Financial planning is the backbone of a successful small business. It provides a roadmap for managing resources, making informed decisions, and achieving long-term goals. However, mastering the art of financial planning can be daunting, especially for small business owners juggling multiple responsibilities. To help navigate this crucial aspect of entrepreneurship, here are some strategies tailored specifically for small business owners:

Set Clear Financial Goals: Define your business’s clear and realistic financial goals. Whether it’s increasing revenue, expanding operations, or improving cash flow, having specific objectives will guide your financial planning efforts. Break down these goals into smaller, measurable milestones, and establish timelines for achieving them. This clarity will help you stay focused and motivated as you work towards your business objectives.

Create a Budget and Stick to It: A budget is a fundamental tool for managing your business finances effectively. Start by identifying your revenue sources and estimating your expenses, including overhead costs, employee salaries, inventory, and marketing expenses. Allocate funds strategically, prioritizing essential expenses while leaving room for contingencies and investments in growth opportunities. Regularly review and adjust your budget to ensure you stay on track toward your financial goals.

Monitor Cash Flow Closely: Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business or tiny enterprise. Monitor your cash flow closely by regularly tracking incoming revenue and outgoing expenses. Anticipate cash flow fluctuations and implement strategies to maintain a healthy cash reserve, such as negotiating favorable payment terms with suppliers or securing a line of credit. By staying vigilant and proactive, you can avoid cash flow shortages and ensure your business remains financially stable.

Manage Debt Wisely: While taking on debt can be a strategic move to finance growth opportunities, it’s essential to manage it wisely. Avoid excessive borrowing and prioritize paying off high-interest debt to minimize financial strain. Explore alternative financing options, such as small business loans, lines of credit, or crowdfunding, and compare terms and interest rates to find the most cost-effective solution for your business. Develop a repayment plan and stick to it to avoid falling into a cycle of debt.

Invest in Financial Literacy: A small business owner must understand financial principles and practices. Invest in your financial literacy by educating yourself on accounting, budgeting, taxation, and financial reporting. Consider enrolling in courses, workshops or consulting with a financial advisor to gain insights and expertise tailored to your business needs. The more you know about your finances, the better equipped you’ll be to make informed decisions and steer your business towards success.

 

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COVID changed a lot of things for a lot of people. Being empathetic is one of those “soft skills” that have become more crucial for leaders, especially during times like these.

There are more than a few reasons why being empathetic is critical for leaders during times like these. Here are the most important reasons.

We’re All People

Sometimes in the working world, it can be too easy to lose sight of the fact that we are all people. We have emotions and things in real life that can impact how we think and feel. During times like these, that is especially true.

Being empathetic as a leader means recognizing that human element. People are dealing with illness and consequences that no one could have foreseen before COVID.

Making a Connection

A connection with leadership can help employees find a deeper motivation and drive to be productive. Knowing that those in charge are attentive and that they care can make a world of difference for any employee.

Working for someone who doesn’t seem like they care can create a disconnect that makes it hard to be fully invested. But empathetic leaders are frequently much easier to work for. Knowing that the person cares is crucial for the leader/employee relationship.

Driving Productivity

Productivity remains the most important thing even if everyone is working from home instead of in the office. Without direct interactions, it can feel difficult for leaders to ensure that productivity standards are being met.

Taking the time to check in on employees can drive home the prior points. That knowledge that leaders care enough to ask important personal questions can mean keeping productivity clicking at a high rate. Ignoring issues or failing to check in can mean employees are not doing what they are supposed to, which can drag productivity down. It is a balance that can be achieved with proper communication and care.

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Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Because there is no blueprint for what makes a great leader, it can help to find a particular style that fits your personality and goals, which leads us to the six leadership styles commonly found in the workplace.

Visionary

The big picture is always in mind. Instead of focusing on the day-to-day, they think about what comes next and even after that. It isn’t about ordering people to do things; it is about providing perspective on the goal and helping make it a reality.

Directive

This method is about giving orders and seeking compliance. Useful in an underperforming team might not be the best approach for properly managing people. It can be effective but requires walking a tightrope to ensure that the message is not lost.

Participative

This leader will engage others in the process, looking to generate ideas and solutions from the team. This concept relies on a group rather than a single person to generate ideas and make decisions.

Setting rules and boundaries are crucial to ensure that everyone knows what their roles are and what the rules will be.

Affiliative

The focus here is more on the people and the relationships between them. The goal is to create trust that can forge great teamwork. This is about meeting the needs of the individual to foster the best results.

Pacesetting

Consider leading by example. Some leaders don’t give rah-rah speeches and aren’t great at cracking the whip. They show how they expect things to be by simply doing it themselves.

The key is to not step in too frequently, allowing team members to do their jobs without feeling stepped on along the way.

Coaching

This type of leader effectively identifies the strengths and weaknesses of their team. The coach will identify gaps in development, provide support and feedback, and provide potential growth opportunities for each of the team members.

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If there were a blueprint for a great leader, everyone would follow that. Instead of a blueprint, there are traits and attributes that the great business leaders all seem to share.

There are a few attributes that fit the bill. Here are some essential characteristics that great business leaders possess.

Strong Communication

One of the most significant breakdowns that happen between business leaders and their teams is communication. Whether through poor feedback or unclear directions, it can result in serious frustration and impact productivity.

Great business leaders can convey what they want clearly with a respectful tone. There is no need to yell and scream; effective communicators can get the job done without the need for all that.

Adaptability

There are two types of leaders: set in their ways and those who adapt. The former often leads to the butting of heads between leaders and those on the team who feel that there may be a different way.

Great business leaders know that there is no linear path in business. It is a series of winding roads, and it takes an adaptable leader to be able to navigate those roads. Without that ability, there will be a lot of friction between leaders and their employees, ultimately impacting productivity in the long term.

Focus on Productivity

There are, unfortunately, some situations in which leaders focus more on the politics within the office. Productivity isn’t the goal; advancement is. But the truly great business leaders put a focus on driving productivity forward because that is, after all, the lifeblood of any business.

Effective leaders don’t care how things get done so long as they get done and within the boundaries set by the organization. They have trust in their team to do their jobs, and that can build confidence and rapport between leaders and the rest of their teams. The rest is not as crucial as driving productivity.

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While there is no blueprint or roadmap for what makes a successful leader, there are shared traits. The top organizations have leaders who can consistently bring the most out of their teams.

There are certain personality traits that every leader should possess. Here are just a few of those traits.

Confidence

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, which is essential to consider. That said, the best leaders are confident in getting things done. They know that they have the abilities and the intelligence as well.

The key is to find that balance between confidence and humility. Being able to walk that line, to still be generous and kind, can mean massive respect from peers and employees.

Transparency

Nothing will frustrate employees faster than feeling like they are being lied to. Great leaders know how to be transparent about what they want and what happens within that environment.

Lying about things only adds to the aggravation felt in the workplace. Moreover, it means a certain level of distrust between employees and leaders, which will deteriorate the work environment far faster.

Integrity

There is nothing likable about a leader who preaches one thing and does the exact opposite. Employees can see through that, and it is the quickest way to lead to a disconnect between leadership and team members.

Great leaders do as they say and hold themselves accountable. That accountability gives a more human element to leaders, allowing for a stronger connection with team members.

Passion

Every great leader has to be passionate about what they are preaching. When someone doesn’t really believe in the things that they are saying, it becomes evident quickly. Great leaders are passionate about what they do and believe in it to the fullest.

Building a strong team means having a passion that permeates into the other members of the team. Before long, the group will want to succeed because of how badly the leader wants it.

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Each year, the goal of millions is to start a business, become one’s boss, and live the American Dream. But that is just the big-picture look at it all. There are more than a few reasons to become an entrepreneur right now.

If you have considered leaping, now may be the time to become an entrepreneur. Here are a few of the reasons why.

Finding Better Balance

If the COVID-19 pandemic revealed anything, many people were working way too hard with little balance in their lives. But being able to work from home showed what life could be like, and going back shouldn’t be mandatory.

Finding a better work-life balance starts when you make your own schedule and call the shots. Being an entrepreneur means having the drive to succeed but being able to create clear boundaries between work and life.

More Funding

Getting funded as an entrepreneur is still no walk in the park, but it has changed exponentially throughout the years. Where it was once an appointment at the bank or with a credit union, different options are available.

It is possible to get funding from just about anywhere, including your target audience. Crowdfunding has offered the potential for startups to emerge where they may not have stood a chance previously.

New Technology

Starting a business has never been more interesting because of the different technology available to entrepreneurs that past generations did not have. The internet, in general, has changed things for the better, allowing more accessibility and ease of startup.

While it still takes a lot of planning and works to become a successful entrepreneur, it isn’t virtually impossible as it used to be. If anything, the new technological advances are opening the door for more entrepreneurs to enter the fray. That means greater potential for a game-changing idea or product that may not have gotten off the ground under the old way of doing things.

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Millions hope to become their own boss by starting a business. But how many people know what goes into creating one? It is a lot more complex than having an idea for a product or service.

Here is what you need to do, step-by-step, to start a business from the ground up.

The Idea

It all starts with an idea despite being just one of the steps. Think of what your product or service is. Do the research necessary to see what the market is like and whether there is potential viability in that idea.

If you see a market there for such a product or service, get feedback on your idea. It will give you a better idea about the product’s viability and what potential chances of success there are for it.

The Business Plan

Without a doubt, the most crucial part of any potential business is the business plan. This is where you outline who is involved, the goal, what potential sales and revenue look like, and everything that could happen.

It is essentially a roadmap for what is to come. And while there are going to be surprises along the way, a great business plan can help minimize the potential pitfalls that may come.

Financing and Team Building

With the product clear and the business plan in place, it is time to find financing. There are different avenues for procuring financing, but it has to make sense for your long-term goal. Getting into debt to secure financing will likely produce less than ideal results.

From there, it is about finding your team. No entrepreneur succeeds alone, and having a great team is crucial for success.

Work Towards Growth

Getting started is likely going to be slow unless the idea itself is revolutionary. That is okay. But working to develop and grow the business is crucial. Take the steps needed to find out where the company stands and where it could improve.

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The genesis, slow build, and now daily reality of the ups and downs, twists and turns, fits and stops, beauty and brutality of being a now full-time founder began 10 years ago for me.

I had just finished an intense Executive MBA program while working full time and began what would prove to be a deeply formative doctoral program. Balancing the realities of a demanding job and a young family (4 children under the age of 12), I had two goals. First, complete the program in 3 years before turning 40 (I crossed that finish line with 6 days to spare). The second goal was to choose a research topic that I could continue to explore well beyond the graduation ceremony (I’m grateful to still be exploring with no finish line in sight).

The topic that captured my attention, countless hours of research and the willingness to grind through a 230-page dissertation focused on how customer loyalty and value are shaped by specific, structural, and measurable components of trust.

The Building Blocks of Organizational Trust

The framework I used to process my research data, developed originally in the early 2000s by three marketing researchers (Singh, Sirdeshmukh, and Sabol), showed that customer loyalty is driven by a strong value proposition, that is dependent first and foremost on a foundation of trust.

More specifically, the researchers identified the three critical components of trust that, if absent, begin to erode vital performance indicators in any organization.

I refer to these critical components as the Building Blocks of Trust:

• Building Block #1 – Competency: an individual’s or organization’s knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors that are causally related to superior job performance (Project Management Institute).
• Building Block #2 – Problem Solving: the process by which individuals attempt to overcome difficulties, achieve plans that move them from a starting situation to a desired goal, or reach conclusions through the use of higher mental functions, such as reasoning and creative thinking (APA Dictionary of Psychology).
• Building Block #3 – Care for Others: looking out for the comprehensive needs of others…also known as organizational benevolence.

Don’t Skip: The Ultimate Guide To Creating The Perfect Founding Team

The Problems of Organizational Trust

Equipped with this framework, I continued my post-doctoral research by meeting for lunch or coffee with dozens and dozens of leaders in various industries and found two consistent problems.

Problem #1: Gut Over Measurability

The leaders I met with couldn’t easily quantify or make tangible the reality of distrust that they were sensing in their organization. I found that, to a person, leaders were quick to assess their current level of trustworthiness by their gut instinct and how they “felt” about things.

But when pressed further on whether or not they formally assessed trustworthiness as a standalone key performance indicator, time and time again, the answer was no.

Problem #2: Destructive Habits

Every leader shared the challenges of the day-to-day destructive dynamics of distrust.

Cynicism, micro-management, quiet quitting, miscommunication, fierce protection of the status quo, declining loyalty, weak advocacy, high turnover, low productivity, promotions without raises, whisper-level conversations, office bullies, email + more email + still more email, identities wrapped up in job titles, not being heard, an employee of the month initiative that backfires and devalues everyone else, satisfaction surveys with no follow up, pervasive distraction, lack of motivation, the absence of developmental pathways, uncertainty about job security, poor training and coaching, meeting after meeting after meeting.

Trustless work cultures are:

• Troubling.
• Heavy.
• Complex.
• Damaging.
• Ulcer-inducing.

Trustless work cultures are toxic work cultures.

A Business Case for Trust

These conversations fueled me to dive deeper into the realm of organizational trust.

A significant turning point in my founder’s journey occurred when I was invited by Kurt Bartolich, Founder of BrandCertain, to co-author The National Survey on Brand and Trust.

Because of how the survey data was structured, the data revealed clear, specific, and prioritized ways to build trust (as well as things to avoid that break down trust) in the areas of competency, problem solving, and care for others. The survey was deployed so that the data could be a driver toward organizational health. We built it so the data would be actionable…not just interesting.

When we got the data back from the 1800 nationwide participants, representing every industry, it became clear to us the sobering truth about the current workplace: organizational trust is in trouble.

– Over half of employees (51%) surveyed don’t have a high level of trust for their leaders.

