August
2, 2018

7 min read

Elon Musk may be trying to save the world, whether that’s through electric cars or exploring outer space, but he’s having fun while doing it. He takes whatever chance he gets to provide nods to some of his favorite science-fiction stories, videogames and old comedy movies, whether that’s on Twitter or through a crazy Tesla easter egg.

Related: 23 Weird Things We’ve Learned About Elon Musk

Click through the slideshow to see examples of Musk showing off his nerdiness.

The magic of 3.

Consider this one a self-reference. In the first discovered Easter egg exclusively for Tesla Model 3 owners, people who can go to the “About” dialog box on the car’s touch screen will be in for a little surprise. Holding the “3” in the Model 3 label for about 10 seconds will display an image of the vehicle’s development team, which includes the man himself, Elon Musk.

See it in action here:

God of Prank?

Did Musk accidentally tweet his phone number? Numerous news organizations seem to think so. In a now deleted tweet, Musk asked Oculus VR chief technology officer John Carmack to call a number. Website Jalopnik says confirmed the number is associated with Musk. But considering that when the number was called, it lead to a hidden message from the video game God of War, we think this may just be a prank.

Image Credit: Sony

The answer is always 42.

Musk has been charting sales of hats emblazoned with the logo of his pet project, The Boring Company. When the number of hats sold reached 42,000, Musk couldn’t resist to drop a reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a favorite among science-fiction fans. For those who haven’t read the book, 42 is given as the answer to life, the universe and everything.

HG2G

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2017

There’s also an elaborate Tesla easter egg involving 42.

Where “real” money comes from.

Musk has clearly been enjoying his success selling Boring Company hats, and made a reference to Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, a spoof of Star Wars, to drive his point home.

The *real* money comes from merchandising. I learned it from this documentary https://t.co/E4gpqhl6KF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 3, 2017

Related: Elon Musk Has Found a Creative Way to Fundraise for His Newest Company

Always look on the bright side of life.

Musk is a huge fan of classic British comedy group Monty Python, so much so that Tesla added a feature to its vehicles that allow you to play any of the groups skits.

In the US, you can ask your Tesla to play any Monty Python (or other comedy) skit. Doesn’t work outside US yet.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2017

Love Monty Python so much

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2017

Isn’t he from that movie?

Musk dipped into a different well when naming the first digging machine for The Boring Company.

Third one will be from Frost. Maybe the second.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2017

The first machine is named after Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot.

First machine is Godot. Still waiting … Don’t know why, when or where.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2017

Mars explorers.

The throughline between Tesla and SpaceX is that Musk is CEO of both, so Tesla would be remiss not to throw in space-themed easter egg. Drivers can enter the code “Mars” to turn their GPS maps from one of Earth to one of Mars, and the vehicle into a rover.

Tesla’s holiday Easter Egg. We are now in the Model S(paceship), exploring Mars. pic.twitter.com/pISb94gwm9

— Brenner (@BrennerSpear) December 25, 2016

That’s our favorite animal too!

When one of Musk’s sons asked his billionaire father what his favorite animal was, he answered with a reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — of course.

My son recently asked what my favorite animal was. Well, of course … https://t.co/hpTniMe1mF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2016

Related: The Real Reason Why Elon Musk Is a Twitter Power User

Turtle shells not included.

Musk revealed a Tesla easter egg in early 2016 that he dubbed “psychedelic cowbell road.”

Activate autopilot 4X in quick succession for psychedelic cowbell road. And, yes, we are adding more cowbell soon.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2016

When activated it puts your on-screen car on a rainbow road highly reminiscent of the infamous level from the Mario Kart series.

And Musk’s tweet also had a second reference, to the famous Saturday Night Live skit.

I’ve been a miner for a …

At what point will Musk start having to pay royalties to Douglas Adams’s estate? When it came time to name the first SpaceX vessel bound for Mars, of course Musk dipped into Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“We’re thinking about names. The names thing is really hard,” Musk said in 2016. “And the name of the first ship that goes to Mars not the name of the whole ship line necessarily but the first ship that goes to Mars … my current favorite is Heart of Gold.”

Heart of Gold is the name of a ship in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy commandeered by a character named Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Image Credit: Crown Publishing

That’s ludicrous!

Owners of Tesla’s P85D Model S in 2015 were able to upgrade their vehicles to access a new feature: Ludicrous Mode, which allowed the cars to go from 0 to 60 in just 2.8 seconds. So where did this name come from? Spaceballs, of course.

To top it off, rapper Ludicris was the warm-up music for the call announcing the feature.

Check out the feature in action:

In the same vein, the second version of the Tesla Roadster will have a Plaid Mode, which is faster than Ludicrous in Spaceballs. That mode will allow the cars to go from 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds.

Musk, Elon Musk.

Musk has been a fan of James Bond films since he was young, so much so that he spent $866,000 to buy the Lotus Esprit submarine car from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. His love of this vehicle made its way into Tesla cars as well.

Owners of the Model S can hold down the “T” button and then input “007” into the technician log-in screen, which will transform the vehicle shown on the screen into submarine car.

Image Credit: United Artists

Related: Elon Musk May Be Sending a Tesla Roadster to Space on a SpaceX Rocket

A tribute to Culture.

SpaceX typically lands its rockets on ships piloted by drones. Musk gave two of these ships interesting names: Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You. These are actually ripped straight from the pages of the late Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Musk mentioned the connection in 2015.

@elonmusk … In honor of IMB, RIP.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2015

Going to 11.

The volume in Tesla vehicles go up to 11, which is a reference to the classic music satire film This Is Spinal Tap.

Very mature.

Not all of Musk’s references are to science fiction. The names of Tesla’s thee models are S, 3 and X, which spells out SEX if you’re paying attention. The only reason why there’s no Model E is that Ford threatened to sue Tesla if it pursued a trademark. Oh well. Apparently, there’s also a Model Y coming.

Image Credit: Tesla

Related: It Was Fun for a While, But Elon Musk Denies Theory He Created Bitcoin

Not quite hyperspace ready.

SpaceX’s rockets, including the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, are named after the iconic Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. While that vessel was piloted by the suave Han Solo, we bet SpaceX’s astronauts are also pretty cool. Meanwhile, the Dragon capsule is named after the song “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios

Don’t game and drive.

Musk is a known gamer, so it makes sense that he announced that with Tesla’s next software update, drivers will have access to classic Atari games.

Some of best classic @Atari games coming as Easter eggs in Tesla V9.0 release in about 4 weeks. Thanks @Atari!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 1, 2018

Hoping to include last three in this release, with pole position linked to actual car steering wheel (while stationary tbc haha)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 1, 2018

Of course, the car has to be parked to play the games.

August 1, 2018

7 min read

Opinions expressed by Green Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Tell us how you got into the cannabis business.

While attending college, I started working on a small family-owned medical cannabis cooperative in northern Oregon. I learned the basics of growing and working with the plant. With this knowledge and money saved from my years working in Oregon, I purchased a farm in Northern California. 

Once cannabis legalization went through, I knew I needed to build a brand. The days of shady, back room deals were coming to a close and the cannabis industry had a deficit of mature, upscale brands. I recruited the lead designer of Snoop Dogg’s “Leafs by Snoop” line and flew her out to the farm to capture the natural beauty for our packaging.

Related: 5 Questions to Ask Before Picking Your Packaging

Image credit: Stone Road Farms

What is Stone Road Farms?

We are a pre-roll company that puts an emphasis on transparency, consistent quality, and upscale branding. We use the highest possible quality, Grade-A flower in all of our products. We also hand-roll our joints ensuring each one is virtually perfect. A Stone Road joint goes through three stages of quality control and is lab-tested twice before reaching the consumer.

What did you do to differentiate Stone Road from the competition?

I knew I had to create a unique aspect to the brand so I recruited a childhood friend to build out the ‘Stone Road’ rewards app — available on IOS and Android. This platform allows us to offer our customers tickets to cannabis-friendly yoga classes in Venice, Hollywood Bowl tickets, even surf lessons. The updated app also now has a full product guide plus a find-a-store feature. 

The app saved the business — being able to access the data from our biggest supporters allowed us to discover that 78 percent of all app scans were from women, and more importantly, they were from two shops! I altered Stone Road’s brand identity to match the new information we gleaned from the app data. We started sponsoring every and any women-run, women-focused, or women-branded event. And soon this strategy worked. Our sales took off and now my biggest focus and challenge is rapid production, ramping without sacrificing the Stone Road quality. 

Related: 9 Business Ideas for People Looking to Cash in on the Marijuana Boom

What was one of the toughest challenges you faced in your business and how did you overcome it?

Choosing business partners. Both of my former partners left the company within the first six months for various reasons. My advice to people starting a business: Be very cautious when choosing a partner . A start-up partnership means you are going to be with this person 12 to 16 hours a day every day. You not only have to get along, but you have to be sure you communicate well.

Most major business disagreements I had stemmed from a lack of communication. I overcame this challenge by putting in a ridiculous amount of work. Eighteen-hour days for weeks on end. Doing literally every job myself from managing the farm, rolling the joints, producing digital and promo content, managing the social media, keeping all the books and all legal compliance, all the while spending every day trying to open new accounts! It was grueling, but when the noise of the world gets too loud you have to just lower your head and continue. It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would be their own boss. 

Related: 

How do you get people to buy into your mission?

Transparency and trust. Be honest with investors about what you plan to do with their investment. The same group of 8 to 12 individuals in my life fund virtually all of my ventures. Some have been losers. But some are now incredibly successful. One of my good friends and another successful young entrepreneur always tells his investors, “I will do whatever is best for the business. No matter what.” And he is true to his word. He fired his best friend. Was it terrible? I’m sure. But at the end of the day you have to stay true to your word and if someone isn’t pulling their weight plus some, you have to find someone else. 

Also, most good investors invest in the team and not the product. A product can change. It’s really hard to change a team. Also, you have to put in your own money. Money talks. I don’t raise money for firms I don’t personally have equity in. 

Related: How To Convince Cannabis Investors to Give You Money

What trait do you depend on most when making decisions?

While analytical thinking and collaborative decision making is super important, you have to trust your gut. Sometimes you’re right. Most times you’re not. But each experience and each failure is a learning opportunity. Each day I apply lessons I learn in one business to another one of my businesses. 

For example, everyone told me not to invest in “Light Phone,” a Brooklyn-based telecom startup that is creating a credit-card sized social-media free phone with a 5-day battery life. Even my mom, a full-blown iPhone addict, strongly suggested against investing. But I threw in a lot of money anyways and then raised far more for the company. Now we’ve built and sold our first 10,000 phones, and are working hard on creating a second-generation phone. Our manufacturing partner tasked us with raising $250k online in one month to show interest in the phone. We ended our Indiegogo with $1.71 million and over 7,000 pre-orders for a phone that is still a year away. 

What’s the best advice u can give to people starting off in the cannabis industry?

Be tough. People are mean and the business is very exclusive. It will be hard to break in. Be nimble, and know that the business changes constantly. You need to stay light on your feet to keep up. Even the biggest companies in the industry are constantly evolving and innovating. 

Lastly, tell us about how you created and auctioned off the world’s most expensive joint.

I needed a PR stunt to get more press to my party to announce a state-wide sales campaign. I knew I wanted to create a giant, goofy, lavish joint and auction it off for charity. I couldn’t get any organizations to take the money except the African Wildlife Foundation. I then enlisted Weavers, a famous joint artist, to create a giant elephant tusk rather than a normal joint. I reached out to the good people at Shine, and they donated enough 24 karat gold leaf to cover the tusk with four layers! The interior contents were all donated, too. Soilgrown Solventless donated some of their Cannabis Cup-winning Rosin, and Team Elite Genetics donated some of their 2018 Cannabis Cup-winning flower. Overall, we raised over $4,000 for the African Wildlife Foundation’s new anti-poaching campaign. 

 

August 1, 2018

6 min read

This story originally appeared on GOBankingRates

You might think working with your spouse is a great idea, but there are drawbacks, too. Spending both your work and downtime with the person you love most might seem like heaven on earth, but it can also be a nightmare if you aren’t prepared to make some adjustments along the way. Your relationship is at stake, so it’s important to know how to work with your partner for the long haul.

Related: The First Thing These Famous and Successful People Do Every Morning

Members of GOBankingRates’ Smart Money Squad shared their tips for working with a spouse. Whether you’re thinking about starting a family business or you already work with your significant other, learn from the people who have been through it already and keep these best practices in mind.

Learn what you should do to boost your net worth — and how you can do it with your partner.

(By Taylor Bell)

Don’t bring work home

“When I work with my wife, setting boundaries between work and non-work is absolutely crucial,” said Jim Wang, founder of Wallet Hacks. “It’s very easy, especially in non-traditional work situations, for the two areas to bleed into one another and that can cause unnecessary stress.”

“In our case, it was exacerbated because we worked from home,” Wang said. “We had to make it clear that if we were in work mode and didn’t want to be interrupted, you had to be in the home office. We weren’t so militant that no one took their laptop out to the kitchen table, but you couldn’t have expectations if you were there — just like at a coffeehouse.”

Maintain some privacy

“Allow space,” said Lisa Beres of The Healthy Home Dream Team. “Just like a marriage, it’s important to have space. We have our own offices and this is key for us. Allowing each other to have privacy to focus on tasks, make calls and complete projects without feeling like someone is shadowing you 24 hours a day is essential.”

Respect your spouse’s authority

Treat your spouse as you would any other co-worker. This saves a lot of unnecessary fighting and tension once you get home, according to certified financial coach Christine Luken.

“Respect your spouse’s authority in their area of expertise and do not correct or argue with your spouse in front of others in the workplace,” Luken said. “It makes everyone uncomfortable and follows you home as an argument or fight.”

Related: How to Set Career and Financial Goals You’ll Actually Achieve

Play to each other’s unique strengths

“It helps to divide your work based on your unique skills,” said Holly D. Johnson, founder of the financial advice website ClubThrifty.com. “Both my husband and I work on our website, but I leave most of the technical blogging work to my husband since he is more skilled in that area. I focus more on content creation because that’s where I thrive.

“I think it helps a lot to figure out what each of you is actually good at and divide your work accordingly. We would be a lot less productive if we divided our work a different way.”

Make date night a priority

“When I worked with my partner, it was really hard to separate work life and love life,” said Pauline Paquin, financial blogger of Reach Financial Independence. “We would go on a nice holiday and talk about work. After a while, it seemed like we were work colleagues who happened to live together.

“We had to be very purposeful about having date nights, weekends, and other ‘safe bubbles’ where work didn’t get in.” Keep the romance alive with these priceless date night ideas.

Take turns accommodating each other

“One thing that I discovered from working with my boyfriend is that some people like noise while working, while others need to be completely focused without distraction,” said travel and finance blogger Chantell Collins.

“I fall into the latter category but my boyfriend loves to chat and listen to music,” she said. “It took a few reminders and a couple of frustrated moments to try and find a balance but we worked through it together. Now when we are working on our laptops side by side, we both use headphones even though there is no music playing in mine.”

Related: 12 Expenses Successful People Don’t Waste Time or Money On

Have separate work stations

“It helps to set up two separate workspaces,” Johnson said. “A lot of people ask me how we can stand to be together all day and still live together. The answer is simple: We do not work together all day long.

“We work in separate areas of our home and communicate via email or text if we need to talk. Having separate workspaces helps us avoid being distracted by one another. In my opinion, it also helps us create a work environment that is closer to a traditional workplace.”

Be flexible

“Just like a marriage, a business will grow, change and evolve,” Beres said. “Be willing to take on new responsibilities and roles and allow your spouse to do the same. Don’t pigeonhole each other into seeing them the same way as when you started.”

Be purposeful with your small talk

“One major plus is that we commute together — which gives us some [focused] time to talk about the day,” said marketing and communications expert Miriam Ballesteros.

“We talk a lot about work-related stuff too, and I love it,” she said. “We know exactly what the other is happy about, and we understand the problems better.”

Nurture your relationship

If you and your spouse run a business together, you might spend a lot of time taking care of work-related matters, but this should not be at the cost of your relationship.

“I owned a business with my ex-husband,” said Migdalia Rivera, speaker and founder of Latina On a Mission. “We worked long hours to get it established. Ultimately, we lost our work/life balance, brought work home and didn’t set boundaries. We forgot to nurture our relationship along the way.

“My advice: Set boundaries. Leave work at the office. Most importantly, make time to nurture your relationship.”

July 30, 2018

7 min read

This article is excerpted from Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer’s monthly newsletter, The Feifer Five. Each month, he sends out five insights to help you think more entrepreneurially. Subscribe here.

It’s going to happen: Along your entrepreneurial journey, you will be frustrated. Derailed. Feel lost in the woods. But that’s normal. Good, even! Enduring these challenges will prepare you for the even great ones ahead, and will open your eyes to the many inspirations around you that you hadn’t previously considered.

That’s what this list is all about: The inspiration that can come from anywhere. We’re going to Maine for lobsters, Oregon for ice cream and more. Let’s go.

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1. What Danica Patrick can teach you about change.

Image credit: Nigel Parry

 

Recently, I met an entrepreneur who’d built his own golden handcuffs. His ecommerce business does more than $1 million in sales every year, and makes him a handsome return. But he’s unhappy. The site is boring to operate. He wants to do something else. And yet, he doesn’t. Why? Because he’s unsure if he can be successful at anything else. What if, he fears, this is it? What if this is all he’s good at?

This is the downside of success, and I see it a lot. Once we’ve reached some level of achievement, many of us lose our appetite for risk. We groan at the idea of starting fresh, or of pushing beyond. We become trapped maintaining what we have, rather than building bigger, or better, or simply anew. And for everyone who’s ever faced this, I offer you our new cover profile of Danica Patrick. She just retired from racing, and we sent a reporter to Indianapolis to follow her during her final days. She admitted to us that, for quite a while, she’d stopped loving the sport of racing. But rather than fear those final days, she prepared for them — by methodically building new businesses, finding new interests and assembling the bridge she’d one day cross.

I love that approach. Let us celebrate success but not be trapped by it. Let us use our success as fuel, propelling us wherever we want to go. We entrepreneurs are doers and achievers. Nothing should hold us back — not even our good fortune.

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2. What ice cream can teach you about failure.

My high school friend Chad runs a great ice cream shop in Portland called Fifty Licks, and has learned a lot from the ups and downs of the sweets biz. I really loved this video profile of him, and especially his insight on risk:

“You have to be able to accept risk. You have to be able to live with not knowing how things are going to unfold and what’s going to happen next, and be OK with that. I think that the best way to overcome fear is to have what you’re afraid of happen. I think to have calamity, to have disaster, to have failure — I think failure teaches you a lot. It teaches you that you have the strength to endure the worst that can happen.”

Exactly.

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3. What “lobesters” can teach you about thinking creatively.

Image credit: Jason Feifer

 

Wait, you might say — does this Maine farmstand realize they misspelled lobster? I talked to the staff and the answer is: Yes, of course. It was originally a mistake, but they kept it because it was funny and memorable. They even sell T-shirts saying “Home of the lobester.”

I love this. In the land of lobster, how do you stand out? By selling lobester!

Every entrepreneur and business needs to think about what makes them memorable. What sticks in people’s minds? The answer might come from unexpected places. And if you’re willing to think creatively and embrace surprises, you’ll have something nobody else does.

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4. What MailChimp can teach you about the people you don’t need to email.

Image credit: Courtesy of MailChimp

MailChimp, the service I use to send this newsletter, went through some serious growing pains. Its founder and CEO, Ben Chestnut (pictured above), was struggling to lead his suddenly booming company, and he had to undergo some major transformations in order to right the ship. I recently spoke with him for my podcast Problem Solvers (listen: iTunes, web), and he was full of great leadership advice.

But here, I want to pull out a particularly important, very personal thing he told me during the interview: He was once so stressed at work that it was harming his marriage. And he realized that a big part of the solution to his work troubles actually started at home.

Here, straight from our interview, is Ben:

“One of the things that I stumbled upon, and I’m so lucky that I did, I wish I could remember the name of this book, but the author said, ‘Talk to your spouse about everything.’ Because we have this habit of leaving work at the office. You come home and you turn that off and then when you come to work you kind of leave your personal stuff at home. And he says, ‘This is just ridiculous. A human being should be able to talk about all of it.’

“When I started to talk to my wife about everything — every bit of stress, anything that humiliated me — it finally got better. She had some great business advice for me. And she actually started to come to work sometimes, to some holiday parties, and she knew people by name because I would talk about them. She would thank them. Just having her as an ally was tremendously helpful for me getting through this.

“I don’t think that I hear that advice very much. Talk to your partner. I’d just kept it to myself. There was a while where my wife told me that she she didn’t know what was going on. She thought that I hated her. My behavior was just so weird. I was just so stressed all the time. And then she came up to me and said, ‘If it will make it easier, I can move out for a little while and take the kids.’ And then I thought, This is really bad. I didn’t know that I was this bad. And so I started to open up and talk to her about it, and then everything just changed. I think it probably would have been another two years [of struggles at work] if I hadn’t just started opening up and talking about this. So, partner, therapist, anybody — just talk.”

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5. What a cat toy can teach you about perseverance.

Image credit: David Yellen

 

We all have our mountains to climb. We all wonder if we have enough energy to reach the finish, far off in the unseen distance. And so, for inspiration, I offer you this amazing tale.

Fred and Natasha Ruckel had invented a hit cat toy, but sales dropped when someone began counterfeiting it. Instead of giving up, the couple began doggedly pursuing the counterfeiter — hacking through layers of obfuscation until they finally found their culprit, sued them, got a load of documents that revealed how the counterfeit worked and then gave all those documents to us at Entrepreneur. The resulting story is one of my favorites ever: It reveals exactly how a counterfeit operation works, and how this couple stayed so focused. Worth your time, for sure.

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That’s it for this edition of The Feifer Five! I’ll leave you with this parting thought: You do not have to take this journey alone. Turn to other people — to mentors! — to help you along the way. If you’re in need of a mentor, please read this. It’ll help you think differently about who your mentors can and should be.

Enjoy this newsletter? Don’t forget to subscribe!

July 29, 2018

2 min read

Landing a job — or even a job interview — isn’t easy. One of the most important components of a successful job search is having a stellar resume. In fact, having a resume that makes you stand out from the rest of the applicant pool is usually the first step to getting your foot in the door. So, how can better your chances?

Related: 10 Tips for Landing a Job in a New City

If you have your eye on a specific job listing, run the listing through a cloud generator, which will pull out the most prominent words that you should include on your resume. These words can help act as a guide for tailoring your resume to certain jobs or companies. Next, be sure to format your resume in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent experience at the top. Typically, recruiters take six seconds scanning an applicant’s resume, so it’s important to make it relevant, easy to read and to the point.

Related: 3 Questions Every Resume Should Answer

Don’t include a photo on your resume unless it’s specifically requested — hiring managers reject a whopping 88 percent of candidates who do so. Instead, add a link to your portfolio, LinkedIn or Twitter. Seventy-one percent of hiring managers think this is an attractive feature to have on a resume. You should also include a summary statement and a list of your skills as these help recruiters and HR professionals easily find and learn certain information about you. In addition, remember to always illustrate your skills with numbers to show proof of your accomplishments, and limit yourself to six bullet points per job.

Related: How to Stand Out During a Job Interview

To learn more ways to improve your resume, check out Net Credit’s infographic below.

