EO & YPO Partnership

Considering EO or YPO?

Membership in the Chicago YPO chapter requires that your business have annual revenues of at least $26M. Many EO members are not yet at this stage with their companies, but have at least $1M in revenues and are looking to grow.

EO and YPO have partnered to provide EO members with access to a mentor through YPO Gold. This provides potentially life-changing and business-transforming insight from a person who has “seen it before.”

EO Mentorship fosters relationships aimed at high-level leadership and personal development within a structured timeframe. Throughout the mentorship process, Mentees work toward goals and establish personal accountability, while Mentors support them through next-level education and engagement.

How does it work?

EO Mentorship relationships last 10-12 months, during which the Mentee and Mentor meet face-to-face or virtually for one to three hours each month to work toward setting and realizing personalized, measurable and attainable goals. EO will help facilitate the application and matching process, through either a chapter-based program or the global virtual mentorship platform. From there, Mentees drive the relationship. After a year, the relationship ends with a celebration of achievements. As a way to “pay it forward,” Mentees are encouraged to serve as a Mentor to an EO Accelerator and EO GSEA participant, or another EO member.

Source: EO Chicago

EO Forum: Your Personal Board of Directors

In the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), every member joins a Forum: a unique, confidential small peer group made of other business owners in non-competitive industries. Forums meet every month to push each other, work through challenges, hold space for each other’s struggles, and celebrate each other’s wins.

YOUR PERSONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

What would you give for a personal Board of advisors or for the ability to tap into a small group of fellow business owners who can offer you direction based on their experiences? This invaluable access is available through Forum, a unique member-driven experience offered by EO that brings together a group of entrepreneurs for peer-to-peer learning and support. Participants take part in monthly meetings employing special protocols to support a trusting environment in which they can safely explore business and personal growth issues.

WHAT HAPPENS AT FORUM MEETINGS?

We can share 95 percent of our lives with anyone. During Forum meetings, members discuss the other five percent – the triumphs and tragedies of life as an entrepreneur. Moderator-trained EO members, not paid facilitators, guide the sessions, which emphasize confidentiality, personal responsibility and the sharing of lessons learned. Members don’t give advice; they speak from prior experience, letting you draw your own conclusions on the best manner to proceed.

KEY EXECUTIVE FORUM

Key executives can often exist in a special space between their company’s owner/founder and the general staff of the company that’s just as isolating as the owner role. Executive Forum is meant to connect them with a group of peers addressing experiences related to that special position as a key executive, as well as space to safely share about challenges and wins in their personal life, family life, business life, and larger communities and responsibilities.

SPOUSAL/LIFE PARTNER FORUM

Life partners can often exist in extra special spaces—they can be supporters, co-creators, co-founders, executives, co-parents, coworkers, and definitely co-visionaries for the life they’re creating with their partner. Partner Forum is meant to connect them with a group of peers addressing experiences related to those special positions, as well as space to safely share about challenges and wins in their personal life, family life, business life, and larger communities and responsibilities.

Source: EO Chicago

PPP Forgiveness: What You Need to Know

It’s important to understand the instructions to fill out the PPP loan forgiveness application. While the current form will need to be updated based on the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, this application needs to be submitted to the PPP lender you are working with.

For additional background, per the SBA website, the loan forgiveness form includes instructions and guidance to help you understand the process, including:

• Options to help you calculate payroll costs

• Flexibility to include eligible payroll and non-payroll expenses paid or incurred during the covered period

• Step-by-step instructions for how to perform the calculations required by the CARES Act

• Implementation of statutory exemptions from loan forgiveness reduction (based on rehiring by the deadline)

• Exemption from the loan forgiveness reduction for cases where you made a good-faith, written offer to rehire worker(s) that was declined

What is the new PPP EZ Loan Forgiveness Application?

The PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508EZ is now available. This EZ form is much easier – there’s less documentation and fewer calculations required.

You can download from the treasury.gov website or here: PPP EZ Loan Forgiveness Application.

There is a checklist available to help you fill out your loan forgiveness application form. These instructions also provide guidance on the documents you will need to include when you submit Form 3508EZ – the actual loan forgiveness application. Be prepared! You can download these instructions directly from the SBA.gov website: SBA Loan Forgiveness Instructions.

Resources:

• Fact Sheet for Borrowers from the U.S. Treasury

• US Chamber of Commerce 4-Page Guide

• A Law Firm’s Perspective on the details of the Paycheck Protection Program

• An Accounting Firm’s Perspective on the Paycheck Protection Program

• The SBA Page on the Program

• The Full Text of the CARES Act, in case you want to read “from the source”

Please note that this article is provided for informational purposes only. We are not lawyers and cannot provide legal or tax advice. This article represents our understanding of the situation at the time it was written. Please consult your legal and accounting experts, as well as government websites, and rely on them as the final authority.

Learn more about PPP Loan Forgiveness in this video from EO Chicago member Parquesi Partners.

Source: EO Chicago

The Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

Social media is an ideal way to engage with customers and potential customers, and drive people to your business site.

But that doesn’t make it simple. There are plenty of potential potholes in social media marketing. Maybe your Facebook page is popular, but your Instagram account isn’t. Perhaps you’ve noticed that your competitors have been amassing followers at a higher rate than you.

Don’t despair! Follow these guidelines to improve your social media marketing efforts. 

DO Set a Strategy

Just as in every other aspect of your business, you should begin by developing a strategy.

With social media, a sample strategy would include your goals, your target audience, your key messages and the amount of time and budget you or your team will spend on social media. It can even get right down to creating a schedule of posts, including the best time of day to post.

DON’T Spread Yourself Thin

With a strategy in place, you should be able to determine the best social media platforms for your business. It’s OK to start small. It’s not OK to set up a profile on every available social media platform, and then fail to post to those platforms consistently.

For instance, let’s say you sell cupcakes. This means your business marketing will be heavy with photographs and images of your beautiful, tasty cupcakes. In that case, it’s best to choose a media platform that showcases imagery—for example, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.

DON’T Forget About Follower Numbers

Part of your strategy must be boosting your follower base. That means actively working to increase the number of followers by promoting your social media presence and interesting content.

Also, ask customers to follow you on social and encourage your current followers to share or like your posts.

DON’T Focus Solely on Promotion

Obviously, part of the reason for being on social media is to advertise your products or services. But promotion should be only a small part of your content strategy.

It’s called social media for a reason. People don’t go to their chosen platform to look at advertising. Therefore, you need to be communicating with customers and potential customers. Engage with them. Post content that addresses their interests and needs, and doesn’t just shamelessly promote your business.

For example, thank a customer who posts on your page, post articles or infographics that interest your audience, or share humorous quotes that relate to your industry.

DO Post Regularly

How often you post can be a double-edged sword. Post too little and your followers will give up on you. Post too often and content becomes repetitive or low-value. Followers will become tired of hearing from you.

Instead, post high-value content consistently and regularly—and at the times that are best for engaging your audience.

DO Measure Results

Like any business strategy, you need to measure success toward your goals.

There are a variety of ways to do this with social media, including analyzing posts to see which ones led to engagement. Most importantly, use a systematic tracking system that provides hard numbers on your performance. You can then make adjustments and improvements to what isn’t working, and replicate what is working.

Google Analytics, for instance, can tell you which social media site drove what traffic to your site. It can tell you whether that traffic converted to goal completion—a sale, for instance.

Define KPIs and examine the demographics of your audience.

