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Five Problems Women In Sales Face

Women around the world enjoy pouring themselves a cup of ambition and trying to make it big in the sales world. But how fair is the sales world, really, to women? Do women get the promotions they deserve whether they’re working 9-5 or longer hours?

According to the 2018 U.S. Census, the answer is no. The U.S. sales industry has the second-highest pay gap between women and men. The highest pay gap in the country is between men and women in finance.

That spells bad news for women who want to, or who are currently trying to, make a large income in sales. Being prepared for the challenges women in sales face is the first step to closing this gap. Equal pay for equal work is essential in a modern world. Here are five problems women in sales face and potential solutions to each.

Problem #1: Systemic Flaws

Unfortunately, one of the top problems that women have in business is that they simply haven’t been allowed to, or had the opportunity to, establish their place for as long as men have. Women who don’t have relationships with clients passed on from mother to daughter, for example, are at a disadvantage. Fathers who pass on their clients to sons are giving their sons an advantage that women just don’t have.

Speaking of sons and daughters, let’s take a look at motherhood. Women have faced hiring discrimination for decades because employers do not want to hire, train, and pay someone who will be temporarily gone for maternity leave. They sometimes even attempt to fire women while they are gone on maternity leave. This is illegal now, but it has been a problem that’s prevented women from having successful sales and business careers in the past. Maternity leave is a major issue that prevents women from leading successful sales careers.

Problem #2: Lack Of Networking Opportunities

Because there have historically been fewer women than men in business, there are fewer women to go to for networking opportunities. That means fewer women mentors are available, which is especially bad news for young women who are just starting out in their careers.

Connections are extremely important in the sales world. While it’s important to have a mentor for support, simply knowing more people in the sales world who can help you change companies, for example, is useful and can lead to a more lucrative career. Networking opportunities can be hard to come by for women in sales.

Problem #3: Unconscious Bias

Women tend to be undervalued in the workplace, especially considering that they meet their sales quotas more often than men do! Someone holds an unconscious bias when they do not know that they have a set of attitudes or beliefs about a person or group of people, and these attitudes/beliefs are not based on reality.

Many men hold common, stereotypical unconscious biases about women in the workplace. Examples include, “Women can’t be trusted because of their hormones,” and “She can’t deal with that client because he’s old school. We need a man to work with him.”


Unconscious biases are dangerous because if they are not recognized and addressed, they can turn into discrimination. If, for example, a supervisor never assigns a woman representative to a certain client, they are limiting the woman’s ability to do her job. It doesn’t matter if the supervisor thought he had good intentions; by preventing women from even trying, his unconscious bias is setting up (or perpetuating) problems from the start.

Note that women can also hold unconscious biases about other women. However, it’s much more common that men hold unconscious biases about women, and these biases affect their actions, women’s opportunities, and ultimately, their performance.

Problem #4: Unfair Business Environments

When many men in a company hold unconscious biases against women, it has a major impact on interpersonal relationships and on women’s attitude about what they can accomplish at work. Unconscious biases effect women during interactions, but it extends beyond moment-to-moment interactions.

For instance, women might not feel comfortable using office equipment or going into the break room because they fear an awkward or unpleasant encounter. They might not speak up in meetings because they fear that they will not be taken seriously. Women might also feel uncertain on business trips because they do not have a support system in place.

Sometimes, companies will require a man to partner up with a woman, even if another woman could have filled that role or if the woman could have accomplished the task on her own. These are all examples of how unconscious biases work to create unfair business environments that prevent women from feeling safe and empowered at work.

Problem #5: Imposter Syndrome

While we’ve looked at major external forces that create problems for women in sales, we haven’t considered one important internal force: imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is the untrue belief that you aren’t good enough to accomplish something, even though there is evidence that suggests you are.

Imposter syndrome affects women much more than men. It creates insecurities that lead women to take fewer risks, risks which could pay off and help decrease (and ultimately, eliminate) the gender pay gap.

Women in sales need to fight imposter syndrome by taking a look at all the hard work they’ve put in and the rewards they’ve reached. Take time to be proud of how far you’ve come and what you’ve accomplished. Then, take that positive attitude and energy and put it to work.

In Conclusion

Women face many challenges in the work place, including systemic flaws, a lack of networking opportunities, unconscious bias, unfair work environments, and imposter syndrome. These five problems can be resolved if both men and women work together to fix them.

Equal pay for equal work is extremely important, and creating an environment where more women will want to work is also essential to eliminating the gender pay gap. Despite the challenges they face, women can led rewarding careers in sales.

How To Motivate Your Customer Service Team For The Long Haul

Your customer service team is your first line of defense when it comes to customers. They handle customer complaints, concerns, and questions. They are actually who your customer will likely interact with and how your customers will develop an opinion of your brand. And because of that, your customer service team has to stay motivated for the long haul.

Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking about how you can better motivate your customer service team.

Encourage Individual Growth

One of the best ways to motivate your team is to help them grow both professionally and personally. For their professional growth, you should engage in regular training sessions that actually help them learn the techniques to be better in customer service situations. Things like deescalation training, how to make small talk, ways to connect with the customers, and how to multitask are all great places to start.

