Blair Williams

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Yes, it's hard to "no." However, saying "no" to opportunities is part of finding a work-balance balance. To reveal strategies of how to properly turn down new opportunities, we asked YEC members for how they say "no" in high-pressure situations to help protect their work-life balance.

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In the fiercely competitive business landscape, creating a loyalty program that resonates with customers and encourages repeat business is more crucial than ever. A well-crafted loyalty program not only rewards customers but also fosters a deeper connection with your brand, turning occasional buyers into lifelong advocates. But what makes a loyalty program truly stand out and keep customers coming back for more? Below, leaders from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their invaluable insights on this very question: "What's one tip you have for creating a quality loyalty program that will keep customers coming back for more? Why?" Their responses shed light on the essential elements of successful loyalty programs, from personalized rewards to leveraging technology for enhanced customer experiences.

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Becoming a thought leader is a lot of work, but it's what you have to do if you want to move to the next level of growth and success as an entrepreneur.

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As the online marketplace grows increasingly competitive, businesses must put in strategic effort to stand out from their competitors. Social media can serve as a powerful and cost-effective tool in achieving this goal by getting a brand's products and services in front of the right audience. To help small businesses make the most of their social media efforts, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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A company's software stack is the backbone of its operations, efficiency and ability to compete. However, staying on top of what's new or needed when it comes to the tools you use can be a challenge. So how can you tell when it's time to upgrade or change your company's software stack? To help business leaders answer this question, 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the telltale signs your business may need a software upgrade as well as the challenges businesses often face in making those upgrades. Follow their recommendations to help you make informed decisions about implementing new software for your own company.

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It's often said that employees don't leave bad jobs—they leave bad managers. In this way, if you’re a business leader whose company is suddenly experiencing high turnover, taking a look at your managers and their performance may be a safe place to start when getting to the root of the issue.  While termination may be the solution in some more extreme situations, often, managers may just need further training and support. For guidance on how to begin, consider the following advice from the business leaders of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they offer their top tips for how to address the issue of turnover with the manager and help them improve themselves and their management style.

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Many aspiring entrepreneurs dream of opening their own business, but they fear that they’ll need to invest a lot of money to do so — and will end up losing that money should their business fail down the road.  Thankfully, there are plenty of businesses that don’t require a lot of capital to get started. To give you an idea of what businesses you might consider, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) respond to the following question:

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Entering into a business partnership should not be taken lightly. Even if your new partner is your best friend, you'll want to make sure you plan ahead for all possible contingencies. To help mitigate any future problems, business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council recommend that these 10 elements be part of a partnership contract.

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Years after the “Great Resignation” turned the job economy upside down, businesses are still feeling the ripple effects today. With many industries struggling to attract employees—and others struggling even more with trying to retain them—some business leaders are desperately looking for solutions to this ongoing problem. One such solution is an overhaul of the interview process. One of the first opportunities businesses have to make a good impression on potential hires, interviews are perfect for highlighting what makes your business so attractive. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, the following 10 strategies can help you create a quality interview experience that will be sure to impress.

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For many entrepreneurs, building an online store is a quick way to get their business up and running without having to deal with the overhead of a traditional brick-and-mortar store. But the world of e-commerce isn’t without its own obstacles to overcome. Challenges like getting noticed among the competition and designing a functional, appealing website can feel like major roadblocks to those new to navigating a digital business.  However, you don’t need a lot of experience to get started. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, following these 11 steps can help you build a successful e-commerce site that will draw in customers and increase your chances of making a sale.

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From securing funding to handling growth, launching a new business comes with several hurdles that must be cleared. Failure to understand these challenges can cause a business to falter before it ever truly gets off the ground. However, with the right preparation, entrepreneurs can overcome (and sometimes, even mitigate) obstacles and continue on the path to success. To help new and aspiring business owners looking to launch, Young Entrepreneur Council members share 10 common hurdles startups face—and how to most effectively overcome them.

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There often comes a time in business when a sense of overwhelm can start to creep in—whether that's due to explosive growth or a lack of time and resources. Even with business going well, you can still be left scrambling if you don’t have the right processes in place or adequate staffing to help alleviate some of the burden. As business leaders, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have faced many periods of chaos in their careers. Here, they share what helped them overcome these feelings of overwhelm and how you can regain order during a chaotic time in your business, no matter what the reason.

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When you're actively searching for a new career, you know the importance of crafting a compelling resumé. In addition to the expected information, such as work history and experience, there are certain "green flags" that can help your application catch the eye of prospective employers. To help job seekers land that coveted interview, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their experiences on the other side of the hiring table. Read on for 13 attributes that can send your resumé to the top of the list—and the top of a hiring manager's mind.

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Putting the right people together—ones who get along, who play off each other’s strengths and who support each other—can be one of the most difficult aspects of being a leader, as getting the formula wrong can be disastrous for team morale and productivity. While some signs, like arguing, can be a clear indicator of an ineffective team, others may not be so easy to spot. To offer some clarity, 10 business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council each offer up one thing ineffective teams tend to do poorly and what they would suggest they do instead to better their productivity and teamwork. Keep an eye out for these telltale signs that your team may be struggling more than you think.

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Personalizing payment methods isn't just a strategy; it can help propel your business to the next level.

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While email marketing remains a popular and viable way to reach customers, it also has the potential to cause annoyance or get flat out ignored if not handled in the right way. Emails frequently hitting customers’ inboxes that follow the same stale format or provide little or no value often won’t inspire readers to click through—if they even open the email at all. So what should email marketers do? Here, the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the strategies businesses can use to breathe new life into their email marketing efforts and keep their emails from being sent directly to “Trash.”

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

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Often, one of the most gratifying parts of being a small-business owner is building a connection to your local community. One of the many ways business owners can do this is by hosting local events. Whether it’s an intimate gathering in your store or a big summer bash, events are key opportunities for strengthening your relationship with your customers — but that doesn’t mean they have to break the bank. To help you determine the best ways to cut costs while still putting on an event to remember, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) weigh in on the following question:

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Your company mission is the North Star of your business, guiding each and every decision you make. Writing one, therefore, isn’t just about creating a clever slogan or summarizing your goals; it’s about getting to the heart of your business and laying out the true driving force behind your company and all those who work within it. And while you may have an idea of the main “why” behind your business, writing a clear, well-thought-out mission statement may require some deeper reflection. To help, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer a few questions you can ask yourself to spark a more detailed, thorough or meaningful statement for your company mission that will stand the test of time.

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Getting promoted or moving into a new role at your company can be a difficult path to take if you’re not sure how to get there. While you may feel you’re ready for such a change, you may still need certifications, new skills or more experience that can give you the resume you need to take on this new role. Rather than guessing what further qualifications you may need, it can be helpful to reach out to your manager first. By asking the right questions and starting the right conversations, you can learn a lot about what problems your company faces and what you can do to help tackle them. To help get you started, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council each offer one question they believe you should ask your manager if you're looking to both improve in your current role and advance in your company and career.

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While it’s important to find balance throughout the year, the summer months are a great reminder to make more time for fun activities and personal or family time outside of work. A determined focus on one’s career or budding business can be necessary to achieve your goals and grow as a professional, but if left unchecked, it can also leave you feeling unbalanced, tired, stressed and like you’re missing out on precious time with your loved ones. If you think you may be letting your work life get in the way of your personal one, consider these other signs of overwork, as listed by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they discuss these red flags as well as what you can do to finally achieve work-life balance.

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

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

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It’s perfectly human to have “off” days—those when you can’t help but feel distracted by every little thought or feeling that enters your mind, or when smaller, less important tasks suddenly seem necessary to complete immediately. It can be difficult to get into a state of deep focus or even to find a normal amount of motivation on days like these, which means your productivity and ability to get things done can drastically decrease. Business leaders are no strangers to these kinds of off days, but thankfully the leaders of Young Entrepreneur Council have found a few solutions to recommend. Below, they each discuss one method they use to find their motivation for work even when they’re feeling distracted and how you can implement each tip to regain your own motivation.

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With vacations, warm-weather activities and a renewed sense of energy to occupy your mind, staying productive in the summer months can sometimes be a difficult task. But whether you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow your business or a busy professional trying to get through a project, finding ways to maintain focus is key to being able to do your best work. Luckily, you don’t have to sacrifice your summer in order to stay productive. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, it’s all about balance. Here, they discuss some of their best tips for how to find your focus and stay productive when the joys of summer are making you feel a bit distracted.

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When team members get along, they communicate better, trust each other more, and work together more effectively. But how can leaders encourage this camaraderie and bonding, especially when budgets are tight? Here, a group of Young Entrepreneur Council members share some low-cost ways leaders can foster a sense of community and connectedness among their teams.

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Being an entrepreneur requires a unique blend of creativity, vision and innovative thinking. To stay ahead in the ever-evolving business landscape, entrepreneurs need constant inspiration and fresh perspectives. Luckily, podcasts have become an invaluable (and readily available) source of knowledge and motivation for ambitious business minds. Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or are a seasoned professional, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) offer their suggestions by answering this question:

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Running a business from the comfort of your home can be both rewarding and challenging. While a home-based business offers flexibility and convenience, it can also blur the lines between work and your personal life, leading to burnout and a lack of work-life balance. Here, Young Entrepreneur Council members share some of the strategies that can help home-based business owners set boundaries and maintain a healthy balance between both aspects of their lives.

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In both personal and professional realms, growth and progress are often the outcomes of embracing challenges and pushing beyond our comfort zones. Within the workplace, this means professionals who actively seek to challenge themselves may be more likely to experience accelerated development and fulfillment in their careers. Below, Young Entrepreneur Council members explore various strategies for stepping outside the confines of your comfort zone and delving into uncharted territories within the work environment. By venturing into new areas, taking on unfamiliar tasks and embracing discomfort, professionals can unlock their full potential, acquire valuable skills, cultivate resilience and foster innovation.

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Whether you are delivering a keynote speech, presenting a sales pitch or just leading a team meeting, effective communication is key to getting your message across and inspiring action. As a business leader, your ability to communicate effectively can make or break your career, as being an engaging speaker is not only essential for motivating your employees but also for pitching your ideas to potential investors, clients or partners. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend nine tips that can help you improve your public speaking skills and reap the benefits of becoming an engaging speaker.

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When trying to hire a team with diverse backgrounds and skills, business leaders can be left wondering how to find candidates who are different enough from each other to ensure varied points of view and experience levels but also similar enough to each other to work well together and create a cohesive team culture. Luckily, there are some questions leaders can ask themselves to help make the hiring process a little more straightforward. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss seven of those questions and why they are so effective at helping you determine whether or not someone would be a good fit for your team.

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Small, local businesses face unique challenges when it comes to marketing. While many marketing techniques may be effective for larger corporations, they may not yield the same results for small businesses operating within a specific community. Investing in expensive advertising campaigns or generic marketing strategies that fail to resonate with local consumers can be a waste of precious resources. To offer their thoughts on the matter, eight Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members weigh in on the following question:

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In the age of e-commerce, brick-and-mortar businesses face increased pressure to remain relevant and competitive. However, these businesses also have the unique advantage of being able to provide customers with an immersive in-store experience that cannot be replicated online. To help businesses innovate and attract more customers to their retail stores, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members share their best customer experience tips.

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When starting out as a freelancer, the toughest step is often finding your first client. Not only do you have to convince them to take a chance on working with you when you may or may not have extensive experience in your field, but you also have to figure out where to find them in the first place. However, by following the tips provided by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, you can make the experience a little less daunting. Here, they offer up advice to new freelancers for how to build up their client base from scratch and how to secure that first check.

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Small actions to build trust with your team can go a long way. For employees, the CEO can seem like an elusive figure -- too busy and too important to engage with on a day-to-day basis. However, leaders who take the time to build relationships with their team members can create a more connected and engaged workforce. Being approachable is key, but it's not always easy to know where to start. To help, a group of entrepreneurs shared their tried-and-true strategies for creating an approachable, open work environment and building better relationships with their teams.

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In today's digital age, data privacy has become a top priority for individuals and businesses alike. Small businesses in particular need to ensure that they are taking the necessary steps to protect their customers' personal information. By doing so, they not only comply with data protection regulations but also build trust and loyalty with their customer base. While implementing robust data privacy measures can be challenging for small businesses with limited resources, even small steps can make a significant impact. To that end, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) weighed in on the following question:

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When it comes to finding funding for a new business, aspiring entrepreneurs have a wealth of options to select from—from completely bootstrapping the business themselves to bringing on investors who can act as business partners in addition to providing funds, to everything else in between. The trouble doesn’t necessarily lie in the lack of opportunities but instead in weighing the pros and cons of each and choosing the right one for you and your business. To help provide some clarity, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the more common funding sources for startups, what disadvantages they see in them and what they personally recommend you consider instead. Consider their points of view to help determine the best course of action for your business.

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As the demand for eco-friendly products and services—as well as consumers' interest in protecting the planet—grows, more and more businesses are looking to reduce their carbon footprints and adopt more eco-friendly business practices. However, many companies may not know where to start, and certain efforts may come off as disingenuous if not handled properly. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend several ways companies can start going green and discuss the impact doing so can have on a company’s overall success.

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When it comes to business cybersecurity, there's no such thing as "too small a target." If your company uses poor cybersecurity practices, leaving sensitive customer or company data at risk, hackers can exploit those vulnerabilities to accomplish their goals—no matter how big or small your company is. In the same way, however, cybersecurity doesn’t have to require major capital to implement. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one practical, affordable way a company of any size can protect itself and its data from hackers and phishing attacks, and why these methods are so effective.

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Many companies begin their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts with the best of intentions. They want to ensure that their employees feel included and supported, that the company has diverse points of view at the table and that customers feel represented in their marketing. But this doesn’t always mean these efforts are going to be successful. To help shed some light on why that is, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights on why many companies’ DEI efforts fail and what leaders can do to ensure they actually succeed.

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It can be argued that any company that collects and handles customer data has the responsibility of leveraging strong methods to protect it, but a similar point can also be made about the company’s responsibility to educate consumers about malware and cyberattacks. Safe customers are happy customers, and helping to ensure your customers follow cybersecurity best practices can help keep them that way. There’s no one way of going about this task, however. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss eight effective methods for educating consumers about cybersecurity and why these methods are so beneficial for your customers and your company.

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Marketing and branding experts have long touted the power of live video content to build genuine, long-lasting relationships with target audiences. Not only does this help you improve your follower count, but it can also help you boost your brand recognition among new viewers. But to do so, you’ll need to focus on how to make your live videos interesting and engaging.  To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their best tips for successfully leveraging live video content to improve your brand recognition and grow your brand’s following on social media and beyond.

