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Why Workplaces Feel Grumpier In 2026 — And How To Turn Things Around

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Workplace grumpiness can impact office productivity.

by Richard Birke, JAMS Pathways

Just about two years ago, I wrote an article with this exact same title. Grumpiness still seems to be on the rise. Are the reasons the same or different? Are old reasons still causing problems, and have new ones added to the burden?

Let’s take a look and reexamine the advice I gave back then and see if it’s still useful.

Last time, the list of “What’s Making People Grumpy at Work?” included remote/hybrid work, social media, political speech and events, lowered social barriers and relaxed boundaries, economic stress and artificial intelligence technology. Some have changed and some not so much.

Economic stress is probably one of the biggest reasons. Even when other pressures come and go, concerns about pay, job security, inflation and the cost of living have a way of showing up at work.

The remote/hybrid work arrangement situation seems to have hit a relative peace. Workers remain widely dissatisfied with return-to-office mandates with a 2024 survey suggesting many would consider leaving their jobs if remote work options disappeared, though policies and transitions seem to be more stable across industries.

Social media remains a powerful force. Powered by AI, these platforms employ algorithms designed to keep users locked into self-reinforcing loops. For many people celebrity news and wealth worship haven’t disappeared so much as become a constant presence that can be easy to tune out at times but hard to fully escape.

Political speech has changed and continues to be divisive. The presidential election was over a year ago, and the midterm elections campaigns are just months away. Even if one is agnostic about politics, it’s hard to ignore historical trends that show that the voters for the party out of power are energized and voters for the party in power are less energized and perhaps slightly disillusioned. Political discussion currently seems to be more about events than philosophies, and the general level of political heat in the workplace seems lower than it was last year.

The AI era feels like the dot-com era of the late 1990s. There was a huge surge of interest and investment, and when that investment got a little bit ahead of the market, there was a crash. Years later, that period was followed by sustained tech growth, which has continued to today. I hear some retrenchment with regard to the “all in on AI” mindset, and while I can’t predict the future, I do expect that we are in the early days of this AI era. If investment ebbs somewhat from its peak, it’ll likely come roaring back in the next wave. Tech moves forward, and AI is a game changer. However, it may take a while for us to feel the full effects.

Now let’s think about what we can do.

Tip No. 1: Energize people.

An effective manager creates a sense of belonging and makes employees feel valued. A manager or leader can use the beginning of a new year as an opportunity to reflect on the mission of the organization. They should ask themself, “Why are we here?” In an educational environment, it’s about student success and employment offers. In a health care setting, it’s about patient outcomes or perhaps advancing the field through research. In a manufacturing plant, it may be about creating new products or refining processes to streamline production. Put simply, the task of a leader is to inspire employees to work together to accomplish the organization’s goals and achieve its overarching mission.

Tip No. 2: Educate yourself and others.

I strongly encourage any manager to learn the principles of interest-based negotiation and how to defuse positional bargainers. That includes borrowing mediator skills when disputes arise, recognizing different conflict styles, working effectively with neurodivergent individuals or those with high-conflict personalities, communicating more clearly and running better meetings. There is a vast sea of resources, including books, classes, trainings and workshops that can help a new or seasoned manager become better at recognizing conflict at its earliest stages, preventing conflict and, when that’s not possible, resolving it quickly and effectively.

In addition, it’s a smart idea to offer these trainings and resources to as many members of the workforce as possible. The more conflict resolvers there are in an organization, the better.

Tip No. 3: Commit to better communication.

Be transparent. Describe your communication strategy; that is, when and how people will hear about next steps in a project. Indicate the best ways for members of the group to provide input and ask questions. And be clear about what you can’t say. Everyone knows that some matters are confidential, so it won’t hurt, and it might even help, if leadership acknowledges the limits of its ability to disclose.

Workplace grumpiness in 2026 is the result of a buildup of pressure from economic uncertainty, rapid change in the workforce and ongoing communication breakdowns. While leaders can’t control all of these, they can shape daily work by energizing people around a purpose, strengthening conflict skills and communicating clearly. I still stand by this advice: Listen more than you talk, replace judgment with curiosity and model the good behavior you want others to bring to work.

 

richard birke

Richard Birke is the chief architect of JAMS Pathways and is experienced at resolving complex, multiparty disputes. With over 35 years of hands-on dispute resolution, he draws on experience in a wide range of disciplines, including mediation, psychology, economics, law, communications, negotiation theory, strategic behavior, and diversity, equity and inclusion, to apply the right tools to every client situation.

 

The Only Home Maintenance Plan You Need For The Entire Year

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Schedule regular carpet cleaning as part of home maintenance

Your home doesn’t fall apart overnight, it slowly drifts off track when key systems are ignored.

From HVAC and plumbing to pest control and exterior protection, everything needs consistent attention to keep your home running efficiently. The difference between constant repairs and long-term stability isn’t effort, it’s having a plan.

Managing Your Home Upkeep As A System

Most homeowners treat issues like emergencies: something breaks – fix it – forget about it.

Managing your home like a system flips that completely. Instead of reacting to failures, you maintain key systems on a schedule, monitor performance (airflow, water pressure, energy use), and track how things perform over time, preventing small issues from cascading into expensive repairs.

Think of your home less like a “place” and more like a machine with interconnected parts. Your HVAC affects air quality, which affects dust buildup, which impacts filters, which affects system strain. Nothing operates in isolation. A clogged gutter isn’t just a gutter problem, it can affect your roof, siding, and foundation. A dirty HVAC filter impacts energy costs, air quality, and system lifespan.

Stop asking “What’s broken?” and start asking “What needs attention before it breaks?” In practical terms, your home upkeep runs on a plan, not on emergencies, and that’s the foundation of any effective home maintenance checklist.

What Every Home Maintenance Checklist Should Cover

Every home runs on a handful of critical systems. Ignore them, and small issues turn into expensive failures, no matter how detailed your annual home maintenance checklist is.

HVAC (heating, cooling, ventilation) includes the furnace, AC, heat pump, ductwork, and filters. It controls comfort, energy bills, and air quality, and neglect leads to higher costs and premature failure.

The plumbing system, pipes, drains, water heater, and fixtures, moves water in and out of your home. Leaks and pressure issues can silently cause major structural damage.

The electrical system, panel, wiring, outlets, breakers, and outdoor lighting powers everything. It’s safety-critical and often overlooked until something trips or fails.

The building exterior, roof, siding, gutters, windows, foundation, is your first defense against water and weather.

Water management, drainage, sump pump, grading, downspouts, keeps water away from the structure and is critical for long-term integrity.

Pest control is prevention-focused. Pests exploit gaps in other systems like cracks, moisture, and insulation.

Appliances are secondary systems like the washer, dryer, and fridge. They’re not structural but still require upkeep to avoid inefficiency or breakdowns.

Most homeowners only think about these when something stops working. That’s already too late. These systems don’t fail all at once, they degrade gradually if left unchecked, which is why home maintenance yearly plans matter.

Why Most Home Maintenance Yearly Plans Fail

Typical problems:

  • Too reactive, “check this when needed” (you won’t).
  • Too detailed, 50and tasks that feel overwhelming.
  • No timing, no clear “when,” so nothing gets done.
  • No system thinking, tasks are random, not tied to how the home actually functions.

Most home maintenance yearly plans fail because they don’t match how people actually live. They’re overloaded, unscheduled, and disconnected, no prioritization, no timing, no link to systems or seasons. The result is predictable: people ignore the list until something goes wrong.

The biggest issue is they don’t integrate into your life, they sit on a blog page you never revisit instead of becoming a real home maintenance schedule.

A good system doesn’t just tell you what to do. It tells you when to do it, why it matters, and how often it repeats. It’s limited to high-impact tasks, anchored to specific times, and built around how a home actually functions.

Otherwise, it becomes something you read once and never use again.

What A Realistic Annual Home Maintenance Checklist Looks Like

Not a giant list. A structured cycle. A realistic checklist.

A strong annual home maintenance checklist groups tasks by system (HVAC, plumbing, etc.), assigns them to specific times of year, and focuses on high-impact actions, not everything possible. It prioritizes system servicing, exterior protection, and preventative checks, covering core systems, not minor tasks.

You want Spring – HVAC cooling prep and Fall – HVAC heating prep. That’s it. Clear, repeatable, anchored in time.

A good checklist is predictable, limited to what matters most, and scheduled, not optional. It’s divided across the year, not crammed into one list, repeating the same cycle annually as part of your home maintenance schedule.

A realistic checklist isn’t a long list, it’s a repeatable structure. You know what’s coming each season, and nothing feels random.

How To Simplify Seasonal Home Maintenance

Your home’s needs change with the weather, your plan should too. Seasonal home maintenance works because different systems are under stress at different times of year, aligning maintenance with real environmental pressure, not arbitrary timing.

Spring (recovery and prep) focuses on inspecting for winter damage, servicing the AC system, checking drainage, and looking for moisture or leaks.

Summer (performance and efficiency) is about monitoring cooling performance, cleaning outdoor units, checking irrigation and water use, and inspecting windows and seals.

Fall (prevention and protection) shifts to preparing the heating system, sealing gaps and drafts, clearing gutters before heavy rain or snow, and testing sump pumps and drainage.

Winter (monitoring and risk control) means watching for frozen pipes, monitoring humidity and indoor air quality, checking electrical load from heating, and keeping an eye on ice buildup or roof stress.

Seasonal home maintenance ensures each system gets attention when it actually needs it, not based on guesswork.

What Every Home Maintenance Schedule Should Include

If you do nothing else, do these:

HVAC, change filters regularly and schedule annual servicing (heating and cooling).

Plumbing, check for leaks under sinks and around fixtures, and handle basic water heater maintenance (flush if applicable).

Electrical, test breakers and outlets, and watch for signs like flickering lights, tripping breakers, or overheating.

Exterior, keep gutters clear and inspect the roof at least once a year.

Water management, ensure downspouts direct water away, check drainage after heavy rain, and address standing water immediately.

Pest prevention, seal entry points and eliminate moisture (the biggest attractor).

These aren’t “nice to have.” They’re what prevent water damage, system failure, safety hazards, and the most common causes of damage: water, system strain, and neglect. Every solid home maintenance schedule is built around these fundamentals.

How To Build A Home Maintenance Schedule That Works

You treat it like a business process, not a chore.

Anchor tasks to events, not memory, “first warm week” means AC check, “first freeze warning” means winter prep. Automate reminders with calendar alerts set 1-2 weeks early, and keep the same schedule every year to reduce decision fatigue. If you have to think about it, you won’t do it consistently.

Batch tasks by handling exterior checks in one session and interior checks in another. Use service contracts strategically for things like HVAC and pest control, outsourcing consistency, not just labor.

Consistency comes from reducing effort and decision-making. The goal is to remove guesswork. If you have to remember or decide each time, it’s easy to fall behind, which is why structured home maintenance yearly plans work.

When To DIY And When To Hire Within Your Home Maintenance Checklist

A simple rule:

DIY if it’s visual inspection, basic cleaning or replacement (filters, gutters), low-risk and easily reversible, simple tasks that are easy to inspect and don’t depend on specialized tools or training.

Call a pro if it involves safety risks (electrical work like electrical wiring, gas, roofing), system performance (HVAC tuning, plumbing pressure), or hidden components (inside walls, ducts, panels), especially when the system is complex or incorrect work could cause larger damage.

If a mistake could cost more than the service, or it requires tools or knowledge you don’t have, hire it out.

Smart homeowners don’t try to do everything themselves. They manage who does what. Maintenance isn’t about doing everything yourself, it’s about making sure everything gets done correctly within your home maintenance checklist.

Building Home Maintenance Yearly Plans For The Full Year

At its best, it’s boring, in a good way.

A complete system is structured, predictable, and repeatable. Strong home maintenance yearly plans follow a quarterly rhythm, spring, summer, fall, winter, with each season tied to specific system priorities and a fixed set of non-negotiable tasks. Routine servicing is scheduled in advance, supported by automated reminders, with ongoing monitoring of key systems and minimal decision-making.

Over time, it becomes predictable, efficient, and low-stress. You prepare before stress hits, check systems after peak use, and prevent issues instead of reacting to them. Problems stop being surprises.

That’s the real goal, not perfection, but control. The result isn’t just fewer repairs, it’s a home that stays stable, efficient, and easier to manage year after year through consistent home upkeep and a reliable home maintenance schedule.

 

Quiet Quitting Isn’t The Problem. Your Coaching Culture Is.

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by Kimberly Lee, author of “Building a Coaching Culture: The Ripple Effect”

I watched two talented people lose their careers to the same root cause. Not poor performance. Not a bad attitude. Not the wrong skills. Their manager was conflict-averse and simply could not bring himself to deliver constructive feedback, and neither of them ever saw what was coming.

The first one started on the same day I did. We built our teams side by side, grew together, and were part of a strong, cohesive unit. When new executive leadership arrived and shifted priorities, there were performance concerns, not about his capabilities, but about where he was focusing his energy. Nobody told him. No feedback, no course correction, no chance to adjust. His role was changed in a way he never saw coming, and he ultimately left the organization. I had a conversation with him after it all fell apart. He was blindsided. He had no idea there was a problem. It didn’t have to happen that way. What I find most telling is what came next: he landed well, built something new, and eventually recruited me to join him at his next company. The respect between us never wavered, because I had always been straight with him, even when his own manager wasn’t.

The second was someone I had hired and watched grow from a direct report into a team leader. He loved his work and was genuinely good at it. Early on, we had been told to build the MVP and fine-tune later — speed over perfection. He operated that way because that’s what the culture asked for. When the expectations shifted, no one told him. He was moved to a role that was never a good fit, and the impact on him was real, not just professionally, but psychologically.

When a role opened back up on my team, I reached out. He agreed to come back, but only if he reported directly to me. He told me he always knew my feedback came from a genuine desire to see him grow, and that I knew how to talk to him. He came back, did great work, and when I eventually left, he followed me to my next company.

Two people. Same manager. Same missing ingredient. The difference between one whose career was derailed without warning and one who followed me to my next job was not talent, not effort, not fit. It was feedback — consistent, honest, and delivered from a place of genuine investment.

Misaligned Management

Quiet quitting gets blamed on lazy employees or entitled generations. After more than two decades in HR leadership, I’m here to tell you: that’s almost never the real story. People don’t disengage from their work. They disengage from their managers. And the managers most responsible for that disengagement are often not the harsh ones — they’re the ones who say nothing at all.

Here are five coaching behaviors that change that:

1. Give Feedback Before It Becomes a Crisis.

The most damaging feedback isn’t harsh feedback. It’s withheld feedback. When managers avoid difficult conversations because they’re uncomfortable, because they don’t want conflict, because they’re hoping the issue resolves itself, they rob their people of the one thing that could actually help them: information. People cannot course correct on a problem they don’t know exists. I start from the belief that people genuinely want to do well, they just don’t always know where they’re missing the mark. As leaders, our job is to make sure our teams have everything they need to succeed. That includes feedback — whether it’s positive, developmental, or both. If you genuinely believe in someone’s potential, you tell them the truth.

2. Listen to Understand, Not to Respond.

Most managers listen long enough to formulate their next point. Coaching requires something harder: listening to actually understand what’s going on for the person in front of you. When we listen that way, we catch subtle cues — the hesitation, the change in tone, the thing they almost said — and can ask more meaningful questions. It also builds trust. And here’s what managers often miss: listening isn’t just good for your employee. You walk away with your own actionable information, what’s blocking someone, what they need, where the team dynamic is fraying before it becomes a problem. Ask more questions. Talk less. The answers will tell you everything.

3. Make Psychological Safety Real, Not a Poster on the Wall.

Psychological safety is one of the most overused phrases in leadership and one of the least understood in practice. It doesn’t mean everyone feels good all the time. It means people believe they can raise a concern, admit a mistake, or try something new without it being held against them.

None of us have it all dialed in — especially now. In an era of AI and rapid change, the managers who encourage people to try new things and embrace “fail fast” thinking are where real creativity lives. If your employees are afraid to try because they fear being diminished for the attempt, they will do exactly what is asked and never challenge what is possible.

I know this firsthand. Right after ChatGPT became publicly available in 2023, I was invited to participate in a company initiative to explore AI integration across departments. I pitched the idea of a bot to help employees get answers to the standard HR questions we fielded constantly. My boss chuckled, and then, not in a private conversation, but in a team staff meeting, told me that wasn’t a project we would be pursuing and that they didn’t see the value.

I still think it was a good idea. In fact, I went ahead and built it and several others. The lesson wasn’t that my idea was wrong, it’s that environments where ideas get laughed out of the room don’t just lose that one idea. They lose the next ten. Teams with real psychological safety don’t just perform better. They stay. And they keep bringing their best ideas to work.

4. Ask About Growth, Not Just Output.

The standard 1:1 agenda is a progress report. The coaching 1:1 is a connection. And I don’t mean the generic “how was your weekend?” opener that employees see right through. I mean being specific. Did they mention a trip, a big family event, or did their plan literally involve a nap? Remember it. Ask about it.

I have an employee right now whose child has some disabilities, and it has been weighing on her. So, I ask about the new school. I ask how she is coping. I’ve shared some of my own experiences so she knows I understand. That’s not a distraction from work, that’s how you create the safety where someone can bring their whole self to a conversation.

Once that foundation is there, the rest follows. Ask what they want to work on. Encourage them to explore and learn. Strategize with them, don’t just take the status update and end the meeting. Employees who feel their growth matters to their manager are not quietly quitting. They’re the ones staying late because they want to.

5. Empower People to Own Their Work.

I’ve seen what happens when a manager requires sign-off on every communication before it goes out. On the surface, it looks like quality control. Underneath, it communicates something corrosive: I don’t trust your judgment. And once people internalize that message, they stop exercising their judgment. They do the minimum. They stop caring about the outcome because the outcome was never really theirs to own.

Empowerment isn’t a management style preference, it’s a prerequisite for engagement. Give people real ownership, hold them accountable for it, and watch what happens.

One Manager Can Change an Entire Team

Here’s what I know after watching this play out across dozens of organizations: disengagement is not a workforce problem. It’s a leadership problem. And it’s a solvable one. When one manager starts leading differently, giving honest feedback, asking better questions, creating real safety, investing in growth, the effect doesn’t stay contained to their team. Their direct reports start treating their own people differently. The culture shifts. Not because of a company-wide initiative, but because one person decided to show up as a coach instead of a task manager. That’s the ripple. And it starts with your next conversation.

Think about someone on your team right now who has gone quiet. Not checked out — just quieter than they used to be. When did you last give them specific feedback? When did you last ask them what they actually want from their career? When did you last make them feel like their growth was your problem to care about too?

You don’t need a new program. You need that conversation. Have it this week.

 

Kimberley Lee, author of "Building a Coaching Culture: The Ripple Effect"

Kimberly Lee, SPHR, is an HR executive, leadership coach, and founder of Lotic Systems and MyTalentAdvantage. She has spent more than two decades leading HR transformation across global organizations. She is the author of “Building a Coaching Culture: The Ripple Effect” (Business Expert Press, 2026) and the creator of RippleIQ, an AI-powered coaching platform for leaders. Learn more at loticsystems.com and mytalentadvantage.com.

 

The Homeowner’s Checklist For Moving Tools, Equipment, And Hobby Gear Safely

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Moving house often involves far more than packing furniture and clothing. Many homeowners also need to relocate garages, sheds, and hobby spaces filled with tools, workshop equipment, sports gear and specialist items. These belongings can be heavy, delicate or valuable, so moving them safely requires a bit more planning than simply placing them in boxes.

Having a clear checklist can make the process much smoother and help ensure that everything arrives at your new home safely.

1. Sort and Declutter First.

Before packing anything, go through your tools and hobby equipment and decide what you truly want to keep. Over time, many people accumulate items that are rarely used. Separate items into three groups: keep, donate or sell, and dispose of. Reducing the number of items you move saves time, space and effort, and makes organising your new workspace much easier.

2. Create an Inventory.

Once you know what you’re moving, make a simple inventory list of your equipment. This helps track items during the move and ensures nothing is left behind in the garage or shed. For valuable tools or equipment, consider noting serial numbers and taking photos. Numbering boxes and matching them to your inventory list can make unpacking far more efficient.

3. Clean and Prepare Equipment.

Cleaning tools before packing helps protect them and prevents dirt, oil or sawdust from spreading to other belongings. Wipe tools down, remove debris and ensure they’re dry before packing. This also gives you an opportunity to inspect items for maintenance issues before they’re stored or transported.

4. Drain Liquids from Machinery.

Equipment such as lawn mowers, chainsaws, pressure washers and motorcycles may contain fuel or oil. These liquids should be drained before moving to prevent leaks and potential hazards during transport. Taking this step protects both your equipment and other items being moved.

5. Disassemble Larger Items.

Larger tools and equipment are often safer to transport when partially disassembled. Removing handles, blades, stands or detachable parts can make items easier to pack and reduce the risk of damage. Store small components such as screws and bolts in labelled bags so they’re easy to find when reassembling equipment later.

6. Protect Sharp and Fragile Parts.

Many tools include sharp edges or delicate components that require extra protection. Wrap items like drill bits, saw blades, chisels and measuring equipment individually using bubble wrap or protective coverings. This prevents damage and also reduces the risk of injury while unpacking.

7. Use Strong Packing Materials.

Heavy tools require sturdy boxes or durable plastic containers. Double-walled boxes, toolboxes and storage bins are ideal for protecting equipment during transport. Avoid overfilling boxes, as they can become too heavy to lift safely. Adding padding, such as packing paper or foam, helps prevent items from shifting during the move.

8. Label Boxes Clearly.

Clear labels help ensure your equipment ends up in the correct area of your new home. Include basic information such as the contents, destination room and whether the box contains fragile or heavy items. This makes unloading and organising much easier.

9. Plan for Heavy Lifting.

Tools and workshop equipment can be surprisingly heavy. Using proper lifting techniques and equipment can help prevent injuries. Consider using dollies or trolleys to move large items and always ask for assistance when lifting bulky equipment.

10. Arrange Specialist Transport if Needed.

Some hobby equipment may require specialised transport, particularly motorcycles or large machinery. In these cases, professional services can help ensure safe handling. For example, homeowners relocating vehicles may use services such as car transporters in San Antonio to move vehicles safely between locations.

11. Keep Essential Tools Accessible.

It’s useful to pack a small toolkit separately with basic items such as screwdrivers, a utility knife and a measuring tape. These tools are often needed immediately when assembling furniture or making small adjustments in your new home. 

Final Thoughts

Moving tools, equipment, and hobby gear safely requires careful preparation, but the process doesn’t have to be complicated. By decluttering, organising, packing carefully, and using proper transport methods, homeowners can protect their equipment and avoid unnecessary stress during a move. With a little planning, you can ensure your tools arrive safely and be ready to set up your new workspace quickly.

 

Justin Fulcher: Why Private Sector Innovation Must Become Central To National Security

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The gap between commercial technology development and government adoption has never been wider. While Silicon Valley operates on rapid iteration cycles, defense procurement remains anchored to processes designed for Cold War hardware platforms.

Technology entrepreneur Justin Fulcher believes this disconnect poses a fundamental risk to American competitiveness, arguing that national security now depends on bridging the divide between private sector innovation and government institutions.

Commercial Technology Outpaces Defense Development

Modern military advantage increasingly derives from software, artificial intelligence, and networked systems rather than traditional hardware platforms. Yet the timelines governing defense acquisition create a structural mismatch. “The commercial sector is solving problems faster than the government can articulate requirements,” Fulcher observed in a recent interview. This velocity gap means critical capabilities often exist in the private sector years before they reach operational deployment.

The venture capital ecosystem invested over $170 billion in U.S. startups in 2023, funding innovations across autonomous systems, quantum computing, and advanced materials. Many of these technologies hold direct national security applications, but few companies successfully navigate the path from commercial product to defense contract. Justin Fulcher notes that “the bureaucratic friction isn’t just inefficiency; it’s a strategic vulnerability when adversaries can field new capabilities faster.”

Small and mid-sized technology firms face particular challenges. Unlike established defense primes with dedicated government affairs teams and deep familiarity with Federal Acquisition Regulation compliance, emerging companies often lack the infrastructure to engage with defense customers. The result is a persistent innovation gap where breakthrough capabilities remain inaccessible to the organizations that need them most.

Rethinking How Government Accesses Innovation

Addressing this challenge requires structural changes beyond incremental process improvements. Justin Fulcher argues that “we need to fundamentally rethink how government defines requirements, evaluates risk, and engages with commercial partners.” Traditional acquisition models assume government knows precisely what it needs and can specify detailed requirements upfront. This works for predictable platform acquisitions but fails when dealing with rapidly evolving technologies where the art of the possible changes quarterly.

Programs like the Defense Innovation Unit, established to accelerate commercial technology adoption, represent progress but remain limited in scale. DIU’s commercial solutions opening and Other Transaction Authority mechanisms demonstrate that alternative pathways can work, yet they operate at the margins of a much larger system still governed by conventional processes. “You can create exceptions, but exceptions don’t change institutional incentives,” Fulcher explains.

The challenge extends to cybersecurity, where government systems must integrate commercial security tools while maintaining stringent authorization standards. The time lag between commercial product release and Authority to Operate approval can render security solutions obsolete before deployment. In domains where adversaries rapidly exploit emerging vulnerabilities, speed matters as much as thoroughness.

Building Dual-Use Technology Ecosystems

China’s civil-military fusion strategy explicitly aims to eliminate barriers between commercial innovation and national security applications. This integrated approach allows rapid technology transfer in both directions, with commercial companies contributing to defense capabilities and military research spawning civilian applications. While the American system intentionally maintains separation between commercial and defense sectors, Justin Fulcher suggests this creates competitive disadvantages: “When your adversary treats technology development as a unified national strategy and you treat it as separate swim lanes, you’re fighting with structural impediments.”

Developing robust dual-use technology ecosystems requires more than procurement reform. It demands workforce pipelines that prepare engineers and technologists to work across sectors, regulatory frameworks that reduce friction without compromising security, and sustained investment in foundational research that enables both commercial and defense applications. The CHIPS and Science Act represents one model, using federal investment to catalyze private sector manufacturing capabilities with national security implications.

The convergence of commercial innovation and national security is not theoretical. From autonomous systems to quantum encryption, the technologies reshaping civilian industries will determine military competitiveness. Justin Fulcher’s perspective reflects years of navigating both worlds: building a healthcare technology company across emerging markets, then working to modernize government technology adoption. His central argument is clear: making private sector innovation central to national security is not optional but essential for maintaining strategic advantage in an era of technology-driven competition.

 

What Real Estate Investors Need To Know About Vacant Home Insurance

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Real estate investing has a lot of moving parts that experienced investors account for without thinking. Insurance during vacancy periods is not one of them, at least not until something goes wrong.

If you are holding a property between tenants, mid-renovation, or waiting on a sale to close, your standard policy may have already stopped covering you without you knowing it.

Your Existing Policy Has a Vacancy Clause You Probably Have Not Read

Most landlord and homeowners policies include a vacancy clause. It is usually buried in the fine print and it does one thing: it limits or removes coverage if the property sits empty for more than 30 to 60 days. The exact threshold depends on your carrier and policy terms, but the result is the same. A property with no one living in it crosses into a different risk category, and your standard policy was not priced for that.

The reasoning from the insurer’s side is straightforward. Nobody is home to notice the pipe that bursts overnight, the roof that starts leaking after a storm, or the window that gets broken. A burst pipe in an occupied home gets reported and repaired quickly. The same pipe in a vacant property can go unnoticed for weeks and cause far more damage. Unoccupied properties also attract vandalism and theft at much higher rates, and emergency response times to vacant buildings tend to run slower. From the carrier’s perspective, the risk profile changes the moment the last tenant walks out.

Specialty brokers like Farmer Brown Insurance work specifically with investors to fill that gap with policies built for unoccupied properties, including coverage that can be issued at closing and paid directly from closing or escrow proceeds.

What Vacant Home Insurance Covers

Vacant home insurance is a named-peril policy in most cases, meaning it covers specific causes of loss listed in the policy rather than everything except what is excluded. That distinction matters when you are reviewing your options. Coverage typically includes:

  1. Fire and smoke damage – The most common and costly risk in vacant properties, particularly in older buildings or those with aging electrical systems.
  2. Vandalism and malicious mischief – Empty properties are targets, and this coverage responds when damage is intentional.
  3. Weather-related damage – Wind, hail, and storm damage keep happening whether or not anyone is living there.
  4. Burglary – If a forced entry leaves visible damage like a broken door or smashed window, coverage extends to theft of personal items and permanently attached fixtures like AC units, copper wire, and pipes, which are regularly stripped from vacant properties.
  5. Liability – If someone is injured on the property while it sits empty, liability coverage protects you from legal exposure and potential lawsuits.

One thing worth knowing is the difference between a vacant property and an unoccupied one. Unoccupied means the property still has furniture, utilities running, and signs of regular use. Vacant means it is completely empty. Insurers treat these differently and the coverage you need depends on which category your property falls into.

What It Does Not Cover

The exclusions are where investors get surprised. Standard vacant home policies do not cover:

  • Flood damage, which requires a separate flood policy
  • Earthquake damage without a specific endorsement
  • Neglect or lack of maintenance
  • Properties vacant longer than the policy term without renewal

The neglect exclusion is the one that bites investors managing multiple properties at once. If a roof has been in bad shape for months and finally causes interior water damage, the carrier can deny the claim on the grounds that the loss resulted from deferred maintenance rather than a sudden event. Scheduling regular inspections and keeping records of the property’s condition is cheap protection against that argument.

What It Costs

Vacant home insurance runs significantly higher than standard coverage, typically 30% to 50% more than if the same property were occupied. To put that in practical terms, standard homeowners insurance averages around $1,228 annually while vacant home coverage averages around $1,842 for the same property. For higher value investment properties the gap widens further.

The good news for investors who only need short-term bridge coverage is that policies can be prorated by the number of days the property will be vacant. If you need coverage for a 30-day period between tenants, you are looking at approximately $155 rather than a full annual premium.

The main factors that move the price up or down:

  • Location and property value – Storm-prone and high-crime areas cost more to insure
  • Length of vacancy – Policies run for 3, 6, or 12 months with shorter-term options available
  • Property condition – Updated electrical, plumbing, and roofing get rated more favorably than deferred maintenance
  • Security measures – Alarm systems, cameras, and scheduled inspections can reduce your premium
  • Construction type – Wood frame runs higher than masonry or steel

When You Actually Need It

Not every vacancy requires a separate policy. A tenant who moves out and is replaced within 30 days typically falls within what most standard policies allow. The situations where vacant home insurance becomes necessary:

  • Renovations that will run longer than 30 days
  • Properties listed for sale that are sitting on the market
  • Fix and flip projects where the property will be empty for the full renovation and listing period
  • Seasonal or vacation properties with extended off-season periods
  • Commercial properties between tenants, which often sit vacant far longer than residential

Do Not Wait Until Something Happens

The investors who get hurt by vacant property gaps are not the ones who are uninformed. They are the ones who knew about the issue and assumed their existing policy would stretch far enough to cover it. One vandalism event, one burst pipe, one fire in an uninsured building can eliminate the margin on an entire project.

Every investment strategy has vacancy built into it somewhere. The question is whether you have the right coverage in place before the property goes empty, not after. Working with a broker who specializes in this type of coverage, carries A-rated carriers, and can get a policy issued the same day removes most of the friction from getting it sorted.

 

Actionable SEO Tips For Small Businesses In 2026: Winning In The Age Of AI, Social & Search

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SEO in 2026 is about optimising for AI

by Patricia Rollins, Executive Director, Marketing, Thryv

Search isn’t what it used to be.

It’s no longer just about ranking on Google. Your business now shows up in AI-generated answers, map packs, voice searches, short-form videos, and social feeds — sometimes all before a customer even visits your website.

For small businesses, that shift can feel overwhelming. But it also creates opportunity. Because while big brands chase complexity, small businesses can win by being clear, consistent, and structured.

Here’s how to modernize your SEO strategy for 2026 — and turn visibility into real revenue.

1. Create AI-Ready Content That’s Structured for Answers.

Search engines no longer just index pages — they interpret and summarize them. AI tools scan your content looking for clear, direct answers they can surface instantly.

That means vague, keyword-stuffed pages don’t work anymore. What works is content that mirrors how real customers ask questions.

Instead of writing a generic service page about “HVAC Repair,” imagine structuring your content around what people actually type into search bars: “How much does HVAC repair cost in Dallas?” or “What are signs my AC needs repair?”

When you answer those questions clearly — ideally within the first few sentences under each heading — you increase your chances of being featured in AI summaries and voice results. Think of it this way: if a search engine had to quote your page in one paragraph, would it find a clean, concise answer?

Formatting matters more than ever. Short paragraphs. Descriptive subheadings. Natural language. AI systems prefer content that’s easy for humans to skim.

Structured data also plays a major role. Schema markup tells search engines exactly what your business offers, where you’re located, what customers think about you, and what services you provide. It’s like giving AI a labeled blueprint instead of asking it to guess.

When your website, listings, and service pages are managed in one place, it becomes much easier to keep that structure consistent — which strengthens your overall visibility.

2. Treat Social Media as a Search Amplifier.

For years, businesses treated SEO and social media as separate strategies. In 2026, that separation no longer makes sense.

Social platforms influence search in indirect but powerful ways. When someone discovers your business on Instagram or TikTok and later Googles your name, that branded search activity strengthens your authority. When your posts get shared and linked, they generate traffic and backlinks. When customers engage with your educational videos, they spend more time interacting with your brand.

Search engines notice those signals.

The smartest small businesses are now creating content once and distributing it everywhere. A blog post answering a common customer question can become a short-form video, a carousel post, an email, and a FAQ page. Each touchpoint reinforces the others.

Captions should reflect real search language. If someone might search “How long does Invisalign treatment take?” that exact phrasing belongs in your video caption and description. When social content aligns with search intent, it becomes discoverable beyond just followers.

Integration is the multiplier. When your scheduling tools, CRM, website, and social media management work together, you don’t just create engagement — you convert it.

3. Create valuable content (and keep it updated).

Creating valuable content is one of the most critical ways small businesses can improve their visibility in search results. Search engines like Google aim to show users the most relevant and helpful content for their queries, so your goal is to become a trusted resource by answering the questions your customers are already asking. This can take the form of blog posts, FAQ pages, how-to guides, or service explanations. The content should be easy to read, informative, and focused on one clear topic or keyword per page.

To make your content SEO-friendly, use on-page optimization techniques such as including your main keyword in the page title, URL, meta description, and within the first paragraph. Use clear headers (H1 for the main title, H2 for subtopics), and add internal links that connect readers to related pages on your site. This helps both users and search engines better understand your website structure and authority. If you don’t know where to begin, you can use Thryv’s Business Presence tool for ideas on how to improve your website engagement.

Just as important as creating new content is keeping it up to date. Search engines prioritize fresh, accurate information. If you let pages get outdated—with old stats, irrelevant references, or broken links—your rankings can drop over time. Regularly updating older pages with new insights, current data, or improved formatting shows that your site is active and trustworthy. Maintaining a steady blog schedule also signals relevance and can help you capitalize on seasonal search trends, such as “2025 summer HVAC tips” or “holiday gift ideas under $50.” When your content stays current and useful, your business stays more visible.

4. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and fast.

Having a mobile-friendly and fast-loading website is essential for both user experience and search engine rankings. More than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, so if your site doesn’t look or function properly on a phone or tablet, potential customers are likely to leave, and Google will notice. That’s why search engines now prioritize mobile-first indexing, which means they look at the mobile version of your site first when deciding how to rank it.

To ensure your site works well on all screen sizes, use a responsive design. This means your website layout automatically adjusts based on the screen size it’s being viewed on — whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, or desktop. Text should be easy to read, buttons should be tappable, and images should scale properly without users needing to pinch and zoom.

Speed also matters. A slow site can frustrate users and negatively impact your SEO. Two simple ways to improve load time are to compress images and enable caching. Compressing images reduces the file size without sacrificing quality, which means they load faster. Caching is a technical process where parts of your website are temporarily stored in a visitor’s browser so they don’t have to reload every element each time they visit, making repeat visits much quicker.

You can test how your website performs by using a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights. It shows how fast your site loads, highlights any issues, and offers specific suggestions for improvement. A fast, responsive site not only ranks better in search engines but also keeps visitors engaged and more likely to take action, whether that’s making a purchase, booking a service, or getting in touch.

5. Earn high-quality backlinks.

One of the most powerful ways to improve your search engine ranking is by earning quality backlinks. A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours. Think of it as a vote of confidence — when a trusted site links to your content, it signals to search engines like Google that your site is credible, helpful, and worth showing to others. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more likely you are to rank higher in search results.

