Defining what makes your business unique is one of the most important tasks you can do to help answer the question of why customers should buy from you. Without a differentiating factor separating you and your competition, you ultimately give customers no reason to choose your business over another—which isn’t a helpful strategy when looking to grow your company. But if you’re new to business or haven’t considered your brand’s niche before, how do you go about determining it? The members of Young Entrepreneur Council can help. Below, they offer up 10 questions you can ask yourself that will help you define what is unique and different about your brand and explain why these are such effective questions to ask. Members pictured from left to right. Photos courtesy of the individual members. 1. What is the job that needs to be done here? Asking this question prompts me to think holistically about the users and what their needs might be. Focusing on this question helps you assess whether you have a creative and better way to solve their problems and how you solve it differently from others. – Paul-Miki Akpablie , Akos Technologies Inc. 2. What sets my product […]

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Most new business owners will face financial woes at some point along their entrepreneurial journey. When they’re just starting out, cash isn’t in abundant supply very often, so owners have to focus on lean operations and stick to a firm budget. Even after taking these steps, it’s not uncommon for a new owner to worry about having enough money to keep their business going. Many members of Forbes Coaches Council have come to intimately understand the stress and strain that money issues can cause for a new business owner through their work coaching leaders. Below, they share tips to help entrepreneurs worry less about money and get back to doing what they love: growing their business. Members pictured from left to right. Photos courtesy of the individual members. 1. Determine What Money Represents For You While you can’t necessarily change the condition of money in your business right now, what you can do is take time daily to identify what having an ample supply of money in your business feels like. You can also ask yourself what money represents for you. For example, it might be ease, freedom, flexibility, choice, greater spending power or relaxation. When you’re focused in […]

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Michael Davis is the CEO and founder of Merek Security Solutions , a data mindfulness and cybersecurity firm out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. getty In today’s digital age, businesses should understand human behavior’s nuances to navigate the online world effectively. Cyberpsychology —the study of how humans interact with technology and how these interactions affect our behavior positively and negatively—has become increasingly important for organizations looking to understand and connect with their customers. However, many businesses still fail to fully grasp the implications of cyberpsychology and how it can impact their bottom line. At its core, cyberpsychology is about understanding how technology shapes human behavior and how we interact with the digital world. It encompasses everything from how we communicate online to how we consume and engage with digital content. To truly understand cyberpsychology, businesses should take a holistic approach that considers the technology and the people using it. You can start by asking questions relative to business development and the bottom line, such as the following: • How can we identify and mitigate the potential adverse effects of technology on employee productivity, engagement and satisfaction? • How can we use cyberpsychology insights to improve the customer experience and […]

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Kimberlee Orth’s husband and four children all work at her $2.3 billion Ameriprise wealth management practice, but she says she wouldn’t have considered hiring them if they didn’t fit her demanding, client-first culture. “It’s a wonderful business, and I’m not interested in ruining this business because you happen to have some of my DNA,” says Orth, a veteran advisor of 35 years. Speaking with Barron’s Advisor, the head of Wilmington, Del.-based Orth Financial Group explains how she brought those family members aboard without… Welcome to Barron’s Advisor! Our content is free but available only to wealth management professionals. To read this article, please provide the information below so we can confirm that you work in the industry. If you’re not a wealth management professional, you can find other great financial content at barrons.com . If you have any questions, please contact us a advisor.editors@barrons.com

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The Arctic ‘will not be business as usual’ By LUIZA CH. SAVAGE 02/17/2023 09:30 AM EST Welcome back to Global Insider’s Friday feature: The Conversation. Each week a POLITICO journalist will share an interview with a global thinker, politician, power player or personality. This week, Luiza Savage, POLITICO’s executive editor for growth, talks with two Norwegian officials as their country prepares to take over the chair of the Arctic Council from Russia. Follow Luiza on Twitter | Send ideas and insights to lsavage@politico.com Programming note: We’ll be off this Monday for Presidents Day but will be back in your inboxes on Wednesday. The Conversation A little-discussed casualty of the war in Ukraine has been the Arctic Council, a 26-year-old body that is supposed to be the main diplomatic forum for Arctic nations to collaborate on shared goals like sustainable development and environmental protection. Russia was in the middle of its turn at the two-year rotating Council chair when Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the other seven member nations to bring their work to an abrupt halt. On May 11, Norway is slated to take over the chair from Russia — and faces the delicate diplomatic task of coaxing the […]

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Hermès swept aside uncertainties in the luxury market by announcing sales were up in the fourth quarter of 2022 by an impressive 23 per cent year-on-year at constant exchange rates to €‎3 billion. The Q4 performance, on top of strong full-year results, represents “a very solid beat to consensus”, according to Luca Solca, senior analyst at consultancy Bernstein. Growth in Q4 was driven by the Americas (up 40.8 per cent) and Asia Pacific, excluding Japan (up 24.7 per cent). Hermès has outperformed its competitors. LVMH posted a 10 per cent growth for its fashion and leather goods division in the fourth quarter, while Kering sales in the same period fell by 7 per cent (with Gucci down 14 per cent, citing a sharp drop in China). Pressed by analysts to explain the impressive news from China, compared to other brands in luxury sector, Axel Dumas, Hermès executive chairman, said on Friday in Paris: “I think we sometimes use a little too much catastrophe talk about the health situation in China to explain something else. We saw a wave starting from Beijing, and everyone got sick. What was an issue for us was not the number of customers in stores […]

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gorodenkoff via Getty Images Dive Brief: GitHub Copilot for Business is now publicly available, sporting a more advanced OpenAI model and new capabilities, the company announced Tuesday . GitHub created a waitlist for a business-specific version of the tool in November. The new OpenAI Codex model will improve the quality of code suggestions, GitHub said. The tool includes AI-based security, automatically blocking common insecure code suggestions by targeting hardcoded credentials and SQL and path injections. Currently, GitHub Copilot is responsible for generating an average of 46% of code when using the tool, up from 27% of code in June 2022. Access now➔ Dive Insight: GitHub Copilot was publicly released last June, running on an OpenAI GPT-3 engine, and within the first month, the platform’s AI-powered programming tool added 400,000 subscribers . Despite the success, GitHub Copilot is not always accurate, similar to the OpenAI-owned language model ChatGPT. “Like any other code, code suggested by GitHub Copilot should be carefully tested, reviewed and vetted,” GitHub said in its frequently asked questions. “As the developer, you are always in charge.” While GitHub is among the early entrants to the recent AI-powered tool race, it has been impacted by a wave of […]

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Angie Noll is the Owner of Reconciled Solutions . She is a Certified Profit First Advisor and has an MBA from Loyola (Chicago). getty It pains me to state that in today’s small-business community, about 80% of small businesses in the U.S. fail after one year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data ( via Investopedia ). Such a shockingly high percentage of small businesses have not been able to run a sustainably profitable business. This is quite sad: It means that many business owners are likely living on leftovers and are unable to secure themselves a minimum standard of living. It’s often not their fault. They had the tenacity to start a business in this entrepreneurial world. But many of them likely listened to the age-old formula for success that has been passed down from accountant to accountant for generations. Sales Minus Expenses Equals Profit In 2014, Mike Michalowicz came along and published the book Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine . In the book, Mike clearly explains that it’s not a business owner’s fault if they are not making a profit. He asserts that we need to flip the generally […]

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Ryan Lucia, Founder of Such n Such Media & Aaron Overhead Doors. Ryan is an entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host and consultant. getty Why are so many big brands facing bankruptcy in recent times? Many people view big brands as indestructible in some sense. Even when they do fall, it’s not uncommon for the government to bail them out. There are many ways to fail as a business, but greed is a prevalent one in America these days. Let’s discuss a recent case of catastrophic failure. Crypto exchange company FTX became a largely successful venture. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was even able to become one of the largest fund supporters of the democratic party and was seen advising the U.S. government on how blockchain and crypto work and how helpful they can be to people around the world. But recently, it’s all come crashing down. Where did it go wrong? FTX filed for bankruptcy (subscription required) on November 11, 2022, leaving millions of people out billions of dollars. It’s also come to light recently that Bankman-Fried had created multiple companies and was using customer funds to pay for his donations to the democratic party and condos in the Bahamas . The […]

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Outside of the small circle of federal securities law nerds (we proudly proclaim our membership), the phrase "disclosure controls and procedures" (DCP) rarely garners much attention. However, a recent settled order issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) concerning a purported DCP violation by an issuer based on an alleged failure to collect information tied to one of the company’s risk factor disclosures has brought DCP out from the practitioner shadows and into the spotlight. In this post, we explore the history of DCP, the SEC’s increasingly expansive enforcement of this provision, an overview of the recent order (along with a corresponding dissent to the order by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce) and the significant compliance ramifications for public company issuers. The Captivating History of DCP Section 13a, titled "Reports of Issuers of Securities Registered Pursuant to Section 12," is a set of provisions within the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) that contain requirements for entities registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act to follow when filing annual or other reports with the SEC. In August 2002, as directed by Section 302(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the SEC enacted rules that the […]

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