Entrepreneurship is perceived as a risky endeavor, where you have to bet everything while fighting tooth and nail to start a successful company; to quote Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds, “…if you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.”  Does this still hold true, however?  Is entrepreneurship still a risky career path with low job security?  Over the past couple decades, the classic entrepreneur-employee, high risk-low risk paradigm has reversed.  It used to be that employers had large benefits packages, offered pension plans, or valued seniority and tenure.  These qualities are increasingly rare, and we find that entrepreneurs consistently have more independence and financial security.

Job Security as an Employee

The economy is undergoing a lot of changes as the marketplace becomes more volatile and digital technology disrupts classic business models.  According to the Bureau of Labor, the median number of years a worker has been with their current employer was only 4.6 years in 2014.  When you partition that statistic by age, you find that for 25-34 year olds, their median job tenure was 3 years, nearly three times less than 55-64 year olds, who generally stay 10.4 years at their jobs.  As an employee you can lack agency and are not always in control of your career path.  Who hasn’t seen stories of layoffs and downsizings in the news these days? Companies no longer expect life-long employees, so why don’t you take the opportunity to start your own.

Entrepreneurship Isn’t that Risky

Starting a business has never been easier, cheaper, or more popular than now.  Take this opportunity to decide how you want to spend your time and create value.  Successfully creating a company depends on a lot of factors, but the most important is hard work and effective planning.  Why do startups fail?  The number one reason found by CB Insights was that there was no market need for their product (42% of startup deaths were for this reason).  This could be avoided by applying lean startup strategies: immediately begin doing market research with your prototype product or service.  It doesn’t have to be perfect!  The intent of a minimum viable project, or MVP, is to test and iterate on your idea, incorporating feedback into a continual design process.  From this process you’ll get a much better idea of who uses your product and how.

For entrepreneurs looking to bootstrap their idea, the rise of computer and internet based tools have markedly decreased the costs for developing a business, giving you powerful tools from the very start.  The community of entrepreneurs in your area is also a great resource, providing networking opportunities, advice and expertise, and a support system as you develop your idea.  There’s no more argument—entrepreneurship is a safe bet for most.  All you need is an idea, hard work, and a willingness to fail and try again.

The Middle Ground

Starting a venture from the ground up can be intimidating, but there are often more structured opportunities, such as franchising.  Franchising is generally thought of in the context of food chains such as McDonald’s, but it is much more than that.  Instead of creating a completely new business model, you can purchase the right to use and improve an existing business model, giving you the security in knowing the process works, but freedom and flexibility to choose the work environment you’ve always wanted.  Franchises come in all shapes and sizes—everyone can find a fit, from Hampton Hotels to Jimmy John’s to Liberty Tax Service and many you probably did not know even existed!  The main benefits of franchising include:

Several weeks into the New Year, we are taking a look at some of the most important trends for businesses to take advantage of.  Our world is more interconnected than ever before, requiring businesses to take a more active role in engaging customers and implementing new technologies.  Although entrepreneurs have a lot on their minds when they pause to look ahead at 2016, here are four trends everyone can get behind.

Selling with Social Media

The importance of social media is increasing year over year as consumers and businesses continue engaging directly with one another.  Everyone knows about Facebook and Twitter, but less established companies like Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Periscope are big opportunities to create a unique experience for your customers.  It is important to note that 79% of salespeople who use social media outsell those who don’t, 72% of B2B buyers used social media to research their purchase decisions, and 53% of buyers said they listen to peer recommendations before making a purchase.  However, social media requires different marketing strategies that can be unfamiliar to some entrepreneurs.  The key promotion strategy is now…

Content Marketing

Content Marketing focuses on creating and curating content that a customer will consider as a valuable source of information.  Traditional publicity was focused on capturing a customer’s attention to present an image or story (Ads, Posters, commercials) but suffered from several flaws:  low engagement rates, perception as an interruption, and a broad, expensive reach.  Content marketing allows you to more deeply engage with your customer and develop a relationship based on providing value.  This value comes in many forms, but focuses on providing impartial information about a product/service so as to educate customers and help them make an informed choice without needing to go to a third-party.  This information can be distributed through video, image, blog, and viral content, ideally using social media.

Expansion of Mobile Technology

Now where are social media and content marketing king?  Mobile platforms.  Mobile technology will see continued investment and expansion as smartphone market share increases, new technology is introduced into the ecosystem, and the Internet of Things develops.  Engaging with customers through their devices is an important means of distributing useful information and improving customer experience.  Small businesses are in an ideal position to take advantage of this change, as enterprise technology is no longer prohibitively expensive.  Take new online payment options such as Square, Stripe, and Apple/Google Pay for example.  They are easily implementable and relatively cheap alternatives to traditional payment systems that are constantly innovating.

