Tag: entrepreneur - Page 8

Never die wondering. It's not just what I say, its what most people would say, even you, had you not been so afraid to take the risk.

I don't know about you, but I am tired of people coming to me for advice, and then never doing anything about it. I am not talking about coming to me for advice and not following my advice. I am talking about coming to me with an idea, and never executing it, mostly due to fear of failure.

There are blogs and then there are, well, blogs. Some bloggers are one hit wonders, others stay around for the long haul continually reinventing themselves and bringing out new material.

I asked marketers to give me an insight into what they believed was the top 50 blogs that every entrepreneur should read at least once. This is what they came up with:

1.             https://neilpatel.com/blog/

Neil Patel has run two successful software companies, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, he has worked with clients of all sizes in almost every industry, in return getting results in some of the most competitive online niches like car insurance.

What is one person’s tradition may not be another’s.

It’s the 24^th December 2014, and like many families around the world, we are gathered in one place to celebrate Christmas.

While I don’t necessarily think that Christmas is a good excuse to get together with family, preferring to take the one of day of the year off the calendar and instead spending that time giving to others and serving those less fortunate – I am grateful.

My life is blessed in so many ways and enriched by those around me. I am grounded by family and friends, and always aware that there are people around me that will be there no matter what.

Marketing Eye started with investment money. The first few years, we had some tweaking to do, which was stressful, because I wasn't just playing with my money. Bringing a new model into a mature market is just a case of rolling the dice, seeing how they fall and hoping for the best. But I believed in it with all of my heart. I thought I knew something that others didn't and that was that all small businesses need to manage cash flow with no surprises and they all need marketing. This is a formidable combination, capable of allowing small to medium sized businesses the freedom to do what they do, without being held to their next invoice.

There were changes that needed to occur in the business model, but the day we got it right we never looked back. In the time leading up to this moment, I doubted myself, cried myself to sleep because I felt like a failure and constantly put myself in situations where I was uncomfortable. I was stressed off my head and didn't know how to deal with it. No one taught me how to do this. Often, a simple thing that would go wrong, would seem to me like the end of the world. Once, some hackers hacked into our bank accounts and emptied them. I had a public speaking engagement only an hour later. Instead of dealing with it later, I cancelled the engagement. I didn't know what to do and I didn't have the hindsight to know that it could wait an hour or two. It was the wrong choice and something that I now realise was not how an entrepreneur acts. They are supposed to suck it up, put on their good shoes and show the world how things are done.

Being a business owner has a multitude of perks; you can make sh*t happen, run your own schedule, feel empowered to do anything you set your mind to, fulfil dreams, make millions (if you work hard and are successful) and in general, you have an ability to change lives, that of your own and others. It's a pretty amazing role if I may say so myself.

The drawbacks, well, there are a number but one of them has never been that I didn't want to get out of bed and turn up to work. Instead, I wake up early and make my way to the office as fast and efficiently as possible. 

What I find challenging is the same things most small to medium-sized business owners find; people management, enough hours in the day to do all the things that you want to do and find the right talent. The latter being the single biggest issue I think most agencies find today.

The next 12-months is going to be incredibly different for people who work at Marketing Eye. After years of working hard at establishing a product and service that is unsurpassed by industry standards, driven by technology, systems and processes, we are now working tirelessly on how to build the right culture going forward.

There have been many hit and misses and lots of unnecessary frustration, but finally I think as a team we have hit the nail on the head and I am about to test it to the nth degree.

Flat Organisational Structure

Weaning employees off hierarchy-driven decision making has been a test of both patience and perseverance. Gen-Y's have been told that they need leadership in order to be successful, yet some of the most successful companies in the world, like Google, are saying quite the opposite. Their investment in a flat organisational structure has not only shown dividends on the balance sheet, but it has created a workplace and culture that the world-over admires and respects.

For smaller companies that have an established organisational structure, driven largely by an entrepreneur, it is more difficult to adapt to a flat organisational structure with the primary reason being that both parties; the entrepreneur and the employees, find it difficult to let go.

I have been travelling the world growing "my small business" and have found that it is almost impossible to be the leader I would have hoped to be, living the life I do. I certainly am no role model in this department, nor do I follow the many books I have bought over time on "how to be a good leader" no matter how much I try but ultimately fail in my pursuit.

My heart is beating fast and I begin to feel agitated. Something tells me that it's not going to go away, but an experienced perspective tells me that it will.

It's tough enough running a business, without having to deal with the things in life that make you question your own decision making process and to a degree, the path that you are going on.

I have wasted the last few years in no-man's land, pushing through on the business front and having great success that has made me proud of the people involved who have made it happen, but for me personally, I am not quite there.

It's a Saturday and I am sitting in my friends living room talking business while at the same time reading emails and catching up on the latest in business news.

As we talk I realize that entrepreneurs are no different from celebrities, movie stars, singers, musicians or any other career that is centre stage.

The reality is we all have a bit of neurotic behaviour in us - whether we like it or not.  Some entrepreneurs are more neurotic than others - micro-managing, controlling, double A-Type personalities that find it hard to accept another person's way of doing things, and then others just tip the iceberg.

Many entrepreneurs have a goal, or an idea of where they want to be. They are achievement orientated and often lack discipline, needing to hire the latter in to complement their existing skill base.
 

It's been a roller-coaster of a year already and its only 7 weeks in. Everything imaginable has happened to me this year, and I am already exhausted, but somehow exhilarated at the same time.

There have been so many changes; life, business and game. I feel like I have lived through so much, yet there is still so much more to achieve.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending half an hour with a young entrepreneur by the name of Kylie Marie, who is inspiring, ambitious, energetic and ready to take on the world. I now know why older people liked spending time with me when I was new to business, because that energy is contagious. I couldn't help but smile and be totally inspired by what Kylie is doing and her fearlessness in business. Her brow bars, Browco Brow Bar, will be everywhere in the next year or so, along with her eyebrow products that are to die for.

The other day, a few of us from the Marketing Eye team were at a client meeting and they mentioned that they buy all of their employees an ipad for Christmas.

You should have seen my employees faces! They were green with envy. It was as if they had all been given ferraris.

I thought to myself, "that's really cool" but not for a second did I think that they received something worth more than what my employees in Atlanta received. Perception is an unbelievable thing and more and more, companies are being encouraged to "buy" their employees happiness.

Many new age companies, with venture-backed operations offer: