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Category: Personal Development

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Accounting Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development Taxes Technology

What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in the Age of AI? Part 1

With the advent of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning, it’s time to re-evaluate how we hire, train and lead our employees.

The ability to do a job faster or cheaper will no longer be what sets an organization apart from its competitors, but rather the ability of organizations and its human component to critically and strategically think for the organization and its customers.

With improved critical thinking, machine learning and A.I., an organization will be able to move faster and more effectively than its competitors making it both more interesting and challenging for its human workforce and valuable to its customers.

In an A.I. environment, co-workers will be expected by its customers and the organization to work in teams, improve communication with customers, come up with original thoughts and strategies, explain how A.I. came up to its conclusions and implement their strategies. Objectives of the organization and its customers probably will not change (e.g. enhanced customer and trusted relationships, bottom and top line growth). However, the way the organization uses its human components will change dramatically.

What does it mean to critically think? According to the Foundation for Critically Thinking.org you and your co-workers should be able to:

  • Raise vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely.
  • Gather and assess relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively.
  • Come to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards.
  • Thinking open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as needs to be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences.
  • Communicate effectively with others (in teams) in figuring out complex solutions.

How to go about implementing and dealing with co-workers who are unfamiliar or unable to cope with the new paradigm?

  • Link their compensation and future to these management objectives so they realize the importance of these new organizational directives.
  • Identify your stars who understand and employ “critical thinking” methods and encourage them to lead by giving them authority and autonomy to do so.
  • Recognize, embrace and communicate this as a cultural shift that will enhance the well- being and livelihood of everyone involved.
  • Be prepared to promote team members that exhibit these skills and counsel out those who can’t adopt.
  • Prioritize these skill sets as a core competency of new hires.
  • Make it as a top goal for your organization.
  • Hire the right professionals.
Categories
Best Practices Management Marketing Personal Development

People Want Entrepreneurial Culture!

Suddenly, entrepreneurial culture is in demand by C-Suiters of large corporations. Why? They see small companies doing what they aren’t—moving fast and seizing opportunities. They see more and more start-ups taking industries by storm with innovative products, groundbreaking services, and fresh takes on consumer demand. And they want to do the same.

Large businesses are under pressure from stockholders and board members to make entrepreneurial culture happen, and they don’t understand why that culture is off-limits in their own companies. Slowly, they realize where they went wrong. They learn that their rigid structure, strict processes, and scale of standardization they’ve polished over the years have actually worked against them. Their own employees have become discouraged and disempowered.

An employee can’t be forced to feel inspired and invested, and C-Suiters can’t develop entrepreneurial culture overnight. This takes long-term commitment—it is not a fad or an item on a checklist. The basics of entrepreneurial culture contradict some sacred corporate cows, such as structure, compliance, and compensation. This shift will require you to introduce 3 new wild horses:

  1. Work like a two-division company. If your customer is at the top, how can customer service and sales be at the bottom? No matter how an entrepreneur’s company and office are organized, there is a permeating two-division attitude and structure. These are sales and sales support. Sales is on top, and everybody else works to support sales. This includes production, marketing, and administration. Even the CEO is in sales support. Why? Because every entrepreneur knows that employees are paid by the customer, through sales. To ensure that departments such as marketing and production do their best, keep them informed and in the loop. Sales and customer service know the most about the market, so why not use them to keep everyone relevant and updated?
  2. Pay for performance. This might be difficult for a large corporation to implement. Your employees will be doubtful of this shift unless they are already paid according to performance. But, in order to foster entrepreneurial culture, a portion of their pay must be measured by profitability, growth, and sales. You need to make sure that your employees are driven by much more than a stable paycheck. Paying your employees just for attendance tells them, “Whether or not the company makes a profit, you’ll get paid the same, so relax!” Dedicated members of an entrepreneurial workforce are eager to gamble their pay on personal productivity.
  3. Be mindful of the legal department. Corporations can suffer from the restraint of legal departments. Hidden in their good intentions to protect against liability is a tendency to halt creativity. In our opinion, legal should develop a system where strict compliance reviews simply are not necessary. Part of their pay should be based on growth, sales, and profitability, just like everyone else. Why should their pay stay the same no matter how competitive the company is? Their challenge should not be “Can we do this?” It should be “How can we do this?”

