St. Louis Bi-State Region
Jan. 2020
AWINNING PARTNERSHIP HOW SCORE IS HELPING A STUDENT- RUN HEALTH ACCELERATOR SUCCEED
positive experience with others at SCORE.“I stepped in and took the liaison role, starting to promote it within the chapter,” Keith says. Last year, Keith recruited six SCORE volunteers; this year, he recruited four more.“It’s growing,” Keith confirms.“Our SCORE folks bring a lot of common-sense business knowledge to the table and help train Sling teams.The whole process is cool and different from the typical mentoring roles. Sling uses a four-step process for building business, and they are developing solutions and trying to figure out if there’s business around the solution to medical problems.” It’s no surprise that volunteers see the value in the program.“It’s very rewarding,” Keith says of the volunteers’ experiences with Sling.“Every session, we walk out of there going,‘Wow, we learned so much.’ Some days you just sit there and listen. I have execs walking out of the meetings telling me,‘This is so great; I learned a lot.The team is so energetic and passionate about solving problems. It’s great to watch them grow.’ That gives us all energy.” In addition to his work with Sling and passion for growing the mentorship program, Keith, a certified public accountant, shares his financial know-how during SCORE ST. Louis’ “Starting
For the last several years, SCORE volunteer KeithVollmar has spearheaded a unique program within our chapter: bringing SCORE volunteers to Sling Health atWashington University School of Medicine, where they give business insight to enterprising students — and learn a lot more in return. volunteers and Sling teams. Sling, a student-run health care accelerator atWashington University, formed in response to gaps and challenges in the medical industry.The ingenuity of students (including those studying medicine, engineering, and business) combined with the on-the-ground knowledge of health care professionals powers teams to solve crucial problems facing the medical community. However, the teams often don’t have the practical business know-how. Enter SCORE. When SCORE staff asked who would be willing to help out and volunteer at Sling,“I happened to raise my hand,” Keith says. From there, he met with a student group at Sling, observed their process, and caught the infectious enthusiasm that exists in this student- run environment. He was excited to share his What started as a simple exchange has morphed into a rewarding experience for SCORE
Your Business” Saturday seminars. For Keith, it’s another rewarding part of his experience with SCORE.“I love passing on knowledge. It’s always cool sitting in a classroom and seeing the light bulbs go on and realizing,‘Oh, they get it!’” he shares. During one of the recent seminars, Keith had just explained the function of a balance sheet when one of the attendees raised their hand.“I work for a nonprofit,” she told Keith,“and our accountant has been trying to explain balance sheets to me for a year and a half.This is the first time I got it.” For Keith, these types of illuminating moments are what SCORE is all about.“That feedback, knowing that I’m helping, makes it worthwhile,” he says. With SCORE, you’re never alone! Schedule an appointment to meet with a mentor today. Call 1-866-726-7340 or visit StLSCORE.org right now!
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1-866-726-7340
ThrowAway Your Resolutions And Set Alternative Goals for the New Year
PICKAWORD OFTHEYEARWITH MELINDA GATES. “I do believe in starting the new year with new resolve,” says Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“but instead of adopting a resolution, I choose a word of the year — a word that encapsulates my aspirations for the 12 months ahead.” Gates says that words like “spacious” or “grace” have helped her center herself and serve as a reminder about what she really wants to focus on. In 2019, Gates chose the word “shine,” stating that,“It’s a reminder for all of us to turn on the lights inside of us, lift each other up, and shine together.” With SCORE, you’re never alone!We offer workshops and seminars each month to help you develop the skills you need to succeed.Visit StLouisSCORE.eventbrite.com today! SHIFT, SHIFT, SHIFT Think about the beginning of 2010.Were you the same person then as you are today? There’s a good chance you are not, which means you’ve set different goals for yourself each year to reflect your growth.The same principle applies to business. It’s perfectly okay to shift your sales expectations and end results to better suit your current success and what you need — no matter what you did in previous years. Be flexible and make changes in your sales goals as you see fit. To start off the 2020s strong, you need to create attainable goals that improve your business. Don’t model your goals after another business that seems to be thriving; focus on what you need to achieve success! It all starts with setting the right goals to get there. With SCORE, you’re never alone!We offer workshops and seminars each month to help you develop the skills you need to succeed.Visit StLouisSCORE.eventbrite.com today!
fall on an old cliche, take a page from two of the most successful people in business.
At the start of each new year, about half of all Americans set at least one NewYear’s resolution, a promise to themselves that they will thrive in the coming year. Unfortunately, research fromYouGov Omnibus, an international market research firm, found that only 1 in 5 Americans stuck to their resolutions.The fallibility of NewYear’s resolutions is why few successful CEOs or leaders bother making them. Year’s resolutions; make goals instead!” Unfortunately, if you haven’t been making goals already, you’ve likely been setting yourself up for failure. Setting goals, achieving them, and making new ones should be a habit all year long, not just something you do on Jan. 1.The start of a new year is still a great time to reflect and strategize, but rather than Around this time of year, plenty of articles pop up with hot takes like,“Don’t set New
REFLECT ON 2019WITHTIM FERRISS. For decades, entrepreneur and best- selling author Tim Ferriss made NewYear’s resolutions every year.Then, he developed a better strategy.“I have found ‘past year reviews’ (PYR) more informed, valuable, and actionable than half-blindly looking forward with broad resolutions,” Ferriss said in a 2018 blog post. At the start of each year, Ferriss spends an hour going through his calendar from the past 12 months and making a note of every person, activity, or commitment that sparked the strongest emotions, both positive and negative. The most positive events get rescheduled immediately for the new year. Meanwhile, the negative ones get put on a “Not-To-Do List” and hung up where Ferriss can see them.
GETYOUR SALES GOALS RIGHTTHE FIRSTTIME
AND MAKE 2020 YOUR BEST YEAR YET
the number of sales you made each month for the past two years. Identify the months with the highest and lowest sales and find the average of those numbers. Use this figure as the starting point.
No matter what industry you are in, you can’t build a successful business without sales. Making a sale establishes a relationship, almost always yields a profit, and lays the foundation for future growth.When your sales fall flat and you fail to meet goals — or even set them — your business suffers negative consequences. As we head into a new
KEEP IT PERSONAL
There’s no hard-and-fast rule on setting sales
goals other than this: The goals need to fit your business. For car dealerships, for example, setting individual goals for your
decade, follow these suggestions for short- and long-term goals to guarantee your sales success. THINK LIKE GOLDILOCKS The problem with goal-setting is many people aim too low or
employees may be ideal. For physical therapy clinics and chiropractors, however, it may be best to develop company-wide goals. Regardless of your industry,
shoot too high. Instead, you need your sales goals to be just right.The key is to find a goal
you must make sure sales goals support the overall growth goal of your business and keep employees engaged and challenged.
that is challenging for your team to reach, but also attainable. Here’s one way to go about creating that Goldilocks goal: Look at
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THE DEATH OF PRODUCTIVITY! ARE YOU MAKING THIS TIME MANAGEMENT MISTAKE?
belong to, join those groups, and send them a connection request.With that connection, you’ll be able to message them directly, and they may see that you messaged them when it notifies them in their email inbox! As for finding influencers, you probably know the most popular experts in your space, but pay close attention to who else is out there sharing content and having a voice. If these people are sharing other experts in your topic, building a relationship with them could pay off. “Influencer marketing” is a powerful way to get your brand in front of the right people. If it’s not something you practice regularly, start by making a list of the influencers you’d love to interact with and get those relationships built! With SCORE, you’re never alone!We offer workshops and seminars each month to help you develop the skills you need to succeed.Visit StLouisSCORE.eventbrite.com today! So, how should we manage our time? The key, ironically, is “single tasking.” Approach tasks in sequence and give each one your total focus. While you’re doing them, build in short breaks to recharge periodically, such as a 10-minute social media break after 50 minutes of strenuous work, or a 5-minute break after 25 minutes of work. Minimize distractions from email, social media, and phone notifications. Connecting with others should be its own task, not an always-on activity. Single tasking may not be easy in a world full of distractions, but if you master it, you’ll be amazed at how productive you can be! With SCORE, you’re never alone! Schedule an appointment to meet with a mentor today. Call 1-866-726-7340 or visit StLSCORE.org right now!
boost in productivity, right? Unfortunately, no. Researchers have found that multitasking slashes productivity by as much as 40%. The quality of your work isn’t better, either. You can expect to have more mistakes and less creativity in your work when you’re multitasking.There simply isn’t room to daydream or think up ideas if your brain is being pushed to the brink. Multitasking is also disastrous for anyone who’s actively trying to learn something. Split attention results in something called “inattentional blindness.”Your senses pick up stimuli like sounds or sights, but your brain doesn’t register it.This is what happens when you’re texting someone on your phone while someone is talking to you in person — you don’t really “get” what the person just said.
If you think you’re a master multitasker, put down your phone and listen up because you need to hear this:You’re not. The human brain simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to do two or more things at the same time.According to Dr. Susan Weinschenk, when you think you’re multitasking, what you’re really doing is task switching (rapidly going back and forth between tasks), sometimes as fast as one- tenth of a second. But that constant switching is mentally taxing. In fact, a study from the University of Sussex found that people who routinely multitask have lower gray matter density in the area of the brain that handles empathy, emotional control, and cognitive control.
So, multitasking can literally damage your brain, but at least you’ll have a short-term
Boost Your Content With Influencer Marketing
that references him and one of his ideas. Then, you can email him, noting that you’ve mentioned him in your content and that you’d love to hear his thoughts on your article. This won’t always work, of course, but even influencers love shoutouts and validation — and that means you could find yourself mentioned on their social media page, on their blog, or in other important channels. It also opens the door for collaboration and interaction in the future, which is huge! Neil Patel has more than 971,000 Facebook likes and 340,000 Twitter followers, so even a brief mention from an influencer can send a ton of traffic your way and give you an enormous boost in credibility.There’s also increased effectiveness in influencer marketing, proven by a marketing content’s earned media value, or EMV, which increased overall by 1.5 times from 2014 to 2015. Email is a more powerful way to reach out to influencers, but if you don’t have their email address, you can still reach them through LinkedIn. Find out which LinkedIn groups they
A lot of effort goes into making content that’s perfect for your target audience: generating ideas, crafting headlines, and creating content itself. From there, you post it on your website, distribute it through social channels, and wait for viral success and huge sales jumps, right? It would be great if content worked that way, but it’s rarely that simple! To get the most out of your content, you need to share it so the right people see it. If distributing content directly to your current audience isn’t doing enough, there’s another way. Let’s adjust our mindset from targeting the audience directly to targeting influencers who already have your ideal customers’ attention. It’s a subtle shift, but it could make all the difference, especially considering that 78% of brands have increased their content output over the last two years, while average engagement has decreased by 60%. One way to reach influencers is by including references to influencers in your content itself. For example, if you think Neil Patel is a fantastic content marketer, write an article
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St. Louis Bi-State Region
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS EXPERT LEADWORKSHOPS + MENTORS TO GUIDEYOU = THE SCORE ADVANTAGE
JANUARY 2020 Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 • How to Start and ManageYour Own Business Monday, Jan. 13, 2020 • How toWrite an Effective Business Plan • Understanding Financial Statements Monday, Jan. 27, 2020 • Buying a Franchise or Existing Business • GrowYour BusinessWithWomen’s Business Enterprise (WBE) Certification
FEBRUARY 2020 Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020 • How to Start and ManageYour Own Business • Hiring Made Simple for New Employers Monday, Feb. 10, 2020 • How to Be Seen on Google Using Search Engine Optimization and Google Ads • How toWrite an Effective Business Plan Monday, Feb. 17, 2020 • LinkedIn Success — Creating Consistent Leads and Clients
To register for an upcoming workshop, go to StLouisSCORE.eventbrite.com . *Workshop schedules are subject to change.
Use the following promo code to receive $10 off your next workshop: Mentor19
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SCORE is a resource partner of the Small Business Administration and provides mentoring services free of charge to all business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.
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