July 28, 2018

2 min read

Entrepreneurship means wearing a lot of hats. At times, you might find yourself playing accountant, hiring manager, marketer and CEO all at the same time. Not only that, but in addition to the time commitment, starting a business can also require lots of money. However, as an entrepreneur, these are the types of sacrifices you have to make in order to follow your dreams.

Related: 7 Rules for Entrepreneurs to Delegate Effectively

According to research from ScaleTime, nearly half of all small-business owners said they used their personal savings to fund parts of their business. When it comes to time, entrepreneurs are always on the clock. In fact, a whopping 86 percent admitted to working on the weekends, and 53 percent said they worked on major holidays.

All this time and money spent can become exhausting. That’s why it’s incredibly important to delegate. When you’re not delegating enough, leaving all the hard decision-making in your own hands, you might find yourself experience “decision fatigue.” When the brain’s decision-making powers are overworked, making rational decisions becomes harder and harder.

Related: 5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style

Of course, delegating important tasks is not always easy. But the truth is, you can’t do it all and sometimes you’ve got to let others take the wheel. To make yourself comfortable with delegation, there are certain steps you can take.

For starters, effective delegation starts with hiring employees who you trust and can rely on. It’s also important to codify your business and make sure it’s prepared for anything that comes its way. This means making sure all of your operations are consistent and transparent, and that every decision doesn’t depend on one person’s know-how. Creating a company overview, systems processes and a training handbook are good ways to do this.

Related: Follow-up Is the Secret to Effective Delegation

To learn more, check out ScaleTime’s infographic below.

July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Email isn’t going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users, and that number is expected to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021. What’s more, this communication channel is supremely popular: People check their emails multiple times a day, and when you’re trying to market your company, you can get your name into thousands of inboxes just by launching an email marketing campaign.

Related: How to Boost Deliverability and Win at Email Marketing

The cost? Email marketing is also super-affordable, which makes it great for small businesses.

But just sending an email message promoting your business isn’t enough. People are inundated with a ton of promotional emails every day, and many get deleted without ever being read. That’s why you need to make sure your emails will stand out through the noise.  

So, where do you start and what can you do to be successful with your first email campaign? Let’s jump into it: Here’s how to launch your first email marketing campaign, which will boost engagement for your company and its sales.  

Build your email list.

In order to have a successful email marketing campaign, you’ll need people to email. That’s why you have to build up your email list to be a moneymaker for your business. Having an email list allows you to have a ton of qualified leads at your fingertips, and you can email them any time you want to promote your business. But how do you get people signed up?

Shinesty uses this attention-grabbing pop-up to encourage visitors to sign up for its email list.

Email List Pop-up from Shinesty. http://www.workbetternotharder.com/2015/

Using a nonintrusive, exit-intent popup on your site is a great, attention-grabbing tactic to get more email subscribers. Offering an incentive in your pop-up will convince users to hit that subscribe button, so consider offering a discount or another freebie in exchange for a prospective customer’s email address. Building a substantial email list is the backbone of any successful email campaign.

Related: 7 Statistics That Prove Email Marketing Isn’t Dead

Choose an email marketing service provider.

Once you’ve built up your email list and gotten tons of users ready for you to send a message, it’s time to get your email campaign in motion. Using Gmail or Outlook is strongly discouraged for sending bulk emails. That’s why you need to choose an email marketing service provider. Some great options are Constant Contact, MailChimp or ConvertKit.

By using an email service provider, you’ll get a number of benefits, including the ability to send bulk emails and manage your email database, campaign-management services and customizable email templates. You’ll also be able to ensure you’re compliant with CAN-SPAM laws.

Define the goal of your campaign.

Before you send out any emails, you have to figure out why you’re sending out the emails in the first place. Not defining a focus for your email marketing campaign will make that campaign appear all over the place, and confuse readers. So what is the goal of your campaign? Typical goals include:

• Educating users about your product/niche

• Promoting products or announcing a sale

• Upselling customers

• Increasing engagement on your blog/social media

Pinkberry’s goal with the following email campaign was to target its “inactive” users with a surprise incentive to return:

Pinkberry Email Campaign. https://mailbakery.com/blog/email-marketing-campaign-examples/

Remember: Not only do you have to decide “why?” but also “whom?” Will you be sending this campaign to customers who have already purchased, users who have never purchased or everyone on your email list? How you design your emails depends on what you want out of your campaign, so determine your goal and plan your campaign around it.

Craft your email.

After deciding what type of email marketing campaign you’re going to launch, start crafting your email. The first tip is to create a catchy subject line that will grab attention and make people want to open up your email. You can use a free tool like CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester to see if your subject line makes the grade.

Other tips that will get your emails opened include personalizing them to each user; people will pay closer attention if you say their name. Designing an eye-catching email with a good mixture of text and images is also important. Design experts often recommend that emails employ a 60/40 text-to-image ratio.