In our book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People, you’ll find the tools we used to create entrepreneurial culture at Barefoot. These tools can be applied to corporations of any size. Released in 2014 alongside Jeff Hayzlett’s on-demand C-Suite TV, it is the ideal companion to our New York Times bestselling book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. Check ‘em out!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

How to Listen Better to Win More Negotiations

“When asking questions, listen to the response! Be sure to hear the meaning and any hidden meaning in the message you received.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

To win more negotiations, listen better. When you negotiate, how well do you listen? The better you listen, the more negotiations you’ll win.

… but he didn’t answer the question! Good negotiators are very adept at diverting questions that don’t serve their purpose. In some cases, they’ll give superficial responses that appear to answer the question, or like a good magician, draw your attention in another direction without you noticing that they’ve done so.

To enhance the probability of winning more negotiations, listen to how questions are answered, and listen to the words used to represent the answers. In so doing, you’ll gain invaluable insight into hidden meanings and the thought process behind those meanings.

Listen to how questions are answered:

Take note to what degree a question is answered, avoided, and/or modified. As an example, if you ask, “Is that your best offer?” You might receive several responses:

A.) In the past, that’s as much as we’ve paid.

B.) Due to our current ‘situation’, we have a ceiling on the amount we can pay.

C.) Other vendors/suppliers are accepting our price structure.

In each of the above answers, you received a response to your question but what you did not receive was a direct answer to your question. Depending on your alertness or how diligent you wanted to appear, you might rephrase the question, point out that you’d not received an answer to it, or accept the answer given in order to address the situation from another perspective. The course of action you adopt should be aligned with how you wished to position yourself and the person with whom you’re negotiating to enhance your negotiation position.

 Listen to the words used to answer questions:

Words are the representation of the thoughts being conveyed. In the above answers, the word choice conveyed additional insight per how that person was thinking. In response ‘A’, the information conveyed is stating, “That’s our norm.” It could also be perceived as, you shouldn’t consider going outside of the norm. Conform to our standards.

In response ‘B’, the subliminal message is, “We’re in a challenging time, please bear with us. Help us by being understanding.” If you acquiesce, you might attempt to acquire chits that can be used in future negotiations. If you do so, attempt to instill in the current negotiation when and how you might use such chits. Keep in mind, you’ll also be setting a precedent to ‘help them’ again in the future, since you did so this time.

Depending on the value of your offer, you could position it so that it’s seen as ‘added value’ that warrants a ‘higher investment’ on the part of the purchaser, or one that you can fit into the current pricing structure because of the reason that’s best suited for the situation and your purpose. The point is, after you’ve gleaned the additional information based on how your questions are answered, you have a better understanding of how to position yourself.

You make decisions based on your interpretation of the situations you’re in. Then, based on your interpretation, you decide how you’ll act and react to situations. Thus, you and only you control your actions in a negotiation. So, to control more of the aspects of the negotiation, listen to the meanings and hidden meanings in the answers given by the other negotiator. Your reward will be in winning more negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

So, You Say Your Company Wants an Entrepreneurial Culture

Anyone who owns or manages a business or organization can say they want their employees to be invested in the company’s mission. They can say they want to hire natural entrepreneurs. Of course, it is doable to hire the crème de la crème. Aside from entrepreneurship college graduates, you will find and interview people whose core values exhibit those of self-sufficiency, resourcefulness, imagination, and responsibility, but your company environment is what will either keep or frustrate those bright-eyed new hires. It will be impossible for them to identify with the company’s goals without the proper environment.

It can be quite the paradox. Job security is a top-priority item for all employees, but for those who are met with office politics and petty status issues, job security can become the only reason to go to work. How can these people be imaginative and empowered at work when they have a career to worry about? Before Barefoot Wines was conceived, Michael was a government employee. He was motivated, like most college grads, to be productive and move forward in his field. But the negative office environment gave Michael a wake-up call. He did not want to become an employee who was detached from his actual job, only going to work because it was his duty to show up. From then on, he was determined to avoid working for any such organization.

