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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how to build a company culture that can successfully handle any issue, mistake or challenge that arises. Businesses thrive when leaders and their teams are able to quickly pivot and change direction when necessary. Trends change frequently and problems often arise unexpectedly, and when this happens, successful companies make the changes needed to rise above the challenge. Not everyone is naturally adaptable, though, so leaders must cultivate adaptability within themselves and within their teams to achieve their goals. Below, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council members share some practical ways leaders can help build cultures of adaptability for their own companies.

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No matter if working with a team is part of your daily routine or if it’s something you only need to do for special assignments, it's important to understand how to maintain creativity when working together. With a variety of minds and personalities working together, creative thought should flourish—but there are a few factors that can sabotage it if everyone isn’t careful. In order to avoid these factors, however, first you must identify them. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss these sabotaging factors and what teams and their leaders can do to prevent them.

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One of your most basic responsibilities as a leader is to provide your team with constructive feedback. Without feedback, employees don’t have a solid direction for moving forward, which can result in repeat mistakes and even low morale. As with any difficult conversation, the key to communicating feedback is ensuring your message and guidance are clearly understood while also being empathetic to the receiver. To that end, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share how to effectively provide feedback.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights on what it takes to stay happy as a business owner. Owning a business can be a trying journey. If you’re in it for the long haul, you may find your passion or motivation — or maybe both — waning over time. With the stress of running and scaling the business, plus dedicating the time necessary to develop your skills as an employer and industry leader, you can too easily let your own happiness and fulfillment take a back seat to the success of the company. As business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council understand the stressors of entrepreneurship, but they also know what it takes to thrive despite them. Below, they share some of the secrets to staying happy and fulfilled as an entrepreneur and why doing so is important.

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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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Self-doubt is common among entrepreneurs. When business owners are overcome with these doubts, it can hold them back from achieving their goals and reaching their full potential. Thankfully, there are ways to work through these limiting beliefs and develop a more secure mindset -- and it often begins with learning from other entrepreneurs who have endured those same struggles. To help reframe your current way of thinking, a group of successful leaders discussed some limiting beliefs many entrepreneurs have and how you can overcome them.

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For many people faced with an unpleasant assignment, procrastination provides a welcome escape. While putting off the work might be comforting in the short term, however, it inevitably results in more stress and frustration down the line.  As an entrepreneur, you’ll likely come across many tasks you’d rather not do, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed, burned out or are just having a busy day. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members discuss the challenges of facing particularly daunting assignments and share their tips for tackling even the most dreaded tasks.

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Anyone can create a website, and every business needs one. However, creating a website that actually turns a profit can be a challenge.  From design and ease of use to your marketing message, there are many elements to consider and organize in order to make your website profitable. Below, 12 members of YEC weigh in with their best pieces of advice to help business leaders create more profitable websites.

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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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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 a new business owner sets up their first company social media accounts, they may not be aware of how intentional they actually need to be with their social media strategy. While on the surface social media marketing may seem simple, it actually involves a lot of careful consideration and complex methods that businesses will want to follow in order to be successful. Once you understand the intricacies of social media marketing, however, it becomes easier to share content that keeps your target audience engaged. Staying on top of the game requires constant observation, analysis and tweaking of strategies, so below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared the most common mistakes they've noticed new businesses making on social media and how to fix them.

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No employee is immune to burnout—not even your "A" players—and especially not during trying times. As an employer, you may sometimes notice that the employees who are always on their game have been reaching a point of exhaustion. Some employees may even seem bored with their work and like they are craving something new. If your top performers need a little extra motivation, try these tips recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, nine of them give their best advice to employers who want to reverse team burnout and get their staff back on track.

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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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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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It’s important for leaders to know that, when it comes to teams, just because the weekly team meetings are quiet or the suggestion box hasn’t seen a valid recommendation or criticism in a while, doesn’t mean no one has anything to say. In fact, more often than not, employees have thoughts, suggestions and criticisms to offer, but they don’t share because they’re not sure how their leaders will respond if they do. Listening to your employees and their ideas is a powerful and important way to help your business grow and progress, so how can you get them to speak up? To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council provide tips on how to encourage employees to share their ideas at work.

