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As a manager, you likely have a long list of responsibilities and many demands on your time. This may leave you with little time for unplanned meetings or additional questions from your team members, let alone time to complete your own work. Regardless of your workload, though, it’s vital to make yourself available to your employees. It not only ensures that everyone is able to carry out their daily tasks efficiently, but it also builds confidence and trust between you and your team members. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share 10 ways you can make yourself available to your team, no matter how busy you are.

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Leading a business can be like a roller coaster: There will always be ups and downs. No matter how smoothly things run most of the time, the occasional problem is inevitable, and when one pops up, your team will turn to you for guidance. Rather than panicking during a company crisis, leaders should have a plan for addressing the issue quickly and transparently. To help you create a plan of action, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members how they recommend moving forward in such instances. Below they shared nine strategic approaches you can take to handle a crisis with competence and calmness.

expert panel

Business plans are more than just documents outlining your steps to launching and growing your startup. This plan acts as a map throughout the entire process, and helps you figure out what to do when you face roadblocks or wrong turns. While a business plan isn't required to start a business, it can be helpful in guiding you in the right direction and even securing proper funding for your business. However, writing a business plan is no easy task. To help you get started, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best tips and tricks.

expert panel

When you spend time in the business leadership world, you start to hear a lot of cliché phrases and vague terms that other managers frequently use. Sometimes they use them sound smart; other times they're not sure of a better alternative. Either way, these overused words begin to sound like jargon over time, and may lose their meaning when you're communicating with your staff. We asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council to each share one word leaders often use, but shouldn't. Here are some key words and phrases to avoid as a manager, along with a few suggested terms to use instead.

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It's often said that a happy employee is a motivated, productive one. If your team members are feeling good about themselves and their work, they’ll bring that positive energy into everything they do. That's why it's so important to keep a close eye on your overall team morale. We polled a group of Young Entrepreneur Council members to find out how they keep tabs on the general sentiment among their team members. Below, nine of them share their best and most effective approach.

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Customer service is vital to any organization, and investing in it can make all the difference in attracting and retaining clients. But the true return on those customer service investments -- whether you're hiring and training staff or increasing your support channels -- can be hard to quantify with a single number. While data isn’t everything, you’ll need some figures to determine the success of your investment and the next steps to take. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share 10 ways you can make your customer service ROI figures measurable and impactful.

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At times it can be difficult to turn off our emotions -- especially when it comes to separating personal feelings and work. While it’s perfectly normal to have negative feelings in the face of difficult work situations, wallowing in these emotions for too long can affect your job performance as well as your overall well-being. Whether you’re dealing with low confidence, adversity or rejection, building a thicker skin can help you make it through whatever professional challenges you're facing. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some tips to help you brush off feelings of negativity and press onward.

expert panel

Effective teamwork is important to any business, but not everyone will be on the same page 100% of the time. Disagreements, big or small, seem to be inevitable when working with others – but that doesn’t mean your team is doomed. It is possible to work through a dispute and move forward as a team, with better understanding than before. We asked eight successful entrepreneurs to share their best approaches for handling disagreements with colleagues. Follow their advice the next time you and your colleagues seem to be butting heads.

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Define what great customer service means for your company.

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Make a positive impact from beginning to end.

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How can you reduce waste and increase your bottom line?

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Look for a company that shares your values and mission above all else.