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Still Teleworking? 7 Tips to Help Avoid Burnout While Remote

Months after the start of the pandemic, millions of people are still teleworking. Remote work offers a variety of advantages. It allows people to avoid close contact. It also tends to boost productivity. Unfortunately, telework also comes with a few challenges, including burnout. Depending on the type of job, working from home can provide more freedom. You may get to set your hours or enjoy a little more schedule flexibility. This is great for some people, but it tends to blur the lines between work and home life. When you struggle to separate work from your personal life, anxiety and stress creep in. In April, about 45% of US workers reported feeling “burnt out.” By July, close to 69% of employees were experiencing symptoms of burnout while working from home. So, how can you maintain a work/life balance when the two are intertwined? Here are seven of the most effective …

How Michael Preysman Is Rethinking Retail with EVERLANE

How much does it really cost to produce a T-shirt? In most cases, you’ll never know, but EVERLANE wants to change that. EVERLANE was launched in 2011 as an online clothing retailer with transparent pricing. Instead of just a sticker price, clothes sold through EVERLANE include a breakdown of the production costs. The company wants to educate consumers by letting them know where they source their materials from, how much they cost, and how much the company makes. Their radical approach was the brainchild of Michael Preysman. It apparently struck a chord with consumers, as the company now generates over $40 million in revenue. The success of the company may surprise some, as they mostly offer no-frills, modern designs. The clothes available from EVERLANE can resemble the simplistic items that you’d find at Old Navy or Gap.. So, how did a clothing retailer with minimalist designs succeed in a …

How Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd Is Shaking up Gender Norms

You can add Whitney Wolfe Herd to the list of successful entrepreneurs with popular social platforms. However, unlike most of the startup founders in Silicon Valley, Herd is a woman. People often associate tech startups with the male gender. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Joel Simkhai (Grindr), and Sean Rad (Tinder) launched some of the most popular social networks and dating apps. Whitney Wolfe Herd is giving these men a run for their money. Bumble is headed toward an initial public offering (IPO) valued at more than $6 billion. Wolfe Herd launched Bumble in December of 2014 with two former Tinder employees. Just six years later, Bumble is the second-most popular dating app in the United States. Over five million people actively use Bumble to make connections, date, or find new friends. So, what led to the success of Bumble? How is it different from the social apps …

Tips for Managing Stress and Anxiety as a Business Owner

There are many positives that come along with running your own business. You can make your own schedule. You make all the decisions about how to spend your revenue. On the flip side, making all the decisions all the time can feel overwhelming and stressful. It’s important to develop the tools to handle stress and anxiety as a business owner. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports that 70% of adults encounter stress or anxiety every day. Most of these adults say the stress interferes with their lives. Similarly, most business owners would likely report that stress has a negative impact. The problem with being afflicted with burnout when you’re a business owner is that you can’t exactly stop and smell the flowers for a while, and then come back when you’re refreshed and re-centered. The business isn’t going to slow down for you, and neither is the workload. …

19 Great Ways to Advertise Your Business with No Money

Right after starting a new small business, funds can be tight. Payroll, office space, taxes, and production can eat into capital. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to have a capital investment. If you are like many entrepreneurs, you’re not worried about investors; you’re bootstrapping your business on a shoe string. There’s no way you have $100,000 lying around to conduct a direct mail campaign (and that’s what it often costs, by the way). Newspaper ads, telemarketing, billboards, and television commercials can also run six figures each. And what’s worse is that newspapers, landlines, and traditional TV are all being replaced by websites, cell phones, and streaming video. Even low-cost awareness building activities can eat up between $15,000 and $75,000 of your annual budget. For a small business, that’s a lot of money. In this context, marketing or advertising can get short shrift. So what’s a small business owner to …

Find a Perfect Toll Free Number with (833) Area Code

Have you dreamed of registering the perfect toll free number for your business? Well, the realization of your dream may be closer than you think—just not in the form that you might expect. On June 3, 2017, a massive collection of phone numbers with a new toll free area code, (833) was opened and made available. What this means is that all the premium vanity numbers and most desirable combinations can be taken again with the new area code. This release comes not a moment too soon because people were beginning to scramble for any decent toll free phone number they could get their hands on. (833) has changed the game. Good Luck Getting an 800 Number Most people are surprised the first time they try to obtain a toll free number when they ask for a number with the classic (800) area code, expecting to be given …

Should Your Small Business Make Teleworking Permanent?

Teleworking has become one of the most common ways that businesses have dealt with the current coronavirus pandemic. Before COVID-19, about 18% of the workforce worked remotely full-time. In May of 2020, during the height of the lockdown orders, about 35% of employees worked from home. As local & state governments began easing restrictions, businesses started bringing employees back to the offices. Several months later, close to 25% of workers still telework. So is it a viable long-term solution or simply a short-term answer for dealing with the pandemic? To answer this question, we need to take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking for small businesses. Why Continue Teleworking After the Pandemic? Teleworking provides a way to keep employees safe but it comes with limitations. Some businesses have struggled to replace in-person communications with remote communications. You may also find that it is difficult …

The Rise of Airbnb: Taking Over the Hospitality Industry

Airbnb was founded in 2008 with just a single listing. A little over a decade later, you can browse close to two million listings, which includes over 30,000 tiny houses and 5,000 castles. About 150 million users offer up their homes and properties in over 65,000 cities across the globe. That’s quite the operation.. So, how did Airbnb go from renting a single room with an air mattress to a $31 billion company with millions of listings? Here is a closer look at what it took for the founders of Airbnb to disrupt the hospitality industry. Renting Out an Apartment to Cover Rent The story of Airbnb starts in 2007 in San Francisco. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were designers that met at the Rhode Island School of Design and moved out west after college. As with many young professionals in Silicon Valley, Chesky and Gebbia …

3 Ways to Forward Your Landline to a Cell Phone

As a business owner, you take important phone calls at the office. But you’re not always in the office. You’re meeting clients, attending events, and ducking out for lunch at school with the kids. So what do you do when an important call comes in on your business phone system but you’re not there to take it? Believe it or not, there are lots of options for business owners who face this predicament. Most offices have a landline, and most business owners & managers have a smartphone. These two can easily work together to create a seamless system that reaches you wherever you are. Having a landline at home might seem dated now. More than half of Americans have gone to wireless only in their homes, and the trend toward landline-free residences shows no signs of abating. As you probably expected, most people who still use landlines at home come …

Running a Business During COVID-19? 12 Tips to Ensure Success

Running a business is never easy, but COVID-19 has created a slew of additional challenges. From lockdowns to capacity restrictions, businesses everywhere are struggling to adapt to the new normal. The pandemic is especially difficult for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Don’t panic! You don’t need to let COVID-19 bring an end to your business. So, how do you keep your business afloat during a pandemic? Online meetings & teleworking are a couple of the ways that businesses are coping. However, those solutions don’t work for every business owner.. Luckily, we’ve uncovered a variety of tactics that you can use to ride out the pandemic. Whether you have an online or a local business, the following 12 tips can help you remain successful. 1. Review Your Local COVID-19 Restrictions If you want to avoid costly fines and penalties, you first need to review the COVID-19 restrictions in …