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Why Entrepreneurs should be active:

To many, entrepreneurs appear to live the dream life. They make their own rules, set their own hours, and appear totally in control of their lives. We all admire their passion, diligence, creativity, and drive. However, what many don’t see is the enormous sacrifices entrepreneurs make. Especially serious is the potential damage they do their physical and mental health. Owning a business means long hours, unrelenting movement, and serious mind-bending stress. It is not surprising that many entrepreneurs usually work themselves into early graves. Depression, anxiety, heart disease, insomnia, and addiction are just some of the ailments that frequently plague entrepreneurs.  We all know that we should take better care of ourselves, but for many, the opportunity cost of a couple hours of exercise is too great. Ambitious business owners believe that every waking hour should be spent tirelessly building the business.

It’s important to remember that adequate exercise and rest will definitely not doom your success. Instead, a healthy and active lifestyle is a necessary and rewarding investment. An entrepreneur’s health is perhaps his greatest asset. If he is unwell, he cannot perform his best and his business will suffer. In just a few hours, you can boost your mood, relieve stress, and ensure better sleep. You will feel and perform so much better. You need to temporarily remove yourself from the constant grind of being an entrepreneur and spend some time on yourself. To be successful, you need to be energetic, alert, and focused. Ultimately the goal is to achieve a better “work/life balance” and live a happier, healthier life.

3 Tips to Overcome Public Speaking Nerves

Snakes, sharks, piranhas, spiders, being buried alive – these are just some of the things people consistently say they fear less than speaking in public. On almost every list or countdown of our greatest fears, public speaking is almost always at the top. The potential for massive embarrassment makes us shutter with fear. Unfortunately for some, public speaking is a vital skill in business. Frequently you will be required to speak in front of meetings, boardrooms, and gatherings. You will not only have to communicate adequately, but eloquently as well. A good public speech could be the key to motivating your employees, frightening your competition, or convincing new customers. To be a successful entrepreneur, you simply need to overcome your fear of public speaking. Hopefully, these tips will help.

1. Find Your Biggest Critic and Get Lots of Feedback

If you are afraid of public speaking, this tip may seem absolutely terrifying. Having someone critique your speaking failures may be as appealing as rubbing salt on an open wound. However, constructive criticism is perhaps your greatest tool for improvement. Critics can point out what isn’t working and can offer you a different perspective. They can call you out on things you would have never noticed. The initial criticism may sting a little, but it will make you stronger. Knowing that you have already faced your biggest critics and survived unscathed will undoubtedly fill you with confidence when it is time to make your next speech.

Don't write down your speech

This tip appears extremely counterintuitive. While preparation is absolutely vital to a good speech, writing it out word for word may not be the best idea. The best speakers are able to effectively utilize the language that people actually speak. Too often, prewritten speeches come off as overly formal and boring. The audience can tell when you are just reciting something prewritten and they quickly lose interest. You rarely use phrases like "In addition," or "In contrast," while having a normal conversation. The language of prewritten speeches can just be awkward when read out loud. In addition, one small slip up in your recital will destroy your flow and, especially if you are already timid, shatter your confidence.  

Don't let your nerves get the best of you

 Everyone gets nervous and no one wants to see you stumble and fail. A small slip up is usually all it takes for a nervous public speaker to totally lose confidence. Relax. Know that you will make mistakes, and that is okay. You do not have to be perfect. If you are really passionate about what you are saying, the words will flow naturally. It may take some getting used to, but public speaking is a vital skill you can learn.

3 Traits of a Great CEO

Organized

If you have ever been in the cockpit of an airplane, you know that the many tools a pilot needs are clearly and meticulously arranged. The speedometer, altimeter, and GPS are right in front of him, exactly where they need to be. A pilot knows precisely what he has to do and when he has to do it. If things ever go awry, he can rely on this system of organization.  A CEO, as the “pilot” of his company, needs the employ the same system of organization. If your instruments (financial statements, marketing reports, etc,) are missing or miscalculated, you can’t make the right decisions. In addition, your time, your most precious resource, should be spent on the important stuff, especially when it is getting hectic.  When things inevitably go wrong, you can trust that your system of organization will help you solve the problem.

“CEOs too, like great generals, need to inspire their “troops.””

Walks the Walk, Talks the Talk

One of the reasons George Washington was so revered by his soldiers was because he would fearless lead them into battle. Unlike other generals, he was on the front lines, leading the charge. CEOs too, like great generals, need to inspire their “troops.” They need to model the work ethic, attitude, and passion they hope to see in their employees. If the boss demands his workers should be responsible and diligent, he needs to model that behavior. Nothing inspires people like seeing their leader working just as hard, if not harder, than them. Not only will this yield inspiration, but respect as well. When your employees see how invested you are in the enterprise’s success, they will undoubtedly gain respect for you. When you actually “walk the walk” you become a much more effective leader.

Responds Well to Criticism

As many CEOs know too well, you can never be perfect. You constantly have to make decisions and any decision you make will inevitably be criticized. A big mistake is never listening to complaints and detractions. Too often, we take criticism to personally. John Wooden, the legendary college basketball coach, taught that “You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one“ The best CEOs listen to their detractors and reanalyze their decisions. You should not bend to the will of anyone, but instead realize you are not infallible. Take criticism, especially constructive criticism, as an opportunity to better yourself and the decisions you make. This way, you will constantly grow and improve.

4 Tips for Keeping the Frustration at Bay

Running a small business can be more than a little frustrating. It tends to bring about emotions you didn’t even know you had. Being frustrated can cloud your mind and affect your thought process, causing poor decisions and lack of proper judgment.

1. Stay focused

Frustration is a poison that seeps into all aspects of your life. If you aren’t careful, it can cause you to neglect other tasks as you fixate on your frustration. Don’t let this get the better of you and take your focus away from what really matters.

2. Don't let your frustration affect your judgment.

As a business owner, your final decisions can make or break your business. Making clear, rational decisions requires a clear and rational thought process. Frustration is the enemy of rationality, causing you to overthink and develop delusional thoughts.

Therefore it’s absolutely crucial to force yourself to take a step back breathe deeply. This applies to every aspect of business, from a terrible employee/client, a bad review, a poor month or any of the thousands of other problems a business must deal with on a regular basis. Keeping your cool is what separates good leaders from poor leaders.

3. Focus on Progress

Instead of wasting time focusing on the cause of your frustration, invest your time in tracking the progress you make. This will not only ensure that your actually getting the tasks you need to completed, but will cause you to forget why you're so frustrated in the first place. These things need to get done, so just ignore your frustration and put in the grind.

Record and track your progress however you see fit, this will give you peace of mind as you cross off tasks left and right. If your frustration starts to stunt progress in areas outside of your work life, be sure to take notice. As we mentioned earlier, the blinding effects of frustration can be the downfall of much more than just work life.

4. Find An Outlet to Express your frustration

Often times frustration exists because of an inability to express concerns or problems in the correct outlet. If it stems from trouble at work, make sure that you create a constructive environment where healthy criticism and concerns can be properly addressed.

There’s a big difference between properly bringing your concerns to light, and doing so in a way that can cause problems in your business. This is why it’s crucial to create a business environment that allows you, your team members and clients to feel comfortable talking about what causes frustration. Remember that you might not be the only one frustrated in your business.

3 Lessons for Service Based Startups

Often times when we hear of the word, “startup,” we tend to automatically think of Silicon Valley/Beach tech start ups. Or a garage-based company on the verge of becoming the next big Uber overnight. Let’s ditch the social connotations --This term is generally meant for any organization or business on a mission to find a good, repeatable, scalable business model. From Handlr’s personal experience, it’s quite a wonderful ride to be on. The struggles of working from sunrise to sunset, running off to a meeting that started 10 minutes ago, or just juggling life, they’re predominant in our lives. These struggles confront the face of any entrepreneur launching their start up business regardless of industry. We’d like to share 3 lessons we’ve learned along our journey with service based startups:

Bootstrap and hold on tight

Funding your business from your own savings account lights the biggest fire under your @$$. There’s no cushion from a wealthy bank or investor, just you, yourself, and your business-baby. Staying self-funded leaves you no other choice but to focus on revenue and makes you think, “What’s going to make me money from Day 1.” And the perks? You stay your own boss and you learn the value of the dollar much faster. This is why you chose this entrepreneur lifestyle, don’t forget it 

“Stay self-funded as long as possible.”

— Garrett Camp, founder of Expa, Uber, and StumbleUpon

Be fearless

Nothing will end your career as an entrepreneur faster than fear. Having doubts of the worklife you want will inhibit your visions to come to fruition. Fear is also a game of perception. You can see challenges as opportunities of growth, or obstacles that you’ll be stuck behind forever. Challenges, obstacles, failures, whatever your fear is and however you word it --will always be there and it’s a matter of how you react to them. Failure is expected in our industry and will happen at some point in your career. Just remember, be resilient, take it in stride, learn from it, and get back on the bull.

“You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.”

— Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder

Solve a problem

If you can help people accomplish something in a much more efficient way, or solve a problem, you are probably off to a great beginning in the startup world. Ask yourself, “Is my idea/service different than the competitors in the market?” That’s your value. So provide a solution, find your value, and the profit will follow.

“Make something people want. ”

— Alexis Ohanian, Founder / Reddit, Hipmunk, and Breadpig

Business Hacks to Maximize Productivity

Bigger Business Book Club: 02

There's nothing quite like opening up an inspirational book to get your creative business minds cranking. Here's our second roundup of business management books we recommend taking a peak at that will benefit you and your business:

• The Lean Start Up by Eric Ries - "Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever."