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Gauging how happy and fulfilled employees are in their jobs is important for small business leaders to do in order to determine the health and strength of their businesses. The more satisfied employees are, the more likely they'll stay with the company long term and the higher their productivity will be. But how can you know if your staff is enjoying their work, especially when they may not feel comfortable expressing their true feelings with their superiors? To help, 10 small business experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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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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Search engine optimization is a prominent concern for marketers across all industries and for any business with an online presence. Having good SEO habits is likely to get your website ranked on search engines above your competitors. However, poor SEO habits likely won’t produce the results you’re looking for and can potentially lead to your site getting heavily penalized. To help you cultivate acceptable SEO practices, 13 professionals from YEC discuss several examples of poor SEO habits they've run into and explain why these habits could have a severely negative impact on your marketing.

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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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Business partnerships can be valuable tools to help business leaders dissipate risk, share ideas and earn more money. However, some entrepreneurs only see the benefits and don’t stop to think through all the details of a partnership before they decide to set it up. There are some elements that should require a bit more consideration. Below, nine experts from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss what they believe business owners should be thinking about when considering setting up a partnership and why these points can be key to its potential success (or potential failure).

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Good web design can make or break a modern business. If your website is smooth and easy to navigate, it will attract more users and is a vote of confidence for your organization. A poorly designed site can have the opposite effect, turning users away no matter how good the product is. Below, 12 members of YEC shared what they believe is the most important design element to incorporate into your company’s homepage to increase traffic. Try out their recommendations to start bringing in more website visitors.

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

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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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Because they often have very limited resources, small businesses have to be intentional about the tools they use. They don’t have the luxury of testing out and paying for expensive software and systems they ultimately may not keep, so it’s important that their chosen solutions are budget-friendly and effective from the start. For these reasons, cloud computing and storage can provide some major benefits for these businesses. With free or low-cost pricing plans available, companies can take advantage of cloud technology to grow their businesses like never before, which is why these eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council offered some specific and impactful ways that cloud technology can be used by small and medium companies to fuel growth.

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Staying tuned in to the pulse of your industry is key to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Public groups, online forums and the like are among the most valuable resources for gathering and contributing industry information. But if someone is looking for in-depth insight into their business niche, locating the right groups where this discussion occurs is the first step. To help you find them, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) respond to the following question:

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When an entrepreneur starts a business, the immediate concern is how much it will cost to set up. Cost can sometimes seem like a barrier to entry for those hopeful business owners looking to get started on a budget. Luckily, evolving tech has provided many free alternatives to the paid tools other professionals use. But with so many of these tools on the market, you could spend months sorting through them to find the ones that work best for you and your business. To help you narrow down the list, 15 leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best suggestions for free tools that solopreneurs can use to help keep startup costs down.

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

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

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As machine learning becomes more prevalent in business, it has the potential to affect a company’s day-to-day interactions with its customers, whether positively or negatively. Many businesses have already invested heavily in machine learning and have found great success. However, new tech can always be intimidating, scary or potentially difficult to implement. Below, eight leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council attempt to quell some of those fears by discussing the merits of machine learning and how they see it affecting their own daily interactions with customers. These are just a few things machine learning can do to help take your business to the next level.

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During the interview process, there are some red flags that will be immediately apparent to an employer. Unfortunately, there are also a few of them that may slip by unnoticed, and it's only after the hire starts working that the company realizes they may have made an error. These post-hire red flags aren't the end of the world, though. By approaching the issue proactively and identifying the best way to mitigate any potential damage it may cause, this type of situation can usually be easily rectified. To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the red flags that companies may not notice until later and how business leaders can properly respond to them.

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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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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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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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No business’s recruiting process is the same, largely because of the fact different organizations look for different things in their candidates. Each company has a particular skill or set of abilities it values above others. However, even though individual industries value different things, some skills transcend the boundaries of field and discipline. When hiring employees, businesses would do well to focus on these essential skills as the dividing factor to separate the candidates that will distinguish themselves from everyone else. But what are these vital abilities? Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council explore some of the critical skills all employees should have, regardless of industry, and explain why these traits are so important.

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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.

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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 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: