Thursday, September 30, 2021

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These Are the Personality Traits of Extraordinary Leaders

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:00 PM PDT

personality

We see endless professional development workshops promising to transform aspiring entrepreneurs into visionary leaders, yet there also seems to be an elite class who naturally make it to the top. Just being in a position of power, however, doesn't necessarily mean an individual is a good leader. A true entrepreneurial leader has a disposition to motivate, inspire, facilitate dialogue and implement strategy. A strong personality may be enough to drive someone to the top, but the ability to lead is another matter.

So, which one is it? Are entrepreneurs born or are entrepreneurs created?

What science has to say about leadership

Studies have suggested that genes play around a 30 percent role in determining if an individual will end up in a leadership position, while other studies place that heritability number lower at 24 percent. Environment exerts an even stronger influence on one's leadership potential, it seems.

However, this finding then begs the question of whether or not personality is the product of genes or surroundings. After all, your personality can evolve as you age. Turns out, both shape how your brain works.

If personality is the combination of external influences and natural disposition, then it makes sense why managers are often interested in exploring that facet to understand how these factors have shaped a person's thought process. Asking revealing executive interview questions during the screening process hints at how a candidate has behaved situationally in the past, but a personality test delves deeper to understand how someone might lead in a wider variety of situations.

The recognized Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a widely used tool that allows a closer look at how individuals with particular personality types and traits can thrive as entrepreneurs by examining communication preferences, strengths, weaknesses and leadership approaches. MBTI identifies personality preferences to help explain the ways that people in different personality clusters use their mind, which then reveals how to best approach leadership development.

Personality traits that are proven to make a stronger leader

According to the Myers-Briggs Company, the following are personality clusters that hint at strong leader material. Keep in mind, there's no single "optimal" leadership type. Rather, each way of thinking has its own strengths when it comes to leading a startup team.

Intuition-Thinking

Personalities that exhibit a strong intuition-thinking preference represent a much larger percentage of those occupying leadership positions than when compared to their representation in the general population. Their particular strengths include problem solving and analysis, strategy and taking initiative to accomplish goals, all of which are great traits for an entrepreneur to possess.

Intuition-Feeling

People with a more intuition-feeling tendency empower others to do better in order to secure positive long-term results. The focus is on the bigger picture and truly making an impact, and is great to have in a business setting.

Sensing-Feeling

Individuals leaning more toward a sensing-feeling personality are more people-centered and thoughtful about helping others. Their leadership style is influenced by a desire to support and offer information in the present.

Sensing-Thinking

This personality pair is all about getting things done. This kind of tunnel vision ensures that the focus is on jumping into the question at hand and avoiding seemingly unnecessary discussion. The bottom line takes priority.

In the entrepreneurial space, we can likely agree that positive leadership creates healthier work environments, boosting retention and setting the stage for a company's long-term success. As a leader, knowing your own personality preferences (as well as those of your employees, if you have any) and ways of thinking can help facilitate company growth.

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In startups especially, effective communication and close-knit teams are crucial to company growth. As an entrepreneur, you rely on constant teamwork to achieve results. Knowing how you and your team members approach situations can also help you to be an effective leader. All in all, knowing about your own personality as well as your teammates' sets the stage for better dialogue and collaboration.

With the right tools and guidance, individuals can learn to best leverage their own strengths to mimic effective leadership methods.

Originally published Jan. 23, 2019. 

The post These Are the Personality Traits of Extraordinary Leaders appeared first on StartupNation.

Niche Marketing and How it Can Benefit You

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:00 PM PDT

One of the most important steps you need to take before launching your business is niche marketing: understanding where your startup is most needed and how you can bring value to your future customers.

The value you can provide to your clients is one of the best indicators of business success. But to provide real value and achieve success, you need to narrow down your business focus.

Why? Let's say that you want to start a website. There are almost 2 billion websites online. How can yours stand out if you take on a general market? Similarly, if you want to start an online store, you'll need to compete against 12 million eCommerce websites. That's why it's important to choose the right niche market.

What is a niche market?

A niche market is a part of a larger market that is recognizable through certain characteristics. These can include things like product price or quality and audience demographics, psychographics or geographic characteristics.

How to choose a niche?

To choose a niche, explore the markets you're interested in and find an in-demand submarket that has the potential to be profitable and face limited competition. For example, a market with barriers to entry might be a good opportunity for a niche business.

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Benefits of choosing a niche market

Here are the main benefits of niche marketing:

  • Lower competition: Choosing a niche market comes with the automatic advantage of having to deal with fewer competitors. If your product or service is meant for a very specific audience and has distinctive features, it's less likely that many companies will have a similar offering.
  • Enhanced customer loyalty: When you have a very specific target customer, you can tailor your marketing messaging to them. By using a single, specific customer persona, you can leverage personalization and customization to gain loyal customers.
  • Lower marketing budget: At the same time, if you have a single buyer persona to target through your marketing activities, you can focus only on the channels they use and on the strategies they are more receptive to. That will significantly lower your marketing spending.
  • More chances to get noticed: If you choose a booming niche that many people are interested in, you have a good chance of being noticed — especially if you don't have many competitors. You could even pitch your product to news outlets.
  • Higher authority: Finally, when you're one of the few players in your market, you're likely to be perceived as an authority and gain trusted followers.

When done right, niche marketing can be the key to startup success. To learn more about finding the right niche, along with examples of trending niche markets, check out the infographic below.

Niche Market Examples

The post Niche Marketing and How it Can Benefit You appeared first on StartupNation.

Power in People: Humans Will Determine Digital Transformation Success

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:00 PM PDT

digital transformation

Human talent will determine whether the growth of technology and digital transformation in business succeeds.

According to the Economist, one of the most significant outcomes of the pandemic will be "the infusion of data-enabled services into ever more aspects of life." We were already expecting a transition to digital transformation thanks to technological advancement, dubbed the "fourth industrial revolution." However, following on from the pandemic that forced countless businesses to switch to remote work virtually overnight, we expect digital transformation to continue to be adopted on a larger and more rapid scale – becoming an even more prominent objective for organizations in the future.

Automation is something that concerns employees: The Financial Times reports that anxiety around automation in the workforce could increase because of the pandemic, as businesses push to automate more processes to boost productivity while many are jobless or furloughed. Not all digital transformation is detrimental to the workforce, however, and doesn't mean that we have to compete with robots for our jobs.

Here, we take a look at how people will determine the success behind technology and business transformation.

Keys to successful digital transformation

The right talent

Contrary to popular belief, technology isn't the main concern when it comes to digital transformation. It's people and talent. Without the right people, technology won't be used to its full potential. A business' ability to adapt to a digital future depends on developing the next generation of skills, meeting the talent supply and demand, and protecting its potential from future changes.

Businesses are working to respond to the growing skills gap and are looking for the talent needed to fight on the frontline in terms of driving innovation to meet competitors. Without familiarizing workers with new technology, further advances will not be much use. As our digital and physical worlds are united to offer entirely new processes and information, leaders will need to develop new approaches to equip the workforce with the skills they need to both succeed in and facilitate the digital age.

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Working together

The main challenges are:

  • Changing the skills and talent needed in non-tech companies.
  • Changing how employees do their jobs.
  • Changing the recruiting landscape.

This may seem strange for many people, but we're seeing the beginnings of a fundamental change in how humans contribute value at work. Though technology is a driver behind digital transformation, technology isn't the sole solution. Automation isn't about replacing humans with machines, but about making tasks more efficient.

The best outcome is achieved when humans and robots work side by side to enhance capabilities – robots can perform transactional, data-intense and repetitive, mundane tasks, which allows people to focus on the innovative, creative and strategic tasks. Forbes reported that recently, as part of an automation education program, they trained more than 800 employees to build bots that can do their most mundane tasks. Using these new skills, almost 50 bots have been developed so far that complete a range of functions from finance to marketing to technical support.

Automation isn't about replacing humans with machines, but about making tasks more efficient.

Research has estimated that up to 45 percent of tasks currently carried out by humans could be automated using existing technology, freeing people to work on value-added tasks. Gartner reported that automation is the fastest-growing software subsegment, seeing year-over-year growth of more than 63 percent in 2018.

New jobs will be created

Many new, productive and rewarding roles are being created as part of the digital transformation journey. A century ago, a lot of the jobs today wouldn't have existed. Digitalization creates new jobs, for example, digital marketing, data analytics, social media managers and Internet of Things architects. These roles help raise productivity via technology, lower prices and help stimulate demand. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 4 out of 10 new jobs were created in digital-intensive industries and employment increased in these countries by around 30 million jobs. While some jobs will be made redundant, new ones will be created.

The importance of good leadership

The human talents of leadership and management are important in the digital transformation process as well as integrating a culture with digital intertwined throughout. Research by McKinsey found that 84 percent of CEOs are committed to transformational change.

Companies with leaders that communicate with employees are eight times more likely to achieve transformation success in comparison to those who don't and this can be improved by team development. What is seen to drive success in terms of communication between management and the workforce is:

  • Clear communication on the objectives around transformation.
  • CEOs and senior leaders visibly engaging with transformation.
  • Access to information.
  • Ability for frontline employees to see visible changes in daily roles.

Empowering employees with the right knowledge and leadership can help them understand how their contribution and human value can help progress the digital transformation. This not only keeps them engaged in the process but keeps the technology functioning at optimum performance.

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The post Power in People: Humans Will Determine Digital Transformation Success appeared first on StartupNation.

WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: Email is Still King of Small Business Marketing (Episode 297)

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 10:18 AM PDT

wjr business beat

On today’s Business Beat, Jeff talks about engaging customers in an era of new online marketing laws with the granddaddy of all online marketing tactics: email.

Tune in to the Business Beat, below, to learn more about the advantages of newsletters:

Tune in to News/Talk 760 AM WJR weekday mornings at 7:11 a.m. for the WJR Business Beat. Listeners outside of the Detroit area can listen live HERE.

Are you an entrepreneur with a great story to share? If so, contact us at editor@startupnation.com and we'll feature you on an upcoming segment of the WJR Business Beat!  

WJR Business Beat Transcript

Good morning, Paul!