Define and Refine

Social media can be an important component of the marketing efforts of your business, but it has to be done well to be effective. Start by avoiding common social media mistakes, and then follow up with assessing and improving upon your efforts.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Why Every Startup Needs to Shift Its Focus From the Checkbook to Cash Flow

After 24 years of raising children, my wife and I will become empty nesters soon. When I see a young couple with children, I think, “How the heck did we raise three kids into responsible adults?” That feeling reminds me of what starting a business can be like: It’s expensive.

Starting a business comes with a hefty price tag. You have to buy equipment, lease an office and hire staff. When fighting for survival, you aren’t reviewing financial statements. You know only what’s in your checkbook.

Your vision for the company started long-term, but in the trenches, all you can consider is how to make it through the day, the week, the month.

When I returned to the family fuel business, the twentieth of every month was stressful because motor fuel taxes were due from sales the month before. I’d head to the post office hoping there was a pile of checks. I wasn’t thinking big-picture; I was trying to manage my checkbook. Going the extra mile to make the next milestone was almost like a badge of honor.

Shifting Your Focus to Cash Flow

Hopefully, you can get your head above water and have some predictability month after month, like when your kids grow up and don’t require constant supervision. You can take the time to prioritize your finances and see how healthy the business is.

Now is the time to switch your focus from the checkbook to key performance indicators—accounts receivable days, accounts payable days and inventory days—that will help you manage cash flow.

The turning point for me was when my company got a line of credit on a borrowing base certificate. Getting a line of credit to support receivables was going to release monetary stress. But our value and ability to succeed were going to be judged by others.

It’s at this point that you need to understand how to generate positive cash flow to the bottom line. Comparing the cash flow to the company’s net income helps analysts and investors see how well a business is run and how much money the company brings in.

My company had to fund 15 days of sales before it received money from what was sold, which only became harder as sales increased. If my sales were US$100,000 a day, times 15 days, that was US$1.5 million in capital I needed to fund that gap. When sales shot up to US$200,000, that gap ballooned to US$3 million. If the bank had blinked on my line of credit, I was done.

We usually earned a profit at year’s end, but we were starving for cash to run the company. It’s like stretching a rubber band: If you go too far, it snaps.

Useful Tips for Understanding Cash Flow

When your kids mature, you send them to school to learn and from teachers. As your business matures, you need the right people in your corner to help you grow it—a CPA and a business coach. Your team can challenge ideas, refocus and mentor you to stay at the top of your game.

Creating a set of KPIs to assess the financial performance of your company makes it easier to create long-term goals and monitor what your bank thinks of your business’s progress. That’s why accounts receivable days, accounts payable days, and inventory days should be kept on the top of your mind.

You might be in the weeds and thinking about your next loan payment instead of the long term—and that’s OK. But soon, it might be time to look to accrual accounting so you can shift your thinking to a cash flow mindset to better grow your business.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Should You Fear Outsourcing Your Software Development?

Yes. But only if you are not clear on how to make the correct partner selection. Written by Mike Scott, co-founder and CEO of NONA, a software development studio based in South Africa.

Software development is still a ‘dark art’ for many founders, executives and business decision-makers, and yet it can be absolutely critical to the success of your business.

Finding the right software developer is analogous to working with a car mechanic who we simply have to trust because we just don’t know enough about fixing cars.

There are countless horror stories of companies getting badly burnt by outsourced partners, but the reality is that many of those worst-case scenarios are avoidable if you’re deliberate during your assessment. I’ve created a list of the top concerns I’ve noticed—plus how to address them to give yourself a better chance of selecting the right partner.

Fear: I won’t have control of the process.

Ask for a detailed explanation of the processes that are used. Don’t accept vague answers or jargon.

Look specifically for:

How much visibility is provided into the process?
If needed, our organization will provide our clients access to our project management tools (Jira, in our case) so that they may see what tasks are moving through the system and how quickly. Transparency is key to a strong relationship, and this is an area that you should feel comfortable in before you make a partner selection.

How are communications are handled?
In some cases, we have a standup with our client every day, but never less than weekly. This is critical to working in an agile, engaged manner. Our company believes deeply in the need for a remote workforce—in fact, I am a remote CEO—but humans require a measure of face-to-face interaction so make sure that your partner builds at least some travel into the plan to invest in a more personal relationship. At the end of the day, software development is just people engaging with other people toward the common goal of building amazing things together!

How are different time zones handled?
We have clients all over the world and staff in varying time zones. Make sure that how the work is organized supports rich communication regardless of timezone differences. This doesn’t mean that 24-hour access is required, but it does mean that communication needs to be predictable.

Fear: Outsourcing equals poor quality.

There is a massive range of quality and cost in the outsourced market, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. What is most important is to be very clear about what you are looking for. If you are looking for a quickly bashed together prototype, then it’s probably fine to go with a low-cost outsourced dev team with large culture and language gaps. If, on the other hand, you are building something that forms part of your core business or product, then you want to be more selective and can expect to pay more. Consider the following:

How is the team contracted and composed?
We believe that team culture is essential when building high-performing software teams and we don’t believe that a strong culture can be achieved using freelancers or contract workers. It makes a big difference on the work culture to have every staff member a full-time employee, regardless of where in the world they might be.

Review the partner’s technical capabilities thoroughly.
Whether it’s a member of your team or a consultant, be sure to have a qualified individual assess the potential partner’s work. The review should include:

• Technical interviews

• Code sample reviews

• Design / UX reviews

• Examples of software that the partner has built that are already live and in use

• Security and documentation principles and processes

• Quality assurance

• Continuous integration and deployment processes

This assessment doesn’t need to be drawn out and exhaustive, but it is very important that it happens. It’s easy for us to talk about how good we are, but we need to be able to provide objective proof and examples of that. This process will also give you a window into the communication style of the partner and how well they address and discuss complex topics.

Fear: How do I know that I will get the return on investment?

Continuous improvement and learning are essential and cost a lot.

Supporting developers and designers to stay on top of trends requires deliberate action. Find out what the partner is doing to ensure that their teams are continuously improving, learning and being the best at their craft.

At NONA, one of the things we do is to build in dedicated learning days. This culture of continuous improvement and knowledge-sharing results in improved team retention and higher team engagement. As you assess a potential, these are details you should care about because they translate into better developers and designers and therefore better quality product for you.

Building, leading, optimizing and retaining great software teams is very difficult.

You do have the option of building your own team in the early stages of your project and in some cases this can make sense but this is a very difficult thing to do well, here is why:

Good software developers are in huge demand and are very difficult and expensive to attract and retain. Make sure that you understand what the partner is doing to create the kind of culture and working environment to suit the kind of people that you want working on your project.

If you select the right partner, you will get far more value than just the knowledge of the team dedicated to your project. In our case, we deliberately create an environment for the knowledge to be shared between everyone which you benefit from as a client. In effect, clients are getting access to a very deep knowledge pool but without having to pay for and nurture the same.

Ask the partner how they go about cultivating knowledge sharing within their teams and how that translates to value for your project.

Fear: I’m worried that my application will be built and then I will be locked into that partner with no chance of taking this over internally, ever.

This does happen, but it shouldn’t.

It is wise to ask this question directly and to expect a solid and well-constructed answer.

We build software as well if not better than most internal teams, but we also acknowledge that there comes a time where our costs don’t make sense anymore. This is why we are very particular about the technologies that we use, making certain that we aren’t unintentionally binding a client to our organization.

When the time is right, we guide the client on building an internal team to take over from us. This has included helping with recruitment, interviews and, in some cases, playing the role of CTO for as long as required.

The point is that you want to find a partner that understands the business value of the different stages in the process and keeps your business needs in mind all the way through. Again, don’t take anyone’s word for it. Get references and case studies for objective proof.