– When surveying the attitudes of employees who have a high level of trust in their leaders compared to employees who have a low level of trust for their leaders, both employee loyalty and employee willingness to refer the company to others drop by 66%.

– Trust is the priority over revenue/profits, brand, culture, and social responsibility. However, individual contributors and those without a role in organizational strategy, employee engagement, culture, or policy change, are more likely to say that money is the priority.

– Half of the employees, two-thirds in medium-sized organizations, indicated they aren’t likely to work as hard when they don’t trust their leaders. Three in five leaders feel the same way.

– The number one reason why a leader is considered incompetent by employees is because organizations do not have the right people in the right place doing the right things.

– The number one way trust is breached in the building block of problem solving is because leaders don’t seem to understand why something is a problem.

– The building block of care for others suffers the most when active listening is not present.

– Leaders rated their own level of trustworthiness 31% higher than how employees with no leadership responsibilities rated leader trustworthiness in their organization. This gap in trust is where the seeds of toxicity in an organization take root.

The data also showed us that trust can (and must) be a key pathway to flourishing for leaders and organizations when there are intentional, pragmatic, focused, measured, and ongoing efforts that take action towards strengthening the building blocks of trust (competency, problem solving, care for others).

Five Ways to Strengthen Organizational Trust

When trust improves, so too does employee advocacy, retention, productivity, and loyalty. We discovered five top priorities that organizations need to continually be committed to in order to strengthen organizational trust:

1. Regular employee feedback (that is actionable)
2. Clear ownership of tasks and projects (that matter to the mission of the organization)
3. More honest conversations (guided by active listening)
4. More transparency (which doesn’t mean divulging every detail)
5. Developing and taking action on a clear strategy for building trust in people, policies, procedures, and pricing (and then measuring progress)

Trust at its core is relational and the need for it to be intentionally strengthened is vital, whether you are the founder of a brand new company or a leader of a multi-billion dollar corporation. The company I founded, TrustCentric Consulting, helps leaders and teams assess and take action on strengthening organizational trust. We have found that taking action on trust requires leaders and organizations to courageously and objectively define reality and move forward together, making trust priority #1 instead relegating it to the fun committee and treating it as priority #4 (the thing that is always on the list but never gets done).

Trust is defined as the firm belief in the truth of something and is foundational to who we are as individuals and how we win the loyalty of those we work with and the people we serve. The topic of trust is simple in theory, but far more complex in day-to-day reality. Trust is complex because it’s relational, highly personal, and oftentimes people are unclear on the truth that is to be pursued by the team or the organization.

Keep Learning: The Importance of Teamwork (As Proven by Data)

Build a Trusted Business

The strengthening of trust begins with introspection and self-reflection. Here are some questions to ask of yourself and your team to strengthen organizational trust:

1. What are the specific ways our people, policies, and practices need to become more competent (technical, communication, leadership, project management, creativity, etc)?
2. What changes do we need to make in our process of identifying the most important problems and collectively solving them?
3. How can we demonstrate a deeper commitment to comprehensively care for the needs (physical, social, psychological, vocational, etc) of employees?
4. Of the 5 trust priorities listed above, what do we need to be focused on over the next six months in order to strengthen organizational trust? How will we measure our progress?

Trust doesn’t have to be elusive, squishy, and unclear. It can be dimensionalized, measured and acted upon.

Every individual and organization has the choice to either settle for the current workplace cultural reality or take action on strengthening trust. What will your choice be?

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Finding that perfect new employee to add to your staff can be tough. But after all that work you put into recruiting and closing the deal, it’s what comes next that can really make or break your growing team.

When that new employee shows up for their first day, they begin the process of getting to know the team and your company’s culture, understanding their role, setting up their tools, and getting settled into their work. It’s not unusual for this process to take months, as there’s a lot to learn.

If you ignore employee onboarding and let them figure things out for themselves, this process will take a lot longer than it would if you were to guide them through it.

Relying on some key onboarding best practices, as figured out by leading companies, can make all the difference in the world.

Lack of onboarding or a process that doesn’t go smoothly can leave employees feeling overwhelmed, confused, and unsupported in their new roles. Even worse, it can mean losing employees because they never find their places in the company.

20% of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days of employment. Clearly, this is not something that happens on its own.

To help you develop an effective onboarding process, here are four companies that are doing it right.

Onboarding Best Practices: Who’s getting it right?

The following companies have created onboarding processes that encourage new employees to become part of the team, get to know the culture they’re stepping into, and hit the ground running from day one. Follow some of these onboarding best practices to maximize success with new hires.

Glitch Onboarding

The team at Glitch (formerly Fog Creek) uses Trello for onboarding new hires. The process is based on a template Trello board containing task cards for the new employee and for other team members to complete.

