The second-in-command is often tasked with enabling the CEO to be more efficient and get more done. However, with more than 40% of the world’s leading companies having the COO role unfilled, the second-in-command are stepping up. But, with the complexity and variety of the modern working landscape, the second-in-command can be one of many types.

There are 7 main types of second-in-command leaders. There are executors, who execute strategies for daily results, agents of change who lead specific business changes, and mentors who mentor a younger or less experienced CEO. There are also partners who co-lead to boost CEO efficacy and other half’s who complement a CEO’s unique skills. Finally, there are heir apparent who succeed the CEO and MVP’s who are kept in the company for the sheer value that they bring.

That being said, all successful second-in-command officers, or COO’s depending on the company, all have some consistent attributes. They all have acuity, organization, process, and structure. Firstly, acuity relates to the ability to quickly grasp complex concepts and to juggle multiple tasks effectively. Secondly, organization relates to the definition of priorities and subsequent allocation of the right amount of time, energy, and overall resources to achieve their goals. Finally, process and structure relate to the ability to reduce complexity for processes, to chunk large goals, and to create accountability while keeping consistency.

With all this in mind, you can see how many tasks a second-in-command may have to juggle or abilities they may need to possess. In the absence of a proper COO the position remains unfulfilled, leading 75% of CEOs to lack a second-in-command. This statistic can be felt by the CEO’s who may experience being overwhelmed, unproductive, and having no time to themselves. Additionally, they also report working on areas that are energy-draining and spending time managing people, rather than growing them.

These feelings are actualized into detriments for the business’s performance. Whether it is the CEO or the second-in-command, the lack of support can cost businesses big. In fact, companies are reported to lose 20% to 30% of their annual revenue due to inefficiencies in the infrastructure or support for executives. Furthermore, many executives are unable to allocate time appropriately. Therefore, the balance between daily occurrences, such as employees and operations, and long-term planning is 2:1.

These challenges can be seen in many areas beyond just time and financial consequences. There are numerous external and internal challenges that compound these, turning them into major problems. Things like worker shortages, supply chain disruptions, and compliance functions are all vital external functions of business that must be addressed by either the CEO or second-in-command. But the internal challenges intrinsic to the role itself also complicate the job. The lack of clarity in the role, a chaotic work environment, changes to priorities, and isolation all muddle many second-in-command.

Between the lack of support for COO’s and the lack of COO’s themselves, it is clear that there must be better support and upskilling for the second-in-command and COO’s. Fortunately, businesses like Diane Integrates help to make exactly that possible with COO coaching. These advisors provide coaching for the second in command or COO within your business, specifically. They can also help to hire talent to fill an unfilled position, as well.

With proper training, the second-in-command can create a measurable impact on growth, improve communication, and provide better clarity to a business. Statistically, these second-in-command’s see increases in individual performance, team performance, and organizational performance by 70%, 50%, and 48% respectively. All this culminates in an ROI increase of up to 788% via coaching alone, not to mention the mitigation of any company inefficiencies.

On top of the traditional coaching, Diane Integrates helps to power your business with AI technology as well. Through the power of Catipult.ai, valuation can be increased, meeting times can be reduced, and larger business goals can be achieved within only 12 quarters. This, in turn, helps to boost COO goals of acuity, organization, process, and structure by simplifying processes further and saving even more time. Fortunately, as a result of this, many companies have seen the value in COO’s, resulting in a 16% uptick between 2018 and 2022.

Whether you intend to upgrade your second-in-command or you acquire a new COO, the growth potential is almost certainly present in every situation. It could be for the coaching for people, or for the AI technology that helps to assist the people utilizing it. In order to take advantage of the numerous benefits of an improved second-in-command, advising companies like Diane Integrates are an important tool for any business.

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Data collected by the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBEC) found that a growing percentage of small businesses are starting to use artificial intelligence to improve their efficiency, reduce costs, and improve their product and service delivery. 

Survey results showed that nearly half, or around 48 percent of small businesses have already started using AI tools in the last 12 months, with an additional 29 percent saying they’ve been using these tools for one to two years. The majority of surveyed business owners all agree on one thing – AI tools can offer more cost-effective solutions, helping to improve profitability and reduce unnecessary expenses. 

Taking a small to new heights, with the aid of artificial technology has become a winning antidote for many business owners, and in one arena – digital marketing – these tools are revolutionizing the way in which small businesses engage with clients and create more personalized campaign messages. 

The Rise Of AI In Marketing 

The development of artificial intelligence continues to skyrocket. For business owners, this presents them with a new opportunity to leverage these digital tools to help enhance their marketing efforts and to preside over effective strategies that can help lock in more client engagement and effectively manage marketing tasks. 

Globally, there’s not a single marketing expert or professional who’s not currently using some form of artificial intelligence in their day-to-day activities. Roughly 88 percent of marketing professionals currently working with AI models have said that these tools helped improve the personalization of the customer journey, especially across multiple platforms. 

Even more than this, over 80 percent of marketers have started integrating artificial intelligence into their online marketing campaign activities. These applications have not only helped improve customer engagement, but further helped increase awareness of previous mistakes, allow them better access to data helping them make more data-driven decisions, and revitalize content strategies that align better with search engine best practices. 

Use Of AI In Marketing 

There are multiple AI tools currently available on the market, however, despite the surge in new technology coming to life in recent years, there are only two distinct categories of artificial intelligence in digital marketing that are helping transform how marketers work and build their campaigns. 

Content Creation and Brainstorming: Generative AI applications can help marketers produce new content ideas, including videos, images, and social media captions. Specific tools can now help with other content generation ideas such as for email marketing campaigns, and help analyze customer conversations and create personalized responses. 

Data Analysis and Forecasting: Aside from using Gen AI tools to help brainstorm ideas, artificial intelligence can monitor and analyze campaign performance and deliver valuable insights that can be used to make more data-driven decisions, and aid in predicting possible forecasting models. 

Across the board, it’s becoming more clear that AI tools have an important role to play for marketers, however, this doesn’t mean that small business owners have to receive the short end of the stick. 

By leveraging these valuable tools for content generation and tracking campaign performance, small business owners and entrepreneurs can build and launch marketing campaigns with effective strategies for optimized results. 

How To Use AI In Marketing To Boost Online Campaigns 

Using artificial intelligence for online marketing can be a valuable tool, however, small business owners need to understand which tools will be most effective for their strategies, and how these applications can drive engagement, and enhance the overall customer experience. 

Customer Data Analysis 

Before considering which AI applications to use throughout your digital marketing campaign, you will need to have a firm understanding of your customers and where to meet them. 

One of the best ways to approach this is by using artificial intelligence to deliver in-depth customer insights, helping you uncover where your customers are coming from, what they’re searching for, and how you can provide the most relevant results. 

By leveraging AI tools for customer analytics, you can start building more detailed customer personas, enabling you to create tailored campaigns that speak directly to your client’s needs and deliver the results related to their queries. 

For instance, when your customers search for specific words or phrases you want to be sure that you are ranking for those keywords, but more importantly know where they may be located. 

You might receive several thousand hits coming from Los Angeles, California, but at the same time notice an uptake in other parts of the country or the world. For instance, you might see an increase in mobile data traffic coming from Toronto, Canada, which could be due to Toronto’s population growth exploding in recent years, and this might be an indication that you need to optimize search results for more mobile users in this region instead. 

By conducting analysis, and understanding how each group of customers may be interacting with your business and specific webpages, you will have better insights into delivering quality results. 

Developing customer profiles enables you to create more personalized campaigns, and further promotes the message your customers are looking for. These tools become valuable assets for the long-term outlook of marketing campaigns, delivering accurate insights and providing you with the ability to make more informed decisions. 

Content Ideation

Once you’ve started understanding the customer journey, including where customers are searching the most for your business, and which touchpoints they frequent most often, you can begin working with AI applications to help develop content ideas that are unique to your brand and the platforms you want to work with. 