So, working with an outsource software development partner can be a terrible idea—unless that partner is vetted thoroughly and carefully selected!

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Worried About Regulation? How to Prep Your Business Early for Lifelong Compliance

Shortly after the European Union enacted its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), France’s regulators fined Google $57 million for violating the privacy law. That fine might not be a huge deal for a company the size of Google, but the message to the world was loud and clear: All companies will be held accountable for compliance.

GDPR only affects companies that do business within the EU, but it isn’t the only regulation that organizations need to worry about. When I ran an advertising business in the U.S., we faced just as much scrutiny for our advertising programs—and we paid a nominal fine for not knowing the applicable laws ahead of time.

We also faced tax regulations from different state authorities that believed we owed them. Any internet brand that sells across state lines must grapple with this issue until the federal government standardizes digital taxation. We got our feet under us eventually; more importantly, we learned how to succeed in environments designed to regulate most of what we do.

The Biggest Regulation Challenges Come Early

Compliance is essential at any stage of your business’s development, but learning how to comply is most important in the early stages. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it’s easy to get stuck in a difficult situation. Even if you achieve compliance, most regulatory bodies can still hold you accountable for past incidents of noncompliance.

On top of legal requirements, compliance is in high demand. According to a 2018 Axios poll, more than 55 percent of Americans worry that the government will not do enough to regulate tech companies. Despite this fear, companies that do business in more than one state already have to submit reports to each of those states.

As more companies move online, regulators will continue to crack down on standardizing how these businesses sell products, store information, and tax their customers. The ability to navigate this tangled web of regulations will be an important skill moving forward, and these three tips can help you get started:

1. Hit the legal books.
To be in full compliance, you must first fully understand the laws that govern your industry. Get ahead of regulatory scrutiny by studying the guidelines you should be abiding by. If you own an online business, that means advertising law, privacy law, and any other laws specific to your industry.

2. Document everything.
If you do come under scrutiny, the best remedy will be documented proof of your efforts. Document every measure you take to meet regulations as well as procedures you’ve implemented for dealing with issues. This is especially important if you store customer data and experience a breach.

3. Keep an ear to the ground.
Avoiding fines and violations is the key to compliance, but it isn’t the only measure of success. Monitor how the public perceives your business—especially in the case of bad press and negative reviews. Get ahead of the negativity early and set the record straight, but adjust your policies whenever negative feedback is valid.

You have enough on your plate as an entrepreneur that you shouldn’t have to worry about losing it all because of an unintentional rule violation. Regulations can be intense, but learning which ones matter to your business and how to successfully meet them is one of the most important skills for you to sharpen.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

3 Ways to Apply an Agile Mindset

I admit it. I was a traditionalist. For a long time, I followed a one-step-at-a-time approach to project management.

All my efforts went to seeing the end product through—not knowing whether it would even be successful after launch. I would spend lengthy cycles working toward a goal. I found it difficult to say no when new projects came across my desk, and my timelines would get derailed. If the project succeeded, it made a tremendous impact. But if the big idea failed, my whole quarter was ruined. Clearly, something needed to change.

Shawn Livermon, director of product management at my company, had seen great success running his division using an iterative approach and felt that roles outside of his department could benefit as well. With his encouragement, our entire marketing team and several colleagues from other departments enrolled to become certified facilitators of the agile mindset.

Having an agile mindset means working through an implement-measure-learn feedback cycle. It requires constant testing and reworking to get the end product just right. An agile mindset should have a dedication to experimentation and learning, a willingness to collaborate, decisiveness, adaptability and a desire to deliver results.

The Impact of an Agile Mindset

Having an agile mindset means being fluid enough to make adjustments to a changing situation. An agile mindset breaks down a major project into measurable tasks: Present the concept, refine the idea with a few rounds of testing and then move to the next iteration.

I immediately saw the impact of going agile. When stakeholders had new requests, I could point them to my to-do list within the workflow and then prioritize their new initiatives. A workflow chart allowed me to update project statuses for real-time viewing. This streamlined communication and alleviated the need for unnecessary and costly project update meetings.

As we further integrated the agile mindset, I saw other benefits as well. I was no longer focused on having a fully functional program ready for a single launch. I had the ability to test, measure and iterate my marketing programs, and my competitive nature pushed me to find improvements with every new launch. I also developed a better understanding of the amount of work my team can handle at any given time.

3 Ways to Apply an Agile Mindset to Achieve Success

There are multiple ways you can use an agile mindset to improve your personal and professional lives:

1. Never consider a project finished.
Once you have completed a project, adopt an analytical mindset. Continue testing ways to optimize the user experience. Continually improve and extend those insights to other initiatives.

Constant iteration means less pressure to be perfect and allows you to focus on what can be accomplished during a given timeframe. You also avoid the drama of a big launch initiative.

I once was tasked with sponsoring a live event to promote a new product. I had little time to research the event, but we were promised press coverage and more than 20,000 attendees, so I took a risk and signed up for a booth. While we got some foot traffic, the attendees were the wrong demographic for us and did not generate the expected sales. With an agile mindset, I could have done more ahead of time to confirm that the event and the potential clients were a good fit for us.

2. Clearly and regularly communicate with your team.
Having an agile mindset is all about efficiency and innovation. You need to regularly evaluate how to do your work better, but this doesn’t require exhausting team meetings that take time and energy away from the projects.

Consider holding weekly stand-ups to keep your team and stakeholders informed on the status and priority of their projects. When run effectively, these meetings reduce the need for other external meetings and free you up for higher-value conversations.

In fact, the top five techniques for an agile mindset, according to the “13th Annual State of Agile Report,” center around communication: 86 percent of companies incorporate daily stand-ups; 80 percent use retrospectives at the end of each iteration; and 80 percent obtain feedback through iteration reviews.

3. Stay focused on your consumer.
Continually ask yourself whether there is a new approach you can take to solve a problem that a consumer has. This might mean a high-profile client in your office or your partner at the dinner table!

The agile mindset allows customers and companies to learn valuable insights. By being customer-centric, you can find the most cost-effective solutions, share the responsibility for launching a successful product that meets consumers’ needs while also being motivated by knowing exactly who your product helps.

The agile mindset allows for teams and customers to follow the project as it progresses, allowing for immediate feedback and multiple iterations. The time to market is faster than other project management methodologies, as you can launch and continue to build upon previous projects. It’s a win-win for all involved.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

5 Critical Steps to Solving Your Business Problems for Good

Are you a small business entrepreneur whose leadership team lacks cohesion or focus? Or maybe you’re running a start-up that can’t reach your next revenue goal? Is your company’s leadership team constantly seeing the same issues popping up?

You’re not alone! But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are best practices you can put into place to solve your toughest business problems—and solve them for good.

Ready to quit solving and re-solving the problems in your company? Follow these five steps and you’ll see a lasting change that can help take your company to the next level of growth.

1. Get to the Root Cause

Problems create pain, but the pain is just a symptom. Most leadership teams react to the pain and solve the symptom. They don’t take time to dig down and explore the real issues at root that are causing the pain.

Root cause analysis can be painful in itself, because you might discover dysfunctions or systemic issues that are messy and complicated. But solving those issues—really addressing the root causes—will end your pain and solve your problems for good.

2. Get Everyone’s Input

It’s not always easy to get to the root cause of an issue—especially if you have members of leadership that are hesitant to speak up. They may have an insight into the problem or the solution that no one else is considering.

People don’t speak up for a number of reasons: they aren’t confident, they don’t want to rock the boat or they don’t realize they have valuable insight.

Go around the room. Get everyone’s opinion before making a final decision.

