Lisa Robbin Young

Making your business better is one of the key things that you need to be getting right when it comes to improving your success. There are so many ideas that play a role in helping to improve and enhance this process, and you need to focus on the best ways of being able to achieve this. Improving your company is something that plays a key part in helping build a memorable and successful brand.

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It is important to come up with some of the best possible ideas that play a role in helping your company improve, and this means making the right decisions at the right times. You need to consider the best ways of being able to make your business better, and these are some of the best changes you can make that will help you to achieve this. 

Have a Plan for Success

Having a plan for success is one of the best things you can do when looking to improve this process. It is important to focus on some of the best ways of being able to achieve business success, and you need to think about how this can happen. Crafting a detailed business plan for the future is one of the best things you can do when it comes to making the most of this moving forward right now. You have to make sure you come up with some of the best ideas that will help you when it comes to making the key decisions as a business. 

Hire the Right People

Making sure you hire the right people in your company is one of the key ways of being able to ensure you work toward greater success. It is important to think about what it takes to achieve this, and you need to think about what is involved in this. Choosing people who are experienced professionally, as well as having the right kind of personality to fit into the company is so important, and there is a lot that you can do to help improve this as much as possible. Coming up with ideas that will make your company better is important, and this is one of the key considerations to make here.  

Understand How to Market Your Brand

You need to look at your marketing philosophy, as well as what you can do to improve this and promote the company in the most effective way possible. This is something that plays a massive role in this process, and you have to try to make sure you come up with some of the key ideas that will let you boost your marketing strategy. There are loads of amazing ideas you can use here, and a combination of online and offline marketing techniques can make all the difference to the way you are able to achieve this. 

Protect Your Reputation

Protecting your company’s reputation is one of the best things you can do when it comes to making yourself more successful. There are plenty of excellent ideas that you can use that are going to help you make the most of this, and thinking about the right ways of improving reputation is essential. There are a lot of things that play a part in this, and looking at things like how to protect your privacy online, as well as who you hire and the stance you choose to take on societal issues can be great ways of protecting your reputation.

Be More Efficient

Efficiency is one of the core components of success in the world of business, and this is something that you need to try to make the most of when looking to improve your company. Try to make sure you come up with some of the best ways of being able to focus on this as much as possible. There are so many elements that you have to consider when it comes to boosting the efficiency of your company, and this is something that you need to make the most of as much as possible, and this is one of the best ways of making your company better. 

When you are looking to find the best possible steps that will help your company thrive, it is important to assess what it takes to make your brand better. You have to excel and stand out as a business, and this is something you have to keep in mind as much as possible right now. It is vital to make sure you focus on some of the best ideas that will help make your company better.

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Every manager or owner should look for the best ways to improve your business efficiency, but it should not finish within the office and with your customers. In addition, making your customers’ lives easier can significantly boost your company’s fortunes and help it increase its reputation within your industry. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to make life simpler for your customers, and here are the best approaches to consider. 

Provide Easy Payment 

Payments are perhaps the biggest aspect that businesses should improve when trying to make their customers’ lives simpler. Whether you need to organize a one-off payment for a purchaser or set up recurring payments for long-term clients, it must be safe, secure, and straightforward. 

There are many ways you can ensure easy payments, including offering multiplier ways to pay such as debit, credit, points, or cryptocurrency. The more diverse and creative your payment approach, the more confident your customers will feel when they reach the checkout. 

Make Your Business Easy to Find 

Customers interacting with your business is not all about browsing your website. Your business should also be easy to find online, both for desktop computers as well as mobiles and tablets, which help your customers reach your company wherever they are. 

If you haven’t already done so, consider designing a mobile app, there are multiple ways to build an app to simplify their experience. You can also make your company easy to find on social media and search engines, including filling in all the information a customer would need, such as your address, opening hours, and contact details. 

Keep Your Store Organized 

There are few things more frustrating than searching through a store - whether online or in person - and being unable to find what you need. Most customers would have a certain level of autonomy. They want to be able to find the products themselves, but this can be impossible if you fail to organize your store correctly. 

A logical layout should feel natural. Stock related items beside each other to make your customers’ lives easier and empower them to get everything they need without spending all day in the store. They will have a positive experience and feel comfortable returning. 

