Millennial workers can do a lot of good as well as harm to a product, service or brand even when not directly involved in the company’s social marketing team. They can also make a lot of difference with their personal tweets, updates, and posts related to the business. This is where you must find ways to create an internal campaign that points to this untapped leverage for your brand. By doing it right, you can guarantee creating an astounding social media presence that will create wave upon wave of success for your brand.

Social media solutions like all other marketing strategies for your brand require some deep thinking, planning, and practice. Content production, for instance, requires certain level of research to know precisely how to position a message. In the hopes of bringing utmost effectiveness to your campaign, training and guidance for your millennial workforce are essential factors to ensure that a clear-cut, unique and consistent brand voice be heard.

Without a doubt, your brand identity had been through a lot of successes and failures over the years. That somehow makes it easier to establish the right voice for your brand. For startups and businesses that wish to carve a new identity in the market, however, such concept may not be the case. The need to establish the right voice is crucial for them to make their social media presence felt and reverberated.

To develop such a challenging feat, certain aspects must be considered. One is to carefully identify what the company and its products or services truly stand for. Do you have a unique sales or service philosophy that differs from the rest? Methods of communication between customers or clients and the company must also be identified. So are your goals and objectives as well as expectations. Most importantly, it is also imperative to delineate what benefits customers are to enjoy from your brand.

Creating a solid brand voice must be infused along with these tenets. While a millennial workforce may have great advantage in utilizing social media, only by knowing what and how you want the brand to be perceived by your target audience or prospects will mark the difference.

The efforts in building a solid voice does not stop in generating a solid voice for your brand though. It requires a certain level of commitment to deliver something in a consistent manner. One challenge to this is the perceived unpredictability of millennials when it comes to marketing. Finding a way to ensure that they effectively infuse their individual personalities into the brand’s voice without restraining their creativity as well as enthusiasm will be of great help in creating a consistent brand voice. Add to that the real-time feedback of customers to make things go full circle.

All in all, gearing your millennial workforce with the right knowledge and unwavering loyalty will help amplify your brand’s social media leverage. Engage them. Train them to become brand ambassadors for your business. With their creativity and zeal for achievement– and social media savvy, you can finally guarantee delivering a brand voice that will echo the nucleus of your brand.

Health experts often reveal that exercise prevent frustrations from building up. It encourages mental clarity, release endorphin, and deliver needed energy to last throughout the day. While it is almost a daily occurrence for problems and challenges to take place in your office, store, or in your life, you can engage in an early morning workout like a jog around the block or a 30-minute run on the treadmill can be of great help. Yoga or Pilates is also an excellent choice of workout as both can strengthen the muscles, release positive, and enhance mental clarity. Don’t have time? Walk or bike to commute for work or business.

People often overthink when dealing with a difficult situation. Things can get overwhelming that it often gets the worst out of their character. Do not go down that slippery slope. Once you put yourself in the midst of it all, you tend to go down faster than you can handle. Try to pause, if not, step back and see the whole thing from another perspective. One way of doing so is to get out and rest your mind. Some topnotch entrepreneurs go for long walks or visit a nearby spa for an hour of full body massage. This helps revive the mind and let’s get a glance from an outside perspective. Often, being too engrossed in your work or business will make your imagination well run dry. Get some fresh air. Once you get back, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Too much analysis can be draining. It just does not help to feel that no matter what you do, it will not simply matter. The complex situation will still persist. It will drive you to think negative thoughts about your co-workers or your employees, your business partners, or yourself. So, why not gain full control of yourself. Accountability matters when problems start to rise. Too much finger-pointing leads to nowhere. Acknowledge there is a problem. Work out a solution. Then, delegate accordingly. The best way to address a problem is not just in finding solutions but also in ensuring that such will be applied accordingly.

When it comes to dealing with complex situations, two things usually come into play—emotion and change. Problems, uncertainties, and changes are often considered negative. By simply curving such fixed mindset into a growth mindset, you can easily see the opportunities lurking behind. Gain back control on your thoughts and actions, and spread positivity to everyone. When this happens, you can guarantee turning any complex situation into an opportunity for growth.