The board is split into lists of tasks, each with a different focus. There’s a list for tasks that need to be done beforehand, for the new hire to have a successful first day, such as getting their paperwork ready and adding their start date to the office calendar.

There’s also a list full of first day and first week tasks. Most of these are for the new hire to complete, and they can work through them at their own pace. This section includes things like joining the team’s calendars and internal chat room, completing paperwork, and adding themselves to the onboarding Trello board’s “Who’s Who” section.

The “Who’s Who” list is part of an FAQ section designed to answer questions new employees might have. There are two “Who’s Who” lists—one for employees in the New York office and one for remote employees. Each team member has their own card on one of these lists with a photo and details about what they do at Fog Creek.

Other lists in the FAQ section of the board include “Can I Have?” with cards about snacks, plants, and bikes in the office; “Who Do I Talk To About?” with cards on the lunch menu, hiring, and company goals; and “History Behind…” with cards explaining the company’s culture.

One of the biggest benefits of this approach, according to employee Liz Hall, is the clarity of the process. Before they used Trello to organize the onboarding process, it fell apart if a key employee was out of the office when a new hire showed up. Now the process is laid out clearly so anyone can jump in and get a new employee up to speed.

Giving each employee their own copy of this Trello board also lets Liz keep an eye on their progress as they work through the tasks.

Glitch Onboarding Takeaways

1. Preempt questions a new hire will have and prepare answers ahead of time. Glitch’s Trello board includes answers to questions most new employees will have. As each new employee joins your team, take note of any questions they have that aren’t answered in your onboarding process and update it on a regular basis.

2. Assign team members to each part of the onboarding process. Part of what makes Glitch’s process so smooth is that everyone has a role to play, and they know what it is. If you need multiple people involved to onboard a new team member, ensure everyone knows their own role and who else is involved in the process. Planning responsibilities ahead of time will avoid wasting time figuring it out later, and making a bad impression on your new hire.

3. Make your onboarding process transparent. As Glitch found, keeping information locked up in people’s heads makes for a frustrating experience. When you plan your onboarding experience, put as much information as possible into the public domain where new employees and existing team members can access it. This way, you won’t have to worry about people leaving the company with key knowledge or being unavailable during a new team member’s onboarding.

Seismic Onboarding

Seismic (formerly Percolate) uses a similar process to Glitch’s Trello board, assigning tasks to new hires in Asana so they know what to do when they arrive. One of these tasks is to read an 18-page Google Doc about the company’s history, culture, and values, as well as practical advice about things like running effective meetings and setting up strong passwords.

This long document, called “Day One @ Seismic,” also points new team members to important onboarding docs like the company’s internal wiki, a vocabulary of internal terms, and an employee manual.

Aside from all the reading, another early task for new hires is to send a company-wide email introducing themselves. There are rules about what this email should include, such as where you grew up, what you were doing professionally before Seismic, and at least a few random/personal tidbits, as well as an embarrassing photo of yourself.

Seismic also uses a buddy system to help new employees get to know the company quickly. The buddy will check on the new hire as they get settled in, take them out for lunch, and answer questions. They’ll also take the new employee on a tour of the office and introduce them to the rest of the team.

Seismic Onboarding Takeaways

1. Get new team members up to speed on internal jargon. We all get used to using particular terms within our company, and it’s easy to forget that these words mean nothing to new team members. Avoid making new employees feel left out and confused by putting together a vocab sheet to bring them up to speed. Don’t forget to review it on a regular basis to make sure any newly coined terms are included.

2. Formalize the process of introducing new employees to the team. It’s always awkward to join a group of tight-knit people who know each other well. The last thing you want is for a new team member to feel uncomfortable, so set out a specific way for them to be introduced and get to know their colleagues. Making this a formal process will take away the nerves of a new team member figuring it out for themselves, and will let existing employees know what to expect.

At Bonobos, the hiring manager emails everyone in the company to introduce their new hire. They also include three facts about the newbie—one of which is a lie. The first person to correctly guess the lie wins $25 in store credit, and team members are encouraged to talk to the new employee to figure out which of the facts are true.

At Birchbox, a simple flag is placed on each new employee’s desk that says “Say hi, I’m new” to encourage team members to get to know new employees.

3. Assign someone to answer questions for your new hire. Another awkward part of settling into a new team is figuring out how things work. You’ll never be able to preempt every question your new hires will have, so make sure someone’s responsible for answering questions and helping them find their way. This will remove the discomfort of interrupting colleagues by setting expectations that someone will be available.

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Zappos Onboarding

Everyone who joins the Zappos team starts with four weeks customer service training. From executives to developers, every team member is instilled with the Zappos mission to “deliver wow through service.”

For anyone who struggles with the customer service training, that’s a red flag that they’re not a good culture fit for Zappos. Although candidates are made aware of the four-week training during the recruitment process, sometimes they need to go through it to realize the customer-focused culture of Zappos isn’t for them.

This training process also shows new employees how important the customer-facing roles in the company are, imbuing a sense of respect for the team members who stay in the service area once the training is finished (new customer service reps spend an extra three weeks training after the initial four-week stint).

When all new employees experience the role of a customer service rep, they’re able to feel more empathy with both customers and their colleagues. It might seem like a heavy investment to spend a full four weeks on training each employee in an area most of them weren’t hired for, but it often pays off in unexpected ways.

Software engineer Mark Madej says having developers spend time in customer service gives them hands-on experience with the complexity of the systems their colleagues used every day, and even inspired some Zappos developers to create a more streamlined solution. “We wouldn’t have come up with that if we hadn’t been on the phone with customers and seen the problem for ourselves,” he told Inc. “That’s how you invest money in training and see real-time results.”

One onboarding tactic that Zappos has become famous for is “The Offer.” When new employees finish the training period, they’re offered a payout to leave the company. The amount has grown from $2,000 to $4,000 and continues to fluctuate with the economy, but it’s designed to be enough that the financial pressure of being unemployed won’t make someone stay at Zappos if they feel they’re not a good culture fit.

Employees have three weeks to try out their new role before deciding whether to stay on or take the payout and leave.

Zappos Onboarding Takeaways

1. Set clear expectations from the beginning. You don’t want to waste your time onboarding someone who’s clearly a bad fit for your company. Avoid this by being upfront during the hiring process—not just about the role, but about what your onboarding process involves, especially if it’s as elaborate as the one at Zappos.

2. Give new employees a real taste of their role during onboarding. When you’re onboarding a new team member, that’s their chance to get to know the company *and* to feel out the role. You need to know they’re up to the task you’ve hired them for, and they need to know they’ll be fulfilled and motivated in the role they’re taking on. Try to make your onboarding process reflect normal workdays in the office as much as possible, so your new employee doesn’t get a shock when onboarding is over and the real work begins.

Whole Foods Onboarding

Whole Foods has an interesting ritual that takes place after a new employee has been with the company for 90 days. The rest of the team gets to vote on whether or not the new hire should stay.

The new hire needs a two-thirds majority vote in their favor to keep their place on the team. Each team within the company conducts the voting differently—some use email while some do a simple in-person count while the new employee is out of the room.

As part of a profit-sharing model, Whole Foods employees receive quarterly bonuses if their team meets internal goals. This gives the employees a “sense of shared fate,” and the voting ritual encourages new hires to build strong relationships with other team members and pull their weight during their first 90 days with the company.

Whole Foods Onboarding Takeaways

1. Give team members a say in who you hire. You don’t need to take as drastic a stance as Whole Foods, but it’s worth listening to the people your new employee will work with every day. At the end of the onboarding process, ask your team members how they get along with the new hire and whether they believe they’re a good culture fit. You can’t listen in on every interaction your new employee has, so this is a good way to get a feel for how well they’re settling in.

More Ways to Make Employee Onboarding a Breeze

Carly Guthrie shared her advice  for onboarding employees in an interview, based on her 15 years of experience in HR. Her rules for making a new hire’s first day perfect are:

1. Never start a new employee at 9 a.m.—start them at 11 so you have time to get organized first and be ready to help them when they arrive.
2. Don’t outsource a welcome—have the new hire’s manager to be the one to show them around and introduce them to the team.
3. Take it easy on day one—Guthrie says it’s important to acknowledge that first day nerves mean most employees don’t sleep well the night before starting a new job. Keep their workload light to account for this. She also suggests making sure they don’t have long days in their first week, since they need plenty of time to relax and reflect on all the new information coming at them.

Guthrie also suggests making sure existing team members know to proactively introduce themselves to new hires, and to explain what they do within the company to help new employees understand the big picture as they meet new people.

If you want to go the extra mile, Guthrie suggests offering swag for the employee’s family, setting up their new hardware with the software they’ll need before they arrive, and preparing their first week schedule ahead of time so you can tell them on day one who they’re having lunch with and what meetings they’ll be going to throughout the whole first week.

Another common approach to welcoming a new employee is to include a company-specific gift in their welcome pack. ZenPayroll gives new employees a watermelon as a throwback to the gift the original founders were given by the landlord of their first office.

At Warby Parker, the welcome pack for newbies includes Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums,” because the company was named after Kerouac characters; Martin’s Pretzels, because the founders ate them a lot when starting the company; and a gift certificate for a Thai restaurant, because the founders used to eat late night Thai dinners when nothing else was open after long days of work.

And don’t forget the anxiety of being a new face in an established team—it’s important to build strong relationships at work, but integrating socially can be scary when you’re new.

Warby Parker aims to ease this process with a tool called Lunch Roulette. Every week, the tool randomly selects two groups of four employees to have lunch together on the company’s dime. The groups never include more than one employee from each department to encourage inter-department relationships.

Keep Learning: The Complete Guide to Managing Remote Teams

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You can see from these examples that onboarding done right takes time, effort, and even some creativity. But when you put months, and thousands of dollars, into hiring the right person for your company, it’s wasteful to throw all that effort away by leaving them to sink or swim when they arrive.

Given the statistical payoff of a successful onboarding process, a little extra time and effort during these first few weeks could easily pay for itself in loyalty and employee happiness later on.

Get more business best practices with our free entrepreneurship training.

The post Onboarding Best Practices: How the Smartest Companies Turn New Hires Into Great Employees appeared first on Foundr.

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Mia Dickson was three weeks from launching her second business when she decided to post about her product on TikTok.

With her face to the camera, Dickson started sharing how and why she began Safe Bandz, which sells waterproof wristbands and pet collar attachments that store contact numbers and other information that’s important in an emergency. Soon, viewers started asking questions: How do the bands work? Which colors do they come in? Can I use them for my pet?

Dickson happily responded to the questions on TikTok. In the process, she began building an audience of parents, caretakers, and pet owners searching for a safe solution to track their loved ones.

“And it just slowly grew and grew and became this big marketing machine for us that was very organic and very honest to what we are and wanting to help,” Dickson says.

The organic momentum on TikTok helped Safe Bandz generate $10,000 in sales within two weeks of launch. But using TikTok to grow your business isn’t like a magical wave of a wand. We sat down with Dickson to learn how she put this powerful social media tool to good use.

Kid-Tested

Dickson is the mother of four kids she describes as “runners.”

“They’ve all picked the perfect opportunity to just leg it in the opposite direction,” Dickson says.

Her active family loves camping and other outdoor adventures near their home in North Queensland, Australia. Keeping track of her gaggle of kids is always a hassle.

Previously, Dickson tried leaving her contact info on backpack leashes or writing it on her children’s arms, but nothing seemed to withstand the conditions of the active lifestyle of a Queensland kid.

Dickson began brainstorming how to pair connection and peace of mind. Thankfully, she already had a track record.

Dickson’s first business, Social Dot, launched in 2020. It offers a contactless and effortless way to share business information using a sticker attached to a phone. Inspired by frameworks from Foundr’s Start & Scale ecommerce course, Dickson launched Social Dot and earned $20,000 in three months.

Repurposing the technological concepts from Social Dot, Dickson started developing an emergency contact wristband.

The first challenge was mechanics. With the Social Dot, someone can tap the sticker with their phone to access a landing page of business information. But a sticker could easily wash off in the ocean, and embedding the tech in a wristband would be expensive. Then, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, QR codes became widely adopted. They seemed like a natural fit to house the emergency contact information for the bands.

“We’re not relying on tapping tech like we do with Social Dot,” Dickson says. “It’s just a scan, and a majority of phones on the market have that built-in, or they have an app that can do it as well. So it just became the easy option.”

To ensure the QR codes don’t rub off from wear and tear or fade in the relentless Australian sun, Dickson decided to engrave the unique codes on a metal insert attached to the wristbands.

Next, she needed to reach out to manufacturers that could supply durable bracelets.

“We probably had a dozen different molds, a dozen different ideas,” Dickson says. “Obviously, we needed it to be mom-proof and kid-proof. And living in North Queensland, it needed to be sunproof, waterproof, everything proof we could think of.”

She had manufacturers send samples and shared them with her friends to test out with their children.

“And I just kind of said, ‘Put them through hell. I’m going to do the same. I really want to see how these go and how they are tested.'”

Testing different prototypes allowed Dickson to hone in on the materials and design. Next, she made the bands reflective for nighttime use and created a pet tag attachment to track furry friends.

But would the finished product stand up to the activities of the rigorous end user—her four kids?

“We took them camping, we had them in and out of water parks—everything we could think of,” Dickson says. “And the quality of them really stood the test of time. So we were really happy with the end result of what we had ordered.”

Meanwhile, Dickson built out the tech side of the business. She created a back-end website for Safe Bandz to securely hold the emergency information that customers connected to a personal QR code.

“We’ve really tried to think of every angle we possibly could as parents,” Dickson says. “Our kids have tested them through thick and thin, and we’ve come up with probably the best design that we could possibly think of to make it all happen.”