Train Your Employees 

While many customers want to feel empowered to do everything themselves, some require assistance, which is why you must train your employees and give them all the knowledge they need to help. 

Regular detailed training is ideal if you want to improve engagement and profitability within your business. The more your employees know (and don’t need clarification from you), the more confident they will be, which shines through when helping customers. It demonstrates competence, which makes your business seem more professional. In turn, this establishes your company as legitimate and improves the customer experience. 

The Simple Life 

Every customer wants their buying experience to be as straightforward as possible. The more convoluted your approach, the quicker they will be put off your business and happily shop elsewhere. By providing a simple and high-quality service no matter where they are, you can boost your company’s profile and establish your enterprise as the go-to choice for your community. 

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Workplace diversity isn’t just about meeting a quota. Hiring employees from a range of different backgrounds can have many benefits for your company. Below are a few reasons why diversity matters within your workforce.

Diversity helps creativity to thrive

Diversity is great for encouraging different ideas. While a team of young, white, able-bodied men are still likely to have many different individual experiences, they are not going to have the same range of experiences as a mixed age, multiracial, mixed ability and mixed gender team. People with different backgrounds may be able to identify different problems and solutions. Your team members can also learn from each other as a result of this. When it comes to industries where creativity is important such as product design, marketing and research, it could be essential to hire a diverse team. 

Diversity improves your customer reach

Diversity can help to build consumer trust. In fact, diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets. This is likely to be due to creativity and the ability to appeal to more audiences by identifying the problems of different demographics. If you want a diverse range of customers to relate to your product or service, a diverse team of employees can also help to make you more approachable. All in all, it’s good for your brand.

Diversity leads to greater employee retention

Many employees are also likely to feel prouder working for an employer that champions diversity. A new diversity and inclusion study found that 81% of respondents would consider leaving their job due to a lack of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. While it is true that some employees may be less welcoming to certain minority groups or demographics, most people are fairly open-minded when it comes to who they work with - as long as they’re friendly and competent at their job. Worrying that certain employees may not fit in with the ‘company culture’ may in fact be a form of discrimination on your part. Consider the fact that adding more diversity may be good for your team morale and could lead to a reduced turnover. 

Diversity allows you to access a greater talent pool

Being open to hiring employees of different ages, ethnic groups, genders, orientations and abilities could also expose you to a greater range of talent. Some employers are quick to dismiss an employee for being too old or for having a disability without really looking into the skills and experience of that employee. By skimming over certain employees, you could be missing out on talent that could be valuable to your business. This is why you should always approach the hiring process without any personal bias. Focus on what really matters when hiring someone - their knowledge and their passion for the job. 

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There are many aspects to running a business. From operations to marketing (and everything in between), it’s not always easy. Business owners must be able to adapt to new challenges and ways of doing things including ways to make the company more efficient.

Most entrepreneurs know that you'll have your fair share of struggles at some point or another. The key is figuring out how to streamline your workflows, so the business runs as smoothly as possible.  This doesn’t mean your business has to struggle forever; there are plenty of ways to make your business more efficient to save time and money in the long run. Here are some tips on how you can improve efficiency in your company and thereby increase profits in the long run:

Change Your Workflows

As a business owner, you come across situations where you may have to change how you do things. For example, if you’re creating content for your website, you might have to change your strategy if you notice a drop in traffic. You might be creating content that’s not relevant to your target audience. Or, you might not be using the right keywords. At this point, you have two options: You can either keep trying to make the content work or make a change. What kind of change? You could change either the content you create or the workflow around how you create it. For example, you can try creating visual content, such as videos or images, instead of written content. Visual content tends to be more engaging to audiences, making it more likely that they share it. Or, you could look at HOW you're creating that written content and change how that's getting done. I hired a copywriter to help me outline most of the content for Season 6 of the Creative Freedom Show, and it saved me countless hours of trying to rack my brain for topic ideas. That change in the workflow helped me see how to not only create better content, but do it faster by hiring out part of the process. In season 7, I continued to outline the episodes before I scripted them. Even without hiring the copywriter, that change in the workflow still saved me a ton of time.