You may also want to look into seminars and conferences or classes that your team could attend. These should have experts giving more insight into their position and providing the advice your team will need to be excellent in their day-to-day activities.

Personally, you can help your team grow, too. They spend a huge amount of their lives at work, making it important that their personal growth makes an appearance at work. Help them identify their goals in life and how they want to accomplish that. For example, you can help your team achieve better health by creating a wellness program for them. It will improve their lives while helping them feel more motivated to work hard for the company.

Give Them The Right Tools

Obviously, your team can only be efficient and effective with the right tools. Make sure they have all the equipment they need to do their job well, from training to physical equipment. Stay up-to-date on the best tools in the industry and consider having a part of your budget there to cover the expense of new equipment.

One of the crucial tools for success is autonomy. Your team needs to know that you trust them to make certain decisions. Without a mutual trust, they will never feel like they are progressing in their position and you will continue to see a large number of calls referred to supervisors. Instead, make sure your customer service team is well-trained and fully equipped to handle the majority of situations.

Strengthen The Team

Your team will always work better when working as a team. Start to encourage this by listening to their feedback. You are an essential part of the team and you should trust the feedback you’re getting when making decisions.

Additionally, you need to regularly help them participate in team building activities. These can be something as simple as a team coffee break or as elaborate as going out into the community and doing charity work together. The act of doing something together outside of work can help broaden their relationships and given them experiences together they may not have gotten otherwise.

You can also help them build as a team by fostering friendly competition. You don’t want to pit one employee against another, but having a little competition will incentivize them to work harder while also helping them appreciate the skills of other team members.

Focus On Appreciation

Think about the last time someone asked you for something. Chances are, if you chose to help them out, you knew you would be appreciated. Appreciation is an excellent motivator. You can use this with your customer service team. Try placing some focus on their purpose and importance within the company. As they see why they are coming to work every day and why others rely on them, they will have context for their daily activities.

You can also help the team show appreciation for and take pride in the brand. Fundamentally, people want to work for a company that they respect. Whether it’s the mission of the company, the quality of the products they’re selling, or the good treatment they get from upper management, there is something that will help them stay connected to the company and the brand, which will then motivate them further.

You should also get in the habit of showing appreciation for the team. Regularly show appreciation for them during team meetings, throughout the week, and individually. This doesn’t always have to be an elaborate thing that you do. Simply bringing in a treat or sending a thoughtful email can make a huge difference.

Know What Motivates Them

Generally speaking, people are motivated either intrinsically or extrinsically. If your employees are intrinsically motivated, consider encouraging their creativity. As they improve their problem solving skills and in their position, that intrinsic motivation will continue to be met.

If you have some employees who are more motivated extrinsically, consider coming up with an employee incentive program. How you structure this is completely up to you! It might be based on how many customer service calls they take in a day or their average rating by customers or even the length of their calls. However you decide to make your incentive program, it can be a great outside motivator for every employee.

Arguing At The Office Or Online: How To Manage Employee Conflicts

While some companies are telling their employees to keep working from home, others are calling staff back to the office. Although it might be easier to avoid office conflict when working from home, that doesn’t mean that arguments disappear entirely.

We’ve come up with four best practices for managing employee conflicts, no matter what the setting might be. Whether there’s a disagreement happening in the office or online, one thing is certain: that conflict is decreasing productivity and making your workplace a less pleasant place to be.

Don’t let conflict take away from your company. Follow these best practices to keep conflict to a minimum and to provide a positive work environment for your employees.

Be Proactive

For this best practice, you’ll have to pick a day to start, and we suggest the first Monday of a new month. The symbolism of choosing the first day of the week to launch an initiative actually helps people get in the right mindset: new month, new practice.

And just what is this best practice? It’s simple but so important: respect. When employees don’t respect each other, miscommunications and arguments increase. Respect is essential to the functioning of any organization or society,

Unfortunately, you can never control whether or how much employees actually respect each other. But what you can do is establish a set of norms. Don’t interrupt when someone is speaking. Each person has this much time to speak. If you have an issue with a coworker’s behavior, then talk to your supervisor.

If an employee breaks these norms, then it’s time to have a discussion with them about the importance of respect and their future with the company.

Establish A Complaint Process

Sometimes a conflict gets out of control, or an employee’s behavior escalates in a way that can no longer be tolerated. When this is the case, there needs to be a process for filing a formal complaint.

No employee should have to feel like their voice won’t be heard. If a coworker is treating another employee poorly, then that employee needs to make it known.

A written complaint that goes into a personnel file will help HR track employee behavior in case the case escalates even further.

Communicate the complaint process to your employees. Make sure they know that they will not be penalized for reporting the inappropriate behavior of a coworker.

Confront The Issue

For less serious conflicts, it’s time to leave passive aggressiveness behind. When a minor event happens, employees should be encouraged to confront each other over what went wrong.

