There’s a narrative fed to us from a young age that we must always be self-sufficient, independent leaders. Being a trailblazer is an endearing professional quality, but most teams realistically need a balance of individuals with avid organizational skills to guide and encourage others throughout the duration of a project. In fact, having a sort of conductor focused purely on making sure teams communicate and depend on each other in a healthy fashion can end up separating the best teams far beyond the others. Introducing: our savvy scrum master!

Remember when life was simple and this sign - # - was known only as the pound key? We only needed to worry about it existing if we called into a company with a long menu and pound was one of the options. That, or when making a numbered list. Ah yes…the good ole days.

Now though, it’s not just called a pound sign, but a hashtag, and they seem to be everywhere. When, how, and why should a person be hashtagging? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

At the beginning of every year, trend forecasters for thousands of industries around the world give their insight to retailers and consumers about what is going to be the “next big thing”. The world of website design is no different. In the last few years, research and analytics of consumer expectations have given us a good look at what we will be seeing from website layout and functionality for this year and the foreseeable future. Here are the Top 5 Website Trends you can expect to see become the norm this year:

Close your eyes…

Think Minimalism, The 90’s, Beautiful radiant gradients and take a look into the future of design for 2023 with us!

As we dive into the New Year, we are seeing lots of new trends popping up all over the design world. In this blog, we are going to touch on a few of our favorites and explain a little bit more about their backgrounds and usage.

A growing necessity for organizations large and small is the utilization of a password manager. Password Managers have the ability to harden your security as you navigate the internet, protect vital information through secure storage, and make it possible to not have to remember every password you’ve ever created. There are several password managers on the market that provide roughly the same services, but as data breaches become increasingly more frequent, choosing the right password manager must be prioritized. Now we cannot tell you which password manager to choose, but here are 3 security features that you should look for to make your decision easier and more informed.

I was introduced to V2MOM while reading Trailblazer by Marc Benioff in 2019. The combination of how the methodology combines values and obstacles as filters to help realize intentions for the year made perfect sense.  So we set out in 2020 to give the framework a try, not realizing there was a pandemic that was going to flip the world upside down right around the corner.

2020 was a bust, I won’t lie. There were too many changes, and too many unexpected turns to navigate, so all of the measures we had so meticulously laid out for the year were uprooted, put through a blender, and thrown in the compost bin. 

As things stabilized in 2021, we set out again to drive the vision forward this time with much better success. The team was growing and as new members joined us we were able to introduce the concept and provide global context to what we're trying to achieve by the end of the year. 

The real magic though started to happen when we set out for building our 2022 vision.

Small organizations often need the ability to launch a concept on a shoestring budget, and as we’ve seen firsthand, hard work, networking, and word-of-mouth will be the biggest driver of your organization’s website traffic in the early stages. So if you have made the decision to go it alone, we want to equip you with some key components that will have your site standing out against your competitors.

Social media is quite a tough nut to crack. Sometimes people get millions of views or followers off of posts and videos that seem to take no time or effort at all. Some people make it look so easy. However, if it was truly easy, everybody would be doing it. There are a few simple tools you can use to help create posts that will invite a little more engagement from your followers.

Data, for a business, is one of its most valuable assets. Therefore, protecting it and keeping it readily available is extremely important in today’s world. Cyber attacks have increased in frequency in recent years and many companies have found themselves victims twice; once because of the initial attack and again when they realize that they have lost untold amounts of data as a result. It is more important than ever to make sure you have a data backup solution in place. Data backup is the practice of copying data to a secondary location, to protect against human errors, hardware failures, virus attacks, power failures, and natural disasters. Should you experience a loss of data, a data backup platform would be able to restore your system with a copy of the data that was present at the time of the most recent data sync.

In a previous blog, we mentioned that keeping your website current and fresh is important. The same can be said for the design of your website. No, I am not saying that you need to do a complete design overhaul every two weeks, but if your website checks any of these boxes, it is time to think about an overhaul. Here are the 5 Signs It’s Time to Redesign Your Website:

“Cause you're working, Building a mystery…” anyone else remember that Sarah McLachlan jam? It definitely reminds me of how it feels to figure exactly who my customer might be. Sometimes it can feel like we’re just throwing darts in the dark, hoping to hit a bullseye.

However, there is one way you can start to make the path to seeing your customers a bit easier. And that’s by building a “Buyer Persona”. Or rather, identifying and creating an outline of your customer, that makes it easier to design marketing campaigns that will capture their attention. How exactly do you create a buyer persona?

What is Shiny New Object Syndrome (SNOS)?