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An entrepreneur with a fresh and successful idea might consider establishing a franchise, but it's not always the best move. To give them confidence in their decision, they’ll want to consider an industry which is already showing success with the franchise model.  There are a number of industries and focuses that lend themselves well to this particular business model, but below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share nine industries that they think entrepreneurs would do well to think more about and why.

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Climbing the corporate ladder all the way to the top is a common goal of many high-achieving professionals. No matter which rung you’re on, there’s always steps you can take to help you achieve that goal. From building a positive track record to taking leadership development training, there are a number of ways you can build the skills and the experience necessary to succeed in the C-suite. Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share this advice and more, recommending some of the steps a professional can take now if they want to be a desirable future candidate for the C-suite and why doing these things will help set them up for success.

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

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

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Due to the monotony of everyday life and the frequent stress that comes with living in the modern world, many people often have trouble getting into a creative headspace or just thinking creatively in general. This comes as bad news for those in the business realm, as the ability to think creatively is essential to the problem solving and innovating necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur. So what can be done to improve your ability to think creatively? The members of Young Entrepreneur Council have a few recommendations. Below, they share eight actions someone can take now to start improving their creative thinking skills over time and explain why taking these steps is so effective at achieving the intended results.

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

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As employees grow more concerned with inflation, employers may be left wondering what they can do to help. A happy workforce is a productive workforce, and wrestling with the uncertainty that comes with rising prices and economic turmoil can leave any professional feeling a little off their game. So what's one effective way employers can help support them? As business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have a few ideas. From a little reassurance to assistance with everyday expenses, there are a multitude of ways companies can offer increased financial stability to their staff. Consider implementing any of the following seven suggestions to give your employees some economic peace of mind.

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Though they are often set with the best of intentions, it’s not uncommon for New Year’s resolutions and the motivation to meet them to fall by the wayside after a few weeks or months into the new year. Busy personal lives and stressful workdays can end up getting in the way, with “just getting by” taking precedence over any push to accomplish more than the status quo. But according to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, your year doesn’t have to go that way. Below, they each offer their top trick for making New Year's resolutions work, especially as they relate to business, and explain why it’s possible to achieve your goals with the right plan in place.

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Executive team leaders serve as role models by supporting the company mission, maintaining a high standard of work output, encouraging individual growth and leading the company to success.  A member of an executive team must wear a lot of hats, so business owners should carefully consider who would be a good fit for such a key position. To help, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) reflected on the following question:

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When your business rolls out a new product or service, you and your team hope that it's effective and meets the needs of your customer base. Unfortunately, there are instances where that product or service simply isn't working as intended for your buyers — and it's up to you as a business leader to determine whether this is the case. To help you make this determination and understand your next steps, a panel of leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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When your company starts to grow steadily, it can become nearly impossible for you as a leader to find time to meet with staff individually on a regular basis. Instead, consider alternative communication strategies to save time while ensuring you and your team stay on the same page. To help you do this, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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

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When one of your early employees decides to quit your new business venture, there are a lot of emotions to process and decisions to make. Depending on the size of your company, you might be scrambling to find someone to pick up their responsibilities — or worse, end up having to add more tasks to your already lengthy to-do list. To help you handle this difficult but common situation, a group of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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One of the most challenging quarters for business leaders is often Q4. There is often a rush to close out the year’s expenses, plan year-end initiatives and marketing campaigns, and coordinate holiday PTO. Even though Q4 is sure to be a busy season, it’s also a great time to do some business “housekeeping” and check in on annual goals that haven’t been completed. Here, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members each share one item that’s always included on their year-end checklist.

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When just starting out, many new business owners don't have all the financial tools or experience they may need to run a business successfully. They may rely on their peers, what information they can find online and various business books to get them started, but nothing can truly beat experience when it comes to knowing how to handle and succeed with money in business. That’s why eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best guidance below. Here, they each share one financial tip they wish they had known when they got started, and why this advice can help any entrepreneur get their business off the ground successfully.

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One of the many benefits of being an entrepreneur is the leadership aspect and the ability to make all the key decisions for the future of your business. However, there often comes a time, especially early on, when entrepreneurs may find themselves in need of help. Whether they’re feeling overwhelmed, burned out or simply don’t have the experience or knowledge necessary to make a well-informed decision, many entrepreneurs find that hiring a business coach can be a beneficial solution. Here, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share the “last straw” moment that made them realize they needed help from a coach and why hiring one helped set them on a better course for success. Consider their stories whenever you’re unsure whether or not to seek assistance with your business.

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From DiSC to Myers-Briggs, there’s no shortage of personality tests available today. While leaders often use these tests to better understand their current teams, personality assessments can also provide critical information on prospective hires. Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share what you can learn about candidates through personality assessments—and what you can’t—and how they can be useful in finding the right talent for your team.

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For many entrepreneurs, experience can have a major impact on the way they conduct business. Whether it’s changing a marketing strategy after an unexpected failure or pivoting a product after getting more acquainted with their target audience’s needs, leaders must constantly evolve alongside their businesses if they’re to succeed long term. This can also mean changing the way they interact with their customers, their employees and their peers on a regular basis.  As business leaders themselves, these 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council have evolved in their own ways over the course of their careers. Here, they each share how becoming a more experienced leader has changed the way they speak to others and what impact this has had on their business overall.

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As they plan for this year's holiday season, many business leaders are looking for something new to shake up their current marketing routine. It’s easy for holiday marketing to grow stale, especially when relying on old gimmicks or traditional strategies of years past. To stand out among the sea of other eager businesses looking to increase sales, companies will have to think a bit more creatively. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each list one thing businesses can do to make their holiday marketing stand out from years past and explain what effect this will have on their relationships with their current and future customers.

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Small businesses have taken a hit over the past few years with pandemic-related supply chain issues and increased inflation. Throughout these challenges, many business owners have been able to pivot and thrive in the current climate. However, there is always room for continued financial improvements to promote sustainable long-term growth. To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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If your team's morale seems a bit lower than usual, acknowledgement and rewards for their hard work can go a long way. As a leader, maybe you've noticed low team morale following the submission of a large proposal or after turning in a long-term assignment. After periods of high productivity, whether professionally or personally, your employees may need to recharge. There are many different ways leaders can help facilitate this, from giving extra time off to rewarding all that hard work with a fun activity or prize. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members share some specific exercises, activities and advice for leaders to encourage employees to get back on track.

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Sometimes, leaders aren't able to grant an employee's request for a raise, whether it's because there's no budget for it or because the person's performance or skill set doesn’t currently warrant one. In either case, leaders need to focus on tact and kindness when declining the employee's request — a task that may feel awkward or uncomfortable for leaders who have never done it. To help leaders in this situation, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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If you're building a product for your new business, you'll first need a solid prototype. This will help you better visualize your concept and start getting necessary feedback from customers or peers. But if you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, you may not yet have the budget for multiple iterations or complex software or tools to build your prototype, so finding a way to save money will be key. Every entrepreneur starts somewhere, and the members of Young Entrepreneur Council are familiar with working within the constraints of a small budget. Below, they offer up a few of their best tips for creating a prototype on a limited budget and why they’ll help you get started.

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Choosing the right software as a service (SaaS) tools for your business can prove to be a Herculean task. Whether it's for accounting, marketing or HR, it's important to choose software that will grow with your business and offer ongoing support for your questions and needs. It's also important to consider how well your SaaS selections will integrate and communicate with each other. As you make your decisions, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend asking yourself the following 10 questions. You might find that the answers can help make assembling your SaaS stack a little bit easier.

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Of the many duties of a leader, perhaps one of the most important is bringing out the best in their team members. Understanding their needs, strengths and weaknesses and giving them opportunities to shine can help you set them up to succeed in any endeavor they take on. This is especially true as Gen Z professionals enter the workforce with their own perspectives and challenges to overcome.  To truly bring out the best in them, leaders can focus on a few key tips as recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they share their advice for helping this generation shine, and how doing so will benefit your overall business as well.

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Maintaining a positive relationship with your clients is important for both your business and theirs. However, there are times when your team and your client may disagree about how a project or initiative is being carried out. In cases like this, you'll want to find a solution to move forward respectfully, efficiently and collaboratively. To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights on what makes effective ad copy. When it comes to advertising campaigns, you can tell when a brand has knocked it out of the park. The message is concise but impactful, and it communicates what the reader needs to know while drawing them in to learn more. Equally clear is when ad copy has missed the mark and produced an ineffective campaign. Fortunately, brands can follow a few basic principles to produce excellent, conversion-worthy advertisements. To that end, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their descriptions of the best ad copy and why they believe every marketer should meet these standards.

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Business travel is an excellent opportunity to make new connections and close deals. However, between transportation, meals, accommodations and other per diem expenses, it's easy for a traveling professional to rack up a hefty bill. To help busy travelers find ways to keep costs down during a business trip, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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

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If you track the right information, you may even find that opportunities are available to you right now. 

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A new business won't survive long if it doesn't have solid cash flow and a good accounting system in place. Unfortunately, some of the most common financial problems stem from simple mistakes new entrepreneurs may make the first time they're tasked with keeping the books. Luckily, there are ways to avoid or fix most of these common mistakes and save your business's bottom line. To that end, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Creating and maintaining a website is often one of the most important parts of running a successful business. Without a website, customers will have a hard time discovering and purchasing your products or services, so it’s key to ensure your website is up and functioning properly. When you’re a solopreneur, however, and all of the work falls on your shoulders, it can be all too easy to let website maintenance fall by the wayside. To help offer some direction, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the best practices solopreneurs should focus on when maintaining their websites and the impact this will have overall.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share advice for creating a solid internal communications strategy for remote businesses. The key to the smooth running of any company — remote, hybrid or in person — is getting everyone in the company on the same page and ensuring they have access to the same resources. With a remote company, however, this is especially vital, as team members can be in different locations and even different time zones, making effective communication an even more challenging task.  This is where having a solid internal communications strategy comes into play. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, the following eight tips can help you and your team create an effective internal communications strategy and ensure everyone has the information they need to succeed.

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Small businesses starting from scratch have a long road ahead of them when it comes to building a brand. Defining a mission, finding your voice and building trust all take time to develop, but luckily there are a few key steps new entrepreneurs can take to get there a little faster.  To help get you started, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members responded to the following question:

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In the remote work era, the boundaries between work and personal time have become increasingly blurred. But regardless of work environment, industry or even job level, it can be difficult to "turn off" work when the day is done, leaving professionals to struggle with consequences like burnout, mental health crises and increased stress levels. As experienced business leaders, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council know that a poor work-life balance can be a significant obstacle on the road to success. Below, 10 of them share some clear signs that you might need to improve the balance between your personal and professional lives, as well as how you can achieve it.

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A company's mission serves as the foundation for everything it does. While the specific goals of the business may change over time, your original mission, vision and values should remain intact until you and your team consciously decide to change them. If you find your business moving away from its original mission unintentionally, it may be time to figure out the next steps. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some recommended first steps you should take when you sense your company moving away from its original mission, vision and values. Follow their advice to reassess where you stand and decide whether it's best to return to your core mission or make a conscious pivot.

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Amid millions of employees quitting their jobs at record rates, companies are desperately searching for top talent to join their teams. As businesses look to strengthen their workforce, they must also figure out the best ways to attract ideal candidates. While there's no shortage of talent in the workforce today, there are a few ideal traits leaders hope to find in an employee. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the qualities they look for in their ideal employees and what businesses can do to attract them.

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

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Social media management is a career field filled with limitless opportunities in our increasingly digital world. More companies than ever before are searching for tech-savvy social media managers who can uplevel their social media content and reach wider audiences. In a competitive, trending industry, it's critical to know how to stand out and put your best foot forward. For professionals just starting out as social media managers, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members offer their best advice below.

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No matter how busy your workday seems, you can always carve out a few minutes to take a breather. On a busy workday, you may begin to feel burned out and yearn for a restful break. But you likely won’t need to take a full-on vacation to reset your mind and feel refreshed enough to tackle your remaining tasks. With the right strategies, you may be able to recharge right in the middle of the workday, no plane ticket or PTO necessary. To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members provided a list of strategies they recommend you try if you need to take a few minutes to unplug and recharge during your day.

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Without customer loyalty, a business can struggle to succeed. While your business may have a few standout customers who have become brand ambassadors for your product or service, the unengaged or inactive customers are often the ones you need feedback from the most. These customers can provide candid and honest feedback as to why they aren't more engaged with your business. To help get these customers excited about your business again, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one way to reconnect with unengaged customers. Follow their recommendations to gain the feedback and repeat business of these once-lost customers.

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Every job application you fill out presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Whether you're writing a cover letter, ensuring your resume is tailored to the job description or trying to remember what to say during your interview, you have a chance to impress the hiring manager and land the job. The challenge, of course, is making sure your application outshines the dozens of others a hiring manager may receive. While there's no secret formula for impressing potential employers, there are ways you can make yourself stand out. To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one thing the high-quality candidates employers look for do when applying for jobs and why you should do those things too.

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One path for starting a business is to leverage a startup accelerator. These programs offer mentorship and education to new business owners while providing funding opportunities in exchange for equity. You may even find there are certain nuances and eligibility requirements to abide by during your search for the right startup accelerator. If you're an entrepreneur trying to determine the right accelerator to apply to, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council can help. Below, eight members discuss what to look for when choosing a startup accelerator for your business.

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Whether it's cold calls, sales calls or building a relationship with a vendor, phone conversations are prevalent in many professionals' daily working lives. However, it can be tricky to sound confident and at ease over the phone without a face-to-face connection. No matter what your specific role is, getting comfortable with phone conversations is crucial, as these conversations can make or break sales and important working relationships. To help, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their tips for sounding more confident during business phone calls and explain why each strategy is so effective.

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Success in content marketing requires a deep knowledge of existing and prospective customers and successful, tailored campaigns to reach them all. But while reaching those customers and making the sale can be achieved with the right plan, there is still the possibility of making a lot of mistakes along the way. To see positive results from your content marketing efforts, there are some important "dos," but there are also some very important "don'ts" that should be considered. Below, 13 Young Entrepreneur Council members share their top actions to avoid in content marketing and why.

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Data is a key factor in determining many critical business decisions. As a business owner, you're most likely tracking multiple points of data each day, from transactions and payroll to projected profits. While there are many metrics out there that are important to track for business growth, there are a few high-level metrics that can uplevel your business operations. To that end, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some high-level metrics your business should be tracking and why.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss what business leaders should do in the event of a cyberattack. You should always take great care to ensure your company is protecting itself against cybercrime. Mistakes can happen, however, and breaches can always occur. Once your company has been hit with a cyberattack, you’ll need to have an action plan in place to ensure minimal damage to your systems and data. To help, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the steps they recommend taking after your business has been affected by a cyberattack. Although opinions differ on the very first step you should take, incorporating all of these action items into your plan in some way will get you off to a great start.