Ignoring tensions can actually make the problem worse as time goes by. When employees secretly dislike a coworker or manager, that’s a recipe for miscommunication. It’s difficult to ask for help from someone who you don’t like or don’t trust.

Encourage your employees to have honest, open conversations with each other. Explain that the first step is to politely state how they feel and what the other person might be able to do in a future similar situation to minimize the issue.

Set Communication Standards

Establishing norms for respect, a process for filing formal complaints, and a policy of addressing issues as they arise are three important steps that all have to do with communication. Communication is critically important in the workplace, and that’s why having high standards for it will help your business move up to the next level.

Decide on how much communication you expect from your employees daily, and how much communication is needed within teams. Make sure that you model clear and concise communication in your emails and meetings.


Be honest, open, and to the point. Prioritize your employees’ understanding. If you have communicated something unclearly, then that could lead to future miscommunications.

You should also ask each team to establish their own communication standards, and make sure you approve them. Ask your employees for feedback about what was communicated well and what needed more clarity.

In Conclusion

Respect, complaint processes, conflict policies, and communication standards are four areas where companies should be following best practices to keep conflict to a minimum and employees happy at work.


Arguing at the office or online can lead to more than just a miscommunication or lost time. When conflict gets out of hand, serious consequences can ensue that can lead companies into disaster.

Make sure that you take the right steps and follow best practices to create a positive work environment where employees feel heard and valued. Communication is key!

How To Build A Feel-Good Business That Makes A Lasting Impact

We all need to make money to make our way in the world, but self-fulfillment is just as important. In the business world, doing good work that you can feel good about is the first step. Companies from all over the world and a wide range of industries are finding ways to create lasting social impact. Whatever your business, you can make a difference, too.

Build A Business On Your Passion

Do what you love, right? It’s sage advice. You have to care about something to feel good about doing it. Doing good and giving back isn’t just for nonprofits. Parents start businesses selling products that will help their family and other families. A vegan establishes a line of prepackaged vegan foods. Yes, a business needs to be sustainable, but you can enjoy what you do. The first step to feeling good about your business is selling a product that makes you feel good and makes a difference.

Here are some great examples of companies selling feel-good products:

Alternative Apparel sells sustainably sourced clothing that’s Fair Trade certified.

Seventh Generation sells eco-friendly products that are packaged in 100% recycled material.

Warby Parker sells eyeglasses. For every pair sold, they donate a pair.

Grove Collaborative sells paper goods made from 100% bamboo.

Build It Into Your Business Plan

Every business isn’t selling bamboo paper towels or sustainably sourced clothing, and that’s okay. You can still do good by building it into your brand. You don’t have to wait until you’re well established to give back either. Build it into your business plan from the very start. If you can’t afford to make monetary donations right now, build quarterly volunteer days into your business plan. You can include monetary donations in your business plan for when your start-up is off and running. Factor donations into your budget and projections. 2 years from now, how much do you want to be donating? 5 years from now? Set goals for yourself, then track your progress. Get your team involved, so everyone can feel good about their contribution when you meet a goal.

Your business plan is the blueprint for your business. What you choose to put in it is entirely up to you. It can just be about profit and loss, or it can also be about doing your part to make a lasting change in this world.

Build An Atmosphere of Giving

As the founder of a company, you set the tone. If you make charity a focus of your business, it sets an example for all of your employees. If you want to make a difference but aren’t sure where to start, hold a meeting to ask your employees’ opinions. They may have some great ideas! Or perhaps, they are already involved in volunteer work and need assistance. Don’t just assign an eager employee as head of charitable contributions and step back, either. Get involved yourself and set a positive example. You may inspire your customers and business partners to get involved, as well.

Build A People-First Philosophy

Customers know the difference between a company that values its customers and one that values its bottom line above all else. Chewy, the pet retailer, sends condolence cards to its customers when they lose their beloved pet. Acts of kindness like this will win the hearts and minds of your customers.

Yes, good customer service is good business sense, but a people-first philosophy is more than that. A people-centric business is one employees want to work for because their time and input are valued. They have fair wages, good working conditions, and an understanding boss. A people-first philosophy means implementing policies that protect the physical and mental health of your staff. From adequate leave time to group health insurance, there are a lot of things an employer can do for his or her employees. A smart business owner knows a company’s success depends upon how hard its employees are willing to work.

Build A Reputation for Good

As a business owner, you have choices about how you package your products, how you advertise your services, and what vendors you use. You choose how you treat your employees and how you run your business. Make choices you can proudly share with your customers. It will establish your business as one that cares about people over money. People don’t just want a good product at a good price. They want a product they can feel good about buying.

9 Ways to Improve Your Health and Wellbeing For a Lifetime

As a new year approaches, the all-too-familiar making of resolutions becomes front and center. Have you given any thought to health related issues lately? If not, it’s time to wake up to the fact that your health and wellbeing is vitally important. January is a great time to make changes and improvements that will not only last the short term, but for a lifetime.

It’s no secret that poor health and wellbeing affects you in several ways, including physically and mentally. To enjoy life to the fullest each and every day, here’s 9 ways to help give you a kick-start to improving your health.

