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Tag: Management & Leadership

Mastering Work-Life Balance: Practical Steps for Entrepreneurs to Thrive

Work-life balance has become somewhat of a meme at this point. You hear it in conversations and read it in articles across the web, usually from gurus who purport that they hold the secret key to success in all parts of life.

However, it’s best to approach this topic with a realistic perspective. If you are a business owner who spends most of their time between projects, deadlines and team meetings, striking the right balance between personal and professional lives can be challenging.

Let’s discover how you can achieve this, in just a few steps.

READ: Avoiding Founder Burnout — A Guide on Fighting Hustle Culture for Entrepreneurs

Work-life balance quiz

We might break “Life” down into three key areas. For each of the following, a simple yes or no answer will help you to understand which area you should focus on to get to that level of work-life balance that you crave.

Personal activities and leisure

Some business owners find that relaxing on the sofa, reading a book or going out on the town helps them unwind. Hobbies and leisure activities can look different to everyone, so think about what makes you happy and relaxed.

Ask yourself: Do you spend enough time doing the leisure activities you personally enjoy?

Fitness and health

Sport and physical activity are great ways to detach your mind from work while providing your body with the much-needed movement and fresh air it needs. 

This can be particularly true if you are making the transition from an employee to a business owner. Spending a little time on your health will help you maintain this drive for the long term.

READ: From Employee to Entrepreneur — Top Tips for Making a Successful Switch 

Ask yourself: Do you allocate as much time to your health as you would like?

Friendships and relationships

Lastly, we have the people in our lives — friends, family and partners. Spending time with them and making memories is another essential aspect of achieving a good work-life balance.

Ask yourself: Do you spend enough time with the important people in your life?

How to work towards a healthy work-life balance

If you answered “no” to one or more of the quiz questions, you should start taking steps towards a better work-life balance. Here’s how:

Utilize technology

You may think of technology as exclusively work-related, especially if you are currently in the process of looking for a cheap domain buy for your business or something similar. Tech tools, though, can also come in handy when it comes to achieving a healthy work-life balance.

READ: Revolutionizing Employee Satisfaction — Unveiling the Role of Technology in Modern Workplaces

For example, if you manage an Airbnb business, you no doubt understand the constant demand for managing bookings, guest communications and property upkeep. Embracing technology in this context can be a game-changer. By utilizing platforms and software tailored to Airbnb hosts, you can streamline operations, automate routine tasks and gain precious hours that you can devote to your personal life.

  • Research time-management applications to ensure you schedule enough “me time” in the day. Limiting meeting duration and being strict with finishing times can help work towards this goal.
  • Use digital to-do lists to stay focused on the most important business tasks to complete first. Once finished, you can spend your free time in a more relaxed state. Not having to worry about unfulfilled important jobs can really help de-stress.
  • Setting a timer is another great way in which technology can help keep you focus for short bursts of time, encouraging you to take a few minutes to detach and unwind on a frequent basis.

Practice mindfulness

How many times do you really pay attention to your surroundings, every day? As a busy entrepreneur, the chances are that you switch from one task to another quickly and without fully appreciating the small details.

By regularly practicing mindfulness, you can train yourself to become more grounded and present, both in your personal and professional life. This, in turn, helps you get to the following point on our list — understanding where your new priorities lie.

Reassess and refine your priorities 

Once you get your personal life better organized and start incorporating mindfulness into your daily life, the next step is to establish a new set of priorities. 

Let’s imagine that you regularly spend at least 10 hours a day in your office and only see your children on the weekend. This may lead you to realize that a better work-life balance would mean spending more time with your family. 

So, you make it your new priority to work less at least one day during the week in order to enjoy a slower and more relaxed evening with your kids. 

Time to find your balance

Between investigating AI competitors, training a successful team and managing a growing business, being an entrepreneur can be hard. Finding the right level of work-life balance can become even harder.

However, it can be done. When you have your priorities in place, it’s vital to stay consistent and know exactly what actions will lead to a work-life balance that works for you. 