Automate what you can't change

Businesses can become more efficient by automating everyday tasks through software. For example, you can use a CRM or email service provider to organize leads and automate sales activities. Or you can use accounting software to create reports, create invoices, and track expenses. Automating everyday tasks can help you save time and money in the long run because it frees employees to focus on more critical tasks. It also gives your company an edge over the competition since other businesses might not be efficient.

Outsource the repeatable tasks

One way to make your business more efficient is to outsource specific tasks. For example, you can outsource your customer service to a third-party company if you have an in-house call center. This allows your employees to focus on more important activities related to your business. It also saves you time and money since outsourcing is less costly than hiring your own employees.  Similarly, you can do this for shipping.  UPS international shipping for small to mid-sized businesses is an example of a service you can use to ship your product across the globe, and you can outsource work such as the packaging and delivery of the product to other people. At the same time, you can focus on other essential elements of your business. There are many ways to outsource tasks, such as hiring virtual assistants to do administrative work, using freelance designers for your website design, or having content writers create blog posts. Investing in outsourcing can help boost your business and make it more efficient.

Efficiencies come in all shapes and sizes. One last thing you can do is just delete stuff. Stop doing things. Take them out of the company or off your plate completely. Don't let ANYONE in the organization do them. Your "Stop doing" list is just as important as you "to do" list. Once you've eliminated what you can, try one of these three approaches to streamline your business even further.

Need support? The Creative Freedom Incubator has limited openings this fall. Join us and get the help you need to make faster progress in your growing business.

How many touches does it take for your audience to convert? 

According to some research, it takes on average 8 touchpoints from the initial interest to the full commitment to purchasing. Some research suggests it's as many as 22 "touches"! In other words, most leads will need to interact with your company's marketing content at least 8 times before they are ready to buy. 

There are several steps in the sales process:

  • Interest and awareness
  • Researching and considering your brand
  • Conversion

A sales team will typically prepare interactions to help keep leads in the loop and move them from one stage to another. If your business doesn't have sales professionals, your marketing activities will need to guide your online and offline visitors through the buying process so they don't get stuck in a particular stage. 

But how can your business figure out the right activities to increase conversion rates? 

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Figure out your best-converting activities

How you attribute conversions and track leads can make a huge difference to your strategy. Research tools such as WhatConverts do the hard work for you, not only naming and identifying unique leads but also identifying where they came from. 

For small businesses and marketers trying to build value-generating campaigns, it is a fantastic way of:

  • Spotting the different touchpoints
  • Recognizing at which stages specific activities should occur
  • Following the entire lead journey, from first contact to sales
  • Avoiding costly efforts that don't generate sufficient leads

Test and experiment with trackable campaigns

Some activities, such as marketing campaigns using Google Analytics and Google Adwords tracking methods, provide greater insight into your audience's mindset and preferences. Therefore, Google provides marketers with unique experimenting options, allowing you to optimize your marketing content through testing:

  • Which text receives more interactions
  • Which text brings leads to the next stage
  • Which landing page design work best
  • Which keyword triggers conversions
  • What time and location are more effective
  • Etc. 

The more you test, the more data you can receive to improve your marketing touchpoints, even recognizing which type of campaign is needed for different stages. Even small tests can give you meaningful results. Don't be afraid to try!

Ask your customers

Sometimes, the fastest way to know what people think is to ask them. While data can show interaction and engagement with your marketing activities, it will not answer the most important question: why something works. 

As a small business, you can gain valuable insights by inviting a few selected customers to a question panel, where you can interview them. To make it easier for them to say yes to your invitation, consider offering them something in exchange for their time (a PR opportunity, discounts on future products, or even free access to your new offer as a Beta-user or founding member). Here are some questions suitable for customer interviews:

  • What did you think when you saw x? (you can show them some of the marketing campaigns they interacted with)
  • What made you trust us?
  • What didn't you like/ did you find confusing about our marketing activities?
  • How do we (the company) compare with competitors? (you may discover some unpleasant truths about your marketing and how it positions the brand)
  • How does our offer compare with competitors? 

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The interview process may be unpleasant if customers are willing to be fully honest. However, it is an opportunity to improve your marketing activities in the future. 

Potential customers usually need to interact with your brand several times before they decide to purchase. Understanding which activities and content deliver the best results can make your marketing much easier in the future. 

Your support team is a key ingredient in a growing business. Without them, little to nothing would get done. That's why creating a safe and positive work environment for your team is so important - whether they are employees, contractors, or volunteers in your organization. This will not only make them more productive, but it will also make them happier and more likely to stick around, sing your praises, and tell the world about your company. Here are some ways to create a safe and positive work environment for your team members.

Via Pexels

Have Open Discussions With Your Team

Creating a vision for your company means nothing if your team isn't on board. If you're unsure where to start, ask your key team members. They are the ones who spend the most time in the workplace, so they will have a good idea of what needs to be changed to align with your vision. Then, sit down with your entire team (or the department heads if you have a large organization) and have an open discussion about what would make the workplace safer and more positive. You may be surprised at some of the suggestions they come up with.

Make Health and Safety a Priority

Health and safety should always be a priority in the workplace. Not just physical health, but mental health, too. If your employees don't feel safe, they will not be productive. Worse, if they start to resent working there - or are only there "for the paycheck", you may run into other issues. This goes beyond OSHA -required things like first-aid kits, fire extinguishers, and safety signage. You should also have a plan for dealing with accidents and emergencies, as well as time off procedures to give your team a much needed and well-deserved break from the ins and outs of daily work. Whether your contractors are taking designated vacation time or your executive assistant needs a mental health day, having plans and procedures in place to make sure works is covered while giving your team the time off that they need makes a big difference.

This also includes YOU, by the way. Your health and safety are just as important as any other member of the team. Make sure you're creating an environment of empowerment for yourself as well as others.

Financial Security

Provide a sense of financial security for your team (and yourself!). If employees feel their job is secure, they're more likely to stick around and be a positive contribution to the team. When it makes sense, use performance contracts rather than just hiring on a short-term basis. Offer competitive salaries and benefits.

As your company and assets grow, it may also make sense to hire an investment advisor. Look for one who is in compliance with Global Investment Performance Standards, where applicable. Those financial advisors are regulated through a gips consulting service, helping to ensure that you get sound, qualified advice.

Make Flexible Working Arrangements

Flexible working arrangements are becoming more and more popular. And it's not hard to see why. They offer several benefits for everyone. First, employees get a better work/life balance. This can lead to increased productivity and happiness. For employers, it often leads to reduced absenteeism and increased retention rates. After the pandemic that shall not be named, more employers are offering flexible working arrangements as a hiring incentive.

Encourage a Healthy Work-Life Balance

We've all heard the horror stories about Amazon employees being timed to the second so that they have to run across a warehouse or can't take a bathroom break. Don't be that guy. If your employees are constantly working long hours, they will burn out quickly. This is not good for them or your business. Instead, encourage your employees to take breaks and to have a healthy work-life balance. This means they should not be working all hours of the day and night. They should also be taking time off when they need it.

Offer Training and Development Opportunities

While you can't legally offer training to your contact workers, investing in your employees is a great way to create a more positive and helpful work environment. Training and development opportunities help your employees progress in their careers. This will not only make them more productive, but it will also make them feel valued. And you can always let your contractors know about training that could help them be more beneficial to your company. It's up to them, however, if they take it.

Creating a safe and positive work environment is essential for any business. It will make your employees more productive and more likely to stick around. You can create a safe and positive work environment in several ways. These include having open discussions with your team, prioritizing health and safety, creating job security, and offering training and development opportunities.

Every manager should look for solutions to improve their leadership skills to help push their team to new heights. However, not even the finest manager in the world will achieve their goals if they do not know how to cultivate a teamwork culture in their business. With so many contrasting personalities and skills, this can be tricky, but it is not impossible as long as you know the best strategies to implement a culture of teamwork. 

Ask For Opinions Often 

Respect is the foundation of successful teamwork. Without it, you will find one person taking the lead and drowning out other voices, even if those other voices have better ideas. It is important to ask for opinions often, whether you are planning a new office location using a maps API distance matrix or considering the next step in your marketing campaign. 

