Here Are 7 Things Any Entrepreneur Can Do Right Now to Prevent Burnout

Sometime in the middle of 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) added ‘burnout’ to its handbook of International Classification of Diseases or the ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon. Chronic workplace stress, endless to-do lists, constant feelings of fatigue. Entrepreneurs who are working on ideas to build and/or grow something from scratch are very well acquainted with these terms and feelings. As an organisation grows, there is an increasing number of decisions to be made and departments to be led. It only grows from that point on and the workload never ceases to exist.

This workload gets trickier to combat in the case of an entrepreneur because you are solely responsible for the organisation’s operations as well as strategic health. In the midst of this, it is easy to forget about one’s own health! It doesn’t help that the idea of overworking and hustling has been glamorised to the extent of detriment. It’s not new that the hustle culture has its cons. As entrepreneurs, we need to put in extra effort and time, but establishing healthy habits to prevent burnout is equally important, in the long run!

Here are a few steps one can take to safeguard against the abyss of burnout:

1. Be protective of your routine and time

If you want to make the best of your time and establish healthy boundaries between working hours and non-working hours, you have to be extremely protective of your routine and time. Having a routine cuts your anxieties in half. How? Think of it this way: there are plenty of uncertainties in the act of running a business. If your routine will be unpredictable as well, you may not end up accomplishing much.

Here is a hack: Start your day with the thing that is on top of your priority list and that requires your creative inputs. If you start your day by doing something monotonous and uninspiring like responding to emails and texts, you will lose out on the best hours of your day. 

Use the wee hours of the morning to set your schedule for the day, or better yet, make a checklist the night before. This simple exercise can help prevent a crisis of decision fatigue. You should know your breaking point and take a pause when you reach it during the day.

2. Identify the triggers of your stress

The most prominent symptom of burnout is stress. While some levels of positive stress can serve the purpose of pushing you to perform, too much stress over a prolonged period can push you to exhaustion. It is imperative that you identify the triggers and activities that exacerbate your stress and anxieties. If there are particular instances or meetings that cause you panic or stress, you can work to pluck out and eliminate the cause of the stress in that specific situation. If you can keep stress at bay, the battle is half won!

“I have a theory that burnout is about resentment. And you beat it by knowing what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful.” – Marissa Mayer

3. Meditate and exercise to create mind space

The time you spend meditating and/or working out will help keep you away from the screens and the workplace in general. There are additional benefits of meditation and yoga, including stress alleviation. Yoga is also said to develop and strengthen your counter-stress response system called the parasympathetic nervous system.

4. Unplug

Drawing from the idea of the creation of mind space without distractions and noise, you should set aside some time each day when you can unplug. In this age of hyperconnectivity, you can get overwhelmed attending all the phone calls, and parading from one meeting to another. Take a break every day when you have a little time to yourself so your mind can rest. This is also the time you can set aside time for quiet reflection and try to live mindfully.

5. Build a great team

This is easier said than done, but if you put together a dream team, you can count on them to shoulder part of the overall responsibility and decision-making. They can focus on specific departments and look at things from a vantage point that you may not have, being the boss. You can delegate work to good workers and managers – work smarter, not harder!

6. Redefine self-care

As an entrepreneur who is hustling hard to kick projects off the ground and experimenting every step of the way, it is important to define your idea of self-care and then treat yourself to it. It could be meditation or working out for some as discussed before, or reading a book or watching TV or cinema for others. Work-life balance is key.

“In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel burnout setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhaust, it is best for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long term perspective.” – Dalai Lama

7. Volunteer

When they talk about how giving feels good, they aren’t exaggerating. But how can giving back to society help you prevent burnout? It is the same principle – when you give your time instead of money, you are choosing to connect with the real world. For instance, if you volunteer at a dog shelter, you are coming in contact with helpless dogs – and such experiences can help put things in perspective. You could be teaching underprivileged kids or at a community college, mentor young people, spend time at an old age home or community clinic. Volunteering is truly a way of getting unalloyed, unconditional happiness. 

