UTL Business Agency

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE

1. Make your profile public
Check your account settings, and make sure that your public profile’s visible. This simple change will allow you to show up in searches (and be spotted by recruiters).

2.Update Your Location
This’ll improve accuracy when someone searches for say, “Engineers in Dallas/Fort Worth Area” This step isn’t just beneficial if you’re looking to be recruited or be searchable for clients; it’s one way to take your online network offline. It’s how people in your extended network will know you live in their city—so they think to invite you to meet up for coffee or to a cool event.

3. Be Strategic About Your Endorsed Skills
Do you have endorsements for a bunch of run-of-the-mill skills that do nothing to help you stand out (Think: Microsoft Word, Google Docs)? If so, they’re detracting. You want your skills section to do two things: include keywords that make you more searchable and reinforce the story you’re telling of who you are and what you can do. So, click into that section and do three things:

Delete any meaningless skills (Hint: You shouldn’t list Facebook unless you’re trained in social media and manage professional pages)
Add skills that are key for someone in your industry and role
Reorder the list so your most important skills are on top
Before you say endorsements don’t really matter, you should know they do! This article explains exactly why.

4. Create a Customized URL
A custom URL makes it so much easier to send people to your profile—and means you no longer have to worry they won’t find you. (Case in point: There are 135 Kyle Elliott’s on LinkedIn.)

5. Add a Background
This is one of my favorite features. It allows you to show some creativity—and highlights your brand. Think about what people instantly associate with what you do (photographer—camera; tech—computer, etc.) or choose from more than 20 free, professional options we’ve rounded up.

6 TIPS FOR STARTING A BUSINESS

1. Know yourself, your true motivational level, the amount of money you can risk, and what you're willing to do to be successful. Sure, we all want to make millions of dollars. But what are you willing to give up to reach that goal? How many hours a week will you work on an ongoing basis? How far out of your comfort zone are you willing to stretch? How far will your family stretch with you? To be successful, keep your business plans in line with your personal and family goals and resources.

2. Choose the right business for you. The old formula – find a need and fill it – still works. It will always work. The key to success is finding needs that you can fill, that you want to fill, and that will produce enough income to build a profitable business.

3. Be sure there really is a market for what you want to sell. One of the biggest mistakes startups make is to assume a lot of people will want to buy a particular product or service, because the business owner likes the ideas or knows one or two people who want the product or service. To minimize your risk for loss, never assume there is a market. Research the idea. Talk to real potential prospects (who aren't family and friends) to find out if what you want to sell is something they'd be interested in buying, and if so, what they'd pay for the product or service.

4. Plan to succeed. If you're not seeking investors or putting a huge sum of money into your business, you may not need an elaborate business plan, but you still do need a plan - one that specifies your goal – your destination – and then lays out at least a skeletal roadmap for how you'll get to where you want to go. The plan will change as you progress and learn more about your customers and competition, but it will still help you stay focused and headed in the right directions. Use our business planning worksheet to help develop that basic plan.

5. Don't procrastinate. I've heard some people advise would-be business owners to not move ahead with their business until they have investigated every last detail of the business they want to start, and are absolutely sure it's all going to work and be profitable. The problem with that approach is that it leads to procrastination. No one ever really has all the pieces in place – even after they've started their business. Yes, you need to research the market, have a rudimentary plan in place and do things like get a tax id if needed, register with local officials, if required, etc. But if you try to make everything perfect before you launch, you may never get around to starting the business at all.

6. Start on a small scale before going all out. Some people believe that entrepreneurs are risk-takers. But for the most part, successful entrepreneurs don't like walking blindfolded on a limb. Instead, they take controlled risks. They test an idea on a small scale, then build on what works well, tweak what shows promise and discard the disasters.