By asking for opinions, you can gain a better perspective that would open your eyes to new approaches and ideas. Even if you don’t always follow this advice, you still have a reliable log of unique experiences to draw from in the future. 

Define Duties And Responsibilities 

Every team should have defined duties and responsibilities. This ensures everyone is held accountable for their specific task and it will help to generate a chain of success. If one person drops the ball, they know that the rest of the team will need to pick it up, which is the last thing they should want. 

Assigning specific roles to everyone means no one is left to do all of the work. From this, you get a team that is still happy to work together without feeling they are being taken advantage of, minimizing conflicts and promoting gratitude. 

Build Trust 

Teaching your teams effective ways to build trust will make it easier for them to get to know one another and realize how they can support one another during the workday and beyond. 

It can be challenging for professionals to trust others to carry out complicated tasks until they prove themselves, but this will not happen if they don’t trust them, creating a loop without any end. Trust-building exercises, emphasis on communication, and consistent respect all contribute to better trust between employees. 

Encourage Teams to Learn More 

No employee should consider themselves a finished article. The most successful businesses are full of individuals and teams who have continued to learn and broaden their skillset. This professional development can benefit your business just as much as it can benefit them, so offer development opportunities. 

Some may not be thrilled by this, but they will appreciate it when it increases their chances of promotion or moving on to bigger roles outside the company. Furthermore, teams that work together outside of the office on such programs learn a new appreciation for one another that will directly improve your team chemistry. 

Together 

Working together will always get you further than working alone. If you want to take your business to new heights, whether this includes growth or establishing yourself in your industry, consider how these strategies can boost your teamwork culture and bring strong and positive results for your business.  

Nervous about your next online meeting? You're not alone. Video conferences and online coaching sessions can be nerve-wracking, but they do not have to be as bad as many people say they are.

Because more and more jobs and teams are done remotely, video conference calls are an important way to do business and keep everyone in the loop. We use virtual team meetings to keep our entire remote team up to speed. It's the only way we could do this in a cost-effective way. If you usually find virtual meetings to be slow, boring, and not very productive, you can do a few things to make the next one worth going to.

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Check to see that everyone is ready

Send an email to everyone a long time before the meeting so they can prepare. Tell them why you are calling and what they need to read, research, and make. If everyone has done their work, the meeting will go much better. So, you will not waste time telling people things they already know, and you will not make someone feel bad for not knowing what is going on.

Choose a good platform

If the technology is not set up right, virtual meetings can be slow or get off track. In every meeting, someone's microphone stops working, their image freezes, or their camera goes black. Everyone stands around awkwardly while they wait to see if the problem can be solved quickly or if they need more advanced solutions. In either case, having to deal with technical issues interrupts the meeting and wastes time.

Even though there are a lot of options, like Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Slack, there are other platforms with more features and services. Use a platform with better video and sound for your next video conference. You might also want to look into an online whiteboard with an API to get people to talk more.

Make a plan that you can stick to

Plan an agenda with details like possible discussion topics, how people will share information, goals, and more. Before the meeting, make sure everyone knows what will be talked about. It does not hurt to go over it again at the beginning of the call.

You can go back to the agenda if the conversation ends before you finish what you want to say. It also makes sure that people stay on the right path. If people start going off on too many tangents or talking about things that have nothing to do with the purpose of the call, you can refer back to the agenda.

Make sure that everyone knows everyone else

When people do not know who else is on the call, conference calls can be awkward. Most video conferences have a list of who is there, but audio-only conferences don't. Still, the list could grow, and no one has time to look at it all before the meeting. Take a minute to do a roll call and introduce clients and freelancers that the rest of the group might not know. You do not want anyone to say something that could hurt their reputation.

Remove the noise and other issues

Where will you be coming from to get to the meeting? Make sure the room is well-lit and free of clutter and other things that might draw people's attention away from you. This will make people focus on you instead of what is behind you (or on your face). Find a quiet place where you can talk easily when it is your turn. 

Conference calls do not have to be terrible; they can be a good way for businesses to talk to each other. How do you try to make your online meetings good?