In part, Barefoot Wine is due to what Michael learned from his stint with the government. As a company grows, it is further and further removed from accountability for the customer experience, and sales. Any employee may think, “Sales is someone else’s responsibility. I’m going to get paid regardless.” This leads to people becoming comfortable in their specialty. Why does their individual job matter in terms of customers and sales? This thought process is even worse at the governmental level, where many are so detached from customer responsibility.

Simply put, sales is the foundation from which entrepreneurial culture grows. If two people start a business together, they both know that sales need to happen to guarantee them a job the following day. As the business grows, new departments develop, and the two owners are not as close to sales as they once were. Here, you can see how easy it is to lose an entrepreneurial culture. Maintaining an entrepreneurial culture is more important than building it! As a company grows, compliance and fear can replace productivity and sales. Employees are no longer dedicated to responsibility, ownership, and empowerment—their basic checklist is simplified to attendance and status.

So, before you interview and hire for people who are natural entrepreneurs, you must first make sure your company environment will keep them there. Whether it is a startup or an established company, it is essential for any organization to create a culture of acknowledgement, respect, ownership, and enthusiasm. Always keep the customer experience first in mind. This, instead of organizational politics, must be most important.

Get in tune with the company’s foundation and what got it all started—sales. Sales must be the motivational factor that drives and fosters a proper entrepreneurial culture. How can you maintain a proper environment if you’re out of touch with your core goals? When your employees understand that they are appreciated and are capable of making a difference, they will be devoted to delivering the best customer experience!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Overcoming the Leadership Gap

Leadership or rather a deficit of available, competent leadership has risen to become one of the most pressing talent challenges faced by global organizations. Deloitte University Press stated, “nearly 9 out of 10 global HR and business leaders (86 percent) cited leadership as a top issue.” This, coupled with the widening gap between organizational leadership needs and leaders available to meet those needs indicates what many of us already know, most companies have been unable to successfully develop their current leaders as well as build an effective leadership pipeline for the future.

Many organizations propose leadership training as the recommended solution for this problem (and trust me, I am all for leadership training), but I believe that ignores the core leadership deficiency in most organizations. Before training, must come selection and most organizations do a poor job of selecting leaders.

Most supervisors and managers are promoted first and foremost because of their technical skills and often that is the source of the problem. Starting with first time supervisors, many are promoted for the wrong reasons and this is the source of the problem. Many supervisors become supervisors because they were good at their previous position. If they worked as customer service representatives, they stood out as customer service representatives. If they worked as engineers, they were stood out as engineers. If they were sales people, their sales were above average.

But there is an inherent problem with this: The skills necessary to succeed in a leadership, supervisory, or managerial role are completely different than those necessary to succeed in a non-managerial role. Yet, as people’s roles travel from contributing to leadership, the skills necessary succeed go from technical and specific, to tactical and social. Where as a contributor, the ability to handle specific task, may have been critical, as a leader the ability to motivate and instill vision within people is an absolute must.

Although the ability to perform is an absolute must when looking for candidates who can take on greater leadership responsibility, data shows that high performance does not equal high leadership potential. CEB, a member-based executive team advisory company, says that just one in six high-performance employees also exhibit the attributes that indicate leadership potential. Research from the Corporate Leadership Council of the Corporate Executive Board indicates that only 15% of high performers show high leadership potential. There are many other surveys that have produced similar results. The bottom line is clear, being a top performer is not an accurate indicator of leadership potential.

Many organizations never consider this when promoting people into leadership positions. Instead it is assumed that because they excelled beyond their peers, they should be promoted above their peers, yet in reality many of these new leaders do not posses the skills needed to succeed in management. For these individual, the words of Marshall Goldsmith ring true, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

Unfortunately, most organizations have no alternative method of rewarding their top performers. There are many who are subject matter experts in their field, who in the best interest of everyone involved should remain as such. But too often, the only way to work your way up the ladder and increase your compensation is to take on a supervisory role.

Let’s use baseball as analogy to show how unreasonable this really is. Let’s say that a baseball team has an all-star catcher. This catcher is the best player on the team. No manager in his (or her) right mind would entertain the idea of moving that catcher to the first base in the name of upward mobility (on average 1st basemen make approximate 74% more than catchers). That would be a horrible idea, but unfortunately, in the workplace it happens everyday. Lineman are moved to receivers, catchers are moved to first base, centers are moved to point guard, and left wings are moved to goalie, and the team suffers.