5 WAYS TO DEVELOP LEADERS IN YOUR COMPANY

1. Hire People With the Capacity to Lead

During the interview process, look at a candidate’s experience and work ethic. Do they challenge themselves at every level? Do they go the extra mile when trying to achieve their goals? Even without a title, do they take a leadership position on projects? Lastly, do they take the initiative on projects, or do they wait to be told what to do?

2. Test New Employees Early

Once you’ve hired a future leader, remove the bubble wrap and see what they can do. Give them an assignment and some direction. Assess their creativity, organizational skills and response to deadlines. These are all critical elements in future leaders. It's important that you evaluate them and ask, Did they embrace the challenge, or did they shy away from it? More importantly, did they exceed your expectations?

3. Seek Their Input

a) One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is not seeking input from their employees. If you've taken the time to put the right team in place, then you need to have confidence in their ability to have a measurable impact on your bottom line. Don’t be afraid to ask employees, “What would you do in this situation?” It’s not a sign of weakness on your part, but rather, it reinforces your confidence in your employees and their abilities to get the job done.

b) Earlier this year, I coached my daughter’s eighth grade travel basketball team. I had nine girls on the team, and all of them will probably play at least high school basketball. They exuded confidence and played so well together. In the third or fourth game of the season, we faced a tough opponent, and the game was tied going into the final quarter. I suggested a zone defense, but a few of my players disagreed. They said we could win by playing a man-to-man defense. I replied, “It’s your game to win or lose; I’m just along for the ride.” They played it their way, and they won. In future games, I sought their input when we called timeouts, and they were happy to provide me with it. It was like watching future women leaders in action. We wound up winning the league championship this year.

4. Delegate More Responsibility

Once your employees have proven themselves, task them with additional responsibilities. Let them own projects, and give them the latitude to make decisions on their own and work with outside partners, vendors and customers. They'll make mistakes; that’s part of the education process. But they'll hopefully learn from their errors and not make the same mistakes twice. Their growth will help your business thrive.

5. Keep Them Motivated

We often hear from business owners who are worried that, after they spend time and money teaching employees about their business, those employees will leave to go work for another company. My response? “Why would anyone leave your company?”

Employees leave companies for money, better growth opportunities, personal reasons and more. As a business owner, the best defense against employee turnover is a good offense. If you hire the right people and put together a solid team of positive people, seek their input, delegate responsibility to let them prove themselves and keep them motivated, then you should keep more people than you lose.

And that’s the best investment you can make in your business.

5 WAYS TO ATTRACT PEOPLE TO YOUR WEBSITE

1. Make Your Content Irresistible

a) All the promotion in the world won’t build a thriving audience if your content sucks. Truly incredible content, products or services can be your best marketing tool. Everything you do online has to start with creating something incredible.
b) Don’t be afraid to say what everyone else is thinking but not saying. Other people are probably thinking about it too, and they’ll love you for being brave enough to say something.

2. Take Your Show on The Road

a) Be everywhere (as my friend Pat Flynn likes to say). Make videos, create a podcast, represent on different social media platforms.
b) Write guest articles for other blogs. This is still one of the most effective and underused strategies for building your own audience. Just do it and stop making excuses.

3. Make Your Case Clear

a) When someone comes to your site, you have to answer the question they’ll be asking themselves: “why should I spend any time on this site instead of one of the dozens of other sites I already know and love?” You have to answer this question quickly, clearly and compellingly

4. Keep Them Coming Back

a) The best audience is a captive one. Instead of constantly relying on other sources of traffic, create your own by getting your visitors to subscribe for updates from you (focus on email first, social media second).
b) Directly ask people to subscribe once in a while. Tell ’em what’s in it for them.
Create special subscriber-only content.

5. Make it Pretty(ier) and More Functional

a) Your site’s design matters more than you think. If you have a crappy looking design, you’re missing out because too many of your hard earned visitors are leaving before they read your incredible content.
b) Design for function. What do you want your site to achieve? You want to hook your visitors and keep them coming back. Design with the end goal in mind.