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According to a 2017 report from the Society for Human Resource Management, most companies need an average of 30 days to find the right fit when hiring for a role. Slow to hire and quick to fire has been a mantra inside corporate America for decades now, but taking too long to hire new staff can cost you more money in addition to possibly losing out on top potential candidates. Here are four effective ways to reduce your hiring time to find the right talent and improve your game. 

Collect the right data 

How long does it take to typically fill a position in your company? What are the industry standards? How much time does it take to move candidates through every stage? What is the ratio of good and poor applications you usually receive? Knowing these answers can help you figure out what strategies you need to consider to screen prospective candidates and schedule interviews. You may even be able to automate some of it to save you more time. 

Create a structured hiring process 

Even micro businesses can benefit from a structured hiring process. Otherwise you have to start from zero every time you need to fill a new position. Document your hiring process and practices. Interviews, onboarding, all of it! That can help also improving your hiring time.

It doesn't have to be complicated, just consistent. That way you, as the founder/owner, don't have to always be the one doing all the interviews and hiring work. Free yourself up from that job so that you can continue to focus on your zone of genius

Outsource your recruitment 

As interviews drag on and good prospects are scooped up by the competition, poorly managed recruitment increases time-to-hire. This can result in wasted time and money. Fortunately, outsourcing your hiring can be an effective way to mitigate these delays to secure the best candidates in the shortest time possible. For instance, if you're looking to develop an app or customize your wordpress installation, a software development outsourcing company can help you quickly access and find the right person for your team. 

Offer excellent candidate experience

Engage your candidates throughout the hiring process, beginning with the application. Most people looking for work are looking for more than just a paycheck. They want a place where they feel like they're making a difference, where they fit in, and where they can feel good about the work they're doing. Make sure your hiring process is a clear reflection of what it's like to actually go to work for your company.

Start with these suggestions as you're considering your next hire. Look for places in your hiring process that need improvement and take it one step at a time. Yours may not be a big organization, but every hire matters - even those contractors. Make sure there's a good fit, give them an enjoyable experience, and you'll be hiring quality talent for your team at a much faster pace.

Every successful business needs a driven leader that’s going to direct their team to greatness. But without the skills to do so, you’re going to have a very hard time. While some people are born with the skills to lead, there are a lot of things that you can learn to become a better leader - both in your work and your life. Leading yourself, your family, and your community are just as important (if not more so) as leading at work.

No matter what you're up to, there’s always room to better yourself. Being open to learning is an essential skill that everyone should have.

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Keep high spirits

I'm not talking "high vibes only" (ick!). Instead, I'm asking you to be aware of workplace morale - whether you're a team of one or a team of many. An environment of empowerment necessary if you’re going to keep people motivated to get their work done efficiently. If everyone’s spirits are low while they work, the job is much more difficult and miserable. Being able to live and work in a space where it's easier to keep your own spirits high will have an effect on the rest of your team.

There are going to be times when it’s hard to keep your cool, but as the leader, you have the responsibility to maintain the morale. 

Be willing to learn

Sometimes you have to take a page out of another person’s book, and that means accepting that you’re not perfect in your role. Whether you're learning from guys like Charles Zsebik on Medium, or reading the classics on leadership, a good leader knows learning is a lifelong activity in the pursuit of excellence.

Emotional intelligence matters

As mentioned before, being in the role of the leader, there are going to be times when things get tough. Deadlines failed ventures, all of these things are stressful - not many people would blame you for having a negative attitude. However, you need to be able to maintain your demeanor if you want to keep people working to their best standards. 

Understand your team

The more you know about your team, the better you can use them to their best abilities. In a diverse work group it pays to know the strengths and challenges of your team. Finding the right role fit for each person matters. Tools like the Creative Freedom Entrepreneur Type Assessment can help you learn more about how your folks are best wired to work. Then, you can set them on tasks that are a better fit for their unique strengths and challenges. And if you have a situation where you've got a square peg in a round hole, just realize it will be more draining for them to do that work. Be sure to bake in some extra time for recovery after difficult or demanding assignments.

These may seem like obvious ideas, but they are all too often overlooked - especially in smaller organizations. Create an environment of empowerment for yourself, be a role model to your team, and make it easier on yourself and them by finding the right people for the right roles. That can go a long way toward making your life easier as a leader AND being seen in a better light by the members of your organization.