• From Idea to Exit by Jeffrey Weber - "From Idea to Exit takes a more comprehensive approach, tackling the entire entrepreneurial journey from the initial seed idea through a well-planned exit strategy. Through a persuasive narrative, the author draws from his own success a practical call to action for those who dream of taking that first big step."

• The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki - "Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, small-business owner, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit leader, there's no shortage of advice on topics such as innovating, recruiting, fund raising, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, websites, blogs, webinars, and conferences that many startups get paralyzed, or they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they succeed. "

How I Started a Dog Walking Business Turned Tech Company

Nobody understands what it’s like to have your hands so full of dogs, that you don’t even have time to change your pants after a dog lifted his leg on you at the dog park. Or what it’s like to spend time with so many happy dogs all day, but to come home exhausted and covered in dog hair and slobber. It’s a labor of love and it can be the hardest and the best job ever.

You might have fallen into dog walking like I did. I have always loved dogs and I’ve always loved people too. When I was at UCSD, I missed my dogs back home so much that I decided to help out my neighbors with their dogs. Before I knew it, I was walking dogs on almost every street in La Jolla. By the time I graduated, I was walking 30 dogs per day and that’s when I decided to turn DogZenergy into a professional business.

My goal:

To create the best and biggest dog walking agency in San Diego so that I could spread my love to hundreds of dogs.

My biggest hurdle:

Fear and burnout.

In the first few years of running my business, I was happy, but tired. After walking all day from 7am-8pm without any breaks, it was exhausting to come home and do the busy work. The last thing I wanted to do was work on the schedule, create invoices, and get back to customer requests. I felt like I was stuck on a hamster wheel of the daily grind.

One day, one of my favorite clients was extremely upset when I handed her a late invoice. She said to me, “Brittany, you are not a businesswoman, you are a dog walker.” These words really stung. I put my whole life into being the best dog walker that I could be, but it was true. I was not running a streamlined business. I was behind on invoicing, I had no systems in place, and I had no help. I felt like I was drowning. A friend of mine told me to read The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber and this book really changed my life. In the book, Gerber explains that you have to work “on” your business and not just “in” it. You can’t just be a dog walker, you have to be a mindful business owner too. You need systems and processes so that you can hire a team and bring on more customers without compromising your quality of service.  

It sounded easy enough, I needed to build a team. But how do I trust them? How do I know that every dog got walked and no mistakes were made? How do I not get cut out? That’s when I started searching for the perfect software, but couldn’t find it. When Uber and other on-demand apps came out, I really wanted to get my hands on the same technology for my business. So I decided to pack the last ten years of trying to make my life easier into one easy, simple to use mobile business platform called Handlr.

With the Handlr business dashboard and connected team app and customer app, you can seamlessly handle the following:

• Automate scheduling and dispatching of your dog walkers

• Keep track of your client list. See revenue and satisfaction ratings per client.

• Keep track of your dog walkers’ performance ratings

• Receive check in and check out alerts and GPS track your walkers

• Three-way chat between you, your dog walker and your client so that phone numbers are not shared.

• You and your clients can see photos and updates about their dog’s day and share them on social media.

• Easy client registration and safe, encrypted, credit card payment

• No more invoicing. Get paid right away.

• Always know how your business is performing with revenue reports.

• See new customers magically drop themselves into your schedule.

Now my business is running completely on auto-pilot and we have 15 dog walkers and hundreds of clients using the Handlr app. Our clients are booking our services on the app 20% more than they did before and we are growing faster than we can hire. We’re on track to do a million dollars in sales this year. And now you can gain control over your business by using Handlr too.

If you’re interested in applying to join Handlr click here.

We look forward to handling business with you!

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Britt Alwerud lives in Los Angeles, CA with her menagerie of animals - two goldens, Daisy and Taj, two cats, Tiger and Monkey, and two horses named Gracie and Moo. Britt owns DogZenergy in San Diego, CA. Now she is the full-time Founder and CEO of Handlr. Learn more at myhandlr.com/petprofessionals or email her at britt@myhandlr.com.

10 Inspiring Entrepreneurial Quotes for the Mid-Week Slump

“Your biggest enemy is the unknown and assumptions.”

— Donald Bittar

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“People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.”

— Mary Kay Ash

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“Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.”

— W. Edwards Deming

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“There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.”

— Seth Godin

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“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

— Andy Warhol

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“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”

— Henry Ford

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“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing...layout, processes, and procedures.”

— Tom Peters

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“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.”

— Peter Drucker

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“Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.”

— Gary Ryan Blair

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“All lasting business is built on friendship.”

— Alfred A. Montapert

Are you a fearless entrepreneur? Here's 3 tactics for overcoming fear.

Britt Alwerud

A few weeks ago I sat in an audience of 40 other business CEOs and founders and listened to Mike Jones of Science, Inc. say the words, “Are you doing something right now that makes you money?”. This quote ended up on my whiteboard as a constant reminder to stay on track and work on tasks that make me money instead of make me busy. Which is ironic, because right now I’m writing a blog post instead of calling a hundred small businesses to spread the word about Handlr. The truth is, starting a business is completely overwhelming. It’s like staring up at a massive mountain and thinking, “How the hell am I going to scale this thing?”. The answer? One step at a time. Mike shared with us that success rides on two basic principles: sales and an unfaltering belief in your business’ potential for growth.

The bottom line is that fear is the enemy when it comes to sales and believing in your success. It’s scary as all hell to cold call people or to walk up to strangers with your card in hand. It's nerve-wracking to put your idea out into the world. It’s scary to hear the truth and the truth is, not everyone is going to love your idea. It’s scary to put your whole life savings (and wedding fund if you're like me) into a new crazy idea and it’s scary to think that there’s a possibility that not a single soul will want to sign up for your new app. Fear is a bitch. It can paralyze you and make you want to crawl up into a ball.

Owning my own business for the last 9 years and starting a new one, has been quite the roller coaster. It’s the best feeling in the world to be financially independent and to grow something from nothing, but it’s also scary to see your bank account near zero and to have so many employees relying on you to pay their living wages. It’s sometimes terrifying to shoulder so much responsibility for your business, your employees, your business’ reputation and your own living expenses. But it’s so worth it and the last 9 years have taught me so many lessons in bitch slapping fear in the face. I’m not going to lie, I have moments of panic, every entrepreneur does, but I now know how to stand up to my fear and most importantly, I know how to change my mindset.

The only thing that we have control over in life is our own mind. We have the power to choose the way we want to think about things. Dog training has taught me to train my own brain. I can train myself to approach difficult matters confidently, objectively, logically and without fear (ok, most of the time). Today we aren’t running from saber tooth tigers or wolves to survive, but we are still experiencing varying degrees of stress to make it in the modern world. You can think about stress as something negative, or you can change your mind about it and think of it as a motivator to keep you moving forward. Some stress is good, it keeps you going. It’s just important to keep it in check and not become paralyzed by it. I’ve found that 1) perspective, 2) progress, and 3) balance, keeps stress in check and fear at bay.

#1 Perspective in life is everything. It’s really the only thing that we truly have control over in life.  You can choose to think about things any way that you want. You choose to be scared, unknowledgeable, ungrateful, panicked, or clueless, or you can choose to be confident, knowledgeable, grateful, poised and clued in. You can be these things by taking action and taking control of your thoughts. To do this you must be self-aware and reflective in order to make a conscious effort to cancel out the negative and change it to a positive. Being scared or panicked is caused by a stressful response based on something that happened to you in the past or because of staring at the unknown future. Being in the present moment and taking one tiny step at a time toward your goal is really all that you can do and is completely do-able. You can look at a giant mountain that needs to be climbed, or you can look at your own two feet and put one ahead of the other. This perspective will propel you forward instead of become stuck in a quagmire of fear. Being grateful for being on your own two feet and being thankful to be on your personal journey of learning and growing will keep your perspective healthy and manageable. Like the old saying goes, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Where you think you’re going to end up isn’t always the case and worrying about the future just slows progress.

#2 Progress is another key to keeping fear in check. Checking off little goals and tasks gets you one step further on your hike to the top. Everyone starts somewhere and overnight success is a rarity, not the norm. I have a tendency to look at the big picture and end goal way too often and fear sets in. Changing my perspective to what I can do today, keeps the fear in check. I have to remind myself that DogZenergy started as Wagz n’ Wigglz on my street with just a handful of dogs and that it took a few years to walk a dog on every single street in all of La Jolla and greater San Diego. We all start somewhere and progress is made when we keep on moving.

#3 Keeping life in balance is an art form and is the key to staying calm, brave and laser focused. Even though I can’t juggle, I have an imaginary Brittany in my head who is a fantastic juggler. She juggles a lot of balls. There’s one for my family, friends, Handlr, DogZenergy, pets, fitness, fun, health, mindfulness and learning. I am happiest and most brave when all of these balls are up in the air. If I drop one, a few others start dropping and then I’ve lost all my balls and marbles. Luckily I have ball obsessed golden retrievers who help me pick up my metaphorical balls. This is sounding weird and somewhat dirty. Getting back on track here… it’s tricky to keep your life in balance, but especially as an entrepreneur, it’s essential to take care of yourself to be the best version of yourself. You are your business and your business needs you. You don’t have time to be worrying and fretting about the future or whether or not things are going to turn out the way that you want them to. You just need to keep it all in perspective, make progress and stay balanced.

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“Fear can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win.” -Steve Maraboli”