Networking Your Small Business

Networking Your Small Business

You may have the most lucrative product or service, but how do you move from no one knowing about it to achieving great success in business? Networking for your small business is an integral part of marketing and promoting what you offer. Networking is the next step of branching outside of the office, meeting new people and forming new relationships.

Networking can be a cost-effective way to find meaningful connections for you and your business. Not all networking for your small business is the same. There are varying types of networking events. Some events consist of open networking, which allows attendees to mingle and have conversations. It is important in open networking events that you don’t do all the talking. To learn more about other attendees’ businesses, ask more questions before you share about yourself. Active listening and asking questions tells the other person you’re engaged in what they have to say.

Forming a relationship is more valuable than exchanging business cards when networking. There are more organized networking groups, often called leads or referral groups. These groups tend to meet often, usually weekly, and are more structured. These groups include an agenda and introductions of each member’s business. Often these groups emphasize active participation by setting requirements for all members to continually pass along business leads. Some networking groups also have a business spotlight, which highlights a member’s business for that week.

Utilizing this spotlight, it is a perfect opportunity to share in-depth details about your business and share what type of connections you are looking for. The old adage “It’s not what you know, but who you know” is absolutely true when it comes to building a successful business through networking. To grow your small business quickly, you will need to have a strong source of relevant connections in your network whom you can call on when you need them. Networking can open the door to talk to highly influential people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to easily talk to or find.

Attending a new networking group can be daunting. When planning out your calendar for networking events, especially ones you are trying for the first time, think ahead of who you are trying to connect with. Meeting every single member in the room is not manageable, especially at an open networking event. Walking away with two or three new strong connections is far more valuable. To continue to grow relationships, plan to follow up with all new connections immediately. Send an email, call them and, potentially, set up another time to continue the conversation. To be successful with networking, connections must be mutually beneficial.

Be reciprocal by introducing your new connection to your network. Finding the right networking group requires commitment. Start your new year right by attending a new networking group each week for the next month. Allow yourself time to find the networking group that works best for you and your business. Once you find that right network, the growth of your business is sure to come.

This article was written by Jodi Towns, ASBA Director of Partnership Development & Marketing.

[email protected] (602) 306-4000

The Five Things to Know in Your Sixth Year

The Five Things to Know in Your Sixth Year

If you’ve ever been brave enough to share your amazing new business idea with a friend or family member, you’ve undoubtedly been met with a hesitant head tilt and the start-up skeptic’s favorite refrain: You know, 50% of new businesses fail by their fifth year.

They mean well. They’re only worried about your wellbeing. But their lack of faith isn’t totally unfounded. Making it out of the fifth year with your head still on straight is a feat worth celebrating. But making it out of the sixth year, now that’s a little more complicated. By year six, you’re a seasoned team that’s making its way out of scrappy start-up and into an established business. You’ve figured out your market, your product, and you’re rolling full speed ahead—that’s when the real trouble begins.

Here are the five things you’ll have to figure out in your sixth year of business.

1. You’ll have to navigate a Big Problem.

We went from a single mattress in 2012 to an entire bedroom’s worth of products by 2017—and a large portion of those products were launched in a 12-month period. Scaling at this speed can cause a lot of gaps in product quality, and other issues we hadn’t encountered previously. We saw this manifest in a few products, from adhesive issues in our core mattresses to a stressful product recall. We knew we had a huge problem to tackle or risk the satisfaction of our customers.

At the height of these issues, our box foundation return rate was skyrocketing, and we couldn’t figure out why. We had sourced the best of the best, we thought, but customers clearly didn’t agree. A missed step in the feedback process between our CX and Ops teams was preventing us from being about to get to the real issue—which cost time, money, and worst of all, our customers’ trust. It turned out, after a lot of investigating, that the plastic pins used to hold our foundation together were breaking easily, creating a poor customer experience.

We asked our Superior Quality Manager, Garrison Mills, to weigh in on the takeaways from such a difficult to solve the problem. “You can have all of the data in the world, but it doesn’t do you much good if you don’t catch a trend soon enough. After we experienced the wave of box foundation issues, we started creating internal, real-time dashboards to alert us the moment a defect began to trend upward. This has been a big step forward for us in being able to react quickly to these issues when they come up.”

Additionally, we began building external-facing dashboards that, in some cases, were even better than the systems our vendors were using for their own quality management and assurance. Many were hardcoding the weekly data we sent into their own QMS, which resulted in data-fidelity problems. Creating external dashboards eliminated manual data entry by their teams and ensured that they were seeing exactly what we were seeing when we were seeing it.”

2. You’ll have to completely reconsider your strategy.

What works in the first few years might start to shift once you’re a more established business. We’ve faced two major challenges that any brand can relate to, and we’re still navigating them as we learn.

Our competitive landscape rapidly changed. When we started, we were the first of just a few big names out there, but by our second and third years, there were dozens of copycat mattress-in-a-box companies on the internet. We knew our product offering was unique, but the customer couldn’t see it through a sea of similar information and images. We’ve had to constantly rethink how we present our products, and we’re still trying to get above the noise.