Using Generative AI tools, whether it’s to write email campaigns, come up with new content ideas, or even develop a posting strategy for your social media accounts can help save a lot of time, while delivering improved productivity output. 

In fact, many marketers using Gen AI tools have found that these applications can save them at least five hours per week, equating to over a month saved per year. On top of this, a robust 71 percent of marketers have said that using Gen AI will not only help them save time but allow them more freedom to focus on strategic work. 

By collaborating your efforts with Gen AI it’s possible to create more lead-driven content that can help boost online traffic and potentially turn into sales. As a small business, it’s important to keep these aspects in mind, especially in industries that are already heavily saturated. 

Generative AI can deliver valuable insights from various platforms and ensures that you can stay ahead of your competitors by creating more engaging content that directly speaks to your target audience. 

Campaign Messaging and Personalization  

Creating captivating content requires you to understand your brand, product, or service and your audience. More than this, delivering on these expectations would mean that you will need to create a personalized message that resonates with your customer’s fundamental needs. 

Think personalization isn’t important? That’s perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions, and one study found that roughly 71 percent of customers now expect companies to deliver personalized experiences. More than this, a robust 76 percent will get frustrated with companies should they not deliver the personalization they are looking for. 

By using artificial intelligence to create more customized messages, your business can improve its unique selling point (USP), while further growing your customer engagement through frequent interactions. 

Additionally, Gen AI can now help craft messages and email copy within seconds, and newer tools allow you to customize these responses based on your customer interactions. This could mean that as you begin to better understand your clients, you can put together more engaging segments with tailored messages. 

By applying this strategy, you enhance your online presence, while engaging more effectively with your clients. These interactions can help promote your awareness of customer needs, accurately delivering the results that they have queried about, and ensuring you meet them exactly where they are most likely to be. 

Content Optimization and Keyword Research 

In the past, marketers spent an enormous amount of time and resources creating optimized content and conducting keyword research for their campaigns. Though these activities are still an important part of the overarching marketing strategy, automating these tasks can help save time and money, and using AI tools could potentially deliver more accurate results. 

Research from 2023 showed that 84 percent of marketers are using AI marketing automation to help improve Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. For your small business, boosting your position on search engine results pages can help drive better engagement, increase brand awareness, and help raise revenue over the long term. 

More than these changes to Google’s search engine algorithm have meant that ranking in the top positions of results pages has changed, and instead, Google crawlers are looking to rank those pages higher that provide a more optimized user experience such as faster website loading times and overall user-friendliness of webpages. 

AI applications such as Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Analytics help to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how you are performing online, and where you might need to make improvements. 

Fortunately, these tools can help with additional actions such as keyword research, and finding the most relevant search terms users are looking for while looking for products and services online. By using these recommendations you can build a more robust strategy that focuses on delivering quality leads, increasing site traffic, and boosting overall engagement. 

Competitor Analysis 

In the past, business owners looked at physical aspects of their business such as product availability and service quality as distinct characteristics that set them apart from their nearest market competitors. 

Although these qualities remain an important factor of the business, having the ability to know exactly what your competitors are doing to improve their online presence is part of building an award-winning digital marketing campaign strategy. 

Integrating software tools such as Ahref, SpyFu, BuzzSumo, and Similarweb, among others will allow you to have a peek at what your competitors are doing to rank higher on search engine results pages, which keywords they’re targeting, and what type of content they’re generating to optimize their websites. 

Another valuable tool is ChatGPT, which can handle various tasks, including industry analysis, keyword research, and content ideation. Combining ChatGPT results with other software applications will give you a better idea of where your strategies require further work, and what improvements you can make to stand out in the crowd. 

For small business owners, this might seem daunting at first, but it’s possible to leverage tools such as ChatGPT to help you learn techniques to use certain platforms more efficiently or even make recommendations based on given results. 

Social Media Management 

Another practical use of artificial intelligence is for social media management. One might think that scheduling posting on specific platforms is perhaps the epitome of digitalization, however, there is more than what meets the eye. 

For instance, AI applications and plug-ins can now read social media posts to help compile more in-depth analyses and provide more clear analytical results. These efforts can help you identify potential trends, search for relevant keywords, and engage with your target audience more effectively. 

Additionally, these tools can help measure campaign effectiveness and performance, meaning that in the near term, you will have the ability to make adjustments to your strategy or perhaps see which parts of your campaign are least effective. 

Managing social media accounts, responding to queries and comments, keeping track of campaigns, and boosting posts can be an overwhelming exercise for even the most experienced professionals. 

Instead, it’s possible to harness AI tools to help automate certain tasks such as responding to messages, creating more personalized content, and perhaps brainstorming new ideas based on trend analysis. 

These are all effective ways to help create a more engaging platform and ensure that your online presence is noticed by your target audience. Having an active social media presence can ultimately boost organic traffic to your website, which in the long run will translate into better sales, improved revenue, and a better customer experience. 

Why leverage AI in your online campaigns?

Using artificial intelligence to bolster your online campaigns has become a game-changer, ensuring more effective data analysis and enabling you to make more informed decisions. Furthermore, AI has become a driving force for marketers, helping them work through a tremendous amount of data, and better understand the customer journey to improve their online experiences. 

By using artificial intelligence, you can create effective strategies that are focused on delivering personalized experiences, something that was once unimaginable. AI helps business owners automate various tasks throughout their day-to-day, allowing you to focus on more strategic work, and minimizing the need for various resources. 

To wrap up, by incorporating AI as part of your online marketing strategies, you allow yourself the opportunity to grow and improve your digital footprint. You seek to create more engaging content that directly speaks to your audience and improves your return on investment for marketing campaigns. 

AI can help you stay on top of new trends while allowing you to experiment with various solutions and deliver more business-relevant results.

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The best way to use direct sourcing effectively is by cultivating talent pools. This can be done by ensuring candidates have the necessary skills a company is looking for, are ready to deploy, are engaged, and include talent that are known and new as well as those who are active and passive job seekers. Talent pools should be curated on an ongoing basis to ensure they are constantly relevant and effective in meeting the talent needs of a company. Constant engagement with talent pools can be done through newsletters, job alerts, events, social platforms, networking sites, and industry-specific forums. 

But even though 60% of large companies are considering using a direct sourcing program in some shape or form, 40% of companies have not even considered implementation yet. Leaving direct sourcing out of a company’s talent acquisition strategy could possibly prove detrimental as direct sourcing is more than providing simple convenience to companies. It is a robust, dynamic solution that prepares businesses for the ever changing challenges of the modern workforce. Direct sourcing can help companies interested in offsetting talent shortages and increasing talent recruitment expenses, among other problems. In fact, 50% of staffing firms say that labor shortages were the biggest problems of 2023. If this issue is not addressed, it could lead to $8.5 trillion in unrealized revenue by 2030. Direct sourcing can assist companies in finding the talent that can resolve this issue. 

Direct sourcing is also a great way to address the rise of the contingent workforce in recent years. In 2020, more than 30% of companies hired contract workers with almost 30% of the U.S. labor market being part of the gig economy. This workforce trend is very likely to continue, making direct sourcing an essential tool for companies interested in staying competitive by leveraging this growing population of workers. 

Growing employment expenses is showing that new hire pay is about 9% higher than usual, which means that cost-effective recruitment is incredibly important now more than ever. In fact, 98% of businesses have attributed their cost savings to their direct sourcing efforts, which for many companies using a direct sourcing program result in savings averaging between 10% and 15%, proving that these programs are effective and will be used for a while. 

Today’s labor market has increased the need for talent access and faster hiring. But with direct sourcing, companies are able to  quicken the hiring cycles while being able to save on costs, gain higher quality talent and candidates, and better “humanize” the candidate experience. What’s more, direct sourcing can even improve and boost a company’s employer brand, build stronger relationships with candidates and talent, and improve the diversity of the candidate pool. 