Not only is this not in the best interest of the organization (we need more people who really know their areas of expertise inside and out and who love learning more about them), its’ not in the best interest of the people they will attempt to lead. And many of these individuals end up resenting their new roles and miss being “in the trenches” of whatever they were doing before. But what are they going to do, turn down the opportunity to be more highly compensated for what they bring to the table? Stall their career path because there is no alternative?

Organizations must decide to choose potential over performance as a basis for leadership selection. In addition to this, an alternative career path needs to be developed that rewards high performers who are not capable of effectively taking on leadership roles. Until this occurs, we will continue to see a shortage of effective leaders.

 

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

The 3 Fundamental Abilities Entrepreneurs Need to Succeed

We see it all the time—entrepreneurs become fantasized with their products, and they believe that their ideas alone will make them a riveting success. Tons of great products waste away in warehouses, never seeing store shelves. Founders of start-ups resort to working for their investors, or even worse, closing their doors for good. Their dreams have crumbled, and they’re back living with mom and dad. They’ll ask themselves: Why? Because they didn’t master the three fundamental abilities of a successful business.

  1. Distribution Management: Before your product gets to your customer, you have to get it to market! This is commonly overlooked, but it is perhaps the most important skill a new product creator can have. They are blinded by their product—they think that if it is good and priced right, it will sell. But people want to know why they should carry your product—not why you are selling it. Sales managers want to know how your product will boost their sales numbers, and salespeople want to know what the incentive is. Why should it be stocked on the shelves? And how fast will it turn? Your customer cares about price and quality. Sales managers, salespeople, store retailers, and clerks do not. But, if you don’t meet their needs, your product won’t make it to market. Your product is not nearly as important as its distribution—it can’t sell if it’s not there!
  2. Cash Flow Management: You have to pay your bills! And if you can’t, there are two options: Raise money, or close your doors. But, how do you expect to pay your staff without sales? Many companies attempt to get financing to take care of that, but they may be financed and even refinanced before they can make up the overhead. In this case, they rely on continuous new investment to keep above water. There are a couple of solutions. First, you could make sales your top priority, and sell as best you can in a small territory. Then, use those proceeds to finance growth. Or, you could form tactical relationships with your buyers and vendors. If a vendor trusts you, they’ll help you make ends meet by extending your credit. A buyer who trusts you will pay in cash in order to get discounts, which helps you pay the bills.
  3. Personnel Management: Getting help isn’t easy, but you need it! One of the most valued skills of a successful entrepreneur is hiring the right people. But even when you find the perfect employee, you still have to incentivize, inspire, and properly train them to want to do their best. It’s a lot to ask for, but it is essential to your success. Even creating a compensation system that works can take years of failed attempts. Start with the basics—we suggest you create a bonus structure to ensure sales, development, and profitability. Make sure everyone agrees on the specifics, and make sure they understand how their jobs will contribute. Give a quarterly bonus to each employee, no matter their duties, so everyone feels like they’re on the same team. This builds a foundation for positive company culture.

These 3 fundamental abilities could differ from company to company, but they typically follow the same pattern. Master these proficiencies, and your great ideas will have a better chance at success!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development Women In Business

Intentions: Your Key to Empower Mindful Leadership

Mindfulness grows as you practice in little bits each day. Just like a bodybuilder doesn’t become lean and muscular in one session, a mindful leader must continue to work on the seven practices we’re introducing in this series. This week, keep practicing your centering breath and beliefs work, we will add a new mindful practice: intention.

Intention is becoming clear about what you energetically want to have happen. I like to think of it as where your head goals meet your heart of action. For example, I intend for this experience to be educational and fun—intention adds a feeling to your goal. We live in a feeling universe, but all too often our human experience does not embrace those feelings. Mindful leaders choosing to live mindful lives make time to set powerful intentions, feelings for the life they want to live. They do this one day, one experience at a time. It’s even more critical we do this as we face the business, often mindlessness of the holiday season.

