2 Psychological Tricks That Will Help You Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself

by murika Comment Closed
Whether an economic downturn has taken a toll on your bank account, or you're dealing with a chronic health issue that interferes with your everyday life, hardship is inevitable. But the way you deal life's inevitable challenges is up to you. You can either make the best of a tough a situation or you can dig in your heels and indulge in some serious self-pity. Choosing to feel sorry for yourself, however, has some serious consequences. It will drain you of the mental strength you need to be your best. And it could keep you stuck in an unhealthy cycle of misery....
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8 Social Media Hacks for Small Businesses

by murika Comment Closed
Social. Media. These two words have made you either jump for joy or curl up in a fetal position in your pajamas at the overwhelming nature of these platforms. Either of these reactions are probably the reason you’re here: either you love everything about social media or the mere thought sends you into a panic-induced sweat. Like it or not, it’s here to stay, and in these social distancing times, social media is more important than before to the success of your business. Taking on the responsibility of managing your social media accounts can be both an exciting venture and a terrifying process, especially if you’re working from home like many throughout the world. Have no fear, I’m here to tell you that you’ve got this and to give you a few pro-tips....
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Here’s What Stops Most People From Reaching Their Full Potential–and How You Can Avoid Getting Stuck

by murika Comment Closed
When you picture achieving success, you probably imagine a graph rising steadily to the right, with the top point of the line being somewhere around fulfillment, lots of cash and real authority in your field. Reality check--the graph often rises to a given point, then cuts sharply to the horizontal and stays there. It's a situation known for decades as the Peter Principle. The concept, made famous based on research from Lawrence J. Peter published in 1969, says that people rise to the level of their incompetence. You'll keep getting promoted until you simply don't have the skills or knowhow to get any further. And at that point, your career takes a seat and stagnates....
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Train Your Brain to Remember Anything You Learn With This Simple, 20-Minute Habit

by murika Comment Closed
Recently, a colleague and I were lamenting the process of growing older and the inevitable increasing difficulty of remembering things we want to remember. That becomes particularly annoying when you attend a conference or a learning seminar and find yourself forgetting the entire session just days later. But then my colleague told me about the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, a 100-year-old formula developed by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, who pioneered the experimental study of memory. The psychologist's work has resurfaced recently and has been making its way around college campuses as a tool to help students remember lecture material. For example, the University of Waterloo explains the curve and how to use it on the Campus Wellness website. I teach at Indiana University and a student mentioned it to me in class as a study aid he uses. Intrigued, I tried it out too--more on that in a moment....
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3 Factors Driving Real Estate Investment in 2020

by murika Comment Closed
Real estate investment has been one of the most attractive ways of putting money to work for a very long time. There is a reason why it always features prominently in the portfolios of billionaires and other sophisticated investors. It offers relative stability and attractive returns. That said, 2020 is not like any other year in recent history. The global health crisis has upended traditional investment and business sectors, and the real estate sector is not an exception....
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This 5-Second Morning Ritual Sets Satya Nadella Up for All-Day Success

by murika Comment Closed
Lots of CEOs love to humble brag about their extreme morning routines. Tim Cook is up at the ungodly hour of 3:45, Richard Branson is kite surfing before most of us open our eyes, and Tony Robbins subjects himself to a daily ice water plunge. But there are exceptions. Jeff Bezos is a famous morning putterer, for instance, refusing to set important meetings before 10 a.m. And apparently Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is another iconic name that prefers a gentler start to the day. In the course recent interview with Time (hat tip to Business Insider), the Microsoft CEO revealed his ultra quick, ultra impactful morning ritual....
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This App Lets You Build a Fully Functioning Website in Seconds

by murika Comment Closed
Any entrepreneur worth their salt knows you need a website to make your brand stand out and help your business scale. Websites help generate new business, simplify your operations, and give you greater standing in your community and with your customers. However, not everyone has the technical expertise to build a website from scratch, nor the capital to enlist a web designer when you're just starting out. There are better solutions out there. Take, for instance, Sourcery Website Builder. Sourcery is a simplified website builder that helps you create complete websites from scratch that are fully customized for your business. All you have to do is type your company name, connect your social profiles, and Sorcery will craft your website and keep it updated, optimized, and relevant automatically. It takes literally seconds to set up your website, which is why Sourcery was named a #5 Product of the Day on Product Hunt....
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An Entrepreneur’s Checklist for Starting a Business at Home