Finally, when writing copy for your email campaign, keep it short and snappy and show some personality. You want to get your point across without boring readers by making them scroll through a long email to find out what you’re actually talking about. You should focus on content that shows readers how they will benefit, instead of just telling them how great you are.

Related: 5 Ways You Can Earn a Better ROI with Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Now you’re ready to launch your first email marketing campaign. Don’t forget that once you hit “send,” you can start to measure your results, like your open rate and your number of orders or registrations, for example. When you measure your results, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not; and the next time you send out a campaign, you’ll get even better results than the first time around.

July 25, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Shoppers can be fickle, especially now that there’s an endless number of online shops to choose from. And, as a business owner, you surely find it discouraging when one of those shoppers — or a lot of them — add multiple items to a checkout cart, only to abandon it without purchasing anything.

Who knows, maybe those customers won’t ever return to buy those items.

Related: It’s Time We Ditched the Term ‘Cart’ in Online Shopping

There’s science behind that concern: In a 2017 survey, Statista asked digital shoppers what their primary reason was for abandoning their carts, and some 40 percent said the reason was that they were only browsing. So how do you reduce shopping-cart abandonment on your ecommerce site and increase conversions?

Luckily, there are simple ways to give a little nudge to users that will push them in the direction of the checkout and prevent you from losing out on those sales. Check out these five simple ways to decrease shopping cart abandonment, and get ready to hear that welcome “cha-ching” more often.

1. Use an exit-intent pop-up.

Imagine being able to read customers’ minds right when they’re about to leave your site, then to stop them and offer a great deal to change their decision from a “no” to a “yes.” Well, an exit-intent pop-up does just that. It can track when a customer is about to leave your site and send that would-be shopper a targeted message at exactly the right time.

Banana Republic does this really well. After you’ve clicked around the site a little bit and are about to hit the back arrow, the company offers you a discount in exchange for your email address.

 

Related: This Shopping Cart of the Future Creepily Follows You Around Stores

You can do something similar: Design your own pop-up to remind visitors that they have products left unpurchased in their cart and offer them a discount if they return to buy. Adding exit-intent pop-ups will stop users in their tracks and help them give a second thought to making that purchase after all.

2. Keep the cart visible.

Keeping the shopping cart always in view is a great way to remind customers to buy. People can be forgetful; if they spend a long time on your site browsing after they’ve added an item to their cart, they might forget it altogether if the cart isn’t visible.

For example, Pretty Little Thing includes the cart as part of its sticky header, which doesn’t disappear as visitors scroll down the site.

 

A shopping cart symbol that displays the number of items in the cart will be a useful addition to your site. You can also create a sticky floating navigation menu so that as the user scrolls down, the shopping cart will follow and always be in view. For WooCommerce users, you can install the WooCommerce Menu Cart plugin to easily customize a cart for your site.

3. Don’t surprise customers with extra costs.

If you don’t want to offer free shipping, don’t keep customers in the dark about shipping costs until the last second. According to an ecommerce survey conducted by VWO, 28 percent of shoppers will abandon their cart if presented with unexpected shipping costs. That number may not seem high, but it’s actually one of the top reasons for cart abandonment.

For example, Walmart has free shipping on orders costing $35-plus. The company tells you that up front so you can plan ahead, and it’s a good upselling opportunity. Someone who was planning on purchasing just $10 worth of merchandise gains an incentive to spend another $25.

 

Let your customers know about shipping charges up front. You can also provide them with a shipping calculator that will determine the cost of shipping to their location and let them choose their desired shipping method.  

4. Create the appearance of scarcity.

If you’re hungry and you know there’s only a couple of pizzas left at your favorite restaurant, you’re going to buy them up quickly before they’re gone, right? Using that feeling of scarcity on your online shopping site will create a feeling in your visitors that they have to buy now or they may miss out.

You can use scarcity by displaying a pop-up like the following example from Forever 21. You could also show how many units are left of each item. For example, when a customer adds a pair of shoes to his or her cart, you can show that only three pairs of that style remain.

 

Another great tactic is to display a countdown timer that shows how many days or hours are left until a particular sale is over. Any of these strategies will create FOMO (fear of missing out) in your visitors, and they’ll likely complete a purchase much faster.

5. Allow customers to save their carts.

If your visitors still aren’t sure about buying from your site, make it easier for them to come back when they do make up their minds. Saving carts is a must-have for users who shop around on the web and compare prices; this feature makes it more convenient for them to return to you when they don’t have to browse all over again to find the items they originally looked at.

Here, WooCommerce users can try a plugin like Recover Abandoned Cart. This plugin monitors when carts are abandoned and automatically sends an email reminder with a link to return to the cart.

Related: Shopping Cart Throw-down: Which Ecommerce Platform Reigns Supreme?

Other easy fixes to decrease shopping-cart abandonment include making sure your site is super fast, offering a variety of payment options and showing security badges, in order to gain the trust of visitors.