Part of why involvement in an activity that doesn’t reap monetary benefits is beneficial is because it is believed that we can easily fall prey to converting every hobby or recreational activity into a capitalistic pursuit. And that is only an invitation for more stress. When you are involved in a pursuit without any strings attached and without expecting anything in return, you are able to enjoy the process for what it is.

Burnout can be easily avoided if you know where to draw the lines. Even so, the passion of an entrepreneurial spirit is hard to beat. Make sure you strike the right balance. 

from
https://addicted2success.com/entrepreneur-profile/here-are-7-things-any-entrepreneur-can-do-right-now-to-prevent-burnout/

5 of the Worst Pieces of Advice and How to Understand Them Better

Ever noticed how easy it is to offer advice? You go to Google, find an inspiring quote and share it with your struggling friend. Yes, it’s well-meaning help, but sometimes it does more harm than good. 

In this post, we will dive deeper into some of the most popular pieces of advice out there that you should forget about. Without further ado, let’s separate the wheat from the chaff:

1. Follow your passion

Let’s be honest, this is one of the trendy cliche pieces of advice you will get or even give to a friend or colleague. It goes something like this, “Find your passion and you don’t have to work a day in your life.”

It’s true that most of the successful people pursue something they are passionate about, right? The problem though, is the unlucky majority who didn’t succeed after pursuing their passions. We don’t hear a lot about this group, but instead magnify the minority who are victorious and assume that passion is the miracle drug for success.

Yes, your passion is important but you have to dig deeper. You have to look at the reality of things such as what are the available opportunities, what is the competition out there, do l have the resources and if so, what’s the plan?

In other words, you have to identify the best match for your passion and the opportunities out there. Find that sweet spot, be prepared to grind and you will be on your way to success.

2. Never give up

You’ve heard this advice a million times. On the surface it’s well-meaning advice, but if we dig deeper there are flaws in it. 

Life is a journey, and along the way there will be decisions to make, some will be successful but others will be dramatic failures. In the process of trying to make things work, we overstay when we should have packed our bags and left.

For instance, banging your head on a concrete wall to crack it seems absurd, but that’s what happens sometimes in life. Continuous pounding on the wall will only shatter your skull and escalate your pain. Being stubbornly persistent in this scenario will not yield positive results, but more suffering.

You can quit using your head but not give up on the concrete wall. Instead, you can use a sledge hammer and burst a hole through the concrete. In other words, It’s about quitting the things that don’t work out.

Knowing when to pack and leave won’t be easy. Having a trusted inner circle can help you through because you already trust their feedback. It could mean the light to a blindspot you didn’t know you had.

Leave it behind, pack the lessons with you and move on to something else. It won’t feel great to fold up but sometimes it’s the best decision. Just understand that not everything will work and sometimes some ideas are better killed or abandoned. So yes, it’s okay to give up, but don’t give up on trying something new or different.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” – Abraham Lincoln  

3. Good things only come to those that wait

We live in a fast-paced society but unfortunately our staying power is on a downward spiral. And what’s worse? The few that have it are infected with a disease called passive patience. This is where someone sits around doing nothing expecting success to magically knock on their door. It’s a pipe dream and you will only waste your life away.

On the other hand, there is active patience. This is where you’re still hopeful of achieving success but instead, take action to pursue your dreams. Yes you’re patient, but you also understand that you have an active role to play in the grand scheme of things.

Roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and do what needs to be done because it’s the best way to be patient with your success.

4. You are perfect just the way you are

Let’s be honest, nobody has every dimension of their life completely figured out. Everyone has an area they are struggling with. Look at it this way: If you’re perfect, it means you’re not growing but stagnating instead. That’s not what you want. You want to keep challenging yourself by growing your skills or even chasing new dreams because that’s how we grow.

In other words, at any single point in life we will be both perfect and imperfect. There’s beauty in that because we are all a work in progress. So, don’t beat yourself up, be kind instead, and keep going.

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change.” – Paulo Coelho

5. You can do anything that you put your mind to

What if you wanted to a 12ft tall man? Would putting your mind into it help? You guessed it, not a chance. You see, not everyone can be a nobel prize winner or even a world-class athlete. What you should understand is that your uniqueness qualifies you to excel in certain areas in life. No, you don’t have to bury your ambition and live on auto-pilot.