Exercise

If you’re already partaking in daily exercise, good for you; if not, it’s time you started. If you lead a sedentary lifestyle – you either sit at home or you have a job which keeps you inactive for long periods of time. Therefore, not only does exercise improve your strength, stamina, and flexibility, the obvious health benefits associated with exercise include weight loss and improved fitness. You’re also less prone to injuries and ‘aches and pains’ such as fall, sprains, backaches, shoulder aches and so on.

Reduce Your Screen Hours

There’s no escaping the certain amount of screen time for your work, but too much unnecessary Iphone, laptop, and T.V. time is not good for your health. It not only makes you lethargic but also has a negative impact on your eyes and the brain. Over time, you can develop lifestyle disorders such as obesity, hypertension or diabetes as you sit for hours in front of the screen, instead of undertaking more physical activities. Too many screen hours can also have a derogatory affect on your mental health and posture, as it does nothing to stimulate your intellect or the health of your spine.

Get Outdoors

Getting out of a confined indoor space and into the fresh outdoor air needs to be adhered to as often as you can. Sunlight is a great source of Vitamin D and the open environment will do wonders for your mental and physical health. A walk outdoors decreases your stress levels and the fresh air energizes your brain while enhancing your mood. A walk is also going to improve your physical fitness. If you’d prefer running to walking, make sure you have the proper footwear and know your limitations prior to setting out. Both are excellent for your overall wellbeing and both contribute to weight loss and mental stability.

Decrease Alcohol Intake

Drinking too much alcohol has multiple side effects on your body, as alcohol interferes with your brain’s working pattern and disrupts clarity of thought and coordination. Also, regular intake of alcohol can lead to high blood pressure, arrhythmia or even a cardiac attack. Imbibing on a regular basis affects your liver and can cause fatty liver, cirrhosis, fibrosis or alcoholic hepatitis. It can also affect your relationships with others and your mental health if you drink in excess, therefore limit the alcohol intake and boost your wellbeing.

Walk Whenever and Wherever You Can

Because walking is a great way to get your body moving, park the farthest away from your designated place and walk extra steps to the front door of a market or your workplace. Walk to the supermarket, take a walk around the park and if you use public transport to your place of work, get off a few stops early and walk the rest of the way. Take a short break at your office every two hours or so and go for a five-to-ten minute walk. If nothing else, walk around your house and always take the stairs where possible. Set yourself a target each day, and stick to it!

Limit Processed Foods

By limiting processed foods which contain a variety of additives, colors, and taste enhancers, you’re also limiting the fat, sugar, and salt content, all of which are harmful to your health. They can also actually work out to be more expensive than eating freshly prepared food. Processed foods have very little nutritional value and over-consumption can lead to obesity, type II diabetes, cardiac problems, and digestive issues such as inflammatory bowel disease.

Have Fitness Goals

Even before the new year rolls around, getting fit will have a huge impact on your overall health. If you are obese, try to shed the pounds. If you are too lean and weak, try to build your muscles and improve your strength with yoga and weight training. Don’t ‘simply try’ but rather set fitness goals, hire a personal trainer if your budget allows, have a workout partner, and select a particular workout regime that is within your comfort level. Then join a group or a gym that offers your preferred workouts.

Quit Smoking

Simply put, smoking cigarettes is not good for you or those around you, particularly your children. The toxic effects of the smoke leave a dark tan on your skin and make it look dull. Those who smoke regularly are more likely to develop wrinkles earlier, and continued smoking can lead to lung and oral cancer to name a few. It also stains the teeth and leads to several gum diseases. In women, smoking during pregnancy can lead to abnormalities in the developing fetus. All in all, it’s time to quit smoking and avoid a life with many health risks and complications.

Carve Out Time to Relax

Just as important as exercise, work, and play, it’s also vital to take a break and relax. Relaxation is the simple mantra of living happily. Carve out time to sleep at least six to eight hours a day, spend some quality time with friends or family to take your mind off life issues, read a book, watch a film or go for a weekend getaway to de-stress. You will be more productive, healthier and better equipped to take life on.

In a Nutshell

Your health and wellbeing depends on the steps you take to make it forever. No more excuses and no more reasons to sidestep the obvious. A new year is asking you to take control of your life and implement proper nutrition and movement protocol that leads you into restoration, an awakening, and even a transformation of every cell within your body.

Improving your chances of staying alive and becoming the BEST YOU CAN is now here. Go for it!

Breathing New Life Into Your Company Culture In The New Year

Do you remember when, on live TV, a professor was famously interrupted during a news broadcast by his toddler walking in? Then his wife ran in to take the child away, and it was all captured by his camera and viewed live by the world.

The reaction to that interruption was understanding laughter, and that same scenario has been repeated in many a Zoom call since. Sure, there have been other kinds of slip-ups and mishaps, and that’s to be expected when working from home.

We’ve all struggled with the transition to remote work in 2020. But there’s a more dangerous force operating here, too. The loneliness that remote work causes can be isolating to an unhealthy degree. Company leaders must acknowledge the isolation and the effect it can have on employee health.

