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The holidays is a special time of year which often reminds everyone to feel thankful for what they have and for what others do for them. This is even true in the workplace, where employers, managers and colleagues alike share their gratitude for their teams and peers and all the hard work they put in each and every day. However, gratitude doesn’t have to be reserved for a particular time of year. In fact, in order to keep morale high and relationships strong, professionals may find it beneficial to show their gratitude all year long. To help you find ways to do so, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the steps professionals can take to be thankful each day, no matter the time, and why it’s so important to do so.

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Speaking at events can be a great way to build thought leadership and promote your brand. But when you’re new to the business game, or even just the thought leadership space, knowing how to find, narrow down and sign up for these events can seem a little overwhelming at first. The pressure of not knowing where to begin may even prevent you from getting started at all. But finding the perfect speaking event for you doesn’t have to be an arduous task. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each offer their best piece of advice for finding great speaking engagements and explain why these tips can set you up for success as a new thought leader.

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Many aspiring entrepreneurs seek to get into business because they're passionate about their idea. However, strong passion for an idea may not always be enough to ensure profitability, and in order to succeed long term in the business world, making enough money to both survive and thrive is vital.  But for those not willing to compromise their idea for another they’re less passionate about, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have a few tips. Below, they each share one piece of advice they would give an aspiring entrepreneur for ensuring their passion will also be profitable and why you don’t necessarily have to give up your dream to make more money.

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Both social media and the internet as a whole are ever-changing digital landscapes—and that means the companies that advertise on them must advance alongside them. With new platforms, changing regulations and evolving user preferences, advertising is likely to experience a few changes in the coming new year—but to what extent? While no one is certain what changes will take place, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their predictions for the future of advertising below, and explain why 2023 could be the year these new trends will start to take shape.

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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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Whether it’s to make a purchase, fill out a form or sign up for a list, the natural purpose of any business website is to get visitors to convert. When first starting out, entrepreneurs may focus more on the logistics of their website—ensuring each page works properly and that it is designed to meet brand standards—but in the process, they may forget to think about action steps for potential customers. However, if entrepreneurs want to boost sales or generate leads, they’ll want to optimize their digital strategy for conversions. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best tips for increasing conversions and explain why their advice is so effective.

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Businesses are made up of a lot of moving parts, so running one can often be a complex endeavor. Without a plan or a strategy for keeping all these moving parts in line, it can be easy to fall into stress, overwhelm and a general sense of unhappiness during your workday. For the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, figuring out what methods work for them has been an ongoing process. Here, they each discuss one specific strategy they’ve found works well for simplifying their day and allowing them to tackle their duties without added stress and overwhelm.

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Whether they intend to promote them internally or simply want what's best for their careers, many business leaders make it a priority to develop their employees into leaders themselves. Doing so not only helps ensure the company has high-quality talent to run it, but it also ensures employee happiness as they see their leader caring for their personal and professional development. If you’re a leader looking to undertake this journey, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they each recommend one specific, actionable step employers can take now to help develop their employees into future business leaders and well-rounded employees.

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Many people dream of becoming entrepreneurs, but not everyone knows how to get there. What steps should you take? What skills should you learn? The path to entrepreneurship is rarely easy, but getting started on the right foot can help you succeed along the way. For those ready to take the leap into business ownership, leveraging your downtime will be key to making progress toward your goal. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights with aspiring entrepreneurs and explain what they should be doing in their downtime now to prepare to start their entrepreneurial journeys.

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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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Sharing bad news with your company's employees or stakeholders is never easy, especially when the bad news may directly affect them. Because of this, it's important to strike the right balance between remaining calm and professional while delivering the news in an empathetic manner. To further help you through this situation, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answered the following question:

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When you're a solopreneur, it can be difficult to find time to both run your business and market it on social media. However, if you want word to spread and your customer base to grow, building a presence on social media is a key way to achieve that goal.  As entrepreneurs themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council understand that business is a juggling act—especially as a one-person show. Below, they share their best tips for actively growing your social media presence while also running the other parts of your business and why these tips will help you succeed at both.

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Despite female entrepreneurship trending upward—especially in recent years—on a global scale, male entrepreneurs still outnumber their female counterparts three to one. Statistics like this one, paired with feelings of doubt and a sense of imposter syndrome any aspiring entrepreneur is sure to feel when starting out, can often leave young female entrepreneurs with one or more limiting beliefs that can hold them back from accomplishing everything they’re capable of. However, according to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, the following seven beliefs are unfounded and wrong, and below they share why a change in mindset can set you on a better path toward success and give you the boost of confidence you’ll need to thrive as an entrepreneur.