Make peace with the fact that your ambitions will change as you go through life. There’s a chance that in a decade you will be aiming at a totally different thing from what you’re pursuing right now.

In short, before you offer advice, take your time and think through it. It may take time but at least you will have saved a colleague from the heartache that comes with bad advice. Your friends trust you so at least do your part by being careful when offering them some of the above advice. It’s not too much to ask for the sake of that treasured friendship. Can you handle it?

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Share it with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/5-of-the-worst-pieces-of-advice-and-how-to-understand-them-better/

46 Inspirational Quotes From the Most Popular Influencers

Have you ever wondered why quotes have become so popular nowadays? They are literally everywhere: billboards, social media, etc. The secret to inspirational quotes is in the motivation they bring to our lives. These sayings from famous people, successful entrepreneurs, and politicians have a positive effect on our mood and help us to stay motivated. Some quotes can even inspire us to do something we would never have previously dared to do.

But…do they really matter or are they just fashionable? First, inspirational quotes are good for brainstorming. When you’re trying to find a solution to a tough situation, writing a college essay, or simply searching for ideas for your next Facebook post, a good quote may steer you in a direction you haven’t thought of yet.

Second, most quotes are said or written by people who are successful in their lives and have achieved great heights. Their reputation gives you a reason to believe in these words. When you read quotes from someone who inspires you and who is an authority figure for you, you get a dose of motivation that can encourage action.

Third, inspirational quotes help you focus on results rather than the process. The sayings of famous people capture your imagination. They offer bite-sized creativity and take little time to read (unless you spend all day swiping your Instagram feed).

Fourth, motivational sayings help you to stay positive. They can even help offset feelings of sadness.

In the infographic below, you will find 46 inspirational quotes by social media influencers, young entrepreneurs, YouTubers, and TED speakers that will inspire you.  Check them out!

from
https://addicted2success.com/quotes/46-inspirational-quotes-from-the-most-popular-influencers/

5 Marketing Tactics That You Should Stop Wasting Your Time On

Marketing is part & parcel of an everyday business. We have arrived at an arena where digital marketing has become really important for building brands and generating sales. There are new technologies, options, resources, and tools that have been recently introduced and all of them seem like an untapped goldmine to a marketer. 

In such circumstances, it has become extremely crucial for a marketer to follow a sound marketing strategy and cut down on frivolous time-wasters. Time wasted is money lost. To grow a business, a marketer needs to identify the feasibility of the time that they are investing in their marketing efforts.

So here are 5 time-consuming marketing tactics that you should leave behind:

1. Trying to be active on every social media network

Social media has proven to be one of the most useful tools for marketing. Companies have started the practice of hiring personnel just to handle their social media presence and most companies have huge social media marketing budgets as well. And, why not? It is an astounding tool to generate brand awareness not only for well known, big-scale operations but also for local, small businesses.

Now, you might be thinking, “Where is the problem?” There are a couple of them. For example, companies tend to get on every social media bandwagon without researching if their target demographic is following suit. Growing your community on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram can take up a lot of resources and time. If you keep adding on to it, you are inevitably going to end up wasting a lot of time.

It’s better to identify one engaging community and invest in it. For example, if you are a strictly corporate business, well-maintained Facebook and LinkedIn profiles will serve you well. If, however, you are a small business that makes furniture, growing your business via Instagram will be your best bet.

It is up to you to understand the habits of your target audience and focus your time and energy on the platforms that are creating the most impact for you. So if you’re mindlessly spending a lot of your time and energy on each and every social media platform, take a step back and breathe. Focus your efforts on platforms that are viable for you and your business.

2. Creating multiple accounts for a single social media

If you are not as large a brand as Apple, you don’t need 10 distinct social media accounts on the same network. Let’s say you have 3 different accounts for three departments each on 3 of the basic social networks. This means you have to maintain an engaging presence on 9 different accounts. At the end of the day, it’s not even worth it.

However, having one account each for every social media will not only be easier to pull off but it will also help you utilize your time on tried and tested tactics to grow your business. If need be, you can give administrative access to people from different departments, eliminating the need for multiple accounts.

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” – Jeff Bezos

3. Going only after numbers when procuring backlinks

Inbound links are required if you want to feature anywhere near the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs). This is one of the aspects by which Google ranks websites. If that’s the case, shouldn’t every website try to rack up as many backlinks as they can? The answer is no.

It doesn’t matter how many inbound links your website enjoys if the websites that are linking to your website are irrelevant with a poor website ranking. The fact is that quality speaks over quantity which is determined by the Domain Authority (DA) of the site linking to you.

You can use Moz to check the DA of websites. Knowing the DA of websites would help you approach only those websites that are authoritative and relevant to your target industry and demographic.

For example, if you are running a business blog, a single backlink from a website like Forbes with an almost perfect DA will serve you far better than many backlinks from small, unknown websites. This means that rather than wasting time on increasing the number of backlinks, focus on getting fewer but higher quality backlinks. You can achieve this by using tactics like guest posting and creating quality shareable content.

4. Playing the number game with blogs

Seeing that content marketing has become extremely prominent, marketers have started putting out blogs at the speed of light. Statistically, more blogs have proven to get more traffic to websites. Does this mean that posting more content is rewarding? Not really! 

Companies have been spreading their resources thin and compromising on the quality of their content in hopes of higher traffic without realizing that Google might penalize their content. So, rather than writing posts stuffed with keywords that don’t actually resonate with the content you are posting about, focus on delivering quality content to the reader. Aim for the numbers only when you have the resources to maintain the quality.

In short, create quality content that delivers value. Doing this will help you enhance your website visibility and traffic organically over time and it will also help you build authority in your functional industry.

“Content Doesn’t Win. Optimized Content Wins.” – Liana Evans

5. Engaging with every message and comment

When you begin a blog or launch your website, traffic would trickle in slowly and the number of comments or messages would be minuscule. Engaging with everyone at this time will help build up your community and develop a core following. However, when you have achieved a good amount of followers, replying to everyone might prove to be counter-productive.

Find a balance between being actively engaging and wasting time. There’s a thin line between the two, and at times, it might get hard to distinguish between them. At the end of the day, marketing should not be too time-consuming if all it does is waste your time without giving you profitable dividends. If you engage with your audience, it should be worth it.

So here’s a word of advice: Find the interactions that will be worth your time and engage in those. 

Conclusion

Time is the most valuable currency for a marketer. It is important that you keep track of your activities, optimize processes, and eliminate those engagements which are yielding no results. You have to evolve and adapt to new trends.

Iterations to technologies and new marketing tactics land in the market every few days. To make it in the cut-throat world of digital media, you have to catch the momentum or you might be left behind. You can’t afford to waste time interacting with trolls or pushing out average content. Rather, keep your focus on effective strategies that will return your investment.

What’s the biggest key take away you got from this article? Share it with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/5-marketing-tactics-that-you-should-stop-wasting-your-time-on/

3 Questions Your Startup Needs to Answer in Order to Maintain Focus

When I was a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps at 22 years old, one of my captains at The Basic School was a rugged Marine who’d been awarded the Bronze Star for defending an isolated combat outpost from repeated Taliban attacks.

One day, he told me, “If you’re strong everywhere, it means that you’re strong nowhere. You need to gather intelligence, determine the enemy’s most likely avenue of approach, and orient your defensive position toward it. If you try to defend everywhere at once, you’ll fail.”

I’d offer similar advice to startups. The constraints of capital, talent, and time already leave you vulnerable to the competition’s every move. Trying to position yourself as a one-stop shop just spreads your resources even thinner. The question then is, why do so many startups still try to be all things to all people so soon out of the gate?

Too Big Too Soon

Startups often feel pressured to look bigger than they are. They want to show that they’re at the cutting edge of technology and get the attention of customers by promising a combination of features beyond anything that’s available on the market.

But buyers have become more and more savvy. They can smell even a hint of nonsense from a mile away. This is why they’re increasingly likely to conduct extensive research before making a purchase, which can mean requesting to test out a product before they buy it. When buyers realize that companies are overpromising and underdelivering, it damages the company’s reputation and lowers the likelihood of future success.

Every successful startup excelled at one thing first before expanding into other features. Netflix, for example, became the best in on-demand DVD rentals, while Amazon became the best online bookseller. The same can be said for Google with search, Facebook with connecting college students, and Uber with black car ride-sharing.

Since dominating in its core competencies, Netflix now excels in streaming services and creating proprietary content. Amazon is doing something similar — with the addition of selling all physical goods and offering cloud-computing services. Google still provides search, but has added email, video calls, maps, and even self-driving cars to its roster. Facebook connects people regardless of school affiliation and also runs a marketplace, Instagram, and WhatsApp, while Uber has branched out from a black car service into UberX and UberEats.

When you have nailed down your core competency and built it into a successful business, subsequent product lines must compliment your core business as part of a comprehensive corporate strategy in order to continue growing in a profitable and sustainable matter. Consider WeWork, for example, which had carved out a strong niche in the shared workspace market. The company began investing in more than just office space, moving into retail, housing, preschools, college campuses, food startups, and a wave generator for inland surfing.

That’s a lot of positions to defend — and a confusing corporate structure. That’s why it was no big surprise when WeWork recently pulled its IPO. The company also just received a $1.75 billion line of credit from Goldman Sachs to help clean up its debt and keep the ship afloat.

“What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.” – Dave Thomas

More Isn’t Always More

Adding features to match every perceived customer need is tempting. Logic would tell you that more of a good thing means an even better thing, but when it comes to startups, that’s simply not the case.

When my startup was pitching our product, which is smart camera software used for gun detection, to a large global company, the company pointed out that one of our competitors also uses computer vision to detect guns — on top of behavioral analysis, license plate reading, healthcare analysis, abandoned object recognition, people tracking for retail, and seemingly countless other applications. They asked why they should go with us when all we do is gun detection.

I knew of the competitor they were referencing. I knew the company was roughly the same size as us, so I understood a bit about their true capabilities and limitations. And I know that it’s not possible to be good at everything at once. 

I said, “If you need a bunch of bells and whistles, ask yourself whether it’s realistic for a seed-stage company to deliver effectively on all of these promises.” I suggested they hold the company’s feet to the fire and test the products rigorously before making a decision.

3 Questions for Staying Focused

As a startup founder, you need to ask yourself three questions when looking to improve your offerings, and the answers should help you maintain a sharper focus on your core competency. Otherwise, you risk losing sight of your target audience and expanding too far too soon.

1. What is the most critical customer pain point we want to solve?

For the most part, your answer will fall into one of four fairly broad categories: cost, productivity, ease of use, and assistance. Cost obviously involves a financial problem, like overpaying for a product or service. Productivity centers on time — or the lack thereof. Ease of process involves making a complicated matter simpler, and assistance is all about support. 

Invest in the research to uncover where your customers’ biggest pain points lie. Then, understand how your product or service can best solve that problem only. The first step in staying focused is zeroing in on one pain point and knowing you will need to maximize your offering’s ability to solve it.

“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” – Steve Jobs

2. Are we building a valuable solution to this pain point? 

Once you’ve established the problem your offering will address, you should determine whether what you have to offer is actually the best way for customers to solve it. Can your product or service take them easily from point A, where they have the problem, to point B, where it has been significantly remedied or entirely solved? If not, it’s time to pivot your strategy and improve your offering to better deliver that one solution, rather than just adding bells and whistles.

3. Are we using feedback to improve?

Nobody knows a pain point better than consumers. Once your product or service is in people’s hands, welcome their feedback with open arms. The more input you can gather, the better. 

You can use the feedback directly to build your development road map, allowing you to improve upon your product or service in the way customers most want to see. Hearing from customers themselves is the only way to know the true extent to which you are solving your customers’ problems. 

To bring the most value to your customers, focus in rather than expanding out. Startups form around solving problems in the first place, so the attention should remain on finding the very best solution. Focus on what you’re good at and master this area before moving into other uncharted waters. That’s the foundation of success.