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Everyone struggles with self-doubt at some point in their lives, especially if they own a business. Self-doubt as a business owner can be daunting to overcome and may sometimes derail you from your goals. But part of being an entrepreneur means learning how to grow a thick skin in order to take on the adversity, rejection and low confidence that can often come with the job. To help mitigate these common feelings, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for becoming more resilient as an entrepreneur and why it's worked for them over the years.

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Being a solopreneur is exciting and empowering, but it can often feel draining. Because you're starting a company by yourself, you're often forced to wear many different hats to manage all parts of the business before you can hire any staff. Constantly moving from one task to a very different one can leave you feeling stretched too thin and working longer hours than you'd anticipated. But even without a staff dedicated to helping you control the many moving parts, there are ways you can manage your energy and avoid burnout. To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members share their best advice for "doing it all" as a solo business owner.

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A negative mindset can be poisonous in the workplace. It can lower morale, decrease productivity and spread to other members of the team, leading to toxic work culture. As a leader, it's critical to have a positive mindset to effectively work through difficult situations and keep your team on the same page. Below, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how to exude more positivity at work and why these practices are especially crucial for those in leadership positions.

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

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When leveraged well, your writing can fuel creativity and problem-solving.

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Whether you're an experienced entrepreneur or just starting out, investors can be a crucial part of your startup's continued success. While it's possible for investors to take a chance on a business, many investors have certain criteria they'll look for before they take the plunge. Your business’s investor is just as important as your brand's values and mission, so when you find a good potential candidate, you'll want to do all you can to impress them. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some crucial tips to follow when you're trying to gain the interest of a potential investor.

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As more companies shift toward remote work, managers may find some employees struggling with productivity throughout the day. Whether it's tending to personal matters at home, reprioritizing tasks or warding off distractions, some employees may find it more difficult to work from home than in an office environment. Thankfully, there are multiple apps and software programs that can help you get back on track. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommended their favorite apps and software remote workers can use for increased productivity.

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Whether your schedule allows for flexible working hours or you hold a 9-to-5 job, you may find that your energy wanes throughout your workday. Whether it's from decision fatigue, stress or just a natural productivity slump, sometimes you just need a boost of energy to keep you going for the rest of the day. If you're unsure where to look for relief, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council have some strategies that may help. Below, they each share one thing that helps them regain productivity when they're in a slump.

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With the internet, social media, streaming services and more at our fingertips, it's easier than ever to start your own side hustle centered on curating your own content. As the demand for content—especially niche content about a specific subject or area of expertise—continues to grow, thought leaders and creators can establish themselves in the online space and even develop a loyal following, leading to potential revenue opportunities through advertising and sponsorship deals. However, for those unfamiliar with the process, it can be difficult to figure out how to monetize your content, especially early on. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their top tips for monetizing your content.

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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. To help you do this, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how companies can make the best use of their customer relationship management tools. One factor that separates great companies from good ones is the relationships they build between themselves and their customers. Moving beyond merely transactional interactions, great companies work to get to know their customers on a deeper level and keep track of their communications with them. Cultivating this type of relationship is where customer relationship management (CRM) tools come into play. All the data companies collect to learn more about their customers can be entered into a CRM tool and used in a number of different ways. To help show you and your company how to best make use of your CRM tool, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their favorite methods of using them below.

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Graduation season is quickly approaching, and many soon-to-be grads are now being inundated with advice from advisors, professors and family members about their chosen career paths. Deciding where to work can be a daunting decision, especially with so many promising fields to go into. There are numerous ways for graduates to apply their degrees and past work experiences to find fulfilling and exciting entry-level positions. To help make this decision a little easier for the class of 2022, the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council each share their thoughts on the best careers to get into right now and offer advice for future job seekers.

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No matter how good you are at your job, you’ll still have stressful days. However, it’s how you handle the stress that can make a positive or negative impact on your mindset and abilities.  For professionals who have their well-being in mind, maintaining daily habits can be beneficial to their success. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members share the daily practices they adhere to in order to set their day up for success. They explain why these habits are worth sticking to no matter how busy or stressed you are and how they can motivate you to keep going, even when work gets tough.

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Having more than one social media account for your brand may mean reaching more people, but it doesn't mean businesses can simply post the same content to each platform. If you want to grow your audience, it's important to differentiate your content across accounts while still ensuring everything feels cohesive and consistent. To help you do this, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) weigh in on the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain how to merge your website's copy and design to create a more engaging user experience. Two of the most important elements to consider when building your business’s website are the copy and the user experience (UX) design. Ensuring you write quality text and construct a visually appealing design will give you a great basis for an engaging website. When you combine your focus on these two elements, however, you’ll end up with a truly attention-grabbing business site that will keep your audience coming back. Unsure of how to go about merging your copy with your UX design? Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shares 11 tips to get you started.

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Great leaders are constantly evolving, gaining additional skills and finding new ways to effectively manage and guide their teams. This proactive style of leadership comes with practice and self-awareness of any weaknesses or blind spots you may have. To help hone these skills, nine Young Entrepreneur Council members discuss how entrepreneurs can boost their leadership abilities. Below, they share their top-recommended exercises to help leaders take stock of their skills and find out where they can improve.

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Ensuring employees are engaged is key in business, as it leads to higher company morale and improved quality of work. Further, a lack of engagement can be a telltale sign that something is wrong.  For companies finding that their employees aren’t engaged—whether it’s during meetings, feedback sessions or fun social outings—there are ways leaders can drive motivation. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some simple things companies can do to get employees more engaged and involved.

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

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A large part of the personal branding process relies on speaking with others, presenting new ideas to digital and in-person audiences, and establishing connections. To a self-described introvert, these tasks can seem like big hurdles on the way to success. But there are ways for introverts to get their names out there and create strong relationships within their network. Whether it's becoming more active on LinkedIn or publishing articles on sites within your discipline, introverts have many opportunities to be involved in the business community while still leaving space to recharge with solo activities. Below, 13 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their keys to personal branding success as an introverted leader.

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

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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. A personal brand can even be utilized alongside a business brand with great effects—up-leveling your professional identity and opening doors for new business opportunities. If you're looking to build a personal brand, check out this advice from nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council and find out how optimizing your personal brand can help you as a job seeker.

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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. Streamlining common business functions like bookkeeping, marketing and employee onboarding can be extremely beneficial for your business. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain which tasks they believe should be systemized and why.

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When you're looking to impress potential employers and business peers, it can be difficult to show off your personality on the limited pages of a resume or job application. Thankfully, LinkedIn provides a great opportunity to get more personal with your network. With room for a summary that encompasses your career highlights and the option to write recommendations for your fellow colleagues, LinkedIn can truly help showcase your personality. To help you drive deeper, more personal connections, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council detail how to put your best foot forward and let your unique self shine through.

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You can guide your product design, marketing approaches and so much more when you study your competitors. 

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For many professionals, having the option to work from home has brought significant benefits, like cutting commuting costs or working in a more comfortable setting. However, it can be even easier to lose time at work when sharing that space with responsibilities in the home, whether it’s the laundry sitting in the corner of the room, the kids’ homework or the dog needing to go outside.  No matter if you’re improving your own time management or your whole team’s, it's important to make sure that your working hours are spent productively, and there are many apps and software solutions for that. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members share their top recommendations for apps that help boost your productivity and your company's overall efficiency.

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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. But the perfect social media ad won’t come about without a little forethought and planning. If you really want to persuade potential customers, consider the following tips as recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Implementing these steps could give you a significant leg up on the competition.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council list criteria you should look at when determining the right web host for your business. Having a well-designed, easy-to-use website is vital to ensuring your customers have a good experience with your company. Having a good service to host that website is equally important, though. With the right web hosting service, your site can offer fast loading speeds, reliable and safe connections and many more benefits that will only add to the overall user experience — and your bottom line.  When selecting a web hosting service, however, you’ll need to be mindful of the various features and options. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council list the top 11 criteria they believe entrepreneurs should consider when researching the best web hosts for their businesses.

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Throughout the pandemic, it has been difficult for many professionals to build and maintain new business relationships. Interactions may have been limited to Zoom calls or virtual happy hours, while valuable in-person networking events were placed on the backburner. Now that many restrictions have eased and employees are heading back to the office or have settled in to their new work-from-home routines, many people are ready and eager for more intentional networking efforts. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain how professionals can make their networking efforts more effective for the rest of 2022 and beyond.

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Many business leaders may make the mistake of assuming that a well-designed desktop website will translate into a well-designed mobile website—and will quickly learn that’s not the case. With a different screen size, different applications and varying user behaviors, mobile requires separate consideration when it comes to design and function. But you don’t necessarily have to start from scratch if you want to make sure your existing website is mobile-friendly. For easy changes any business can make, consider the following tips from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Making even just one of these changes could have a positive impact on the way your users engage with your business.

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

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Workplace stress levels continue to climb across all professions, resulting in increased burnout and decreased productivity. But just because employee stress is common does not mean it should be ignored.  By supporting workplace well-being, business leaders can play a key role in improving employee satisfaction and performance. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their actionable tips for enhancing employee health and wellness.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss why you might not be seeing a good ROI on your business's mobile app. With the number of shoppers who choose to make their purchases on mobile platforms steadily rising every year, businesses these days would be remiss not to consider building a mobile app to serve their customer bases. Although building such an app aims to increase sales, many businesses might actually find themselves losing money post-launch. Many factors can affect this sales dip, but the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have narrowed down their top 11 reasons why you might not be seeing the ROI you’d hoped for after building your mobile app. Below, they explain what you can do to turn the situation around for the better.

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Every business project is unique and will likely require a customized approach to manage it. No matter the size or scope of the project, though, all team members must work together to ensure each moving part is in place. Being on the same page is crucial to the overall success of a project, and it's up to the leader or project manager to keep their team moving forward toward their shared goal. To help you do this, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained the most important elements that you’ll need for the successful completion of your project.

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Getting customers through the sales funnel can sometimes be an arduous task. It can also be difficult to juggle multiple prospects at different stages of the funnel, which is why it's important to automate what you can. Automating your sales process doesn't have to be complicated or expensive, either. Installing chatbots on your website to answer questions or reusing email templates for cold outreach are easy-to-implement solutions that can speed up your operations. Below, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council leaders shared their best strategies for how to save your sales team time and effort in the short and long term through automation.

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When it comes to creating a successful marketing strategy, you don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes a few small changes can have a huge impact on your ROI.  To that end, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their top eight tips to help business leaders quickly level up their marketing strategy. Below, they discuss what makes these simple strategies so effective.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer steps to take if you want to keep your home-based business safe from cyberattacks. When you’re launching a new business, cybersecurity and data protection likely aren’t top of mind for you. But doing business comes with a lot of sensitive information that you don’t want getting in the wrong hands, and the nature of being online means safeguarding that data should be approached from several angles — especially if you run your business from home. Whether you’re a solopreneur operating from your home office or a remote-first startup, there are a few steps you need to consider to ensure your business’s safety online. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council experts weigh in on those steps and how they can help prevent cybercrime.

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Partnering with another business in your industry on a campaign or promotion is an effective and mutually beneficial way to market your product or service. Not only does it bring brand awareness for your company, but you'll also expand your reach by tapping into your partner company's existing audience. If you're gearing up for a collaborative cross-promotion with another company, there are a few steps you’ll need to take in order for the partnership to go well. Below, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each shared one step they recommend you take for a successful collaboration.

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Cloud computing has become wildly popular in the past decade as it offers an array of benefits for businesses—especially ones with large-scale operations that require a vast amount of computer system resources. Cloud computing services provide an affordable and secure way to store data and access it on demand so you're not losing money purchasing, storing and maintaining your own servers and data centers. While the benefits of cloud computing are clear, there are countless services available today—and countless ways of implementing them—so getting started can sometimes be overwhelming. To help, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council share their top tips for business owners who are implementing cloud computing for the first time.

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Believing in yourself can sometimes be the hardest part of any job. Sometimes, you can be your own worst enemy. That little voice in your head telling you that you're not good enough is often one of the only obstacles standing between you and success. This is especially true for professionals who suffer from imposter syndrome, or the belief that you're not as competent as others perceive you to be.  Professionals who suffer from imposter syndrome are prone to burnout because they tend to overwork, feel the need to prove themselves at everything, and can have a difficult time delegating tasks. To help you boost your confidence and productivity, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the most effective strategies they know for banishing imposter syndrome for good.

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Success in any business largely depends on the success of its marketing efforts. But with so many ways to market and so many areas to focus on, it can be challenging to narrow a campaign down to a single focal point. However, if you fail to create a focused strategy, your marketing efforts will likely be less than successful.  To that end, 11 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) were asked the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council list the industries they think should make better use of augmented and virtual reality technology. As consumers eschewed brick-and-mortar stores for online shopping and as people distanced themselves from each other, businesses needed new solutions to fill the gaps brought on by Covid-19. Although augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) existed before the pandemic, they were catapulted into the mainstream by necessity, and many adaptations and adoptions have been made since the start of the lockdowns. As our world gets used to living more digitally, even industries that once seemed to have no use for AR or VR could find benefits from the technologies. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members lists a few of those industries and why they believe they could benefit from these innovative technologies.

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

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In all the excitement of opening a business and launching that first product or service, it can be easy for aspiring entrepreneurs to forgo a thorough audit of their finances in favor of speed to market. However, it's absolutely crucial for business owners to keep a close eye on their income and expenses—especially if they want to ensure their survival past year one. Making such financial mistakes early on can be detrimental, but it doesn’t mean early-stage entrepreneurs can’t turn it around for the better. To help your business survive its first year in operation, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some important financial tips every new business owner should follow.

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When you're starting a new business, it can be easy to get lost in the excitement. Instead of carefully planning next steps, you may end up taking shortcuts or rushing to advance, which can ultimately have a lasting negative impact. It's important for new business owners to take things slowly and have a well-developed, organized plan for growth. But it can be difficult to know what mistakes you might make if you've never been an entrepreneur before. To help you, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members share some mistakes that may sabotage your future business success and explain why each action has such negative effects.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how to leverage tech to meet diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Technology has clear uses in business, whether it’s to create more engaging marketing content or to track annual sales revenue. But one area where its use might not be so obvious is with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). As employers and employees alike are putting increased focus on this area, however, technology can be leveraged to both meet DEI goals and create new initiatives. But how exactly can technology be used to drive progress in this area? Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members list a few of the ways in which technology can be used to advance diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and explain why leaders should take advantage of these benefits now.

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Choosing the right software-as-a-service (SaaS) product is like choosing a new car or buying a new house — you want to make sure that it's high quality and meets all your wants and needs. However, if you're not used to shopping for software, it can be hard to know how to choose the best option for you. To help, a group of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Super Bowl commercials are known for capturing their audience’s attention in an extreme way, whether through humor, storytelling or the star power of their commercial cast. It seems that everyone has a favorite Super Bowl commercial that, no matter how many years have passed, they still remember. Given the national attention these ads garner, entrepreneurs can look to these commercials for lessons on what advertising works and what doesn't. Here, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their favorite Super Bowl commercials of years past and the lessons each one taught them about advertising in their own businesses.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend upgrading your business software or hardware when you notice these signs. A business can only be as successful as the tools it uses to conduct that business — which means that having the right technology at your disposal is vital to your ability to please your customers and succeed in the long term. Trying to make due with outdated or inefficient technology may save you money upfront, but the effects of this can build up to major problems down the line. So how will you know when it’s time to upgrade? Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share 11 clear signs you can look for that will indicate it’s time to update your current technology and improve your productivity.

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As an entrepreneur, you may come to realize that certain aspects of your personal and social life have to be put on the back burner to get your business off the ground. Neglecting your personal life can come at a cost, though. New entrepreneurs may experience burnout and have a greater chance of giving up on their businesses entirely if they can’t find better work-life balance. If you're heading toward burnout because of your business, follow these recommendations from eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, they give their best tips for retaining time for loved ones and rest while still building a successful business.

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

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

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Every business has employees who aren't on the same page from time to time. Whether it's clashing personalities or differences of opinion, conflicts can arise at any point, and it's up to the manager to help mediate them. If left unchecked, these conflicts could cause serious division between colleagues and lead to a toxic work environment. To help you find the best way to handle them, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained what not to do when mediating employee conflict and offered better approaches to take instead.

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A great employee shows up to work each day ready and willing to do their best work for your business. It's only fair that, as their employer, you support their professional development—especially if these skills will help them grow within your company. If an employee expresses interest in learning new skills, it's crucial that you show them you have their back. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members explained how to encourage your team members' professional development initiatives. Follow their advice to create an environment where employees are eager to grow and learn.

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A persuasion trigger is any marketing tactic that convinces people to take action that grows your brand and there are proven methods that get people to say "yes."

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Starting a new business isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes courage, ambition, and a tangible plan. Many people will be eager to support you on your journey, but some may actually give you advice that could hurt your chances for success. Here, members of Young Entrepreneur Council list an “unlucky 13” collection of the worst startup advice they were given, and explain why that misguided startup advice is so harmful to entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

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One income stream isn't enough for many people to make a comfortable living these days. Luckily, there are a myriad of ways for a working professional to make money on the side — so many, in fact, that it can be difficult to settle on just one.  If you need to start a second stream of income but are having trouble determining how you want to do it, answering a few crucial questions can help set you on the right track. Here, 10 members of YEC share some of the most important questions you can ask yourself to figure out the best side hustle for you.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council list the tech skills company founders need to get their businesses off the ground. Even if you’re not opening up a technology-based business, it’s hard to open any kind of business today without at least a few basic tech skills under your belt. And while hiring help for more difficult technical projects down the line is both acceptable and recommended, when you’re just starting out, odds are you’ll need to tackle technology on your own first. However, you don’t need to be a tech genius to get started. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council list a few of the basic skills all company founders should have to start a business and explain how these skills will get you up and running successfully.

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Social media is an effective, low-cost way to market your company’s products or services, and is also a great way to keep customers engaged while expressing your brand’s mission. However, to make the most of a platform’s potential, you need to be active and strategic, which can require your entire team’s involvement. To get your employees excited to participate, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, it put many professionals out of work. Others faced cutbacks on hours or began working remotely, which allowed more time for pursuing multiple income streams. These factors led to a major uptick in startup and small business launches, many of which are still thriving as we enter 2022.  With this fact in mind, a panel of 11 Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) experts answered the following question:

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Every professional should master the art of persuasion. Whether you're negotiating for a raise, pitching to an investor, giving a presentation, or trying to win a new client, having influence can help reach your goal.   Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share top tips to appeal to others — and why those tactics work so well.

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The beginning of January is ripe with new possibilities. "New Year's resolution" season is the perfect time for companies to reassess their business vision and set concrete goals for the upcoming year. Not sure what resolutions you should make for your business this year? Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each shared one resolution they believe companies should set for 2022 and why.

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Strong, clear communication is a must when it comes to manager-employee relationships, but certain behaviors can work against you. Strong communication skills can help anyone thrive in a business environment, but when it comes to managing employees, they are absolutely essential. An effective communication strategy can help leaders optimize the flow of information within their organization and keep teams on track.  Below, 12 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared some of the biggest communication mistakes managers make. Follow their advice for avoiding these common errors and setting up stronger lines of communication with your team.

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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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Even if you're not feeling on top of your game, you can still use these "fake it 'til you make it" tips. When candidates are interviewing for a job, confidence is key. Employers want to see that you know your stuff and that your skills and qualifications are up to par. However, it can be hard to have confidence while under pressure. Fortunately, there are some strategies and tips that can help you present a confident, collected demeanor, regardless of how you feel inside. Below, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share how these methods work to help candidates perform better during interviews.

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When an entrepreneur is first starting out, they go through a lot of trial and error. In an effort to grow and scale their business, they often try out various ideas to see what works and what doesn’t. However, scaling a business isn’t easy, and without prior experience, mistakes can be made. While not every venture will be a success, there are ways to effectively scale your business while minimizing risk. To that end, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared the tips they wish they had known when they first started out to safely and smartly scale a business.

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Modern entrepreneurs know the importance of using social media to grow their business. It can be a great way for business owners to connect with customers and expand their company’s reach. As social media’s relevance has grown, so have the benefits of using popular platforms like Instagram to reach your target audience. To help you make the most of your business Instagram account, members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for engaging and retaining followers. Follow their recommendations to take your Instagram game to the next level.

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In the variety of options for financing a startup, many entrepreneurs entertain the idea of inviting investors into their businesses. Working with an investor can help you grow your business quickly while also leveraging their expertise. However, despite the benefits of an investor, there are also many reasons not to partner with one. On the fence about this important financial decision? A panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members share some reasons why aspiring entrepreneurs may wish to opt against investors for their business.

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During the holidays, business owners are pulled in all different directions. Both customers’ and employees’ needs change during this time, and leaders are often left to figure out how to balance them out. With the increased demand and added chaos from the holiday shopping season, this can be a tough task; however, there are steps business leaders can take to ensure they’re keeping everyone happy. Below, nine Young Entrepreneur Council members share some tips for business owners looking to meet the needs of their teams and their customers throughout the season and into the new year.

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An effective, collaborative team is the backbone of any successful organization. But when you're in the midst of hiring a lot of new players, it can be difficult to bring them all together and ensure they’re connecting as a true team. Figuring out a way to help them feel comfortable with each other and with the existing team, therefore, should be a top priority for any leader. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council outlined the actions they recommend business leaders take to make their teams more in tune. These tips can help leaders bring every member of staff together and truly connect them as a cohesive team.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer ways professionals can leverage social media when job hunting. Social media plays a big part in all our lives, including our work. Many employers have been known to research potential hires online before committing to a hiring decision, and so what candidates post to their social media profiles can either have a positive or negative impact on their prospects. But candidates can also take control of their job search by using social media to their advantage. To explain, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members discuss 12 ways professionals can leverage social media to find the right job for them.

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While it may not always feel like it in the moment, business challenges are great opportunities for growth. When we’re thrown outside of our comfort zones, we build confidence and see our strengths. This is especially true for business leaders and entrepreneurs, who face a constant stream of challenges that can often be turned into positive opportunities. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared experiences where they used a challenge as a learning opportunity. They describe how it affected them and how they used the lesson to improve their business.

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We live in a world of constant distractions and interruptions. While it's easy to blame these external factors for our lack of focus, it's often our own reactions to and bad habits around those distractions that are truly sabotaging us. In the remote work era, certain productivity-killing habits like multitasking and constantly checking notifications have become even more common as professionals try to juggle work and home life. Below, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some practices that may be unintentionally hurting your ability to focus and how to break those bad habits for good.

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During the pandemic era, virtual events like webinars and conferences have become more common, offering business value and education from the comfort of your home. Although these online gatherings are popular, it’s hard to drum up the same level of excitement for them that people seem to have for in-person events. As successful business leaders, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have seen their fair share of successful digital events and understand what factors will generate interest and engagement. Below, 10 of them offered their best tips on how to draw a crowd and increase sign-ups for your company’s virtual events.

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Building a positive company culture is crucial, especially with so many businesses shifting to a permanent remote work model. Employees want to work in an environment where they feel accepted and appreciated. When they feel this way, employees are more likely to be motivated and work efficiently. To help you build a great culture regardless of where your employees are, there are a few important factors your business needs to get right. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared the essential elements you’ll find in company cultures that get people excited to come to work.

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Every business needs to market its products and services, but there's a lot of competition out there. When you're creating a content marketing campaign for your brand, the last thing you want to do is use precious time and resources to create content that doesn't measure up to your direct competitors'. In order to differentiate your content from theirs — and gain more consumer attention — you’ll need to take certain purposeful measures. Below, 15 professionals from YEC share their best tips for creating unique content that stands out against the competition.

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Opening a small business isn't easy, even when you have plenty of money to do it. Getting a small business off the ground with little to no budget is an even more challenging feat. However, with the right amount of passion and strategic planning, anything is possible.  To help you get started, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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Launching a new product on social media can be a great way to go to market, but that’s only if you design an effective social media campaign. From creating content to scheduling, building awareness of your new product on social media requires a lot of careful planning and consideration. To help get you started, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best tips for successfully launching a new product on social media.

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With so many work stressors, it can often feel difficult to feel grateful for your professional life. Long days and difficult co-workers can be hard to handle, and these factors may sometimes overshadow your job’s positive benefits in your mind. However, intentionally looking for the good can help you feel more gratitude for the opportunity you’ve been given and improve your overall mental state. Below, 14 Young Entrepreneur Council members offered some ways to practice thankfulness in your everyday professional life and explained why it’s so important to do this.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the top tools that will help any company improve their remote work process. Whether it was communicating important information or collaborating on multiple projects at once, many companies faced new challenges as they made the switch to a remote or hybrid work environment. Luckily, there exist a multitude of tools and tech solutions that can help struggling companies improve the way they work remotely. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council suggest 12 of the solutions they use for their own companies and explain why they recommend you implement them to make your remote work processes a little more efficient.

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Businesses may need to participate in fundraising efforts to secure additional capital, fund research efforts or expand their market reach. Before they can begin, however, leaders must determine their company's valuation. A valuation of a company is determined through various calculations that take into account factors such as market value and annual revenue. This step is crucial as it may determine whether or not investors choose to invest in your business. If you're about to begin the fundraising process for your startup, consider these eight factors that can influence your valuation, as shared by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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

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Leaving a toxic workplace situation can leave a lasting impression on an employee. Even if you investigate and a company seems to have a good workplace environment, it can be hard to fully ensure that you are stepping into a company that will treat you better.  Employee reviews and browsing a company’s website can only get you so far in learning the culture of the workplace. That’s why the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have come up with some key questions you can ask yourself to ensure your new company is the right fit. By asking yourself these questions, you may be able to uncover some warning signs of a toxic workplace.

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As a company leader, your email inbox is likely overflowing with unread or missed information on a daily basis.  Missing the wrong email could cause you to miss something time-sensitive or something from a high-priority client. However, finding the time to filter through the seemingly never-ending stream of unread emails can seem impossible with a busy schedule of meetings and strategic work. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered their best recommendations for how to tame your email inbox to prioritize responses and ensure you don’t miss out on important information.

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A sign of good management is when a manager or business leader is able to step away from work without the business falling apart at the seams.

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Working on a team can be challenging for those accustomed to working alone. Teams bring different opinions, ideas and ways of working, which can be incredibly helpful for collaborative projects. However, this environment can sometimes be difficult for those used to independent thinking and solo projects. If you're a professional who prefers to work on your own, it helps to have a strategy for approaching and thriving in team-based work environments. To get you started, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best tips for how you can improve your teamwork skills at work.

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When your business starts to grow, it's an exciting indicator of success. However, it can also be an indicator that organizational changes need to take place. If your business has outgrown its current location, it's time to start considering moving into a new office space. There's a lot to think about before making such a significant change, though. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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When meeting with a potential investor, it’s important that entrepreneurs come prepared for any questions that may arise. You’ll likely spend hours preparing your answers, but even then, tough questions may be posed that, without good answers, could damage your confidence. Therefore, to help you avoid being surprised during a pitch, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members each shared the toughest question they’ve ever been asked during an investor meeting and how they recommend you prepare for it.

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Holiday shopping can be a stressful time for many people. Customers are worried about items being in stock, finding the perfect gift and avoiding long lines when searching for help or checking out. Given the nature of the holidays, customers may be more anxious or demanding than usual. It’s important for leaders, therefore, to properly train employees to handle the expectations of holiday shoppers to keep them happy. To help, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best tips for customer service professionals working this holiday season.

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Working hard and being a creative problem-solver can go a long way. Whether managing a team or an entire business, anyone in a management position has a lot on their plates. This means that while you may be itching for a promotion, your position may not be at the forefront of your manager's mind. It's up to you to put it there.  But how can you get your manager's attention and prove to them that it's time for you to move up as a leader? Here, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in and offer their perspectives as managers who have had to give those promotions and employees who have successfully leveled up in the past.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council list the factors companies will want to consider if they want to improve their website UX. While your business’s first attempt at creating a website may have focused on necessary product information, your logo and color scheme and basic functionality, it may not have truly considered how your visitors use the site and, therefore, may not have produced the positive results you were hoping for. To get the most out of your website, it’s vital that you take a look at the full user experience first. To help guide you, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer 14 factors all companies should consider when redesigning their websites and why these particular factors can have such an impact on the way your users experience your business.

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Sifting through piles of job applications and resumes can be tedious work. However, you can take advantage of certain recruiting “hacks” to find the best job candidates, people who are likely to be a great fit right from the start. To learn more about methods that work, 14 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) shared their favorite recruiting tips for finding the best of the best.

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When your team is feeling uninspired, try these activities and initiatives designed to boost morale. High morale can ensure your team stays motivated and engaged through the "daily grind." From hosting virtual happy hours to organizing an escape room outing, the effects of team-building activities can strengthen the bonds between teammates and create unexpected benefits within the workplace. This more collaborative work culture can lead to a more diverse set of solutions leaders might not have anticipated. Below, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their top-recommended team activities for keeping everyone motivated. Follow their suggestions to take a more proactive approach to company-wide team building, even when people feel stuck in a day-to-day rut.