Shiny New Object Syndrome (SNOS) is when new initiatives and new ideas come easier than follow through. It’s the moment when a new opportunity arises through your network that might not be totally aligned with your services, but it just seems like something you shouldn’t turn down because of the impact it could have on your organization. What does this actually look like?

A fellow business owner tells you about the new project management software they’ve been using and how it has revolutionized the way they operate. So, of course, you schedule a demo and get sucked into the funnel, and all of the sudden a “change for the sake of change” is occupying your entire team's bandwidth.

Or, It’s when you learn about V2MOM (V2MOM is a coaching and project management framework) for the first time and decide it’s way better than the EOS system you’re already using (EOS is a trending entrepreneurial ‘operating system’ that can help businesses gain traction).

(Surprise: we are a little bias when it comes to this example… We LOVE V2MOM.)

The shiny new object (SNO) comes along, and all of those previously shiny projects, and initiatives you should be working on, fall by the wayside.

Workflow is everything for a scaling business. If you want to delegate anything… you need a clear understanding of where we were, where we are, and where we are going..

If you’re not sure how to grow your business from a solo entrepreneurship to a staffed and scalable business, the first question you should be asking yourself is:

Have I documented my processes from beginning to end?

And maybe you’re a bit further along in the journey, and you're wondering why one aspect of your business isn’t firing on all cylinders, be it accounting, sales, or a specific aspect of production. In this case, the question is:

How can I improve my workflow?

Either way, the steps to success are the same.

“So Busy, No Time To Blog”

Working with small organizations, we often hear the statement “there’s just not enough time in the day to get blog writing done”. Brace yourself for a little tough love. We challenge the thought. Somehow humans find enough time to brush their teeth every day (well…most) and the same could be said for content creation. I get it, you are not brushing your teeth for 30 minutes straight, but if you spent the same 5 minutes a day on blog writing that you do on teeth brushing, you would have almost a full blog post per week following the rules below.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?!

Alright, you don’t have to get snippy. I’ll put our minutes where my mouth is.

Lights! Camera! Comments! Let’s go over 10 of the most engaging tactics to bump up any social media game.

We get it. It’s LOUD on social media, and some people make those dance trends look so cool. How are you supposed to decide what to post, and when to post? Should you do every single trend that becomes cool? And what about memes, or gifs? As we said, we get it. Before you try to drive off in every single social media direction, let's take a deep breath together. Ready? Breathe in……and out….

Feeling better?

Okay, now let’s take a step back and see where we can start to tackle your goals and metrics. That’s right, even in the jungle of social media, you can still make a plan.

When it comes to threats to cybersecurity, human error is most often the main cause. It’s obvious to most people that they should not share personal information like social security, credit card and ID numbers, but many of those same people are surprisingly lax when it comes to protecting their passwords. How many people have you shared your Netflix or WiFi password with? Of course there are people out there who are looking for ways to access sensitive information, but the reality is that people tend to use some variation of the same password therefore making it very easy to guess. This is especially dangerous when those passwords provide access to sensitive information in a business setting.

A website is a window into your brand and with today’s content-hungry algorithms, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your website is a living extension of everything your organization does. The days of having a website just to check that box are long gone. Now, customers and clients expect it to be the primary source of relevant information should they have any questions. Updating and adding regular content to your site will not only showcase the best of what your business has to offer, but it will keep those hugry Google Bots satisfied and coming back for more.. Here are four reasons fresh content is critical for your website and SEO.

Cybersecurity is THAT topic that is still not as prevalent among businesses as it should be. To many, cybersecurity is viewed as a ‘big company’ problem, however, over the years, and with more opportunities, cyber attackers have shown that smaller organizations are the easier target. Smaller businesses typically don’t put aside the same type of budget that larger organizations do, but a small budget is better than having no budget. Not to mention that most of your customers are increasingly aware of the cybersecurity risks and their expectation is to have their data protected at all costs.

Cybersecurity falls into three main categories: network, cloud, and physical security. While many would argue “I don’t have an office space, we work remotely”, the need for cloud and network security are still a necessity.

The January Starting Line

No matter if you are on a fiscal year or a calendar year, January seems to always carry with it the weight of looking another 12 months in advance. This raises the age-old conversation within yourself and your organization of “This year I am going to do X” or, “This year X is going to be different”. For organization owners, especially those looking to continue to grow, it can feel like you completed one marathon and are immediately jumping into another one.

As we creep ever closer to the year ahead we recommend everyone take a moment to reflect on where they came from, where they are, and where they want to go. Sounds daunting, right? Well, we have a few pointers to help you break things down and solidify the vision. (Added Bonus: the same rules below can be applied to your personal life with a little tweaking!).