We also had to shift our retail strategy. We crafted a very hands-on experience with our product, including a personal guide in a private showroom. Customers would walk into our downtown Phoenix or San Francisco showrooms and wade through a thick crowd, just to be quoted a wait time. We wanted to do things differently when it came to mattress shopping, but we realized the wait times to see our product were creating a worse experience, not a better one. It took many iterations and customer feedback to hone in on our current experience, and we aren’t married to the way things have settled now, either.

Learning to be flexible, open to new ideas, and above all, open to customer feedback, is a lesson that takes you from a two-year burnout to a 10-year veteran business.

3. You’ll underestimate yourself.

When we launched our Mint Mattress, our second mattress design, on Black Friday of 2017, we weren’t prepared for the reception we got. After forecasting, getting all of our product assets together, and sending one simple email announcement, we planned to sell about 500 units.

We sold 6,500 that weekend alone.

That sounds like great news, right? What a success! But we were woefully unprepared for the backlog the demand for the Mint created with our manufacturers. Shipping was delayed, we

didn’t have the product itself back in stock until February of 2018, and our CX team was left to answer a lot of (rightfully) upset customers.

We can’t say it was the last time we underestimated our own products, but we learned a huge lesson—when you design a mattress specifically based on customer feedback about your already popular mattress, be prepared for it to sell.

4. You’ll have to make painful decisions.

At a certain point in your business, revisiting roles is important. No one ever wants to lay people off, and we had successfully avoided it in our first five years. However, it became clear as we reorganized and grew that some roles had become redundant. Some people weren’t fulfilled by their job any longer, and some teams didn’t make sense, no matter how much we loved the people on them.

Handling a layoff or restructure requires a lot of empathy, a lot of transparency, and a lot of patience. It’s important to honor the work your team members have put in, but when the time comes, having those tough conversations is a vital move to take your company to the next stage.

5. You’ll make an expensive move that might not pan out.

We’ll keep this one brief for a lot of reasons, but there’s still a lesson to be learned here. In 2016, we got involved in dueling ad campaigns with a competitor. Things got pretty heated, and soon we found ourselves in a lawsuit. More importantly than any legal significance, the end result didn’t have the impact we hoped for with our customers, the campaign seemed to be more interesting to industry insiders than to consumers. Sometimes, the move that feels right at the time isn’t one that your customers care about in the end—maintaining their happiness is a better long-term focus.

We’re cruising ahead toward that 10-year mark, and we’re excited to see what challenges we face in year eight, nine, and beyond. Tuft & Needle was founded to be one of the 100-year companies that customers can’t stop talking about. We’ve made our fair share of mistakes, but we always come away from them with a new lesson to apply to the next problem.

When your friend parrots that 50% statistic back to you, remember that there’s a reason half of businesses do make it beyond the five-year mark. Study their failures, let their successes inspire you, and if you’re executing on the right idea, you’ll stand the test of time.

Tuft & Needle is an American direct-to-consumer mattress and bedding brand owned by Serta Simmons Bedding. The company was founded on July 19, 2012 by Daehee Park and John-Thomas Marino in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Feeling the Burn?

Feeling the Burn?

By Kira Morgan, Big Yam Agency

No, not the political kind, (that’s the Bern, not the burn) but the sort of burn you feel from burning the candle at both ends. (Explaining the joke only makes it funnier- right?)

Most of us won’t admit it but there comes a time when the pressure is on at work. You can’t seem to meet deadlines, there’s too much to accomplish in the day and not enough time. Every day there seems to be a crisis. You don’t mean to, but you find yourself getting testy with co-workers, you can’t seem to get out of bed in the morning, and every day is a struggle. But what are we taught to do? Put on a brave face, throw on the cape and become the office superhero.

Well, I’m here to tell you, everything is going to be okay and you are not alone! You may be suffering from work “burnout,” a condition that is now officially recognized by the professional health community. And while most may consider burnout just a term, it is officially a medical condition that occurs when chronic workplace stress is not being successfully managed.

WORK BURNOUT IS REAL

According to The World Health Organization, “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress,” and is characterized by the following:

  • Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
  • Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
  • Reduced professional efficacy

RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS OF WORK BURNOUT

According to Very Well Mind, if you are experiencing any of the following at work, you may be at or on the verge of burnout.

  • No interest in work-related activities
  • Feeling drained, lack of energy to get work done
  • Difficulty concentrating and lacking creativity

For more information, visit https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-and-burnout-symptoms-and-causes-3144516.

CAUSES OF WORK BURNOUT

According to a 2018 report by Gallup, employee burnout has five main causes:

  • Unreasonable time pressure: Employees who feel they do not have enough time to do their work are at a higher risk for burnout.
  • Lack of communication and support from a manager: Employees who feel strongly supported by their manager are 70 percent less likely to experience burnout on a regular basis.
  • Lack of role clarity: Only 60 percent of workers know what is expected of them. Those that do not know may become exhausted simply trying to figure out what they should be doing.
  • Unmanageable workload: When the workload feels unmanageable, feeling overwhelmed can quickly lead to burnout.
  • Unfair treatment: Employees who feel they are treated unfairly at work are 2.3 times more likely to experience a high level of burnout. Situations such as favoritism, unfair compensation and mistreatment from a co-worker all fall under this.

