As a business management consultant, I’ve seen the highs and lows that come with building and growing a business. From the thrill of launching a successful service offering to the disappointment of a failed campaign, the entrepreneurial journey is a rollercoaster of emotions. However, one thing I’ve learned is that resilience is the key to not only surviving but thriving over time.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, adapt to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.
It’s like having armor that protects you from the inevitable challenges that come with running a business.
In fact, studies have shown that resilience is a critical factor in entrepreneurial success.
According to a report by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurs who are more resilient are more likely to succeed than those who are not.
So, how can you build resilience as an entrepreneur? Here are a few strategies that have helped me and my clients:
Develop a Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, which refers to the belief that one’s abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved over time through dedication, hard work, and learning.
Individuals with a growth mindset tend to see challenges as opportunities for growth, embrace failure as a stepping stone to success, and are more likely to persevere in the face of obstacles.
A growth mindset is particularly helpful when building resilience because it fundamentally changes how you perceive and respond to challenges and setbacks, which is essential as an entrepreneur.
Build a Strong Support Network
Research has shown that having mentors, advisors, and a network of fellow entrepreneurs can significantly impact your ability to overcome challenges.
Mentorship, in particular, has been identified as a powerful tool for building resilience.
A study published in the Journal of Business Venturing found that entrepreneurs who had mentors were more likely to exhibit behaviors associated with resilience, such as persistence and adaptability.
In addition to mentors, advisors and fellow entrepreneurs can also play a key role in a support network. Advisors provide specialized knowledge and expertise, while fellow entrepreneurs offer empathy, understanding, and camaraderie.
Together, these individuals form a support system that can help entrepreneurs weather inevitable ups and downs.
Stay Flexible
One of the most crucial ways to develop resilience is to practice adaptability.
Research shows that businesses that are able to adapt to change are more likely to succeed in the long run.
A great example is Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx.
Blakely started Spanx in 2000 with a revolutionary idea: to create comfortable, slimming undergarments for women.
After successfully launching Spanx and achieving rapid growth, Blakely faced a new challenge when the market began shifting towards athleisure wear. Instead of sticking to her original product line, she expanded Spanx to include leggings, activewear, and other clothing items that aligned with the new trend.
This pivot proved to be highly successful, as Spanx became a leader in the shapewear and athleisure markets.
Blakely’s ability to adapt to changing market trends and pivot her business model is a testament to her resilience and entrepreneurial spirit.
By embracing change and staying flexible, you position your business for sustained growth and relevance as the market evolves and changes.
Celebrate Your Successes
Celebrate successes, no matter how small.
While it’s natural to dwell on failures, focus on achievements to help cultivate a positive mindset and strengthen your ability to bounce back from setbacks. This is also why a growth mindset is so important to adopt.
It boosts confidence, provides perspective, strengthens relationships, and fosters resilience.
The journey of entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges and obstacles, but it’s how we respond to these obstacles that truly defines our success.
By developing a growth mindset, building a strong support network, staying flexible, and celebrating our successes, we can build the resilience needed to weather any storm.
As a business strategy and marketing consultant, I’ve always found the intricate interaction between organizational culture and strategy to be fascinating. Today, I’m excited to delve into a topic at the intersection of these domains: how businesses can authentically build purpose-driven brands by integrating volunteerism into their marketing strategy.
Volunteerism, often associated with acts of altruism and community service, is an unlikely candidate for inclusion in a company’s marketing efforts. However, the reality is quite different.
In today’s socially conscious landscape, consumers are increasingly drawn to brands that align with their values and contribute positively to society. Incorporating volunteerism into your marketing strategy enhances your brand’s image and deepens customer loyalty and engagement.
So, how can businesses effectively integrate volunteerism into their marketing strategy? Let’s explore some key considerations and strategies.
Authenticity Is Paramount
In an era characterized by skepticism and discerning consumers, any attempt to capitalize on volunteerism for purely self-serving purposes will likely backfire. Your company’s actions and messaging must underpin a genuine commitment to social responsibility. Authenticity breeds trust, and trust is the cornerstone of solid customer relationships.
One way to demonstrate authenticity is by aligning your volunteer efforts with your brand’s mission and values. Consider what causes resonate most deeply with your company’s ethos and how you can leverage your resources and expertise to make a meaningful impact. For example, a sustainable fashion brand might partner with environmental organizations to clean up local parks or beaches, aligning with its commitment to eco-conscious practices.
Transparency Is Essential
Be transparent about your motivations for volunteering and the tangible outcomes of your efforts. Share stories and testimonials that illustrate the real-world impact of your initiatives.
Transparency fosters accountability and strengthens your brand’s credibility.