3. Make It Safe to Speak

Before everyone speaks up, they need to feel like it’s safe to be open and honest. The team needs to trust one another enough to be vulnerable with dissenting opinions or criticisms. This means purposefully fostering a culture that makes it safe to speak—and walking the talk at every meeting.

Respect every opinion, thank people for their contributions, and always treat each opinion with thoughtful consideration.

4. Agree to the Agreement

Establish an agreement on your team, and hold each other accountable to it: agree to an agreement. In other words, you won’t always get 100 percent agreement on a solution, but you can all agree to support the decision that’s made. Make an upfront commitment that all of your leadership team members will stick together and be united in the agreements that are made to solve your company’s problems.

If you have a silent dissenter who doesn’t buy into a solution, you’re just asking for trouble later on—especially if the solution has a consequence. Your company can’t succeed if your leadership team is made up of individual kingdoms and agendas.

5. Use a Proven System

At our organization, we use a simple, holistic system—an operating system for our business—that helps us identify, discuss and solve issues for good. Our system is called the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), but there are other business systems as well—such as Gazelles, Strategic Coach and Tony Robbins Business Results Training.

What’s most important is to find a proven system that fits your company—and stick to it! You don’t have to keep dealing with the same problems time and time again.

Start implementing these steps at your next leadership team meeting. Establish the ground rules, list your issues and dig in until you’ve solved the root cause. And start enjoying fewer business problems!

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Work On Your Business, Not In Your Business

If you’re like most business owners who often search for opportunities and business advice at odd hours of the night, you’ve probably come across the advice that you should spend more time “working on your business, not in your business.”

Hearing this advice, accepting it and actually living it are three distinct stages.

I hope my story of working through these stages can assist others in their quests to create scalable businesses they will one day be able to sell and, in turn, create a legacy for their families.

Within a few months of starting my first business (a flight training business), I was regularly working six to seven days per week and often ten to twelve hours per day.

Success was within reach, and like most young entrepreneurs, I thought if I could just squeeze another few hours into a week, I would obtain it. I fell into the E-Myth trap, as described in Michael Gerber’s book by the same name.

Fortunately, I had a client who had successfully navigated the same entrepreneurial journey I was embarking on. He was one of my flight students who had started his business from scratch and had grown it to over 50 locations in several states.

I’ll never forget our conversation spurred by my usual small business owner complaints. He asked, “David, do you want to be a flight instructor or do you want to grow a business?”

Puzzled as to why these would be mutually exclusive I answered, “I want to grow a business.”

“Stop flying airplanes and work every day to ensure you’re offering compelling value to the community in a way your competitors will have trouble duplicating. Take a week off and make sure your model is profitable and scalable before wasting any more time.”

“You’re crazy. I can’t take a week off. I’ll lose customers. You don’t understand.” I was telling the successful millionaire entrepreneur he was the one who didn’t understand!

He didn’t give up and beat this message into me for months.

Finally, after several months, I realized he was right. There weren’t any more hours in the day for me to work. While I had been flying airplanes every day in a business that had grown only slightly, my competitors (some of whom weren’t even pilots) had been busy growing businesses that were surpassing mine.

Even this epiphany didn’t drive me to immediate action. Entrusting all frontline client interactions to employees was terrifying to me.

But I finally did it. One momentous day I felt I was playing Russian roulette and removed myself from our list of active flight instructors.

It was the single most transformative day of my career. While our revenue and my personal income did take a hit for a few months, I quickly adjusted to my new, more valuable role and our business began an upward trajectory.

Several years later I reflect back on that experience. Creating a growing business is different than being a professional in a particular field. Both are equally noble career paths, but the daily work of each is drastically different.

Frustration arises if we attempt to continue the normal tasks of working in our field while we fool ourselves into thinking we are growing a business that will create value that lives beyond us. While industry knowledge and expertise are certainly valuable in excelling in a particular industry, unless we spend our days finding unique ways to organize our resources into a scalable platform for delivering compelling value for our customers, we’ve created a job-with-no-boss-and-a-few-employees for ourselves in our chosen field, not an independently valuable business.

Even those who have created organizations generating several tens of millions of dollars can have trouble selling for a desired price if they haven’t realized which path they are actually on. There is nothing wrong with this. Successful doctors, lawyers, plumbers and electricians do it all the time. They have rewarding careers and build nice retirements. But we must recognize that this is a different path from one on which we work “on our business” and create scalable value beyond ourselves that we will be able to realize upon an eventual exit from our business.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Cybersecurity for Startups: How to Protect Your Business

Large-scale data breaches, such as the Equifax hack, are ubiquitous nowadays. But if you think that breaches only affect high-profile companies, then you are mistaken. In fact, three out of five small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have fallen victim to a cyber attack.

Many small businesses that suffer a cyber attack never recover. Can you imagine all of your hard work getting your startup off the ground going to waste like that? Thus, entrepreneurs must protect their startups with strong cybersecurity measures from the get-go.

Take these steps to ensure maximum protection for your startup:

1. Understand the risks.

The first step is accepting that your startup faces serious threats. Brian Burch, vice president of Symantec, says, “Startups are incredibly vulnerable to cyberattacks in their first 18 months. If a business thinks that it’s too small to matter to cybercriminals, then it’s fooling itself with a false sense of security.”

So, what could you come up against in those first 18 months?

We’ve mentioned data breaches. If your startup stores sensitive data, such as financial information, you could be a target. There’s also the risk of malware, or more specifically a ransomware attack. Hackers lock your files and demand a ransom to get them back. Further disruptions could be caused by a DDoS attack, in which hackers overwhelm your systems, rendering your site or servers inaccessible. Any kind of downtime is expensive for small businesses.

These are by no means the only cyber risks your startup might face, but they are indeed major ones.

2. Invest in cost-effective solutions.

You want to protect your tech, but you don’t have the cyber budget of a large corporation. Sound familiar? Thankfully, there are cost-effective solutions to address this need.

You, of course, need the basic toolkit such as a firewall, antivirus and encryption tools, and in some cases, you can get free versions of the software.

Another option is security as a service (SECaaS). It’s usually subscription-based, so you don’t have to pay a bunch of upfront costs for software. Plus, it’s scalable meaning you can add greater security as your startup grows.

Furthermore, there are technical aspects you can take care of that don’t require any extra costs. For instance, it’s important that you regularly update your existing software as these updates often contain vital security patches.

3. Manage the human element.

Unfortunately, it’s not just tech that can be the downfall of your startup. Employees often make simple mistakes that lead to cybersecurity issues. Insider threats are increasingly putting businesses at risk.

In some cases, employees inadvertently cause damage. For example, they might accidentally click on a malicious link or even fall for a scam. Cybercriminals often trick employees into sharing sensitive information as part of a phishing scam. The solution to accidental damage is to put strict security policies in place and offer continued training.

Remember that cyberattacks affect small companies and startups, as well as large corporations. Your startup may be a target in the early stages. Hence, you must address both the technological and human elements of cybersecurity from the very beginning.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Should Entrepreneurs Trust Their Gut?

Decision-making research shows that many entrepreneurs don’t know when to rely on their gut instincts and when to follow reason. Here’s a pop quiz for you:

Let’s say you’re interviewing a new applicant for a job and the interview feels a little off. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you’re uncomfortable talking with this person. She says all the right things, her resume is great, she seems like a perfect hire—except your gut tells you otherwise.

Should you go with your gut?

Research indicates that job interviews tend to be poor indicators of future job performance. So, the right answer in this case is to be wary of that gut feeling. Follow the facts.

We are often told to “trust your gut,” and many entrepreneurs trust their guts over their heads too often, giving jobs to people they like—people who they perceive as part of their in-group—rather than to the most qualified applicant.

