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- 6 Startup-Friendly Cities Entrepreneurs Should Consider Relocating To
- Entrepreneurs: You Can Positively Influence the World Around You
- 3 Areas Where Every Small Business Should Automate
- Secret to Smarter Selling: Use Your Brain More and Your Mouth Less
| 6 Startup-Friendly Cities Entrepreneurs Should Consider Relocating To Posted: 20 Jul 2019 07:31 PM PDT By Stephen Moyers Location matters when founding a startup. The location an entrepreneur chooses can create meaningful business partnerships with local government, investors, and accelerators. In the past, startups flocked to Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, or Seattle. These cities shared 76% of venture capital money among them in 2017. Today, however, the startup landscape is changing. Entrepreneurs still rely on these heavy hitters, but they are also choosing relative outliers for their business homes. If you're starting a business, it may be time to pack up and move to one of these six startup-friendly cities. Columbus, OhioThe year 2019 is statistically a great year for entrepreneurs. If this is your year to thrive, consider taking your brand to Columbus. The capital of Ohio can be an intriguing place to start a business, thanks to its demographic of college students, low cost of living, inexpensive costs of operating a business, high number of funds, and increase in venture capital deals. Columbus, Ohio, topped the 2018 list of best cities for startups, according to Forbes and Revolution. The Ohio State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship has promoted innovation and business startups since 2001. One entrepreneur, Tony Franco of SafeChain Financial, managed to raise $3 million in venture capital for his business plan, without any meaningful revenue. He did this while based in Columbus. Investors repeatedly asked Franco about his plans to move to the coast, but he said he's staying put. Franco says the benefits Columbus offers go "beyond the marketing hype many cities claim when they say they are startup friendly." Franco believes the seeds the Center for Entrepreneurship planted 18 years ago are paying off now in the city. Franco's business won the Rise of the Rest seed fund competition in Columbus in 2017, earning a $100,000 investment. Investor Steve Case (co-founder of AOL and Revolution) launched Rise of the Rest in 2014 to help fund startups in underserved cities. In the first nine months of 2018, Columbus' venture capital deals amounted to $250 million. This is more than three times the value for all 12 months of 2017. The uptick in the capital is playing a large role in the city's suddenly robust startup culture. Austin, TexasAustin, Texas, is an up-and-coming metropolis whose eclectic reputation is helping it rise to the top in the startup world. Austin came in first on Inc.'s List of Surge Cities. This list took into account rate of entrepreneurship, population growth, business investment, and other data points to rank the top 50 cities for startups. Many successful companies have relocated to Austin in the past few years, including Outdoor Voices, a New York clothing startup. Apple is also in talks to expand to Austin. Some of the perks include:
Sources were naming Austin a top place for startups back in 2016, calling it a start-up mecca for its thriving culture, supportive buyers, and enormous arts and music scene. Major corporations such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Whole Foods have helped put Austin on the map in terms of business culture. Now, smaller startups are taking advantage of the spotlight. St. Louis, MissouriThe cost of doing business in St. Louis, Missouri, is 8% lower than the national average and 57% lower than in San Francisco. This, among other perks, makes it an excellent choice for startups. St. Louis came in at number two on Forbes' list. Its three-year venture capital deal count is at 146, with major deals with Benson Hill Biosystems, Essence Group Holdings, Varsity Tutors, and Jane.ai. Venture capital investment value in the city has risen by a whopping 90% over the past three years. Essence Group Holdings, a cloud-based software company founded in St. Louis, has had three raises since 2011, giving the company a combined $241 million. Startups in the city of St. Louis raised the most money of every city in the country in 2018–more than $200 million by the third quarter. Deal counts and total money invested were both higher than in 2017. Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta came in at number three on the Forbes list and number 18 on the Inc. list for best cities for startups. Major corporations such as Coca-Cola have put Atlanta on the map in the business sphere, but its low costs are now attracting smaller startups as well. Startup costs in Atlanta are 54% lower than in San Francisco, and 7% lower than the national average. In 2017, Atlanta broke a record for its total venture capital, coming in at $1.2 billion. A few of the recent major venture capital deals have gone to AirWatch, Kabbage, and Rubicon Global. There have been 413 deals total over the past three years. Atlanta's rate of entrepreneurship is among the highest in the United States. Georgia's business-friendly tax credits, diverse culture, and pool of technology talent make it a gold mine for tech startups and other companies. Boulder, ColoradoEccentric residents, great diversity, an affluent urban center, and a productive metro area mark Colorado as a strong choice for entrepreneurs. In 2015, Boulder topped the list as the number-one place to start a business as a female entrepreneur, as well as a top-ranked city for all new business owners. Back in 2010, Boulder boasted six times more tech startups per capita than the national average. Successful high-profile companies such as TechStars, Ball Aerospace, and Celestial Seasoning all call Boulder home. A number of local venture capital firms help put Boulder on the map for entrepreneurs. Foundry Group, for example, has helped fund a mix of startups across numerous industries. Foundry Group says it gives to entrepreneurs without