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Due to their dispersed nature, remote companies are tasked with finding innovative ways to remain transparent and keep communication flowing throughout the business. When teammates and whole departments aren’t able to interact together in person, the way they communicate must adapt. But when communication breaks down, information silos can develop, leading to confusion and low morale. In this way, it's especially important for all-remote companies to keep team members connected and informed as much as possible. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the essential steps that all-remote companies can take to keep information silos from forming and instead keep communication flowing between departments and across the company.

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YouTube is one of the top social media platforms in the world. As such, it provides a plethora of untapped potential for many businesses. Whether you're a new business looking for ways to establish an online presence or have been on the platform a while but haven't been able to figure out how to tap into the potential it has to offer, once you know how to use it effectively, you're sure to grow your following. There are several ways a company can leverage YouTube to grow its customer base. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the most effective strategies they know to help companies achieve the results they need.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend taking these steps before using content made by your audience. One of the easiest ways for any business to produce content is to make smart use of the content their audience members have already made. This user-generated content (UGC) not only is a great way to get your audience engaged with your brand, but it’s also an effective strategy to find free content for your business’s social channels. According to a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members, however, there are a few things you’ll want to be sure you do before you use any UGC. Below, they’ve listed 13 of the steps you’ll want to take and explain why taking them is so important.

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No matter how well-aligned two business partners may be, there will inevitably be times when they don't see eye to eye. However, when larger issues arise and the partners are no longer on the same page, it's critical for both parties to get back on track to resolve their conflict. Otherwise, they risk making decisions (or making no decisions at all) that could ultimately harm the business and its culture. If you and your business partner can't seem to agree on an important issue, first remember that you're working toward the same goal: the good of the company. Then, try these 15 strategies recommended by Young Entrepreneur Council members for realigning with your partner and resolving conflict.

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Clear communication and empathy go a long way. Of all the positive traits a leader can possess, the ability to be fair and equitable in the most challenging of circumstances is a crucial one. A leader who is able to ensure that everyone on their team is being treated fairly is someone who has the ability to see things from an objective perspective and to solve problems creatively. Employees are also more likely to respect a leader who makes a conscious effort to treat everyone fairly and holds themselves accountable to the same standards as well. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the most important questions they ask themselves when they want to be sure that they're leading their teams in a fair and equitable way.

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Anyone who’s hired an employee knows that a resume is not the only indicator of whether or not a job candidate will be a good fit. However, there are some key elements to look for in a resume that usually signal that a candidate may be the right person to join your team. To help you identify those elements, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members weighed in with what to zero in on when reviewing resumes to determine if a job candidate will be a good fit for the position.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the methods they wish companies would stop using to advertise on mobile. With average smartphone users spending somewhere between three to six hours a day on their phones, it’s no wonder that marketers are trying to capitalize on this time. However, some marketers have been going about it the wrong way, creating unnecessary friction or irritation for users simply trying to consume content. According to this panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members, the following 10 mobile marketing methods are some of the worst offenders. Consider removing these strategies from your plans if you want to make the most of your mobile marketing efforts.

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As the leader of a growing business, you might be tempted to set your goals high and hold your employees to meeting them. You and your team likely have a ton of great ideas and are eager to pursue each of them, but aiming too high can actually be detrimental to your business's growth and success. Rather than setting unattainable standards for yourself and your employees, take your time when developing your business and each worker's path to ensure sustainable, measured growth. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared ways to set realistic business goals that will still stretch limitations and build your team’s skills.

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The holiday season is fast approaching, which means it's time for businesses to start planning and executing their marketing strategies for the busiest time of the year. With so much riding on this season, it's not enough to recycle the same old marketing campaigns you've used in years past. Instead, try thinking outside the box and coming up with a fresh, new strategy that will entice and engage consumers throughout the season. To help you shake up your holiday marketing, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some innovative tactics they believe companies should try this year. Follow their advice to set yourself up for a successful holiday sales season.

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The secret to a successful and efficient company culture is transparent communication. This is especially true when you need to announce big news to your team in a way that will make them feel confident about the company's direction and decisions. To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

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

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You don’t have to wait to start your journey toward success. People often say that the key to success is to become a lifelong learner. This is because as you continue to learn new things throughout your life and career, you’re better able to adapt, innovate and grow — all of which are necessary components to a successful business. And continued curiosity around your passions can make for a fulfilling life. To get started, follow these steps recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council and begin your journey to becoming a lifelong learner today.

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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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When you want your business to stand out online, it's crucial to have a never-ending supply of new and creative ideas. Sometimes new ideas come naturally, but every business owner or entrepreneur will go through times when the creative juices aren't flowing when they need them to the most.  This is when having go-to strategies for idea generation can come in handy. Here, 12 members of YEC share their best methods for coming up with new ideas to ensure your content stays fresh.

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Before a new business can set up a marketing strategy, the very first thing it must do is determine who its target customers are. While it may seem simple to pinpoint your ideal customer, sometimes you can end up making assumptions that aren’t actually true, and if you don't get your target customer base right, your marketing efforts will be focused on the wrong people. Fortunately, there are some tried-and-true ways for a business to determine who its target customers are. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for how to go about doing just that.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share alternative fundraising solutions for entrepreneurs not looking for investors. Entrepreneurs may have many reasons for not seeking out investors for their startups, not the least of which is the desire to maintain total control of their companies. New entrepreneurs may not realize that other options are available that can be just as effective for getting a business started without all the cons of an investor. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council leaders list some alternatives to investors that entrepreneurs can explore in order to fund their projects. Whether you choose to pursue one or a combination of these suggestions, effective fundraising solutions exist for every type of business.

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When an entrepreneur starts a new business, it's never with the intention to give up on it one day. The sad truth, however, is that running a business unfortunately doesn't always equate to success, and a particular business venture may not work out how you’d planned. After trying so hard to make your business successful, it can be difficult to think about moving on to something else or to know exactly when to throw in the towel. To provide some guidance, eight members from Young Entrepreneur Council shared a few of the signs that will show you when your business may no longer be worth your time.

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Technology can be an incredible asset for a small business when its uses are carefully considered and researched. Some business owners, however, may feel overwhelmed by the amount of technology they do or don’t need to succeed. To help you avoid making poor decisions around business tech, we asked Young Entrepreneur Council members to weigh in on the common business technology mistakes startups make that you should definitely steer clear of.

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

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You can take practical steps to get more reviews for your business.

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

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A few simple tricks can help you regain that lost motivation. If lately you’ve been feeling disengaged at work, like you’re lacking motivation to complete daily tasks or like you’re just generally unhappy with how your career is going, you may have fallen into a work rut. While easy to fall into, ruts aren’t always easy to get out of, especially if you don’t have the right mindset or the right strategies in place. To provide some guidance, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer 13 tips for how to effectively pull yourself out of a work rut and get reengaged with your career goals. Try these steps to see where your newfound motivation takes you.

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In the world of business, leaders aren’t only giving advice—they’re getting it too. Whether it’s tips from books, movies, friends, family or other leaders, leaders are often surrounded by others with well-intentioned advice on how they should run their businesses or how they can succeed in top leadership positions. However, not all of it is advice that should be followed. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the leadership advice they’ve heard throughout the years and why they strongly disagree with it. Consider their insights before applying any of this advice to your career.

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With so many other ways to keep in touch digitally and so many other places businesses can compete for attention, email may not seem like a good first choice for communicating with your customers. And yet, while it's no secret that many people ignore their emails these days, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach customers.  To make your emails stand out, you’ll need to employ a few strategies to make your emails more enticing and able to grab the attention of your target audience. Here, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for creating effective marketing emails and why they work so well.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for switching career fields to technology. People often lose interest in their careers over time. Accelerating this trend, the pandemic has seemed to ignite the spark many people needed to finally realize their dissatisfaction with their current work. As a fast-growing field with unlimited opportunities for the future, the tech industry is a popular place to turn to for those seeking new challenges. Below, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for breaking into the tech industry when you’re new to the field and explain how you can set yourself up to land that first job. 

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The happiness of its employees can make all the difference in a company's success. The success of a business largely relies on growing sales, stellar customer service and, just as importantly, the positive attitude of its employees. Happy employees are likely more engaged, productive and willing to learn than unhappy ones. This means that team motivation and productivity can skyrocket under the right conditions, but how do you get your employees to that level? As a leader, it's important for you to promote the mental well-being of your employees if you want to see business thrive. Below, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the ways in which employers can help support the positive mental health of their employees and why it's so important to do.

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There's a lot of planning that goes into designing the look of a retail store. While you definitely want to add style elements that are expressive of your brand, you also need to consider your target customers. A well-designed store will not only attract more customers, but can also lead to higher sales. To help you figure out the most important aspects to consider when designing your retail store, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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In the growing gig economy, there's fierce competition in many freelance markets. Far too often, contractors will try to earn repeat work from a client by going the extra mile and taking on extra work only to not get properly compensated for it. As business professionals, it’s important for freelancers to stand up for themselves and their work and get the compensation they deserve. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their advice. Below, they discussed what freelancers can do before or after taking a job to ensure that they don't get taken advantage of by their clients.

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One of the biggest challenges for any new entrepreneur is learning their own sales habits and processes. It can take years for a person to really hone their skills and become an excellent salesperson. To help those starting out on their sales journey, the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their experiences. Below they discussed the sales tips they wish they knew when they first started out and how those lessons can help new and aspiring entrepreneurs get on a path to business success.

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Garnering tons of social media engagement sometimes requires an out-of-the-box approach. Having a strong social media presence is a must-have for entrepreneurs, as this is where most consumers search for or connect with businesses. However, it isn’t enough just to have an active account. To really reap the benefits of social media marketing, you must actively engage with your followers.  To help companies better leverage their social media presence, 14 Young Entrepreneur Council members share some effective, yet potentially unconventional ways companies can maintain and boost engagement with their audience.

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Whether it’s for donations or to kickstart a new business idea, crowdfunding that works has a lot of lessons for entrepreneurs and marketers. 

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Content is the key to reaching and engaging new and existing customers. But after you've been creating content for so long, it can start to feel like you've covered everything you can possibly cover about your brand or in your niche.  Fresh content is always there, but sometimes you're just too burned out to see it. When you've hit a content roadblock, there are plenty of ways to refresh your perspective and spark new ideas. To help, 10 members of YEC share their best tips for summoning the creativity you need to take your content to the next level.

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

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Everyone has to start somewhere when building their skills. Here's where to begin if you want to lead. When someone thinks of leadership skills, they may think of decisiveness, the ability to delegate and problem-solving. Each of these skills can go a long way in career and personal development. However, not everyone always knows how to develop those skills or where to turn to for advice.  Whether you want to be a leader or just start taking a more active role in your life, consider this advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, each shared one action you can take to start improving your leadership skills today and how they might help you in other aspects of your life and career.

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When you are interviewing job applicants, there are certain “soft skills”—that is, non-technical skills that relate more to how you work with others and solve problems—that you should be on the lookout for, as these attributes are not usually spelled out on a candidate’s resume. Here, members from Young Entrepreneur Council share 13 underrated but important soft skills they look for when they are hiring new employees.

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When starting a business, entrepreneurs are likely to encounter many barriers to success. Discoverability can be difficult, as companies may struggle to find new customers or clients at first. Cultivating an audience can then be an even larger challenge when it involves a new product or service. Customers are sometimes hesitant to spend money on something new.  But these and many other entrepreneurial challenges all relate to actually selling that first product to your first customer and building sales from there—and convincing someone to actually purchase your product isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds. Below, nine experts from Young Entrepreneur Council share the key facts every company founder should know about sales and how that knowledge can lead to greater success down the road.

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School looked very different for many students this past year and a half due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For recent college grads, the future of work may seem like it’s filled with even more of the same uncertainty as the job market evolves and heals in the aftermath of 2020. But despite what’s occurred, it’s important to move forward and find ways to begin your career in a way that will set you up for success. To provide some guidance on how to do that, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered their best advice for recent graduates looking to start their careers during this unprecedented time.

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Having a “side hustle” can be a great way to test the waters of entrepreneurship. Aside from providing a creative outlet and a chance to develop new skills, a side hustle can also turn into a reliable income stream.  There may even come a point where you begin to wonder whether your side hustle can become your full-time gig. But how can you test whether your side hustle is actually a worthwhile business idea without risking it all?  To help you answer this question, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered some steps you can take to determine if you can turn your side hustle into a successful business venture.

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Businesses have access to a treasure trove of valuable customer data, from how their audience is engaging with a social media post to their feedback on a product or service. When properly collected and analyzed, this data is invaluable for improving the customer experience — but you need to be collecting the right data. Below, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their insights by responding to the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explore some possible negatives of shifting your entire business model to the cloud. The pandemic opened up new possibilities for remote work among companies big and small. Some organizations are even interested in remaining remote or utilizing a hybrid work model by implementing a cloud-based system. While this model can have some major advantages, including minimizing costs and increased accessibility, cloud computing can also have major drawbacks. To help you make the decision that’s best for your company, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council explained some disadvantages to consider before going completely cloud-based.

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While many large companies may have the resources to offer funded relaxation retreats or other extensive mental health perks, it can be difficult for small businesses to find ways to offer similar benefits without those same resources.  So how can a small business owner prioritize the mental health of their employees on a budget? Below, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) shared their thoughts by responding to the following question:

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In a world filled with uncertainties, businesses want to be able to rely on customer loyalty. Many businesses know they wouldn’t be successful without their customers, but they may not be sure how to best thank them for their loyalty. To retain customers, it’s important to find effective ways to thank them for their business. That's why 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their favorite unique ways to thank loyal members of your brand community. Follow their recommendations and make your customer's day.

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An individual who factors self-reflection into their everyday development is on their way to becoming a great leader. To advance, managers have to ask themselves regularly if their performance is in line with their leadership goals. The evidence can be in how well their team is performing and the results they have achieved. To that end, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members each shared one question managers should ask themselves to ensure they’re becoming the best leaders they can be. Try to reflect on these questions yourself if you want to gauge your own performance and efficacy as a leader.

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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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Searching for a new job can be a huge challenge. Modern recruiters have an influx of applications to sift through and judge, and it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Many professionals offer advice to help people get noticed by potential employers or guide them toward better career options, but not all job hunting tips are good ones. To provide some clarity, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council weighed in on some of the most overrated job search advice they often hear. Here's why they believe these commonly-dispensed words of wisdom aren't necessarily all that wise.

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Fear is a paralyzing emotion and can stop even the most experienced business owners in their tracks. For entrepreneurs — who count on moving forward as a way to keep their businesses thriving — letting fear get out of hand can be debilitating.  But like any business leader, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have had their fair share of fears throughout their own entrepreneurial journeys. Below, 13 members shared what they've been most afraid of as entrepreneurs and how they’ve changed their mindsets to reduce the impact of those fears on their businesses.

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With social media, businesses have a unique tool to get firsthand insights from customers in an environment which allows them to interact with their audience, ask questions, highlight new products and share information. However, with this tool can come the potential for massive disaster. Social media is littered with examples of brands and companies that failed to realize the best way to use these channels for customer service and have suffered the consequences. To help, 12 professionals from YEC weigh in on some of the rules businesses should keep in mind when using social media to engage with clients in a customer service setting.

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Leaders often fall prey to and mistakenly share myths about sales with their team. Believing these misconceptions can hurt their ability to sell. Ten professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council debunk common sales myths and provide the truth on how to be successful in sales. Beware of these myths trying to pass as sage wisdom from salespeople of the past.

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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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Transparency is often boasted as a defining quality of successful business leaders. Oftentimes it helps team members feel valued and comfortable enough to share their own opinions. But can too much transparency have negative effects on company operations and employee morale? Keeping information from being distracting or detrimental to the workplace requires evaluating the situation to determine when you should be a transparent leader. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share when it's time to draw a line on being open with positive and negative news.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss characteristics all top tech companies share and why. All companies start off in the same place—no clients, no reputation, no proven track record of success—but when you think of any top tech company, there’s usually a reason why they made it there.  As technology continues to progress and the need for technology companies grows, more and more business leaders are going to be looking for ways to emulate that success. To take some of the guesswork out of the equation, these 12 leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the traits all successful tech companies seem to have in common and why. Consider these traits when determining the right path to success for your business.

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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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Making thorough, educated decisions doesn't have to take tons of time. In the business world, leaders often need to make quick decisions. However, because they’re made during a time crunch, these choices can be rash — at least when not approached the right way. Thankfully, there are ways to efficiently make decisions while still thinking through all your options. Below, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered tips for speeding up your decision-making process while still ensuring quality. Follow their tips to help you get better at making fast, but thorough decisions.

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This 80/20 principle, in essence, states that 80% of an outcome comes from 20% of its causes. It explains how small actions, a small group of people, events or elements are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of a result.

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Many employees are familiar with receiving feedback from their managers. However, few are as familiar or comfortable with giving feedback to their managers. Whether it’s because, as an employee, you don’t feel like it’s your place to offer criticism or because you just aren’t sure how to go about doing it, approaching a superior with a critique can be a frightening prospect. But with the right attitude and strategies at your disposal, you can make the feedback process less intimidating and even helpful—for you, your manager and your relationship. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each shared their best advice for how to offer feedback to your manager and do so in a way that will be well-received. Follow these tips to start building a more constructive culture at work.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for marketing your newly launched mobile app. When launching a new app, you’ll want to invest your time, money and effort into marketing it. Otherwise, you won’t reach your intended audience or boost your sales. If people don’t know about your app, they likely won’t be able to find it or won’t feel inclined to try it out.  To that end, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared marketing tactics a company can use to get people excited about their new application before and after launch. Here’s what they recommend and why these methods work so well.

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Thanks to search engines leveling the marketing playing field, even the smallest business can today benefit from the reach that search engine marketing (SEM) offers. But when you’re short on money, time, and resources, learning all about SEO and SEM—and how to leverage them effectively in your digital marketing strategy—can be a challenge. Here, 13 leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council share SEO and SEM tips that work for them, and that won’t break the bank.

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Work can be a distracting place. You have questions and requests from your co-workers or boss interrupting your workflow. You have your cellphone to distract you—emails and texts you feel compelled to answer, social media messages you need to respond to and calls you need to pick up. Without a doubt, maintaining focus is a challenge if you're not strategic about how you spend your time. But achieving a state of deep work is important if you want to maximize your creativity and solve complex problems. For insights on how to achieve this state, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. These tips can help you set boundaries with your time and take back control of your schedule so you can make the most of your day.

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With the rich educational value podcasts often provide their listeners, it’s no surprise that the business community turns to this popular form of content to improve their skills and strategies. Some entrepreneurs even make major business decisions based on the information they’ve learned and the stories they’ve listened to on podcasts. With this in mind, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council responded to the following question:

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For new business owners, it may not always be clear when to move beyond core employees and begin bringing on some new teammates. Growing pains are normal for a startup that is doing well, so until you see your employees are struggling, you may not realize that it’s time to bring on additional help. To help you better spot the signs, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members offer eight indications that your company needs additional support staff. Look for these issues within your business so you can face the problems head-on and give your employees the help they need to do their jobs well.

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Startup accelerators and incubators are great opportunities for new businesses to grow and scale their operations quickly. These programs are pivotal for the startups who participate in them, as they often provide access to exclusive business resources and funding opportunities. However, they can also be highly competitive -- acceptance to an accelerator program relies on creating a compelling pitch and proving your startup's potential right out of the gate. If you're thinking of applying to a startup accelerator or incubator, consider this advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for overcoming self-doubt when starting out in business. Impostor syndrome describes the feeling that you’re somehow a fraud in your personal or professional life. People who suffer from this psychological pattern often believe that they just got where they are by luck, which invalidates or diminishes their achievements in their own minds. New entrepreneurs, especially those who have limited experience in their industry, often succumb to impostor syndrome. They may feel like they don’t know what they’re doing and that their partners, clients or employees might find out and walk away. If you’re struggling with impostor syndrome, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some strategies here that may help you combat it.

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Hiring talented new employees can help a company grow. Young employees, in particular, often bring fresh perspectives, new skills, and lots of creative energy to the businesses they join. However, it can be difficult to attract young talent, especially in today’s competitive hiring environment. Here, 10 members from Young Entrepreneur Council share how your business can attract the best young professionals.

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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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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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Content marketing is one of the most effective methods of gaining exposure for a brand and bringing potential customers into the sales funnel. By integrating strategic distribution, search engine optimization and inbound tactics as part of this approach, most businesses see excellent returns on their investments in content marketing. Building a content marketing campaign strategy around specific goals the business wants to meet helps narrow the focus, which improves results. Brand promotion, for example, requires different content than product marketing. Here, members of Young Entrepreneur Council explore eight content marketing secrets that all business leaders should know about to successfully promote their brand.

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One of the best ways to keep a business innovative and growing healthily is for leaders to set tangible goals for teams. To motivate teams to accomplish their goals, it helps to assess the progress toward meeting them on a quarterly basis. This way, at the end of every quarter, the whole team can look back and track the progress they’ve made, see what still needs to happen and prepare for the quarter ahead. To help, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared tips for assessing accomplishments at the end each quarter so that you can plan or revise strategic goals. gear up for the next one and keep your company on course.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the most important lessons they've learned about leading from afar. The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the world’s foundations in all aspects. Countless companies have had to change their business models and switch to remote work to keep their employees safe. But after more than a year of this virtual work environment, leaders have learned valuable lessons on how to lead—and how not to lead—when their teams aren't all in one location. The members of Young Entrepreneur Council know the challenges of pivoting their leadership style in the current climate. Below, 13 of them shared the lessons that have taught them how to be better leaders in this new remote work era.

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Thought leadership can be a way to create personal and professional growth for yourself and others. Done correctly, it can help you stand out in your industry and build your personal brand.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some important insights every entry-level tech candidate should know before joining the field. You’ve completed your education and training, you’ve done research on the job market and you’re ready to start applying for positions in the tech industry. But before you do, it's important to know how the industry operates. Like every industry, the technology sector is unique, but it's also evolving and advancing quickly, which means hopeful candidates will constantly need to evolve their skills in tandem. Keeping these facts in mind will allow you to not only find the best-fit position for you, but also map out how your career may look in the future. Below, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share a few other insights job candidates will need to keep in mind if they want to enter and succeed in the tech space.

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Disagreements will happen from time to time, regardless of how well a team works together. However, conflicts shouldn’t result in destroyed relationships or grudges. It’s important for professionals to know how to prevent a situation from escalating and get their point across without becoming rude or arrogant in their words and actions. While resolving disagreements on a positive note can take a bit more work, the end result is a happier relationship and overall workplace. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine the best strategies for dealing with disagreements in the office and how these methods can help the conversation move forward.

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Not every method is going to work the same for every person. These days it seems like every working professional is trying to hack their productivity. From multitasking to juggling more work adeptly, these productivity hacks claim that they can help individuals do more in a shorter span of time. For many business owners who are strapped for time, these hacks seem like the perfect solution. However, many of them aren't worth the time that someone may dedicate to them. While these hacks work fine in theory, their effectiveness levels vary from individual to individual. Below, 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss several popular productivity hacks that they personally find highly overrated.

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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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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain what every prospective smart home system owner should think about before making an investment. From video doorbells to smart locks to thermostats, smart home systems can be incredibly beneficial for homeowners. They can make tasks simpler and make your home run more efficiently. However, there are a few things homeowners should know before installing one. To help you prepare for this investment, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss what they believe all consumers should know before purchasing a smart home system. Keep these insights in mind as you're shopping for your next device.

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Building a brand is an essential part of starting a business. The brand should accurately reflect what the company is, what it offers, its values and more. Along with a brand, however, comes the story that lets consumers understand the “why” behind your company. To help you develop that story, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared the most important components of a captivating brand story and how to leverage them. Follow their tips to craft a story that will engage your audience and build a loyal following.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their predictions for upcoming advances in encryption tech. Privacy and security are becoming increasingly important in today’s highly digital business world. With many employees working remotely and technology rapidly advancing, encryption technology will need to advance just as quickly. To that end, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared what they predict will be some of the next big steps in encryption technology in the near future. Keep an eye on these developments to see what kind of effect they’ll have on privacy and security for you and your business.

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One of the most alluring aspects of remote work is the notion that you don’t have to leave home to do your job. However, remote working comes with its own stressors and if you aren’t aware of them, they can overwhelm you.

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With the advent of social media, companies are now closer than ever to their buyers' feedback. However, these buyers may or may not be charitable with their opinions. Occasionally, a business may encounter a consumer who wasn’t happy with their experience or the product itself. However, it can sometimes be difficult for a business owner to separate their personal feelings from the criticism of the brand. For some tips on how to deal with this issue, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council look at how businesses can avoid taking customer criticism personally and extract the necessary feedback to grow and improve.

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Members of the Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on whether a long-term or campaign-by-campaign content strategy works best for brands. One important consideration in any marketing strategy is whether you should use a long-term approach, take things campaign-by-campaign, or forge some combination of the two. Of course, neither is inherently better than the other; each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Understanding the value of each strategy can help you determine when and how to best use that approach. To help with this, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights on their preferred approach and why it works for them. Use their insights to inform your own content strategy.

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Getting quality guest posts on your website is one of the most effective ways to ensure that your brand gains added visibility. The more high-quality sites post to yours, the better search engines will rank you and the more positive relationships you’ll build. However, if you want to get a top publication’s name on your website, you’ll need to convince them your site is worth their effort. So how does a marketer best approach a site to write a guest post? Below, 10 experts from YEC discuss the best techniques for reaching out to a popular publication to guest post on your website and explain why their methods work so well.

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Many entrepreneurs will concede that their worst problem is overthinking complex decisions. The issue with overthinking is not only that it stifles creativity and innovation; it also erodes your confidence as an entrepreneur and can make you second-guess yourself. In the world of business, this lack of self-confidence could spell disaster. The best way to avoid overthinking is to focus on the problem at hand and recenter yourself, but doing so requires a bit of effort. To help, these 12 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss a few practical ways to recenter yourself and avoid overthinking as an entrepreneur.

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If you want to lead, you may want to nurture these traits first. Many people want to be influential, to be able to lead and solve problems and create real change in the world. But not everyone knows what it takes to get there or what qualities one must have in order to achieve that influence. If you study someone you find influential, however, you’ll likely find they have certain characteristics that help them seem that way.  But what are these elusive traits? Here, 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council examine this by answering the following question:

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

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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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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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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer tips for developing effective, sales-boosting e-commerce ads. E-commerce is a great way for a business to boost its sales, especially in today's world of social distancing and online shopping. But with so many businesses gravitating toward e-commerce, the space has become rather crowded. Companies that want to sell online successfully need to maximize their advertising efforts and keep attracting new customers. To help, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some effective ways to take your e-commerce advertising to the next level. Follow their tips to keep customers coming in your virtual door, even during your off-season.

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Video remains one of the most popular marketing formats that companies can use to reach out to their customers, and with so many online platforms adding live video capabilities, more companies than ever are able to interact with their customers in real time.  However, as with all content marketing formats, there are many ways to go about creating live video content. Not every approach will be successful for every type of company. To help you determine what’s right for you, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine some specific ways they’d recommend using live video to boost your brand’s following and why these strategies can help your business succeed.

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To appeal to today’s on-the-go world, many businesses have considered the value in creating a branded mobile application for their customers. In theory, it's a great idea—but app fatigue is very real, and if you don't want users to delete your app after a few uses, you need to give them a good reason to keep coming back. Many members of Young Entrepreneur Council have experience building and deploying successful business mobile apps, and they understand what it takes to create something engaging and long-lasting. To offer their insights, a panel of members shared some important steps businesses should take when building their mobile apps. Follow their tips to ensure your app becomes a regular habit for those who download and use it.

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Sensitive information is stored and accessed digitally by businesses every day. While it's a lot more convenient for companies to have data stored digitally, unfortunately this also means these files are more vulnerable to attacks from hackers. Malicious users can gain access to a company’s data in several ways, including phishing, a method which takes advantage of unsuspecting employees as a gateway.  However, there are also a number of ways companies can protect themselves and their data from such attacks. Below, nine professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how companies can guard against these attacks and why every business should make their digital security a priority.

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A leader who steps back a little creates positive benefits in a business.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for combating the discouraging thoughts that plague many entrepreneurs. As you're tackling challenges in business, it can be easy to fall into the trap of negative self-talk. This pattern of behavior, while common, can be extremely discouraging and leave you mentally and emotionally depleted. To embrace your fullest potential, you’ll want to become your own biggest advocate and engage in healthier, more empowering dialogue with yourself. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best strategies for overcoming the toxic, negative self-talk that can hold you back as a business leader.

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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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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their firsthand insights on leveraging social media effectively this year. Social media is one of the most powerful tools business owners can use. How you leverage your accounts can make all the difference in terms of your overall success and business growth. As 2021 moves forward, it’s important for entrepreneurs to know how to maximize their social media use to achieve success throughout the year. To help, 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council use their firsthand experience to share some of their best social media tips for today’s business owners.