There are other situations, however, that it makes sense to rely on your gut instinct.

The reactions of our gut are rooted in the more primitive, emotional and intuitive part of our brains that ensured survival in our ancestral environment. Tribal loyalty and immediate recognition of friend or foe were especially useful for thriving in that environment.

In modern society, however, our survival is much less at risk. Our instincts are more likely to compel us to focus on the wrong information as we make decisions in the workplace.

For example, returning to the job candidate we introduced earlier, is she similar to you in race, gender, and socioeconomic background? Even seemingly minor things like clothing choices, speaking style and gestures can make a big difference in determining how you evaluate another person. Our brains tend to fall for a cognitive error known as the halo effect, which causes some characteristics we like and identify with to cast a positive “halo” on the rest of the person. Its opposite is known as the horns effect, where one or two negative traits change how we view the whole.

Yet, just because a person is similar to you does not mean she will be the best employee. The research is clear that often our intuitions don’t serve us well in making the best hiring decisions. Such reliance on intuition is especially harmful if you are trying to establish workplace diversity. It also paves the path to bias in hiring, including in terms of race, disability, gender and sex.

Despite the numerous studies showing that structured interventions are needed to overcome bias in hiring, many business leaders and HR personnel still rely on unstructured interviews and other intuitive decision-making practices. Due to our overconfidence bias, a tendency to evaluate our decision-making abilities as better than they are, leaders often go with their guts on hiring as well as other business decisions rather than using analytical decision-making tools that have demonstrably better outcomes.

One way to get around issues of bias during the hiring process is to list the ways in which the applicant is different from you. Then, give each factor a “positive point.” Another option is standardizing the interviews—establish a list of questions and ask them in the same order to every applicant.

Let’s take a different situation. Say you’ve known a fellow entrepreneur for many years. You’ve collaborated with her on a variety of projects and have an established relationship.

Imagine yourself talking with her about a potential collaboration. For some reason, you feel less comfortable than usual. Most likely, your intuitions are picking up subtle cues.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe that person is having a bad day or didn’t get enough sleep the night before.

Do you trust your gut or rely on previous experiences?

This situation is an example of when it makes sense to trust your gut reaction. Signs of being uncomfortable or anxious are indicators for lying, and it’s worth being cautious.

In well-established relationships, then, your gut instinct is a vital part of decision-making.

Generally, when you’re facing a significant decision about your business, trust your head more than your gut in order to make the best decision. When possible, find ways to limit the influence of your gut instinct.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

How to Use a Ghostwriter to Build Your Authority and Generate Sales

When you read articles by busy CEOs on sites like Forbes or Entrepreneur, you might wonder how they managed to find the time to write the content. After all, if their daily workload is half what you are managing, they’d be struggling to fit in the hours needed to draft a 1,500-word, SEO-optimized article.

And you’d be right in many cases! There’s a good chance that the person who wrote the article is a professional ghostwriter. (I can say this with a high degree of certainty because I’ve written a number of articles for founders and c-suite executives.)

In this article, I’ll share with you how to find a ghostwriter who can build your authority and help you grow your business.

What is a ghostwriter?

First, the basics: A ghostwriter is someone who produces material for others without taking any credit. Ghostwriters are best known in the media for penning books for celebrities and politicians.

Ghostwriters are more commonly used by c-suite executives to:

• Write content for online and offline business publications
• Create content for a company website
• Write blog content, including for social media platforms like LinkedIn

The ghostwriter will create the content under your name. It’s the kind of thing you’d have gotten in trouble for at college.

Why use a ghostwriter?

Building your authority as a thought leader won’t happen overnight. It can take 50-plus articles published across multiple sites before you start to see recognition for your hard work.

Writing takes time. You need not only a few focused hours to craft the article, but you’ll need the bandwidth to pitch ideas to editors and follow up on queries. A good ghostwriter comes up with content ideas, pitches to editors, and writes top-quality content.

Still, even a good ghostwriter benefits from direction and guidance. You need to set aside time to collaborate with your ghostwriter—after all, your name and reputation are on the by-line! The ghostwriter can help you effectively share your experience and knowledge.

How to find a ghostwriter

You want a ghostwriter who can match your tone of voice and is easy to work with. Before you hire a writer, I recommend assigning a test so you can assess the quality of their writing. Don’t rely on already published examples, as those have likely been edited by the publication’s staff.

I use this template when interviewing a ghostwriter for clients.

Also, make sure to review their work. You can find more information on how to hire and manage a ghostwriter in this article on Inc.

Set your strategy with a ghostwriter

When you work with a ghostwriter, you need to set clear business goals. These goals will form the basis of your strategy regarding what publications to target, and the type of content you want to create.

For example, your goals while working with a ghostwriter may include:

• Generate speaking opportunities at relevant conferences
  Create connections with potential customers to generate sales leads

• Boost your SEO

Each of these goals requires a slightly different strategy. Let’s explore how to approach each next.

Use a Ghostwriter to Generate Sales

A ghostwriter can help you generate sales by establishing your credibility. Content published with your name in a title like Forbes impresses people. Include links to your articles on your LinkedIn profile. Mention your work in client meetings.

You can also leverage these writing opportunities to develop your relationship with a lead. For example, ask a person you want to connect with to add input on an article. The nice thing about this approach is that it’s not “salesly.” It’s a subtle way to start a conversation and to highlight your expertise.

Use a Ghostwriter to Become a Public Speaker

Getting up on stage in front of your peers at a conference is a proven method for building your authority as a thought leader. A ghostwriter can help you achieve this goal by helping you establish your credibility on a topic and growing your public image. Leverage your articles to reach out to decision-makers at an event you hope to speak at.

Use a Ghostwriter to Boost Your SEO

Backlinks are a vital part of SEO. At the risk of oversimplifying why they matter, the more backlinks your site has, the higher your site will appear on Google search results. Your ghostwriter should naturally start to acquire these links for you.

By working closely with your ghostwriter, you can develop a strategy to help you create links to content you want to rank for. Over time, this can result in an increase in traffic to your site.

A good ghostwriter is like your online assistant. They have the time, experience and skills to help get your name not just online, but seen by others through search results. With their connections, a ghostwriter will publish articles under your name on relevant blogs and publications.

With a clear strategy in place, a ghostwriter can help you achieve your business goals.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

7 Tips for Incorporating New Business Development into Your Busy Schedule

Finding time for new business development can be difficult for many entrepreneurs. There always seems to be another priority or a pressing task. Not making the time to pursue new business, however, is a sure-fire way to an empty pipeline and slow sales.

Don’t stall your growth. Here are 10 tips for fitting new business development into your busy schedule.

1. Schedule a time for new business on your calendar. Next, go one step further and consider that time as firm as a meeting with a new prospect. You would never cancel one of those! First thing in the morning is best, before you check your e-mail or listen to voicemail. It can be difficult to break away later on.

2. End your workday an hour early two times a week to allow for business development tasks during that time.

3. As you focus on business development tasks and research, set your phone to “do not disturb.” Post a “do not disturb” sign on your door to ward off interruptions. Turn off your e-mail and your cell phone. Treat this precious time as you would a meeting.

4. Before canceling your biz-dev time for an “emergency,” ask yourself if this new priority truly needs to be handled by you right now. Can it wait for 60 minutes? Can it be addressed by one of your team members? If the answer is no and you must handle the emergency, reschedule a time for biz dev promptly.

5. Aim for 60 minutes, two times a week. If that seems impossible, begin with 30 minutes. Or even 15 minutes. If even 10 minutes seems impossible, refer to number seven below.