Engage Your Employees
Another critical aspect of integrating volunteerism into your marketing strategy is employee engagement. Your employees are your most valuable asset; their enthusiasm and passion can be a powerful catalyst for change. Empower your employees to participate in volunteer activities that resonate with them by giving them time and space to do so and providing opportunities for them to contribute their skills and expertise to meaningful causes. Engaged employees are more productive and loyal and also serve as brand ambassadors, which amplifies your message both internally and externally.
Stay Tech Savvy
Consider the role of technology in facilitating volunteerism and amplifying its reach. Leverage social media, crowdfunding platforms, and volunteer management software to connect with volunteers, raise awareness about your initiatives, and mobilize support.
You can harness the power of storytelling through multimedia content—videos, photos, and blog posts—to showcase the impact of your volunteer efforts and inspire others to get involved.
Collaborate For Maximum Impact
By partnering with other businesses, nonprofit organizations, and community groups, you can amplify the impact of your volunteer initiatives and extend your reach. Collaboration fosters innovation and creativity while strengthening relationships with stakeholders to enhance your brand’s visibility and reputation.
By authentically aligning your volunteer efforts with your brand’s mission, engaging your employees, leveraging technology, and fostering collaboration, you can build a purpose-driven brand that resonates with consumers and leaves a lasting legacy of social impact.
Remember: the true measure of success lies not just in profits and market share but in the positive contribution you make to the lives of others and the world.
Successful sales and marketing alignment seldom happens by accident or because everyone wishes it. It requires true conscious competence and a commitment by all key parties.
By way of background, before finding my passion in marketing, I was a bag-carrying (and yes, above quota) sales rep. As a result, I started my marketing career confident I could avoid the seemly ubiquitous sales and marketing chasm.
Wow – how wrong I was.
Maybe I did better than other marketers without sales experience, but I fell into way too many chasms and each one hurt. I realized that no matter how hard I worked, alignment wasn’t just on my shoulders. Just as a solid marriage requires the commitment of both parties and agreement on key aspects of the relationship, I realized I needed the commitment of all key parties involved in the revenue generation process, along with the list of crucial alignment items for us to work on.
The checklist below combines the key alignment issues with items that marketing or sales must do to prepare for the alignment.
Get marketing ready by understanding the buyer persona, the buying cycle, and the competitive landscape.
Create a Marketing Qualified LEAD (MQL) definition.
Understand the MQL to sales opportunity metrics.
Set MQL and Marketing-Generated Sales Opportunity goals and then communicate to the team.
Create a closed-loop system for tracking leads from creation to win/loss. Create Sales SLAs (service level agreements) for handling MQLs.
Establish consistent processes for creating a Sales Opportunity.
Require quick, insightful feedback from sales on disqualified leads.
Communicate and listen to sales.
Help reps create their own MQLs.
Find out why opportunities stalled or were lost.
In additional posts, I’ll expand on this checklist and share my sales enablement checklist too. What are your experiences with sales and marketing alignment? Do you have any items to add to this list?
About the author: Jeff Whitney is a B2B software marketing executive with extensive experience—from early-stage start-ups to achieving marketing equity. He has a passion for building a world-class marketing function, starting with the organization, demand generation programs, sales enablement tools, and, of course, aligning sales and marketing.
It’s fine to learn from your own mistakes, and it’s better to learn from someone else’s. Take inbound marketing for example. Countless businesses have tried to implement inbound marketing within their organization, only to fail miserably. And why? Not because of any inherent flaws with the inbound marketing process, but rather flaws in their perception of what it is and how it’s supposed to work.
In other words, they failed because they believed the myths of inbound marketing. And if you don’t learn from their mistakes – if you try to implement inbound marketing with the same set of unrealistic expectations – there’s a good chance you’ll join them. With that in mind, take a look at 6 inbound marketing myths that you can avoid on your way to building an inbound business:
Myth #1: You’ll have so many leads, you won’t know what to do.
You might get leads in greater quantity from inbound marketing, but the real goal here is quality. Instead of 100 cold leads from a purchased directory list – people who will likely hang up or opt out the first chance they get – you’ll have 20 leads from people who voluntarily expressed interest in your company, your products or services. Who would your sales team rather follow up on? Exactly, so don’t get hung up on the numbers.
Myth #2: Inbound marketing is a one-department job.
It’s called inbound marketing, but you’re going to need the expertise of other departments in order to succeed – from IT and product, to sales and engineering. We’ll be covering this subject in greater depth in the next few weeks, so stay tuned, but the bottom line is this: If you expect the marketing department to handle everything inbound-related, you’re probably not going to make it.
Myth #3: People will find your content on their own.
The “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” fallacy is fairly common among business starting out with the inbound approach. You’ve gone through all the trouble of creating original content, and because you don’t actively promote it, it just sits there collecting digital dust. To get your content in front of the right people, you’ll need to put some marketing muscle behind it in the form of social media, merchandising and perhaps even advertising spend.
Myth #4: Inbound marketing doesn’t require much money.
