Here are some of the best articles we found for our Link Roundup for October, 2019:
Low-Cost Benefits to Offer Your Employees
One of the most important ways to retain employees is by offering benefits. As a small business, you may not be able to offer the same benefits as large companies. However, you may be able to offer some benefits and perks as your small business grows. Although it may be costly to acquire some benefits, there are some low-cost benefit options.
Flexible spending accounts (FSA) allow employees to contribute to an account with pre-tax dollars meaning employees don’t pay taxes on this money. You may be able to get your employees a credit or debit card to use for medical expenses. However, they may have to submit receipts to show proof of purchases. Read more here.
How to Deal With Anxiety and Stress
Anxiety is often a nebulous concept. We know it affects our emotions, but it’s difficult to describe. This is because anxiety feels different for everyone. You might feel uneasy. You might feel light-headed or dizzy. Your heartbeat might escalate. You may experience hot flashes. Regardless of how anxiety affects you, it takes a heavy toll on your performance and stress levels. As a leader, you’re probably no stranger to it.
Anxiety is ultimately a reaction to stress, and it’s commonly associated with rumination or obsessive thinking. It can even cause palpitations and tremors, and is closely related to what’s called anticipatory stress, which concerns thoughts of the future. Leaders experience anticipatory stress when they express worry about a future event like an upcoming presentation or board meeting. Remember Murphy’s Law? It’s the idea that if something can go wrong, it will. Read more here.
Attention Managers: Do Not Treat All Your Employees the Same.
One piece of management advice that I hear a lot is to treat everyone the same. I get where this is coming from. The idea is to be fair, not play favorites, and especially avoid falling into the traps that biases (conscious or unconscious) can set. These are important–don’t get me wrong–but once you’re over these fundamental hurdles, treating everyone the same won’t get you very far as a manager (or in life).
It’s far more useful to recognize that every single person you work with is an individual. And rather than treating every one of them exactly the same, it works much, much better to adapt to the people you work with. This is the secret to bringing out the best in them. Read more here.
How To Stop Feeling Overwhelmed By Your Business
Becoming overwhelmed when starting your own business is easy to do. You have dreamed about becoming your own boss and decided to try to become an entrepreneur. Then, after your business starts you are working long hours and days trying to grow your business to make a profit. You’re exhausted by the end of the week. You feel you’ve barely made a dent towards all you want to accomplish.
What happened to that picture-perfect life where you are running a smooth business from your beach house? What happened to having enough time to spend with the people you love and enjoying life before retirement age? Michael Gerber referred to this as the Myth of The Entrepreneur in his famous book, The E-Myth. Read more here.
Influencer Marketing: the $68M secret you don’t know
Pura Vida Bracelets reported $68.3 Million in revenue for 2018 leading to an incredible acquisition by Vera Bradley — and they credit a lot of that success to influencer marketing.
Gretta Rose van Riel used influencer marketing to build multiple 8-figure ecommerce brands. Read more here.
If you missed last month’s link roundup please check it out:
[Small Business Link Roundup for September]