Direct sourcing is able to maximize a company’s ROI (return on investment) as well by being able to focus on attracting and retaining top-quality candidates. The ROI can be measured in various ways, but one metric that should be tracked is achieving high levels of conversions from temporary to permanent employees. Direct sourcing can help by providing a strong pipeline for permanent hiring. Pairing direct sourcing with client-provided forecasts and historical requisitions can allow direct sourcing providers to improve the population in labor categories where there are definite needs which can further optimize ROI and increase temporary to permanent employee conversions. 

Direct sourcing is a beneficial tool for companies that want to stay competitive in the modern workforce. By cultivating strong talent pools and reaching out to known populations who are engaged with and invested in the business, companies can find the talent that fit their needs quickly and cost-effectively. Not implementing a direct sourcing program to find the best talent in the workforce for your needs could be putting your business at a disadvantage.

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In the past, it was undeniable that people held a lot more pride and confidence in their place of employment. Of course, this isn’t to say that workers today are unjustified in their feelings. Wages are low, benefits are disappearing, and job safety has dropped in several industries. On top of this all, people are generally less satisfied giving all their time to their work. Work-life balance has become a hot term and for good reason, people want to live good lives outside of work.

All of these forces together have made work something to dread for many Americans. Remote work, popularized during the pandemic, offered a way to soothe some of these concerns. When working remotely there’s no commute, work-life balance is easier to maintain, and there’s less overhead management. Yet remote work also has the negative effect of propagating loneliness within the workplace.

Today the average worker has little to no work friends outside of their immediate coworkers. The culture and community aspect of the workplace has plummeted. Of course many businesses have taken notice of this and attempted solutions. The “work family” and team building trend within businesses has been strong over the past few decades. However this is something which isn’t looked on fondly today. The last thing workers want at the end of a long day is to be forced to interact with more people at work.

This issue is made even worse within the coworking model of offices. Coworking office spaces are common work spaces shared by several businesses. These are a practical option for any business trying to save on costs and space. However under this model the community aspect of the workplace is fractured even further.

In practice this leads to a tradeoff businesses have to make, save on costs, or save on culture. The coworking office model is incredibly practical, but it’s going to create a culture where very few employees actually resonate with the business itself. Fortunately, the money saved on costs can go towards benefits and wages, the things that really keep employees around. However, the community coworking model is an evolution of the coworking model that aims to fix this tradeoff.

The community coworking model, specifically the Tavern community coworking model, is quite simple. The coworking aspect of the system stays the same, offices sharing space with one another to save on costs. Where the difference arises is in what happens outside of the workplace. The Tavern model works by leveraging social spaces, places like hotels and restaurants, to host social events outside of work. These events are semi-professional, but still explicitly social, think things like communal lunches and happy hours.

What this does is combine the practical cost saving side of coworking with explicit community building events. At first glance, this seems like another forced attempt at building a work community where it isn’t wanted. Yet the important difference is that these events aren’t company focused. They’re not a celebration of company success, they’re not meant to team-build, they’re an excuse for employees to be social. 

In practice this difference is huge. These are events which aren’t mandatory but can work to more genuinely build connections between employees. People tend to work with link-minded people, work with people who have similar interests. The problem is that most workplaces today are so isolated. It’s nice to talk to immediate coworkers, but anyone outside of that is just too inconvenient to consistently communicate with. 

The Tavern model admits that this is true and aims to build an external solution to the problem. It is too hard to connect with people at work, so let’s give people an excuse to do it outside of the workplace. This does take some overhead from the business, but the cost can even be accounted for with a subscription model. A subscription model requires a little bit from each employee, say $30 a month, but it works as an investment. Once committed employees can be given more freedom on which events are hosted and where. 

Workers, ultimately, want autonomy in who they’re seeing and when they’re seeing them. It’s nice to have organized events to build a community, but it can’t be micromanaged. The Tavern model works because it gives some control and freedom to employees. It’s not extra hours of work, it’s not required, it’s just an opportunity. Not everyone is going to take advantage, but it can make a real difference. This is the difference between simple coworking offices and community coworking offices. A difference of opportunity.

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Most companies are falling short of this goal. Two-thirds of customers are not receiving a personalized experience, despite 76% of customers wishing to have consistent interactions with a brand. 90% of businesses struggle with having inconsistent branding with their content, which has serious repercussions. This can create marketplace confusion with other companies’ products, a slower sales cycle, and a hindered ability to generate sales leads. On the flip side, companies that do focus on creating a consistent brand experience a 10% or higher increase in revenues.

The secret ingredient to creating a hyper-personalized experience for customers is the use of AI. Empowered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, this technology has the ability to create an ultra personalized shopping experience for specific audience segments. AI can track a consumer’s browsing data and purchasing data in real time to produce targeted ads and recommendations  for their specific interests. The beginning stages of this method include single message mailing, field segmentation, and rules based segmentation. As a company moves into more mature stages of hyper-personalization, they begin to give behavioral recommendations, omin channel optimization, and predictive personalization. Each new stage leads to greater revenue growth. 

There are already some major brands using this method to interact with customers. For example, 80% of Netflix users are relying on personalized recommendations for movies and shows to watch based on their previous viewing history, rather than searching it up on their own. Amazon has experienced 35% higher conversion rates on certain products based on sending out personalized product emails. Even Starbucks has experienced a significant improvement in performance (3x increase in incremental revenue) due to releasing personalization algorithms in their loyalty rewards apps. 

The research is very clear- companies are making more sales the more efforts that they spend on personalizing their brand. 90% of customers find personalized ads more appealing, meaning they are much more likely to interact with and ultimately purchase from a brand. 72% of customers actually respond to marketing messages that are crafted to directly relate to their personal experiences. For example, if a customer has already searched up culinary sets on Amazon, they will likely engage with ads related to these types of products. Brands that fail to pursue these initiatives could lose up to 38% of their customers as they are no longer being engaged, which could result in a 23% loss of revenue. 

Some of the world’s biggest brands have already become a success story in the world of generating a hyper-personalized brand identity. easyJet has a brand value of over $4 billion, which is largely driven by their focus on curating an extremely personalized customer experience. Some of their methods include sending out over 12 million emails that have branded graphics and destination imagery. These emails draw upon email copy with 12 modules and 28 data points. The results are staggering- 7.5% of email recipients made a booking in the following 30 days and 78% of customers reported a positive reaction to the campaign. 

Spotify has been another successful company in this realm. Spotify Wrapped has generated a lot of social media buzz from users that are able to share their most frequently listened to artists and genres with family and friends, while sifting through their own personalized stats. In addition, playlists are created based on these metrics, which allow Spotify users to easily listen to their favorite music without much in-app navigation. In one year, between 2020 and 2021, there was a 461% increase in tweet volume related to Spotify and 131% more engagement with Spotify Wrapped tweets. The massive public press has direct impacts on drawing more users into the music streaming service. 

Cadbury’s brand value is a massive $6 billion, and this is largely due to their efforts to create a personalized experience with their chocolate-consuming customers. They developed a Flavor Matcher app that matches users with one of their 12 offered flavors of chocolate. These custom results were produced by leveraging data-driven personal profiling to create specific advertisement videos and hashtags for their customers. 90% of viewers watched their personalized videos until the end, which is a huge feat considering the shorter attention spans of customers when it comes to ads. Cadbury also had a massive 33% conversion rate from viewers completing the next promotion form. These successful stories prove that brand personalization can be one of the best methods for driving higher business revenue. 

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There are many factors that go into the generation of a credit score. Obviously, an individual’s bill-paying history and current unpaid debt are some of the key bits of information. However, their number of loan accounts and how long they have been open can also drastically affect a score. Therefore, a lot of people who don’t have an extensive credit history can often miss out on a lot of borrowing opportunities, because they are not deemed trustworthy enough by the bank. 