If you’re tired of losing sales to shopping-cart abandonment, start implementing these tactics on your website and you’ll be able to quickly boost your conversions.

July 23, 2018

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Once only a strange and futuristic concept featured in science fiction, virtual reality is now a part of our lives, and it’s no longer just for video games, either. Many top companies are now using virtual reality as part of their content-marketing strategy in order to connect with their target audience in a whole new way.

Related: Virtual Reality Is Already Changing How We Work and Communicate

“Virtual reality” (VR) describes an artificial environment created with software that users can interact with within a seemingly real or physical way by using special electronic equipment. According to a WebpageFX prediction, this year will see 171 million VR users. With a number of different companies making VR equipment available at reasonable prices, many people have access to this new trend and view companies that use it as “forward-thinking.”

Virtual reality can expand content marketing, allowing companies to engage with users as never before. Check out the following three ways brands are currently using VR for some ideas on how your company might simlarly utilize VR in the near future.

Shoppers can try before they buy.

Before VR, pretty much the only thing you could test drive before purchasing was a car. But now virtual reality gives all types of industries the ability to have customers test out their products without ever stepping into a brick and mortar store. The fact that customers can size up a product online without seeing it in person helps diffuse their hesitation about opening their wallets.

For example, Ikea offers customers the opportunity to “place” furniture in their home with its VR-based app. Customers can see what the furniture looks like with their own decor, making purchases more convenient.

Ikea VR app for HTC Vive, https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/05/ikea-htc-vive-kitchen-vr-app/

Companies can create more engaging content.

Let’s face it: Viewers are a bit bored with traditional content, but with virtual reality, your business can create content that is more engaging than ever. User engagement is one of the most important factors of content marketing: You need users to engage with your content instead of taking a quick glance and moving along.

Related: 5 Ways to Incorporate Virtual Reality Into Your Marketing Plan

The more engaged customers are, the more likely they’ll be to take your desired action. Virtual reality allows you to give your target audience interactive experiences that are super-appealing and help them connect with your brand.  

The North Face, an American outdoor product company, gives its customers a chance to climb the Himalayas in Nepal by way of virtual reality. Instead of just watching a video, they can virtually experience and interact with the virtual expedition and “test out” North Face products. Their target audience is obviously interested in the outdoors, camping and climbing, so what better way to engage them than by letting them experience the expedition of their dreams?

The North Face VR Expedition, https://www.jauntvr.com/title/73298fc244.v03

Companies can grow emotional connections.

People buy from companies they have an emotional connection to, and virtual reality lets those companies tell stories that customers can really connect to. A study from Customer Thermometer showed that customers love companies that care. When people were asked what they emotionally connected with in a brand, the top five answers mentioned caring; in particular, 55 percent said they valued the fact that the company made a positive difference in the world.

Toms Shoes is just such a company; for every pair of shoes sold, the company gives a pair to a child in need. The company also has year-long “giving trips,” where employees and partners of the company can give children their brand new shoes in person and see first-hand how Toms is improving health and education programs in more than 70 different countries.

Using virtual reality, customers can share that experience and be more connected to the cause than ever.

From a Toms Shoes VR Giving Trip http://greenbuzzagency.com/using-vr-tell-story/

Related: Virtual Reality Is About to Change Your Business

With the rise in popularity of virtual reality, your company may soon be able to join this trend. You’ll be able to create insanely real experiences for your customers to enjoy and have a whole new way to tell your brand’s story and drive sales.

July 22, 2018

2 min read

Instagram is a great source to build your brand’s identity, engage new followers and expand your reach. However, if you’re simply posting images to your business’s Instagram page, you’re missing out on a major opportunity on the platform: Instagram Stories. With Stories, you can show a behind-the-scenes look at your brand while developing its personality and building authentic relationships with your followers.

Related: 3 Ways to Build Your Brand Identity Using Content Marketing

If you’re still wondering: What’s the point? There are nearly 250 million active daily users of Stories, and 33 percent of the most popular Stories are from businesses. Not only that, but 20 percent of Stories posted by businesses result in direct messages.

While it might sound daunting at first, you’ll never know until you try. To help you get started, here’s a quick guide to using Instagram Stories.

First and foremost, it’s important to prepare — brainstorm a plan for the story you want. And don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be live — you can upload older images to Stories now too. Next, figure out the best time of day to post by taking a look at your audience. Generally, user engagement levels are highest on Mondays and Thursdays between 7 and 9 p.m., but this can vary based on your followers. Another important piece of advice is to make an impact in the first four seconds of your story. Viewers’ attention drop after four seconds, so it’s important to get to the point.

Related: 10 Instagram Accounts Every Entrepreneur Should Follow

From using geotags to hosting takeovers, there are a number of ways your business can utilize Instagram Stories. To learn more, check out Headway Capital’s “Small-Business Guide to Instagram Stories” infographic below.