Small business week 2018

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin How can small business owners set themselves up to avoid burnout? originally appeared on Quora : the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Charlene Walters, PhD, Business Mentor, Consultant, Corporate Trainer & Author, on Quora : It is very common for entrepreneurs to experience burnout, particularly solopreneurs who are doing everything all by themselves. I’ve had many clients come to me as they neared that point. When it comes to burnout, however, half of the battle is just being aware of its prevalence and actively trying to protect oneself from it. To that end, here are some of the actions that I recommend business owners take to prevent burnout: Guarding their schedules. The most successful entrepreneurs focus on productivity and maximizing their time. Therefore, they are clever in terms of their … [Read more...] about How Small Business Owners Can Avoid Burnout

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Having worked with prospective business buyers and sellers for more than thirty years, one of the most frequent complaints I hear is about business brokers. It is common for buyers to bemoan the theory that business brokers do not respond to inquiries, they want an offer in place before they provide meaningful information, the add-backs that they propose do not make sense, and on and on the list goes. Yes, indeed it is true that many brokers are guilty of these infractions, but certainly not all. More importantly what I have learned is that buyers play an equal role, if not greater in the deficiencies of the business buying process. Understanding Their Role Business brokers do not represent buyers; unless they have been engaged and are being paid by them. They represent the seller or the deal. They are not your advisor. Their role is to provide information, answer questions, act as a buffer between the parties, and … [Read more...] about Business Buyers – Stop Complaining About Brokers

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Manuel O. Méndez, Chief Executive Officer of Quotient Limited . Each of us has the power to make a positive impact on the lives of others. When I was learning about value-creation strategies at the beginning of my postgraduate studies, I found myself thinking about how every interaction—be it with colleagues, family, mentors or even members within our wider community—is a value-creation exercise. But what is value creation? The concept in business 101 is simple: It’s a process that turns resources into something that meets the needs of others. Amazingly, I was lucky enough to not only learn about this concept in theory but could also witness it in practice from some of my mentors. My father was the first person in my life who projected an air of inspiration that I quickly picked up on. He inspired me to think big and help others do the same along the way. I also met someone early on in my career who was the … [Read more...] about Four Sure-Fire Ways To Become A Value Creator In Your Business Or Community

UPDATE: This piece has been updated to reflect a statement from Parents Defending Education (PDE). Maryland teachers are educating children on “speciesism” and other types of oppression this week with a worksheet that the Parents Defending Education (PDE) found was in a Black Lives Matter lesson plan, according to Fox News. The BLM lesson plan aimed to teach students about “Diversity and Globalism,” according to the lesson plan obtained by (PDE) . Speciesism, one of the 13 other types of oppression listed on the worksheet, is oppression against animals, plans and flora, according to the worksheet obtained from Fox News. “Instead of learning about great Black Americans like Frederick Douglass who brought our nation together, Howard County decided to use Black History Month to teach students about racial division and hatred. Black History Month should be about the black Americans who dedicated themselves to ensuring our country lived up to its founding principles. It’s … [Read more...] about Maryland Schools Teach ‘Speciesism’ And 13 Other Forms Of Oppression During BLM ‘Week Of Action’

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Sydney Montgomery, the 29-year-old founder of education non-profit Barrier Breakers and ed tech company Outline It , has dedicated her career to helping students from diverse backgrounds pursue new opportunities. She’s been an entrepreneur from an early age, having taught piano to her neighbors at the age of 10 years old and later becoming a tutor. Both of Montgomery’s parents received their degrees only after joining the military. She herself was the first person in her own high school to go to Princeton, where she studied English. Later she attended Harvard Law School. In 2018, she launched S. Montgomery Admissions Consulting (now part of Barrier Breakers) with a mission to increase access to, and success in, higher education, for marginalized students. In this Q&A, Montgomery discusses purpose, social impact, and the most important leadership lessons she’s ever learned. Sally Percy: What stops … [Read more...] about “It’s Irresponsible To Not Think About The Way Your Business Impacts Others”

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Week in Review Asian equities started the week off lower and then rallied higher in the middle of the week as central bank rate hikes dominated market news, though China maintained its easing stance. January Manufacturing PMI, reported on Monday, was 50.1 versus expectations of 50.1 and December’s 47, while the Non-manufacturing (Service) PMI was 54.4 versus expectations of 52 and December’s 41.6. Both indicated an expansion, which was more pronounced in services. Baidu BIDU announced Tuesday that it would be rolling out a Chat GPT-like AI search feature. China’s currency rallied this week on reopening and an increase in demand for RMB-denominated assets. Friday’s Key News Asian equities had a strong night as India rebounded. Concerns of Adani’s implosion leading to a broader crisis lessened, though Mainland China and Hong Kong underperformed. Asia saw impressive equity performance overnight as Amazon … [Read more...] about Consumer Rebound Rolls On, Week In Review

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Three African youth-led Agritech businesses— Kenya’s DigiCow, Botswana’s Brastorne Enterprises and Nigeria’s ThriveAgric— will receive mentorship and $1.5 million in grants to help them to aggressively expand solutions to long-standing challenges faced by smallholder farmers across the continent. As winners of the 2022 AYuTe Africa Challenge — an initiative launched by international development organization Heifer International— they will be able to scale up innovations that hold the potential to disrupt agriculture on the continent and reposition the sector as a rewarding career path for the youth. This is according to Adesuwa Ifedi, senior vice president of Africa Programs at Heifer International , who says that the agritech accelerator sought innovations that were “poised to provide the positive disruption” that farmers urgently need. And there couldn’t be a better time. Climate change induced prolonged drought … [Read more...] about Three Youth-Led African Agritech Businesses Receive Investment To Help Scale Up African Agriculture

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Ryan Brennan, Managing Director, Advantage Capital . As the post-pandemic economy navigates its ongoing downturn, the road to financial well-being and realizing wealth creation begins with a concerted effort around growing local small businesses. Entrepreneurs and business owners help create the jobs required to uplift areas in need of more economic opportunity. But those overlooked and underserved areas also require access to capital to produce the positive impact that can course-correct a lackluster economy. The impact of accessible capital doesn’t stop at the storefront —it can have a ripple effect of strengthening surrounding communities. The Business Opportunity In Rural And Economically Challenged Urban Areas For undercapitalized parts of the country—the regions where, all too often, lenders and investors have been less likely to support small businesses—a double-bottom line approach to investing may be … [Read more...] about How Incentives Help Ensure Investments Reach The Right Areas

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Mike is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dealpath , a cloud-based software platform for commercial real estate investment and development teams. Investors who want to compete in the new real estate game are approaching business with a new framework—one that gives them speed, foresight and agility. Nearly every week we read about institutional investors like Brookfield, Starwood or Blackstone acquiring another big real estate portfolio or raising a new multi-billion dollar fund. They’ve enhanced the way they do business to adapt to the times—operating at scale with speed and precision despite market volatility. They’re playing what I think of as the new real estate game. Major companies have learned to cut through the " noise " by using data to focus on what the real estate market is telling them. Thanks to a new landscape of proptech, data is now easier to gather, collaborate around and draw insights from than it … [Read more...] about The New Real Estate Game: A Future-Ready Framework For CRE Investment

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Yura Lazebnikov, an investor, entrepreneur and expert in technology industries, IT and esports. The Managing Partner of TECHIIA Holding. Interactions between a startup and a corporation can speed up the development of both. I've found it can also harm a startup. I want to remind young teams to consider the perspective of corporations. You need to choose the right way to interact to boost your product and avoid worst-case scenarios. For the purposes of this article, a startup is a tech company with an innovative product, at least a few customers and revenue. It offers a fundamentally new solution to a problem. Often, startups have ten to twenty mobile and flexible employees. A person with a laptop working from coffee shops may well be the founder of such a company. Sometimes a startup is also a group of students who write code for some application in their spare time. I am not discussing this case here. Until … [Read more...] about How Tech Startups And Corporations Can Avail Each Other