There are 76 million Americans that often face challenges when trying to access credit. They typically fall into two categories: having thin files and being credit invisible. 61 million Americans have a “thin file”, which means that they have four or less credit accounts on their credit file, which means they have limited credit history for banks and other companies to review. 16 million Americans are completely “credit invisible”, which means that they don’t have any credit history at all. Those with little or no credit history are likely to fall under several categories, including being young or new to credit, being a recent immigrant, being a recent widow or divorcee, or being a cash or debit card user. 

This type of credit invisibility can end up being a huge cost for most people. A subprime credit score can lead to higher interest rates on any type of loan. For example, a homeowner with a lower credit score could end up paying $33k extra in interest over the course of a 30 year mortgage compared to their peers with prime scores. They can also pay $400 more in interest for a $550 emergency loan over the course of three months, which is almost the cost of the loan itself! There are also cases where a $10k used car can end up costing borrowers with a low credit score an additional $3k more in interest. It can also be dangerous when emergency expenses appear, as 57% of Americans would not be able to pay an unexpected expense from their savings.  

When considering the repercussions millions of Americans face for not having an expansive enough credit file, it makes sense for companies to level the playing field by considering alternative data. Alternative data is Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant information that is not included in traditional credit reports. However, it still revolves around someone’s repayment history, such as their ability to pay bills on time. Lenders can still be assured of a potential customer’s lendability by considering this data, even if it is not directly tied to a credit score. 

This data can include specialty finance data, which includes short-term installment loans, rent-to-own information, and other non-traditional lending attributes. Telco and utility data is also useful for data collection- it includes telecommunications, pay TV, home security, and utility payment information. 91% of American adults have at least one utility bill in their name, meaning this form of alternative data is widely accessible. When telco data is used as part of a credit score, people usually experience some form of a score change. For example, 66% of consumers experienced a 10 point positive change to their credit score, and 10% experienced a 25 point positive change to their credit score. 

By considering other forms of data to judge a consumer’s borrowing history beyond a credit score, 32% of previously unscorable customers may become represented. It could shift 8.4 million more U.S consumers into scorable credit bands and an incremental 13.6 million U.S consumers could qualify for prime or better offers. This expansion of access to credit can help create a more inclusive economy that is currently excluding millions of people with thin credit files. AI can even be incorporated into this method of data gathering, as some companies are creating machine learning credit scoring systems with the ability to generate logical and actionable reason codes for consumers. 

In conclusion, credit scores are a necessary part of having financial security in the United States, and an alarming amount of people are failing to reach the mark. Therefore, alternative data, such as utility bill payments, can be a great way for companies to provide an equitable assessment of their potential borrowers. Millions of people would be positively impacted by this new form of data collection, and would be able to create a more stable financial situation for themselves.

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For certain types of apps, things like games, this is really simple to see. If an app is simply an addictive game, it only makes sense that people will have a hard time staying away. The real challenge is making someone return to a shopping app, or food app. It’s no longer enough to just provide a service, or even to do it well.

The top rated restaurant app today is Chick-fil-a. On some level this makes sense, it’s one of the most well liked fast food chains out there. Yet the Chick-fil-a app also does more than just sell food to willing customers. It provides a points system. This means that the more people buy, the more points they have. The more points someone has, the more free food they can start to buy.

Chick-fil-a’s system is particularly popular, but countless other food apps are repeating this trend. McDonalds will offer a free large fry to anyone who creates an account. Dominos has coupons which are exclusive to their apps. Chipotle has a similar points system to Chick-fil-a. The basic principle is clear, use the app, get a reward.

This is the basic principle driving some of the most popular apps today. Of course, there are better and worse ways to do this. Chick-fil-a bridges the gap by making it advantageous to the consumer and business. Although this line can be hard to manage at times. Shein, for example, is an online fashion retailer which has an extensive points system.

Customers earn points for logging in, for leaving reviews, for purchasing products, for playing minigames even. There is no shortage of ways to earn points. The issue is that the application of these points is much less direct. Instead of entire food items like at McDonalds, points may instead just lead to a very partial discount.

This issue is only made worse by flooded and overwhelming deals and front pages. Overwhelming the consumer, even with positive forces, can lead to negative reviews. Comparing Shein to Etsy really starts to reveal this issue. Etsy, while not as popular as Shein, has a much higher review rating.

Etsy accomplishes this with a much more clear interface, less predatory practices, and more direct communication. Sometimes the best way to keep a customer coming back is with a slightly less gamified experience. Another app which shows this off is the app for Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club is the top rated shopping app on Google Play, and for good reason. Sam’s Club doesn’t have a point system or anything which is overtly engaging, but it does have solid features.

The Scan and Go feature in particular makes the app a near necessity for many shoppers at the store. As the name implies, Scan and Go allows people using the app to scan and purchase products with their phone. A big issue with a lot of grocery stores and supermarkets is how long the process can take. This feature helps to alleviate this issue. Considering how impactful it is, it absolutely keeps people coming back to the app.

The final set of apps which will be discussed are Uber and Airbnb. These are both travel related apps which have one key similarity. They were created with the internet in mind. In terms of travel services, the biggest issue will always be when someone can’t get where they want to be. Regardless of the why, people hate to be stranded.

An important part of not being stranded today is having a really clear and direct digital service. If an airline’s app fails to update a boarding pass, this can lead to someone missing their flight. If a hotel app doesn’t give the customer enough information, they can miss their check in. Lyft and Airbnb are great at avoiding these issues because they were made with the internet in mind.

These two apps have incredibly clear interfaces, active updates, and use the app format to their advantage. These are features that other travel apps have historically had issues implementing. Today they are two of the top five rated travel apps on the App Store. 

So how do businesses keep people coming back to their apps? Well it depends on the category. Food apps benefit from gamifying the process. Shopping apps benefit from uncluttered marketplaces and solid features. And travel apps benefit from prioritizing things going smoothly and clear communication. These are the factors that cause people to return to apps over time.

The post Bringing People Back to Loyalty Rewards Apps appeared first on SiteProNews.

Even still, employees strive for and appreciate changes which can reduce the power disparity. Remote work has become one of those changes. Remote work was brought into the public eye by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a near necessity for countless industries if they wanted to keep their employees safe. Zoom and other digital services also saw rapid growth and development during this time.

Although this popularity has not lasted. In 2020, during the prime of the pandemic, 35% of people were working primarily from home. Today, in 2023, that number has dropped to 12.7%. The reason behind this is more complicated than one would think. This is illuminated by the fact that 98% of people want to work remotely, at least some of the time.

If remote work is so popular in public perception, why is it disappearing so quickly within reality? The answer to this question is complicated, although it mainly goes back to the disparity between employers and employees. Employees appreciate all that remote work offers to them as individuals. Remote work means no commute which means no gas or transportation fees, more free time, and more freedom.

These changes have very positive appeals to employees. Although of course, remote work doesn’t bring positives alone. For employees, there are risks around social interaction. Remote workers interact less with their peers and employers alike, and when they do, miscommunication is common. Overall though, as seen by the popularity of remote work, the positives outweigh the negatives. 

For employers, remote work is brought under much more scrutiny. Remote work means employees are setting more of their schedule and are operating under less supervision. While employees may believe this increases their productivity, employers do not agree. In terms of reality, the results are complex.

On some scales, remote work has been found to be overwhelmingly positive. Employees working remotely are more likely to show up, and less likely to turnover. This follows from employee’s positive reception to remote work. If the job is worked remotely, employees are more likely to want to work. 

Although on other scales the reality of remote work is much harder to grasp. The central issue to employers tends to be productivity. Are workers who are working remotely more or less productive? The results are not clear. Some studies have found that productivity is increased, at times by massive margins. Yet others have found the exact opposite. 

The reality likely lies somewhere in the middle. Remote work, at the end of the day, is not being applied the same way across industries. For an industry built on utilizing technology, remote work will work better than one built on social communication. Information technology, for example, has 67% of employees working remotely. While wholesale trade only has 39% working remotely.

 Another issue is how specific employers incorporate remote work. Employees working remotely and physically ultimately cannot be treated the same. They require different types and levels of supervision, support, and instruction. For older and more old-fashioned employers this can present a big issue. The incorporation of remote work takes flexibility and understanding, which not all employers possess.

This is the reality of remote work today. It’s complex. The appeals are obvious, at least to employees. Yet where and how it can be effectively used is an infinitely more complex topic to breach. Still, it’s worth talking about the changes that are being made to make remote work a more approachable solution.

The central issue is productivity, so these efforts are attempts at increasing productivity. The first change is the incorporation of connectivity platforms. Remote work creates weak communication, connectivity platforms are an exact attempt at correcting this. These platforms can help employees stay in touch and allow employers to more adequately supervise. 

The second change is better cybersecurity. A smaller but real concern for many employers is the risk associated with remote work. Cyberattacks are becoming more common and accessible everyday, so cybersecurity must evolve to match these attacks. And the final change is AI-powered scheduling software. Employers want to maintain control of what their employees are doing. Yet many employers don’t really know what’s best for their employees’ productivity.

AI-powered scheduling software fixes this issue by taking it out of the employers and employees hands. The schedule chosen is what’s most practical for the employee to work efficiently. This also increases the efficiency of remote workers, helping to alleviate this central concern of employers. Of course these are small changes, but this is because the larger solution is simple education.

Remote work, at the end of the day, is a tool. It can be positive, it can be negative, it all depends on how it’s used. This tool has been decreasing in popularity, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place in society today. The challenge will ultimately be figuring out exactly where it fits in, and allowing that place to change alongside society.

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Denied claims are very common in this industry, and they are far more costly than many are aware of. For example, health insurance denied claims equal over $262 billion annually. In addition, 27% of all denied claims in this sector, equating to over $70 billion, result from errors at patient registration during insurance processing. To put this into perspective, this $71 billion is 1/60 of all healthcare spending in the United States, and is more than the annual Medicaid expenditures in nearly all of the US states. These numbers more than illustrate the need for improvements in order to save money and valuable assets.

There are several contributors to these shortcomings of the industry, all pointing back to the general limitations of the traditional methods we currently rely on. Most existing OCR solutions to insurance processing cannot identify insurance information that is not printed on a physical insurance card. This excludes the ability to process any digital cards, which have become the norm in this digital age. More and more patients are downloading their cards online for ease of use, which eliminates the ability for scanning and processing with technology. In addition, some providers like Medicaid, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Medicare do not even print payer IDs on cards, which means that human intervention is then required. Not only is this inconvenient for busy providers, but it also requires highly trained individuals to be put to work. This expertise, once obtained, is slower than the capabilities of technology, and leaves more room for potential error.

Traditional insurance capture is prone to error due to the large amount of human intervention that is required to complete the process. For example, 19.3% is the current average error rate among all health insurance in the United States. When put into the perspective of the sheer volume of insurance plan holders in the country, this percentage can be seen as detrimental. On top of these limitations, there is also the problem of locality that plagues many insurance companies. Many large providers have state, local, and ZIP claim processes that require one to select a specific locality. This process requires a knowledge of several pieces of information that may be difficult to obtain. When one fails to properly identify and provide this information, a denied claim is likely, costing the holder and company time and money.

Without technology, there is no way to completely eliminate pitfalls like misidentification, incorrect data entry, or any inaccuracies throughout the process. It is for these reasons that experts are working on a new and improved way to carry out these processes. An AI-powered solution is in the works, processing insurance like a human without the chance for error. The new technology is an insurance card reading artificial intelligence model that is trained on thousands of insurance payers and hundreds of thousands of plan types. This works in tandem with advanced algorithms that validate information and important details in less than seconds. This program would be able to identify plan details as well as pharmacy insurance details in real time, making this the most advanced model of its kind.

The benefits speak for themselves, as what traditional methods could do in minutes, AI can do in seconds. In addition, every reworked claim due to errors costs providers an average of 25% per claim. However, AI can save up to 80% for providers with this new reliable technology. Artificial intelligence is easily trained to remain up to date with new needs, while medical staff may have limited experience or need time to become knowledgeable. Finally, there is no need to worry about human needs like employee burnout or turnover. Artificial intelligence can help alleviate workload and improve the quality of work amongst human staff.

There is no doubt that the future is bright for the insurance industry. Despite the current lack of modernity, there is hope in early developments of a more optimal alternative. While old methods may be inefficient, slow, inaccurate, and tedious, new technology has the power to move at greater speeds and with less error than ever before. Gone are the days of denied claims and costly mistakes, as the industry welcomes artificial intelligence as the new most important player in insurance processing. 

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Each year, billions of products and consumer goods are sold and purchased through Amazon. In fact, last year alone, American-based sellers sold more than 4.1 billion items to customers across the world, averaging more than $230,000 in sales per seller. 

Clearly, there’s money to be made online. However, for many entrepreneurs and sellers starting out, getting their foot in the door is often met with unforeseen challenges and obstacles. 

Fortunately, many experienced sellers have already gone through the process of selling on Amazon and have picked up a few things along the process which they can now share with someone like you ready to take your business to the next frontier. 

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Selling on Amazon 

Starting a business can be quite challenging. Although in today’s technologically-driven world, where we are constantly connected to the internet, and consumer buying trends have shifted more towards online shopping, building a digital store on Amazon can be effortless with the proper guidance. 

Building a brand reputation, and continuing their father’s legacy, Dusty and Peter McMullin of Sibu Sea Berry Therapy, a specialty supplement and functional food company are now hoping to advocate for the widespread adoption of Sea Buckthorn Oil, after recently launching a new specialty natural Omega-7 supplement. 

More than this, they’ve noticed that by helping customers understand the importance of supporting companies that are more transparent and authoritative, consumers will often become more informed about the products and services they pay for while having access to better quality items and customer service. 

Selling on Amazon means that brands can establish a more dynamic online reputation, tapping into new markets, and leveraging different opportunities while scaling their business. 

Ready to sell on Amazon? Well, let’s hear from the experts on how novice entrepreneurs can get started. 

Create an Amazon Business Plan

Peter advises new sellers and entrepreneurs that the first step to selling on Amazon is to create a business plan that highlights all your objectives and forward-looking goals. 

“Selling on a platform such as Amazon doesn’t come without doing your homework first. Be sure that you have a well-detailed business plan, and budget, that allows you the opportunity to optimize your sales and provides you with the flexibility to make changes as you scale.” 

Peter is President of Sibu Sea Berry Therapy, a company that his father, Bruce McMullin founded in 2004. 

Your business plan should include things such as market research; a customer persona; a budget to pay for monthly subscriptions and transaction fees; competitor analysis; types of products you’re going to sell; and other relevant business activities. 

Conduct Thorough Product and Market Research 

There are millions of products available on Amazon, in fact, some statistics estimate that there are more than 350 million products cataloged on Amazon. While more than enough people are willing to buy all of these various products, keep in mind that you are directly competing with other existing brands and companies that already have an established presence and clientele. 

Conducting product research helps you find similar products to yours, and allows you the chance to make adjustments or improvements. Next, you will need to research your potential market, to see whether or not there’s a need for another product such as yours. 

Dusty, Vice President of Operations at Sibu says, “These are two critical steps any entrepreneur shouldn’t overlook. While you may already have a business up and running and have seen an increase in product demand from nearby customers, knowing what the marketplace looks like will help you navigate certain challenges more effectively.” 

Conduct Supplier and Inventory Assessment 

If you’re planning on working with a supplier or wholesaler, make the necessary arrangements that will ensure you constantly have access to various supplies, and that there are no delays for your orders. 

Similarly, ensure that you have enough inventory to sustain your first few weeks on Amazon. You will need to have enough inventory to meet both the demand from your Amazon buyers and if you have an online store somewhere else. 

“Effective inventory management is critical,” tells Dusty. “You don’t want to find yourself having a delay in deliveries, due to a backlog with your supplier, nor do you want to be in a situation where you don’t have enough stock to meet customer demand.”

In a similar vein, you don’t want to have too much stock on hand. Having excess stock, that you’re unable to sell, means that you are operating against a loss, as you will still need to pay your suppliers, and meet other financial obligations.

“Make sure that you have enough stock to last you at least a month. Throughout this time, assess how sales are fluctuating, and place orders based on precise estimates,” says Dusty. 

Understand Amazon’s Cost Structure and Subscriptions 

By now you’re already aware that Fulfillment by Amazon allows you to set up a seller account with Amazon, allowing them to stock your products, fulfill orders, and provide customer service to clients. However, this does mean you will be required to pay for various fulfillment and management fees, including transactional fees on products. 

Before creating an Amazon seller account, be sure to have gone through their account options and the various cost options. Each account is relatively similar, with differences in monthly subscription prices, and transaction fees. 

Peter says that although a more expensive account will provide you with more attractive benefits, try and start with something more affordable, at first. “You can always upgrade your seller account, and besides, you will need to calculate these additional fulfillment costs into your sticker price.” 

Keep in mind that fees can change depending on the volume of products you require to be stored by Amazon, there are referral fees that can be charged to your account. Make sure that you have a firm understanding of all these involved costs before opening your online store. 

Create a Marketing Plan 

As we’ve already mentioned, there are thousands of sellers and millions of products available on Amazon. Listing your products isn’t enough, you will need to have a robust marketing strategy that will help direct customers to your products or find innovative ways to make your product stand out against other competitors. 

“We’ve learned that by being consistent in all our marketing efforts, customers remember our brand and the type of quality products we sell. More than this, continuing our father’s legacy has also meant that we can build on his knowledge and experience, and provide customers with the service and quality they’ve come to know over the years,” says Peter. 

Having a marketing plan becomes more important as your business begins to grow, however, already having a presence on social media or other digital platforms will give you an edge against your competitors. 

Read Customer Reviews and Engage 

One of the many benefits of Amazon is that customers can leave you reviews on your product, helping to inform other potential clients about their experience with your business and the products you sell. 

However, this doesn’t mean that you will always have positive reviews on all of your listings, and you are bound to have a few negative reviews that will make you want to question your abilities and products. 

According to Dusty, “One bad review holds more weight than one hundred positive reviews, this is the unfortunate reality. Nonetheless, resolving these grievances is critical to your business, as this will reflect directly on your brand image, and show other potential clients how you deal with a negative review or statement.” 

Engagement is an important step in selling on Amazon. Customers want to feel that they are valued and that they are being listened to. Yes, there will be things that you can’t control, however, it’s important to consider how you react to these events, and what strategy you will take to resolve any problems that reflect the type of business you’re trying to build. 

Evaluate Progress and Optimize 

Finally, be open to making changes by optimizing your value chain. Sure, in the beginning things won’t go as planned, and you will run into several mistakes, but these are all opportunities through which you can make improvements. 

“When we first started selling online, we encountered multiple mistakes and pitfalls that landed us in hot water, but this is part of the business process. How you overcome these challenges, and correct these mistakes is all up to you,” says Dusty. 

As your business begins to scale, you will realize that some products are more popular than others, which means you can either lower the price or completely remove it from your offering. Maybe you notice that some of your clients live nearby, and that allows you to deliver faster, instead of having them order through Amazon. 

Changing, and finding a consistent flow are all part of the process. “You won’t have everything figured out from the very start, it sounds daunting, but you will notice that some things work for your business, and other things only cost you more money than what it generates. Don’t be afraid to make an executive change,” advises Peter. 

Wrap Up

Ready to sell on Amazon? Well, you might feel that there is more you can learn, however, the best way to learn is through doing. While it’s advised to always read up as much as you can before putting it into practice, remember that as a business owner, you will need to take risks to tap into new opportunities and establish new ground rules that allow you to make more informed decisions.

The post A Compressed Guide To Selling On Amazon by Two Second-Generation Entrepreneurs appeared first on SiteProNews.

The first step is having a very clear objective and plan. There should be a reason for the quality survey being conducted, not just a random assortment of questions. Once a reason is established a few key questions have to be answered. They are as follows. One, who is going to be taking the survey? Two, where are they going to take the survey? Three, what is going to be asked on the survey? And four, when is the survey going to be taken?

It’s only when these questions are answered that one has a strong foundation to build from. A strong plan makes the physical process of conducting the survey much easier. It also makes pivoting to new questions, locations, or times more easy to justify. Now with a plan established, the second step can begin.

The second step is all about the physical creation of the survey. A plan is the outline, but now the questions need to be specifically and consciously created. Even when one knows the types of questions to include, this is challenging. Asking the right sort of questions is a big issue a lot of surveys face. There are countless easy mistakes to make. For example, asking leading questions. 

A leading question influences the participant to answer a certain way. This can be as simple as the question “How much do you enjoy using this product”? The question is simple, but it assumes that the product was enjoyed at all. A more neutral question would simply ask the participant to rate the product. Other examples of common mistakes are loaded questions and questions requiring more than one answer.

Now if all mistakes are avoided in the second step, the third step is simply execution. There’s some wiggle room here depending on how serious a survey is. Surveys large in scope should consider testing the survey and seeing how it works in action. This helps to ensure the questions make sense and that things run smoothly.

Although for most execution will simply mean opening the survey and doing some early analysis. The way data is collected is important in conducting a survey, so each survey should tailor collection to its needs. And that leads us into the fourth and final step of survey creation, analysis and reporting.

There are two components to this step, each equally important. Analysis is where everything comes together within the survey. Now that the data is collected it is vital that it is interpreted correctly. To do this knowledge of statistics and general analysis is strongly recommended. For anyone lacking these things, there are companies aimed at helping explicitly with analysis. 

It’s important that every step in analysis is handled with care. Anything from exporting files, to doing the right tests, to reporting the right numbers is essential. Speaking of reporting, the second half of this step is where the survey becomes useful. Even if everything else went well, from planning to analysis, it’ll be useless with poor reporting.

Some easy tricks to ensure reporting is effective is keeping things simple, and reporting visually. There’s nothing more understandable than an effective chart. Ensuring that the people seeing the survey results understand it is essential to change. Of course not all surveys are aimed at change, but even for general informational surveys, make it accessible. 

Following all four of these steps there should be no problem creating a useful and effective survey. There will always be unforeseen issues and mistakes, but these steps help to minimize those. And for anyone who feels these are overwhelming, use a service which helps the process along. Companies like IncQuery will code the questions and handle analysis. This gives the creator creative control but outsources the more practical elements.

If even that sounds like too much responsibility, there are companies which will create the entire survey. For those all that’s required is some input, then they’ll create a finished product. Of course that doesn’t mean changes cannot be requested, it’s just a much slower moving and indirect process.

Regardless, for anyone creating a survey, even to those outsourcing, remember these steps. Surveys are a great tool for insight into any specific community, company, or population. They truly can be easy, but that doesn’t mean they’re effortless. Making sure they’re handled properly and are doing what’s intended is just a necessary part of their creation.

See the Full Infographic.

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What can be surprising is exactly how popular they are today. Subscription model based companies are growing 3.7 times faster than the S&P 500. They’re quickly becoming an undeniable economic powerhouse. What this equates to, at the end of 2022, is 225 million subscriptions. When there’s only 61 million subscribers that creates an average of over nearly four subscriptions per subscriber.

These are staggering statistics. It seems that once subscription models become a part of one’s life, it becomes increasingly more common. Why is this though, what’s the appeal of subscription based models? First and foremost, they’re cost effective. Subscriptions have the unique perk of paying more now to pay less later.

This explains why subscription models aren’t expanding to everyone in the U.S. The reality is that it’s not going to be affordable to everyone. Even if it is cost effective, it’s still costly at the moment of purchase. Another big reason why subscription models are appealing is because of their convenience. 

In fact, that’s the biggest appeal of subscriptions today. Every single popular subscription relies on this as a factor. Netflix brings more movies quicker than individually searching them out. Amazon Prime offers faster shipping for cheap. Unique novelty subscriptions like BirchBox just arrive at the doorstep, no work required. Even DoorDash and Instacart are providing things as basic as food more conveniently and quickly. 

This convenience factor is a big part of why subscription models are starting to expand. Even as the cost effectiveness of subscriptions starts to drop, the convenience is just undeniable. The cherry on top of it all is how predictable subscriptions are. The payment is consistent, both in terms of amount and time frame. Using subscription models helps to make budgeting consistent and easy.

Another factor helping subscriptions boom are the new innovations being made. Now subscriptions aren’t just a monthly or yearly thing, they can be based on use. There are a few examples of how this can work. Replenishment models wait for something to run out before instantly providing more. This is helpful to reduce waste and to reduce prices. Meanwhile simple usage models will tailor the price to how often the product is used. This ensures that every dollar is clearly attached to something, but can be more pricey. 

In practice all of these factors make subscriptions massive today. In particular, younger generations love subscription services. Convenience is a more highly valued commodity the younger the generation. Almost 40% of millennials are buying subscriptions, whereas that number plummets to below 10% for baby boomers. Gen Z, still being so young, has a lower percentage than millennials, but it is predicted to grow. 

Finally there are two other factors which have been helping to skyrocket subscriptions. These are more extra credit than anything, but are still relevant to understanding subscriptions today. The first of these is the influence of the pandemic. During the pandemic subscription services were growing at an unpredictable rate. The hands-off and predictable model that subscriptions offer was very desirable in such an uncertain time.

Of course this effect has lessened as the pandemic moves further away, but it’s still a proof of concept. Subscriptions are safe, practical, and accessible. There’s one last factor missing from this equation though, one thing which brings it all together. Subscriptions, in their various forms, are fun.

While the convenience and the effective pricing are nice, for many consumers they just appreciate the novelty of subscription models. There’s something appealing about a randomized box that arrives every week. Buying a set of razors at the store just doesn’t have the same appeal as Dollar Shave Club does.

Subscription models are well marketed, trendy, and fun. This is a big part of why subscription models are moving into so many new spaces. There’s now plant subscriptions, science subscriptions, hunting subscriptions. Nowadays it doesn’t even have to make sense as a subscription because it can just be fun.

And those are the forces causing the rise of subscription based models today. There’s no assurance that this will last indefinitely. Perhaps they’re just trendy right now and soon enough they’ll be seen as outdated and impractical. Although looking at the data, that really doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s something appealing about subscriptions, or as has been discussed, a few appealing things.

They’re not for everyone, and they’re not going to replace every market under the sun, but they’re here to stay. After all, even if the novelty goes away, Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix really aren’t going anywhere. Certain industries really are tailored to a subscription based model. Now what’s left to be seen is which ones are immune to the appeal.

See the Full Infographic

The post The Quiet Rise of Subscription-based Services appeared first on SiteProNews.

Leaders worldwide have different styles and can benefit a team in multiple ways. A strong leader can motivate the team in difficult times, reach the desired goals and boost team morality and productivity.

Many might argue that leadership is a skill that only a few possess. Zippia says only 10% of U.S. managers are seen as leaders. This leaves employees a small opportunity to work and grow with a business leader. 

There are a variety of benefits that every benefit can access by simply providing a platform for managers to become leaders. The average manager can become a great leader using online courses and training sessions to change their mentality and mindset.

Why Motivated Staff Is Crucial

A motivated team will provide better results at a higher rate, leading to business and employee growth. Motivated staff will take the initiative, make quick and confident calls, and will be able to create innovative and creative solutions to many upcoming problems. 

While many argue that employee motivation lies with the individuals themselves, strong leaders will take the burden on their shoulders to motivate and encourage their employees to reach the possible heights within the company. 

There are multiple methods that leaders can use to improve and grow company culture. This will lead to an increase in motivation and a boost in morale which will provide excellent results for the company. 

How to Boost the Staff Morale

Every leader will have their methods to motivate and encourage their team. These methods must, however, fall inside the company policies and should be communicated to the entire team at all times. 

Working from Home

Providing the team to work from home at least twice a week will increase productivity. The individuals will have the freedom to complete the tasks at home. The aim here is to give individuals freedom and an opportunity to learn how to manage themselves. 

Working from home can be rewarded once the team or employees achieve their weekly goals or tasks. The one day they receive will provide them with a great sense of achievement, and the entire team will pursue the reward, boosting employee motivation and morale. 

Preventing Burnout 

Strong leaders will have the knowledge and skills to balance work and personal life perfectly. The leader will use a variety of rewards, such as working from home or half-day working days, to ensure that every individual obtains the necessary rest they need. 

Nearly three out of every five employees experience the negative impact of work-related stress. This leads to demotivated, uninteresting, and need more energy among employees. This will leave more than half of the workforce underperforming and not finishing the tasks and objectives handed to them. 

A good leader can identify employee burnout or create a safe company culture where employees can raise their voices when feeling burnout. 

Company Culture

Company culture refers to the rules, regulations, and methods of obtaining success within the business. Company culture is how employees view their tasks and how the entire team views the goals and direction of a company. 

In the current era of the millennials and gen z taking the workforce by storm, companies must identify critical areas within the business that will provide a healthy and exciting company culture.

According to daily business news, company culture will increase employee retention, allowing Gen Zers to grow. These individuals emphasize their occupation satisfaction over their salary expectations. 

Incentives 

Incentives are another reward system that will motivate employees to reach their objectives. These incentives will be provided to a team or employee when they achieve set goals or a group of tasks the leader supplied. 

Incentives can be financial or non-monetary. Monetary incentives such as financial bonuses or gift cards are great rewards that motivate the team to complete specific tasks. Non-monetary and traveling incentives will create a robust competitive culture within the group. A destination that every employee desires to visit, all expenses paid, will boost the employee’s morale and productivity. 

Incentives can save the company money and increase sales. A simple reward in front of other employees can build a strong culture allowing the leader to lead and guide every employee under them to greatness within the company. 

Final Consideration 

A strong leader can motivate, encourage and lead a team from the front. The manager will have the necessary skills and knowledge to ensure that the team is inspired to increase their productivity and ability to complete tasks that will create a healthy company culture. 

The leader will use various methods, such as monetary or non-monetary incentives, as a reward system to ensure that the team has goals that will provide the employees with a target to work towards. 

Leaders are made. Companies can use education, training, and other platforms to build strong leaders to lead the business to a highly successful company. 

The post How Company Leaders Can Motivate Their Staff Members appeared first on SiteProNews.

Who’s accountable for ensuring that AIs put out correct, non-toxic information? No one knows, at least not yet, and it’s easy to see why.

The Problem with Artificial Intelligence

AIs become more intelligent through training on more and more data sets, and the easiest way to find enormous amounts of data to train an AI on is to look online. However, the problem is that not everything that’s posted on is factual information, especially when you’re dealing with social media. 

Some of the content that’s posted — on social networks or elsewhere — is merely opinion rather than fact. On the other hand, some of it is just plain wrong: either misinformation like rumors or even worse, disinformation posted deliberately with malicious intent.

Unfortunately, AIs can’t tell the difference between true and false information unless a human informs them the information is false. Additionally, many studies of AI assistants like Siri and Alexa have demonstrated how human biases can creep into the technology, which is supposed to be unbiased.

U.S. lawmakers are also concerned about potential impacts from artificial intelligence on national security and education. In particular, officials are concerned about ChatGPT, an AI program capable of quickly writing answers to a wide variety of questions. It immediately became the fastest-growing consumer application ever recorded, attracting over 100 million monthly active users in a matter of months.