by murika Comment Closed
Once you have an idea and a passion, starting a business can feel like a whirlwind. While it might feel like you have to dive in head-first right away, taking a step back to plan and organize can set you up for long term growth. Before you begin your business journey, here are a few tasks and helpful reminders to check off your list. Create a business plan. You may think business plans are only for large organizations, but every startup needs to have one. The Small Business Administration has a guide to help you write one yourself. Business plans are meant to serve you, the entrepreneur, so there is no wrong way to write yours....
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Big Ass Fans Founder Carey Smith on How to Build a Business in a Recession

by murika Comment Closed
It's the entrepreneurial way to remain optimistic and find unique opportunities. That's according to Big Ass Fans founder Carey Smith, who spoke at Inc.'s Real Talk: Business Reboot streaming event on how to get your business through a downturn and remain positive in difficult times. "Don't be a victim," he advises. Smith founded his company (which sells large fans) in 1999, and landed it on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies 11 times, from 2007 to 2017. Smith grew Big Ass Fans into a multimillion-dollar enterprise through the heart of the 2008 downturn and ultimately sold it in 2017 for $500 million. Here's his advice for how to push your business through an economic crisis....
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4 Tips for Simplifying Due Diligence (and Why It’s Even Needed)

by murika Comment Closed
During a merger or acquisition, few things are more important than performing due diligence. However, this is far from the only time when due diligence documentation matters. Tax compliance audits, onboarding new clients or entering a joint venture with another company are all situations in which your own due diligence can streamline operations and improve decision-making. For startup founders, due diligence plays a key role in their ability to gain venture capital funding. As Business Insider reports, this documentation is especially important for earning the trust of potential investors, particularly when in-person, face-to-face meetings aren’t possible....
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Why You Should Focus on Brand Reputation Rather Than Marketing

by murika Comment Closed
When you're building a business, your reputation is all you have. While flashy marketing campaigns or persuasive sales materials can help you close a deal, they're not going to be strong enough to keep your customers coming back to purchase again. As an entrepreneur, it can be difficult to separate these two ideas. If you're putting all your energy into attracting new customers, you might forget to give a customer who has purchased from you your best work. Unfortunately, if the customer isn't happy with what you've done for them, they'll not only move on to a competitor, but they might tell their friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances about their bad experience. If that happens too often, you develop a bad reputation -- the kiss of death in the business world....
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5 Effective Strategies to Grow Your Retail Business

by murika Comment Closed
It has never been easier to start a retail business. Whatever your interests are or whatever the market you want to serve is, a wide range of developments have made it possible to launch a retail business much more efficiently than say, 10 years ago. First, white label manufacturing has grown exponentially. You can get products of any type made and shipped to you without any branding so you can put your materials on them and sell as your own unique product. If you want to build a completely custom product, you can do that by outsourcing the manufacturing. You can also utilize drop shipping if you’d prefer to focus on marketing alone, which is something that social media and online e-commerce platforms have made very efficient....
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Why Investing in Procurement Makes Organizations More Resilient

by murika Comment Closed
For decades, we’ve placed efficiency at the center of strategy: We’ve run operations as close to full capacity as we can. We’ve ordered from suppliers in ways that are tightly aligned with our production schedules. We’ve worked hard to minimize costs, “sweating assets hard” under the guidance of the CFO, and we’ve delivered financial returns on a quarterly basis. In many ways, this is a system that has worked remarkably well. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has made painfully clear, it has a major flaw: It doesn’t help firms develop resilience. That’s going to have to change. To survive times of crisis and thrive over the long term, firms will need to shift their strategic thinking from just-in-time to just-in-case....
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Why We Need ‘Dadpreneurs’ to Step Up Now

by murika Comment Closed
There’s no doubt that it’s a challenging time to be an entrepreneur. Unprecedented changes in the way that we work and live have upended the best laid plans of most business owners, regardless of what stage of business development their venture is in. For entrepreneurs who are parents, however, the challenges they face are even more daunting. They are now tasked with managing fragile businesses while also overseeing home-schooling, 24/7 childcare, and housework without a break in sight. Not surprisingly, parent entrepreneurs are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and exhausted....
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