False. Compelling content doesn’t materialize out of thin air. Landing pages don’t self-replicate. Marketing automation tools (despite their name) don’t run themselves. Many companies fail at inbound marketing because they don’t anticipate the costs and quickly run out of money and/or content. Usually both.
Myth #5: Inbound marketing isn’t for every type of company.
Does your company have a product or service to sell? Good, then you can make inbound marketing work. It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, what it sells or where it sells it – if you have a business, inbound marketing can work.
Myth #6: You’ll see results immediately.
You might see results immediately, but generally it’s a slow and steady climb. Many companies start off strong, with lots of new content updated on a regular basis, and when they don’t see the results they wanted after several months, they lose interest and give up. Remember, inbound marketing is a method, not a tactic, so you need to make a long-term commitment if you really want it to succeed.
There’s a lot of misconception surrounding what it takes to succeed in building an inbound business. The myths we listed here are only a few of the ways in which businesses get sidetracked.
Are you talking over the heads of your audience? It’s easy to do without realizing it.
One of the benefits of being a business management consultant is getting out in the world every day and meeting people from various types of companies and industries.
I recently had the opportunity to participate in a working session with the Board of a trade association in New England. The goal of the session was to educate the group on how to use social media business tools and social media marketing and then evaluate the best way to use them in the organization and each company. The session was a good learning experience for the participants and a reminder of basics that are easy to overlook.
If you want to NAIL your message and make sure you’re not losing your audience, here are some things to consider:
1. Everyone starts at their own place and moves at their own pace
The most difficult part about working with a large group is that everyone starts at a different place, and tends to move along at their own pace. It’s important to be mindful of this – and when someone doesn’t get it, stop and reinforce the concept.
2. New things can be intimidating
While we were talking about technology and how to include it in business, one participant claimed that “when the fax machine came, that should have been it”. Ok, so not everyone is an early adopter. Remember the first cell phones?
3. Change can be empowering
Some of the biggest challenges come from the ability to execute and provide real solutions to business problems using social media business tools. By the end of our time together, the creative juices in the group were flowing, and the room was buzzing with ideas.
4. If you don’t use it, you may lose it
We see this one a lot when we’re helping companies with solutions to business problems: we work with them to develop a process or to acquire new skills in the company. Unless the process is used consistently, it won’t “stick” in the company. The same goes for developing new skills. Make it a habit to take care of your online presence every day. When you continue to use these tools again and again, they’ll become part of your routine.
5. If you build it, will they come?
When you talk about introducing new ways of doing things, you inevitably make some folks uncomfortable. When we talk about “starting conversations” and “building relationships” with employees, suppliers, or prospects … well, that can be a bit uncomfortable for some. The real point here is this: if you create a way for your customers, employees and suppliers to communicate with you, be ready to enter into the discussion.
6. There’s safety in numbers
Forming partnerships is critical in today’s marketplace. Whether you’re outsourcing general tasks in your business, or looking for new ways to reach customers and market your products, don’t forget that there are others who are in the same boat. Find them, and look for ways to collaborate and share information with them.
7. Value is in the eye of the beholder
Let’s say you’re trying to get your arms around a specific issue – like moving a distribution center, or consolidating a product line. The amount of energy, time and money that you want to put into solving the issue depends on how valuable the outcome can be. Keep in mind that what might be worthwhile and valuable to some may not be to all.
8. You never know how people are going to react
The mental attitude of your audience will affect their reaction. And don’t forget: your business attitude is a choice.
Do you find that learning new things is intimidating? What’s been your experience with these? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
For inbound marketing to succeed, companies must adopt the mindset of an inbound business. In other words, they need to align their inbound marketing efforts with the goals and processes of sales, product, IT, and other departments. For example, when inbound marketing yields more and different types of inbound leads, then sales need to be ready for a different conversation with a prospect. That requires changes to the sales process, and more training, and possibly another look at the company’s revenue model. Easier said than done, of course.
BLUE SAGE Consulting can help. Our inbound business consultants have worked with companies of all sizes and industries to make inbound marketing a key component of their overall business strategy, with a strong focus on:
Implementation:Inbound marketing involves many moving parts and requires much effort, so where to start? We’ll work closely with your in-house teams as they design their inbound marketing programs to ensure you understand the company-wide impact of the inbound approach.
Adoption:To ensure your entire organization is prepared for inbound marketing, BLUE SAGE provides various training/consulting services to get your team up and running quickly, from skills development workshops to live in-person coaching. We’ll ensure that your entire business is ready to meet the needs of the inbound approach.
Measurement:Which inbound marketing metrics hold significance for your business? BLUE SAGE will help you analyze a wide range of metrics to ensure that your business is making critical decisions based on accurate, relevant, and meaningful data.
Growth:Inbound marketing is never complete; it is always a work in progress, and improvements are always needed. We’ll help you determine what’s working and what isn’t and identify key growth areas for your inbound marketing programs.