Have you thought about starting a business? If so, what part of this article resonated most with you? Share your thoughts below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/startups/3-questions-your-startup-needs-to-answer-in-order-to-maintain-focus/

Here Are the Must-Have Skills That You Need to Succeed in the Business World

In this throat cutting competitive world where you can easily find a startup for all the things that you can imagine, it’s hard for any business to survive without the ‘must-have’. Gone are the days where success just demanded hard work, resilience, and expertise in your field. It takes a few more things to translate passion into a successful business model. 

More than 50% of businesses fail because they jump right to getting profits instead of honing their fundamental business skills. Small businesses require you to become a jack of all trades. However, it is important to differentiate between the work you have to do yourself and the work you can delegate to your teammates. You can learn a new skill with time. However, time once lost will not be back. You need to prioritize things to focus on the bigger picture. 

If you are reading this blog, chances are that you are going to start a new business soon or you might be facing some issues in your current one. We’ll help you out by briefing you about the essential soft skills that you need to learn for your business to succeed. 

1. Know when to step back and delegate work 

Delegation is hard for a lot of entrepreneurs because it involves assigning responsibility to other people. All the monotonous and routine activities should be carried out by your staff without micromanagement. 

Effective delegation involves finding the correct balance between assigning tasks to people and letting them do their job effectively while maintaining control of the overall outcome. You should assign work in a manner to make your business work and not the other way around.

2. Proper communication skills

Communication is the first and most important step in life. Every aspect of life or any task that you perform requires improved communications. 

For effective and positive effects in business, you should be able to communicate well. From hiring a new employee to getting in touch with investors, good communication helps you to choose the right candidate and make the right impression. You can be clear about your expectations and the process you prefer in your mind. Communication is the key to portray your vision and implement your ideas effectively. 

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

3. Negotiate to the best of your abilities

If you want to make your business profitable, you have to hone your negotiation skills. We have all seen our mother negotiate on a daily basis at farmer’s markets and thrift shops. However, formal negotiation is a skill that requires poised and proper etiquette which can be learned through practice. 

The more frequently you negotiate, the smoother you are going to get. You’ll know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. You’ll even learn when you should stop or not speak at all about concessions. Just make sure that you develop a win-win approach while negotiating with third parties in order to obtain the most favorable outcome possible for yourself and your business. 

4. Strategic planning

Strategic planning is very important to maximize the profit and efficiency of your business resources. It involves everything from defining the goals, performance, expectations, designing, allocation, execution, analytics, and even future risk predictions along with the plan to tackle it. 

Your capital and people are two resources that play a major role in strategic planning that helps to direct the company in the right direction. Make a vision board with three to the six-year framework and support your end to end process analysis, aka your well-defined business plan.

5. Leadership skills

This is one more step ahead of delegation. This process involves getting things done via people with critical management skills. Leadership is more or less the ability to motivate team members to work toward a common goal. 

You should be able to take charge, streamline, and motivate your subordinates. Treat your team members respectfully; however, you should make sure that they do not take you too lightly. A good leader should know how to forge long-term relationships with customers, employees, and investors while maintaining a firm hand.

6. Team building skills

There’s strength in unity, and team-building skills are thus essential for an entrepreneur. Teams and groups of people who work at their potential generate efficient solutions and are more productive than individuals. The key is to know the skill of team building and how to keep people and employees together who can take your business to the next level.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

7. Analytics, sales and marketing skills

With advancements in technology, today’s workplace is becoming more analytically inclined and complex. The need to analyze and predict results based on market research and data has increased significantly. 

Analytical thinking for your business is more or less for streamlining things before and after they happen in the future. You will be able to determine where you stand currently and how you can bridge the gap between your current position and your goal.

Sales and marketing are the next steps after analytics. Your product is of no use if your customers do not know that it exists. From pricing, advertising, marketing policies, and targeting the right audience, there are a plethora of tasks that can help increase sales and brand visibility. 

Powerful communication and proper digital presence are important for your business grown and generating profitable revenue. 

8. Financial management skills

So, your business is now profitable or you have just bagged huge funding, what comes next? 

Proper financial management is important to maximize the results. This skill set involves maintaining a balance between expenditure, income, and investment risks. Budgeting and financial performance reports are extremely crucial. You should hire an expert to interpret and analyze your financial statements so that you can work on loopholes that are adversely affecting your profitability. 

Conclusion:

Hope this gave you an idea about the processes and things you need to work on for your business to become a success. We assure you that if you master these fundamental management skills, it will help you optimize your resources to get maximum productivity in all situations that you might face in the future. 

What skill do you think is most important to succeed in the business world? Share your ideas with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/here-are-the-must-have-skills-that-you-need-to-succeed-in-the-business-world/

Here’s How Seeing the Bigger Picture Helps With Decision Making

Seeing the big picture helps in making the best decisions to keep you on track towards your vision. Around Thanksgiving, on a beautiful Saturday, we took our son to a pumpkin patch farm together with one of his friends where they got to see and feed bunch of farm animals. We took a small farm train pulled by a tractor to wander around the farm, pick their pumpkins and few other fun activities. My favorite was the haystack maze! It proved to me once more the importance of seeing the bigger picture to make the right decisions.

When I lost sight of my son for about a minute inside the maze and started making turns without any reason, it was obvious that I had no idea how to make the right decision on which way to go. I even thought of pulling up my phone, go to google maps so I could see myself and the maze from above. While it would help me to figure out how to get out, I still wouldn’t be able to see my son on google maps! Obviously, I found them soon, chasing each other and having fun.

For visual simplicity, let’s have a look at the one below I made with domino pieces. Entering from the left, it is not very difficult to figure out that Spider Man should keep straight for the right track to get out. 

However, it will look something like this from Spider Man’s perspective/vision. 

When we see the maze from the top, it is much easier to make the right decision on which way to go in order to make it out. However, not that easy when you cannot see that top view.

Just like the maze analogy, whenever we are to make a decision (for example; Should we approve the investment for that project?) we can remind ourselves to try to see the “bigger picture” (Will that project help us achieve our team’s long-term priorities, beyond its financial analysis only?). By doing so, not only will decision making become much easier, but also the decisions we make will be more in line with our ultimate vision and where we want to go.

How do we get the top view of the maze when we are inside it?

After I found my son and his friend in the maze, we kept playing for a while longer. As we kept making the same turns one after another repeatedly, the kids started saying things like “I know where to go from here” or “we should go left here and then right for the exit”. I was not surprised hearing them as the maze started looking familiar to me as well, very different than our initial few minutes inside. I also figured that I was building a rough top view of the maze in my mind as we kept making those turns.

Practice, and therefore experience, is one thing that helps seeing the bigger picture

While, not as simple as the maze analogy, watching a soccer game on TV vs. actually playing it is another good one. Having played soccer as center midfielder since childhood, I can assure you that the view when you are on the field is nowhere near what you see on the TV screen.

To roughly illustrate, below are two screenshots from my FIFA20 game. Firmino, red circled, is about to receive the ball around the center circle. It seems that he has few options here, especially two of them are quite obvious; either pass it towards his left to the teammate unmarked or try a little difficult through pass to his teammate making a dash at the top.

However, things look a little different from Firmino’s own vision. Below is the best angle I was able to get on FIFA20 but it should be somewhat how he sees the field at the same exact moment.

It is very different than how we see it on the screen, isn’t it? That’s why before he receives the ball, Firmino checks around a few times; his left, right and behind, builds a rough top view in his mind and makes the decision accordingly when he receives the ball. Building a good peripheral vision is one of the most important skills for center midfielders and attackers.

Just as soccer players build a better vision (the “bigger picture”) by checking around very often while off the ball, so that they can make better decisions when they get the ball, we can do similarly.

Looking at the situation from different angles to build a broader perspective helps seeing the bigger picture to make better decisions more easily.

While decision making as whole is a big topic and beyond the scope of this article, I am encouraged to highlight that practice, therefore experience, and broadening perspective by looking at the situation from different angles, definitely helps seeing the big picture, which ultimately aids decision making.

I heard many times people saying let’s step back and look at the bigger picture here, not necessarily explaining the how though. Therefore, I wanted to share what helped me so far.It could even be as simple as just reminding ourselves the significance of the bigger picture whenever we are about to make a decision and give it a try through our own authentic ways. 

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/heres-how-seeing-the-bigger-picture-helps-with-decision-making/