Intrapreneurship is the way forward in 2017 for businesses

The key to businesses becoming even bigger in 2017 will be intrapreneurship. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it is basically when someone who works within a firm uses their entrepreneurial skills to build the firm without incurring any of the cost or risks involved in running a business. Now, what would this mean for businesses, it would mean encouraging their employees to be more creative, and motivated and to think outside of the box. This would make employees feel more like they are a part of the company and less disposable. When employees feel more important and confident in their jobs they generally perform better and are more likely to work harder.

So, for 2017, companies looking to grow their brand should explore the hiring of people with an intrapreneurial mindset, especially in departments such as sales and marketing, as well as managerial posts. Just imagine how much more ground would be broken and covered if a person worked as though a company were also their own. 

We see this as an under explored means of growth for a company, but once done correctly we think many company will experience massive overall improvement. The only learning curve that the company stands to face with employees of this mindset would be the challenges as it pertains to company policies as well as rules and bureaucracy. But, once they learn to give the intrapreneur enough space to take creative initiative and execute without letting the policies and rules that threaten to hamper the exploration of new initiatives get in the way, then this should not be much of an issue. And or course the intrapreneur should also understand how to work, build and grow within certain limits.

All in all this is definitely the way forward in a world dominated by millennials. Tell us what you think about this and if this is something that you would like to explore in 2017. 

Double your sales with content marketing

Content marketing is the new language of the world, and it is a bandwagon that is well worth getting on if you are interested in getting one up on your competitors and multiplying your sales figures every month. What was once a market dominated by whichever website could produce the highest volume of quality written content has evolved into a market where your connections, your format diversity, and your ability to connect with an audience across multiple mediums all help determine your success and ROI (Return of Investment).

Today’s content marketers have to analyze subjective situations and adapt to new technologies at a faster rate than ever before, but it’s only going to get more complex from here. Content marketing is going to go through some serious changes in the coming year, and if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you’ll have to prepare for them:

1. Aggregated content will put content marketing in the hands of users. 

What’s the best way to learn about public opinion? A large-scale survey, which takes bits of information from thousands of individuals to illustrate a broader picture. In 2016, this principle will be applied to content; complex software will be able to take blips of information from millions of social profiles and piece them together to form a coherent story. For example, Twitter’s new Project Lightning feature will collect images, videos, and posts from users to create stories and individual features on news and other special events as they unfold. This may threaten content marketing’s reach in the area of news coverage, but could hold promising alternative opportunities for publication.

2. Algorithms will threaten freelancers everywhere.

According to some estimates, by now you’ve read at least one article that was written by a robotic algorithm—and you didn’t even notice. Scary right! Today, journalistic algorithms are capable of producing articles about simple topics (like sports and weather). Soon, they’ll be capable of much more sophisticated tasks. While freelancers and part-timers have been the cost-effective go-to for the production of day-to-day content, in 2016, they could start being replaced by automated algorithms. Complex topics will require a human hand—at least for a few more years—but expect to see algorithms make a splash by the end of next year.

3. Google’s Knowledge Graph and instant answers will necessitate a shift toward long-form content.

Although Google’s Knowledge Graph has been around since 2012, it’s only recently that the vault has evolved into something truly impressive. It now appears for the vast majority of long-tail search queries, providing users with instant answers and information to common questions. Digital assistants like Siri and Cortana are attempting something similar. This sophisticated form of answer provision is removing the need to click any websites in the search results, reducing traffic to the traditional web pages that used to be their destination. In short, traffic to web pages that provide quick answers is starting to diminish, which will force content marketers to seek refuge in more complicated and more difficult topics.

4. Social media will offer new publishing options. Facebook started this trend when it introduced “Instant Articles.” 

Basically, Facebook realized that articles shared on its platform were often getting more visibility and more hits than the articles on their native publishing sites themselves. To resolve this dissonance, Instant Articles were intended to give publishers an alternative option; publish the articles immediately on the platform. Google is now introducing its own version, so expect to see this new type of publishing spread to a wide variety of other social and digital mediums.

5. Content will demand more visual mediums. 

There are several reasons why visual content will continue to become more important. Wireless connections and Internet speeds continue to increase, giving people more capacity to access images and videos even while on the go. The written content market continues to become more saturated, leaving users with a higher demand for more visual forms of content. And users are becoming increasingly impatient, needing faster and more instant forms of communication. The end result is a much higher demand for videos and other visual forms of content well into 2016.

