Tampa Bay’s hipster heights Public Market, Armature Works opened their doors for the Tampa Bay startup week. The facility was filled with the hustle and bustle of entrepreneurs and various companies eager to learn. Just recently, I had the opportunity to network and learn so many things on scaling business by attending the 2019 Synapse Summit. However, this event was free and open to the public. Imagine that, this event was basically CEO’s and influencers giving away free advice to the Tampa Bay Area. There were panelists that wanted to help out those who are starting up their companies. They talked all about their failures and successes of starting up their brands. Here are a few of the talks I had the pleasure of getting free advice from.

How to Handle a Crisis

As many of you have figured out, a crisis can happen anywhere, including within our company. Well guess what, they do not have to happen all the time. You may be asking, how often should a company practice a crisis? The answer, it should be brought up weekly and you should include all employees regarding the handling of a crisis.

Did you receive any bad review which led your brand to a crisis? Here are a few tips on how to address those reviews:

When receiving a bad review:

• Address the person who left the review then ask for a DM. Let’s be real, it is 2019 and most people will reply on social media compared to an email.
• Reach out to google and see about getting the review taken down if it goes against the Google standards of ethic.
• In general, be empathic with people. by doing so, you can change the relationship to a positive one after the crisis.
• Be honest during the crisis and back peddle if needed. No one likes being left in the dark. Just let your customer or client know what went wrong.
• Make sure to have a written statement.
• After the crisis, learn from it instead of moving on right away.
• Is there a way for your brand to recover?  For ideas of how crises were handled, check Google, LinkedIn & Wall Street Journal. There are a plethora of brands facing crisis at the very moment.

After the crisis has occurred, use as many resources as possible to see about not having another crisis in the future. For starters, here is a book on how to handle a crisis.

Keys to Startup & Leadership Success

There are a few things every leader should ask themselves and be aware of –

Self-awareness:

• Awareness of your emotions.
• Insights into their impact on your performance and that of others.
• Honesty in your positive and negative biases.
• Accurate self-assessment.
• Who are we?
• Why do we exist?
• What do we stand for?
• Where do we see ourselves going?
• How are we going to get there?
• What drives our economic engine?

By answering these questions, you will already be ahead of the game compared to those who are just starting out and are at a loss of where to begin their journey of starting up their brand.

Vision:

What is our overriding focus for the future?

Having a vision is very important because this will allow you and your brand to stay focused on the one reason you worked so hard to get where you are today. Don’t be afraid to tell your team or have a sticky note on your desk reminding yourself every day the vision of your brand/company is trying to accomplish. The moment you forget what your vision is, everything can crumble and all those hours and hard work you and your team have put in, will go to the wayside.

Setting priorities:

This graph will help you organize all your ideas and tasks so you can focus on what is important for you as a leader. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to draw this graph out in my head to organize and prioritize emails, tasks and other day-to-day things that come up.

Setting your priorities can give you a clearer mind and will almost give your workflow a kick start making your job easier. As previously mentioned, “work smarter, not harder.” 

When you are starting out with your brand it is extremely important to have a presence on social

Creating Effective Video Content for Social Media

In order to have effective content, it requires that you have the proper mindset. Here are a few ways to help get to that mindset:

• Do not think about what will work in likes, shares, views, etc.
• The individual truth is what will work
• Just be YOU – If you are the one behind the video-sharing the content, just act natural. By doing so, the viewers can acknowledge that you and your content are authentic.

Creating content:

• Curiosity – Create content that leaves your viewers with a curious mind (does it get them to ask what’s next?).
• Props – Use small or big items in your video to grab your audience attention. It could even be a blowup flamingo just something that will grab the attention you want.
• Environment – Find the top 10 most interesting places in the city you will be shooting your video in. Pick one of those places and use it as a backdrop for your video. Your viewers will most likely be more engaged with your content.
• Success in social media is more than followers but the interactions.
• When posting on social media, do something that makes you and your brand stand out. It can be as simple as creating a hashtag specific to your brand. Once you have created one, stick with it and use it constantly. There are three things that make up mindful posting. These are 1.Competition 2.Repitition 3. Connection. This brings me to the important things every business needs when it comes down to their website and social.

The 5 videos every business needs to survive

1. Visual Business cards
2. Customer testimonials
3. Facebook live videos – Live videos are more engaging than just a Facebook post or an Instagram story. Be engaging as possible with your audience. Not only can you earn more trust, but it will show you care what your viewers say about you and your brand.
4. Sales Videos
5. Internal training

By having these 5 things, trust is earned from your client and customers.

Lastly, it is important that your brand is thriving and in order to do so, you have to make sure the nuts and bolts are well oiled and are not rusting. You may have guessed what I am referring to, if you guessed yourself, then you are correct. It is vital that as an owner or entrepreneur stays healthy mentally and physically.

20k Steps to 10x Growth: How to Stay Healthy During the Hustle

Being an entrepreneur or a startup can be draining and can take a lot out of you. In order to have a thriving business, self-health is the most important. Here are a few takeaways on how to remain healthy during the hustle.

• Schedule everything – Managing rapid growth can be overwhelming at times. Scheduling things will help manage that.
• Block time off in your calendar for the important things in your life such as the gym, yoga, dr appointments or picking your child up from school. Make time for yourself a priority.
• Work smarter not harder.  No one could have said it better then Warren Buffet, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted it a long time ago.” We can learn from the hard work while at the same time enjoy the hard work of others.