 

Grace Lau 1Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform for better and easier team collaboration. She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Here is her LinkedIn.

5 Tips for Overcoming Customer Service Obstacles as a Small Business

If people love small businesses for one thing, it’s their customer service. Small companies tend to take customer issues to heart and do everything they can to resolve them. That said, small businesses face quite a few challenges to overcoming customer service obstacles, whether due to a lack of financial resources, employees, or general bandwidth. Fortunately, there’s always a way to get through obstacles. Here’s how to overcome five common customer service obstacles as a small business.

READ — The Top 5 Ways You Can Support Mental Health in the Workplace

Keep Track of Customer Data and Use It Appropriately

Personalization is vital in business. Customers mainly want an experience tailored to who they are and what they need. They want to feel like a company knows them and genuinely cares.

Personalization is critical in customer service too. You don’t want your customers to have to repeat the same dialogue to your chatbot, to a general customer service person, and then again to the manager all to get one issue solved.

A personalized customer experience isn’t possible without keeping track of customer data. The problem lies, however, in collecting and using data ethically for personalization without crossing any customer privacy boundaries.

Find the sweet spot in the ethical collection of customer data to ensure customer service interactions and the overall customer experience are personalized but not intrusive to customers’ sense of privacy. Be transparent about what you’re doing and give your customers control over how their data is collected and used. Customer data is critical for cohesive, trustworthy customer service exchanges and the best experience with your brand.

Have a Plan for Ending a Customer Relationship

Unfortunately, there will come a time when you have to refuse service to a customer or end a relationship entirely. In this regard, a small business owner’s misstep is moving forward in an unprofessional manner or even an illegal one.

First, it’s essential to know the legality of refusing service to a customer. There are laws that protect customers from unlawful discrimination. For example, you can refuse service to a disruptive, racist customer, but you cannot refuse service based on someone’s race or ethnic group.

Second, if you’re going to end a customer relationship, do so in a professional manner. For instance, don’t just stop responding to a customer and let that signify the end of the relationship. Instead, send a detailed email to your customer explaining why you’re ending the relationship and give them the option to call you if they have questions. At the very least, give them an opportunity to respond to the email and get clarification.

If you have to end a customer relationship, that’s okay. Just be sure you’re doing it with professionalism at the forefront of the interaction.

READ — Independent Investigations and Decision-making Can Help Employers Avoid Liability

Extend Your Customer Service to Social Media

The landscape of customer service has changed along with societal norms, moving customer interactions over to more digital, text-based platforms. In fact, 64% of consumers would rather use social media messaging to solicit customer service from a company than call them.

Businesses still overlook customer service on social media even with a statistic like this. They fail to respond to customers. For example, 45% of businesses take longer than five days to respond to customer inquiries over Facebook Messenger. Some might even make the more significant mistake of deleting negative comments and direct messages.

Don’t ignore the complaints, questions, and issues your customers bring forth on social media. Instead, answer every direct message and comment related to customer service right there on your platforms. If you need to take the conversation to a private channel to get a resolution, do so.

Don’t limit your use of social media to marketing-related activities. Use it to boost your customer service as well.

READ — How To Organically Grow Your Company’s Social Media Presence

Rely on Technology

One of the biggest customer service hurdles for small businesses is getting away from doing everything manually. From answering every email to handling the phones to managing returns and exchanges to answering every question a customer has, doing it all on your own can be exhausting and challenging to sustain.

That’s why it’s essential to lean on technology to optimize processes. Introducing the right tech tools to help you with customer service tasks can free your team up to focus on customer service interactions that need that human touch.

Consider using chatbots on your website to handle customer service requests when you’re team is off for the day. Create a knowledge base for your customers. Use automation tools to manage repetitive tasks like email responses or printing return labels. Lean on a solid customer relationship management (CRM) system too. Rely on technology so that your customers can fully rely on you.

Train Your Staff

Assuming that your staff knows what customer service is and looks like is a huge mistake. People have different perceptions of customer service. In addition, your business and its customers are unique. So, you may need to do things to serve them well that other companies may not have to.

Hiring quality candidates is crucial, but it’s even more important to train them. This is so everyone is on the same page when it comes to customer service.

Show them what an exceptional customer service experience looks like. Train them on how to best handle unruly customers. And ingrain your company culture, policies, and customer service processes in them.

Your customers can enjoy a consistent experience when your staff is adequately trained on what overcoming customer service obstacles look like in your business.

The Bottom Line

Nurturing your customer relationships is integral to your small business’s success. And a massive part of ensuring those relationships are top-tier is providing exceptional customer service.

Whether through small business books, courses, mentors, or another source, continue to educate yourself on overcoming customer service obstacles and common hurdles in order to to provide the best experience for your customers.

 

Indiana Lee Bio PictureIndiana Lee is a writer, reader, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. An expert on business operations, leadership, marketing, and lifestyle, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.

Exit Planning: New Study Shows Most Colorado Business Owners Are Not Ready to Sell Their Businesses

The Exit Planning Institute (EPI) recently conducted research to better understand the exit readiness of Colorado business owners and to see how prepared Colorado business owners are for an eventual sale. What we found was interesting and insightful, and underscores both the uniqueness of this region and the growing and evolving discipline of exit planning.

The Colorado State of Owner Readiness Report features survey results from over 400 business owners in Colorado. Survey results showed 95% of Colorado owners felt that having a transition strategy is important for both their future and the future of their business. Yet, 48% of owners stated they had no written personal financial plan and 65% indicated they had no formal or written transition plans.

Despite understanding that having a succession plan is critical to both business success and their own future, the survey results highlighted many reasons business owners had not started exit planning. The most common reason was owners were too busy growing their business to focus on exit planning. In addition, nearly 10% of owners did not have a transition strategy in place because they did not understand how to start the process. In fact, the survey found that 68% of business owners in Colorado are unfamiliar with their exit options.

READ — Creating a Small Business that Thrives

The impact of ill-prepared owners in a transition can be both economic and social. Applying these survey results across all Colorado businesses, we can project that more than half of all privately held companies will look to transition within the next 5 years, equating to approximately $1.7 billion in value. Without a proper exit plan, some of these business owners will not be able to find a buyer for their business, and of the ones that do, many may not maximize the outcome or end up regretting their exit from their business.

The first step to an effective exit strategy begins with understanding the value of your company. Nearly 71% of those surveyed indicated they had not completed a formal valuation or had no clear understanding of their company’s value at all. In addition to understanding value, exit planning integrates business planning with personal planning so business owners can prepare for a fulfilling and significant exit from their business.

If Colorado business owners want to rapidly grow the value of their company while creating significant wealth for themselves and their families, they must get educated on the exit process, create a formal transition plan, and concentrate on understanding and accelerating the value of their business. Our findings show that Colorado business owners are already aware of the importance of exit planning, but with the help of qualified professionals, these business owners can ensure their transition plan sets both their business and their future up for success. The good news is Colorado is home to numerous exit planning professionals. These professionals include Certified Exit Planning Advisors (CEPAs) in the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Exit Planning Institute.

The full results of the Colorado survey can be found in The 2022 Colorado State of Owner Readiness Report.

 

 

2019 Headshot1 Snider Scott 500x532Scott Snider is the president of Exit Planning Institute and a nationally recognized industry leader, growth specialist, and lifetime entrepreneur.

Project Greer Street: Guiding Young Black Scholars 

Ron Sally’s high school experiences were pivotal to his future success, and he wants today’s African American male students to have a similar opportunity. The longtime Denver business executive is the founder of Project Greer Street, a nonprofit aimed at helping African American male students fulfill their potential academically and gain admission to elite colleges and universities.  

“One of the reasons that I started Project Greer Street was my belief that high school was the last formative stage in one’s life that can have a significant impact on your life trajectory,” he says. “High school is a fork in the road.”  

Sally grew up on Greer Street in North St. Louis, an area that he describes as different from how most people picture St. Louis. “It hasn’t changed, which is part of the problem,” he says. “It’s always been a stereotypical inner city terrible neighborhood.”  