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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:

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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. Yet, the longer you maintain these bad habits, the less likely you'll be to encounter success as a result. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine some of the seemingly harmless habits they believe can hinder an entrepreneur’s progress and what they should consider doing instead.

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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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Being a leader is more than running meetings and managing a team. It’s a skill that takes a lifetime to master, and there will always be room to grow as a mentor, coach and source of inspiration to your employees. In your quest to become a better leader, you’re bound to hear about countless fads and trendy tips for “modern” managers. However, there are some pieces of business advice that will never get old. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared a few of the timeless leadership tips that have been important to them throughout their careers and why.

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As an entrepreneur, it’s important to keep an eye on your competition and find ways to set yourself apart from others in your industry. Especially in a saturated market, it's vital to stand out with a strong personal brand. To achieve this, you’ll want to define what makes you and your brand unique. If you’re looking to do this right, follow this advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, who shared eight key steps to take when trying to hone in on your niche.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how you’ll know when it’s time to consider a career switch. From decreased motivation to frustration with the industry, every professional faces ups and downs in their career. It’s quite common for even the most passionate employees to fall into a funk, then come through the other side of it just as fulfilled as before. However, those negative thoughts or feelings you’re experiencing can also signify something deeper. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the signs you may actually be ready for a significant career move. Read on to discover if you’re just in a temporary funk or if you need to consider making a change.

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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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Entrepreneurs often find themselves swamped by work, with little or no time to be mindful of themselves and what is happening around them. Mindful moments aren’t always easy to come by, so business leaders need to take advantage of them when they show up or learn to be intentional about making the time for them. To help you find easy ways to incorporate a mindfulness practice into your daily work routine, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council explore how you can be mindful during work and how vital it is in keeping you productive and focused on your tasks.

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Many companies set goals for the year, but can often lose track of them as other problems and priorities arise. Ensuring each department has its own goals to work toward is one way to help prevent this issue. But how can a leader figure out if each department is on track with its goals? Leaders need to determine the most effective way to track department goals and ensure each unit is working in harmony with the others and helping to achieve the company’s overarching objectives. To provide some guidance on how to do this, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council share valuable advice for leaders who want to track department-specific goals throughout the year, as well as explain why these methods are so successful.

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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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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some basic how-to tips for small businesses that want to use cloud computing. From data storage to web-based software solutions to cloud hosting, many companies rely on some form of cloud computing to streamline their day-to-day operations. This technology has been a game-changer across industries in recent years, especially in today's world of remote work where employees need anywhere, anytime access to important company files.  Using the cloud can help small businesses scale their operations to new heights. Below, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best advice for small business owners looking to grow their business through the use of cloud computing.

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Thanks to the explosion of tech, there are many new skills a small business owner must learn in order to be successful in the modern world. However, there are also a whole host of necessary basic skills that stand the test of time. Every small business owner who wants to succeed in managing their organization’s day-to-day operations needs to have a proper grasp of these skills. But which ones are the most vital ones to focus on? Here, nine leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council examine the skills they consider the most important for proper small business management and why they're essential to keep a company running efficiently.

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When you’re running short of ideas, an "oldie but goodie" approach is to go back to the classic topics you know will always be a winner with any audience.

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

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For many companies, maintaining a high level of engagement and motivation among employees during the dark winter months can be quite a challenge. And with a growing remote work environment, it is even more difficult to make sure your team stays engaged and productive while also ensuring they make time for self-care. To help, 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council reflect on the following question:

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If you’re looking to expand your business, franchising your business could be a great option. Growing a company by franchising can offer many benefits—but you need to be aware of the drawbacks, too. To determine whether or not you should franchise your business, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question: What’s one tip you have for business owners who are considering franchising their business?

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When posting a job listing, businesses generally have their go-to, established platforms that they know are frequented by potential candidates. Sometimes, however, a company needs to think outside the box when sourcing talent. Occasionally, the least obvious places to post vacancies may result in the most remarkable outpouring of candidates. That’s why these 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) reflect on the following question:

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Businesses never stay the same size forever. An entrepreneur may yearn for the early days when their business was just a handful of people. But over time, businesses find great success and become entities that may span several offices and regions. The positive part of this expansion is that the business is doing well and bringing in more income. The downside is that, with so many new people, the company culture may start to suffer. In order for a business to retain its identity, keeping the company culture intact is crucial. For guidance, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on how to maintain a company culture despite a massive expansion of business.

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Finding funding is typically one of the most challenging parts of starting a new business. The risks versus rewards of investing in new companies can usually have investors worried about jumping in. The responsibility is then on the entrepreneur to make their business idea exciting and attractive enough to warrant investors' attention. No matter whether the funding comes from friends, angel investors or venture capital firms, the entrepreneur must have a clear strategy for obtaining this funding. To help, these eight leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council offer some strategies for persuading someone to invest in a new business.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer some effective ways to keep users coming back to your mobile app. Everyone with a smartphone or tablet uses mobile apps, and businesses have increasingly seen the value in creating their own. However, it’s hard to stand out in crowded app stores where many competitors are doing the same thing. Even if you do get people to download your app, the real challenge lies in getting them to come back and continue using it. To help, we asked 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they recommend engaging and retaining mobile app users. Here are their suggested strategies and why each is so effective.

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Social media is a place for anyone to express their opinions and beliefs, and often that means talking about controversial topics. Sometimes, a business may post something that sparks a heated debate, or its social media followers might bring up these touchy issues on the business’s page, leaving the brand to come up with a response that won't offend or alienate its audience. To help business owners handle this situation tactfully and professionally, we asked 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question: Whether it's politics during an election year, a major crisis or even just a regular day, controversial topics are bound to come up on a business's social media. What's one tip you have for dealing with these issues, and why does it work?

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Members of Young Entrepreneur explain how hands-on CEOs can get more comfortable with delegation. When you first started your business, you were likely very hands-on with all aspects of your company. As you've grown and hired people, you may have found that you're struggling to step back and let go of the day-to-day tasks that helped get the company off the ground. While it's good for a CEO to remain involved in their business, it's also important to know when to delegate and start giving more power to your employees. This can be tough for someone who's used to doing everything themselves, but there are ways to practice and get better at handing off business tasks. To help, we asked 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share their best delegation strategies for CEOs who want to empower their teams. Here's what they recommend.

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If you carry out social media marketing, then working with influencers is something you need to seriously consider. When you’re a small brand, it can take months of consistent effort, if not years, to build an audience.

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When you understand your customer, you can better tailor your products and services to their needs. The most reliable way to get to know who your customers are and what they're looking for is to get that information directly from them. But how can you persuade customers to give you the comprehensive, actionable feedback you need? Luckily there are tried-and-true methods for establishing a dialogue with your customers so you can serve them better. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share strategies business owners can use to get concrete feedback from their customer base.

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Onboarding a new employee is an exciting time for any business. While you're eager to get your new team member up and running on their tasks, you also need to ensure they understand the company culture and will mesh with your organization for the long term. That's why we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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Facing adversity can help you grow in ways you never imagined. No one likes to think about facing adversity and hardships. However, everyone must deal with challenging situations at some point in their personal and professional lives, especially in the midst of today's pandemic and social climate. Having a strategy to confront adversity head-on can help you be better prepared when obstacles do pop up. To help, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members for their advice. Below they share their No. 1 tips for overcoming hardships and why doing so can help you grow as a person.

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

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Self-doubt can be debilitating for some individuals. If you're trying to advance your career, the belief that you’re not good enough can quickly put an end to those aspirations. It can make you feel less confident about your abilities, which in turn can make you seem less trustworthy and dependable to others. If you can't believe in yourself, will anyone else? Sadly, self-doubt feeds a negative feedback loop, leading to a spiraling of emotions that may leave you scrambling to find a way out. To help guide you, thirteen experts from Young Entrepreneur Council share some valuable tips on how professionals can seek to conquer self-doubt, and explain why these suggestions can be so practical at helping you overcome this debilitating mental state.

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Programming is highly in demand in today's digital-first world. Try these tools, courses and platforms recommended by business leaders. Today's world is all about technology, which means people who can develop software and applications are in very high demand. However, many companies that need help with development have found there simply aren't enough qualified programmers to go around. Businesses that are in need of programming talent but can't find or don't have the budget to hire top tech candidates often choose to build the skills of their internal team to supplement their needs. Fortunately, there are countless free and low-cost tools, courses and programs that can help teams boost their programming skills. We asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share their top tool recommendations for businesses that want to build programming into their professional development flow.

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A company’s valuation relies on the entire economic value of the whole business unit, taking into account investor agreements on how much the company is worth. Finding the sweet spot of your company’s valuation can make or break someone’s decision to invest in your company entirely.  We asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council their top tips for determining a company’s valuation prior to fundraising proceedings. Here, they explain why these tips are key to raising a successful round of capital and the future valuation of your business. 

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Whether it’s frustration from limitations in their current industry or being shaken by the instability of the job market during COVID-19, many professionals are starting over in their careers, possibly in a new industry entirely.  But pivoting to a new industry isn’t as simple as mixing and matching your current skill set and hoping it fits. It’s important to examine how your current skills and experience apply to the industry you’re ready to dive into.  To help you, we asked 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members to share strategies for how to do this and tips to convince your future employer you’re qualified to make the switch.

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Whether it's hyperfocusing or scatterfocusing, there is more than one way to drive productivity.

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Everyone online shopper has added items to their cart, only to close out of the website before completing the purchase. This behavior has led to an average online cart abandonment rate of 60% to 80% for many e-commerce sites. Whether consumers aren’t a fan of the price or decide to look elsewhere, businesses must figure out why customers are abandoning their purchases so they can address those issues and encourage completion of the sale. That's why we asked 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council how companies can lower their online cart abandonment rate. Read on to learn how you can improve conversions on your e-commerce website.

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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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Blogging is a great way to share information and valuable content with your audience. It also brings a great chance to send potential consumers your way based on your search engine optimization (SEO). Whether it’s through video content or copywriting, blogging can be an essential tool for attracting potential leads and connections to your business. That's why we asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council how to take your blog to the next level and the best way to implement those strategies for maximum effect. Here’s what they recommend.

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New entrepreneurs sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that they can make their hobbies profitable through their business. When you're putting together a company, the first thing you may want to consider is whether you're doing this as a passion or for profit. There are times when these conditions overlap, but it doesn't happen very often. It's far more likely that you'll need to figure out if you want to invest money into a passion project or a business that will support you. Nine entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss what elements a businessperson needs to consider when deciding between passion and profit, and even offer personal examples to highlight these factors.

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Public speaking is a great way to gain exposure for your brand and a reputation for expertise in your field. Events with an audience allow for transparency and vulnerability—two key pieces to success when you're working to build a brand that consumers are eager to engage with. Speaking events also help you show off the core solutions your business has to offer. The pandemic may have slowed in-person conferences and presentations, but it's likely a temporary effect—and there are plenty of virtual opportunities out there right now. We asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council their advice on finding great speaking engagements to build up your brand. Here are their recommendations for tracking down the best opportunities for you.

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Occasionally, a business may require a part-time chief financial officer because their full-time employee has left or transitioned to a new portfolio. A part-time CFO doesn't need to have the same skill set as the original office-holder. However, to be successful in their endeavors on behalf of the company, they need to have a series of qualities making them suitable for the position. CFOs are responsible for the company's economic health and well-being, and these traits are instrumental for them to understand unspoken truths about the business. Below, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council weigh in on the critical qualities that part-time CFOs should demonstrate and why these characteristics are so crucial to the role.

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The holiday season is usually a goldmine of opportunities for product-based businesses that deploy specific marketing strategies to make their offering stand out and be relevant for that time of the year. While service-based businesses typically find it more difficult to capitalize on this season’s business opportunities, there are still several creative strategies they can deploy to make holiday marketing work in their favor. To help, we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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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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With most people working from home and away from their office’s internal server, data security is a pressing concern for employers. Companies and employees must make security a priority and understand how to keep their data safe when they’re working outside of their business’s secure network. To help, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their best advice on how to keep corporate files safe while working from home. Below, 12 of them shared their insights for remote workers and employers.

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With the current corporate focus on remote work, file-sharing and syncing services have become an essential part of the modern office. While some companies have bespoke designed solutions that meet their needs, these can be complicated and clunky to implement, requiring cybersecurity and IT administration input. Luckily, there are several free or accessible options available that small businesses can tap into to help them cope with a remote office's demands. To help, we asked eight entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips for getting things back on track when your business is going through a turbulent period. Every business endures trying times at some point. Your job as a leader is not to prevent every possible issue that might arise, but to properly prepare so you can keep your footing when unexpected challenges inevitably occur. To help you, we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council how leaders can regain order among their team and operations during a chaotic time. Here’s what they recommend, and why it’s so effective.

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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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Using the right tools and tactics can help your customer support team provide the best service. 

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A website can be a critical marketing tool as long as you manage to keep your audience engaged. Marketing can drive traffic to your website in several ways, with video, text, or image content. But once they get there, how do you keep them there? Website analytics uses a metric known as "bounce rate" to figure out how many visitors to the site remain there and how many leave within a few seconds of their visit. And if the bounce rate is high, you can be certain your website isn't engaging enough. To help, we asked nine members of YEC to share their best strategies for making a website more attractive and engaging to incoming visitors and explain why these techniques are so successful. Here’s what they had to say.

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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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Staying motivated as an entrepreneur takes a lot of effort. In several situations, business owners find themselves struggling to point themselves in the right direction, whether in their profession or in their personal life. In both of these cases, your inspiration dictates the drive you have to accomplish your goals. But how do you know when you or someone in your team might need a boost in motivation? What happens when you lose that compass that points to success? Here, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the clear signs that someone might need a motivation boost and discuss the best methods to deal with this lack of direction in business or personal life.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some creative ideas for tech companies that want to leverage more user-generated content. Many businesses have realized that user-generated content (UGC) is a simple and low-cost way to increase online engagement and brand awareness. Strategies for leveraging UGC may seem fairly obvious for businesses with a physical product – it’s easy to share photos of customers wearing an item of clothing or using a product in their home. However, tech companies may need to get a little more creative in how they incorporate content from their users. To help you, we asked 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their insights. Below they shared some effective ways tech companies can leverage user-generated content.

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

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As entrepreneurs, we understand how powerful the classification of personality types can be in recruitment. From Myers-Briggs to Enneagram, the number of ways to gauge a person's innate traits can be measured in a hundred different ways. Several companies use one or more of those personality tests to develop their employees' potentials. As with all approaches, however, there are significant positives and negatives to using personality tests this way. To help us understand the extent to which employers should rely on personality tests to gauge an employee's viability for recruitment or development, we asked 13 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the upcoming technology trends they're most excited about and how they plan to jump on board. No matter what industry you work in, staying on top of the latest tech trends can give your business a competitive edge. By implementing cutting-edge technology, you'll not only streamline your processes, but also differentiate yourself from your competitors. As successful business owners, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council stay on top of the latest business trends, including those in tech. Below, they share 12 big tech trends they’re most excited about and how they plan to leverage them. Follow their recommended steps to take advantage of these trends, too.