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Tech startups have a reputation for being innovative, scrappy and constantly evolving to get ahead of the competition. However, these qualities aren't just useful in the technology industry. Companies in any sector can apply the "tech startup mentality" to their operations and keep improving. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one aspect of this mentality that can be applied to any business. Here's why they believe all companies can benefit from adopting these traits.

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An advisory board can be a helpful resource for a business at any stage of growth. Whether you're launching a brand-new startup or looking to exit after a period of successful growth, getting advice from experienced leaders in your industry can help you reach your goals in the most efficient and well-planned way. If you've never built a board of advisors before, it can be challenging to identify the right members to bring on. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one essential trait of a quality board advisor and why this trait makes them an excellent asset for your business.

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While some people may be naturally inclined toward leadership roles, no one is born a perfect leader. The ability to inspire, motivate and guide a team of people is built up over time, and no matter how many managerial positions someone has held, there's always more to learn. Often, your day-to-day interactions can be a source of inspiration for improving your leadership skills. Here, 12 Young Entrepreneur Council members share the inspirations in their daily lives that encourage them to be better leaders.

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With so many companies competing for consumers' attention on social media, creating compelling, unique advertising campaigns is a great way to stand out. On Facebook in particular, there are a few key strategies that can help you target your audience effectively. As successful business leaders, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have extensive experience developing and executing successful Facebook ad campaigns. Below, nine of them each share what they believe is the most important element of a great Facebook ad campaign and why it's so effective at capturing users' attention.

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One of the biggest challenges of getting a new business off the ground is gaining traction in your target market. Building awareness requires an effective public relations strategy that can create a steady stream of positive news about your company. When you're on a small startup budget, you may not have the immediate resources necessary to hire a PR firm. Fortunately, there are some simple strategies you can employ to drum up publicity yourself. Here are 10 ways to encourage positive press for your business, as recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council.

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When it comes to social media marketing, much of it can be done on a limited budget—or sometimes even for free. It costs nothing to create an account and start posting, but there are other aspects of social media that will likely require an investment. And whether you’re working with limited funds or you have a much broader budget at your disposal, choosing the right areas of social media marketing to dedicate the bulk of your budget to can help ensure you’re set on a path toward success. In order to narrow down which areas you believe deserve the most attention, consider the following recommendations by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, they share 10 areas of social media marketing they believe deserve the bulk of your budget and why.

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In an age when more and more businesses are moving to or being created online, one advantage brick-and-mortars have over online stores is their ability to create in-person experiences and atmospheres that can surprise and delight their customers. Experiences rife with human connection and sensory enjoyment simply aren’t able to be duplicated in the online space in the same way. The key to creating those moments, according to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, is playing to your store’s strengths. Below, they share specific strategies you can use to awe your customers and give them a truly memorable in-store experience.

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As with many aspects of business, implementing a new digital marketing strategy can sometimes feel like a risky endeavor. When you’re new or have limited experience in business ownership, testing out new tactics and investing money in projects and initiatives that may or may not fail can feel like a waste of money and resources. And while there’s no way to ever fully guarantee a strategy will work, there are some steps you can take to help ensure you obtain a return on your investment. Here, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insights on those steps and explain why they find them so beneficial.

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While you may have started your company blog with a wealth of original, valuable content ideas, after a particular length of time in business, you may find your creativity lacking and your blog content suffering with the same old topics and ideas. With so much content already out there on the internet, it can be difficult to constantly generate new ideas that your audience will be interested in reading. But according to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, there are a number of ways you can revitalize stale blog content. Below, they discuss these strategies and share their advice for giving your blog content a much-needed creative boost.

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While nearly every role has some degree of creativity involved in its duties, heavily creative roles such as those in social media content creation, marketing, video production, copywriting and more naturally require a different skill set from those roles that may rely more on logical or analytical thinking. When hiring for these roles, then, employers will be basing their decisions on a different list of desired traits and skills. So what exactly should aspiring creatives be focusing on improving or highlighting on their resumes? Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share nine skills and traits they look for when hiring for a creative role and why a candidate who possesses them is so appealing.

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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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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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Live video is in high demand among social media audiences, but developing content that truly captivates people requires the right strategy. On nearly every major social media platform, live video has proven to be an effective way to draw in new audiences and boost engagement. However, creating good live video content can be a real challenge. Your audience will be responding in real time and you need to make sure that the content you've prepared is polished enough for a live stream. The content also needs to be engaging enough to keep your audience watching. If you're looking to incorporate live video content into your marketing strategy, follow these tips from a group of successful entrepreneurs. Their secrets to success will help you develop content people actually want to watch (while also boosting your sales).