6. Interactive content will emerge. 

With custom newsfeeds and tailored search results, users are already starting to grow accustomed to individualized results in the digital world. Soon, this will be applied to content, as users demand content that shifts or responds to user prompts. The unveiling of Oculus Rift (along with dozens of other virtual reality headsets) in 2016 could serve as the spark that finally introduces customizability and interactivity as a practical medium for content. Either way, expect to see the demand for individually tailored content grow.

7. Competition will skyrocket. 

The content market is borderline saturated already, but competition is only going to increase into 2016. Algorithms, new formats, and new technologies are making it easier and cheaper for businesses to get involved in content marketing. The end result is going to be a flooded market, with only the best of the best getting any kind of meaningful visibility. In 2016, more than ever before, quality of content will matter over quantity, and only the best will survive.

These seven trends mark the beginning of a new era for content marketing. Some, like Google’s Knowledge Graph and instant answers, threaten the groundwork of content marketing in general, while others, like algorithmically generated content, can be adapted to and taken advantage of. Look sharp for all these developments, make changes where you can, and enjoy the ride into 2016.

Ways to drive away amazing employees.

To take your organisation seriously and to run it like a boot camp is vastly different things. Some people forget that and as such chase away great people that if they treat correctly would actually enhance the performance of the business considerably in the long run.

Some HR staff as well as their managers are seriously in need of a wake up call. It is time for a dose of reality.

Sometimes it takes a shock, a wave of top employees going to work for your competitors, to deliver the message.

 “The only way you can keep great employees in the company is by treating them like great employees.”

Here are five truly idiotic HR policies that will keep your best employees racing for the exits the minute they get the chance — and keep you re-filling the same positions over and over until somebody pulls the needle out of your chief executive’s rare end.

• Industrial Revolution-Era Attendance Policies

You can’t hire the best of the best or people with great potential, give them serious problems to solve and then watch their comings and goings as though they were kids being dropped off at daycare. They are adults, for starters, and beyond that you hired them.

You could have hired anybody. Why would you hire people you don’t trust? Don’t you trust yourself enough to hire great people?

If somebody works after hours in the evening you should expect to see them arriving late the next morning. You don’t have to track those hours. If you’re tracking hours for salaried employees, you are unclear on the concept of a salary.

• Insulting Performance Review Processes

It’s high time we got rid of all individual performance reviews. They are pointless and a huge waste of time, but some review processes are more insulting than others.

If you give your managers a method of performing these reviews and tell them that only a certain percentage of employees can be rated top performers, another percentage average performers and so on, then you are literally designing mediocrity into your team. Is that what you want?

Stack ranking is an abomination and the opposite of a leadership practice, since it pits employees against one another instead of encouraging collaboration.

You don’t need any of those principles to run your business. Talk about goals and progress whenever you want. Talk about learning from mistakes whenever it makes sense. Annual reviews have long outlived any utility they ever had as a leadership tool.

• Manager’s-Choice Transfer And Promotion Policies

Painfully slowly leaders at large and small organizations are learning that you can legislate almost anything, but that doesn’t mean you control it.

It’s a pain in the neck to replace a key employee. You might want to keep a great person on your team to boost your own chances at getting promoted.

If you’re a great employee and you want to leave your department, your manager might block your transfer or promotion.

Why would anybody give managers total control over their team members’ career advancement?

All a frustrated employee has to do is say “Oh, well – thanks for considering it, anyway” to the boss who refused to sign his transfer application and immediately get his resume out on the street.

Now the company will lose the great employee altogether. Is that smart?

• Impenetrable Pay Structures

The real world is moving too fast for old-fashioned pay grades and bands, much less hidebound policies that red-circle or limit an employee’s ability to earn more money even when he or she is contributing massively to the organization’s success.

I doubt that your CEO and his or her team get paid according to a chart on the wall in HR, so why should anybody else? Worse yet, many employers are anything but transparent when it comes to the topic of pay.

If an employee asks “What would I need to do get a decent pay raise?” and the answer is “Nothing you can do will get you more than a three-and-a-half-percent raise this year” expect your company to be a revolving door for talent — if you can get talented people to work for you at all.

• Too Many Policies In General

You know that nobody reads your employee handbook, right?

You know that everyone ignores your sleep-inducing HR memos and bulletins, too, don’t you?

Most organizations have way too many policies and they keep cranking out new ones, even though no one has so much as glanced at the old ones gathering dust in the corner.

They just want your signature to prove that you took responsibility for reading the handbook.

If you really want people to read your policies and follow them, get rid of half of them.

Make the other half of them topics of daily conversation at every level, from the CEO’s podium to the paystub.

Reinforce those messages every chance you get, in word and in deed, and not from the standpoint “If you were thinking about breaking one of our policies, don’t do it, because we’ll fire you!” but from the standpoint “We are committed to making this place safe and awesome for you, our team members.”