In today’s society, it may be hard to do with everything and everyone being on the go. Make sure to take time and step away from it all and enjoy all your hard work. That being said, I made sure to take a step away from my normal hustle each day and take the time during the week to attend the Tampa Bay Startup. I blocked time off my calendar to gain the knowledge of those who have successfully failed as well as those who have succeeded. If you happen to see a Startup week in your city, I would highly encourage you to attend. I hope you were able to come away with a few tips from reading this.

Walking into Tampa Bay’s second Synapse Summit was nothing but buzzing entrepreneurs and coffee stands filled with early bird risers. Connections were ready to be made. As soon as you stepped foot in Amalie Arena there were local vendors on either side with the latest swag ready to be handed out. The arena was filled with leaders, entrepreneurs, startups, Vice Presidents, and more established businesses ready to learn and scale their business.

The summit had multiple lectures on relevant topics regarding the new age of digital. All these lectures had many coming away with one thing: the future of digital is here. There were probably over 100 lectures every day. I found myself wanting to attend all of the lectures, unfortunately, I could only be in one place at a time, so I was limited to a handful throughout the day.  Each of the lectures were in different parts of the arena, so you had to set aside extra time to find where the lecture of your choice was going to be held. Luckily, most of the lectures I attended were in the same area, so I did not get too lost.

Here are a few things I took away from some of the lectures and wanted to share those gold nuggets of information with you.

How to Leverage Your Network Session

One of the many lectures we had the pleasure of listening to was on the topic of, How to Leverage Your Network. Here are some of the takeaways from that lecture.

1. The power of networking can change your life – No matter what age you are, you are always meeting someone new. Using the words like “Please” and “thanks” can actually make you stand out. Just being nice in general can be the starting point of a new connection.
2. Stand out –  When meeting someone new, make sure to stand out. It can be anything, your speech, a super colorful tie, a joke you told or even something as crazy socks.
3. Follow up after 24 hours – You just put all that effort in someone trying to remember you so do not let them forget you. If you swapped business cards, then follow up with a friendly email. Something as simple as saying, “Hi _____ nice meeting you at ____ loved hearing about what you do and your business. Let me know if you ever have any questions about _____ I will be glad to help. Good luck with your business! Kind regards _____.” Add them on LinkedIn. If they have social on their business card, follow them on social.

By now, you should be the master at meeting new people and your network has now expanded by many.

Designing a Winning Company Culture Session

In order to have a winning culture, you need to expose it. Exposing it can be as simple as taking a picture you and your coworker (with their approval) and posting it to social with #bestcoworkeraward or taking a picture of a social event that takes place within your company and posting that to social. However, with the digital world taking off just about anyone can work from home nowadays. So having a company culture can be very difficult if people have different schedules and you don’t interact with them face-to-face. Just know that it can be done! If you can deliver energy over the phone and/or an email then you will receive some sort of energy back. The more you can put forth into your company and be invested in growth and making connections, then that will happen. Always keep in mind that there is a real person sitting behind the email you just got. It was not a robot who sent that. Just be personable. Culture is all about people, so if you can relate to another person then you all already on the right track of paving the way to having a great company culture.

The Future of Advertising

Here are some of the key takeaways.

• • Make sure the things you put out are worth the time and attention others will give you.
  • Social media is a two-way street today – The audience is no longer the target. Instead,  they are helping to get the message out. This is being done by their friend groups and what they post and reshare with their friends.
  • User or consumer have to see themselves in the ads –  The moment a user or consumer can see themselves in your ad then it will be applicable and they can relate.
  • Consumers are the new age marketers –  A prime example of this would be an influencer such as Kylie Jenner sharing a product then #ad at the bottom of her post. Casey Nesitat is another example. He uses his videos to market products he was given by subscribers as well as paid companies.

• The future may be about fewer interruptions and more about entertainment – Netflix has already started with this. Anytime you participate in a paid subscription you have fewer ads. However, for Netflix, there are multiple ad placements in shows. If you are listening to music on Spotify and then an ad gets interrupted, you are instantly annoyed. All those paid subscriptions incorporate entrainment into the advertisements.

Day 2 of Synapse Summit just as much of a success as the first day. This time I knew my way around the arena

The lectures that Digital Neighbor attended had such good information that we decided we had to share it with you all.

The Way We Work is Being Transformed by Technology Session

Technology has transformed so much in that past few years. Every day there is something new for digital markets to learn. There is an augmented workforce that has new digital and technologies.

There are 3 dimensions changing the future of work

1. Work – How work gets done.
2. Workforce – Who is doing the work (Ex. Robots).
3. Workplace – What work looks like today.

So many people can work from home and even on the go. We live in an age where we are always connected so we can get work done. Meetings can be held through phone calls and even FaceTime. Since we are always connected we have found that we can get robots to do the work for us so we can double up on the amount of work we have and get more things done within a days work.

Lastly here is another lecture we found to be very helpful within the world of digital.

5 Must do’s to market your brand in an omnichannel digital landscape

In today’s digital world it can be very overwhelming and competitive. Here are 5 strategies to help you get on top and lead the way for your brand:

1. Make your content king – Content is important and so is your brand.
2. Take a data-driven approach – Data makes you credible and will earn the trust from others.
3. Personalize the process – Adding a personal touch to your brand will help your audience engage with you.
4. Provide value to social media – Social media is not going away so be active and present.
5. Think mobile first– Most people today are connected to a smartphone or tablet. If your brand is not compatible with mobile you will not get far.

Key Takeaways

I hope these tips were helpful for you. I definitely learned so much at the 2019 Synapse Summit. Making new connections and learning to scale your business can be applied anytime in your career. Networking is a great start to scale your business. I currently have a mountain of business cards on my desk from all the people I met at the Summit. Investing time in yourself to grow and learn will help by growing your business. Hope to see you next year at the 2020 Synapse Summit!