Mini-Practice As you look forward to the upcoming holiday season, pick one event and ask yourself, what is the intention for this? How do you want to show up energetically to that event? Office parties be a good one to try intention setting. Maybe the family holiday meal? What do you want to have happen or to feel as a result of the experience? What do you intend for this holiday season? The words above can help you get started.

The practice of setting intentions will help you align your goals with your feelings and to those of the universe around you. And you may be surprised how often you get what you intend.

AFFIRMATION:  I intend to experience ease in all I do this holiday season. I release stress and receive mindfulness.  

 

Mindfulness matters, HD

Holly Duckworth, CAE, CMP, LSP, is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and coach for mindful leadership. I work with stressed-out leaders to create profits, peace, and presence.

Categories
Management Marketing Operations Personal Development

Eliminate Customer Complaints… Switch Things Up!

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results,” is a very famous quote by Albert Einstein. If you’re doing something and getting a negative result, it’s probably time to switch things up.

In other words, “Stop it!”

This quote reminds me of a video I saw once on YouTube, called “Stop It!” It features comedian Bob Newhart as a therapist. In the video, a patient comes to see him and explains a recurring fear, of being buried alive in a box, that she thinks about all the time. Remember, this video is meant to be funny. The simple solution he gives her is, “Stop it!”

We can say the same thing about customer service. There’s an exercise I sometimes do when I’m presenting on service where I ask audience members to tell me some of the common complaints they hear from customers. I then ask these same people how regularly they hear these complaints. I am amazed (not in a good way) when they answer saying that they hear some of these complaints daily. Some even say that they hear them several times a day! This is when it’s time for me to share the secret solution. I become serious, look at the audience, and say, “Are you ready to hear the solution?” I pause for dramatic effect, and then I say, “Stop it!”

The seriousness ends when everyone starts laughing. They laugh because they know it’s never that simple. If it were, they would have solved the problem long ago. Even though this is a joke, it is a set-up for a very serious conversation on how to eliminate, or at least minimize, the problems that are causing these complaints.

Is it a common occurrence for us to bother our customers with policies, rules, or processes? Just remember that there’s a good chance that there are more people with the same complaints than just the ones you are hearing from. These people simply aren’t letting you know about it.

When it comes to hearing complaints from your customers, the statistic most commonly shared is this: in an average business, for every complaint you receive, there are 26 others who have the same complaint, but choose not to tell you. Even if that stat is only half true, that’s still a lot of unhappy customers. And these are unhappy customers that you don’t even know about. You think they are happy because they don’t complain to you, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. They may choose to never do business with you again. Can you afford to take that chance?

Sit down with your team. Talk about the common complaints you get. Then, get to the root of it. What is driving that complaint? There is always a way to make it better. Bad things that are happening over and over again simply shouldn’t be happening over and over again. So… Stop it!

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Skills Technology

7 Methods to Achieve Successful Business Connections

Thanks to text messages, tweets, and limited attention spans, society has become all about instant gratification—we look for the quickest way to share a thought.

This is okay when captioning pictures of cute puppies, or when letting your friend know you’ll be there in ten minutes, but it’s a hindrance in business communication. Especially when you’re doing business with services that rely on specific instruction, a minimalist approach is counter-productive.

The generation now entering the workforce has taken technology for granted—they grew up with it and have grown accustomed to fast communication. They assume a minimalist approach translates to business, but they couldn’t be more wrong. They are surprised, dumbfounded, and amazed to see their projects come back completely wrong, which can lead them to blame the outside vendor.

Business communication should not be minimized—it should be maximized! Taking the effort to consider the ways your words could be misunderstood will save you time, embarrassment, and retaliation.