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Entrepreneurship can be an incredibly rewarding endeavor, and many professionals one day hope for the opportunity to start their own business and live their passion. However, the entrepreneurial lifestyle isn’t for everyone. For many, it comes with long hours, missed activities and stressful judgment calls. But if you want to succeed, there are a number of small changes you can make that can have a major impact on your overall fulfillment and happiness. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the simple yet powerful changes they’ve made to their lifestyles since becoming entrepreneurs in order to be more successful, more fulfilled leaders, and how it’s had a positive effect on their lives.

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Negotiating your salary—especially when you haven’t officially gotten the job—can be a frightening prospect. Obstacles like imposter syndrome or inexperience can make you feel as though you should just accept the company’s original offer and move on, but it’s important to know your worth and to advocate for yourself if you believe you deserve a higher salary. However, even if you build up the confidence to negotiate, knowing exactly what to say—or what not to say—is yet another obstacle to overcome. To help, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one thing you should never do if you want to successfully negotiate your salary, and why doing them might actually hurt your efforts from the start.

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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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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer tips that first-time founders might forget to think about. Planning the nuts and bolts of your business is a key first step to starting off with the best chance at success. Determining what the product or service will be, what to name the business, whether it’ll be strictly e-commerce or a brick-and-mortar store and many other considerations are all at the top of the to-do list for new entrepreneurs. Other aspects of launching a business may fly under the radar, however. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members lists some unheralded aspects of starting a business that first-time entrepreneurs may not be planning for and why they should if they want their businesses to thrive now and in the future.

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When your company has a small team but a growing amount of work, it can be easy to let overwhelm set in. While a big boom of business is often a positive sign of success, it can sometimes feel like a negative side effect when your team isn’t able to handle all the new work that’s coming in.  When you’re a company leader, it’s important to set the tone for your team and to give direction and guidance for how to proceed during such an exciting yet stressful time for the company. To help ensure your small team doesn’t feel overwhelmed, consider the following advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Below, they share their thoughts on what you can do as a leader to help your team conquer their workload and achieve success moving forward.

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One-on-one meetings can be powerful opportunities for employees and managers to connect on goals, reassess tasks and brainstorm ideas, but they can also turn into wasted time if not leveraged properly. If there’s no agenda to follow or neither party is sure what to discuss, the meeting may end early and without any real progress made. By asking the right questions, however, managers can gain better insights from their team members, discovering what truly motivates them and what’s holding them back from achieving their goals. To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council share some of the questions they like to ask during one-on-one meetings and why they think these questions help improve the quality of their conversations.

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Employees are searching for employers who take an interest in their career trajectory and genuinely care about their future with the company. If an employee doesn't believe they're truly valued, they may choose to find an employer who does value them, which is why it's so important for businesses to focus on professional development. Employers hoping to retain employees and leverage overall team happiness must work with their staff to develop well-planned pathways for their time at the company. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some effective strategies for leaders who want to create clear, realistic and meaningful career paths for their teams.

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It's often said that “the devil is in the details”—and getting them wrong could mean the difference between a successful and unsuccessful project. If you’re working on a major project requiring attention to fine details, it’s important to keep your team organized and to have a plan in place. You may also benefit from prioritizing certain tasks and holding team members accountable throughout the project's life cycle. To help you maintain organization during a complex project, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain some key strategies for keeping your team on the right track.

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Whether your business is still just an idea or you're in the research phase, it's never too early to think about determining market need. It's essential to figure out what consumers need from your product and pinpoint a target audience. However, there are many ways to effectively determine market need for your particular product or service. To help you do this, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain some specific strategies for uncovering the need for your idea. Follow their recommended tips to complete this essential part of your business research.

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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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With quotas to reach and profits to gain, it can be easy for a sales team to zero in on a "transaction now" mentality regarding consumer relationships. While this mentality makes for quick sales and easy wins, it can leave customers with a bad taste in their mouths. Building strong consumer relationships promotes customer loyalty and allows them to share their satisfaction with other potential consumers. So, to help transition your sales staff away from a transactional mentality to one centered around building consumer relationships, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best tips below.

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An effective sales strategy involves a precise plan explicitly crafted to sell products and meet consumer demand. When planning an optimized sales strategy with your team, it's essential to reach for a well-balanced option that satisfies your consumers while driving profit. When developing your sales approach, it's important to consider both new leads and the loyal customers or clients who have helped get you where you are. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their advice for developing an effective strategy that addresses both audiences.