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Anyone can find intrinsic motivation in their life.

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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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Young Entrepreneur Council members share some upcoming tech trends they believe will have an important impact on business leaders. The world of technology is evolving faster than ever. With so many new tech trends emerging, it can feel impossible to keep up with them all. However, identifying and investing in the right ones can give your business a competitive advantage and set you up for success. That’s why we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council what tech trends more entrepreneurs should prepare for and what concrete actions they can take to move in the right direction. Their best answers are below.

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When a business advertises for a position, you can be assured that there will be a flood of applications coming in. If you're a young entrepreneur with a small company, you'll be doing most of the application sorting yourself. The first step is determining which applications suit the character, demeanor, and qualifications you're looking for. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time and budget to dedicate to this kind of task. Luckily, there are ways to speed up your sorting process while still allowing the most suitable applications to go through to the in-depth perusal stage. Eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council examine the techniques they use to sort applications when they have limited time and budget.

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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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Members of Yount Entrepreneur Council offer their tips for effectively growing a service-based company. As a service provider, you’re always looking to grow your client base. But service-based businesses can be trickier to scale than a product-based business. It’s not as simple as completing a transaction; service relationships must be nurtured and built over time, and more sales mean more clients to pay attention to. To help you effectively increase your service-based business’s sales, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their advice. Below they shared their best tips for founders who are looking to scale up without sacrificing quality.

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If you're like the hundreds of content marketers out there that have invested in blog content, you want people to read it. If you've been watching your metrics for visits, you might realize that many visitors don't even bother with your blog. Sure, they might follow a social post from your media to your blog, and possibly read a single entry, but they won't engage further than that. So how do you get readers to come back to read about the amazing things you post? These 15 professionals from YEC expound on the methods that work for them to get return visitors and further explain why those techniques are so successful at maintaining user engagement.

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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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Education is a gift that remains relevant, no matter how old you get. Businesses that encourage their employees to experience new things and educate themselves stand to benefit from the new insights their workforce will come up with as a result. The human brain is a remarkable organ that can do amazing things if given the right motivation. Therefore, within organizations, it's the job of leaders to promote learning and growing while the employee remains with the business. Encouraging continued learning and growth is a crucial investment in the innovative capability of the staff. Below, eight associates of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how they promote learning within their organizations and underline the importance of pushing employees to grow.

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When you start a business, one of the first questions you ask yourself if you should be doing this alone, or if you need help. This decision determines whether your company is a solopreneurship or a partnership. Some entrepreneurs work better by themselves, but others realize the benefit of having a partner. In some operations, it's beneficial to have someone you can rely on to share the burden. In the most fortunate cases, you and your partners complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, ensuring a better success rate for your business. To help business leaders who are still on the fence, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council examine the significant factors to explore when deciding whether to take on a business partner.

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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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Online courses can build your customer base and improve your brand image.

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

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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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Being part of a creative team is an exciting job. However, it’s difficult to always be in an innovative, inspired mindset. Often, creatives experience burnout and roadblocks that hinder their performance. To help you stay inspired, we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share some unconventional ways content teams can create fresh content that will engage their audience. Their best answers are below.

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Master these skills to build a great site that drives awareness and dollars to your brand.

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As a small to medium enterprise owner, it can be challenging to find time for anything. Even in your supposed downtime, you invest time into ensuring the company runs smoothly. Work-life balance as an always-busy professional can be hard, if not impossible, to find. When you don't focus on your well-being, both your health as well as your relationships suffer. Being busy is essential for success, but so is knowing when to stake a step back. In such an active lifestyle, however, how does an entrepreneur know how to balance work and pleasure? That’s why we asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

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In today's world, every business knows that consistent, quality content is the key to engaging consumers. Publishing giants like BuzzFeed have mastered the art of drawing people in with engaging headlines and interactive features, and encouraging repeat visitors with well-researched, valuable articles. While the average business likely doesn't have the need or the resources to publish dozens of daily pieces like BuzzFeed, there's value in striving to become a publishing powerhouse that meets consumers' desire for a steady stream of content. That's why we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council what companies can learn from these media conglomerates that garner tens of millions of unique daily visitors. Here are a few publishing lessons and tips they believe business leaders can benefit from.

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When you're negotiating a deal, misinterpreted tone or poorly-chosen words could ruin an otherwise-successful conversation. Sometimes you may not know even which phrases might turn a deal sour. That's why we asked 16 members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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Leadership is a battle for constant improvement. In modern business, there is a particular need for competent leadership. However, leaders don't retain their positions by being complacent. One of the most effective methods of self-reflection is by asking yourself searching questions and answering them truthfully. The catch is that this requires you to be entirely honest with yourself. But what are the questions that would encourage you to be better? What should you ask yourself to develop into a more effective leader? To help, these 13 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council share the questions they ask themselves daily in their bid for self-development.

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Come up with creative ways to repurpose your content and engage your audience.

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The internet of things (IoT) has given consumers and businesses the ability to make their homes and offices "smart." Because IoT devices can communicate and exchange data with one other, they have vast potential for streamlining workflows and making us more efficient. However, with all the data each internet-connected device collects, stores and uses, there's also an inherent security risk. The companies that make IoT products have a responsibility to ensure the security of its users' personal data. That's why we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share some often-overlooked ways IoT companies can make their newest products more secure. Their best insights are below.

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Having a side hustle is a great way to develop a creative outlet outside of your regular career. However, these projects can consume a lot of your time, energy and money. That's why it's important to consider the required commitment and effort – and the potential return – before going all-in on your idea. To help you determine if your side hustle is worth pursuing, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members how an aspiring entrepreneur can test the idea's viability. Ask yourself these 10 questions to find out.

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Getting any business off the ground requires sufficient capital. However, all the financial stress doesn't have to fall on you as the entrepreneur – there are other ways to secure funding for your startup without assuming 100% of the risk yourself. That's why we asked the 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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You don't need to spend a ton of money to build a great business website. A high-quality website can attract customers and give them a positive experience with your company. If you don't have much web design experience, you may be concerned about the cost and time it might take for someone else to build the site for you. Fortunately, there are tons of website building tools that allow you to create your own business website, even if you don't know how to code. Many of these platforms offer plenty of sophisticated features without the hefty price tag, while also being user-friendly. To help you explore your options, we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their favorite low-cost, high-quality website builders. Check out these DIY tools before you outsource the job.

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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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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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It takes time, but allow yourself the opportunity to make meditation a positive part of your daily routine.

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

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

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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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In all walks of life, there will be pitfalls that plague professionals. For an entrepreneur, especially, it may occasionally feel like nothing is working out, no matter what you do. There's a saying that success only comes to those who get back up each time they get knocked down. The problem is that the saying doesn't detail how you get back up from a fall. Some leaders can find themselves falling over and over, and each time the recovery takes more out of them.  Recovering from a fall doesn't have to be such a trying experience, however. Here, 15 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council provide their most effective methods for bouncing back from life's setbacks.

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Entrepreneurs can be so busy in today's business world that they lose sight of themselves. Introspection has an essential place in an entrepreneur's mindset. Understanding one's goals and motivations can help one come to terms with what one wants out of life. The underlying problem that affects leaders that don't delve into self-discovery when they should, is not fully understanding how this exercise can benefit them. Introspection is more than mere navel-gazing. It imparts in-depth knowledge about oneself that can go on to aid a leaders' business interests. Fifteen associates of Young Entrepreneur Council offer insight into how any entrepreneur can make the most of daily reflection or journaling practices.

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As the up-and-coming generation of consumers, Gen Z has become a hot target demographic for many brands. This generation of true digital natives is even more entrenched in the world of technology than the millennials who came before them. Therefore, companies that want to reach them need to go all-in on social media, Gen Z's preferred place to "hang out" online. However, the way Gen Z uses social media is different than older generations, and reaching them can be a challenge. You need a targeted approach that speaks to their values, interests and lifestyles. Here's how 16 members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend connecting with Gen Z-ers on social media.

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If you’re a driven entrepreneur who also wants to make time for family, a home-based online side hustle may seem like a great idea. While this type of work offers more flexibility than a side business you have to run on-location, being at home doesn’t mean it’s easy to find balance. Managing your day job, your side hustle and family – not to mention taking care of yourself – is a lot to handle, but it is possible. Below, eight successful entrepreneurs give their best advice on how to successfully manage this balancing act.

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It takes a lot of mental fortitude for an employee to approach their employer for a raise. There's no playbook for managers and business owners to know how to gauge whether an employee deserves a raise or not. The factors as to whether an employee deserves to earn more can be approached in several different ways. From the addition of value to the support they provide, each plays an integral part in determining whether a raise is warranted. That’s why we asked 10 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

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It isn't possible to always have high self-esteem, but self-acceptance can get you through all of life's vagaries.

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

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By definition, creativity is about pushing boundaries and exploring unusual ideas. 

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

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Part of being a leader is constantly learning.

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A business is built on the reputation it gets through its dealings. Not all the press a company receives will be positive, however. Depending on how the consumers see the business, a company might have mixed reviews on social media. While you might think that positive reviews are the only thing that can aid the company, there are several critical benefits that negative reviews offer as well. Unfortunately, in their haste to do damage control, many small businesses overlook the takeaways contained within these negative comments. To help leaders deal with the inevitable negative feedback that come with running a business, eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the best methods of handling these comments and what lessons can be learned from them.

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A business is built on the reputation it gets through its dealings. Not all the press a company receives will be positive, however. Depending on how the consumers see the business, a company might have mixed reviews on social media. While you might think that positive reviews are the only thing that can aid the company, there are several critical benefits that negative reviews offer as well. Unfortunately, in their haste to do damage control, many small businesses overlook the takeaways contained within these negative comments. To help leaders deal with the inevitable negative feedback that come with running a business, eight contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the best methods of handling these comments and what lessons can be learned from them.

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Personal and business resolutions are easy to make but harder to keep.

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Entrepreneurs have habits that can both aid and hamper their efforts to be better businesspeople. Some practices even seem to be completely harmless but we don’t truly realize how damaging they can be until we make a small change that impacts them and shows how die-reaching its consequences are. Since these are our habits, we're usually biased and lack the correct perspective to appreciate how harmful they may or may not be be. To help entrepreneurs identify their seemingly neutral practices that have negative consequences, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council describe their experiences with "harmless" habits and how they overcame those hurdles themselves.

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It's easy to let the stress of a pending deadline or doubts in yourself impact your ability to get started.

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A leader is someone who takes the initiative and drives the business forward to fulfill its goals. Within a company, leaders are responsible for guiding and inspiring those whose departments they lead. Many leaders get to their positions after years of experience and learning what their jobs entail. Knowledge is only half of the equation, with the other being an innate sense of leadership. If managers can spot this sense early, they may be able to guide those young leaders while they gain the necessary experience. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine the key traits that they look for to identify potential future leaders within the hierarchy of the business.

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Understand and challenge these content marketing myths to take your strategy to the next level.

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Everyone feels down from time to time -- especially when you're dealing with the stress of running a business. Those negative feelings can make you question everything. While it's OK to feel down, the best way to relieve that feeling is to actively seek out positive thoughts. That's why we asked Young Entrepreneur Council members what they do in moments of doubt to help remind them of their potential. Ask yourself the following questions to regain your confidence during a mental or emotional rut.

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As your company grows, managing both company-wide and department goals can become more and more challenging. It can feel like a delicate balancing act -- and if it's not coordinated properly, prioritizing broader company goals could come at the expense of the individual departments. As successful business leaders, the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council have learned how to track their department-specific goals as their companies have grown. That's why we asked a panel of YEC members to share their best tips for monitoring departmental objectives. Here's what they had to say.

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The winter months mean less sunlight, colder temperatures and often, dampened moods. It’s common for people to feel more tired and less motivated in the winter, which can negatively impact work performance. However, a winter slump is not inevitable -- it may require a bit of extra effort, but you and your teams can stay just as motivated during those colder months. To help you out this winter, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share how they raise spirits in the workplace throughout the season. Follow their recommendations to keep your team feeling productive until spring arrives again.

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Incorporate interactivity into your content calendar to enrich the customer experience.

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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.

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Risk is often inherent in business, especially when you’re running your own. However, there are steps you can take to manage that risk. As highly successful entrepreneurs in their industries, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have learned a lot about effectively mitigating risk and minimizing its impact on their businesses. We asked them to share some practical tips for new business owners who are also new to risk management. Read on for their best answers.

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Office culture doesn't stagnate, and there will always be a constant change around how a business operates. Instituting new office procedures and policies as the company culture changes may mean taking some chances. Not all new plans are guaranteed to succeed, and some of them require considerable risk on behalf of the company. If a business isn't sure if a policy or proposal will turn out positively, then its implementation should be weighed carefully. Failure of the policy might mean severe drawbacks to the business as a whole. For entrepreneurs who are looking at instituting new policies, such as, for instance, allowing pets at the office, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council examine the core considerations companies should make when evaluating the viability of implementation.

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Focusing your marketing strategy on your community builds the foundation of a strong brand.

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

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In the age of social media, a controversy -- and a potential public relations crisis -- is always lurking. It's impossible to completely avoid controversial issues and conversations if your business is on social media, but knowing how to handle them with grace and professionalism can save you from landing your brand in hot water. To help you, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

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The world has been enamored with the use of virtual reality ever since the movie “Tron” came out in the 80s. Today's VR is a bit different from the fancy world of the silver screen, but the technology has a lot of practical uses. Simulation technology has improved drastically since its initial creation. Virtual reality is the next logical step in making simulation resemble the world around us. As VR is already being used in business for training and gaming for immersion, we asked 12 contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council to share the coolest application of virtual reality they had ever encountered. Here's what they had to say:

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By showing your audience that your products have a vocal and satisfied user base, you’ll see increased engagement, traffic and conversions. 

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Influencers play a crucial role in consumer buying decisions, and you have the opportunity to harness that power.

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Internet security is a big concern for business owners and their customers, but you can take steps to stop hackers in their tracks.

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It’s safe to say that the recent emergence of AI in marketing is just the beginning.

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Mastering video is well worth the effort to reach consumers.

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Online customer interactions have largely taken the place of face-to-face ones.

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When workers care about what they do, they are more likely to stay with a company and deliver an excellent customer experience because they are happy to be there and engaged in the company culture and values.

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Automation has made customer personalization one of the most important tools in a marketer’s tool belt.