6. Limit your prospect list. Pick 10 of your most promising contacts and focus on them. Replace each one as you get through to them.

7. If you try to incorporate these tips and find it impossible, you might want to rethink your desire to earn money and run a company. Business development is the lifeline of an organization and worth your regular attention.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Seven Ways Your Employees Could Unintentionally Compromise Your Business’s Cyber Security

Humans are often cited by businesses as a weak link in the cybersecurity chain. And while some people tend to focus on the threat posed by malicious hackers or bitter insiders, it is actually unintentional mistakes and compromises that are a much bigger issue.

Check out these seven ways that your employees could unwittingly compromise your organization’s cybersecurity, as well as some of the measures you can put in place to mitigate the risk.

1. Using personal devices
The rise of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) means that more employees are using their own devices to read company emails and access sensitive business information. Unlike business-owned devices, which can be easily audited and controlled by your IT team, personal devices may not have antivirus software installed, and could have a huge range of other exploitable weaknesses.

A recent report from Verizon revealed that 79 percent of companies consider their own employees a “significant threat,” and that some of the riskiest behaviors for employees using BYODs included downloading mobile apps and visiting questionable websites.

2. Connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots
A huge number of workers use wi-fi hotspots in order to send and receive work emails, or even to access company files and information. Whilst being able to work on the go might be good for employee productivity, using public wi-fi is not without cybersecurity risks. Most notably, public wi-fi networks can be used by cybercriminals to eavesdrop on communications, steal files and distribute malware.

3. Surfing the web
Cybercriminals will often look for ways to compromise reputable and popular websites in order to distribute malware or intercept communications. Employees browsing the web need to be extremely careful and avoid sharing details with sites that don’t display a padlock, which indicates connections to the site are encrypted.

In so-called watering hole attacks, hackers will purposely seek to compromise websites that an organization’s employees are known to visit regularly. NotPetya, ransomware believed to have originated in the Ukraine and spread via a compromised government website, is one major example of this.

Check out more on cybersecurity from Octane.

4. Downloading unsafe content
Employees need to take serious care when they download files or applications. The issue here is not only that downloads can contain malware, but they can also unintentionally introduce new vulnerabilities that attackers may seek to exploit. Open-source software can be particularly vulnerable to compromise owing to the fact that it is widely used and that cybersecurity is often not a high priority of developers.

5. Practicing poor password security
Despite constant warnings about the risks of poor password security, employees are still routinely failing to practice strong hygiene in this area. There are actually many reasons for this—and it’s not just because users are lazy or have too many accounts to manage. In some instances, businesses are actually encouraging poor practices by asking employees to share credentials, in order to reduce the need to purchase additional licenses for software.

6. Falling foul of phishing scams
Unfortunately, it is still common for individuals to fall for phishing emails. Recent statistics reveal that 1 in every 99 emails is a phishing attack which makes them a real danger to businesses. If employees aren’t able to recognize phishing attempts, they can end up inadvertently disclosing sensitive information, transferring payments for goods and services to unintended recipients, and installing malware.

7. Collating Dark Data
Dark data is information that is collected by businesses, but is forgotten about and now has a clear owner. Such information could include old emails, versions of documents, meeting minutes and customer or supplier information.

Dark data can be extremely valuable to cybercriminals. Some employee practices, such as CCing too many people on emails, are actually contributing to the problem of businesses being able to secure and manage it.

How to mitigate employee security risks
To mitigate the security risks and challenges posed by employees to your business, it’s important to foster a strong security culture. Educate staff about maintaining good cyber hygiene as well as how to spot the latest phishing scams

It’s also important to take practical steps to protectively monitor networks and endpoints. Mistakes will happen so having people and technology to swiftly detect and respond before they can develop can be extremely important. If your organization lacks security resources, then a 24/7 outsourced managed detection and response service is a great option to quickly bolster the protection of your business.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

How Do You Create a Best Place to Work?

We recently asked Bob Glazer about the award and what contributes to making a “Best Place to Work.”

What is most striking about the Glassdoor acknowledgment is that it comes from employees. Can you tell us what it means to you?

We love hearing from our employees and really value their feedback which makes this acknowledgment all the more special. This honor affirms the company culture we’ve created and is made possible by our team that works day in and day out to make Acceleration Partners an amazing place to work.

In too many growing organizations, growth and financial success come at the cost of culture and employee satisfaction. Can you identify a few keys to balancing both aspects of a business? 

Acceleration Partners’ core values drive our company culture; they help determine who we hire, who we partner with, and how we conduct our daily business. In combination with our strong set of core values, we offer employees flexibility to pursue both meaningful work and the people and activities they find fulfilling in their personal lives. With 160 remote workers around the world, we’ve made work-life integration a priority. We believe this is key to creating a high-performing and relationship-oriented workforce that is motivated both inside and outside of work. It’s a framework we call Capacity Building.

Can you identify the essential ingredients for being a “Best Place to Work”?

First and foremost, what makes Acceleration Partners a best place to work great is our people. They truly exemplify our culture and are a big reason why people are drawn to work here.

One of the most important aspects of our culture is authenticity. In far too many companies today, there is a disconnect between what is talked about and the reality of their day to day work and that starts with the leader. We try to create alignment between what we think, what we say, and what we do at Acceleration Partners and find people who share our values and vision. We have a differentiated point of view and realize that we can’t be all things to all people.

The people who love working here feel that alignment and integrity. Acceleration Partners is not for everyone, but I think anyone who realized it wasn’t the right choice would say that we are consistent and it just wasn’t the right place for them. I actually hope that why people love Acceleration Partners or find it not a fit are actually one and the same.

What kind of organizational structures or programs do you have in place to support employee satisfaction and culture?

One of our key cultural programs is our annual Acceleration Partners Summit, a four-day event filled with learning, socializing, team building activities and celebration for all we’ve accomplished as individuals and as a company throughout the year.

Prior to the last two Summits, we asked employees about their dreams and goals. I read every submission and surprised a group of people each year by making those dreams come true. These included making a financial contribution to a team member’s family to help him and his spouse realize their dream of adopting a child to reconnecting a team member living in London with a close cousin who had moved to Australia by flying her over to the UK for a visit.

How do you measure employee engagement or satisfaction? 

Every week we send out a question to team members via TINYpulse to receive anonymous feedback on a variety of topics. TINYpulse makes it easy to assess how our team feels about everything from their job and team members to what they’d like to see from the company’s leadership team as well as express any concerns they might have. This allows our leadership team to be in touch with the pulse of the organization and stay abreast of any issues.

We also measure an annual employee net promoter score and host regular town halls and team meetings where we ask for questions and feedback.

Because the Glassdoor award comes from employees’ reviews, we also asked Acceleration Partners’ staff to share what makes the company a great place to work.

“Acceleration Partners has a positive and collaborative work environment. Leadership is transparent and trusts its employees. There is a great amount of flexibility and great work-life balance.”

“The organization is growing exponentially and there’s a lot of opportunity for advancement and growth within positions. You’re encouraged to challenge yourself daily and be uncomfortable at times, knowing these challenges are helping you excel. I’ve discovered a passion that I didn’t know I had and would not have been given the opportunity to discover if it had not been for my position here.”

“Transparent leadership, strong work/life integration, a trustworthy community who care about your career growth.”

“Acceleration Partners is led by an honest and transparent leadership team, held together by awesome and amazingly talented people, and offers a flexible as well as an empowering work environment.”

“It is truly an honor to work with a leader whose vision is to not only encourage and inspire the digital marketing industry to be performance-based but who also wants to change the work-life paradigm so employees can feel fulfilled both inside and outside of work.”

