Company Development Articles

The Must-Have Qualities of a Social Media Manager

Via Idea Launch on No Responses

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So your social media campaign has ballooned and garnered a lot of success. Now’s the time to hire a social media manager to help carry the load. What should you look for? Idea Launch provides some recruiting support with a list of 5 Things to Know When Hiring a Social Media Manager, including: Demographic Knowledge “This enables the expert to tailor their social media marketing efforts to current seasonal or regional trends.  A social media expert must have the knowledge of your clientele’s need and wants. Without that knowledge, social media…

Radically Transform Your Business in 3 Steps

Via Copyblogger on No Responses

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Time to overhaul your business plan. You might think this kind of radical strategy is the stuff of fantasies, but Copyblogger says it’s possible to live the Cinderella Dream in just three steps: You Have to Want It Winners win because they want to and know nobody’ll do it for them. Pamela Wilson writes: ”If you’re not getting engraved invitations to the ball yet, do something about it. Don’t just sit there and mope. Come up with a plan.” You Have to Look the Part If you’re going to be a leader capable…

4 Social Recruiting Missteps (and How to Avoid Them)

By No Responses

For years, recruiters and hiring managers have relied on job boards and staffing agencies to fill open positions. Those tactics worked for a while, but last year proved that they’re quickly becoming outdated. Social media is the hot new recruiting tool. According to Jobvite’s 2010 social recruiting survey, 83 percent of companies surveyed currently use or plan to use social recruiting as a hiring tool in the coming year. Those same companies surveyed plan to spend 46 percent more on social recruiting, while spending 36 percent less on job boards and third party staffing agencies. Needless to say, now is…

Adding Pizazz to Startup Board Meetings

Via Both Sides of the Table on No Responses

Board meetings are the bane of many professionals’ lives.

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Having to sit through board meetings, especially when they’re crawling along, can be torture. And that’s the mentality that prevents participants from really getting much out of these meetings. In order to change this mantra, fundamental changes need to be made to the composition of the board meetings. The first thing you must focus on is brevity. You can’t run hour-long meetings unless it’s absolutely critical. Meetings can be valuable. They’re a vital part of employee development. But they’re often organized poorly. One…

Introducing: The Unproductive Board Member

Via Steve Blank on No Responses

Having a board member that hampers productivity can happen at any company.

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Not only can they hamper productivity, but they can completely undermine the functions of a CEO. What sort of recourse does a CEO have when this happens? How do the other board members factor into the equation? Very simply put, there may not be anything that can be done, short of the root of the problem being quieted. A board member from a venture capital firm will have his or her input on the matter no matter what. While…

The 8 Rules CEOs Should Live By

Via Conversation Marketing on No Responses

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Sometimes even CEOs forget why they became CEOs. In order to be a great leader and maintain positive working relationships with management teams, CEOs should study Ian Lurie’s 8 Rules for CEOs. They’re great for building strategy. They’re also a pleasant reminder of how extraordinary execution is done. The rules include: Don’t Model Others, Expect Slings and Arrows, and Mind Your Health (important—and often overlooked!)

Adjusting to Millennials and Why You Need To Do It

Via TLNT on No Responses

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Here comes Generation Y, or the Millennials. Your HR department needs to get used to them, as do your employees—and not least of all your management teams. But for some, the culture clashes make for a struggle. Adjusting is not as hard as you’d think. Take it from John Hollon, who urges patience and understanding when dealing with Millennials. “The Millennial generation … is no better or worse than any other generation that came before. Yes, they have their own unique generational issues, but in my close experience with them, Millennials…

Where Good Ideas Go to Die

Via Fast Company on No Responses

What’s responsible for a large portion of good ideas going bad?

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Underpinning the failure of these ideas are a few traits that seem to crop up regularly in such situations. So what are the issues that ruin good ideas? Here are some examples: When you have a good idea, you tend to – logistically – get away from it. You funnel all of your time into projects, people management and other things. The result? Your great idea gets lost in the shuffle. Another problem occurs when a company has too much time…

Raising Venture Capital Against the Economic Tide

Via VentureBeat on No Responses

The economy poses a distinct challenge to startups looking for investors.

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While venture capital firms are certainly still in operation during the downturn, it seems like they’re being more frugal with their investments. This, for companies poised to expand, is certainly a problem. So how do you go about scaling a business when you have no money to do it? Here’s how: Get money. You need to face the reality that you will need funding. If you’re able to land a meeting with an investor, you need to maximize your presentation. To…

The Qualities Every Great Entrepreneur Has

Via VentureBeat on No Responses

What does the recipe for a great entrepreneur look like?

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It encompasses a few different ingredients, actually. Luck obviously plays its part. But the first thing you need to consider is the makeup of the person. They’re almost always resilient. This translates to everything, business-wise, once they first start on the entrepreneurial path. From their company strategy to their marketing strategy, they’re going to be persistent in order to get things accomplished. And as an entrepreneur, you’ll be hearing “no” a lot. Next, you need to look at their passion for striking it out on…