ADDRESSING WORK BURNOUT

Most of us have experienced work burnout at one time or another, but the good news is that it is hopefully temporary and reversible! By making some changes, you can help regain control of your life and mental well-being. Here are some of my personal suggestions:

  • Plan and take a vacation
  • Take a mental health day off
  • Exercise before work
  • Eat healthier
  • Find a hobby to enjoy outside of work
  • Take regularly scheduled breaks from your desk (go for a walk, etc.)
  • Tune out and listen to some music
  • Do some breathing exercises
  • Get a massage
  • Talk to your boss and/or HR
  • Change your attitude

If you are still unsure if you may be experiencing work burnout, visit https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress and take the survey. Hopefully, the above methods, and recognizing that you are not alone, will help create a happier and healthier workplace environment.

Still in need of other ideas? Check out our blog on 5 Healthy Habits That Will Boost Your Productivity at Work.

Why Flexible Workspace is for Everyone

Why Flexible Workspace is for Everyone

Guest post by: Industrious

The market for flexible workspace has grown significantly over the past decade, catching the attention of startup companies and enterprise-level businesses alike. Today, flexible workspace is becoming the norm for many employers. Here are three benefits of flexible workspace:

Flexibility

The elastic terms provided by a flexible workspace provider gives tenants the ability to scale as their needs change. This means a company can grow into a private office, or multiple private offices, as well as scale within the same building, all without having to change addresses.

Flexible workspaces can also reduce the burden of high upfront capital costs and fixed expenditures — giving your company more cash on hand.

Amenities

As the competition for top talent heats up, companies must adapt their workplaces in response to changing demands and expectations of employees. Flexible workspaces offer a wide range of hospitality-focused services and amenities — from a welcoming reception area and dedicated community manager to daily snacks and refreshments — creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere and positive workday experience for all employees.

Community

Flexible workspaces also give tenants access to a supportive community of other business professionals to work around. This means companies and their employees have endless opportunities to network and socialize with other members — both throughout the workday and during community programs and events.

Adopting a flexible workspace can save you time and money, accelerating move-in time while reducing capital expenditures and operational costs. Flexible workspaces can also provide you with the flexibility, amenities, and community that a traditional office lease and space cannot.

So what do you have to lose?

Exclusive Offer

Industrious is offering the PHX Startup Week community up to $1,000 toward their next office space. Simply submit your information here then book your tour.

Refer and Earn

Not in the market for office space now, but know someone who is? Refer them to Industrious and earn.

What Being a Part of PHX Means to Us, or “A Salute to Founders”

What Being a Part of PHX Means to Us, or “A Salute to Founders”

Entrepreneurs are heroes. I firmly stand by that statement. As police officers, firefighters, and soldiers are heroes to our personal safety- as teachers are heroes to our children’s education – entrepreneurs are heroes to the economy.

Founders take huge personal risks to innovate a better world for us all and create jobs in the process. Every great innovation we enjoy comes from the mind of a Founder willing to risk it all to make our lives better. We’re familiar with the greats–like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, Walt Disney, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Howard Schultz, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Herb Kelleher, Arianna Huffington, Jack Ma, and many more.

But for every Founder that has tasted success and made the spotlight, there are hundreds more that have “failed”. I quote the word “failed” because they are not failures as in the opposite of “success”. By the very nature of an entrepreneur, risk is an innate characteristic, vital and necessary to create something out of nothing. And where there is nothing, there is no manual or guide for what to create and how. Hence, many millions of Founders go to battle – only a few surviving. The sacrifices those Founders make ensure the success of the Elon Musk’s of the world.

If it were up to me, every “failed” entrepreneur would get a pension plan in recognition of the service they have performed for our country’s economy. But why do some many Founders fail? It mostly comes down to the two types of luck.

The first luck is just dumb luck – being in the right place at the right time. This is not something that can be planned or architected. It’s just the inherent randomness of life that accounts for many of life’s successes and failures. We cannot control what we cannot control.

The second kind of luck is the luck of the prepared. This is the luck that many entrepreneurs refer to as “I make my own luck”. It’s the luck that those who plan and work hard enjoy. It’s not a guaranteed recipe for success, but it provides a marked advantage over those who do not plan or put in the work.

And that brings the conversation to why we at Founders Workshop are supporting PHX and why we support entrepreneurs. PHX provides the events and opportunities Founders need to create their own luck. Founders Workshop provides software development services exclusively to Founders– catering our services to maximize “Founder Luck” through a tried and true development process. Founders Workshop funds the AZ Founders Guild – a peer-to-peer community exclusively for Founders to support a Founders journey through mentoring, pitch practicing, and other Founder related events. We are thrilled to be part of the PHX community and are humbled by what PHX has done for the Founder community in Phoenix.

Founders are truly the heroes of our economy. And Founders deserve better! That’s why Founders Workshop, AZ Founders Guild, and the PHX ecosystem helps provide every advantage we can to Founders.

Founders – Thank you for everything you do.