yet studies have shown that entrepreneurs that don't take time out to smell the roses risk serious health problems later on in life. The goal of being a successful yet happy businessperson is knowing how to distance yourself from your business. Summer vacations are crucial in ensuring you keep your perspective. That’s why we asked 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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Opt for gradual change and seek to align daily tasks with long-term goals.

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

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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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Since the internet has permeated business to such an extent, PR crises are becoming far more common for companies. Many of those PR faux-pas are due to misuse or misunderstanding of social media interaction. However, as much as social media can be a tool to cause a PR crisis, it can also be useful in helping to manage it. Social media is still the best way to create a rapport and interact with a particular demographic of customers directly. We consulted 10 members of YEC to figure out what smart ways exist for business leaders to use social media to manage potential PR conflagrations. Their responses are below.

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A strong creative team can help your business develop great ideas and soar to new heights. However, simply having the most talented or innovative people on board isn’t enough. They must not only be willing to make unconventional moves, but they must also place trust in their other team members. To help you strike the right balance, we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share the most crucial ingredients needed to build a successful creative team. Their best answers are below.

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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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It's no surprise that cold calling remains one of the most effective means of getting leads. Unfortunately, people tend to be averse to getting calls out of the blue. Some people even reject unknown numbers to avoid cold calls altogether. Despite this, user engagement with phone calls remains high, and the number of people you connect with increases your chance of success. Even though it's a numbers’ game at heart, you can develop an advantage by stacking the odds in your favor. The most critical thing to figure out is how to approach cold calling so as to get the best results. We consulted eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council regarding their best advice for landing cold calling clients. Here's what they had to share:

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Marketing is only truly effective if it strikes a chord with the audience it's intended for. Brand messages resonate more when the business aims them at the right audience. Since branding happens across multiple channels, having a consistent plan for both content and media is necessary. As with most marketing strategies, a coherent method needs to focus on the consumer first. The audience needs to know what the brand is offering and that the product is specifically geared to their needs. Below, eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council look at how a business can plan its media and content marketing to target their ideal customers effectively.