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Even the most confident professionals have days where they might be feeling a little low or down on their game. Whether you wake up feeling on top of the world or a little less than confident, it's helpful to have a daily affirmation to remind yourself how special and important you really are.  Affirmations can be incredibly useful for building confidence and self-esteem. Below, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their favorite daily affirmations and discuss how they might help other professionals' attitudes or mindsets at work.

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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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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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There are many crises that a company can face during its lifetime, and they happen for many different reasons. Whether it's a financial crisis, an economic crisis, an environmental crisis or any other type of crisis, it's important for business leaders to have a plan in place to manage the situation quickly. If well thought-out, a business leader's first step when faced with a company crisis can set the course for an effective solution. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss the first steps a business leader should take when faced with a company crisis and why they should take them.

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Marketing is both an art and a science. It requires acute attention to detail, in-depth analysis, an understanding of mass psychology and a level of creative thinking that not many people possess. There are, however, several things that the best marketers all have in common. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss these things and explain how they make marketers so good at their jobs.

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With so many electronic devices and social media platforms, it's easier than ever before for even the most focused and organized of professionals to get distracted from the task at hand. Combine that with the fact that work-from-home and hybrid work models have become popular for many companies, and it should really come as no surprise that people are having a hard time focusing. However, with a little discipline and a few routine changes, there are some effective ways to banish procrastination, minimize multitasking and achieve focus during your workday. To that end, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their insights on the following question:

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council recommend apps and software that can help improve your social media marketing strategies. With so many companies using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and even TikTok, getting noticed and keeping up with the time-consuming demands of a social media marketing strategy means taking your social media game to the next level. Whether it’s saving your team time on the back end or streamlining your content creation efforts, there are a multitude of ways you can improve your current strategy. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council experts recommends the top software for leveling up your social media.

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If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur trying to level up your skill set—or even a seasoned entrepreneur looking to learn something new—you’re bound to come across a wealth of information about your industry and business and leadership in general. Whether it’s in the form of books, podcasts, articles, videos or any other medium, it can be a lot to sift through, and determining what content (and what format) to focus on can be challenging for those who are unsure where to start. So how do you determine what’s worth your time and effort to consume in order to keep up with your skills and knowledge in your industry? Below, six members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their tips for how to narrow down the list and determine what content is right for you.

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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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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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Good customer service teams can help maintain healthy customer relationships and build back any trust that may have been lost due to a poor experience. Conversely, a bad support team can have the opposite effect, leaving customers feeling like their money could have been better spent elsewhere. Properly training customer service teams to handle the myriad of issues that can occur will help customers maintain a favorable opinion of your company and keep them coming back again and again. To help you do this, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members share the best advice a leader can impart to their staff while training on one of the more popular modes of customer support—live chat.

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It can be easy to assume that a sign of being a great leader is having all the answers; however, often the opposite is true. No leader knows everything, but great leaders are always willing to learn and grow in their knowledge, and often have ways of finding the answers they need.  As successful leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council understand these points, as well as how hard it can be to admit when you don’t know something as an entrepreneur. Below, they share their insights on how you can respond to someone when asked a question you don’t know the answer to and why these are the best responses you can give.

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Many aspiring entrepreneurs start their businesses as "side hustles" so they can keep a steady income from their day jobs while still working on what inspires them. Still, they may dream of the day when that side hustle can become their main hustle. To ensure the growth you need to take your business full time, there are a few things you can start doing now, even while only working on it part time. Below, Young Entrepreneur Council experts each share one thing you can do right now to turn your business dream into a reality in the not-too-distant future.

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Companies with a 5-star rating have earned their stellar reputation by delivering a superior product or service and following best practices for customer service. Today's consumers typically do a lot of online research before deciding to engage with a company's product or service. Part of this research may entail reading reviews from other customers to see what kind of star rating the business has received.  Companies with a 5-star rating have a clear leg up in this scenario because previous customers trusted their business enough to tell other consumers about their stellar experience. But becoming a 5-star company doesn't just happen overnight -- it takes consistent effort and a commitment to the best customer service practices. Below, a group of successful entrepreneurs shared some key practices these top-rated companies follow and how you can replicate them in your own business.

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Members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss website elements that could help boost customer engagement and overall sales. Often, when entrepreneurs think of trying to boost customer engagement and sales, they start brainstorming marketing campaigns they could run or different social media techniques they could implement to get customers more interested in their business. Not as much thought is given to the business’s website as a way to increase engagement, however. More than just the place of transaction, a business website can serve as an information hub, a community and a place customers will want to return to again and again — all with the right design. To help get you started, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council each discuss one website design element you’ll want to consider in order to increase your business’s sales and engagement.