Data Driven Decision Making

Analytics—always an important part of business—is dramatically increasing in power as your ability to access data increases.  Part of this is due to mobile and cloud technology’s dominance, allowing businesses to access real-time information on their customer’s activities.  How you analyze your data will determine how effectively you spend capital and provide key insights into all the processes of your company.  But fear not, although data analysis can be esoteric, several companies (such as Palantir) are popping up that can help you glean insight from all those numbers.

Businesses face a lot of challenges in 2016, but have more tools then ever before to meet and surpass their obstacles.  By incorporating new trends and technology into your business strategy, take advantage of a new level of control over your customers and your company.

Marketing partnerships are a great way of synergistically increasing impact and penetration while spreading the cost over several organizations. When done well, a marketing partnership amplifies each company’s central message, piggybacking on the positive characteristics of the partners and detracting from the negative. Some of the biggest organizational names on the globe have used marketing partnerships to leverage their brand messages, such as the following:

IBM

The godfather of computing has multiple co-marketing partnerships. In fact, Finish researchers are using them as a model for intercompany marketing dynamics. They found that a key component to a successful co-campaign includes joint planning and communication between well-aligned organizations. IBM has allied itself with various technical, non-manufacturing organizations, primarily in the educational and certification fields. This positions IBM to passively promote the use and upkeep of its systems without incurring direct costs. IBM communicates its technical requirements to schools that, in turn, teach it to the students. When creating your partnership, be sure to define the methodology of communication, so you get the greatest effect from the partnership.

HTC

Virtual reality technology is a hot topic that comes with a lot of free press. From gaming systems like Oculus Rift that commanded huge lines for its Comic-Con demo to futurist predictions that VR will be the medical and manufacturing standard in the next two decades, VR news brings a lot to the table. This is one reason that mobile manufacturer HTC has partnered with VR developer Valve. HTC is known for its high-resolution smartphone technology, so it is adding to Valve’s credibility in this partnership. In return, Valve places HTC at the forefront of mobile VR, which aligns with the overall goals of the smartphone giant. Because VR has a life of its own, this partnership will yield a lot of impact organically and with very little cost.

Levi’s

Doing something good for the world offers businesses and social service organizations an opportunity for a win-win scenario. When Levi’s partnered with Water.org and changed its manufacturing process so that the denim can be processed with an average of 26 percent less water, the joint Facebook page saw more than 50,000 visits in the first three days. This made a colossal impression on Levi’s brand reputation, painting it as a socially responsible multinational organization.

Group Farmer’s Association

The snake skin fruit grows of Indonesia’s Sleman District is composed of many small, family operated, low-tech farms that, as a group, are the biggest suppliers of snake skin fruit in the world. The fruit growers came together in a marketing effort and partnered with exporter AMS Exporting Company. This collaborative effort had the effect of nearly doubling the price earned by the farmers. Here, the marketing campaign evolved into a leveraged price increase for many small businesses.

Vatican

Within the Christian world, stem cell research and its relationship to abortion is a volatile political topic. The Catholic Church has partnered with stem cell research NeoStem to change the conversation from an aggressive and antagonistic stance to one where they find common ground. When creating your marketing partnership, keep in mind that it does not need to be a linear marketing campaign. Instead it can be used to create new concepts with your company being credited as a thought leader.

A commonly recited stat states that consumers base 1% of purchases on sound or smell, 6% on texture and 93% on visual appearance. The accuracy of the figures can be debated but it’s obvious that graphics, color and design have an impact on purchase decisions. A retail product on the shelf and a website design strategy both share the same goal of using visual cues to push consumers down the purchase funnel. Take a look at this infographic provided by Bigstock to understand how long influential graphics have been occurring and the details involved.

Google has just released a new promotion tool for businesses and celebrities called Google Post.  Traditionally, Google’s promotion tools for businesses have focused on its AdWords online advertisement platform and its Google+ social media network.  Although AdWords is still going strong (advertising accounts for 90% of Google’s revenue!), Google’s social network Plus is widely regarded as a failure as compared to Facebook or Twitter. 

Andrew Jewelers is one of the first organizations to use this new service.  Right under the link to their website is a clickable social media feed which leads to a personalized promotional page for the jewelers.

Businesses aren’t the only ones taking advantage of this, however.  Google has invited 2016’s presidential candidates to test-run the platform.  As of today, only Donald Trump hasn’t taken advantage of the new service.

Google is currently taking applications for others to get on their waitlist to use Google Post.  I recommend you sign up!  It will be a powerful new way for you to speak to your customers directly when they search for you, allowing you to shape the online discussion of your brand.