Calls for Accountability in AI

All these factors and more raise many questions about accountability for artificial intelligence. In April, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is part of the Commerce Department, called for public input on potential accountability measures. The agency cited “growing regulatory interest” in an “accountability mechanism” for AI.

Specifically, officials want to know if they could any measures in place to ensure “that AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe and otherwise trustworthy.” NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson told Reuters that “responsible” artificial intelligence systems may offer “enormous benefits…,” but “companies and consumers need to be able to trust them.

President Joe Biden had said previously that it’s unclear if AI is dangerous, adding that tech companies “have a responsibility… to make sure their products are safe before making them public.” 

How AI Models are Trained

Of course, an artificial intelligence can only be as good as the data used to train it. Twitter CEO Elon Musk threatened to sue Microsoft after accusing it of illegally using the social network’s data to train its AI model. On one hand, Musk’s threat is indicative of Big Tech’s claim of ownership over the data it has gathered — usually provided by their users free. These tech behemoths make a mint by charging other companies for using the data collected, and this must be what Musk had in mind for Microsoft if it did use Twitter’s data.

According to CNBC, AI experts see social networks as valuable sources of data for their models because they capture back-and-forth conversations via an informal environment. AIs must be fed terabytes of data for training purposes, and much of that data is scraped from sites like Twitter, Reddit and StackOverflow. 

Many of the first AI models were developed in universities and research labs, usually without any expectations of profits. However, as Big Tech companies like Microsoft move in on these AI models by pouring in large amounts of capital, the groups behind these AI models are starting to look for profits.

As a result, the owners of the data on which these AIs are being trained are starting to demand payment for access to their data. For example, Reddit said in April that it would start charging companies for AI models to receive access to its data for training purposes. Other companies, including Universal Music Group and Getty Images are demanding payment for their data being used to train artificial intelligence models.

A Critical Question for Artificial Intelligence Models

However, setting aside the need for AI models to train on vast amounts of data, one thing that’s not being discussed much is whether social networks are really the best sources on which to train AI models. It’s no secret that social networks are dens for disinformation and misinformation.

Humans are not infallible, so they might accidentally post incorrect information or share rumors, neither of which are suitable for training AI models because they don’t represent factual information. Additionally, we return to the issue of human bias because social networks are typically filled with biased posts. 

What’s worse it that some studies have indicated that Facebook and other social networks are actively silencing conservative voices. If that continues, AI models that train on social networks will have an inherently liberal bias, simply because of the data they were trained on.

AIs Shown to Spread False Information

Even setting aside the issue of politics and liberal versus conservative, there’s no way to verify that the social media posts being used to train an AI model are sharing factual information. Social networks are a place to express opinions, but what AIs need are facts so that they can learn to identify true and false information.

For example, a study conducted at Stanford University revealed that AIs can’t always accurately identify hate speech. Even humans often can’t agree on this issue, so an artificial intelligence model is inherently limited to the biases of the person or people who told it what constitutes hate speech.

However, the problem with misinformation or disinformation may be an even bigger problem. For example, one study found that ChatGPT tends to make up phony anonymous sources when tasked with writing a news article about former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In fact, those so-called “anonymous sources” appeared to “skewer” Bloomberg for “using his wealth to influence public policy,” according to NBC New York. 

More and more studies that demonstrate ChatGPT and its successors like ChatGPT-4 will spread false information if given the chance to do so. As things stand now, the sudden popularity of this AI highlights the need for greater awareness of the shortcomings of artificial intelligence and greater study on how to train it and potentially regulate it.

The post Garbage In, Garbage Out: Officials Face Seemingly Impossible Task of Regulating AI appeared first on SiteProNews.

In the rush to set up home offices, IT admins and team members often neglected security protocols.

As a result, scams and malware attacks have exploded since March. Novel hacking approaches often left people unable to spot an attempted breach before it was too late. 

Zoom accounts are sold on the dark web. Ransomware is taking sensitive data hostage. VoIP hackers eavesdrop on confidential conversations. 

Now, the latest pandemic wave is again driving remote work. This makes home office security more important than ever.

Here are seven tips that you can implement straight away to work from home safely – and lock cybercriminals out.

Secure your Network

First off, step up the security of your home network. It’s likely that your WiFi is one of your biggest vulnerable spots. Luckily, you can fix that with a few settings changes.

Start by changing your router’s admin credentials. The default username and password are usually weak.

Next, change your Wi-Fi network’s name (SSID). It could tell hackers what router you have – and where you are vulnerable. Also, make sure that it doesn’t include any personal information. 

If possible, enable WPA2 encryption with AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) or TKIP (Temporary Key Integrity Protocol).

Generally, you should never connect to a public Wi-Fi for sensitive operations – unless you also use a VPN. 

Choose Strong Passwords, Manage Them Wisely 

Setting your password to ‘password’ makes life a breeze for hackers. The same goes for using your birthday, your pet’s name, or the same password as on multiple other sites. 

The good news is that creating – and remembering – secure, unique passwords is simple these days. A password manager will make suggestions whenever you create a new account. It will also store your passwords and highlight weaknesses and duplicates. 

If you don’t want to entrust your digital life to an app, mnemonic strategies can help you remember complex, hard-to-crack passwords. 

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

As irritating as it can be when you just want to take a quick peek into an account, two-factor authentication is a major boost to your overall digital security.

The reason is simple: Even if a hacker learns your password, they would also need your physical device to get any further.

Enabling two-factor authentication is crucial for accounts with sensitive data – like client information or banking.

It’s also vital for gateway accounts. Today, countless websites will let you log in with your Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn accounts. While quick and convenient, it means that if someone hacks these accounts, they can access all these linked accounts as well.

Set up Device Encryption

Enabling device encryption is easy. Usually, you just tick a box in the settings of your laptop or phone.

However, it’s also an important step in comprehensively securing your digital life. Even if your device is stolen, encryption prevents the thieves from getting anything useful off it. 

A recent dispute between Apple and the FBI showed just how secure this is. Unable to crack the encrypted iPhones of two suspects, the FBI had to ask the tech giant for help. 

On the same note, there are other ways to prepare for the theft of your device. Turn on find-my-device features, and use something stronger than a pattern swipe to unlock your phone. 

Turn on Auto-Updates

Few hackers actually bother to look for new vulnerabilities – mostly they exploit known weaknesses. Development teams are constantly fixing these, but in order to stay safe, users must install updates. 

Updates are worth the inconvenience of downloading them and even rebooting your device. Installing updates means you’re protected by the latest security standards. This is particularly important for operating systems, browsers, and antivirus software.   

Auto-updates take most of the pain out of the process. Enable them, and updates are installed as soon as they are available. Often, you won’t even notice.

Invest in High-Quality, Secure Applications 

When picking any application, but especially business ones, security should factor into your choice. 

No matter if you’re choosing an antivirus program, or a business communication solution, check reviews online and read the fine print. Often, a slightly more expensive option offers much higher levels of protection. 

A prime example are business telephony suites. Zoom, while free in its basic tier and inexpensive on higher ones, has come under fire for encryption failings. It has even been banned from high-end enterprises and governments. 

Business-grade conferencing services, on the other hand, offer much stronger encryption algorithms and other safeguards against hacking.

Stay Vigilant, Keep Up With Scams 

Finally, keep up with the latest cybersecurity threats. Since the start of the pandemic, strategies for phishing, ransomware, and other scams have changed. 

Here are just two currently booming attacks: Fake COVID-19 health sites to extract your social security number, and hacking thriving e-commerce websites to steal your credit card information.

Learning the signs of recent cybercrime methods means you can avoid them. The best ways to go are to periodically read cybersecurity blogs, or subscribe to government newsletters to stay up to date. 

The post Secure Your Home Office: 7 Tips You Can Implement Right Away appeared first on SiteProNews.