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Trust is key for any relationship to be successful, and this is especially true for manager-employee relationships. Managers rely on their employees to carry out the daily tasks necessary for the success of their business. Employees rely on their managers for guidance, support and leadership.  But in order for trust to be built, both managers and employees need to put in the work. This can be more difficult for managers who work remotely or who have to split their time between so many different people and tasks. To help you work on building trust with your team, these tips from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council are a great starting point.

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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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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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There are many people out there with dreams of entrepreneurship. They likely have several business ideas, and they may even be able to develop clear visions for what those businesses will eventually look like. However, when it comes to turning those ideas into reality, they’re not sure where to begin or what steps to take to get there. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur who falls into this category, there are a few different paths you can take to get started. Below, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their thoughts on the steps you should take to turn your idea into a fully realized business and how those steps will help your new business get up and running successfully.

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When you're just starting out as an entrepreneur, you may have big growth aspirations. However, it takes a lot of work to get there: According to the Small Business Administration, only about half of small businesses with employees make it to the five-year mark. To survive those critical early years of your startup, it's important to keep your skills sharp and seek assistance from others when needed. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each discuss one resource that helped them as an up-and-coming entrepreneur and the difference it made in their future endeavors.

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With technologies, knowledge and events constantly advancing, consumer values and behaviors naturally shift over time as well. In order to keep pace, businesses small and large must evolve alongside their audiences if they want to ensure they don’t become irrelevant in the market. But how can business leaders predict or discern what their customers will do or think next? Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council experts offer their advice on what entrepreneurs can do to keep up with customer behaviors and opinions and ensure their brands are shifting to meet changing needs.

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Many employees are intimidated by salary negotiation, especially if they don’t have any prior experience with it. However, managers are more open to negotiation than you might think. In fact, 75% of managers expect to negotiate when making a job offer; however, workers often don’t take them up on the opportunity. To help professionals who have never done this before, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared salary negotiation insights from an employer’s perspective. They offered tips for successfully asking for a higher salary and shared how these strategies have worked in the real world.

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Overcoming a creative block can seem impossible at times, but with the right strategies, you can unlock more of your potential. When you’re a creative person, it’s normal to experience blocks where you feel as though you aren’t original or innovative enough. Many people experience this same lack of confidence when they don’t believe in their skills; however, knowing how to move past these blocks is critical.  For entrepreneurs in particular, a creative block can be a major barrier that hinders their ability to produce results. Below, a group of successful business leaders share their best advice for unlocking true creativity. They share examples that have worked for them and explain how they can help any business owner get past their blocks to unleash their creative side.

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Building positive client relationships is the key to the success for any business. However, when you run your business from home, the way you go about building these relationships may look a bit different than it would for a more established organization or in-office environment. While it may take some adjusting for maximum effectiveness, it is possible to build positive client relationships while working from home. Here, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their best tips for doing so.

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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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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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When you need to cut costs in your business, it's difficult to know where to begin, especially if you have employees who rely on your business's success. However, there are a few good ways to get started on getting your business finances back on track. To help you choose the best path, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) weigh in on the following question:

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Social media is a critical tool for a small business’s marketing efforts. With the number of social media users projected to grow to 4.4 billion by 2025, there are numerous opportunities to get your small business in front of your potential customers. However, it’s important to know how to stand out from the competition.  To help, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) each offered their best advice on the following topic:

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Launching a new company often involves a lot of moving parts and a number of different hats an entrepreneur must wear in order to get the business off the ground. With so many tasks that need to get done, new entrepreneurs can be left feeling overwhelmed with a mounting to-do list and no sense of direction for what needs to be prioritized first. Is it sales? Social media? Designing the right logo? Building a website? The members of Young Entrepreneur Council suggest the answer may not be what you expect. Below, they list out eight of the tasks you should be spending more of your time on as you’re launching your business and explain why those tasks are so key to your future success as a business owner.

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Email marketing is an essential component of any strong marketing strategy. This form of marketing gives businesses the chance to convert their audience members into long-time customers and provide value in a convenient way. Whether you're just starting out with email marketing or have been utilizing it for years, it's a good idea to assess your strategy to see what's working well for your business and what may be hurting your overall efforts. To help you do this, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared some common email marketing mistakes they often see companies make and what you can do instead.

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In recent years, automation has become a common tech solution for many aspects of business operations, from marketing to data analytics and reporting. Automating monotonous and repetitive tasks gives you and your team that chance to focus on other duties in need of your undivided attention. Business automation is also a tool you can leverage to scale your company and promote growth. Not sure where to begin when it comes to using automation effectively? Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members each recommended one task entrepreneurs should automate within their businesses to free up time and help them scale.