Trading a bustling office settling for a home office is a difficult swap. However, company leaders have the opportunity to keep their employees’ morale high by breathing new life into the remote company culture.

And what better time to try something new than in the new year?

New Year, New Habits


Studies show that, if you want to develop a new habit, the best time to start is at the beginning. Whether that’s the beginning of the week, month, or year, is up to you. Approach the day or the task like it’s a fresh, clean, blank page.

You don’t know what 2021 will bring. No one does. All we know is that it’s a clean slate, a fresh beginning for everyone to do better given the circumstances. So it’s the perfect time for company leaders to begin new cultural practice for remote work.

Chatterboxes

No one likes a chatterbox when they’re trying to work hard. However, the change to remote work has de facto eliminated all casual conversation between coworkers.

This is one way that company culture has fizzled out in 2020, but many companies have already taken steps to bring back casual conversation into the work-from-home setting.

Slack channels dedicated just to non-work conversations are a good option, as they help make sure informal conversations live on in a remote work world.

But it’s time to do more than that. Follow the lead of tech companies like Slido, which hosts special virtual get-togethers for team socializing. From Coffee/Tea(m) Time Tuesdays to Monday Morning Meetings, Slido prioritizes keeping their employees connected.

Make Meetings Great Again

Many companies have decided that there should be meetings for specific teams, for the whole staff, and, interestingly, for small groups. Conversations between small groups of random employees who might not have any reason to talk are an important way to keep company culture alive.

While they might not meet in the elevator, employees on different teams can meet through a pre-arranged Zoom breakout room or through Slack’s Donut feature.

The frequency of these meetings is up to you, but once a week team meetings are a must. Through polling, companies have discovered that video conferencing is an extremely important way to keep employees feeling connected.

All The News That’s Fit To (Digitally) Print

Keeping employees informed about how the company is performing is essential. While it used to be easy for a manager to drop in and tell a team member how things are going, now those updates get lost, either because of a lack of opportunity for that conversation to happen or because other tasks are prioritized.

Don’t let your employees feel like while they’re putting in the hours from home, they don’t have any idea about how the company is doing and therefore they aren’t really a part of it. Employees will feel disconnected and unmotivated to perform to the same levels they used to before remote work if this is how they feel.

Instead, send out a weekly newsletter with information about the progress the company is making. Status updates on important projects, as well as summaries of events and customer feedback, will show employees how their work fits into the big picture.

In Conclusion

By starting fresh with the new year, opening up channels for informal conversation, holding multiple video meetings a week for different groups of employees, and sending out a company newsletter, you can breathe new life into your company culture.

Remote work makes life difficult, but it doesn’t have to be isolating. Your employees will appreciate you taking steps to keep your company culture alive.

Listen Up, Women Entrepreneurs! Here’s What You Need to Be Your Own Boss.

As female entrepreneurship is on the rise, women are climbing into the ranks of being savvy business owners, all due in part to seeing an opportunity. The encouragement by markets and industries ready and willing to seek a woman’s expertise will only continue to grow as more and more women strike out on their own. However, knowing which is the right path and when to leave your day job behind isn’t always so obvious. 

Here’s a peek at how women can find their ideal business idea and take control of their careers.

Where To Start

Have you ever considered being a happiness and life purpose expert? Anything’s possible, right? An aspiring entrepreneur should start a business that’s meaningful to them. It’s a rather archaic model to tell a woman to go into a specific field, mainly because it earns more money or helps them gain recognition. 

Instead, invest in ideas you’re passionate about and tap into what you’re good at to make yourself feel great while also earning a living. It could start out as a side gig and blossom from there. Or, if you’re already entrenched in a 9-5 job, you could start a small business on the side and go from there. There are no guidelines to the types of companies women should begin, as a woman’s strengths are so diverse that the opportunities are endless.

It’s helpful to start a business you know something about so when you’re ready to launch the business you’re most passionate about, you can consider your limitations. The last thing you want to do is quit a really good job to start a business you actually hate. Try not to let the fantasies of grandeur about running a business get the best of you, as it’s no picnic out there. 

A good rule of thumb is to save 20 to 40 percent per paycheck and tuck it away, before you quit your steady job. Do your research, and make certain you understand who your paying customer is prior to announcing an entrepreneurship. You always have to check and ensure your business model makes sense in an industry that’s growing not sinking. Your business needs to be relevant three to five years down the road. 

Because technology is always looming front and center, you don’t want the technological advances to take over your business and leave you in the dust. Surround yourself with people who will help you succeed, whether it’s through support of lending a hand in getting your business started.

Remember that being a leader doesn’t mean you have all the answers, and the more open you are to learning from everyone around you, the more you can grow into your role as entrepreneur. It’s okay to ask for help and collaborate with other people.

Love What You Do

Becoming an entrepreneur and building a business from the ground up is challenging no matter how you look at it. However, the end result should boil down to actually loving what you do. Feel encouraged to be strong and work hard at what you love.