To build backlinks, focus on getting featured in reputable sites that align with your industry and target audience. You can partner with local bloggers, community organizations, or local news outlets to get mentioned or interviewed. These links not only help with SEO but also drive targeted traffic from people in your area. Another effective strategy is writing guest posts for relevant blogs in your industry. In exchange for your content, most sites will let you include a link back to your own website.

You can also attract backlinks by creating valuable resources that others naturally want to reference, such as original research, how-to guides, or industry statistics. When other websites cite your content as a source, they often include a link to your page. These organic backlinks gradually establish your authority and can significantly improve your visibility in search engines. In short, backlinks help search engines trust your site, and trust equals better rankings.

6. Encourage online reviews.

Online reviews play a significant role in how potential customers perceive your business, and they also impact how well you show up in local search results. Encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews, especially on platforms like Google, helps build trust with new visitors and signals to search engines that your business is active, reputable, and providing value to your community.

Reviews are one of the most important factors in local SEO, particularly for businesses that rely on nearby customers. Google considers both the number of reviews and the overall rating when deciding where to place businesses in search results and on Google Maps. So the more positive, authentic reviews you have, the better your chances of appearing higher in local searches.

It’s just as important to respond to every review, whether it’s glowing or critical. Thanking customers for their feedback shows appreciation and professionalism, while calmly addressing negative reviews shows potential customers that you care about resolving issues. This type of engagement not only boosts your reputation but also demonstrates to Google that your business is responsive and active, thereby further enhancing your local visibility.

7. Strengthen Technical SEO So AI Can Trust You.

You don’t need to understand code to understand this: if your website is slow, inconsistent, or confusing, search engines hesitate to recommend it.

Technical SEO in 2026 isn’t about advanced tricks. It’s about foundational trust.

Search engines evaluate whether your site loads quickly, works seamlessly on mobile devices, and presents clear navigation. If a potential customer clicks your site from an AI summary and it takes five seconds to load, that friction works against you.

Consistency across platforms is equally important. Your business name, address, and phone number must match across directories, your website, and social profiles. Even small discrepancies can weaken local search performance.

Structured data, secure HTTPS connections, and logical internal linking are no longer “nice to have.” They’re baseline requirements for being considered authoritative.

When these pieces are managed separately across different tools, errors creep in. But when they’re centralized, maintaining accuracy becomes manageable — even for busy owners.

8. Use schema markup.

Schema markup is a type of code that you add to your website to help search engines better understand what your content is about. It’s similar to adding labels or tags to different parts of your page. Think of it as giving Google extra clues so it can display your business information more clearly in search results.

For example, if you add schema markup to show your product’s price, customer star ratings, or answers to frequently asked questions, Google can use that info to create rich results — those enhanced listings with stars, prices, or helpful snippets right on the search page. These rich results stand out more, catch people’s attention, and can increase the chances that someone clicks on your website.

9. Optimize Short-Form Video for Discoverability.

Short-form video has become one of the most powerful visibility tools available to small businesses. But many owners still treat it purely as a social media tactic.

In reality, search engines now analyze video captions, transcripts, on-screen text, and descriptions. That means your 45-second educational clip can surface in search results — if it’s structured correctly.

The difference often comes down to clarity. A video titled “Watch This!” won’t travel far. A video titled “3 Signs You Need Roof Repair in Phoenix” speaks directly to search intent.

Adding keyword-rich captions, uploading transcripts when possible, and embedding videos on relevant service pages increases discoverability. Including video schema on your website helps search engines understand exactly what the video covers.

When video answers a specific question and connects viewers to a clear next step — booking, calling, or requesting a quote — it becomes more than content. It becomes a conversion tool.

10. Build Measurable Brand Trust Signals.

In 2026, rankings are heavily influenced by trust.

Search engines analyze review volume, recency, response rates, and user engagement. They evaluate whether customers stay on your site or bounce quickly. They measure whether your business information is consistent and complete.

Reviews are no longer passive feedback. They are structured data points that influence visibility. Encouraging customers to leave reviews regularly — and responding to them promptly — signals legitimacy.

Implementing review schema can allow star ratings to appear directly in search results, increasing click-through rates. But trust doesn’t stop at reviews.

User experience matters just as much. Clear calls to action. Simple booking processes. Fast load times. Transparent service information. If customers can’t quickly find what they need, search engines interpret that friction as dissatisfaction.

Trust isn’t just emotional anymore. It’s algorithmic.

11. Focus on Intent Instead of Isolated Keywords.

The biggest evolution in SEO isn’t AI tools or social platforms. It’s the shift toward intent.

Instead of chasing individual keywords, successful businesses map content to customer needs. Someone searching “emergency plumber near me” is ready to book. Someone searching “why is my water pressure low?” is researching a problem. Both matter — but they require different content.

When you build pages that answer early-stage questions and connect them to high-intent service pages, you create a complete journey.

And when that journey links directly to scheduling, communication, and follow-up tools, visibility turns into revenue.

That’s where integration becomes powerful. SEO shouldn’t live in isolation. It should connect to your CRM, booking system, review management, and marketing tools — creating a seamless path from discovery to customer relationship.

The SEO Reality: Structured, Connected, and Built for Trust

SEO in 2026 isn’t about chasing algorithms.

It’s about being clear enough for AI to understand you, structured enough for search engines to trust you, and helpful enough for customers to choose you.

Small businesses that invest in structured content, social-search synergy, technical consistency, short-form optimization, and measurable trust signals won’t just rank better — they’ll convert better.

And in today’s landscape, that’s what truly matters.

 

Patricia Rollins

Patricia Rollins is Executive Director of Marketing at Thryv, a global AI-powered marketing platform for small and medium-sized businesses. Patricia’s career has focused on equipping entrepreneurs with the technology and tools they need to thrive. Known for blending creativity with data-driven strategy, she builds momentum for technologies that expand what’s possible.

 

Vuxocap.co: What Verified Users Say About Reliability

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When evaluating a trading platform, technical features are only part of the equation. Just as important is how real users experience the platform over time. Increasingly, discussions around “Vuxocap reviews” highlight a common theme: reliability.

In this vuxocap.co review, we take a closer look at what traders are saying about Vuxocap, focusing on feedback related to stability, usability, and overall trust.

Growing user confidence

Across various user discussions and review platforms, Vuxocap is often described as a platform that performs consistently in day-to-day trading. While no platform is without criticism, a noticeable portion of feedback points to stable performance and ease of use as key strengths.

For many traders, reliability is not about perfection — it’s about whether the platform behaves as expected during regular trading activity. In this regard, Vuxocap appears to meet expectations for a large number of users.

Consistency in trading experience

One of the most frequently mentioned aspects in user feedback is consistency. Traders report that:

  • The platform interface remains stable during active sessions
  • Orders are placed and managed without unnecessary delays
  • Navigation between markets is smooth and predictable

This kind of consistency is particularly important for traders who rely on routine and structured decision-making.

Trust built through usability

Interestingly, much of the perceived reliability of Vuxocap comes not only from technical performance but from its user-friendly design. A clear interface reduces the risk of mistakes, while a structured layout helps traders maintain focus.

Users often associate simplicity with trust — when a platform is easy to understand, it becomes easier to rely on.

Feedback on withdrawals and processes

Another area where reliability is often discussed is the deposit and withdrawal process. Many users highlight that:

  • Processes are clearly explained
  • Requests follow a structured flow
  • Timelines are generally in line with expectations

As with any financial platform, experiences may vary depending on region, verification status, and payment method. However, clarity in procedures appears to play a key role in user confidence.

Customer support experience

User feedback also points to responsive customer support as a contributing factor to trust. Traders note that support teams are generally able to assist with account-related questions and platform usage.

While response times may differ depending on location, having accessible support reinforces the perception of reliability.

A balanced view of user opinions

It’s important to maintain a balanced perspective. Not all feedback is positive, and some users report challenges—often related to verification steps, regional restrictions, or specific transaction delays.

However, these issues are not uncommon across trading platforms and are often linked to regulatory requirements rather than platform instability.

Why reliability matters

For traders, reliability goes beyond convenience. It directly impacts:

  • Execution confidence
  • Risk management
  • Long-term platform trust

A platform that behaves consistently allows traders to focus on strategy rather than worrying about technical issues.

Final thoughts

This Vuxocap review highlights a platform that is increasingly perceived as reliable by its users, particularly in terms of usability, consistency, and structured processes.

While individual experiences may vary, the overall sentiment suggests that Vuxocap delivers a stable trading environment suited to traders who value clarity and dependability.

As always, traders should verify conditions based on their region and approach trading with a clear understanding of the risks involved.

 

Why Small Brands Should Stop Ignoring The Comment Section

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by Thomas Noh, Founder of Sociable AI

Most small brands still treat social media like a publishing contest. Make more posts. Design better graphics. Write sharper captions. Cross your fingers and hope the algorithm is feeling generous.

I get it. Posting still matters. But if you are a small business, a startup, or a young founder trying to stretch a limited budget, there is a cheaper and often smarter growth move sitting right under your nose: the comment section.

That sounds almost too simple, which is probably why so many businesses miss it.

But social media has changed. Feeds are increasingly driven by algorithms, not relationships, and comment threads have become shared public spaces where people react, joke, debate, and decide what feels worth noticing. In other words, attention does not just live in the post anymore. A lot of it lives underneath it.

That matters because small brands do not always need to create the moment. Sometimes they just need to show up in the right one.

Research in the materials behind this topic notes that 41% of brands already engage through outbound comments, meaning they participate in conversations outside their own pages, often in real time and inside fast-moving public threads. That is not random online banter. It is a visibility strategy.

And for smaller companies, it can be highly efficient.

A good comment can put your brand in front of an audience that is already paying attention. No media buy. No production timeline. No elaborate campaign deck. Just timing, judgment, and a voice that fits the room.

The tricky part is that not every brand comment works.

People are surprisingly good at spotting when a business is trying too hard. If a comment feels forced, promotional, or weirdly off-tone, it does more harm than good. The same research found that relatability is the strongest predictor of brand favorability, and that acceptance outweighs intrusiveness when people decide whether a brand belongs in a conversation.

That is a useful rule for any entrepreneur: do not try to hijack the moment. Try to belong in it.

So what does that look like in practice?

First, speak like a person. Not like a legally approved robot wearing sneakers. The strongest comment strategies tend to use a human, conversational tone and pay close attention to context, audience norms, and timing. If your brand would never naturally sound snarky, do not suddenly become the class clown because a trend is getting traction.

Second, move early. Timing is a bigger advantage than polish. In our own experience, one brand averaged around 200 likes per comment, and when a post really takes off, a top comment can quietly earn massive reach because a meaningful share of viewers check the comments after watching. A playful, well-timed response can outperform a week’s worth of carefully scheduled posts.

Third, think like a participant, not a broadcaster. The best brands in the comment sections aren’t trying to “win social media.” They are adding something to a conversation that is already alive. Sometimes that means humour. Sometimes it means insight. Sometimes it just means sounding awake and present.

I have seen how powerful this can be when the fit is right. The best example: a simple brand comment on a rising video pulled in 62,109 likes because it felt natural to the moment and matched the tone people were already using. That is the sort of outcome that gets dismissed as luck, but it usually is not luck alone. It is relevance, speed, and restraint working together.

Always check your comment section.

A light-hearted video about a creator’s dad went viral after Buoy commented, “you act like we’re friends 💀”, getting huge engagement.

The bigger lesson here is not really about comments. It is about where small brands should focus.

Too many businesses are still spending all their energy trying to manufacture attention from scratch. Meanwhile, the internet is full of existing conversations, existing audiences, and existing momentum. For a lean team, that is good news. You do not always need to be louder. You need to be more present where attention already exists.

If you are a startup founder, a solo marketer, or a small business owner, remember this the next time your content calendar starts feeling like a full-time job.

Your next growth opportunity might not be the next post.

It might be the next comment.

 

Thomas Noh of Sociable AI

Thomas Noh is the founder of Sociable AI, where he focuses on how brands earn visibility through timely, human participation in online conversations. He writes about startup growth, community engagement, and practical ways small teams can compete without acting like big corporations.

 

 

The Financial Confidence Gap No One Talks About In Small Business

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by Andy Weins and Lynn Corazzi, authors of “Stop Avoiding Your Numbers: The Guide to Financial Confidence for Small Business Owners”

We’ve spent years working with small business owners across every industry you can imagine — junk removal, landscaping, graphic design, restaurants, consulting, construction. These are smart, capable people. They can close deals, manage teams, and solve problems under pressure. We’ve also watched the same thing happen over and over: the moment a financial statement hits their desk, they freeze.

This is what we call the financial confidence gap. It’s not a knowledge problem. It’s not a math problem. It’s the gap between what business owners are told they need to know about their money and what they actually need to know. And it’s costing them revenue, sleep, and in some cases, their businesses. The good news is that closing this gap is more straightforward than most owners think.

Here are five strategies we’ve seen work consistently.

1. Stop Identifying as “Not a Numbers Person”.

This is the single biggest barrier we encounter. Owners tell themselves, and anyone who will listen, that they’re “not numbers people.” It becomes part of their identity, and once it’s there, it gives them permanent permission to avoid their finances.

Here’s the reframe: you are a numbers person. You live by numbers every day in your personal life. You trust them because you know what they tell you. You’re going to be late. You’re speeding. They work the same way in your business, except you’ve not shown how to use them. All you need is some guidance to unlock wins and warnings they are telling you. Drop the label. It’s a defense mechanism, not a diagnosis.

2. Learn the Difference Between Accounting and Finance.

This is one of the most damaging blind spots in small business, and almost no one explains it. Accounting is about precision and the past: recording transactions, reconciling accounts, making sure the books are accurate and tax-ready. Finance is about decisions and the future: using those numbers to figure out where your cash is going, where your opportunities are, and what moves to make next.

Accounting services are purchased by small business. Finance is built-in at large companies. Most owners are told that having a bookkeeper and filing their taxes means they’re “covered” on the accounting side. But nobody tells them about the finance side. And that’s where the real power lives. Every large business has a CFO leading financial strategy and analysis. Small businesses need, and deserve, that same perspective Once you understand that accounting looks backward and finance looks forward, you stop treating your financial statements like report cards and start using them as roadmaps. 

3. Understand That Profit and Cash Are Not the Same Thing.

This one catches owners off guard constantly. Your profit and loss statement says you made $5,000 this month. Great. But you also made a $1,000 loan payment, paid off $2,000 on a credit card, and bought a $3,000 piece of equipment. You’re profitable on paper and broke in practice.

We’ve worked with owners who were ready to slash expenses across the board because they couldn’t figure out where their money was going, only to discover the real issue wasn’t overspending, it was underselling. They couldn’t see it because they did not know how to connect their financial statements to what was physically happening in the business. They needed more sales people! They invested in sales, which grew revenue and profit, which created more cash.

4. Pay Yourself Like a Real Expense.

One of the most common things we see is owners paying themselves last, or not at all. They take a little when cash looks good. They skip months when things feel tight. They cover personal expenses on the business card and call it compensation. It’s chaos, and it masks the true financial health of the business.

Your pay needs to be predictable, budgeted, and nonnegotiable, no different than rent or payroll. Not paying yourself isn’t noble; it’s the same scarcity mindset that says you can’t take a vacation or can’t afford a day off. It keeps you trapped in martyr mode and makes it impossible to evaluate whether your business is actually working. Set a monthly amount you can count on, even if it’s not your dream salary yet. Your personal bills don’t care whether your business had a good month. They’re due either way.

5. Build a Financial Team, Led by CFO Thinking.

Most owners don’t think about a financial team. Just individuals. The bookkeeper, CPA, and tax preparer have different responsibilities even when they are the same person. The banker does other things. Their personal wealth advisor isn’t even involved with the business. At this point, the owner is missing two things. The first is strategic forward thinking provided by a tax planner and a CFO. Second, a team leader who translates accounting and finance language, and numbers, into actionable insights. That person is typically the CFO.  When one is not on the team, this leadership role defaults to the owner.

Fractional and outsourced options exist for all of these roles Understanding what each one does, and what questions to ask each person, is the difference between having people who handle your numbers and having a team that helps you lead with them.

The Confidence Is Already There

Here’s what we’ve learned from working with dozens of business owners: the ones who close the financial confidence gap don’t simply run better businesses. They make decisions faster. They stop chasing every opportunity out of fear and start choosing the right ones with clarity. They plan for the future instead of just surviving the present. And they sleep better.

Financial confidence isn’t a personality trait you’re born with or without. It’s a skill that every business owner can build with a little awareness, the right information and a willingness to look at what they’ve been ignoring. The gap is real, and it’s much narrower than most owners think. The hardest part isn’t learning the numbers. It’s deciding to stop avoiding their numbers.

 

Andy Weins is a Veteran and fourth generation business owner known for bringing his “Bottom Line Up Front” mindset to growth-minded businesses leaders. His workshops use data-driven methodologies and battle-tested experiences to give audiences practical takeaways. He is the owner of Green Up Solutions (consulting) and Camo Crew Responsible Junk Removal (solid-waste removal. Lynn Corazzi is a former Procter & Gamble finance leader, founder of Data2Profit, and the creator of Guided Money Tours™. He specializes in turning accounting jargon into plain English and showing owners how to use data to grow their business and personal wealth.

Together, they are co-authors of “Stop Avoiding Your Numbers: The Guide to Financial Confidence for Small Business Owners”. Learn more at stopavoidingyournumbers.com.

 

Westport Advisor Michael Gold Reveals The Biggest Financial Mistake Ultra High Net Worth Families Make

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money grow on trees

money grow on trees

Nearly 200,000 UHNW families are in the U.S., a 20.5% increase from 2023. Globally, the ultra-high-net-worth population has grown 12.4%, pushing the total to over 484,000 individuals. Heading into 2026, these families face the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, with $84 to $120 trillion projected to move between generations over the next two decades.

Yet most families are unprepared. Michael Gold, founder and CEO of Gold Family Wealth in Westport, Connecticut, says the single most common mistake he sees comes down to one word: readiness.

“Lack of readiness and fragmented advice,” he says. “Most people, when they get referred to us, say they just signed an LOI. Can you help us now?”

The problem is that arriving late to the planning process can leave families vulnerable to gaps that can cost millions or destroy legacies entirely.

The $8 Billion Mistake

Michael Gold uses a case study that drives the point home. Joe Robbie, owner of the Miami Dolphins in the 1980s, died in 1990 without proper planning. The estate tax bill came due, but his assets were illiquid, tied up in real estate and the team itself. After four years of fighting, his family sold the Dolphins for roughly $109 million. $47 million went to the IRS. The rest was divided among heirs.

The Miami Dolphins are worth approximately $7.5 billion today.

“That’s why we don’t hear about the Robbie dynasty like we hear about the Rockefeller dynasty,” Michael Gold says. “Not being ready can cost not only a legacy, but forget about just the impact every generation of your family will have forever. If there were philanthropic causes somebody in the family cared about, how much of an impact could that money have made beyond just the family? All because somebody didn’t take the time to plan in advance.”

Where Readiness Fails

The Westport advisor says readiness failures happen across three layers: business, financial, and personal.

On the business side, families fail to address structural issues years before an exit. Some need to re-characterize their business structure, which means waiting 12 months to sell because the tax drag would be too severe. Others face customer concentration issues. “If I’m buying somebody and the customers only like the owner, what am I buying?” he says.

There is often no management succession, no sales force depth, and no buy-sell agreements among partners. These gaps can reduce enterprise value or derail exits entirely.

The financial layer is just as problematic. Families have assets spread across jurisdictions and entities, but no coordinated view of how everything fits together. Michael Gold compares his approach to a neurosurgeon, not a salesperson. “I had three spine surgeries. Not at one point was the surgeon like, so what do you think about this or that?” he says. “They did a suite of tests, laid out all the options from conservative to aggressive, and almost tried to push off surgery in every case.”

Wealth advisors should operate the same way. “We need to really understand the client’s business, their family, what’s going on on their net worth statement, their risk management, their kids, their professional life, all the things. Then we can see what gaps and/or missed opportunities exist and lay them out in priority order,” he says.

Looking Under the Hood

The personal layer is where planning often becomes emotional. Blended families, outdated estate documents, and beneficiary designations that no longer reflect current relationships can create unnecessary conflict. Even successful advisors can overlook details in their own planning when life circumstances change.

The solution is comprehensive. “You have to look under the hood. You have to look at every aspect to see, are there any gaps? And if so, how severe they are, what are the solutions to address them, and what should you address first, second, third,” Michael Gold says.

Readiness is not analysis paralysis. Gold references Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “The battles are won in the temples.” That means doing the homework, but then taking action. “Too many people will do the research and do everything, but they won’t move. You gotta do your homework, but you gotta move. And if you’re wrong, you’ll know you’re wrong quickly, and you can pivot.”

For ultra-high-net-worth families navigating exits, transitions, or wealth transfer, the cost of unreadiness is measured not just in dollars, but in lost legacy, fractured relationships, and opportunities that will never return.

Contact information:

Gold Family Wealth
257 Riverside Ave., 1st Floor
Westport, CT 06880
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How Developers Use VoIP APIs To Build Communication Features

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For a long time, voice was treated as a separate system — something handled by a PBX, a call center tool, or a third-party vendor. But in modern SaaS, voice is increasingly becoming part of the product itself.

From support callbacks and marketplace verification to in-app calling and workflow automation, teams are now building communication features the same way they build everything else: through APIs.

This article explains how developers use VoIP APIs to create voice functionality, when APIs make more sense than off-the-shelf tools, and what to consider around security, scaling, and infrastructure.

Voice Is Becoming a Product Feature, Not Just a Channel

If you build SaaS, marketplaces, or fintech products, communication is rarely “just communication.”

It becomes a part of the user experience:

  • users expect instant call-back options
  • support teams need routing and call tracking
  • marketplaces rely on masked numbers to protect privacy
  • fintech platforms need trusted verification flows
  • sales workflows depend on call analytics and CRM integration

In other words, voice is moving closer to the core product.

And once voice becomes a product feature, it needs to be programmable.

VoIP API vs Off-the-Shelf Tools: When Does It Matter?

Many teams start with ready-made solutions: cloud PBX, call center software, basic VoIP numbers.

That’s a reasonable approach — until the product needs more control.

A VoIP API usually becomes the better choice when you need:

Custom logic and automation.

Example: call a customer automatically when an order status changes, or trigger a callback only after a support ticket reaches a certain stage.

Full integration into your product.

Instead of sending users to an external dialer, you build calling directly into your app.

Better data ownership.

With APIs, call events, logs, and analytics can be routed into your own BI stack.

Flexible scaling.

Instead of manually adding agents, routing rules, and numbers, you scale through code.

Off-the-shelf tools still work well for many teams — especially if voice is only used internally. But APIs are usually the right path when voice becomes part of the customer-facing workflow.

Common VoIP API Use Cases Developers Build

Most real-world VoIP API projects fall into a few categories.

1. Click-to-call inside a web app.

A classic SaaS feature:

  • users click a button
  • a call is initiated
  • call status is tracked in real time
  • logs are stored in the product

2. Masked calling for marketplaces.

Marketplaces often want buyers and sellers to communicate without exposing personal numbers.

VoIP APIs enable:

  • temporary phone numbers
  • call forwarding
  • identity masking
  • automatic number expiration

3. Customer support call routing.

Instead of relying on a standalone call center platform, teams build routing logic like:

  • route by language
  • route by region
  • route by priority or subscription tier
  • fallback to voicemail or callback queues

4. Automated outbound calls.

Used for:

  • appointment reminders
  • delivery updates
  • subscription renewal notifications
  • fraud alerts (with proper compliance controls)

5. Verification and onboarding flows.

In fintech or marketplaces, voice can be used as an additional verification layer — though this requires strong anti-fraud protection.

Security and Scaling: What Developers Should Plan For Early

VoIP APIs look simple at the beginning: request a number, start a call, receive events.

But production systems require more careful thinking.

Authentication and access control.

You need:

  • secure API keys
  • role-based access
  • request signing (when supported)
  • environment separation (dev vs prod)

Compliance and fraud prevention.

Even legitimate products can be abused if attackers gain access.

Typical protections include:

  • rate limits
  • destination restrictions
  • anomaly monitoring
  • call pattern detection
  • KYC checks for high-risk flows

Reliability and failover.

If voice is part of the product, downtime becomes a product issue.

Developers should plan:

  • fallback routing
  • provider redundancy for critical flows
  • monitoring and alerting
  • logging and replayable events

Scaling infrastructure.

As call volume grows, the main bottleneck is rarely “API throughput.”

It’s usually:

  • event processing
  • storing call metadata
  • analytics pipelines
  • concurrency and queue management
  • integration with CRMs or support systems

Infrastructure Example: A Simple, Scalable VoIP API Setup

A common production architecture looks like this:

  1. Your app backend triggers call actions via VoIP API
  2. The VoIP provider sends webhooks (call started, answered, ended, failed)
  3. Webhooks go into a queue (Kafka / SQS / RabbitMQ)
  4. A worker service processes events and updates:
    • CRM records
    • support tickets
    • billing / usage metrics
    • call logs
  5. Call data is stored in:
    • relational DB (for core logs)
    • analytics warehouse (for BI dashboards)

This setup keeps the system reliable even when call traffic spikes.

Final Thoughts

Freezvon VoIP APIs give developers the same thing that Stripe did for payments: the ability to treat communication as a programmable layer.

For teams building modern SaaS, marketplaces, or fintech products, this is often the difference between “using telephony” and actually owning communication as part of the user experience.

The main takeaway is simple:

If voice is part of your product — build it like a product feature, not like an add-on tool.

 

Justin Nelson’s Path From Tufts Liberal Arts To JP Morgan Leadership Role

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Chemistry majors don’t typically end up running wealth management teams at major financial institutions. Justin Nelson’s career path defied conventional wisdom about finance recruiting. His journey from Tufts University liberal arts student to Managing Director at JP Morgan Private Bank reveals how non-traditional backgrounds can produce exceptional financial leaders.

Nelson started college as a pre-med chemistry major before discovering finance held more appeal. “I was originally pre-med, I was chemistry major,” he recalls. “While science gave me a great mindset for solving problems, I really enjoyed finance.”

The timing proved challenging. Tufts operated as a liberal arts college without robust finance programs. Most graduates pursued advanced degrees rather than Wall Street careers. “Today, Tufts offers a robust program to help students learn about finance and find amazing job opportunities. That didn’t really exist in then 90’s,” Nelson explains.

Breaking Into Finance Without a Finance Degree

Campus recruiting at Tufts focused on engineering positions. Finance students had to navigate the job search independently. Nelson found support from peers also interested in finance careers. “I had a bunch of friends who were going into finance, and they helped me with the application process,” he says.

That network proved essential. Nelson secured an internship at JP Morgan and never left. He later earned an MBA from Columbia University, but his liberal arts foundation shaped his approach to wealth management in ways traditional finance education might not have.

Justin Nelson now leads a 20-person team overseeing more than $11 billion in assets for influential clients across hedge funds, private equity, and real estate. His chemistry and economics double major taught him to synthesize information from different disciplines — a skill that serves him well when advising complex family offices and endowments.

Hiring for Mindset Over Major

The experience influenced how Nelson approaches talent acquisition today. When recruiting for JP Morgan Private Bank, he looks beyond finance and economics majors. “When I’m out looking to hire people, I actually couldn’t care less what your major is,” Nelson explains. “I’m just looking for the right people. You could be a poetry major. If you’re interested in finance and you can demonstrate that to me, great.”

He’s noticed psychology majors appearing more frequently among finance candidates. “I think that having insight into how people think and emotional connection is so important in finance,” Nelson says.

This perspective stems from recognizing that private banking relies heavily on relationship management and emotional intelligence. Technical skills can be taught. Understanding human behavior and building trust takes different capabilities entirely.

Building Finance Programs at Tufts

Justin Nelson channels his unconventional path into mentorship. He returns to Tufts regularly to advise students interested in finance careers, helping create the infrastructure he lacked as an undergraduate. The university now offers a finance minor, dedicated career resources, and strong alumni networks—developments Nelson helped foster.

“I talk to a few students each week, and it’s all the way from freshmen through seniors, people who are deciding, ‘What’s finance about?’ to people who are like, ‘I’m a senior, and I don’t have a job,” he says.

His message to these students echoes his own experience: finance careers aren’t reserved for finance majors. Different educational backgrounds bring valuable perspectives to wealth management. The industry needs people who can think critically, communicate effectively, and understand the human dimensions of money — skills cultivated across many disciplines.

Nelson’s trajectory from chemistry labs to managing billions in assets at JP Morgan demonstrates that alternative paths into finance can lead to senior leadership roles. His success suggests the industry benefits from recruiting beyond traditional pipelines.

 

Why Small Service Businesses Keep Losing Customers To Voicemail — And What AI Is Doing About It

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by Alex Orion, Chief Technology Officer at FACITI

The problem is invisible until you do the math.

Most service business owners know calls go to voicemail sometimes. What they don’t realize is how often — and what it’s actually costing them.

Studies consistently show that between 20-25% of inbound calls to small service businesses go unanswered. For an HVAC company receiving 80 calls a month, that’s 16-20 missed calls. At an average job value of $350, that’s $5,600-7,000 walking out the door every single month.

Not from bad service. Not from losing a price war. From a phone that rang while someone was on a roof.

Why This Happens

The problem isn’t negligence — it’s physics. Service business owners and their teams are in the field. They’re installing, repairing, inspecting, meeting clients. The phone rings at the exact moment their hands are full or they’re working somewhere loud.

Traditional solutions haven’t fixed it.

Answering services pick up the phone but can’t book appointments, answer specific questions about your services, or qualify leads. They take a message and call it done. Hiring a receptionist costs $35,000-45,000 per year before benefits, and still doesn’t cover after-hours, weekends, or busy-season overflow. Voicemail is where leads go to die. Research shows that 80% of callers who reach voicemail don’t leave a message — and they don’t wait for a callback either. They call the next result on their search page.

What AI Phone Handling Actually Does Now

The change in the past two years isn’t about automated phone trees or rigid scripts. The new generation of AI systems hold real, natural conversations.

When a customer calls, they speak with an AI that can answer genuine questions about services and pricing, collect caller information and job details, book appointments directly into a calendar, send a text confirmation automatically, and flag urgent situations for an immediate callback.

From the caller’s perspective, it sounds like speaking with a knowledgeable team member. From the owner’s perspective, they finish a job and check their phone to find three new appointments scheduled while they were working.

Deployment has also gotten genuinely fast. What once took months of custom development can now be configured and live in 24-48 hours for most service businesses.

The Math That Changes the Conversation

Here is how the options compare:

Human receptionist: $3,000-3,800/month. No after-hours coverage.
Handles booking.

Traditional answering service: $300-600/month. After-hours coverage.
Cannot book.

AI phone system: $500-1,500/month. After-hours coverage. Handles booking.

The AI option costs less than a part-time hire and covers the hours when most revenue leaks — evenings, weekends, and every hour when the whole team is deployed on jobs.

Where to Start

For any service business owner, the first step isn’t buying anything. It’s tracking your missed call rate for two weeks.

Check your call log for calls lasting under 15 seconds. Count them. Multiply by your average job value. That number is your baseline — what is currently leaking before any change is made.

Once you have that figure, the conversation with any technology vendor becomes straightforward. If you are losing $6,000 a month to missed calls, spending $1,200 a month to recover half of them is a simple decision.

The businesses moving fastest on this are not the technology-forward ones. They are the ones who did the math, did not like what they saw, and made a change.

 

Alex Orion

Alex Orion is the Chief Technology Officer at FACITI, an AI automation company that helps service businesses deploy custom AI systems in under 24 hours. He has spent the last decade building AI-driven operations platforms for small and mid-sized service companies.

 

 

How High-Interest Debt Kills Your Quit-Your-Job Timeline

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by Loretta Kilday, spokesperson for Debt Consolidation Care (DebtCC)

Many professionals dream about eventually leaving their jobs to build something of their own. The idea may be launching a startup, freelancing, consulting, or pursuing a passion project.

But for many people, the biggest obstacle is not courage or skill; it is high-interest debt. While debt is often viewed as a temporary financial inconvenience, it has a deeper impact. Expensive consumer debt quietly delays the moment when someone has the freedom to take career risks.

The Math Behind the Problem

Consumer debt, particularly credit card balances, often carries extremely high interest rates.

In the United States, the average credit card APR was around 20.97% in late 2025, with many cards charging even higher rates for balances that accrue interest.

Some borrowers pay 25–30% interest or more, depending on credit history and card terms. At those levels, debt does not simply sit there waiting to be repaid. It grows quickly.

For example:

A $10,000 balance at 24% interest can generate roughly $2,400 in interest annually if only minimum payments are made.

That money could otherwise go toward savings or building financial independence.

The Runway Concept

Entrepreneurs and independent professionals often talk about financial runway. Runway refers to the number of months someone can support their living expenses without relying on a salary.

Someone who spends $3,000 per month might want at least 12–24 months of savings before leaving a stable job. That means building roughly $36,000 to $72,000. However, high-interest debt drains the cash flow needed to build that runway.

If a person is paying hundreds of dollars each month in interest, it slows the rate at which savings grow.

Debt Diverts the Money That Builds Freedom

High-interest debt also creates what economists call opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost means the value of what you could have done with money if it had been used differently.

Research on consumer credit behavior shows that individuals carrying revolving credit balances often struggle to build savings because their income is diverted toward interest payments.

In practical terms, this means money that could fund:

  • business experiments
  • professional development
  • emergency savings
  • investments

Financial experts often describe high-interest debt as a “reverse investment” because it erodes wealth rather than building it.

Why This Matters for Entrepreneurs

Many aspiring entrepreneurs underestimate how strongly personal finances affect career decisions. Starting a business often involves uncertainty. Income may fluctuate during the early stages. High-interest debt increases that risk.

Instead of having flexibility, individuals must continue earning enough to cover monthly debt obligations. The pressure to maintain a stable income makes career experimentation harder.

Studies on entrepreneurship financing show that founders frequently rely on personal savings during the early stages of building a business.

If savings are delayed because income is consumed by interest payments, the timeline to pursue entrepreneurship gets pushed further into the future.

How Repaying High-Interest Debt Restores Financial Freedom

Reducing high-interest debt is one of the fastest ways to regain financial momentum.

Once expensive interest payments disappear, the monthly cash flow improves almost immediately.

There are several strategies commonly recommended by financial planners:

  • Debt avalanche method

This approach focuses on paying off debts with the highest interest rates first while making minimum payments on others. Over time, it reduces total interest costs.

  • Debt consolidation

Some borrowers combine multiple high-interest debts into a single loan with a lower interest rate, making repayment simpler and potentially reducing interest expenses.

  • Negotiated debt settlement or structured repayment programs

In certain situations, structured debt relief options can help borrowers reduce or reorganize unsecured debts such as credit cards.

For individuals trying to regain financial stability, learning about options like debt consolidation and structured repayment programs can be an important step toward reducing interest costs and rebuilding financial flexibility.

The key goal is simple: stop high interest from consuming income that could be used to build savings and opportunities.

A Growing Global Issue

The challenge of high-interest consumer debt is not limited to one country.

Credit card balances in the United States alone surpassed $1.2 trillion in 2025, reflecting widespread reliance on revolving credit.

As borrowing costs rise globally, many young professionals and early-career workers find it harder to accumulate the savings needed to pursue independent career paths.

Reclaiming the Timeline

For people hoping to eventually leave traditional employment, reducing high-interest debt is more than responsible financial management.

It is a strategic step toward freedom.

Every dollar no longer spent on expensive interest becomes available for:

  • savings
  • investments
  • side projects
  • entrepreneurial ventures

When high-interest debt disappears, financial flexibility returns. And with flexibility comes the ability to take risks, pursue ideas, and shape one’s own career path.

Final words

In that sense, eliminating expensive debt does not just improve finances.

It helps restore the most valuable resource ambitious professionals have that is their time.

 

loretta kilday

Attorney Loretta Kilday has over 36 years of litigation and transactional experience, specializing in business, collection, and family law. She frequently writes on various financial and legal matters. She is a graduate of DePaul University with a Juris Doctor degree and a spokesperson for Debt Consolidation Care (DebtCC) online debt relief forum.

 

Why The Founders Who Build HR Early Win The Long Game

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by Kim Kiyingi, author of “From Campus to Career“

Most founders treat HR the same way. Push it back. There are products to ship, investors to pitch, customers to close. HR feels like something you build once the business is bigger, once there is more time, once there is more money.

That thinking is expensive. And the invoice arrives when you can least afford to pay it.

I have spent over two decades working inside organisations at different stages of growth. The pattern repeats regardless of industry, size, or geography. The businesses that treat people strategy as infrastructure from the start build something durable. The ones that bolt it on later spend years undoing structural damage that did not need to happen.

The numbers that should concern every founder

Gallup’s most recent research puts the cost of disengaged employees at $8.9 trillion annually across the global economy. For a founder running a lean team of 15 or 50 people, the global figure means nothing. But the ground-level version does.

One disengaged employee on a small team is not a rounding error. It is a performance drag that every other team member feels. It slows decisions. It creates friction in customer interactions. It lowers the bar for what the team accepts as normal.

And when that person leaves? Research places the replacement cost at between 50% and 200% of their annual salary. For a startup watching burn rate, that figure is not theoretical. It is a funding problem.

What early-stage HR actually looks like

There is a misconception that building HR culture early means hiring a Head of People and setting up a function. It does not. It means making deliberate decisions about how you treat people from the first hire onward.

Early in my career, I saw what happened when those decisions were not made deliberately. A business that was growing fast started losing its best people faster than it could replace them. Not to competitors offering more money. To competitors offering clarity. Clarity about where the role was going, what good performance looked like, and whether the person mattered beyond their output. The business had built revenue. It had not built culture. The two things are not the same, and you cannot swap one for the other once the gap opens.

The founders who get this right early do three things differently.

They hire for fit before fit becomes a problem to fix. That means knowing what kind of organisation you are building before you bring people into it, not figuring it out after conflict arrives. It means being honest in interviews about what the reality of working there looks like. Retention starts at recruitment.

They build feedback into how the team operates, not just into performance review cycles. People need to feel heard continuously, not once a year. When communication channels are clear and safe, problems surface while they are still solvable. When they are not, problems surface as resignations.

They treat internal growth as a retention tool, not an afterthought. The fastest-growing teams I have seen retain talent not by paying the most but by making the path forward visible. When people can see where they are going, they stay to get there.

AI is already changing the hiring game for founders

Startups competing for talent against well-resourced corporates have always been at a disadvantage in recruitment. That gap is narrowing. AI-assisted hiring tools are now accessible at a price point that makes them viable for early-stage businesses, and the impact on hiring quality is real.

When initial screening is handled by a system built around capability rather than CV patterns, smaller companies surface strong candidates who might otherwise have self-selected out because a big brand name was not attached to the role. The playing field shifts.

The founders paying attention to this are building better teams faster. The ones still relying on gut instinct and word-of-mouth are filling roles rather than building rosters.

The reframe that changes your trajectory

HR is not a compliance necessity you manage around. It is the operating system your business runs on. Every time you hire, you are making a decision that will compound for years. Every time you promote, you are sending a message about what the organisation values. Every time someone leaves, you are learning something about what you built.

The founders who treat those moments casually early on spend enormous energy later trying to rebuild something that should have been built right the first time. The ones who treat people decisions as seriously as product decisions consistently outperform their peers. Not occasionally. Consistently.

A practical starting point for founders

You do not need a large team or a formal HR department to start. You need three things.

A clear answer to the question: what does great performance look like in this organisation? If your team cannot answer that independently, you have a clarity problem that compounds with every new hire.

A honest pulse on engagement. Not a formal survey. A genuine conversation with each person about what is working and what is not. Done regularly, this is the cheapest performance improvement tool available.

An internal mobility mindset. Before you hire externally, ask whether someone already in the business could grow into that role with the right support. The answer will not always be yes. But asking the question signals to your team that growth is possible here.

The founders who build great companies do not do it by accident. They make deliberate decisions about people, early, and they stick to them when scaling gets messy.

That is not an HR philosophy. That is how competitive advantage gets built.

 

Kim Kiyingi

Kim Kiyingi is an HR Career Specialist with over 20 years of experience leading people operations across multi-property environments in the GCC. He is the author of “From Campus to Career” (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2024) and writes at inspireambitions.com.

 

Leading With Values: How Successful Women Build Careers That Last

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by Kimberly Taylor, Esq, CEO and president of JAMS

In a professional world that often celebrates speed, competition and visibility, it can be tempting to believe success requires compromise. Yet the most enduring and influential women leaders tend to share a different approach: They lead by leaning deeply into their core values.

Honesty, integrity and a commitment to taking the high road are not weaknesses in today’s workplace; they are strategic advantages that build trust, credibility and long-term impact.

The Power of Principled Leadership

Honesty is the foundation of strong leadership. Successful women know that clarity and transparency foster respect, even when conversations are difficult. Being honest does not mean being blunt or unkind; it means communicating truthfully, setting realistic expectations and owning mistakes when they occur. Leaders who practice honesty create environments where others feel safe to speak up, innovate and grow. Over time, that trust becomes a powerful form of professional capital.

Integrity goes hand in hand with honesty. It shows up in how decisions are made when no one is watching, how credit is shared and how conflicts are handled. Women who lead with integrity align their actions with their values, even when doing so is inconvenient or unpopular. They resist shortcuts that compromise ethics or relationships, understanding that trust is built slowly but can be lost in an instant. Integrity is not about perfection; it is about consistency and accountability.

Taking the high road is another hallmark of sustainable success. In moments of competition, disagreement or even betrayal, choosing professionalism over pettiness can feel unfair. But women who rise and endure understand that responding with grace preserves both self-respect and influence. The high road keeps the focus on solutions rather than drama, on progress rather than personal scorekeeping. Over time, it distinguishes leaders who are trusted from those who are merely loud.

Lifting Others and Expanding Opportunity

Equally important is the role successful women play in lifting others as they climb. True leadership is not a solo achievement. It is built through sharing networks, knowledge and power. Women who open doors — by making introductions, recommending peers or mentoring emerging professionals — multiply their impact far beyond their own titles. Sharing knowledge demystifies unwritten rules and shortens learning curves. Sharing power creates space for diverse voices and stronger outcomes.

This approach requires abundance thinking: the belief that another woman’s success does not diminish your own. In fact, it strengthens the entire ecosystem. When women support one another openly, they challenge outdated narratives of scarcity and competition and replace them with collaboration and collective progress.

Redefining Success on Your Own Terms

Ultimately, success rooted in values is success that lasts. Careers built on honesty, integrity and generosity create legacies that extend beyond individual achievements. For women navigating leadership today, the most powerful choice is not to abandon their values to succeed — but to use those values as the very tools that define success on their own terms.

 

Kimberly Taylor of JAMSKimberly Taylor, Esq., CEO and president of JAMS, leads the organization’s global operations and strategic direction. Since joining JAMS in 1999, she has held numerous leadership roles overseeing business development, panel relations, operations and legal affairs. A respected voice in alternative dispute resolution, Kim frequently writes and speaks on effective conflict resolution and organizational leadership.

Is Now The Right Time For Angel Investing?

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by Melinda Gloriosa, Managing Director of 71/70 Angels and Rev1 Ventures

Raising early-stage capital has never been easy — but in today’s market, it can feel especially daunting. Valuations are shifting, due diligence is tightening, and founders are being forced to do more with less. Even experienced angels are asking: Is now the right time to invest?

For those with capital, curiosity, and conviction, the answer is yes.

With Next-Gen Founders and Accelerating Technology, the  Case for Investing Now

The market may be turbulent, but innovation isn’t slowing down — it’s accelerating. We’re seeing a new generation of founders who are sharper, more intentionally capital-efficient, and laser-focused on solving problems that customers want solved. That discipline is exactly what long-term angel investors look for.

Meanwhile, the talent pool has opened in ways we haven’t seen in years. As major tech firms scale back, exceptional engineers, data scientists, and operators are flowing into the startup ecosystem. Three years ago, founders struggled to hire this caliber of talent. Today, they’re forming teams that combine creativity with deep technical skill — a powerful signal for angels watching early-stage deal flow. Match that with the many angels who, as cashed-out entrepreneurs, understand that while capital fuels growth, wisdom and relationships sustain it, and it’s a powerful combination for the decades. When capital gets cautious, disciplined angels make the difference, and that’s where the next generation of growth stories begins.

Now is the Time to Invest with Purpose

Periods of correction tend to favor investors who stay engaged. With valuations resetting to rational levels, deal terms improving, and competition easing, disciplined angels can make smarter, more informed investments.

Beyond market timing, there’s another reason to say yes: angel investing is inherently rewarding. Angels are drawn to the excitement of new technologies — AI, advanced materials, life sciences, clean energy — and to the satisfaction of helping founders turn early sparks into real companies. 

Angel investing has always been about more than returns. It’s about proximity to innovation and the chance to shape the future economy from the ground up. Angels provide nearly 90 percent of early-stage equity funding in the U.S., and the startups they back have a 60% percent higher five-year survival rate than those that aren’t backed by angels. 

Where Today’s Angels Find Their Next Great Investment

Quality deal flow isn’t about luck — it’s about alignment and access. Most angels source opportunities through trusted networks: other investors they’ve co-invested with, founders they’ve backed before, or peers who share deals through warm introductions. Pitch competitions and demo days can surface opportunities, but they’re hit or miss.

The most reliable deal flow often comes from partnerships with organizations embedded in the startup ecosystem. For angels, collaborating with groups, like Rev1 Ventures, which operates as both a venture studio and an early-stage investor, can provide a curated pipeline and a layer of diligence that helps manage early-stage risk.

Syndication is another advantage of today’s angel investing. Co-investing with like-minded angels in other regions or sectors amplifies impact and spreads risk. It also surrounds startups with broader expertise — a network of advisors, connectors, and champions increasing the odds of success.

And while remote investing has grown, many angels still prefer to keep capital close to home. In regional markets like the Midwest, investing locally isn’t just practical, it’s personal. You can meet founders face-to-face, validate their work through your networks, and see firsthand the jobs and innovation your investment creates. 

Playing the Long Game

Angel investing is not instant gratification. These are long-term, illiquid investments with horizons of five to ten years or more. Returns can be meaningful — but the real payoff comes from being part of innovation at the ground floor.

There’s no single right way to participate. Angels can invest directly, join a network, or participate through a fund. What matters is having a plan: how much you’ll invest, what kinds of companies you’ll back, and how you’ll evaluate opportunities. 

The Takeaway

Every deal is different. Every founder brings new surprises. That’s part of what makes angel investing so energizing.

If you love innovation, believe in the power of entrepreneurship, and have the appetite to stay in the game, there’s never been a better time to be an angel investor.

 

Melinda Gloriosa

Melinda Gloriosa is Managing Director, Investments at Rev1 Ventures and 71/70 Angels, where she analyzes, executes, and manages investments in concept, seed, and early-stage companies and leads a disciplined angel investing practice, curating high-quality deal flow, guiding rigorous diligence, and supporting founders in building strong, execution-ready teams. 

 

Workforce Barriers For People With Lived Experience Of Homelessness – Addressing Employment Challenges And National Efforts To Bridge Gaps

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by Tori Lyon, CEO of Jericho Project

Stability is a core quality startup founders want to see in a new hire. Consequently, founders may be quick to reject résumés that show signs of instability, such as gaps in residence, sudden shifts in employment, or multiple moves within a short period.

The problem with that approach, however, is that startups can miss out on excellent hires by assuming those signs indicate a lack of reliability, when in reality they may be the result of challenges associated with homelessness. Instability is one of the most misunderstood workforce barriers tied to homelessness and one that, once overcome, can pay dividends to a startup as well as provide hope to those in the homeless community.

Positive and negative effects of housing instability on those seeking employment

Housing instability negatively affects everything from sleep and health to scheduling and communication. These downsides can contribute to gaps in employment history and hiccups in the hiring process, which can come across as a lack of attention or interest. For example, those who are currently experiencing homelessness can struggle to secure the clean and appropriate clothing, reliable transportation, and consistent internet or phone service needed to move forward in the job application process.

However, housing instability can also inspire remarkable resilience, adaptability, and resourcefulness. As a result of facing housing instability, individuals who have experienced homelessness typically know how to solve problems under pressure, navigate complex systems, and persevere despite setbacks.

When employers learn how to recognize instability on a résumé as the result of structural barriers rather than a lack of motivation or talent, they allow themselves to tap into the many desirable skills that people who have experienced homelessness can bring to the workplace. And when employers commit to addressing those barriers with the right type of support, they often gain employees who become deeply committed.

Ways employers can create employment pathways for those experiencing homelessness

Those who have experienced homelessness can bring to the workplace a unique combination of grit and adaptability that is key to startup success. However, bringing employees with that background on board can feel like assuming more risk.

For those who are hesitant, partnering with agencies that support those experiencing homelessness can be an effective first step. Nonprofits and city agencies that specialize in housing and workforce services are ready to help employers tap into existing trust, expertise, and support systems to bring clarity to the process and address challenges as they arise.

As companies begin onboarding people who have experienced homelessness, training them in workplace culture will be just as important as training them in workplace skills. Those starting jobs after experiencing homelessness may not be familiar with current workplace norms, such as meeting structures, departmental roles, or when to go to IT versus HR. Clear onboarding that addresses expectations and provides a pathway to employee assistance programs is important for ensuring a smooth transition.

Long-term benefits of removing workforce barriers for those who have experienced homelessness

Companies that choose to look beyond the stigma of homelessness can realize immediate benefits by filling positions with capable and committed personnel. And choosing that course can create a ripple effect that results in greater, long-term benefits for the company.

For example, implementing practices to support employees who have experienced homelessness, such as mentorship and clear communication, benefits all staff. Such practices address insecurity and other personal well-being issues that can affect any employee.

Companies that invest in understanding and supporting their employees as they seek to overcome personal struggles foster high levels of loyalty and commitment. When employees sense they have been given a real opportunity, along with support, they typically become deeply invested in their work and their teams.

Ultimately, investing in removing the workforce barriers faced by those experiencing homelessness is not just a social good. It allows companies to tap into a broader talent pool, strengthens company culture, improves retention, and equips organizations to support a broader and more resilient workforce.

 

Tori Lyon of Jericho Project

Tori Lyon joined Jericho Project in 1996 as Director of Development and became Chief Executive Officer in 2016. She brings more than 30 years of experience in the supportive housing field, with deep expertise in strategic planning, fundraising, housing and program development, and executive leadership. Under her leadership, Jericho Project has supported more than 250 job placements in 2025, reflecting a growing emphasis on employment as a pathway to long-term stability.

 

5 Common CRM Mistakes To Avoid Making At All Costs

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by Patricia Rollins, Executive Director, Marketing, Thryv

The importance of a customer relationship management (CRM) software is something you may already know about as a small business owner. If trying to manage your business with spreadsheets is too overwhelming, a CRM probably sounds like salvation to you.

Let’s say you’ve decided your business needs a CRM (or your existing CRM needs an upgrade). How do you set it up correctly?

You’ll also want to consider how you’ll use your CRM on a daily basis. The bells and whistles are great, but if you’re not using all the features in your CRM, what are you really paying for?

If you’re wondering how to best implement and use your CRM, we’ve got 5 common CRM mistakes to avoid and what you should do instead.

Mistake 1: Not Identifying Your Goals before Using Your CRM.

The most important thing you need to know to successfully set up your CRM is what business needs it should fulfill. The way you implement your CRM should depend on your goals, not the other way around.

Identify what short- and long-term goals you want to achieve. Keep them in mind as you set up your CRM. Maybe you want to tackle organizing your contact list first. Then you can start working on sending marketing campaigns from your CRM.

In order to successfully use a CRM for your small business, you’ve got to implement it smartly. And that means making sure your CRM rollout aligns with your business goals. Failing to do this is the top dog of common CRM mistakes. Why? Because a bad implementation can lead to poor user experience for your entire team down the road.

Mistake 2: Not Involving Your Staff.

If you alone are using your CRM, you’re free to set it up and use it as you see fit. But if you employ staff, it’s a good idea to make them part of the implementation process.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Will your staff use the CRM in any way?
  • How many staff members will need access to it?
  • How much freedom will they have to access its features?

Answering these questions gives you a better idea of how to best use your CRM. It should support as many users as you want to have access to it, while also limiting access where needed.

Another thing to consider is how to get your staff up to speed on your CRM. Make sure you offer employees training before they start using it. If possible, obtain training materials directly from the CRM software company.

Once you’ve implemented your CRM and trained your team, establish best practices so they use it effectively and avoid unnecessary errors.

Ever had to clean up your contact list? Maybe you found duplicate or incomplete client records. These create clutter in your CRM. When your staff knows how to properly enter client information, it cuts down on clutter.

Maintain a good standard for staff to follow when using CRM software. Be available to answer questions as needed, and provide refresher trainings periodically — especially when new staff members join the team.

Mistake 3: Not Keeping Your CRM Free of Dirty Data.

Part of the responsibility of having a CRM is keeping it clean. Remember, it’s only as good as the quality of the information in it. Your CRM should also help streamline the cleanup process.

Do these things to keep your CRM spotless:

  • Can your CRM automatically remove or merge duplicate contacts? Use that feature.
  • Can you edit fields in client intake forms? Remove unneeded fields to speed up data entry.
  • Can you customize CRM reporting templates so you only see relevant data? Do it.

The more you customize and automate your CRM, the easier it is to avoid turning it into a ‘data dumpster.’

Pro Tip: You may not always prevent bad data from entering your CRM, so it’s wise to schedule regular cleanups — twice a year is a solid benchmark.

Mistake 4: Not Making the Most of Your CRM’s Reporting Features.

Let’s take a moment to talk about CRM reports. They’re invaluable for any business owner who wants to understand how the business is performing.

Unfortunately, not all business owners leverage CRM reporting. In fact, only 20% of small business owners use analytics and reporting on a weekly basis — yikes!

If you’re using reporting features, give yourself a pat on the back! A good CRM is more than just a contact manager. Reporting is what makes it powerful, especially for small businesses. You need to make informed decisions as your business grows, and reporting helps immensely.

No matter your industry, there are three key reports your CRM should regularly provide:

  1. Sales and revenue reports — To know how much money your business is making.
    2. Customer reports — To manage your contacts and understand engagement.
    3. Campaign analytics reports — To see how email, text, or social media campaigns are performing.

If you’re not sure what reporting your CRM offers, dig in. Reach out to your CRM vendor’s customer support for help with pulling reports and analyzing them.

Mistake 5: Not Thinking About the Future.

Ask any small business owner — they’ll tell you they want more control over their business. A CRM helps by simplifying daily operations and saving time.

But how flexible is your CRM? Will it scale with your business or become a roadblock? Your CRM needs to grow alongside you.

Ask yourself:

  • Do you plan on expanding to multiple locations?
  • Will you increase staff?
  • Will your client base grow?
  • Does your current CRM have limitations that could hinder growth?

If your business is outgrowing your CRM, don’t fight to make it fit. A CRM should make running your business easier — not harder.

 

Patricia Rollins

Patricia Rollins is Executive Director of Marketing at Thryv, a global AI-powered marketing platform for small and medium-sized businesses. Patricia’s career has focused on equipping entrepreneurs with the technology and tools they need to thrive. Known for blending creativity with data-driven strategy, she builds momentum for technologies that expand what’s possible. 

 

How Young Professionals Can Build A Career That Spans Countries

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How can young professionals build a career that spans countries in a world where work is no longer tied to one location?

For instance, a young software developer joins a startup abroad. After a year of leading projects seen by hundreds of thousands and earning a 25% raise, the company offers relocation to expand into a new market. What began as remote work has grown into a global career, with the developer joining international teams and serving clients across three continents.

These stories are increasingly common. With advances in technology, remote work, and global hiring, professionals collaborate across borders more easily. The share of companies hiring internationally has doubled over the past five years, signaling a clear shift toward global talent.

International careers require planning, the right skills, and an understanding of how global opportunities work. To help you get started, this guide breaks global careers into five moves so you can take action toward building your own international path.

In fact, young professionals who start building international experience early often find themselves with more career mobility later.

Why Are Global Careers Becoming More Common?

Companies now recruit beyond their local markets. Remote work allows organizations to hire international employees, giving young professionals access to global teams without relocating immediately.

Remote work plays a major role in this shift.

According to a Buffer report, 98% of remote workers want to continue working at least part-time. This high figure not only shows enthusiasm for remote work but also signals a broader shift in workers’ expectations around flexibility and work-life balance, which, in turn, has driven higher retention rates and sustained productivity for employers.

Distributed teams are now common across industries. A startup might have engineers in India, marketers in Singapore, and product managers in the United States.

Global hiring benefits both sides. Companies gain access to specialized talent, while professionals gain opportunities that may not exist in their home markets.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems also drive international mobility. Startup hubs such as Singapore, London, and Berlin attract professionals to fast-growing companies.

As a result of these changes, young professionals entering these environments quickly gain exposure to global markets and international collaboration.

Which Careers Naturally Span Multiple Countries?

Not all industries operate on a global scale. However, which jobs naturally ignore borders to thrive across continents? Some fields are international by design, creating opportunities that extend far beyond home countries.

Technology And Software Development.

Tech companies frequently build distributed teams. Developers and engineers collaborate online while working from different countries.

Companies such as GitHub operate with employees spread across multiple regions.

Digital Marketing And Creative Services.

Marketing agencies often manage campaigns across different markets. A strategist might coordinate projects for brands in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Understanding global audiences is a key skill here.

Consulting And International Business.

Consultants and business development professionals regularly work with clients in different countries. Travel and relocation often become part of the career path.

Entrepreneurs experience this as well. Founders frequently move to cities where funding, talent, and partnerships are easier to access.

What Skills Help Young Professionals Work Internationally?

To succeed globally, professionals usually develop several key skills. Here are some examples of what strong performance looks like for each skill:

1. Cross-Cultural Communication.

International teams span different cultures. Communication styles and expectations differ by country.

A strong indicator: Can lead effective meetings with team members from three or more countries, adjusting tone and approach as needed.

Professionals who understand these differences collaborate more effectively.

2. Digital Collaboration Tools.

Global teams rely on communication platforms such as Slack and Zoom.

A strong indicator: Can coordinate and participate in virtual stand-ups across multiple time zones without missing deadlines or miscommunications. Comfort with remote tools allows professionals to work efficiently across time zones.

3. Language And Adaptability.

English remains the dominant language of global business. Additional languages can further expand career opportunities.

A strong indicator: Can draft emails, documents, or presentations in English and at least one other language, and quickly adapt to new tools or workplace norms when joining an international team.

Adaptability is also essential. Professionals may need to adjust to new business cultures, communication styles, and expectations.

4. Networking.

International careers often grow through connections. Platforms like LinkedIn help professionals connect with employers and peers worldwide.

A strong indicator: Regularly builds relationships with professionals in different countries and secures referrals or opportunities beyond local contacts.

Building relationships with professionals from other countries often leads to new opportunities.

How Can Young Professionals Start Building An International Career?

Getting started in an international career can feel daunting at first, but the journey often begins with small steps. To make real progress, challenge yourself to take action today: identify one potential global contact and reach out to them. Taking this micro-action can help you build momentum right away.

Work With Global Teams.

Remote work allows professionals to gain international experience without relocating immediately. Working with colleagues across borders develops communication and collaboration skills that employers value.

Study Or Train Abroad.

Many professionals begin their international careers through education. Studying in another country often leads to internships or job opportunities within that market.

For those planning to transition from student programs to long-term employment, understanding the right visa options and immigration pathways is essential. Resources like Robinson Immigration Law provide guidance on employment-based visas and other immigration strategies that help professionals build careers internationally.

Join Multinational Companies.

Large organizations frequently transfer employees between regional offices. A professional may start in one country and later relocate to support expansion in another region.

Participate In Global Communities.

International conferences, startup events, and online communities introduce professionals to global networks. These connections often lead to partnerships, job offers, or opportunities for collaboration.

What Immigration Factors Should Professionals Understand?

Working abroad requires legal authorization. Many professionals aim to work in the United States, attracted by the benefits of doing so, including access to top companies, high earning potential, and diverse professional networks.

Many governments offer skilled migration programs designed to attract global talent.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, several countries continue to expand pathways for skilled professionals.

Professionals planning international careers benefit from understanding visa pathways early. Reliable guidance on work visas and transitioning between countries helps professionals evaluate options before accepting opportunities abroad.

Planning ahead helps prevent delays, rejected applications, or unexpected relocation challenges.

What Challenges Do International Careers Create?

Building a global career offers exciting opportunities, but it also comes with challenges.

Immigration Complexity.

Visa requirements vary widely between countries. Regulations change often, making long-term planning difficult.

Professionals who overlook these details may face rejected applications or delayed relocations.

Cultural Adjustment.

Working abroad requires adapting to new business cultures.

For example, communication styles in the United States often emphasize direct feedback. Some Asian cultures prioritize indirect communication and hierarchy.

Professionals who misunderstand these differences may struggle to integrate into teams.

Financial And Relocation Costs.

Moving abroad means housing deposits, travel costs, and changes in the cost of living.

Global talent hubs often have high living costs.

Professional Network Reset.

Relocating to a new country may require rebuilding professional networks.

Professionals who rely solely on local connections might struggle to find opportunities in unfamiliar markets.

Preparation and research help minimize these challenges.

Conclusion

Global collaboration continues to reshape the workforce. Companies increasingly operate across markets, and professionals seek opportunities beyond their home countries.

A designer might start working remotely for a company abroad, relocate to help launch a new office, and later lead teams across several regions.

To start, identify which global skills you want to strengthen, join at least one international online community, and research current visa requirements for your target countries. Next, apply for a remote project or role with a company abroad, or reach out to a global contact you admire to begin expanding your network. Break down these steps into weekly goals and track your progress to maintain momentum.

With intention and the right skills, young professionals can actively shape international careers, turn opportunities into experience, and become part of a truly global workforce. Staying proactive, continuing to learn, and building networks across borders will help you thrive in the evolving international landscape.

 

What You’re Really Buying In A Franchise: Systems, Support, And Speed

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When you consider buying a franchise, you are not just purchasing the rights to use a well-known brand name. You are investing in a complete business model designed for replication and growth. This investment covers three critical pillars that distinguish franchising from starting an independent business: established systems, ongoing support, and speed to market. Understanding these components is important for conducting proper due diligence and making informed decisions.

This guide will provide a detailed explanation of what your franchise fees and royalties truly cover. We will explore the operational playbook, the types of support you should expect, and how a franchise model can accelerate your launch. Finally, you will have a clear framework for evaluating and comparing different franchise opportunities.

A Franchise Isn’t Just a Brand — Here’s What You’re Paying For

Many prospective owners are drawn to franchising by the power of a recognized brand. While brand equity is valuable, it is only one piece of the puzzle. The fees you pay grant you access to a comprehensive business infrastructure that has been developed and refined over time.

The “System” (Repeatable Operations).

A core component of any franchise is its proven system of operations. This is the “playbook” that guides every aspect of the business, from daily tasks to long-term strategy. It is designed to ensure consistency and quality across all locations.

Ongoing Support (Help Before and After Opening).

Franchisors provide continuous support to help you navigate the complexities of business ownership. This begins long before you open your doors with site selection and training, and it continues throughout the life of your franchise agreement with operational guidance and marketing assistance.

Speed (Faster Launch vs. Starting from Scratch).

The franchise model is structured to reduce the time it takes to get your business operational. By providing a pre-built framework, established supply chains, and a clear launch plan, franchising helps you avoid many of the delays and mistakes common to new independent businesses.

Systems: What “The Playbook” Should Include

A strong franchise system provides a detailed roadmap for running the business successfully. It removes the guesswork and lets you focus on execution and growth. When evaluating a franchise, scrutinize its operational systems to ensure they are comprehensive, well-documented, and effective.

Operating Procedures (Daily/Weekly/Monthly).

The operating manual is the heart of the franchise system. It should contain clear, step-by-step instructions for all routine business activities. This includes procedures for opening and closing, customer service protocols, inventory management, staff scheduling, and financial reporting. A thorough manual ensures that every franchisee can deliver a consistent experience that meets brand standards.

Training Curriculum and Certifications.

Effective training is fundamental to your success as a new franchisee. A quality franchisor will offer a robust training program that covers both theoretical knowledge and practical, hands-on experience. This curriculum should address all key areas of franchise operations, including product knowledge, service delivery, sales techniques, and the use of required technology. Look for programs that include initial training for you and your team, as well as ongoing training opportunities to keep your skills sharp.

Technology Stack (POS, CRM, Scheduling, Reporting).

Modern franchises rely on a suite of technology tools to streamline operations and gather business intelligence. This “tech stack” typically includes a Point of Sale (POS) system for processing transactions, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform for managing customer data, and software for scheduling, accounting, and reporting. The franchisor should provide these tools as an integrated package, along with the necessary training and technical support to use them effectively.

Marketing System (Local Marketing, Brand Standards, Lead Flow).

Your franchisor is responsible for building and maintaining the brand’s national presence, but you will be responsible for local marketing. A good franchise system provides a comprehensive marketing playbook. This includes brand standards and guidelines, pre-approved marketing materials (like flyers, ads, and social media content), and strategies for local outreach. Some franchisors also provide systems for generating and distributing leads to franchisees in their respective territories.

Supply Chain and Required Vendors.

To ensure consistency, most franchises require you to purchase supplies, inventory, and equipment from approved vendors. The franchisor manages these relationships to secure favorable pricing and reliable delivery. During your due diligence, it is important to understand the supply chain. Evaluate the costs, the reliability of the vendors, and any potential risks, such as reliance on a single supplier for a critical item. This information is typically detailed in the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD).

Quality Control and Audits.

To protect the integrity of the brand, franchisors implement quality control measures. These may include regular site visits, secret shopper programs, and performance audits. While audits can seem intimidating, their purpose is to provide constructive feedback and help you maintain brand standards. This process ensures that all network locations deliver the quality and consistency customers expect.

Support: What Good Franchisor Support Looks Like in Practice

Ongoing support is one of the most significant advantages of the franchise model. A strong franchisor acts as a dedicated partner, providing guidance and resources at every stage of your business journey. Here is what effective support looks like.

Pre-Opening Support (Site Selection, Buildout, Hiring, Launch Plan).

The support you receive before opening your doors is critical for a successful start. This should begin with assistance in finding and evaluating potential locations for your business. Once a site is secured, the franchisor should provide guidance on lease negotiation, store design, and the construction or buildout process. They should also offer resources for recruiting, hiring, and training your initial team, as well as a detailed plan for your grand opening.

Field Support / Business Coaches.

After you open, you should have a designated point of contact, often called a field consultant or business coach. This individual is your direct point of contact with the corporate office. They should conduct regular check-ins, either in person or virtually, to review your performance, discuss challenges, and help you identify opportunities for growth. A good business coach analyzes your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as sales, costs, and customer satisfaction, and helps you develop strategies to improve them.

Troubleshooting and Escalation Paths.

When problems arise—and they will—you need to know who to call for help. A well-organized franchisor has clear escalation paths for different types of issues. Whether you have a technical problem with your POS system, a question about a marketing campaign, or a complex operational challenge, there should be a defined process for getting a timely and effective resolution.

Community and Peer Network (Advisory Councils, Franchisee Groups).

Some of the most valuable support comes from your fellow franchisees. A good franchisor facilitates a strong sense of community within its network. This can include franchisee advisory councils that give owners a voice in brand strategy, regional meetings, annual conventions, and online forums where you can ask questions and share best practices with your peers. This network provides a powerful source of real-world advice and encouragement.

What Support Is Not (and Common Misconceptions).

It is important to have realistic expectations about franchisor support. The franchisor is your partner, not your boss. They provide the system, tools, and guidance, but you are ultimately responsible for the day-to-day management and success of your business. Support does not mean the franchisor will run the business for you or guarantee your profitability.

Speed: Where Franchises Can Save Time (and Where They Don’t)

A significant appeal of franchising is the potential to get to market faster than you could with an independent startup. By leveraging a proven model, you can avoid many of the time-consuming tasks involved in building a business from the ground up.

Time-to-Open Benchmarks (What to Ask For).

Experienced franchisors can typically provide a realistic timeline for opening a new location. This is based on their history of launching other units. When speaking with a franchisor, ask for their average, best-case, and worst-case time-to-open benchmarks. This will help you create a more accurate project plan. These timelines usually start from the moment you sign the franchise agreement and end on your first day of business.

What Can Slow You Down.

Even with a franchise system, certain factors are outside the franchisor’s control and can cause significant delays. These include:

  • Permitting: Obtaining the necessary local and state permits for construction and business operations can be a lengthy process.
  • Buildout: Construction timelines can be unpredictable due to weather, contractor availability, and unforeseen site issues.
  • Staffing: Finding and hiring the right employees can take longer than expected, especially in a competitive labor market.
  • Capital: Delays in securing financing can bring the entire project to a halt.

How to Pressure-Test “Speed” Claims.

Do not take a franchisor’s timeline at face value. During your validation calls with existing franchisees, ask them how long it actually took them to open. Inquire about the specific bottlenecks and challenges they encountered. This will give you a more grounded understanding of what to expect and allow you to build a buffer into your own timeline.

Due Diligence Checklist: How to Verify Systems, Support, and Speed

Thorough, due diligence is the most important step in the franchise buying process. You must independently verify the franchisor’s claims.

What to Confirm in the FDD.

The Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) is a legal document that provides extensive information about the franchisor and the franchise opportunity. Pay close attention to these items:

  • Item 5: Initial Fees: Details the upfront franchise fee.
  • Item 6: Other Fees: Outlines all ongoing fees, including royalties and marketing contributions.
  • Item 7: Estimated Initial Investment: Provides a breakdown of all expected startup costs.
  • Item 11: Franchisor’s Assistance, Advertising, Computer Systems, and Training: This is a critical section detailing the support and systems the franchisor will provide.
  • Item 20: Outlets and Franchisee Information: Lists contact information for current and former franchisees—a vital resource for your validation calls.

Questions to Ask the Franchisor.

During your discovery calls, ask probing questions about their systems and support:

  • “Can you walk me through your franchisee training program?”
  • “What does the pre-opening support process look like in detail?”
  • “How often can I expect to hear from my field consultant?”
  • “What are the most common challenges new franchisees face, and how do you help them overcome them?”

Questions to Ask Current Franchisees.

Speaking with existing franchisees is arguably the most insightful part of your research. Ask them about their real-world experience:

  • “How effective was the initial training in preparing you to run the business?”
  • “Is the franchisor’s support team responsive and helpful?”
  • “Does the marketing fund generate a good return for your business?”
  • “If you could go back, would you make the same decision to buy this franchise?”

Making an Informed Decision

Buying a franchise is a major investment of time and capital. By looking beyond the brand name and carefully evaluating the underlying systems, support structure, and speed to market, you can make a more informed choice.

A great franchise provides a partnership where your hard work is amplified by a proven model and a dedicated support team.

 

First Bank of the Lake supports SBA lending with experience in franchise financing. We understand common considerations in franchise transactions, including brand requirements, project timelines, and the documentation often needed to meet SBA guidelines. Our focus is on helping borrowers navigate the process with clear information and practical support.

Our SBA team works closely with clients from the initial conversation through closing. We assist with loan structure, help coordinate typical third-party items, and work to assemble complete credit packages for underwriting. Throughout the process, we emphasize consistent communication and a steady, detail-oriented approach.

Whether you’re opening a first franchise location or expanding an existing footprint, First Bank of the Lake brings SBA program knowledge and franchise lending familiarity to help keep financing organized and aligned with the opportunity.

First Bank of the Lake (“Bank”) does not provide financial, investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. The content provided is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon or considered as an express or implied recommendation, warranty, guarantee, offer, or promise. You should consult your own financial, investment, tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. 

 

What Investors Actually Look For In Your Seed-Stage Financial Model

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by Gabriel I. Simion, Founder of Simion Advisory Partners

As a founder preparing for a seed round, you might stare at a blank spreadsheet and wonder what investors actually want to see. You are likely already proving your concept by demonstrating clear market demand, high margins, or strong user engagement. Now, whether you need to fix unprofitable delivery, scale client acquisition, or build technical infrastructure, you need capital to reach your next critical milestone and ensure your startup survives.

From what I have seen in my 15+ years career, many entrepreneurs assume venture capitalists and angel investors expect a perfect crystal ball predicting the exact financial future of the company. The reality is quite different.

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

When investors look at a seed-stage financial model, they are not checking to see if you can perfectly predict your revenue three years down the line. We all know the numbers will change. Instead, they are evaluating your strategic thinking and your understanding of the market. Investors use your spreadsheet to see if you can plan logically and connect your daily operations to your big-picture vision.

Forecasting five years into the future is highly impractical for a seed-stage startup. I consistently advise founders that a detailed 18 to 24 month outlook provides much more value. This timeframe is critical because it typically covers the expected lifespan of the newly raised capital. Venture capitalists in particular want to see a clear path to your Series A round within that specific window. Attempting to model year five usually results in fictional numbers that do not help anyone make an investment decision.

The model must also clearly outline your Customer Acquisition Cost and your Customer Lifetime Value. In my experience, you have to prove that your underlying business mechanics are sound before you attempt to scale the operation. If it costs your company more to acquire a user than that user will ever pay you, pouring venture capital into the business will only accelerate its failure. Angel investors rely heavily on these early core unit economics to validate their personal belief in your vision.

