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Shaun Conrad is an serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, and Certified Public Accountant. He founded The Conrad Learning Company to help people continue their education, start their careers, and grow their finances. After receiving bachelor's degrees in accounting and business management from Ferris State University, he started his career in public accounting as a CPA. After almost a decade, Shaun left public accounting to use his knowledge and skills in accounting, business, finance, and music to help more than 2.5M students each month. Shaun is a creative who is always looking for ways to learn, grow, and develop new relationships. If he is not playing guitar, he is out thrill seeking on a motorcycle, longboard, or skydive.
Deciding to franchise your business is a big step in entrepreneurship and there are many factors to consider before doing so. Aside from ensuring that your main business has enough financing to support your overall brand, there are legal processes that need to be completed, hiring that needs to be done, and branding procedures that must be solidified.
When you invest in ongoing education and professional development for your employees, it shows them that you value their contributions to the company and, in doing so, it may also bolster morale and loyalty. To support this development, many companies will host speakers or workshops, but it's important to ensure your employees are feeling engaged — especially if it's a virtual meeting.
Sales challenges are unavoidable in any business, regardless of industry. From curating an effective sales process to pinpointing your ideal customer, solving these sales challenges is crucial during the early stages of your company.
Your personal brand is the version of yourself you showcase to the world. It encompasses your values, mission and brand personality that you showcase to customers, your network and potential employers.
Businesses need systems and processes to maintain quality and efficiency in their operations. Systemization helps to communicate to your team how you'd like your business to be effectively run and provides a clear model for them to follow. However, busy entrepreneurs don't always take the time (or have the time) to put those systems in place.
Getting your business noticed online is only getting more challenging, as every day new businesses are opening up and creating more competition for consumer attention. The go-to strategy for many companies, therefore, is to leverage social media to get in front of their target audience and convince them to make a purchase.
From ramping up online offerings to implementing new health and safety protocols, the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the way people do business—especially for physical retail stores navigating the future of post-pandemic shopping. While it can be challenging for companies to pivot their operations based on customers’ changing needs and expectations, it can also serve as a unique opportunity for growth.
Members of the Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on whether a long-term or campaign-by-campaign content strategy works best for brands.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain the first steps a business should take upon discovering a negative review.
Building positive relationships with your customers is essential to running a successful and sustainable business. That’s why many business owners rely on customer relationship management (CRM) tools to connect with clients and nurture ongoing interactions.
Good web design can make or break a modern business. If your website is smooth and easy to navigate, it will attract more users and is a vote of confidence for your organization. A poorly designed site can have the opposite effect, turning users away no matter how good the product is.
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:
As with other marketing efforts, social media can sometimes be a challenge because it has to balance customer appeal with staying true to its brand promise. But with so many social media platforms, trends and opportunities for innovation, it can be easy to let the brand message get lost along the way. So how does a company keep all of its different social media profiles and content on brand with each and every post? Below, 11 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) examine the following question:
First impressions set the stage for how someone sees you. Most human beings draw conclusions about others from the first thing they do or say. In business, that means that initial meeting is especially important.
Staying tuned in to the pulse of your industry is key to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Public groups, online forums and the like are among the most valuable resources for gathering and contributing industry information. But if someone is looking for in-depth insight into their business niche, locating the right groups where this discussion occurs is the first step. To help you find them, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) respond to the following question:
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:
When an entrepreneur starts a business, the immediate concern is how much it will cost to set up. Cost can sometimes seem like a barrier to entry for those hopeful business owners looking to get started on a budget. Luckily, evolving tech has provided many free alternatives to the paid tools other professionals use.
If you're just getting your feet wet in business, there are many things that can be overwhelming. One of the biggest sources of overwhelm, however, is finances. With so many numbers to track, livelihoods to be responsible for and rules to follow, business finances can quickly become too much for new entrepreneurs to handle.
For many people, networking is not a skill that comes naturally—even to entrepreneurs. But without this skill, entrepreneurs may end up developing bad networking habits that could hinder their ability to form new business relationships.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain the tactics they've used to encourage customer downloads of their branded mobile apps.
Email marketing is a great way for small businesses to stay connected with their customers and encourage more sales. The problem is that because of their size they often have limited resources for growing their subscriber lists. So to help small business owners expand their email audience (even on a budget), the members of Young Entrepreneur Council weighed in on the following question:
During the interview process, there are some red flags that will be immediately apparent to an employer. Unfortunately, there are also a few of them that may slip by unnoticed, and it's only after the hire starts working that the company realizes they may have made an error.
When surrounded by others, it can be difficult not to compare your successes to everyone else’s. Unfortunately, this competition can lead to stress and can easily create situations where you feel insecure about your path in life. But remembering that success looks different for everyone is just one step to maintaining your confidence.
For any aspiring business owner or entrepreneur, establishing the right practices and habits as part of your normal behaviors can set you on a path toward career success. However, there are a few habits that might actually be hindering your entrepreneurial journey rather than helping it. These habits might be things you consider to be completely harmless in the grand scheme of your total behaviors, and many entrepreneurs might not even see them as significant hurdles to overcome.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how you’ll know when it’s time to consider a career switch.
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:
Whether through branded content on social media or print ads for specific products, consumers often first encounter a company through its marketing efforts, and reaching target customers both online and offline is integral to a brand’s success today.
When heading a company, there are certain budget items that should be of critical concern. Basics like payroll and product costs are easy to figure in to your operational budget. But business is nothing without its unexpected expenses, and there are bound to be a few that CEOs will forget to account for.
Entrepreneurs typically have long, nonstandard workdays, with some even working more than 15 hours at a time. Yet even though they may be spending all this time working on their business, there's no guarantee that their days are truly as productive as they could be.
Everyone feels down from time to time, even entrepreneurs. Constantly surrounded by others who are seemingly experiencing success, business leaders can sometimes have a hard time reminding themselves of their own potential.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share how to prepare your company for greater integration of artificial intelligence and automation.
In business, it's only natural that you'll be called on to present to an audience. However, the stakes of some of these presentations can be relatively high, which can lead to anxiety and heightened nerves for the person giving them. Not everyone is naturally cool under pressure, yet so many business professionals manage to give these pitches effortlessly, or so it seems.
Establishing a personal brand is something many professionals do to get noticed by the right people and make themselves available to the right opportunities. Unfortunately, with all the different information sources out there, it's easy to get confused about how exactly to do that. Where one source would advise you to do one thing, another article may recommend the complete opposite.
Young Entrepreneur Council members look ahead at consumer IoT device trends they expect we’ll see more of this year.
The dark and dreary months of winter often take a toll on people’s mental health. Thankfully, there are ways to keep your spirits bright through this season so you can stay motivated and inspired in your business and life.
19 entrepreneurs delve into where online freelance talent is most readily found
There's no question as to how vital innovation is to a business. However, the pitfall that most entrepreneurs fall victim to is thinking that all change must come from the top. If a company hires right, its talented employees could offer a vast resource in terms of their innovation to the company.
18 leaders from YEC discuss what elements business leaders should keep in mind before selling their company.
One of the most common complaints that professionals have in the 21st century is how little time there is in a day. The truth of the matter is that the day hasn't changed, but how we manage our time has. Losing time on frivolous activities is nothing new. However, with the advent of attention-stealing applications, we lose more time than ever before without even realizing it.
As more businesses start to realize the benefits of outsourcing, they slowly start cutting down on the number of things they do in house. In many industries, the reduction in costs is so significant that it allows the business to thrive and grow much faster. However, even though outsourcing is an excellent idea for increasing profitability for a business, not all solutions should be outsourced, even if they could be.
With the number of tasks that an employee has to accomplish daily, many managers believe that it's impossible to monitor staff workloads accurately. The problem becomes even more involved in organizations where it's difficult to track the movement of jobs between departments.
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.
As digital payments evolve and become more commonplace, an increasing number of businesses are accepting them, with some businesses rejecting cash payments entirely. While digital payments can certainly be convenient for customers and businesses alike, it’s important to understand the process and avoid any potential pitfalls. We asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their takes on digital payments. They shared 10 things you should keep in mind as digital payment options evolve, and how those offerings will impact your business in the future.
13 Great Methods of Expressing Gratitude
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