having expectations of what to get back—at least in the short-term. Foundry is in it for the long haul, creating powerful long-term partnerships with its recipients. Boulder is especially popular among the millennial crowd. If you have Colorado in mind, also consider Denver. Denver made number four on Forbes' list of the top 10 cities for startups in 2018. Its three-year venture capital deal rate is 492, with major deals including Accera, Welltok, and Reven Pharmaceuticals. Like Boulder, Denver offers a diverse economy that helps burgeoning startups thrive. Denver's 150,000 college students add to this economy and strengthen the available workforce. The cost of doing business in Denver, however, is 4% above the national average. Charlotte, North CarolinaIf your goal is ultra-low costs of doing business, Charlotte might be the ideal location for your startup. In 2018, Charlotte's cost of doing business was 12% lower than the national average. Charlotte came in tenth on Forbes' list because of its exceptionally low business costs in terms of labor, taxes, energy, and rent. The business costs rank among the lowest of all U.S. cities. The three-year venture capital deal count was 89, with major names including Passport AvidXchange, and Edison Nation. From 2015 to 2017, the total venture capital investment in Charlotte amounted to $881 million—an impressive 590% jump from the previous three years. This massive increase stemmed in part from two raises for AvidXchange, a payment processing platform that made number one on the list of the 47 most powerful startups in the city in 2017. The company recently finished building its new headquarters at the Music Factory. Charlotte could be the place your startup finds its legs as well. RELATED: Why Atlanta Is the Next Great Place for Fintech Entrepreneurs The post 6 Startup-Friendly Cities Entrepreneurs Should Consider Relocating To appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post 6 Startup-Friendly Cities Entrepreneurs Should Consider Relocating To appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Guest Post.  |
| Entrepreneurs: You Can Positively Influence the World Around You Posted: 20 Jul 2019 06:58 PM PDT Recently I was reading Fortune magazine’s annual compilation of the World's Greatest Leaders. As I went through the list, I looked to see what makes these leaders so good at what they do, and wondered if my own work could ever favorably compare to the leadership these people have demonstrated. The list, a who's who of people from all walks of life—and one who is even as young as 16 years old—have accomplished a lot in their leadership roles. As I reviewed the stories of these leaders, it became clear that each person has achieved some level of notoriety or success, perhaps for inventiveness or good coaching. Tony Bennett, head basketball coach at the University of Virginia, for example, did a remarkable job of elevating a top-ranked team that had suffered a crushing tournament loss the year before into winners. It's his job, after all, and he did it well. Some names on the list are there because they have the financial means to provide funds for important social projects. Bill and Melinda Gates, for example, have contributed over $45 billion dollars toward global health programs focused on immunizations. And there’s Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote, who represents one-third the value of his country’s stock exchange. After creating a more vital economic system for his homeland through his businesses, he has turned his wealth into humanitarian assistance in the form of nutritional programs for malnourished citizens. These are good and generous people whose leadership has enabled them the means to contribute. I may never have the billions, or mere millions, to so significantly effect change through important causes. So instead, I searched for a lesson in the tales of outstanding executives, coaches, political leaders, and youth. What makes these leaders special?Fortune applauds a common characteristic in these leaders that helps make them good leaders: hardiness. It cites a study by Paul Bartone from the National Defense University (NDU) which found that hardiness of character is central to leadership success, and hardy personalities garnered the highest leadership ratings of West Point cadets. And what is hardiness? An ability to know that not every idea will work; that if things go wrong and a product or mission fails, that there is another opportunity to try again. It is the ability to endure difficult circumstances and not see the world as threatening. It is truly a shared trait in the chosen top fifty. But there was something extra special about a few leaders, and they are the ones to emulate because they struck me as the ones who offer something more. Yes, they are like those hardy leaders—like Chip Bergh, who led a turnaround at Levi Strauss, and Michael Crow, who has increased enrollment at Arizona State University while also improving graduation rates and education metrics. For others, though, their job is sometimes more than being audacious and fearless about new product designs or an IPO. For some, the leadership comes with great danger, and the trait that embodies their hardiness also includes a strong dose of righteousness. Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
Look at Anna Nimiriano, editor-in-chief of the Juba Monitor in South Sudan. As a voice for factual journalism and free speech as part of good governance, she works in constant threat of her life. Nine journalists in South Sudan have been killed in this decade, and all journalists are openly threatened by the country's president and military supporters. Yet, regardless of the danger and uncertainty, Nimiriano continues her good work, her righteous work. Another leader whose values show beyond the bottom line is Kyaw Hla Aung, a lawyer and activist in Myanmar. He uses his public stature to encourage the building of Muslim schools for the Rohingya and to protest the government's seizure of Rohingya farmland. His efforts landed him in jail for a time, and he’s been awarded the 2018 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. Lead or followThese just and moral leaders are guided by something they value strongly: the right to free speech, the right to practice a religion without persecution, or the importance of providing vaccinations to children around the world. They are hard to mimic, but I couldn't help but think if I could choose a leader to follow, I'd prefer one whose values are admirable and align with mine. If only every manager, boss, or leader could provide thoughtful guidance for success and goodness. Of course, my job isn't as conducive to saving babies, reporting on death threats, or developing farm programs for impoverished islands. That, however, does not free me from leading with integrity and a "rightness" that makes the world a better place—at least the world where others work with me. How can any of us positively influence the world around us? From my family to the PTA, from my neighborhood to my business organization, I must ponder and define those values that I see as just, as deserving of time and attention, and as serving a human good for those around me. Fortune may not have me on its radar, but if I combine good actions with a hardy disposition and unflinching commitment to my values, the world will be a better place. RELATED: 4 Leadership Lessons I Learned From Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro The post Entrepreneurs: You Can Positively Influence the World Around You appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post Entrepreneurs: You Can Positively Influence the World Around You appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Jon Forknell.  |
| 3 Areas Where Every Small Business Should Automate Posted: 20 Jul 2019 06:52 PM PDT We all know that technology and the internet have "leveled the playing field" in a variety of ways, and perhaps one of the most powerful of these is access to automation. It wasn't that long ago when only the big players could truly automate business processes. Today, everyone from the wannabe entrepreneur launching a new side hustle to the owners and managers of small and medium-sized businesses can strategically automate important areas of their operations. Discover how many of these automation opportunities can be a good fit for your operation. MarketingMarketing is a broad category and the one with the most choices. As much as I love apps like Hootsuite and Buffer, they don't really automate social media marketing. Granted, they make it much easier and give you greater control, but when we're talking automation, we need to focus on tools, apps, and services that allow you to essentially "walk away" from them once they're up and running. Social Juke Box: Do you know how pop radio stations are automated? They schedule a playlist for days and times, and then, like your favorite shampoo, rinse and repeat. (Okay, they don't rinse.) This is what Social Juke Box does. You set up social media posts once—or grab a free group of topical posts—and create a schedule, and then hit "play." They loop until you stop them, or hit the end date you've programmed in. Paper.li: Create a daily "newspaper" on the topic of your choice. This is social media based and very useful if you're looking to build your following. When Paper.li creates a newspaper for you from curated social media content, it credits various original posters and often they will, in turn, follow you. OperationsAs much as we live in the Internet Age, we still need to accomplish real things in the real world and automation in your business’s operations can pay off handsomely. Warehouse automation: Many of us have probably marveled when Amazon has hyped different aspects of its warehouse automation. However, you don't have to be a player of that size to get onboard. In its company blog, Cleveroad looks at the movement and goods and the decision-making process when it outlines different levels of warehouse automation—low automation, system automation, mechanized automation, and sophisticated automation—and gives a great overview of various systems. Although adopting warehouse automation isn't as simple as downloading a landing page from your favorite SaaS, it's a must if you want to stay efficient going forward. Employee scheduling: If there's one universally unthankful task in business, it's creating employee schedules. Fortunately there are apps for that, even a free one (When I Work) if you have 75 or fewer users. Different businesses have different scheduling needs, so you might want to find out what others are using in your industry and see how they like their systems. Call centers: If you have teams working to create prospects over the phone, a predictive dialer can boost efficiency. CallTools offers once such service. It eliminates the time your reps would waste dealing with calls that don't go through to a live person on the other end. Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
SalesWhether your sales are fully web based or you have reps working the phones and making personal calls, there are great automation tools for you. Keap: This was formerly Infusionsoft, the granddaddy of fully-featured internet sales and marketing software. While virtually every email service offers excellent autoresponders, Keap/Infusionsoft gives you more ways to guide the buyer's journey, tag prospects, follow their progress, create branches in your campaigns, etc. With its morph into Keap, it now offers fully featured customer relationship management software as well. CRM: If you don't need an internet sales funnel creator that's fully automated with all the bells and whistles, Pipedrive, Zoho, Salesforce, and more are available. And, I'll take this moment to recommend Capterra to help you get the full picture of what's available—and with a decent amount of user reviews—no matter what kind of software as a service (SaaS) you're looking for. Sales funnels: On the other hand, if your needs lean more toward creating online sales funnels, check out apps like ClickFunnels, Leadpages, and Builderall. Also, find out what you can accomplish with the autoresponders offered by your email service provider. Facebook messenger bots: You have a Facebook business page, right? If you do, you've probably noticed the chat box at the bottom of the page. With services like ManyChat and Chatfuel, you can create a "bot" for Facebook messenger. Think of these like a string of email autoresponders. In a similar way, you can create chat bots for your website. My hope with this overview is to get you thinking about areas where you can apply automation to boost results and/or decrease costs; it's certainly not a comprehensive look at what's possible. But if you aren't working to increasingly leverage automation, you can be sure that some of your competitors are. RELATED: 5 HR Tasks You Can Streamline With Smart Processes The post 3 Areas Where Every Small Business Should Automate appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post 3 Areas Where Every Small Business Should Automate appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Megan Totka.  |