You absolutely must demonstrate your monthly burn rate. I always check the spreadsheet to see exactly when the cash reserves will deplete. This proves whether the seed funding will successfully carry the company to its next major funding round or your next major profitability milestone. Investors need to know you have a firm grasp on your runway and understand exactly how long you have to execute your strategy.

Your operational expenses need to make logical sense alongside your revenue goals. From what I have seen during pitches, founders often project a massive spike in user acquisition without accounting for the corresponding costs. If your user base grows tenfold in three months, your model must account for the necessary increases in server costs, customer support personnel, and marketing budgets. Revenue growth requires operational support, and your spreadsheet needs to reflect that reality.

Furthermore, advanced forecasts cannot assume numbers will rise in a straight line forever. Continuously doubling a budget like marketing will eventually yield diminishing returns. You must reflect this drop-off in efficiency in your numbers. While modeling this inflection point is challenging, it proves to investors that you understand the natural limits of your growth channels.

I highly recommend presenting different outcomes in your model. Building a conservative base case alongside an optimistic growth case shows immense maturity. It proves to investors that you have contingency plans ready if market conditions change or if product development takes longer than expected. It shows you are thinking about risk mitigation alongside exponential growth.

Finally, a seed-stage model should be a lean and focused spreadsheet that highlights your key business drivers. I have reviewed massive corporate documents with dozens of tabs, and they almost always obscure the most important metrics. Complexity creates unnecessary confusion.

Keep the model clean, make your assumptions clear, and ensure your core narrative shines through the numbers.

 

Gabriel Simion of Simion Advisory Partners

Gabriel I. Simion is a former Big 4 consultant at Deloitte and PwC who combines finance and engineering expertise to drive strategic decision making. He has helped clients secure over $500 million in capital by delivering institutional-grade financial models and M&A support. Through Simion Advisory Partners, he works closely with startups to navigate complex funding rounds, while also facilitating corporate capital allocation and operational efficiency gains for larger enterprises.

 

How Founders Can Use Visual Branding To Accelerate Early Growth

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Startups don’t get many second chances.

In the early days, attention is scarce, budgets are tight, and every interaction carries weight. A landing page visit, a pitch deck slide, a social media post — each moment shapes how people perceive your company before they even try your product.

That’s where visual branding steps in.

It’s not decoration. It’s perception. It’s memory. It’s trust.

Founders often treat branding as something to “figure out later,” after product development or early traction. But the startups that break through noise tend to use branding as a growth lever from day one. Strong visual identity can help unknown companies appear credible, differentiate faster, and convert attention into trust — even when resources are limited.

Let’s break down how founders can make visual branding work as an early growth engine without overspending or overcomplicating the process.

Why Visual Branding Drives Early Startup Momentum

People decide quickly.

Research from the University of Loyola, Maryland shows that color alone can boost brand recognition by up to 80%, and most product judgments happen within 90 seconds. Even more striking, 62–90% of that assessment is based purely on color.

That means before your messaging lands, your visuals already have.

And recognition matters. According to the Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report, 59% of consumers prefer buying from brands they recognize, while 56% say recognizable branding directly affects purchasing decisions.

For early-stage startups, recognition equals momentum.

You may not have market share yet. But you can still look memorable.

Identity Creation: Start Simple, Stay Distinct

Many founders assume branding requires expensive agencies or long strategy workshops. In reality, strong early branding often comes from clarity rather than complexity.

Your visual identity should answer three simple questions:

  • What feeling should people associate with your product?
  • What visual cues make your company recognizable in seconds?
  • How do you visually separate yourself from competitors?

That’s it.

Build a Lean Brand Foundation

A practical early-stage identity typically includes:

  • A primary color palette (2–4 colors max)
  • A clear logo with flexible variations
  • One or two typefaces
  • Image style guidelines (photography vs. illustration vs. mixed)
  • Simple UI or marketing design patterns

Small. Focused. Repeatable.

This approach works because consistency drives familiarity. The Marq State of Brand Consistency Report found that consistent brand presentation was linked to 10–20% revenue growth on average, and organizations with documented brand guidelines were 3.5× more likely to achieve strong visibility.

You don’t need a huge brand book.

You need a usable one.

Consistency Builds Trust Faster Than Frequency

Posting often doesn’t build trust. Recognition does.

When your startup looks different across every touchpoint — website, pitch deck, social content, product UI — people subconsciously question reliability. Visual consistency removes that friction.

And trust compounds.

The same Marq report also revealed that 68% of companies said brand consistency contributed to at least 10% revenue growth. That’s a meaningful lift created without changing product features or pricing.

Practical Consistency Tips for Founders

You can create consistency without design expertise:

  • Use templates for social posts and presentations
  • Stick to one illustration or photo editing style
  • Keep spacing, typography, and layout predictable
  • Repeat signature design elements across channels

Repetition builds memory.

Memory builds confidence.

Confidence builds conversion.

Storytelling Through Visual Cues

Founders often focus storytelling on copy. But visuals tell stories faster and often more effectively.

A brand’s visual language communicates:

  • Personality
  • Market positioning
  • Product complexity
  • Target audience sophistication

Before someone reads your headline, they already feel something.

Use Design to Communicate Positioning

For example:

  • Minimal layouts often signal clarity and focus
  • Bold colors can signal confidence and innovation
  • Hand-drawn illustrations may suggest approachability
  • Clean typography communicates professionalism

This isn’t accidental.

Design-led companies tend to outperform competitors. The Design Management Institute’s Design Value Index found that design-driven firms outperformed the S&P 500 by 219% over a decade, with stronger market share growth and improved customer loyalty metrics.

Design doesn’t just make things attractive.

It influences perceived value.

First-Impression Marketing Assets That Matter Most

Early-stage founders don’t need dozens of marketing materials. They need a few strong ones that shape perception immediately.

Focus on the assets people see first.

1. Website and Landing Pages.

Your website often acts as your primary credibility filter.

Research from the Visual Objects Brand Awareness Study shows that 50% of consumers say website design shapes their overall perception of a brand. Meanwhile, 46% associate visual consistency with higher credibility and trust.

That’s massive.

Prioritize:

  • Clear hierarchy
  • Consistent spacing
  • Focused color usage
  • Strong product visuals

Simple pages outperform cluttered ones.

2. Pitch Deck Design.

Investors evaluate clarity and confidence within minutes. A visually structured deck communicates preparation, seriousness, and strategic thinking — even before deep questions begin.

Strong decks use:

  • Repeated slide structures
  • Clear typography hierarchy
  • Consistent iconography
  • Minimal color switching

Design clarity signals operational clarity.

3. Physical Touchpoints Still Matter.

Yes, even now.

Offline experiences can leave stronger memory imprints than digital ones. Well-designed materials like packaging, stickers, and business cards can reinforce recognition and spark conversations long after an interaction ends.

The key isn’t quantity. It’s memorability.

Cost-Effective Branding Tactics That Actually Work

You don’t need large budgets to create a strong visual presence. Some of the most effective branding tactics are surprisingly affordable.

Template-Based Design Systems.

Tools like Figma, Canva, and Notion allow founders to build reusable design kits quickly. Creating a handful of reusable layouts can dramatically improve visual consistency across marketing channels.

Templates reduce friction.

And friction reduction leads to more consistent execution.

Strategic Use of Color.

Since color heavily influences recognition and perception, picking a distinctive palette can amplify memorability without additional spending.

Keep in mind:

  • Avoid overly common startup palettes
  • Test visibility across dark and light backgrounds
  • Use accent colors sparingly for emphasis

Consistency matters more than complexity.

Posters and Event Visuals.

Events, coworking spaces, and meetups still offer valuable exposure. Posters with thoughtful design and interactivity can drive engagement beyond the physical environment. For example, QR codes drive poster engagement by connecting offline attention with digital experiences such as product demos, waitlists, or exclusive offers.

It’s simple.

But effective.

Founder-Led Visual Presence.

Founders themselves can act as visual extensions of the brand.

Consistent presentation across:

  • LinkedIn graphics
  • personal newsletters
  • presentation slides
  • demo videos

…can strengthen brand recall while building founder credibility at the same time.

Differentiation Through Design, Not Noise

Many startups try to stand out by saying more.

Better approach? Look different.

When markets become crowded, visual differentiation helps companies become recognizable even when messaging overlaps with competitors.

The Visual Objects research found that 73% of companies invest in design to stand apart from competitors. That’s not surprising — differentiation built through visuals works even when product categories look similar.

Ways to Create Visual Differentiation.

  • Use unexpected color combinations
  • Develop a recognizable illustration style
  • Introduce signature UI patterns
  • Create memorable motion design elements
  • Maintain consistent visual storytelling across content

Differentiation doesn’t require complexity.

It requires intention.

Credibility, Recognition, and Growth Compounding

Branding doesn’t create growth overnight. But it compounds.

Recognition reduces friction in marketing.
Consistency builds trust faster.
Trust improves conversion.
Conversion fuels traction.

And traction amplifies visibility.

This feedback loop explains why design-driven companies often outperform competitors over time. When customers remember and trust your brand, marketing becomes more efficient and acquisition costs can decrease.

Small visual improvements can generate outsized perception shifts.

And perception shapes decisions.

How Founders Can Start Today

You don’t need a rebrand.

You need momentum.

Here’s a practical starting checklist:

  • Define a focused color palette and typography set
  • Create reusable templates for marketing and presentations
  • Align website, product UI, and social visuals
  • Build a simple brand guideline document
  • Identify two or three signature visual elements to repeat
  • Audit your first-impression assets and refine clarity

Progress beats perfection.

Consistency beats experimentation overload.

And recognition beats frequency.

Conclusion

Visual branding is one of the few growth levers available to founders before scale, funding, or widespread product adoption. It shapes perception instantly, builds trust without lengthy explanations, and helps early-stage companies appear established long before they actually are.

The data supports it. Consistent branding correlates with revenue growth. Design-led companies outperform competitors over time. Recognizable brands earn greater trust and purchasing preference. Even small visual cues — color, layout, typography — influence whether someone remembers your startup or forgets it minutes later.

But the takeaway isn’t to overcomplicate branding.

It’s to approach it intentionally.

Start with a clear identity. Maintain visual consistency across touchpoints. Use design to tell your story without relying solely on words. Prioritize first-impression assets that shape credibility. And lean into affordable tactics that amplify recognition without draining resources.

Branding isn’t decoration.

It’s perception infrastructure.

For founders competing for attention, trust, and early traction, that infrastructure can quietly accelerate growth in ways paid ads and feature launches alone cannot.

And in the early days, that advantage matters more than most realize.

The Startup Reality Check: Purpose, Growth, And Building Something That Lasts

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by Bobby Mascia, founder and CEO of Green Ridge Wealth Planning and Mascia Capital Group, and author of “Unchained: The Raw Truth About Entrepreneurship, Family Business and Life Balance“

If you’re an entrepreneur — and especially if you work in or operate a family business — you can probably relate to elements of this story. Even when the numbers are good and morale is high, things get messy. You’re always only one unforeseen event from a full-blown crisis. When it’s time to pass the baton, it raises uncomfortable but vital questions about ownership, control, mortality, legacy, and your vision for the future. I’m writing from the perspective of someone who has operated successful businesses and advised entrepreneurs in how to protect their assets, grow their wealth, provide for their families, and build a legacy without losing sight of what really matters.

This journey is about understanding the challenges involved in being a strategically minded business owner. Build a business, unchain yourself from that business, plan for the money across all stages of its growth, and discover what fulfillment means to you. Business is centered around relationships. All economic exchange involves more than one party, and businesspeople are influenced not just by economic self-interest but also by complex interpersonal dynamics. Most of us YOLO ourselves into a venture, then try to figure out how to make it work while we’re in the trenches. Others talk about luck, grit, or determination. The reality is that all of these play a role, but to really become successful you need to apply different skills at different stages of the journey. Purpose and flexibility are the twin guiding lights.

I’ll teach you to avoid the common pitfall of working in your business rather than on it — being a true entrepreneur whose business does not require day-to-day involvement, versus becoming a business owner who bought his way into a job. Entrepreneurship requires total commitment. The ones who succeed over the long term are the ones who give everything, without falling back on a Plan B. Value your people and invest in top talent, because your support team is what is going to make your vision a reality. Cultivate mentors or a board of advisors who will give it to you straight instead of yes men. Building a business is hard. Building a family business is even harder. If you’re not getting your ass kicked, what are you learning? Safe players aren’t great players.

Success without purpose leads to an empty hunger that can never be satiated. Money is a means to an end, not the end in itself. Once you reach a certain financial benchmark, you’ll need more than just the next milestone to keep you going. The trap many successful men and women fall into is achieving goals that are merely professional or monetary without a deeper motive underlying the work and sacrifices they make. You must ask: What really matters to me? Why do I do what I do? Often you don’t figure it out until you’re in it. Sometimes a momentous disruption opens your eyes.

Know your superpower and learn how to leverage it. Everyone has one. Place yourself in challenging situations, reach for a higher goal than you think you’re capable of, dig deep and you’ll find it. Superpowers are unique to everyone, not in the sense that everyone is a unicorn, but in the sense that everyone has their own unique ability. What is it that you do uniquely well that you can leverage to get further and faster? Once you find it, you have to figure out how to differentiate yourself when doing so.

Relationships are the keys to success. Just by opening yourself up to the world, you learn to engage with others, ask questions, and be confident. People aren’t obstacles to your well-being; they can help get you where you need to be. Sales and marketing, when distilled down to their essence, are just about building relationships and networking between parties about to enter into a mutually beneficial exchange.

You don’t have to have it all figured out — just keep moving. Life has a way of shaking things up. Even if you have a clear trajectory, things will change, and that’s okay. Embracing uncertainty is a necessity. If you’re waiting for a perfect plan before making a move, you’re already behind. Life is less about rigidly sticking to a plan and more about recognizing when a new opportunity presents itself — and having the guts to go after it. Sometimes life pulls you off course, but going off course might put you exactly where you need to be. Take chances, make mistakes, learn, and keep moving forward.

 

Bobby Mascia

Bobby Mascia is the founder and CEO of Green Ridge Wealth Planning and Mascia Capital Group, where he owns and operates multiple successful businesses. A 2024 NJBIZ Leader in Finance, he helps entrepreneurs build financial independence, stronger companies, and clearer paths forward. He is the author of “Unchained: The Raw Truth About Entrepreneurship, Family Business and Life Balance“.

Leadership Is Not About Control. It’s About Orbit.

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by Matthew Mathison, author of “Leadership Orbit: Infinite Leadership Potential, Sustainable Progress“

Every decision you make, every action you take, is an opportunity to create positive momentum and shape your trajectory. So don’t wait for the perfect set of circumstances or the guaranteed outcome. Don’t let fear or doubt hold you back from taking bold, purposeful action.

Instead, trust in the power of decisiveness to carry you forward. Embrace the uncertainty and the discomfort and lean into the journey ahead. And know that with each decisive step you take, you’re building the momentum and the conviction to achieve your biggest goals and make your greatest impact.

In the end, true leadership isn’t about having all the answers or being immune to failure. It’s about having the courage to take action in the face of uncertainty, to make the tough calls, navigate the challenges, course correct swiftly when wrong, and inspire others to join you on the journey.

And when you lead from that place of decisiveness and conviction, there’s no limit to the orbit you can achieve, or the impact you can create.

As I reflect on the profound impact that speed has had on my own leadership journey, I can’t help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead. The ability to move swiftly and decisively, seize opportunities, and navigate challenges with agility and precision is truly a superpower in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world. And it’s a superpower that each and every one of us has the potential to cultivate and harness.

But speed alone is not enough. As we’ve explored throughout this chapter, true leadership velocity is about so much more than just moving quickly. It’s about combining raw speed with laser-focused intention, strategic direction, and a relentless commitment to creating value and impact. It’s about having the courage to take bold action in the face of uncertainty and the resilience to pick yourself up and keep pushing forward when you inevitably stumble along the way.

And most importantly, it’s about recognizing that speed is not just a one-time burst of energy or a fleeting moment of brilliance. To achieve lasting success and make a meaningful difference in the world, we must learn to sustain and build upon our leadership momentum over time. We must develop the habits and practices that allow us to tap into our inner reserves of speed and power, day after day and year after year.

This is where the concept of Leadership Orbit comes in. Just as a rocket must achieve a certain velocity and trajectory to break free from the pull of gravity and enter into a stable orbit, we as leaders must generate enough momentum and direction to escape the forces that would hold us back and keep us stuck in the status quo. We must learn to chart our own course, set our own altitude, and navigate the vast expanse of possibility that lies before us.

The key to achieving this perpetual state of leadership momentum is to fuel ourselves with the right inputs and energy sources consistently. We must cultivate a builder’s mindset, always seeking out new opportunities to create value and solve problems. We must foster a culture of transparency and trust, recognizing that openness and authenticity are the foundation of true influence and impact. And we must continually sharpen and refine our skills and habits around speed, agility, and decisive action.

Of course, this is easier said than done. The path to leadership orbit is not always smooth or straightforward, and there will be times when we feel like we’re stuck in the mud or spinning our wheels. But it’s in these moments of challenge and adversity that our commitment to speed and momentum becomes even more critical.

When we encounter obstacles or setbacks, we must resist the urge to slow down or give up. Instead, we must lean into our speed superpower, using it as a lever to generate fresh energy and momentum. We must look for creative ways to reframe problems as opportunities, pivot and adjust our approach in real time, and keep pushing forward with grit and determination.

Crucially, this forward momentum often requires stepping into the unknown. Many times, we don’t know what lies ahead or how things will unfold. We can’t always predict outcomes or make sense of the path before us. It’s in these moments of uncertainty that moving ahead becomes most powerful and important. By continuing to progress, even when we can’t see the full picture, we open ourselves up to new possibilities and discoveries.

This willingness to advance into uncharted territory, to keep going when the destination isn’t clear, is what separates true leaders from the rest. It’s about having the courage to take that next step, to maintain velocity even when the road ahead is shrouded in fog, trusting that movement will eventually bring clarity and reveal new opportunities.

As we do this, something incredible starts to happen. We begin to develop a flywheel effect, where each small win or achievement builds upon the last, generating even more speed and momentum over time. Progress compounds. Confidence grows. Direction sharpens.

This is the essence of what it means to achieve leadership orbit,  to reach a state of perpetual momentum and impact that allows us to make a lasting difference in the world. And it all starts with harnessing the incredible power of speed in service of our deepest values and most audacious goals.