Starting and running a business is by no means easy, and there are going to be a lot of hardships and emotional setbacks, but you have to put yourself out there, believe in yourself and your purpose. In other words, just do it.

It’s Okay To Be Afraid

Having the will to try speaks volumes in this day and age. It’s not so much you need to be ready, but you need to overcome your fears. If you succumb to feeling scared about the onset of entrepreneurship, you’ll never pursue your dreams or get the business off the ground. 

Being afraid is just part of the big picture. In other words, you have to start your business while you’re scared. Once you master that hurdle, you’ll rise to another level, and that will come with yet another level of fear. You’ll learn and adjust and keep moving forward. 

Before you know it, your earnings will begin to tumble in and you’ll be making money doing what you love.

A Few Ideas That Can Help

The following are some innovative ways to dip your toes into entrepreneurship:

Cooking

Is creating meals from scratch a passion of yours? Do you have access to proper cookware that can withstand several dishes on a dime? Launching a cooking business, whether catering or as a gourmet chef, can be a real winner. Think of all the people who love to eat good food, and go from there. 

If you know friends who are willing to be your guinea pig for a few demonstrations, that’s a good place to start. Expand your horizons and create dishes that titillate the senses and entice the palate. Or, you could concoct in-home delivery menus that cater to individuals in any setting that suits your fancy. {insert image here}

The key is to use your cooking skills that people want. Traditional cuisines, family style recipes, or simply home-cooked food are always the meals most sought after. 

Fashion

If you’re a fashionista who loves to put clothes together and knows how to color coordinate based on skin tone and style, welcome to running a clothing business. Whether you venture into a small boutique or engage in marketing platforms such as Spotify, Instagram, or Facebook, chances are you’re already spreading your brand and messaging. Reach a bigger audience and showcase your designs with online payment gateways that make the entire process so much easier. {insert image here}

Go with an approximate initial investment estimate of between $5,000 and $10,000. Plan for production, space to invent your fashion creations, and get to work designing clothes for people. If you have good customer relation skills, all the better.

Social Media Influencer

Social media has become one of the biggest places to generate brand awareness with millions of eyeballs to be caught every second. Becoming a social media influencer is a great idea for a business with a low investment. Any talent that you are passionate about can help you become an influencer. {insert image here}

Brands associate with influencers who can engage their followers, so reading and keeping up with trending topics will help connect with more people and build larger audiences. The key remains regular creative and value-adding content that you enjoy. A successful influencer takes about one to three years to gain popularity, as a lot is dependent upon the quality of content.

Wrapping Up

The sky’s the limit with women-owned businesses, and this is merely touching the surface. If you like to walk dogs, start a pet-sitting enterprise. If you have a passion for writing, enter the digital content creation space and go to town! If you want to turn your hobby into something grand and glorious, ensure that you’ve done your research, you’ve set aside enough funds to invest in supplies or a workspace, and you absolutely love what you do.

There’s no reason to become an entrepreneur unless you’re comfortable in feeling the initial fear and overcoming the obstacles along the way. The world is your oyster, and it’s time to make a pearl necklace out of a single gemstone.

How To Host A Great Virtual Holiday Party

Ah, the holidays. It’s the season of giving and gratitude, of chilly nights and short days, of lights and parties. Unfortunately, parties have become somewhat tricky due to the global pandemic. Although gathering in person may be off the table, you can still enjoy an amazing holiday party.

Whether it’s for your family, your friends, or your office, there are tons of ways to celebrate the holidays virtually. With the development of so many video conferencing platforms and many companies offering more online options, you can throw a holiday party that’s just as festive and fun as ever.

Here are a few areas to consider when planning your holiday party. To make your party feel complete, consider picking something from each category. You can also have a themed party using one category or simply pick one event for your virtual holiday bash.

Activities

One of the best parts about holiday parties are all the activities that go along with it. Even virtually, you can still enjoy these activities together. There are the holiday classics like an ugly Christmas sweater fashion show, for instance. You can also try something a little more unique, like taking an online class together.

If you’re planning an office holiday party, use this time to toast your team, acknowledging their hard work during an especially tough year. You could also have a team awards show. With a little planning, you could even send a small trophy or certificate to each member of your team with the award they’ve won.

For a party with friends, you might consider a gift wrapping party. This will help you all get those presents wrapped in time but do it in a fun, communal way. Another fun interactive activity is an at-home scavenger hunt, with points awarded for how many items a person can source from their house. The winner could win holiday cookies or a gift card.

Contests & Games

A little competition can provide a ton of fun to a party with very little extra effort. With so many people making holiday cookies this time of year, why not turn it into a contest? Have everyone decorate some holiday cookies and then vote on which looks the best. A variation on this would be an ornament decorating contest or wreath making contest.

Depending on the size of your group, you could also have a holiday-themed talent show. This will make sure that everyone gets involved and you never know what you might learn about someone in your group.

For a more traditional game night, you could try holiday-themed charades. Have everyone submit their ideas ahead of time and have a moderator send out the suggestion. If you have the time to plan it and know your holiday trivia, try holiday-themed Jeopardy. You will all learn something and have a ton of fun doing it.