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Considering Expanding Your Business? 3 Tips on How to Approach It

Making smart decisions for your company is both your privilege and responsibility as a business owner. Chances are, when everything is running smoothly, you still see room for growth and want to explore how you can do so with as little risk to your current processes as possible. Knowing when to be in growth mode and when to hold back is a skill you develop as you become a seasoned entrepreneur. Below are some items to consider when deciding if an expansion if worthwhile.

1. Do you have enough cash?

One problem with many businesses is that they are cash poor. Even if business is booming, if you’re over-extended to business creditors and your debt payments are eating into your cash reserves, then you could be headed into the red even as sales soar.

You definitely don’t want this to happen to you, but there are usually ways to correct this course. First, lower your fixed expenses wherever possible. Do you need a fancy office, or can you get into a cheaper lease somewhere else?

Next, examine your debt: Are you paying too much interest? Is your debt negatively impacting your credit score to the point that you might be denied funding in the future (for reference, a credit score of 660 and above will give you the best chance to qualify for a loan).

Make sure you compare business loan terms before taking on any new business debt. Also, be sure to collect on any outstanding invoices. Consider shortening your due dates to a net-30 or net-15 to make sure you have more cash on hand.

2. Where in the business lifecycle are you?

Businesses often grow on an S-curve and there are three general stages of development—startup, midsize and full grown. Within these stages, you can group companies in different categories based on the number of employees, revenue or both. In between growth stages can be the most challenging time for expansion — say when a company is moving from three to eight employees. Another key growth stage is moving from a company of 12 to 40 employees.

These changes represent such fundamental shifts in how companies operate that business leaders often can’t navigate the challenges. So, before you start growing, you need to consider the size of your company, where you are in the life cycle, and how you’re going to efficiently get from point A to point B without suffering in between.

Perhaps most important of all, as your organization grows to each new stage in the life cycle, it’s your job as a leader to communicate those changes to everyone inside the organization, which can be more difficult to do the more employees you have Data show that 45.6 percent of employees ignore emails at work, so make sure before you start growing that you have a scalable communications plan in place to take all your employees along for the ride with you.

3. Can you handle new business costs?

Do you foresee new costs that you’ll have to budget for? Think about overhead costs such as salaries and office space as well as any regulatory costs for new markets or the cost of research and development of a new product.

Because you don’t want to burn through your cash while trying to grow your business, you need to handle the expense considerations of scaling carefully. Improve your processes to shorten the cycle of your business so that you can make cash faster. If it normally takes you two months to find a prospect, land a customer, invoice, and collect payment, look at every step along the way and try to find ways to shorten each time period.

Doing this will help you have more cash on hand at any given time so that you can handle the expenses of growth. You’ll need to grow with your industry, which is why you can get really left behind if you find yourself in a position in which your competitors can handle the cost of pursuing new business opportunities and you can’t.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

How to Give Back Through Your Business

Have you ever wished for a way to give back that’s integrated with your life and your work?

EO Oklahoma City member Piyush Patel has figured out how to do just this. He has managed to seamlessly weave charity into his life and businesses through social entrepreneurship, employee volunteer programs and much more.

Piyush offers these tips on how to prioritize and embrace giving during the course of your entrepreneurial journey.

1. Identify the issue you are passionate about—and be open to unexpected opportunities to fulfill your giving goals

Piyush’s background is in elementary education. So, he has three areas of focus for giving: education, children and mothers. In fact, as the keynote speaker at the University of Oklahoma graduation in 2017, Piyush paid off one of the graduate’s student debts.

“When I joined EO almost 10 years ago, my Forum did an activity around bucket lists. We had different categories and one was philanthropy. I wrote down, ‘Put a stranger through college.’ I had no idea how I was going to even do something like that. However, when I was asked to give the commencement speech, just a few days before the speech I walked out of the shower and told my wife this would be a perfect time to accomplish that bucket list item.”

2. Create sustainable giving through social entrepreneurship

One-off giving opportunities make a mark, but ongoing giving amplifies your impact. You can even create self-sustaining giving. Consider Piyush’s Conclusion Wine company, a social entrepreneurial venture that just keeps giving.

“I was lucky enough to sell my previous company for a large exit and instead of moving to the beach we decided to start a number of new companies. The winery is our social venture where we craft an amazing wine that is then sold at a high price and instead of keeping the money we donate all of it to a non-profit each year,” he explains.

Piyush suggests you can also make giving part of an existing company through the work you are doing, “My previous company, Digital-Tutors, provided advanced technical education to many countries where this education was not even imaginable.”

3. Acknowledge how giving benefits you

Giving is good for you, and it’s OK to admit it. Piyush explains that charity fulfills his deep need to be part of something bigger, bonds our employees and is simply the right thing to do.

4. Lead by example

Make your impact grow exponentially by cultivating a giving culture in your business. How? Lead by example.

“It has to start with you, the leader,” Piyush says. “I wove giving into my company with things like volunteering the day before the Christmas holiday (after all, no work is getting done on that day anyway), creating a supply drive to get school supplies for kids (I would match all donations), or packing food at the food bank as a team-building exercise.”

Not only are you and your team fulfilling a charitable goal, you’re also supporting team growth. Piyush explains, “In my experience, creating these shared experiences outside of the office has a huge impact in how people treat each other in the office. They see their roles as bigger than themselves and see how their impact in the community matters.”

Piyush’s book, Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating a Culture that Matters, reinforces how to lead by example by giving to your employees.

“The book—as well as my speaking events—are really focused on how to transform the lives of your employees. I want to teach other leaders and founders how to not only reach your business goals but also transform the lives of the people who you trust the most to reach those goals. I feel we have a duty to create belonging, affirmation and meaning for our employees and I love teaching others how to do this,” he says.

5. Revisit your inspiration

It can be challenging to stay motivated in your giving, especially if like Piyush, you have been actively participating in charity from a very young age. He began his giving efforts as a teen, as the only male candy striper at a local hospital.

Wherever you find your inspiration, make sure it is a place or person that you can always look back on. Refer back to it when you need to replenish your giving tank.

6. Start small, as long as you start

Still not sure where to start? Piyush also reminds us that charity exists in small and simple everyday acts of kindness.

“In each of our wine bottles, the cork features a message with a random act of kindness. One day, the one I had in my pocket was ‘Buy a Stranger a Cup of Coffee.’ I was getting a Starbucks coffee and while waiting in line, a guy cut to the front and then looked at me since I was next. You could cut the tension. Who would go next?

“I stepped up, put in my order and then turned around to ask him what he was drinking. I paid for his coffee and he looked at me with a weird look on his face. Here he was cutting in front of me and now I’m buying his coffee? I gave him my cork and told him to pass it on to the next person. Not only did he shake my hand and say sorry, but when he left he made it a point to say goodbye. I know this is super simple, but in that moment he transformed from a rushed, unhappy person to a thankful and grateful person. I have to think he had a better day because of that small act.”

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Here Are Five Ways to Make Your Organizational Chart More Useful

Most organizational charts end up taped to break room walls and forgotten. Bruce Eckfeldt shares how to make yours a valuable tool for everyone in your company.

Every employee manual I’ve seen contains an org chart that shows who is in charge and who reports to whom. Usually, the names of executive employees and managers are in boxes with connectors cascading down to the front lines of the organization.

Many of those charts are out of date. There may be names that have changed or reporting lines that are no longer relevant. There could even be entire departments that have been removed or added.

The problem with these charts is that they are trying to capture the wrong information and are not being used correctly. Here are six things that I focus on when coaching leadership teams on creating organizational charts in order to make them a useful and productive tool for everyone in the company.

1. Focus on functions.

The main purpose of an organizational chart is to show the functional divisions of a company and how they work together. Your organizational chart is a map for how to navigate your business. A good chart will tell employees who needs to be aware of specific issues and information.

At a basic level, a good chart shows the vertical divisions between departmental functions and horizontal levels of reporting and management structure. An organizational chart will clarify questions like “is shipping part of operations or customer service?” and “do the software developers report to head of product or head of technology?”

Done well, a chart should clearly indicate who is on the executive team, who the middle managers are, and who is handling the front line execution.

2. Ditch the names.

I always suggest erasing all of the names on the chart. It is more important to see the functional roles and how they report and relate to one another. Names change quickly, but roles do not.

If you prefer to use names, make a separate table listing names and contact information by role or put the name in small print under the functional role. I suggest you include a phone number or email and the date they took on the role. Pro tip: it is great to see a history of the roles a person has filled and when they began each.

3. Support the business.

A well-designed organization and well-written organizational chart should show how the employees support the business operations. The departments and role names should relate to the nature of the business and operational model.

For example, a manufacturer will have departments and roles in supply management, manufacturing, facilities, and shipping. A technology SAS company will have marketing, product design, software development, and dev-ops. Don’t just copy a generic organizational chart from a textbook. It is important to design one that truly supports your business model and operations.

4. Indicate performance metrics.

I like to add performance metrics to each of the key roles in an organizational chart. I look at one to three of the core measures of success and suggest one leading indicator and one lagging indicator. The leading indicator measures the activities and tasks and the lagging indicator measures the outputs and outcomes.

For example, for a director of sales, I will list metrics such as pitch meetings or proposals for leading indicators, and metrics such as conversion rates and closed sales dollars per week as indicators of output.

5. Align your core processes.

In addition to functional divisions between departments, you can also map out your core processes across the horizontal access and indicate who is accountable and involved in each process. The goal here is to recognize that some processes cut across the functional division of the company and someone needs to be responsible for aligning and coordinating activities to ensure the process is successful.

Safety is a great example of a cross-cutting process. HR must ensure people are trained properly, facilities need to make sure that the physical environment is safe, and operations must ensure that safety measures are backed into the standard operating procedures.

6. Define your terms.

Your organizational chart is a map of your business. It is a tool that any employee can use to learn who to go to with questions, key information, and concerns. In order to do this well, people need to use the same language to refer to roles and departments.

For example, if some people call it lead generation and others call it marketing it will get confusing. Also, you want to make sure that your titles are consistent between departments. Don’t label someone as director of product development and call them sales director in another department.

These suggestions will help make your organizational chart a living, breathing tool for helping people understand and manage the company structure. Most importantly, keep your organizational chart updated frequently and make sure everyone has access to the most current version.

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.

Why Entrepreneurs Must Harness the Power of Sleep

The words “sleep” and “entrepreneur” may seem like strange bedfellows unless you are running a start-up in areas such as making mattresses or developing a new Sleep app. However sleep is a wonderful, natural and free resource that anyone starting or running a business must draw on optimally to be the best they can be for their customers, colleagues, stakeholders and loved ones.

Way too often, in my opinion, there is an emphasis on the downside of not getting enough quality sleep. Surely it’s far better to emphasize the many benefits of getting enough sleep. So whilst I share the agony of a decade of my own sleeping problems in my book Positive Sleep, my emphasis is more on the life-changing effects of getting the sleep you need.

So what is enough sleep? How can sleep help you? Are there any tips that can really help you sleep better? Sleep science itself is really only about 100 years old, and multiple studies over that time show that the vast majority of us need 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. This need not necessarily be in one go, so the opportunity for a nap (NASA recommends 26 minutes!), ideally before 3 pm can truly help us catch up on our rest during the day.

One part of us that disproportionately benefits from being well-rested is the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which directs our executive functions—areas such as problem-solving, reasoning, organization, planning and carrying out plans.

How Sleep Benefits Your Professional Performance

Four qualities an entrepreneur needs which are especially enhanced by good sleep are:

• Results orientation: Critically linked to attention and concentration, this requires the ability to both stay focused on the details and also see the bigger picture.

• Solving problems effectively: The mental capacities supporting this and strongly affected by sleep are creativity, development of insight and pattern recognition. A good night’s sleep is especially useful in helping spot shortcuts to solving problems.

• Seeking different perspectives: The mental capacities of learning (and willingness to learn), memory and decision-making all require quality and a good quantity of sleep to enable you to seek different perspectives. Weighing options, plus avoiding tunnel vision and bias, are vital to making the best decisions possible.

• Supporting others: This vital ability requires you first have some understanding of the other person. Non-verbal queues through facial expressions or tone of voice are key. When sleep-deprived, we are more likely to misread these cues.

And it’s not just the mental side of running a business that can be boosted by being better rested. We physically need the regeneration that getting enough sleep provides. Entrepreneurs can learn a lot from performance athletes in this regard. For example:

• Improved reaction times: Research has shown that properly rested people getting an average of 7.5 hours of sleep a day can have reaction times two to three times faster than the sleep-deprived.

• Longer careers: Roger Federer is famous for sleeping about 9 hours a night, even hiring a separate house for his family at Wimbledon so he’s not woken up by the kids. And a study of Major League Baseball showed an almost linear correlation between regular and plentiful sleep to performance and career length.

• Better accuracy and faster sprint times: This has been observed in basketball, swimming plus tennis among other sports. And maybe cheetahs can teach us something, too. Among the fastest animals on the planet, traveling from 0-60 mph in about three seconds, they typically sleep 18 hours a day.

How to Sleep Better Every Night

So what can busy entrepreneurs do about getting more sleep? Here are five suggestions that have worked for me in my own “busyness” life and helped to transform the way I feel every day.

1. Carefully manage (or quit) the caffeine! I was a seven-espressos-a-day man when I quit in 2015. And what I realized after I quit was how much coffee had interfered with my sleep. Caffeine can be found in all black and green teas and many energy drinks. Remember also that “decaffeinated” merely means less caffeine, not no caffeine! Cutting down how much you take in and avoiding it after 2 pm typically helps people sleep better.

2. Exercise. Fitting in some form of exercise regularly has been shown to help you sleep better. Finding ways to introduce more walking into your daily routine can really help. And tracking what you do via an app provides a great sense of satisfaction to many.

3. “Bookend” your night. Give yourself enough time (ideally one hour at least) at the start and end of the day to tidy up, relax, wash, read and chat. Allowing yourself to “let the day out” and wind down helps to quiet your mind. By the same token, it takes our brains some time to warm up in the morning so try respecting this.

4. Avoid smartphones and electronic tablets. Late at night and early in the morning it’s a great idea to avoid the blue light from (and contents of) these screens. Linked to number 3 above, you give yourself a much better chance of sleep this way.

5. Take magnesium. This element has many properties, one of which is to support better sleep. We don’t generate it naturally in our bodies so need to ingest magnesium in some way. Whilst this can be through magnesium tablets or foods such as broccoli, the most efficient way is through the skin. Magnesium spray is available if a bath in Epsom salts or bath oil rich in magnesium is not available.

I’ll leave the last word to a former colleague of mine, Tanya Kabalin. Tanya hails from a family of business owners and founded her own, Olakira, after heading up Shell’s Downstream business in South Africa. She writes, “I believe the leaders who make the greatest impact are those who consciously create time, space and energy to master the art of managing the immediate pressures of ‘now’ whilst imagining and building the ‘new.’ And this can’t be done without good health and enough rest. Great leaders know this and work deliberately hard to achieve it.”

This article was originally published on the EO Global Octane Blog.