We use the following guidelines to help eliminate misinterpretation:

  1. Set clear deadlines: Be very specific. Set up reminders at certain points along the way. You can say, “Just wanted to see if you needed anything else on my end,” and then, “Does the deadline still work for you?”
  2. Say it both ways: Be clear. Let them know what you want and what you don’t Ask them to confirm their understanding. You can say, “What is your understanding about this project? I just want to be sure I didn’t miss any details.” You will be floored by what they didn’t understand. Good thing you asked!
  3. Call ‘em up! Don’t depend on email alone. Explaining what you want over the phone will have a larger impact. Record correspondence through email. Don’t forget to say, “If you have any questions or problems, please call me.”
  4. Don’t assume: Assumption leads to misunderstanding. Look at your message objectively—think how it could be misunderstood. We like to repeat our business communications aloud before we send them out. More often than not, we’re shocked by what we hear!
  5. Be specific: The more specific you are, the less room for “creativity”. If you’re not specific about design, wording, and even typeface, the recipient may feel they can do what they want, disregarding the complexity of your whole project.
  6. Give some wiggle room: Provide a cushion, both for yourself and the vendor. Do not leave anything waiting until the last minute. How much time do you think they need? Double it! Make sure your deadline is several days after theirs. This way, you’ll have plenty of time to review their work, and, if necessary, plenty of time to fix it.
  7. Recognize a job well done: If they get the work done right, let them know exactly what you liked about it. And don’t forget to thank them! Next time, they will be much easier to work with, they will make your assignment a priority, and they’ll ask better questions. 

To communicate successfully in business, you must think about what might go wrong, how to meet deadlines, and what might be misinterpreted—all before clicking the “Send” button. Take just a few more minutes to think about what you really want! This will save you tons of time in the long run.

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

 

Categories
Leadership Marketing Personal Development

Do Your Employees and Consumers Share the Values of Your Company?

These days, it seems like every company has their values plastered on a wall plaque for all employees, vendors, and consumers to see. Within these values, companies typically proclaim their morals and principals by way of truthful, positive terminology—words such as “integrity”, “morality”, and “honesty” can commonly be found. While some companies talk about equality, operating for the greater good, or even improving the world around them through these values, people reading that plaque will not be satisfied by such broad terms and goals. Employees and customers need to know that a relationship with your company is simply the right move.

It can be tough—many companies try to avoid political issues to maintain their core values. It’s in their best interest to stay “safe” as to not appear one-sided. Once any issue, no matter how basic, becomes politicized, it is then considered a “political issue”. If a company has some employees whose loved ones would be affected by deportation, for example, they still may stay silent since it is such a sensitive issue.

Can a company really claim they are environmentally friendly if their products are packaged in non-recyclable plastics? Do they exhibit good character if they have a large carbon footprint? Actions speak louder than words. If your company’s actions do not exhibit the same values as your company’s words, it will be tough to justify. You don’t want to be forced to take a stand on an issue where you seem two-faced.

Taking sides is risky, no matter how ethically “good” or “bad” the issue may seem. We made a decision to publicly support such groups whose intentions were considered to hurt the economy. These non-profit conservation groups included The League to Save Lake Tahoe, an anti-water pollution group, The Surfrider Foundation, who cleaned debris from oceanic waterfronts, and the Mono Lake Committee, who supported Mono Lake and Mono Basin’s restoration. Their mission meant a decrease in the greater LA Metro area’s water consumption.

The above issues were “political issues”, and we were told not to take a stance one way or another, no matter how unethical we thought either side was. During the AIDS epidemic of the early 90s, we publicly supported the LGBT community. This time, too, we were warned not to choose sides.

Our risk paid off. History wound up being on our side, but these groups also became promoters of our brand, not to mention devoted customers. Of course, with such a risk, we suffered some backlash. However, over time, the “opponents” on these issues eventually changed their views as they became more knowledgeable. Even if there were some people who didn’t share our views on these marginalized issues, any new product needs customers. Those who stood by our “political views” formed the foundation of our consumer base. They saw us as early supporters.

At the end of the day, as a new business, we couldn’t afford to play it safe. If your company doesn’t speak up about issues concerning race, sexuality, or anything that makes someone marginalized, are you sticking to your core values? Could you confidently say that this is good business? Think about your company’s values. Do your actions reflect them? Etching them on a plaque will not help potential vendors, employees, and consumers understand your true mission, but your actions will. They will want to know whether or not they share your values.

Now is a better time than ever to take a stand on issues that are important, not only to your consumer base, but also to your employees. Why risk losing them, and why risk losing business? Keeping silent will not give you an edge in competition. Taking a risk and taking a stand by addressing “political issues” will show customers and employees that your company truly exhibits its values. What are you waiting for?

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/