With the final products on hand, Dickson prepared for the launch date of Safe Bandz. Then, she picked up her phone and logged in to TikTok.

TikTok-Approved

In three weeks, Dickson’s TikTok audience had grown enough that she was able to build a robust email list for the Safe Bandz launch. Two weeks after launching, she sold out of stock.

“Before you hit launch, it’s sort of like climbing a mountain,” Dickson says. “You put in all the extra hours after the kids go to bed, everything like that. You get to launch, and you’re just knackered. But then as soon as you hear that little ka-ching [noise], you go, ‘Oh, hang on, here we go.’”

Following the launch of Safe Bandz, Dickson continued to interact with customers through a feature on TikTok where you can create video responses to commenters’ questions. The initial feedback she received on the platform was to expand the color choices and add a GPS tracking function, both requests she satisfied in the first reorder after launch.

Dickson continued posting.

Within five months of starting on TikTok, the @safebandz account gained 30,000 followers, garnered 5 million views, and became verified on the platform.

“It’s sort of grown legs of its own, to be honest,” Dickson says.

“I’ve kind of discovered that there are different types of markets out there, and it’s been insane how far it spread.”

Dickson says she didn’t intend to use the platform as a selling tool or as a soapbox for Safe Bandz. The original goal was simply to share her story. But now, TikTok is the primary way Dickson connects with her customers.

“Even though you can find all that information on the website, to sit there and chat to someone and feel like you’re getting to know them, [and] you’re getting to know the person behind the brand as well,” Dickson says. “And I think that’s made a huge, huge difference for our audience.”

And it’s made a difference in the business. For example, a user from Germany commented on one of Dickson’s videos and asked if one of the Safe Bandz would fit her grandmother.

“[Her nana] basically does the same thing each week and goes to a particular coffee shop, but she doesn’t like to do it with her daughter or her granddaughter. She likes to do it on her own. So now they’ve popped the Safe Bandz on her [and] she can go there,” Dickson says. “And if anything is to happen, the store can scan it and call the granddaughter or the daughter directly to come and help.”

Dickson says that interaction on TikTok made her realize she had an entirely new market of elders and caretakers she never expected to reach with Safe Bandz. And as her TikTok community grew, so did her opportunities.

Safe Bandz expanded to work with the Australian NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) to provide people with disabilities and their families with wristbands. And through TikTok, Dickson even managed to sign with two wholesalers to distribute Safe Bandz.

“We’ve slowly built out the product to suit the needs of the users and the wearers,” Dickson says. “And we’ll continue to do that because they’re the people that are really being the Safe Bandz champions out there, spreading the word, wearing their bands, and using them daily.”

Dickson reiterates that any brand or business needs to listen to feedback to make its products adaptable to the needs of its users. That starts by getting your face in front of your target audience, no matter what.

“We have just put ourselves completely out there,” Dickson says. “I put myself completely out there as the face of the brand and [was] able to ask the hard questions but also get great responses and then use those to make our products better and our community better.”

@safebandz Reply to @random.editz.682 great question any excuse to push someone in the pool yes Safe Bandz are waterproof #safebandz ♬ original sound – SAFE BANDZ- ID and Medic Bandz

Be Brave

To date, @safebandz on TikTok has 69,000 followers and a curated hashtag, #safebandz, with more than 14 million views. Safe Bandz was also a featured product on Catch (formerly Catch of the Day) and now ships all over the globe.

Dickson says TikTok deserves credit for Safe Bandz’s success, but more importantly, the community has made the product viable. For fellow ecommerce entrepreneurs and founders, she suggests getting in front of your target audience as soon as possible—even before launch.

“Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there,” Dickson says.

“Don’t think that everyone’s going to steal your idea if you talk about it because it’s not going to build a community: It’s not going to get you the feedback that you need. You just have to take that step and be brave, whether it’s jumping on Instagram and building a platform there, or Facebook, or TikTok, or whatever it might be.”

Dickson says the bravery of sharing your business idea and the problem you’re trying to solve makes an audience connect with you. That’s why she remains motivated to use TikTok to grow her business.

“Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Dickson says. “Do something every day to get you that one step closer to opening the shop and hearing that first ka-ching. And then you’re hooked. You’re done. You’ll be in ecommerce or your own business space forever.”

Keep Learning: How to Make Money on TikTok

5 Reasons Your Ecommerce Brand Needs to Be on TikTok

1. Reach niche audiences.
2. Interact and listen to customers.
3. Connect with viewers regardless of your follower count.
4. Tap into the #tiktokmademebuyit trends.
5. Leverage user-generated content to scale.

You can take the same course that helped Mia start her business.

The post This Founder Used TikTok to Validate Her Child Safety Bands appeared first on Foundr.

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