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The wall-street landscape is filled with visionaries aspiring to change how we use products, services, and ideas. However, life is not all about Rainbows & Brownies. Plenty of startups fail within the first 5 years of the creation. Their ideas might be extraordinary, but what these young Entrepreneurs lack, is pitching to investors. Entrepreneurs should avoid mistakes while pitching their ideas to investors. Most mistakes are just blunders that are made by founders who don’t know well about their investors. The good is, you can avoid these blunders & get you’re a-game started. As a serial Entrepreneur, know what it takes to pitch your idea to the investor. You need to create that perfect pitch to inspire your investor. After listening to hundreds of pitches, some amazing, and others boring, I’ve brainstormed some ideas that can help the young Entrepreneurs, or the startups to avoid these mistakes while pitching the idea to the investors.

The Whole Team is Present But Only Your CEO is Speaking

Finding an investor is like finding a new family for your business. And the more your investor knows about your team members, the better. Give an introduction to every team member & let them speak. Don’t intervene while your team member is speaking. In this way, your investor will be comfortable with all your team members.

Telling a Engaging Story

What most of the Entrepreneurs need to learn is the art of storytelling. Everyone can tell a dull story, but it takes practice to tell an engaging story. The art of storytelling is one vital skill for every Entrepreneur.  By laying down a powerful story you can convey your message with passion & enthusiasm. Whether you believe it or not, we humans are social animals that are touched by emotions. Investors will be looking forward to your big idea to unleash in a story that they can relate to. Whether we like it or not, we are all somewhat emotional creatures, investors included. Engaging your audience with a good story they can relate to captures their attention and opens them up to want to learn more. A use case is a great way to structure a story and allows the investor to visualize how your customers could use and benefit from your solution.

Keep the Presentation Duration Less Than a Minute

Most young Entrepreneurs feel like, a long email will help to impress the investors. This is a total myth. Your presentation should be short & simple. You need to divide the presentation among your team members so all can speak and there is some diversity for the investors to keep the conversation engaging. Even if you’re pitching the investor via email, make sure it is a short one. No need to give the full details in the email. Just give an overview of your business idea and save the curiosity for the presentation.

Lack of Clear Direction & Strategy

What most Entrepreneurs fail to realize is that investors are visionaries too. If you’re willing to get something from the investor, you need to be specific about where you want your business to be in the next 5 years. The investor needs to know your growth plan & strategy you will be using to move your business to the next level. And one thing more. You need to ensure that all your team members are on the same page. When in front of the investor, do not argue or negate your team member. But make sure you all know where you want your business in the next 5 – 10 years.

Features, Not Benefits Will Level Up Your Game

Another mistake which entrepreneurs make when creating their pitch is to list a ton of features and technical terms. Sure, the investors are smart, but some of them lack the technical know-how and the jargon. Do not impress them with the technical lingo. Entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on the benefits rather than the features of the product. Your investors and even the customers don’t care what benefits they are getting. What they need is what features are there that can help them solve their problem. How you share that with the investor will help the investor in making the right decision.

Ignoring the Competition

It is surprising how many startup decks do not even mention competition. Some claim to have no competition while some claim minimal competition. This is where you start losing trust with your investors. Look at the market in the totality and mention all your competitor names. You can then go niche, talk about a sub-segment, and highlight the absence of competition there. For 99% of businesses in the world, there is always competition. As one investor told me, “If there is really no competition, I might not even want to invest.”

Lack of Communication Skills

It doesn’t matter if it is your idea or not, if you cannot put your idea in the right words in front of the investor, all your efforts will go unnoticed. Many founders have no negotiation skills or lack confidence in what they are worth. They’re often unable to sell the product – especially techies who have this problem – or unable to sell the company to investors in a persuasive manner. On the other hand, they don’t see they are not unique, many ignore the market. They often ask for too much while not having a clear vision of how to spend the money.

To Conclude it All

To end it all. Pitching is one of the most difficult parts of the puzzle. But if you go well-prepared you will be able to pull off the deal. These are proven tips that have worked for me, and my friends. Try them out and let us know the result.

This post focuses on strategies to help creative professionals overcome procrastination and boost productivity. You remember the famous speech of Martin Luther King. The night before the speech. Martin Luther King was busy re-writing the speech till 3 am in the morning. And right before he was about to give the speech, sitting in the audience he was still editing the draft. I am sure, he was not correcting his grammar. 11 minutes on the stage, he said the historical 4 words, ‘I have a dream’ and the best part, these words were not even in the speech which he wrote. So, where did the words come from? Yes, Martin Luther King did deliberate procrastination to unleash his creative genius.

"You call it procrastinating I call it thinking." ~Aaron Sorkin

Procrastination is labeled as a negative word. But William Shakespeare said it best "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." As an Entrepreneur, you will be twisted, crippled, rejected, and often misunderstood. But your will to succeed at any given moment will decide the length you’ll go on your journey.

To procrastinate creatively, you need to first understand the creative process.

The Creative Process Goes Like

• This is an awesome idea.
• This sounds tricky.
• This is crap.
• I am crap.
• This might be okay.
• This is awesome.

When you’re doing creative procrastination, you will have to skip the ‘I am crap’ part. When you are about to do the thinking process, pick an idea and follow the following thought process:

• This is an awesome idea.
• This sounds tricky.
• This is crap.
• This might be okay.
• This is awesome.

Tip 1: Write Everything Down

No matter how great your IQ is, or your much you can remember, as an Entrepreneur, you need to write everything down. Start with personal journaling and move it into creative writing. To start off with, write everything that goes into your day. After you establish that habit of writing everything down, you will be able to take down ideas from it. You will perform best when you will do it when you are procrastinating. While procrastinating your mind will be relaxed & you will come up with great ideas. You can also plan your day. Jot down the to-do of the day or whatever needs to be done.

Tip 2: Make Deadlines

Another way Entrepreneurs can shine while procrastinating is by adding deadlines to their projects. For me, deadlines provide greater clarity of what I want to achieve. Having deadlines gives you the sense of urgency you need to get the important tasks done. For instance, I always find it very boring to prepare project reports. At Branex we prepare project reports for all projects that are successfully completed. These reports include time spent on the project, screenshots of the final designs, color codes, font names, a creative brief, and customer details. Apart from motivation, these reports provide us with a way to stick to heavy deadlines and do things on time. I use Outlook calendar heavily for managing my tasks and my deadlines.

Tip 3: Change Your Environment

Sometimes it is not the project itself, it is the environment that makes all the difference. If you want to procrastinate creatively you need to change your environment. By changing the environment, you can procrastinate in some different surroundings which will activate the creative juices in your brain. In our firm, bloggers are the creative types. They are often found wandering all over the place, and what they get by wandering? An awesome blog idea.

Tip 4: Don’t be a Perfectionist

You don’t need to be perfect. Sometimes a half-baked product is a great way to unleash your creative genius.

Also Read: 7 Productivity Hacks for Lazy Entrepreneurs

Instead of spending hours trying to get the color to match exactly, try to get the closest match and show it to your client. This will enable you to get that task done and allow your client to evaluate the color and tell you if they want a closer match.

Tip 5: Execute Now & Figure Out Later

Not everything can be figured out right at the time. Sometimes you need to execute things and pivot them later. While you are busy procrastinating for the next idea. Go ahead and launch it. Running a successful online creative/design business means that you will have to work on both interesting and the no-so interesting projects. You must take on the tasks and do them with a positive attitude. Take everything with a positive attitude. You don’t need to jump to conclusions. Just let the creativity come naturally.

These days, people prefer to use Facebook Messenger to interact with brands. With more than 65 million companies active on Facebook, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Approximately 80% of these brands use messaging platforms to reach Facebook's 1.2 billion monthly active users. When Messenger unlocked its hidden potential to mobile developers in 2016, 78% of users were still uninformed that chatbots even existed. But this year, some latest features for the Facebook Messenger 2.0 platform were released that are specifically designed to scale up the business and bot of its service. Facebook Messenger Platform 2.0 has advanced features such as Discover Tab, Chat Extensions, and M Suggestions - all designed to help brands gain maximum visibility and reach a wider audience.

Rise of Messenger Bots

Messaging with brands is all the rage, with more than 2 billion messages sent between people and brands, including automated conversations every month. If truth be told, Facebook Messenger serves as an integral part of business solutions as it offers businesses some great ways to communicate with potential customers and offer excellent customer service. Also Read: 7 Ways to Enhance Your Marketing Campaign with Facebook Messenger Chatbots on Messenger that initially faced a shaky rollout, are now effectively becoming more productive in assisting brands to increase revenue and improve overall business productivity. Messenger can be an important part of the B2C business world, as it offers more than 65 million active brands on its platform an efficient and seamless communication platform to reach more than 1.2 billion monthly active users.   Bots are clearly the next big thing in the customer-focused business world, taking over the mantle of apps. It’s interesting to observe a new wave rising and helping brands to maximize this great opportunity. Many businesses have found success and a significant rise in sales by embracing the power of Facebook Messenger.

Sephora

Sephora observed an 11% rise in booking orders with the help of its Messenger bot called Sephora Reservation Assistant. The brand wanted to increase in-store client appointments by providing an easy and interesting option to book makeovers. Their bot also increased in-store sales while enabling clients to reserve an in-store appointment in a matter of minutes. The brand also reported an increase in in-store sales and observed an average spend of more than $50 from clients who have reserved an in-store service through its Messenger bot.

Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger is another business that boosted 3.5x more sales through Messenger compared to any other digital network during Fashion Week in NYC. This fashion empire brilliantly used a bot to help people make their orders straight from the runway during Fashion Week. More than 60,000 messages have been sent on the platform through this amazing experience, with an amazing 87% return rate.

SnapTravel

SnapTravel is another brand that made approximately $1 million in hotel bookings within a year with its Facebook Messenger bot. Customers can easily message SnapTravel’s messenger bot to find different hotels and reserve a booking. All you need to do is message a bot with your travel details and budget. The bot will immediately respond with so many options to choose from. SnapTravel is connected to a number of online travel agents and can easily find the best possible rates available in the local market.

Latest Features with More Value

Implementing Messenger into the world of business communications is the main focus of Facebook. Recently, the Messenger 2.0 update unleashed many latest features such as Chat Extensions, Smart Replies, M suggestions, and Discover Tab. These new features are tailor-made to help businesses gain brand credibility and reach a wider audience through the combined automated and human chat experience in a seamless way. These tools will help Facebook to improve its presence and credibility on the bot platform, which already has 100,000 bot developers who have developed 100,000 active Messenger platforms. As more and more bots continue to be developed, more brands will surely see a significant boost in sales and business efficiency.   With more than 1.2 billion monthly active users on Facebook Messenger, it’s quite easy to see the value brands can gain by having a Messenger bot. Businesses are now capable of reaching the entire Facebook audience.  And the new features of Facebook Messenger 2.0 greatly improved the customer user experience potential.

80% of residential growth in the USA will occur in suburban markets starting in 2017. 44% of home buyers purchased a home that they found by using the internet. With a huge amount of purchases now done via mobile apps, buyers are noticeably more dependent on their mobile applications to discover the simplest and most reliable way to purchase products from their mobile devices. All across the globe, mobile app development companies are code-switching from websites to mobile-only apps that are getting mind-boggling attention. Over the past few decades, the Real Estate business has also become digitized like other businesses. National Association of Realtors concludes that Real Estate sales skyrocketed to 5.52 million in the year 2017. People are now searching to buy Real Estate online over the internet or in the recent few months via a mobile app that can get the job done.

Digital Real Estate Online Hunt

The National Association of Realtors and Google collaboratively researched online real estate searching trends. The findings of the research are given below: Over recent years, 90% of buyers have searched for properties online or used the real estate mobile app to search out their desired properties. In the past 5 years, real estate searches on Google have grown by 2.5 times. And around 85% of the buyers use a camera while buying the house. Now, if you’re planning to develop the Real Estate mobile app what are some of the key functions you need in the app? Or you might plan Toronto condos for sale app. As for the functionality, various modules can be included. Here we are presenting some of the most influential models. On Google alone, you might have seen buy property online ads. You need to include a photo gallery of the property, maps, and geolocation services to help people find the right property near their desired location. Of course, a call or SMS is necessary to connect with the dealer himself.

Show Customers What They Are Looking For

Customers are the prime source of revenue for any business, and giving them complete ease and a hassle-free experience will increase your chances of selling the property. Many of the top real estate mobile applications have seen exceptional growth with millions of app downloads. In a nutshell, get rid of the traditional way of selling things and doing business. It is time for you to move your real estate business to the mobile app.

How Building a Mobile App Will Help Your Real Estate Business?

First and foremost you need to treat your mobile application the same as you treat any of your employees. You expect them to grow your business and make some sales. You need to nurture it, cultivate it, and give everything that it wants to make you happy and give you some results. Your customer will be searching for the desired property in his mobile app and he is expecting to connect with the property agent then and there. What you can do as a business is give the customer the experience they want with the help of a photo gallery. Once you give them this information they will not only buy the property from you. But they will also refer your app to their friends.

How Much Does It Cost To Develop a Real Estate Mobile App?

There are a lot of free mobile app cost estimators that can estimate the cost of a Real Estate Mobile App. Development costs varied based on the functionality and complexity involved in developing desired features. If you want to take your business a step further from the competition, try us out. We can develop a real estate mobile app for you.

In the business world, competition is any obstacle your customers come across along their journeys to solving the high-level problems your business exists to solve. When it comes to competitive analysis, the very first question that comes to your mind is "Who are your competitors"? That’s because most businesses view their rivals as another brand, product, or service. But great leaders and online marketers go broader. Smart leaders figure out what their competition is. It is also important for your business to understand what is your target market, who are your competitors, what other products are on the market, and how other brands are doing. Pay careful attention to other brands and what they are doing restricts your marketing department’s ability to immerse itself in your marketplace. Focusing on other products and brands often leads to the invention of the products with the intention to compete with or iterate on something that customers might not have in the first place. A recent survey of more than 2,000 people suggests that over 50% of the people surveyed said that they use digital products and content at least three times a week in an attempt to achieve their goals. The companies that remove obstacles and help them along their journeys are the ones that get repeat visits, purchases, return customers, and word-of-mouth recommendations. When you start taking your competition as your customers’ obstacles, it’ll become quite easy for your brand to improve the quality of your product or service instead of focusing on another brand or product. Stop copying strategies and setting your business goals by thoughtlessly following other companies. Try to minimize the time you devote to discussing your competitors and their products. Discourage all the product design approaches and strategies that focus on iterating on something already present or saturated by the marketplace. Devote your time and efforts in inventing something new – a product that can solve your customers’ problems.

Rethink Your Offerings

Most brands think they sell a product or a service in order to build a transactional relationship with their customers. However, a company needs to think about selling a transformation which is a journey from an obstacle to the new levels and likelihoods that will develop after the behavior alteration your products make happen. A web development company might sell a wise design approach, real estate businesses actually sell wise decision-making, and digital marketing companies sell wise solutions.

Rethink Your Target Customers

Your customers are not only the people who purchase your products or the group of people who follow you on Twitter and Facebook. Your customers are basically all the people who come across the obstacles your company exists to solve.  

Focus on Problems Your Customers Face

Carefully engage in customer research, whether online or offline, to understand their real-life problems. Outline the customer’s journey from having the problem your customers encounter to completely solving that obstacle with your offerings. That may be the journey from no online presence to a professional website that offers a seamless user experience. The most important point that you should learn from your customer insights research is to develop an in-depth understanding of the decision trips, pitfalls, and quit points that usually consumers run into their journeys. Carefully study the user data, surveys, research, online listening, and even competitors’ data to discover all the roadblocks.

Brands Can Use These Insights to Do a Careful Competitive Analysis.

• Carefully understand all the obstacles your target market comes across
• Learn where and how people get stuck
• Learn how you can solve their problems
• Understand how consumers can overcome the issue

Jeff Bezos, CEO and Founder of Amazon, says, “If we can keep our rivals focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out all right”. Smart online marketers and great business leaders believe if you can stay focused on eliminating the problems along your customers’ journeys, your brand will turn out much more successful.

You wake up with the sound of Nightingale around you. You put your feet on the glass floor. You’re served with a sumptuous breakfast. You know you deserve this all, because 5 years from now, you will be on the verge of a breakdown. You had it all, but then your friend suggested you look into the lives of highly successful people. And luckily, you listened to him. Now, 5 years later. You have it all. What habits do you adopt to get here? Well, you’re in luck. Because you are about to hear the habits which turned my life around. Not just turned around, it helped me break my mental barrier and succeed. Firstly write this on paper and stick it to your cupboard, your bed, and your bathroom mirror “Those who can do, those who can't, complain.” If you want to succeed, you really need to build habits that are tried & tested. Presenting 6 habits that transformed my life for the better.

Habit 1: Write Everything Down

If you really want to get things done, you need to write things down. Jotting things on paper takes them away from your mind, and you can focus on the execution part. Every morning and right before you sleep. List down the things you’ve achieved & what you’re willing to achieve today. Have an idea, write it down. Want to do something, write it down. Want to pitch your business? Write your sales pitch down. The real magic happens once you see what you really want to achieve.

Habit 2: Rise Early and Achieve More

This is no doubt one must-have habits of every successful Entrepreneur. Join the 5 am club. Sleep early and wake up at 5 am. The thing is, if you wake up early, you tune yourself for the coming day when others are busy dreaming. And when others wake up, you have achieved 60% of your goals. Do a healthy breakfast. Plan your day. Read something. Listen to motivational audiobooks. Exercise. There is so much you can do to jump-start your day in a way all other successful people do. Oh yes, I also hated rising up early, but once I trained my mind to wake up early, it was all worth it.

Habit 3: Visualize Your Success

There is so much talk about ‘seeing the end’; if you can’t see it, you cannot achieve it. And to tell you the truth, all is true. “When I started Branex.com (a digital marketing agency from New York), I visualized every day. The success, the projects, and the customers were all happy with me. Luckily, after 3 years, I had it all. My success started the day I started visualizing success for my business. “Raheel Najmi, CEO, Branex.com. Visuals have power. And if you see your success in your mind, there is a greater chance that you’ll make your way to the top. All the sports stars, billionaires, and successful Entrepreneurs started with a dream. Something they believed in. Something that made them tick. You can be successful if you do what others do. And that sees you making small increments every day towards your final goal. The great thing about the mind is that it doesn’t differentiate between imagination and reality. So, if you really want to enjoy life in Hawaii like the one mentioned at the start, you really need to visualize all the success in your mind first.

Habit 4: Sharpen Your Saw

This is habit number 7 of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, not rocket science in this. If you really want to succeed in this competitive world, you really need to focus on self-improvement. I love the word “Kaizen,” which means ‘constant improvement. No matter how successful you become or if you’re starting out, you need to establish a learning mindset. Every day, you learn something new. Keep your mind open for everything. But make sure you take only what is necessary for your goal. It is good to listen to everyone and learn from everyone. But it is not good to adopt soul-crushing habits. Habits, that turn your life around for bad. Seem out good people, and books, and connect with people on social media. Learn from them. Polish your skills. And most importantly, share something you learn with people whom you care about.

Habit 5: Be Disciplined

I used to watch 3-4 movies every day. What was the outcome? Just entertainment. I used to drink 4 cups of Coffee every day. What was the outcome? Dizziness and daydreaming. Coffee is good, but an excess of it will fly you up in the skies. And you really can’t afford to remain in the skies if you want to succeed on Earth. Your life is a message to this world. To your family, to your friends, and to the people working with you. So make every minute count. Do not waste your time on useless negative self-talk. Life is short. Make sure you discipline your life and make the most of this life. Plan things ahead. Back up your plans. Do this that are urgent first, then go for important things. Do not overdo things just to achieve more. Give preference to quality over quantity.

Habit 6: Stay Calm and Achieve More

Every successful entrepreneur needs to incorporate meditation into their daily lives to break from the daily all-consuming chaos and free up room for creativity. Meditation can take the form of prayer, silence, writing in a gratitude journal, or even dancing—anything that takes you out of your own head. You can start with 5 minutes a day and extend that to 30 minutes a day. This small habit will clear your mind for new ideas, you will surely be calmer and achieve more out of the day. To conclude it all. Habits are what separates successful people from unsuccessful ones. These are a few habits that made me successful and I hope these will help you too to achieve more in life. Oh yes, by the way, if you’re fed up with the conventional website design & development agencies, feel free to punch us in. We will help you with your next masterpiece. We specialize in building websites that don’t just win awards, they will steal the hearts of your customers too.

So you are all set up to quit your job, take the leap, and start your own company. You have an awesome business idea and can’t wait to put that idea into actual work. But wait, have you figured out what the website will cost? Well, the good news is that Branex has already thought that for now. When the idea is new, you get impulsive and launch without thinking things through. So, here is your chance to think things through before you dive into the Entrepreneurship project. To make yourself ready for the big day here are some tips that can be your guideline when you are willing to quit your job and start your own company.

1. Do the Research First

Quitting your job before you do the research is like getting yourself ready for a suicide mission. The preferred way is to research while you are on the job. In this way, the jump from an employee to being an Entrepreneur gets smoother. You cannot jump into building your warehouse, or even an office, if you haven’t done the groundwork first. If the research is not there, then there are chances that you will not go a long way. The launch of the rocket is the most important part of the journey. If the rocket launches in the right manner, the rest of the journey is all science. Few things you need to make sure of while you are doing the research

• Learn everything about your product/service.
• Know what your audience wants and study the buyer persona
• Research your competitors. Do not follow them. Just keep an eye on them.
• Find the right people and recruit them right away.

Know the sales channels and the marketing channels will be

2. Start with a Business Plan

Once you are done with the research, you can get down to creating a business plan. Yes, you read it right. The same business plan that you have studied in your business school. Now is the time to take out that genius and give it some meaning. Your business plan will be something that you will show to your investors, partners, and other company stakeholders. A good business plan normally contains the following sections.

• Overview of your business
• Summary of what you are willing to achieve with the business
• History of the company and what you actually do
• Company objectives, mission statement, goals, and vision.
• What industry are you planning to target?
• What are your target customers?
• The strategy you are going to follow to compete with the other players in the market.
• Most importantly, your team.
• An operational plan, a marketing plan, and a financial plan

3. Structure of Your Business

Before you talk to the investor, you need to structure your business plan first. This goes for the legal structure as well. There are various types of businesses you can become:

• A corporation
• A limited liability company
• A partnership
• Sole proprietorship

You need to consider:

• The operational complexity
• Liability
• Taxes
• Control
• Capital
• Licenses, permits, and regulations

4. Leverage Your Resources

Of course, you do not want to spend all your money in the wrong places. You need to plan things out. You need to start with the current resources and move your way up. For example, in the start, you can use your friend, a website designer, to design a logo for you at economical rates. Secondly, contact friends who started on their own and ask them to assist you with the resources. And lastly, connect with experts in the field and ask them for help.

5. Leave on a Good Note

Quitting a job without destroying the relationship is an art. Networking is all you need to do in your life. Make sure you leave your job on a good note. Provide them with a backup person before you leave your job. Of course, you are leaving to start your own venture, but you cannot be sure that will be a success or that your old company won't come in handy one day. Leave without burning any bridges and you may be able to cash in a favor one day. Your old employer may even send clients your way knowing that you are a trustworthy businessperson.

6. Plan Small Things First

As an entrepreneur, you will realize that planning is all in the smaller details. Right from the office space, to where you sit, what color will be your office, and what will be the office timings? These are simple things, but when coupled together, they make a huge impact. Utilizing daily planner templates in your routine can streamline these details and provide a structured framework for managing your time and tasks effectively. I know for a fact that at first, these things won’t matter, but trust me, if you don’t plan these small things out. You will face serious consequences in the coming months.

To End it All

Remember that starting a new business is going to be more challenging than you imagined. You're going to have to make the planning process your full-time job before you even see an income. That said, with the tips outlined above, you could make it the best, most profitable adventure you've ever embarked on from both a professional and emotional point of view.

Turning sales prospects into actual customers is not an easy feat. There’s no better feeling in business than that moment when you convert a prospect into a customer. And to do that, you need to do a lot of things right all at once to close the deal. But where do you start?  These savvy entrepreneurs share how to discuss the plan to make your negotiations more profitable and how to get that handshake that will close the qualified lead for sales.  Also Read: 5 Life Lessons Learn From Highly Successful Entrepreneurs

Be Omnipresent to Nurture Opportunities 

Tom Ferry, CEO and Founder of Tom Ferry International, author of “Life! By Design” shared the secret to close significant deals. According to him, you need four things to close leads that can give you good business opportunities. 

• List down the big companies or entrepreneurs you want to work closely with. Figure out their pain points and what matters most to them. Then, create content that clearly depicts how you will solve their problems faster, with better customer service at a fair price. Knowing the sales value of one deal makes it easier for you to spend on your prospects per annum.

• Build a pipeline to foster more opportunities. Take every chance, attend every meeting, and accept every project regardless of its worth, just to show how you offer immense value. This way, your prospects eventually take notice. Make contacts and foster relationships. Don’t forget to ask for testimonials.

• Do something very inspiring to stay at the forefront of your prospects’ minds. Stay up-to-date with all the significant opportunities that you can get to work with those big-deal decision-makers.

• Work hard and become a reliable name in the business industry. Mention your success stories and wins on social media - no matter how big or small, that show your team's efforts and products. Big companies that close huge deals want to work with winners.

Communicate Positively

Grant Cardone, Top Sales Expert, NYT- Bestselling Author of “Be Obsessed or Be Average” believes that while closing a deal of any size, you should communicate confidently and clearly, otherwise, people won’t trust you. He uses recorders and videos to ensure his communication comes across the way he intended. He believes that he will reach an agreement, no matter what the buyer or other people say. The approach of knowing each other to close the agreement requires you to remove all negativity from your surroundings as it is a fatal disease. Grant always remains positive no matter how the buyer behaves, he keeps things light, always smiles, and maintains a can-do attitude throughout the process of negotiations. Grant thinks when you succumb to negativity, there will be an outcome that is not good. Communicate positively and practice smiling with every buyer in every situation you come across. Repeat the steps until you can negotiate and close the deal.

Negotiate for Fair Value

Tai Lopez, investor and Advisor to Million-Dollar Businesses, learned three tips that school doesn’t prepare you for doing deals.

• If your first offer is accepted, you probably won’t negotiate enough. However, don’t be upset if they don’t accept your initial offer.

• Don’t always try to get the best deal. Warren Buffett – the billionaire says, it’s better to pay a fair price for a quality product than a few bucks for a piece of crap. Tai says that sometimes he waited for too long to negotiate the business deal and ended up with nothing. It’s far better to pay a little more to have real investments.

• Read the agreement before signing. Many people sign anything without even bothering to read the document. He advised business founders and salespersons to read the contract in a relaxed, calm way and carefully know what they are signing. If possible, let some other people spot things that you might miss.   

Learn to Compromise

Com Mirza, CEO of Mirza Holdings, $500 Million Man, believes that big deals don’t come around very often. And when they do, think carefully to create a mutually beneficial contract. He follows some simple rules:

• If your terms and conditions are not met, be ready to withdraw. The deal only makes sense if you get what you are trying to achieve, otherwise, it’s useless.

• Always willing to compromise on your lower-priority terms and conditions. Once you get what you want to achieve, make sure the clients get what they want. Sometimes, you have to show that you care by negotiating on an unimportant part and confusing the other side about what matters to you.

• Focus intensely on creating a win-win situation for everyone involved in the deal. Because if a single person finds that the deal is not a win-win, they disrupt the deal.

Strengthening Relationships

Chris Plough, Author, Speaker, and Founder Partner of ExponentialU, says that he closed six, seven, and even eight-figure deals. Some deals were easy, and took days to close, while others were very difficult, and took months. It is always important to reach a mutually beneficial agreement that fosters the relationship between you and your client. He wants business owners and salespersons to remember three things.

• Getting what you want starts before the deal. Negotiating and signing a contract is a small part of the whole process. Knowing people before closing the deal provides a foundation of trust and understanding to begin negotiations.
• While finalizing the deal, it is important to keep in mind what matters most to you and the other party. Ask the other party what is important to them, and give importance to what they value most. This may cost you little, but it can make you money.
• Work as a team once you finalize the deal. Build a strong relationship, no matter how difficult the negotiations. Work with the right people and foster a relationship, as it carries you through difficult times and influences your success.

Follow the steps these entrepreneurs take to grow your business and reach new heights of success.

70% of the startups fail within the first 5 years. Only 10% end up with a million-dollar startup success business. Oh yes, and I was in that 70% for quite some time. Out of 5 ventures, 3 of my ventures were a total failure. After some trial and error, I have established some habits that drove my 4^th venture to new heights. I would like to share that success with you. So, if you are a struggling Entrepreneur or a small business owner, this blog is for you. So, you might be asking, what separates a million-dollar business from a failed startup? What does it take to move your arc in the positive direction? The hard part of any business is to know where you are going. If you get that trajectory right, the tone of your business is set for massive success. If it is that easy, everyone might carry millions of dollars. Unfortunately, though, reality has it the other way around. The reason? Most business owners are unprepared for the hole they are about to fall into. Most of the founders initially have no idea where to start and what to do when their business goes south. Here are 4 tips that you can take seriously if you really want to build a successful million-dollar startup.

1. Work in Silence

"Build in silence; they can't stop what they can't see." Quiane Crews, the chairman of Stealth Performance Communications, "My No. 1 piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to build in silence," Crews said. A common mistake entrepreneurs make is that they get so excited about an idea or business venture we have, and we start sharing our vision with people around us and close to them. The bad part about that is that not everyone is meant to know your vision. "I learned that I shouldn't tell people my next move if I haven't made it yet. If people don't know what you're doing, they can't distract you or get in the way of your goal." According to Crews, by telling people what you're doing or what you're about to do, you're basically showing them your hand before you play it. "I've had my share of ups and downs as well as any successful entrepreneur," Crews continued. "One of the main reasons I was able to gain massive success in a short period is that no one knew what I was doing, and I had an amazing team that was on the same page as me."

2. Focus on the Sales

I don’t care if your dad is a millionaire or you have a billion dollars in your bank; if you are dead serious about running a business, figure out ways to generate sales. There is such a thing as ‘overnight success’; every success is the outcome of 10-15 years of hard work. The fairy tale of a million-dollar business as seen in movies is pretty different than in real life. Movies always end on a good note, but not every business ends on a good note. For a business to succeed, you need to do all-nighters, send thousands of emails, and spend time strategizing what you can do differently that can make some sales. The hardest part is staying focused. There are infinite opportunities out there for you to take your talents and explore. You have to learn to say no to most things. Why? Because your time, as you will quickly come to realize, is your most valuable resource. You can always raise more money. You can always hire more people. But you cannot manufacture more time. Steve Jobs has 24 hours in a day, Jeff Bezos has 24 hours in a day. But what separates you from them is how they utilize those 24 hours. If you are serious about company growth, make sure to focus your activities on personal growth.

3. Say Hello to Feedback

My most valuable learning regarding my business was from my customers and friends. Feedback, when taken the right way, can surely bring a new wave of energy into your million-dollar startup. You don’t have to take everything seriously but yes you need to make sure that you give some thought to the suggestion given by your customers. When setting up my 4th venture, I was confused about what I wanted on my website. But thanks to Branex, a digital agency from NY, who guided me along the way and took away all my worries. If you really want your feedback to be productive, here are two things that you can do to make sure it goes the right way: Disassociate your personal feelings from the feedback. Feedback is not on you, it is on the company business process. There is something lacking in the process and people are pointing it out. Secondly, make sure you go for the greater good. Here you need to ensure that the decision you take is good for the company and for the customer keeping yourself out of the equation.

4. Pivot Your Million-Dollar Startup

Nothing is perfect so it is wise not to act like one. To achieve a million-dollar business, you will have to hit the books on how to embrace both the successes and the failures. There might come a day when everything seems to be going south but stick to the basics and why you started the business in the first place. Keep your values mission, and goals intact. Whatever business strategy you build, make sure to pivot it for your long-term vision. To build a successful company, you must be able to change. In a world changing so quickly, founders and their companies unable to adapt to change will fall far behind.

To End it All

Like many things in life, success in the startup world is a marathon, not a sprint; there are no guaranteed shortcuts. The only thing separating your company from success is hard work and luck. If you focus on what you can control, remove any bias, and evolve with your market - good things will come.

You’ve surely heard the term “Internet of Things” or IoT, but you might also be scratching your head to find out what it actually means. It basically refers to the connection of devices such as smartphones and computers to the internet recognized by other devices and contribute information to the database. Wearable devices, cars, home appliances, lamps, headphones, and medical devices can all be connected through our IoT development services. In short, the IoT describes the internet where data is created by things.   According to Gartner, by 2020 there will be more than 26 billion connected devices. Since things grow in the next few years, so this figure is estimated to be much higher, more than 100 billion. More and more devices will be added to the list which also includes the connection between people-people, objects-objects, and people-objects. The giant network of connected things – IoT is not only impacting the way we live but also how we perform our routine tasks. Kevin Ashton, a digital innovation expert who is the person who coined the term, defines the Internet of Things, “If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss, and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing, or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best.” But how will the IoT impact the business world, what do businesses expect from the Internet of Things, and how will IoT technology transform the business industry in 2017? Let’s dive in

Start of Connected Things

Some marketers would think that IoT got off to an unsteady start with a less satisfactory rate of acceptance than was projected. However, many online marketers think that IoT is growing and will continue to grow in 2017 and beyond. It is predicted that 50 billion connected devices by 2020 remain to be seen, but businesses who learn to harness the data created by the IoT will survive and thrive in the future. There are several products and devices now available due to IoT technology:

1. Wearable Technology

In 2015, there were 78.1 million wearables sold and the market is predicted to grow to 411 million by 2020. Wearable technology such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, VR headsets, and much more stores a lot of data in them. Brands are in the phase of understanding the possibilities and potential applications for this giant network of devices.

2. Home Appliances

In 2016, the business world saw a remarkable adoption of smart home technologies. Experts believe Amazon sold more Echos (9x more) in the holiday season compared to 2015. So, smart home technologies are expected to be more important than any other technology in 2017. In a Smart Home Technology survey, 70% of consumers who bought their first smart home device believe they are more likely to purchase more.

3. Automobile Industry

It is projected that around 82% of cars will be connected to the internet by the end of 2021. IoT such as diagnostic tools, app integration, navigation, and self-driving cars will soon transform the automobile industry. If truth be told, the automobile industry is investing more effort, energy, and heavy budget to discover the next IoT innovation.  

4. Transforming the Business World

Since IoT is expected to offer new devices and possibilities for consumers, it will also transform various business processes.

5. Inventory Management

Smart devices will ultimately be able to track all inventory data with the help of the Internet of Things.

6. Consumer Demands

Customers appreciate smart tools and IoT devices and will begin to expect smart yet personalized behavior in all aspects of their lives. Creating new gadgets, furniture, home appliances, and devices to meet the new demands of consumers will offer a new and reliable source of revenue for the entire business world.

7. Use Data

The massive data generated from smart devices will help businesses learn how and what to create and transform for a greater impact.

8. Remote Working Opportunities

The Internet of Things will produce additional remote working opportunities. A task that used to require the on-site presence of a person for its completion can also be done with IoT integration. Since some IoT innovations and devices are not secure. In 2016, millions of IoT devices were hacked and used for destructive purposes. IoT manufacturers should pay careful attention to security and users should take every precaution to secure their data stored in their devices.

Your Turn

The Internet of Things is just the beginning. Businesses who are taking the step to develop or expand IoT technology in their services, products, and business operations will get a competitive advantage of this technology and grow exponentially. It’s the right time for a digital product development agency to understand how they can integrate the Internet of Things into their services and what opportunities and challenges they might face as more devices start to join the network of IoT network.