There are lots of changes afoot relating to how small businesses advertise online these days. I mean, with all the new privacy laws now in place, and with Google announcing it’s going to be phasing out tracking cookies soon, the playbook for marketing online has gotten quite complicated.

So what’s a small business to do? Well, turn to an online marketing tactic that has been No. 1 for small businesses for a long time. What is it? Good old email and for good reason. It works. A recent study by the Direct Marketing Association shows that email marketing is, in fact, the most profitable direct marketing channel generating an average return on investment of $42 for every dollar spent.

To be clear, email marketing is when you send out an email message en masse to those who have opted in to receive your emails. Those are your email subscribers and such outbound emails could be informational, such as an email newsletter as part of your content marketing strategy or branding strategy, or it could be promotional, a deal or discount or offer that is intended to engage your customers and drive more business your way.

Now, according to LiveIntent's data, 63% of ad executives these days say that they’re actively putting more emphasis on their email marketing campaigns driven largely by their desire to collect first-party data from the market in the absence now of all the other methods they used to use, but that now are prohibited by the new laws.

Carol Cooper, chief marketing officer of LiveIntent, had this to say: "The direct and trusted relationship between a publisher and a consumer has only grown in the past year amid the COVID pandemic. Email newsletters are a strong solution for advertisers looking to grow their first-party data to reach targeted and personalized communication with the customer base."

So if you’ve been struggling with how to engage most effectively with the customer base, given the changes in the online marketing laws, go with the granddaddy of all online marketing tactics: email.

I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.

The post WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: Email is Still King of Small Business Marketing (Episode 297) appeared first on StartupNation.

5 Strategies to Turn Around a Program Launch That Isn’t Working

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 09:00 PM PDT

program launch

If you're a few days into your program launch and you're disappointed by lack of results, don't waste your time by wallowing in what you think is failure. Before diving into these five steps, first recognize that no matter the situation, your launch is not a failure. I like to tell my clients that every "no" is just one step closer to that "yes."  So, even if your launch hasn't quite lived up to the goal you set out to achieve, there will always be lessons to take from the experience. 

That said, the best thing you can do is stay in the energy of your program launch and pivot as much as possible to turn things around. You can right the ship. Here's how: 

Adopt the right mindset 

The reality is, the launch isn't a failure, especially if it's not over yet. I coach all my clients to adopt and maintain a "CEO mindset," which is the first step to turn around your program launch. Put your CEO hat on, and remember this is business. It doesn't reflect on you personally. 

When I first launched “The Swift Marketing Mastermind,” I had locked in my first four clients super fast after doing outreach to personal contacts and people who had shown interest in the program previously. I was so excited and figured the rest of the launch would go as smoothly.

It didn't. I went the first four days of the public launch without a single sale. I was devastated, but then I realized that while my feelings were valid, I also needed to look at what I could actually change to get better results. A true CEO is able to separate herself from her business so she can show up authentically and objectively and make the best possible decisions for the business. 

Look at your launch through a new lens

I call this "leaning into curiosity." So often, I see launches that can be turned around with a few small tweaks. Ask yourself: why are people saying no? What can I do to change that? 

Some other questions to consider: Am I using messaging that I know will connect me with potential clients? No matter what you're launching, you will come up against objections. The most common ones that come up are time, money and readiness. Evaluate if there are other objections (i.e., is there a particular thing that people always ask about?) Make sure you are speaking to these objections and questions with your messaging.

No one is going to have 100% success at launches every time. A huge element for future success is being able to determine what isn't working. 

Create urgency

Create an "early bird" incentive, either a price point or an add-on service or feature to those who buy immediately. While many times this is provided at the beginning of a launch, you may also choose to add in the addition of a mid-launch bonus, too. This could include offering a bonus masterclass, workbook or video to those who "purchase in the next 48 hours." You'll also have to offer the same incentive to those who have already made their purchase. 

When creating a bonus, remember it can't be something that's essential to the outcome of a program, but it does need to still be enticing. It might be relevant to questions or objections you are getting. For example, if your program focuses on how to create online revenue for your business, you might create a bonus masterclass on steps for how to create and establish your business. This might entice those who are interested in the course but haven't yet created their business. Make sure you set a clear start and deadline for any special offer. 

Set up direct conversations with your ideal clients

I'm a huge fan of getting people onto a phone call. Often, when a launch isn't successful, a big problem is there's no two-way dialogue. You need to be in these conversations in order to know what tweaks you need to make. It's really important to have conversations to listen to and understand what your ideal client wants in order to provide value. After all, a sale should be mutually beneficial: you provide the exact thing your potential client is looking for. They get what they want, and you get the sale. 

Decide you are all in, no matter what

It's great to recognize a not-so-successful launch as a learning opportunity. But if you get too far ahead of yourself by thinking beyond the launch and planning for the future, it's easy to "check out," so to speak, and miss out on the chance to create success in the current moment. Stay in your program launch. Stay all in. Give it the energy it deserves before moving on to your next initiative. 

Originally published Sept. 3, 2021. 

The post 5 Strategies to Turn Around a Program Launch That Isn't Working appeared first on StartupNation.
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