Exchanges

A favorite part of the holiday season for many people is the chance to give. Presents and gifts are an excellent way to show someone you care, whether it’s virtual or not. Consider organizing a Secret Santa gift exchange. Especially for an office party, this can be a great way to bring your team together. For a little tongue-in-cheek spin on Secret Santa, have a White Elephant gift exchange. You never know what you could end up with! If you try these, make sure you have everyone send their gifts in advance.

A less expensive way to have everyone give a little holiday cheer is with a recipe exchange. Just like you would a Secret Santa, have everyone send a recipe to another person. For added enjoyment, have everyone make their recipe to enjoy it during the party. Tasty goodies are characteristic of the season, so why not enjoy them together?

Food & Drink

The holidays are a time for food and drink. Everywhere you turn there are treats, rich foods, warm drinks, and spicy beverages. In a real-world party, food and drink would be an obvious thing to provide, but that can often be forgotten in a virtual party. Consider sending out a couple cocktail or mocktail recipes for everyone to enjoy during your holiday party. It will bring a little warmth during this chilly season.

Another way to incorporate drinks into your holiday party while also enjoying a fun activity is with a wine tasting. Because of the pandemic, many liquor stores are offering delivery. Send out a couple vintages to your party attendees and taste them together.

For a family-friendly virtual gathering, try having a hot chocolate and s’mores party. You could send out the ingredients to make the hot chocolate and s’mores before the party, then make them together. The simple act of enjoying something delicious with the people you love is so iconically part of the holidays that it will really accent any party well.

Entertainment

Whether it’s the Hallmark channel Christmas movies or the latest holiday movie on Netflix or a favorite holiday classic, movies are an important part of the holidays for many of us. Luckily, many streaming services are offering party features where you can stream the movie together.

To really make your holiday movie night special, send out some seasonally specific treats, like candy canes, cookies, hot chocolate, popcorn, or cake. Really, any little treat will add that extra touch to the festivities.

Takeaways

We all miss getting together to celebrate, whether for the holidays, a birthday party, or the weekend. But you don’t have to celebrate the season alone. With a virtual party, you can enjoy some of your favorite holiday traditions and with a little creativity, you might find a new holiday tradition that will last for years. Make the season bright with a virtual party and you’ll have a beautiful memory to hold on to forever.

How To Have A Positive Workplace For Your Employees

Think about your ideal workplace. What are the people like? What is your direct supervisor like? How do you feel being there? How do you feel going home?

The fact is, we all want to work somewhere we are appreciated, treated like a human being, and encouraged to be our best. And no one likes leaving work feeling completely emotionally drained, nor the feeling of waking up dreading the 8 to 10 hours you’ll spend at the office. So, what’s the main difference between the ideal workplace and the worst case scenario?

It’s whether a company and leadership can put their employees first or not.

Why It’s Important

In the traditional workplace, there was a straight forward transaction: an employee clocked in and traded time for money. It was as though the company rented someone by the hour. As business and people have evolved over the years, more is expected of companies and their leadership. Rather than simply lording over employees, managers and supervisors are expected to actually care about their employees.

But why? Why should it ever be more than the transactional relationship of yesteryear?

Because the old model didn’t work nearly as well as the new age one. The old model existed with a culture of fear and anxiety permeating offices. People were afraid to mess up because they had anxiety about being yelled at and the terrifying possibility of losing their livelihood. While this might keep someone on the clock, it doesn’t necessarily make them more productive.

Finally, we started paying attention to what motivates people. It turns out people are motivated more by loyalty and a feeling of appreciation than the feelings of dread like before. Keeping your employees in a constant state of uneasiness only manages to distract them and make them less productive.

They’ll also be more likely to quit and move on to a company that values them. That means more turn over and more wasted time and money on your end.

Benefits Of A People First Work Environment

Think back to a time you felt truly appreciated. Did it make you want to quit or did it make you want to keep trying your hardest? Likely, it was the latter. When we feel appreciated and valued, we try harder to do better. As you put your employees first and work to improve the business environment they’re in for 40 hours every week, they’ll prove to be more productive and have better output than before.

Another benefit to this environmental shift is that your employees will start working together as a team. The days of cut throat business cultures aren’t necessarily dead, but it’s phasing out and that’s primarily due to all employees feeling valued rather than pitted against each other.

Competitiveness can be a good thing, but when it’s the primary feeling of your company’s culture, then you stand little to no chance of employees actually working together. This will lead to less work getting done and what does get done won’t be nearly as good as it could have been.

Ultimately, having employees who leave work happy will make for a society of better citizens. When you leave work after an awful day and then run right into traffic, many of us turn to expletives and hand gestures. We go home to our families upset and irritable, making their lives miserable, too.

The problem snowballs and society is the worse for it. In contrast, having employees who feel valued and appreciated will lead to happier employees at the end of the day, so their off time is spent in better moods, spreading the joy rather than the anger.