It’s a new day, and the Human Workplace is already here. Is your company stepping into it? 

Secrets that you should never trust your HR with.

This post is a necessary evil due to the lack of understanding by every employee about the HR community. This community of individuals always fall prey to having to think in a certain fashion in order to adequately serve the company as well as the mangers for which they work. After all HR is a job just like any other, with job specs that need to be executed, just like any other.

When people fail to understand HR, it cause them to distrust HR and a such see them as the enemy, which is not necessarily the case, at least not by choice anyway. One simply cant pigeon hole HR employees.

Yes, some HR staff are mean thoughtless and careless of employee rights, but not all are the same. Either way before you share your secrets with HR, know what you are working with. In most every work place there are ten things that you should never share with HR. So, without further ado let's begin.

Top 5 things that you should never share with your HR staff: 

1). You have a second job. This type of information forces the HR individual/s to put into question your dedication to the company. If you are loyal and how long you might be with the company, aka whether you are planning to leave or not. None of these things you want to have placed into question. Why? Because it makes you seem unreliable. In the cases where HR is trustworthy the team may take it as a sign they may need to find ways to help you stay and regain your trust and focus in the company. However, the alternative will simply use that information to limit your role in the companies affairs and stifle your growth,  have you investigated and eventually fired.

2). You have a medical condition that may affect your work performance. If you share this type of information with HR more than just the basics of it, you will cause your employer to work around you to protect the company's productivity. They would begin anticipating that you may be absent and as such cannot be counted on. In this case you can say goodbye to promotions and opportunities of any nature. Not a place you want to be.

3). You have participated in some illegal activity. Your HR person in this situation totally in the best interest of the integrity of the company will feel obliged to say something. HR is in some ways legally obligated to protect the company from potentially dangerous legal or otherwise situations. This type of information in there hands only mean that you will be forced to leave, but one way or another will have to be disassociated from the company in order to keep there best interest at heart.

4). You are considering whether to become a full time mom. While you are entitled to maternity leave.  Leaking this type of information to your HR company, whether it is just a thought or not will prompt them into putting things in place for your eventual permanent leave of absence. Remember HR will always make decisions in the best interest of the employer. If they have to question your reliability or commitment. Do not put them into a position where they feel like they need to make a life altering decision on your part. 

5). You lied about something during the interview process. In most cases HR will look into the things that you placed on your resume, it would be a crying shame if any of these things turn out to be untrue. And when we say crying shame we mean that you will be crying and ashamed when they ask you to step down aka leave. No matter the position that you have risen too, false qualifications will cause you to loose your job and further tarnish your reputation in other potential work places, if they were to find out why you were fired. 

Ten (10) things HR doesn't want you to know.

1. They have a 90-day new hire rule.

Years ago, when I first got into HR I was told, "Whatever behavior you see in someone's first 90 days on the job, multiply it by 10 and that's what the employee will be like in a year." New employees try to stay on their best behavior, but it wears off over time. That's why so many companies now have a "90-day clause" in the hiring contract, enabling them to fire you without explanation. It's so they can let you go if they see any behavior they don't like. Employers estimate losing millions of dollars annually on bad hires. The clause lets them cut losses faster.

2. They do "backdoor" reference checks.

Before hiring you, HR will check references. You may think you can control the process by giving names of only people who will provide glowing recommendations, but some HR folks also do "backdoor" reference checks. They tap into their own network of contacts and find someone who worked with you to get an unbiased viewpoint. In particular, this technique is used if it seems like you left your last employer under suspicious circumstances, e.g., you say you were laid off, but it sounds like you got fired.

3. They aren't afraid to go candidate phishing.

Ever had a recruiter contact you about a job and ask you a bunch of questions about who you worked with at a particular employer? You think the interview went great, but you never hear from the recruiter again. What happened? He or she was candidate phishing--aka getting names of people currently working at the company so they can recruit them out. Sadly, this happens more frequently to the unemployed. Why? Studies show employers prefer to hire people who are currently working.

4. You get labeled "high-maintenance" for being a policy enforcer.

Yes, the HR handbook was designed so you could reference it and stay in compliance, but it doesn't mean you should run to HR every time a co-worker isn't playing by the rules. Pick your battles. If an employee is doing something that could hurt the company badly, you should say something. But too many visits to HR about your peers and suddenly you'll be labeled as the one to keep an eye on.

5. They do whatever it takes to get you off worker's compensation.

Studies show the longer someone is out on worker's compensation, the less likely he or she is to return to work. People get disengaged and depressed when out on extended sick leave. They adapt to the lower disability pay rate and often never return to work. To keep this from happening, HR works with the employee's doctor and pushes to get the person released to do some kind of work--any kind of work, to make them come back to the office. Usually, they're given mind-numbing, boring jobs as a way to make them want to get better faster. They don't want you home on the couch feeling sorry for yourself. They want you at your desk.