Customers make the world of business go round. If you are an entrepreneur, much of your focus usually points to that of keeping them happy, contented, and loyal to your products, services, or brand. If they need the moon, you will very much pick it from the sky and deliver it to their doorsteps. Truly, your customers’ happiness and satisfaction come first and foremost.

Today, however, it is wise to accept the truth that customer loyalty is a highly volatile aspect of business. Markets, with the aid of technological and Internet advancements, have become so customer-centric leading to business to be always on their toes to prevent using costly means to keep them satisfied. Be reminded that loyal customers are automatically considered brand advocates. Their “word of mouth” recommendations are often, preferred due to high trust ratings noting the fact that their feedback emanate from actual experience.

This is why many companies, big or small, engage in market research. Such efforts help to point specifically where target markets thrive. Studies are also being done internally via social media interaction to put your own selves in their shoes, that is, to look at your products or services via the customers’ lens. After all, customer behavior is best understood from within.

While market research may seem the best approach, it still has holes that need to be looked at—closely. You need to be in the very position that will help convert customers to make purchase decision and be able to share such decision to others. This is why the need to understand customer behavior at a much closer vantage point helps to strengthen your clout on the future of your product, service, brand or company as a whole.

1. Observe carefully customers behavior on your own website. People rely mostly on the Internet to search for products or services and often, they leave traces behind like where they usually go, the amount of time they usually allot for such, and the keywords and phrases they often use to search for you. Some website analytics also offer insights on how well your website perform in terms of traffic and conversion, and other factors which you may deem pivotal to the purchasing power of your customers. All these will help point strengths of the business and the weaknesses for you to immediately patch up.

2. Social media is another important route to gather salient points on customer behavior. Crowdsourcing, for instance, is some form of behavioral targeting that allows businesses to take a closer glimpse to what the customer deep down wants. Some agencies and consultancy firm also make use of social media to gather behavioral data.

3. Carefully identify customer types and pursue each of them accordingly. This is going to be tedious but, when done appropriately, can mean the world to your business. Focusing your efforts on customer types that appeal more to the business will help point you to the right direction.

4. Make good use of the “mystery shopper” approach. Be a customer yourself and see for yourself how your business truly deals customers on the level. This helps to gain complete knowledge on how the purchasing and feedback process run.

5. You may also try to get into the recordings of customer care and assistance to verify if policies are followed. Sometimes, the problem is not in your product or service offerings but in your customer support.

Customer behavior is everything to a business. No matter how good a product, service or brand, if your efforts are not aligned with that of your customers, everything is for nothing. With these pointers, you can finally analyze customer behavior and craft ways to satisfy their needs.

Millennials are the ultimate go-getters. When they put their head unto something, they will pursue it to the best of their abilities. Which is remarkable but only when you are not within their path. As a business owner, you may find it increasingly difficult to keep this talented lot around. Studies have often indicated that millennials are always on a job-hopping spree in their mindset of progressive growth.

So how does one rein millennials and inspire them to be part of the company growth? How will you immerse them into the business culture you take years to build?

The answer could very well be on how you motivate your own workforce. Virtually all employees, young or old alike, want a sense of accomplishment in what they do. No matter how fantastic or mundane, millennials want to be praised for their efforts. This means positive feedback is one of the driving forces keeping employees happy and motivated—and satisfied to stay.

While focusing on your employees’ strength and giving praise to fully motivate them, the task of delivering such is not a walk in the park. Millennials are not stupid to see pretensions and false praises. These individuals are not as naïve as you think. Amid their inexperience or lack thereof, they look at the world on a different lens. However, there are certain ways to ensure that your positive feedback be heeded.

Of course, as much as sincere praises will keep your millennial workforce happy and satisfied, it is also essential to point out outright irregularities and negativities. Recurring mistakes and blind spots, for instance, must be called out. Not necessarily to disappoint but more on giving them a chance to improve. When you criticize, do it constructively to ensure growth. In all things else, be kind. Often, people stay because they feel cherished and nurtured.

Economic experts have fearlessly forecasted 2017 to be swelling with new ideas and opportunities. Various sectors on the global landscape will be enjoying a more “mature” entrepreneurial environment partly due to the growing population leading to more demands for goods and services from housing to food, clothes, technology, support, research, and much more. Add to that the global clout of the Internet made even more available by smart gadgets—and voila!

So, what businesses are showing huge promise in the upcoming year? Noting positive market trends, the following businesses will definitely rock in 2017:

From the Americas to the Far East, the shift in shopping behavior to online has become more prominent over the years. It is said to blow-up in 2017 as more and more countries open their firewalls for free trade. This will be the perfect time for your unique local goodies to be showcased to the world and get the standing ovation they so deserved.

With a robust market, businesses will be expanding at a steady pace in 2017—and this means a swell in employment. While having its own HR team to do just that, companies will be keener in finding the best candidates. What better way to do that than by tapping a third party headhunting firm. These specialized units will tap on the right candidates capable to handle the tasks enumerated by the hiring company. If you have human resource management skills, starting an online consultancy firm will definitely be promising next year.

Correlating to the robustness of the economy and the aggressiveness of real-time reporting due to social media’s growing presence, companies will be padding its customer relations department, too. This will give rise to the number of home-based BPOs. While this may seem a boon to third world nations, local representatives will be at the helm of this outsourcing initiatives. Start by creating a team of experts and see how fast your venture will grow in a year’s time.

With the e-commerce business in full swing, logistic services will also come handy. Both inbound and outbound services will be needed to keep up with the growing demand of an equally growing market. So, why not turn this into a good business opportunity for you?

With the rise of online shopping, mobile gadget development, and growing Internet dependency by consumers, most brick-and-mortar companies will be required to have an online presence to handle real-time management and marketing needs. This will drive them to look for reliable web design and development experts to handle such huge online requirements. Such will also open huge opportunities for you to make good use of your coding and programming skills. Build a team of experts to cohesively handle all the business needs for best results.

Indeed, 2017 is going to be a promising year for everyone. It is high time to rethink about your business portfolio and to come up with new strategies. One can never go wrong with such an exciting year ahead!

Practicing mindfulness, or the state of being deeply aware or focused on the present moment and wholly accepting it without judgment, regret, or prejudice, is known to be the secret ingredient to success in many business successes. A key element in happiness and compassion, mindfulness benefits come three-fold: physical, mental, and emotional. It helps to relieve stress, improve sleep, and alleviate various health, mental and emotional issues.

Cultivated through meditation by way of repeating a “mantra”, the body and mind are systematically being placed at the center of your being to focus on matters at hand. Some make use of instructional videos and books while others listen to MP3 or recordings. There are also those who enroll in support groups and bring such practice into their daily grind to stay motivated and in control of the moment.

As an entrepreneur, you will be constantly bombarded with highly stressful situations in both your personal and professional dealings. Stress management will be an integral part of your day—and mindfulness meditation can deliver the following benefits to ensure success in your chosen endeavor:

1. Mindfulness helps build resilience and boost performance even when under stressful situations. Entrepreneurs are often under duress due to the demands of their daily grind. Spending a few minutes of meditation will help keep their composure and find solutions to problems without growing panicky.

2. Mindfulness enhances emotional intelligence, a salient element in today’s highly competitive market. Through mindfulness meditation, entrepreneurs strengthen their ability to control emotions particularly frustrations and anger. By boosting one’s EQ, entrepreneurs make more lucid decisions and build a much deeper relationship with their employees.

3. The creative mindset is further enhanced with mindfulness. Some of the greatest insights as well as innovative breakthroughs come when the mind is in a relaxed or more meditative state. Eureka moments often appear when the mind is more focused.

4. Practicing mindfulness meditation daily will easily put the mind into clear focus. With all the distractions entrepreneurs have to contend with day in and day out, the mind easily wanders into oblivion leaving a gaping hole in their psyche. Meditative mindfulness allows one to strengthen the ability to focus and boost memory and creativity in the process.

5. Relationship-building is another important aspect of mindfulness. This practice helps to enhance your sense of compassion and connection to others. This, in turn, develops a sense of mutual trust and respect essential to running a successful business venture.

Self-care, though often taken for granted, is essential in nurturing business success goals. Mindfulness is one way of taking good care of your well-being. Through constant practice, you can create that much-needed balance to become more productive and effective in both personal and entrepreneurial endeavors.

Yes, being environmentally-friendly is good business. Aside from giving back to the environment, operating via eco-friendly means generate a culture of responsibility and selflessness proven to be endearing to conscious consumers. Apart from the benefits enjoyed, there are also important lessons to learn from becoming a “green business.”

1. Being environmentally friendly develops a sense of frugality to a business. Using LED lighting, for instance, drastically cut electricity bills and maintenance costs to a half. Other efforts like turning off the light or heating units when not in use or decreasing the number of air-conditioned units to utilize do not only cut carbon footprints but help the business save a lot of operation cost, too. Using emails and cloud platforms are also eco-friendly ways of saving paper, storage, and maintenance cost. Definitely, the effort of making one’s business “green” helps eliminate wasteful spending.

2. Your health and that of the rest of the planet is of utmost significance. In the drive to instill an eco-friendly culture for a business, you are actually supporting good health of the planet, everyone in your company, and the future generation. Cutting down on your carbon footprint will ultimately create a domino effect to your own life. You and your employees—and your families—will find your own selves engaging in such actions even in your daily lives. From eating healthy to recycling your waste to cutting on fuel dependency and using the equally eco-friendly stuff at home, you are indirectly promoting a healthier way of living.

3. Engaging in a green business allows you to be more open-minded and compassionate. It will change your outlook on life. You will begin to see the beauty of sourcing out supplies from local producers and, in effect, create a positive domino effect in the community where the business thrives. Such efforts also open opportunities for you to join a cause or an advocacy relevant to the business.

4. Crafting a green objective for your business will allow you to collaborate with others leading to productive efforts in keeping Earth a much better place to live. For instance, you can donate recycled cans and bottles from your restaurant to a group that builds homes using such materials.  Such change in mindset will allow you to put more value in everything about your business.

5. Being an environmentally friendly business allows you to realize that there is more to business than just earning the big bucks. Without a doubt using LED lights or recycling will lower your operational cost buffing-up your profit margin but beyond that, you begin to realize how your actions or inaction will greatly impact wildlife and the rest of humanity. Environmental conservation does not have any limitations or saturation points. No matter what positivity you give back to the environment and the living things thriving therein, the more remarkable things will also happen.

Without a doubt, the thought of engaging in green business by consuming less and recycling more allow you the biggest opportunities to learn. It will create a domino effect creating a huge impact not just on how you operate your business and influence buying decisions of your consumers but also ongoing through your personal day to day living as well as that of your employees. In doing so, this will also be passed down to your family, your employee’s family, your friends, business partners, the community where you thrive—raising a certain level of consciousness to make this world a little better.

When strengthening your business appeal, here are some noteworthy tips to remember:

1. Prepare the business “spirit of giving” all throughout the year. Yes! The most effective way of creating a culture of purposeful giving is done not just when the situation demands but each day of the year. Do not wait for the Christmas countdown or the beginning of the Yuletide season. Make it a habit to set the mood all the time to make your efforts constant and consistent.

2. Let your company vision include the sense of purposeful giving. Let it be part of your business advocacy to give back to your employees, to company stakeholders, and the community where your business is thriving. These efforts will lead to a mutually inclusive relationship leading to trust essential in building a sound reputation.

3. During the festivities, it is essential to not just focus on your business efforts in delivering a positive appeal for your business or brand. It is also essential to reflect such efforts in your company’s actions. So why not learn to export your Christmas gift-giving efforts to where it matters most—to the people serving round-the-clock. It may be doctors and nurses at a nearby hospital or senior caregiving facility, a subway toll-free collector who works even on Christmas Eve, or your own employees who had to be at the plant to meet store requirements on time.

4. When planning a Christmas lunch or dinner for the company, you may want to integrate your humanitarian efforts as well. Invite seniors from the home for the aged, the homeless, or orphaned children. Loneliness can be brutal to these people during what others call the “happiest time” of the year. Share the joy of your business to them even with a simple meal. This builds strong values for the business and for the people behind its success.

5. Give thanks to the people who have done service to the community all year round. Provide discounts to trash collectors, firemen, police, emergency servicemen, postal workers, and the like. If you are running a restaurant or café, consider offering free meals or free goodies.

6. Promote the essence of volunteerism in your company. Take time off to show care to the orphaned and the elderly by organizing a local visit, bringing fun and free meals with you. This will create a paradigm shift in your employees which will eventually raise a more aware and conscientious workforce.

7. Engage in a “Secret Santa” program. Survey families in need in the area and come up with the necessities, delivered to their doorstep without them knowing where these came from. Let employees do the deed to give them more hands-on experience and make them more aware on such endeavors.

Celebrate the season of giving with a pure vision in mind. Conscientious businesses do not just strengthen their business appeal with superficial action plans. Let it reverberate to your daily endeavors, to your employees psyche, and to the community’s awareness to make Christmas—and everyday of the year—worthwhile.

Ballerinas and womenpreneurs are like two outfits cut from the same cloth. Both have to go through certain life and work idiosyncrasies filled with motivations and doubts brought about by some of the usual challenges in society like gender bias, racism, and in some case, prejudice. Like lithe dancers challenging the wind with its gracefulness, womenpreneurs also challenge the usual environmental perspective in doing business.

Womenpreneurs has proven time and again that fierce work ethics, perseverance, and wise use of strength are key ingredients in bringing their prowess on the entrepreneurial centerstage. They challenge the expected, pursue their mission and vision, and carry their own weight amid any uproar or challenges in society. This is almost in the same league as ballerinas who had to contend with the usual stereotypical concept of ballet glamour. By breaking the mold and challenging the usual expectations, womenpreneurs particularly black womenpreneurs continue to shine in the business arena.

So how does one maintain such relevance between ballet discipline and business success? For one, it is important to strike at the core of one’s self-confidence. The main driving factor in propelling one’s entrepreneurial prowess, getting one’s confidence level and staying in that level allow for more motivating factors to let the wheel of success moving forward, with seemingly no reason for stopping. The prevalent measurement of success changes over time but the confidence level in pursuing such remains unquestionable.  There will be skeptics and negative forces but when one’s confidence level is up, no amount of criticism will pull a ballerina or a womanpreneur down.

Confidence complimented with persistence and fierce discipline also helps one build on the momentum. Womenpreneur must learn how to recognize and respond to successes (and failures, too!) to make a huge difference in their entrepreneurial venture. Capitalize on such winning moments while taking heed on the impact of your weakness. Ultimately, this helps to build on momentum and to create strategic actions leading to sustainable growth.

Of course, goals must evolve as one goes through the journey of ballet dancing or in building a business empire.  Being laser-focused on a single goal will not only make you stagnate, it also degrades your sense of growth. Opportunities about out there and it is up to you to set new targets and seize them. Yes, do not be mistaken. The end-goal—business (or dancing) success—is and will always be important. Let it not blind you though, but rather find ways to adapt to any situation.

Another important correlation in business and ballet lies in the organizational structure of a company. Frankly, one cannot do it alone. Ballet production must have both lead roles and supporting casts to deliver an astounding show. In the same way, businesses have team managers and members working cohesively to deliver targets. The key in delivering sound results lies in building a team that shares the same passion, work ethics, and focus. Train and retrain them. Let them not run obsolete on their crafts. Like ballerinas, they need their skills to be honed—all the time.

Indeed, there are glaring similarities and correlation between ballet dancing and doing business. From wise use of skills to dedication, passion, confidence, and the collaborative efforts to deliver positive results, the language and culture of entrepreneurship does not fall far from that of ballet dancing after all.

When planning to improve customer experience, it is high time to consider these ways:

Indeed, these ways are known for their effectiveness in developing positive customer experience. The key however, lies with proper timing and the right attitude of doing things. Be reminded that customer experience is still about forging a meaningful bond between your brand and its user-followers. Commit to make your product deliver positive impacts to its users and the society as a whole—and make sure to actively seek out opportunities to optimize such benefits.