How You Can Improve Your Company Culture

Changing an entire company’s culture doesn’t happen overnight, but it does start at the top. You have to be the one to start caring. Care about your employees and their lives, what they’re going through, how they’re feeling. Care that they are human beings and treat them as such, rather than treating them as underlings.

Place a focus on employee growth. If your employees feel that you are investing in them, they will invest in you. Doing the same thing every day can become monotonous but offering training or education benefits can motivate your employees with new skills. They will repay the investment ten fold.

You should also consider a company wide focus on wellness, both physical and mental. There’s been a shift in the last few years where people are focusing on their self care. As you start to care about your employees’ wellness, they will start to care, too. This will make for a healthier, happier, more balanced team of people who come to work more days of the year and are willing to work even harder for you.

Finally, learn to put people before business. Say you have an employee who’s just lost a close family member. Instead of having them fill out a bunch of paperwork to simply take a couple days off to grieve and attend a funeral, offer them a couple of weeks.

Do you know your employee is having trouble getting to work on time because they have to drop their kids off at school? Why not figure out an arrangement that works for both of you?

The most important thing to remember is that your employees are just people, the same as you. The only difference is who gets the bigger office. Everyone has issues in their life and everyone is motivated by the same things: feeling appreciated, feeling seen, and feeling special.

As you put your employees first, your company culture will change and this change in environment will have an impact on both your business and the people who devote their lives to it.

Why Gratitude is Crucial to Business Success and a Strong Company Culture

The holidays are a time for thankfulness and appreciation, and that goes for your small business as well! Gratitude is more important than ever as we conclude 2020, a year that’s been difficult in many ways.

By incorporating gratitude into your daily routines and business strategies, you can grow your business and strengthen your team. Here’s how.

Take Time To Thank Your Team

Whether due to COVID, an economic downturn, or election anxiety, it’s safe to say it’s been a stressful year for most of your team. People devote a significant portion of their time and energy to their job, so a little appreciation goes a long way toward boosting morale and loyalty.

Set aside time during every meeting to give a shout out to your team members. Try not to make it a competition e.g. “Employee of the Week” or “MVP.” Instead, identify and reward your team’s successes, and encourage them to thank each other as well. Try creating a dedicated Slack channel for appreciative messages, or have people give “awards” to each other. Ultimately, your goal is to increase gratitude and cultivate a sense of mutual support.

Shine A Spotlight

Don’t feel limited to shout outs at staff meetings. Let the whole world know that you are grateful for your customers, staff, clients, sponsors, etc. You can spotlight people in your email marketing, social media posts, and even on the walls of your office.

As with general staff appreciation, don’t make this about competition or who’s “best.” Instead, highlight the person’s individual contributions, unique talents and skills, and how they support your business. Lead with gratitude, and watch morale and loyalty increase among your brand’s community!

Run A “Thank You” Sale

Most consumers are accustomed to receiving impersonal sales messages from companies. During a time when many people are on a budget, being “salesy” can backfire. Think outside the box: instead of simply running sales and encouraging people to spend needlessly, offer a special discount for your loyal customers. Frame it as a thank you gift rather than an opportunity to make money off them. (This is especially important when many consumers are strapped for cash.)

Thank Your Customers For Their Support

Generic “thank you” messages are virtually meaningless to customers, but an unexpected expression of gratitude can turn the tide on customer engagement. Think outside the box: how can you help your customers feel not only appreciated but also grateful for you?

Anything from clever illustrations to personalized thank you videos can be used to show that unlike your competitors, you truly appreciate your customers.

Let Everyone Share In The Gratitude

Gratitude gets even better when you share it with others. Invite your customers and team to share in your company’s success, and make them feel like a welcome part of your brand’s community.

Are you celebrating a major milestone? Send an email blast that thanks your customers and employees for helping you achieve it. Excited about the New Year? Include gratitude messaging in your social posts to help build a community around your brand. Did someone’s purchase benefit a struggling family or a good cause? Send them a thank you note with a photo of whom they helped!

Run A Referral Program

Referral programs aren’t just a nifty marketing tactic. They’re an ideal way to thank your customers for their loyalty, then reward them for referring others to your business. Base your referral messaging around the idea of gratitude. You can design a referral program in several different ways, but make sure that it incentivizes giving and makes people feel special for participating.

Make Gratitude A Daily Ritual

Countless studies have shown that practicing gratitude boosts your productivity, so why not make it part of your regular routine? As a manager or business owner, it’s easy to let endless to dos and the nitty gritty details overwhelm your thoughts. When all that noise occupies your brand, you can lose sight of the big picture.

For greater productivity, leadership, and overall planning, take time every day to be grateful. Make a short list of what you appreciate in your life and business. Write or say affirmations of your goals and values. This simple practice results in a powerful mindset shift that will make you a better leader.

Wrapping Up

Gratitude is more than the occasional thank you. It’s a way of life. Incorporate it into your business practices, from marketing to team management to personal reflection, and you’ll cultivate a stronger company culture and brand community. With those in place, your business can grow to new levels.