As we close out this chapter and prepare to embark on the next stage of our leadership journey, I want to leave you with a challenge and an invitation. I want to challenge you to take a hard look at your own relationship with speed and identify the areas where you can start to cultivate more velocity and momentum in your life and work. I want to invite you to join me in the pursuit of leadership orbit and commit to the ongoing work of fueling your own perpetual growth and impact.

There will undoubtedly be times when we feel like we’re moving at a snail’s pace rather than a lightning bolt. But if we can stay focused on our ultimate destination, keep our eyes fixed on the stars, and our hearts full of determination, I have no doubt that we will achieve heights and velocities that we never dreamed possible.

*excerpted from “Leadership Orbit: Infinite Leadership Potential, Sustainable Progress” by Matthew Mathison

 

Matthew Mathison

Matthew Mathison is an entrepreneur, investor, and author of “Leadership Orbit: Infinite Leadership Potential, Sustainable Progress“. With over 25 years of experience guiding companies through economic turbulence, he specializes in helping leaders navigate uncertainty with grounded optimism and strategic clarity.

 

Work Smarter With AI: 3 Things Your CRM System Should Automate

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by Patricia Rollins, Executive Director, Marketing, Thryv

AI is transforming how small businesses operate — from how you find customers to how you stay connected with them. But with so many tools and technologies to choose from, it’s easy to feel unsure about where to begin.

A smart place to start? Focus on the areas where most businesses lose time and traction: tracking leads, creating personalized content, and understanding customer behavior.

That’s where an AI-powered CRM makes all the difference. By combining automation with your customer data, your CRM doesn’t just organize information — it acts on it, streamlining the repetitive tasks that slow you down.

Below, we’ll walk through three practical ways AI and your CRM can work together to lighten your load — beginning with automated lead scoring.

Task 1: Lead Score Automation

Lead scoring can be a time-consuming process depending on your approach. It involves keeping track of the behavior, engagement, and other crucial details for every single lead.

If you’re one of the many who doesn’t have the time (or desire) to do that yourself, then an AI-powered CRM will be your best friend.

CRM software is designed to capture, organize, and store lead info – including contact details, purchase history, engagement trends, and pretty much anything you’d need to score a lead. But AI takes it to another level by actually taking that data, analyzing it, and automatically scoring leads in real time.

This means your score projections are constantly up to date without any manual input from you.

Pro-Tip: Choose an AI-powered CRM system with marketing automation software built in, too. Not only will you be able to see your lead score projections right within the software that stores their info, but you’ll also be able to take action on hot leads without ever switching software platforms.

Task 2: Personalized Outreach

Communicating with leads and customers is a crucial part of your business, but it doesn’t always need to be a part of your to-do list.

AI can handle this faster and more intelligently than manual methods. When your CRM system includes a built-in AI content assistant, it can craft follow-ups that feel personal and relevant, using the data already stored in your CRM.

Whether you’re sending an entire campaign or just a single message — like responding to a frustrated customer — AI analyzes customer behavior, preferences, and engagement trends to generate copy that resonates.

The result? Your messages are timely, personalized, and consistent across every touchpoint.

Task 3: Insights into Customer Behavior

Many things in your business, including lead scoring and follow-up, can’t happen without first having an in-depth understanding of your customer base.

As we explored earlier, this insight tells you which leads are hot and helps craft messages that will resonate and convert. But understanding your customers should go beyond identifying who’s ready to buy — it should guide every decision you make.

After all, your customers are the heartbeat of your business — the “why” behind your marketing, sales, and service strategies. When you truly know your customers, you can pivot quickly, adjust campaigns based on real data, and deliver experiences that feel personal.

With an AI-powered CRM system, these insights come naturally. AI continuously analyzes your customers’ behaviors (i.e. purchase patterns, engagement trends, and timing between interactions) and surfaces meaningful insights in real time.

This helps you see what’s working, spot opportunities to upsell or re-engage, and predict what customers might need next before they ever tell you.

Ready To Let AI Lighten Your Load?

If you’re doing these tasks manually or not at all, now’s the perfect time to let AI share the workload.

Start by exploring your current CRM to uncover any built-in AI tools you may not be using — or, if you’re in the market for one, look for a platform that combines CRM and AI automation in one place.

 

Patricia Rollins

Patricia Rollins is Executive Director of Marketing at Thryv, a global AI-powered marketing platform for small and medium-sized businesses. Patricia’s career has focused on equipping entrepreneurs with the technology and tools they need to thrive. Known for blending creativity with data-driven strategy, she builds momentum for technologies that expand what’s possible. 

 

When It Comes To Delegating, Communication Isn’t The Problem. Your Expectations Are.

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by Chris Clearfield, co-author of “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It” and “The High-Altitude Entrepreneur“

When high-growth founders feel stressed or overwhelmed, it’s rarely because they lack ambition, intelligence, or work ethic. More often, it’s because the business still depends on them in subtle but consequential ways.

The real reason delegation fails has less to do with how you communicate to your team and more to do with how you react when work doesn’t unfold as expected. The team executes, but decisions, judgment calls, and momentum still route through the founder — not because the team is incapable, but because delegation keeps producing outcomes that don’t match what the founder expected. And when those expectations are violated, founders tend to react before they reflect.

The cost isn’t just long hours or fatigue. It’s that the founder’s perspective doesn’t expand with the business — in fact, it often shrinks. Strategic thinking gets crowded out by exception-handling, second-guessing, and rework. Instead of seeing ahead, the founder is pulled back into the day-to-day.

These founders already know the advice. Delegate more. Empower the team. Get out of the weeds. And yet delegation doesn’t stick. Work comes back. Decisions stall. Ownership remains thin.

Hidden Expectations

The issue usually isn’t that the team can’t handle the work. It’s that delegation often leads to outcomes that differ from what the founder expected. And those deviations don’t feel neutral — they feel threatening.

Delegation fails less because of the people founders rely on, and more because a founder carries unspoken expectations that they never communicated. The founder experiences those expectations as obvious. The team never sees them at all.

Neuroscience helps explain why this dynamic is so persistent. The brain doesn’t passively observe reality; it constantly predicts what should happen next. When delegated work produces an outcome that differs from that prediction, the brain flags a threat. Cortisol rises. Attention narrows. The impulse to correct kicks in before conscious thought.

Thus, when expectations are violated, founders’ nervous systems react before their leadership does. Disappointment turns into control: stepping in, doing more, taking work back. These corrections might solve the immediate problem, but they send a clear signal that ownership is provisional and reversible. Founders meet with continual disappointment. And teams stop fully owning decisions they suspect will be undone.

Collaborative Accountability

If delegation repeatedly triggers correction, the answer isn’t to let go harder. It’s to change how founders interpret and respond when work doesn’t go as planned. That shift happens by replacing expectations with curiosity through a practice I call collaborative accountability.

Collaborative accountability begins with a premise many founders resist: They have contributed to this situation. Not as blame or fault, but as a recognition that unmet expectations contain information about assumptions, priorities, clarity, capacity, and handoffs.

From this stance, accountability stops being about correction and starts being about learning. When something goes differently than expected, the move isn’t to fix the person, but to examine the system together. Practically, that means having a judgment-free conversation where you name what happened, listen to understand, share your perspective, and co-design the next step.

If unmet expectations are information — not failure — then the question becomes practical: What do you do in the moment when something doesn’t go as planned?

Collaborative accountability isn’t a mindset exercise. It’s a repeatable conversational approach founders can use whenever delegated work stalls, slips, or lands differently than expected.

The Collaborative Accountability Sequence

Use this five-step sequence when something you’ve delegated doesn’t unfold the way you expected.

1. Name what you’re seeing — without judgment.

Start with observable facts, not interpretations. Neutral language creates safety and keeps the conversation open.

2. Ask, listen, and reflect.

Invite the other person’s view first. Listen for constraints, tradeoffs, and pressures you may not see. Reflect back what you hear to confirm understanding.

3. Share your perspective clearly.

Once you’ve listened, add your concerns without blame or control. Frame them as inputs to a shared design problem, not verdicts.

4. Align on what’s actually true.

Summarize both perspectives and name the real tension. This resets alignment and prevents misunderstanding.

5. Co-design the next move.

Shift from explanation to action. Agree on the next steps and decide how you’ll revisit progress.

Used consistently, this sequence turns accountability from a corrective reflex into a learning loop.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Consider the example of a co-founder of a manufacturing company who asked her operations director to run a regional pilot — an experiment designed to test new demand without overextending the core business.

Two months later, the pilot hadn’t gained traction. For the co-founder, this was the familiar fork in the road; she could step in and take back control or quietly conclude that delegation wasn’t worth the risk and let the project falter.

Instead, she treated the miss as information and used the collaborative accountability sequence.

She started by naming the observation without judgment: I’ve noticed the pilot hasn’t moved forward in the last couple of months. Can we look at what’s getting in the way?

From there, the conversation surfaced a capacity constraint at the core facility, clarified what concerns each of them were holding, and led to a shared redesign of the pilot’s scope. Nothing was taken back. No one was blamed. Ownership increased because the system learned and adapted.

The Fix

Collaborative accountability isn’t about running tighter meetings or having better conversations. It’s about building a business that can carry weight without you at the center so growth doesn’t come at the cost of your attention, energy, or presence.

When teams take real ownership, founders stop spending their days reacting. They regain the ability to think clearly, focus on what matters, and trust that the business will keep moving without constant oversight.

Over time, the effects compound. Teams are more engaged. People want to work at the company. And founders are no longer choosing between building something meaningful and being present for the people who matter most.

 

Chris Clearfield

Chris Clearfield is a leadership strategist, author, and Harvard-trained scientist who works with high-performing entrepreneurs to help them scale without becoming the bottleneck in their own business. He is co-author of “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It” , winner of the National Business Book Award and the Thinkers50 Strategy Award. His new book is “The High-Altitude Entrepreneur“. Learn more at highaltitudebook.com.

Beyond Google In 2026: How Ecommerce Paid Search Masters Redefine Search On Amazon, TikTok, And Retail Media

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SEO in 2026 is about optimising for AI

In 2026, ecommerce paid search has evolved beyond Google Ads into agentic commerce, where AI agents handle discovery and purchases via the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Top US agencies now master Amazon, TikTok Shop, and retail media networks like Walmart Connect and Target Roundel, optimizing for conversational AI and real-time creatives with tools like Gemini 3.

The digital landscape has shifted from keyword bidding to fluid, AI-driven orchestration across platforms, turning scrolling and streaming into seamless shopping.​

Paid Media Trends in 2026

A shift toward intelligence, automation, and immersive experiences defines the paid media landscape in 2026.​

  • Agentic Commerce: AI agents use UCP to autonomously discover and buy products, prioritizing structured product data for recommendations.
  • AI Integration & Gemini 3: Advanced models enable real-time video/image generation and campaign tweaks via tools like Ads Advisor.​
  • Conversational Search: Natural language queries dominate, with AI modes in engines like Gemini handling complex intent.​
  • Ad-Supported Streaming: YouTube and CTV lead discovery, blending ads with shoppable formats.​
  • Immersive & Shoppable Content: TikTok Shop and YouTube Shorts fuse inspiration with instant buys.
  • Privacy-First Data Strategy: First-party data powers targeting amid cookie loss, building trust in automated flows.

New Agency Evaluation Criteria

Agency selection has transformed since 2024, demanding readiness for post-search realities.​

UCP Readiness: Top firms integrate product feeds with UCP for AI agent checkouts, as in Gemini apps linking Walmart and Shopify. 

Creative Velocity: Using Google’s Veo 3 and Asset Studio, agencies produce assets in minutes for visual-heavy campaigns.​

Cross-Channel Orchestration: Experts shift budgets dynamically between Google, Amazon, and TikTok based on real-time discovery signals.

Beyond Google: Amazon, TikTok, Retail Media

Google no longer monopolizes; discovery fragments across ecosystems.​

Amazon: Now a branding hub with Sponsored Brands and DSP, not just conversions.

TikTok: Gen Z/Alpha’s search engine demands video SEO and Shop ads. 

YouTube: #1 streaming giant uses AI-matched creator partnerships via Open Call.​

Agencies apply fluid budgeting, reallocating spend per performance across these.​

Preparing for Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

UCP, co-developed by Google and Shopify, standardizes AI-merchant connections for identity, payments, and custom capabilities.​ It automates shopping from discovery to checkout, reducing friction in agentic flows.

Actionable step  — Partner with either one of these top 6 Ecommerce Paid Search Agencies in The US In 2026. Choose an agency that is UCP-ready to sync feeds for Gemini/Walmart buys.

This year demands speed via AI agents and UCP, not outdated keywords.​

Audit your agency’s roadmap — Do they discuss agentic commerce, or cling to Google bids? The top ecommerce paid search agencies in the US in 2026 redefine success beyond Google on Amazon, TikTok, and retail media.​

As ecommerce leaders navigate this transformative era, the smartest brands are already auditing their partnerships, prioritizing agility over legacy tactics to capture emerging opportunities in a fragmented discovery landscape. Choose an agency that doesn’t just react to trends but anticipates them, ensuring your brand thrives amid rapid innovation and delivers unmatched customer experiences that drive sustainable growth.

 

[Interview] Benjamin Chen On How To Apply Martial Arts Principles To Business And  Life  

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Benjamin Chen of From The Mat Academy

Benjamin Chen of From The Mat Academy

Benjamin Chen’s fascinating book, “Lessons From The Mat: The 12 Martial Arts Principles That Will Help You Succeed in Business and in Life“, shares the wisdom the author learned — as a highly successful entrepreneur, investor, and business leader, and as a dedicated martial artist with black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Hapkido, and Tae Kwon Do. Written with coauthor Scott Burr, the book distills Ben’s 40-plus years of experience into 12 proven principles that help leaders and entrepreneurs perform under pressure, adapt quickly, and build a balanced, purposeful, and successful life and career.

We chatted with Ben to understand more about his book and learn how these ancient principles can give anyone the edge in modern business, and in life.

How would readers benefit from looking at business and life from a martial arts perspective?

Martial arts trains you to operate effectively under pressure. That’s the core benefit.

On the mat, you’re constantly dealing with resistance — physical, emotional, mental. If you panic, you lose. If your ego takes over, you lose. The training conditions you to slow your breathing, observe clearly, and respond rather than react.

Business and life work the same way. Markets resist. People disagree. Plans fail. If you view that resistance as information instead of threat, you make better decisions.

Martial arts also builds discipline and timing. You learn that not every opportunity is worth chasing — but when the right opening appears, you commit fully.

So the perspective shift is this: adversity isn’t interruption — it’s part of the match. And once you accept that, you operate with far more clarity and resilience.

Is there a basic principle business leaders can follow to aim for success?

Yes — what I call Ready Stance.

In martial arts, before any technique works, your base must be solid. Your feet are grounded, your posture aligned, and your target clear. Without that, even the best technique fails.

In business, Ready Stance means strong fundamentals: clear strategy, financial discipline, the right people in the right roles, and a defined market position.

A lot of leaders chase advanced tactics — growth hacks, scaling strategies, innovation — but their foundation is unstable. They’re out of alignment.

Ready Stance is about preparation before aggression. It’s about positioning yourself so that when you move, your movement has power.

Success isn’t just about effort. It’s about alignment.

What strategies in martial arts help move the needle in business?

Three strategies are especially powerful.

First, Connect. In martial arts, you constantly read your opponent’s balance and intent. In business, that means accurately reading customers, competitors, and market signals in real time. Most mistakes come from misreading reality.

Second, Consider Fully, Act Decisively. Martial artists train extensively, but when it’s time to move, they commit without hesitation. In business, over-analysis kills momentum, but reckless action kills companies. The skill is knowing when preparation is sufficient — then acting boldly.

Third, Ippon — the decisive move. Instead of scattering effort across dozens of small wins, you identify one strategic move that changes the match — a partnership, a product pivot, a hiring decision.

It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing the move that matters most.

During negotiation or conflict, do you consciously draw on martial arts training?

Early on, it was very conscious. I would literally remind myself to slow my breathing or check my posture. Now it’s largely instinctive — but the principles are always active.

In negotiation, the first battle is internal. If you’re emotionally triggered, you’ve already given up leverage. Martial arts teaches you to regulate your nervous system under pressure.

You also learn not to meet force with force. If someone escalates emotionally, instead of escalating back, you redirect. You ask questions. You change the angle. That’s classic martial arts strategy — use energy intelligently rather than collide head-on.

I also focus on what I call Your Circle — staying centered on what I can control. That keeps conversations productive and prevents ego from driving decisions.

Can you share an example of helping an entrepreneur using martial arts principles?

I worked with an entrepreneur who was highly capable but constantly pivoting. Every new opportunity pulled him off course. Revenue was stagnant because focus was fragmented.

We applied Your Circle — identifying what was actually within his influence and aligned with his core strength. That eliminated distractions.

Then we applied Keep Showing Up — committing to one channel and one strategy for 90 days without deviation. No shiny object shifts.

The change wasn’t dramatic overnight success. It was steady traction. And traction compounds.

Martial arts teaches that mastery comes from the repetition of fundamentals, not constant novelty. Once this entrepreneur stabilized his base and stayed consistent, growth followed naturally. 

Is there an instructor whose teachings inspire you as a businessman?

Yes — and what stands out isn’t flashy technique, it’s discipline and humility.

The best instructors I trained under emphasized fundamentals relentlessly. They would say, “Advanced technique is just refined basics.” That principle applies directly to business.

They also embodied what I call the white belt mindset — even at the highest level, they stayed curious, always refining, never assuming mastery.

As a businessman, that’s critical. Markets evolve. Technology changes. The moment you think you’ve figured it all out, you become vulnerable.

The masters taught me that preparation, humility, and constant refinement win over ego and theatrics. That mindset carries directly into leadership.

Can you share one piece of advice for entrepreneurs in today’s intense climate?

Train for discomfort voluntarily.

Most people only deal with discomfort when the market forces it on them — downturns, competition, disruption. Martial artists step into discomfort deliberately. That builds adaptability.

In volatile markets, adaptability is survival. If you regularly challenge yourself — make difficult calls, enter hard conversations, test bold ideas — uncertainty becomes familiar terrain.

When others freeze, you move.

The entrepreneurs who prevail aren’t necessarily the most aggressive. They’re the most composed under pressure and the most willing to lean into growth before it’s comfortable.

Discomfort isn’t the enemy. It’s preparation.

To learn more, visit Benjamin Chen’s website, Fromthemat.academy.

 

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