6. They don't give references to avoid slander lawsuits.

The reason many companies have a policy against giving references is to avoid any slander lawsuits--especially in situations where the employee didn't leave on good terms. These days, companies are required only to provide dates of employment and pay rate. They can refuse to comment on an employee's performance. However, if asked if the employee is eligible for rehire, they can legally say "yes" or "no" and not be at risk of being sued. This is important, because if they say "no," then it tells the potential employer something went wrong. Thus, if you haven't explained honestly why you left your last job, it could be seen as suspect and you may not get a job offer.

7. Performance plans are HR's way of saying, "Start looking for a new job."

When HR puts you on a formal performance plan, don't expect to turn things around and become a star employee. What they're really saying is, "Get your resume out there and start looking ASAP." If you find a job sooner, they won't have to fire you and you won't go on unemployment. It's better for both sides because being unemployed makes it harder to get a job, which means you'll be on unemployment longer.

8. When it comes to layoffs, personality matters to HR.

When HR is told to complete a restructuring and cut a percentage of the work force, they consult with managers to choose who stays. While skills and productivity matter, personality is at the top of the list. Why? Layoffs create a stressful work environment. HR looks for employees who they feel will rally and do their best to stay positive. Those who have a history of being critical of the company and vocal about their frustrations to management often get let go.

9. A good performance track record won't save you from getting fired or laid off.

Don't assume that great annual reviews year after year equals job security. Those are just recognition for what you've been paid to do. On any given day, the rules can change and the company can decide they don't want to keep you. Past performance is not an insurance policy. HR is always thinking, "What are you doing for us now that saves or makes us enough money to justify the cost of keeping you?"

10. Online background checks are standard practice.

While some companies pay for formal background checks and are required to ask for your permission, the rest are (without telling you) doing free internet searches instead. If you have anything in your past that can make you a risky hire, HR will find it online.

Understanding the above can help you think through your own actions when working with HR and recruiting. Being prepared is the key. Also, it doesn't hurt to seek outside coaching from an expert to ensure you are making smart career moves. Knowing HR's agenda can help you navigate your interactions with them more effectively.

The above information came directly from http://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/10-
things-hr-doesn-t-want-you-to-know-but-i-ll-tell-you.html. The best HR information site ever. Check them out! 

Millennials and million dollar one person businesses

Starting a business as a one man band is scary, and expecting it to become a million dollar empire is like expecting pigs to grow wings. But, in our current time period where millennials are dominant, more and more people are opting for the option of entrepreneurship. This is of course more so prevalent in developed countries than it is in non developed countries. 



In the US an average of 22.5 million entrepreneurial one person firms were founded in 2011 alone. The average revenue of these businesses were surprisingly close to that of the average revenue of the typical employed person. Difference being that the employed person has no over head fees to pay. This makes you wonder, is it really a lucrative choice to run your own business? and if so what is the most cost effective way of doing so. Lets dive into some statistics.

* 1.6 million owners rang up sales in the the $100,000 to $249,999 range (up from 1.5 million in 2010)

* 484, 479 had sales from $250,000 to $499,999 (up from 453,694 in 2010)

* 209,415 had sales between $500,000 to $999,999 (up from 198,755 in 2010).

* 26,744 had sales between $1 million and $2.49 million (up from 24,945 in 2010)

* 1,723 had sales between $2.5 million and $4.99 million (up from 1,618 in 2010)

*368 had sales of $5 million or more (down from 442 in 2010).

(Statistics: cur-to-see Forbes.com)

Based on the above figures we can see just why people are choosing instead the path of owning their own business. It clearly is more than a viably way to sustain ones life. However, what type of companies are these that are succeeding at this way of life? Let's take a look see, shall we....

Individuals earning upwards of $4.5 million work in either finance , art and entertainment or retail. Finance holds the largest amount of individual business owners while arts and entertainment come in a close second and retail come in 3rd. 

The numbers don't lie, and are increasing every single day. Just take a look at the internet giant YouTube, they are popping out internet thousandaires and millionaires left and right. 

As long as an individual is willing to put in the hard work and dedication necessary into building his/her own company, this too can be your future. More and more companies are going to feel the pinch as workers are more qualified, skilled and creative and less willing to settle for a lack of job security or even poor wages. 

Must read books for Entrepreneurs

We have been enjoying these books lately and thought we'd share the wealth!

Click on the book cover if you are interested in reading it.