| Secret to Smarter Selling: Use Your Brain More and Your Mouth Less Posted: 20 Jul 2019 06:40 PM PDT Sometimes your sales calls turn out differently than you’d like and you want a do-over. But you can't do your sales calls over. Here are a few ideas to make your sales calls turn out the way you want them to, and how to make the sale. Be a great listenerDo you think the gift of gab will help you in sales? It won't. Research shows the most successful salespeople talk less and listen more: Top salespeople talk only 43% of the time versus less successful salespeople who talk almost 65% of the time. A side benefit of good listening is that people will like you more when they feel heard. Are you a good listener? Focus on how much talking you do versus listening to your prospects at your next sales call. You'll get better business results by listening more—that's what successful salespeople do. Use the right wordsYour words are the tools of your sales trade. Your job is to use persuasive words when you sell. What are persuasive words? Words like “because” are persuasive. In his book Influence: The Power of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini reports when you make a statement and use the word “because,” you become more persuasive. And just like your mom used to tell you, “Because I said so,” you don’t have to have a real reason for saying “because” either—although, there should be a legitimate reason for using it. Use “because” when you are recommending a product or course of action. You will sound more persuasive because it will help others listen to you. Did you notice how I used the word “because”? Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
Use everything to your advantageDoes this sound harsh? It shouldn't. My definition of selling is helping someone make a great buying decision. Since that is the definition of selling, why wouldn't you want to do everything you can to help your customers make great buying decisions? You are helping them when you use everything to your advantage. What can you use to your advantage? Your appearance, for example. For example, wearing glasses will make you appear more intelligent. One-third of those polled in a survey say people who wear eyeglasses appear more intellectual than those who don’t, and one in five say eyeglass wearers appear more trustworthy. So remember to wear your glasses (if you wear eyeglasses) when you're heading to a tough negotiation or difficult sales call and your expertise might be questioned. You want to start the meeting looking as intelligent as possible. Another strategic advantage is to pay attention to where you sit in a meeting. Taking a seat across the table from someone can make it feel like you’re in an adversarial position. Instead, try sitting side-by-side with a prospect when the opportunity presents itself, like in a large conference room. People are more likely to like each other, remember more of what they discuss, and agree on things when they sit next to one another rather than face each other. Use visualsSixty-five percent of the population are visual learners. Are you helping prospects understand your selling message by using visuals when you sell? You should. You can use charts and graphs to demonstrate performance or other relevant information. You can show photos of new products when it's difficult to imagine what the product looks like. You can even use metaphors or similes when you talk. These word pictures help someone understand what you're saying. For example, a recent article on truffle fraud mentioned that Croatian white truffles share the same DNA as Italian truffles, yet are significantly cheaper and are often sold as Italian. What's the significance of that? Here's the simile: “It's like selling Napa wines from Virginia.” See how much more you understand when you can "see" the word picture? Help your prospects and customers understand your message by using visuals and word pictures. Let others help you sell with testimonial lettersYou are more persuasive when someone other than you says the same things you would say about your products or yourself. That's why testimonial letters are so powerful. However, not all testimonial letters are effective. The effective ones include the comments that prospects need to hear when they’re making their buying decisions. Do your prospects care about after-sales service? Have a customer write that after buying your product, your service was on target and helped their business. Do your prospects care about on-time deliveries? Have a testimonial letter that says, "Your on-time deliveries were key to our plant running efficiently. We selected you because on-time deliveries are critical to our operation." You now know you should be using your ears more and your mouth less when you want better sales results. But it's even more important to be using your brain—and that’s the way to sell more. RELATED: The post Secret to Smarter Selling: Use Your Brain More and Your Mouth Less appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post Secret to Smarter Selling: Use Your Brain More and Your Mouth Less appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Maura Schreier-Fleming.  |
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