What changed Sally’s path was that he attended an excellent college preparatory school located 40 minutes away from his home. “It wasn’t 100 percent positive,” he says. “But it gave me some building blocks.” 

Project Greer Street Wes Ogsbury Sports Center Interview Photo 1
Project Greer Street and Harvard alumnus Wesley Ogsbury on ESPN’s Sportscenter.

Sally went on to Duke University, where he played quarterback and captained the football team while earning a bachelor of arts degree and making the Dean’s List. After a year of pro football with the Tampa Bay Bandits of the United States Football League, Sally returned to the classroom, earning his law degree from UCLA’s School of Law. Over the course of his career, he’s worked as an attorney and business executive in the sports, entertainment, and venue development industries. 

Project Greer Street is an academic enrichment program open to African American male students at Denver East High School. Each cohort has 10 to 20 students who meet approximately once every two weeks to listen to Sally or to guest speakers talk on topics such as leadership, self-esteem, ambition and work ethic. The sessions also cover college preparation, written and oral communications, and employment and internships.  

The students are selected from a list, provided by East High School, of ninth-grade students who show academic promise. “We are not a correction program,” Sally says. “It’s not parents saying, ‘Can you fix him?’” Many of the students have high test scores and low grades and have the potential to excel with motivation and the right environment. Project Greer Street provides a safe place for these students to be academic superstars, Sally says, and the environment encourages competition. Students end up wanting to have the highest GPA, to be accepted to a summer program, or to land an internship. Some are striving for an academic scholarship to an elite university.  

Those goals are different from students’ often misguided ambitions. Many students think the only way they will be able to attend college is with an athletic scholarship, Sally says, and that points to several misconceptions. Students don’t realize that athletic scholarships represent only one-year agreements, and the student can lose the scholarship due to injury or poor performance. Academic scholarships that are based on financial need and academic merit are a better option.  

That’s an important distinction for students who overestimate their own athletic skills. “I get people who think they are the second coming of [NBA player] Kevin Durant, particularly if they are halfway decent as a 13-year-old,” Sally says. “This has been exacerbated by media attention to the financial aspect of sports.”  

The same goes for youth who hope to become the next superstar rapper, so Sally tries to show students there are other careers. His own executive positions have included president and chief operating officer of the arena football team Colorado Crush, senior vice president of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, general counsel for the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Pepsi Center, and assistant general counsel and director of business affairs for the Denver Nuggets.  

He and the Project Greer Street guest speakers help students reevaluate how they view success. Instead of striving for the extreme unlikelihood of being the next sports or entertainment superstar, students learn they can have careers in vital but less visible roles in these and other fields. Guest speakers have included Mayor Michael Hancock, attorney C.J. Chapman, culinary historian Adrian Miller, Nike executive Ramsey Watkins, and others.  

Ray Pryor, who graduated from East High School in 2015, says Project Greer Street expanded his horizons and also taught him specific tasks he needed to address to succeed. “I had good grades,” he says. “I had no idea what it took to go to college.”  

The after-school sessions included exercises such as drafting a resume, writing an email to someone they hoped to network with, or researching a successful person with a compelling story. Sessions also covered preparing for the SATs and completing college applications.  

Pryor went on to graduate from Duke University in 2019. “It meant a lot to me to graduate in four years,” he says. “Mr. Sally kept in touch with me to make sure I was on track to do that.” Today, he works for an educational nonprofit that, similar to Project Greer Street, helps high school students through the college prep process.  

Ron Sally and his wife, Yvette Sally, started Project Greer Street in 2009. Yvette Sally, also a graduate of Duke University, is chief visionary officer for Project Greer Street. In 2014 the Sallys were awarded the Beyond Duke Service and Leadership Award. Locally, the program won an Everyday Hero Award from the ABC affiliate Denver7.  

“We expand what’s possible,” Sally says. “When we talk about the definition of success, it’s not so narrowly focused.”