FROM GUARDED TO GUIDED BY GRACE

When Alanis Morisette was singing about irony - every single person listening - whether you liked the song or not, knew exactly what she was talking about. The irony life serves up could be an entire soundtrack in and of itself. To me, this is comparable to coincidence. Also a whole soundtrack- but these iconic moments and coincidental experiences we have to serve a higher purpose. In other words, it might not be like rain on your wedding day, but it might be like a contract opening up the minute you accept one you didn’t want in the first place.

These moments in life show us what could be, what will be, and what might have been. And not to get too philosophical on you, but these moments lend to your overall purpose in life - guiding you and revealing what's behind the curtain you didn’t choose, from time to time, to remind you that your greatest challenge is actually choice.

This is why I love talking about resilience - the ineffable quality of being able to use challenges and change to become greater in your own purpose. In resilience, failure is a hurdle to jump, not a stopping point on the track. And even in resilience, there is a bit of irony. Because to be strong enough to bounce back from adversity means you kind of need a bit of resilience to develop more of it. And that is the ultimate choice. Choosing to stand when the world is asking you to sit. In the face of uncertainty, choosing to be certain, to take a risk or a chance, even if you know it might not end how you want. Finding a way to rise above it all.

 What’s Your Resilience Story?

I know so many people who tell their resilience story and are in awe of how they, themselves, somehow managed to not only survive, but thrive through the madness. For me, those moments are clear. There were times in my life, I am not exactly sure how I made it through and came out better on the other side. Is that ironic? Or is that resilience supporting me to reach my life's purpose?

Research from the University of California suggests that purpose in life supports our physical and mental wellbeing. There’s even research to suggest that psychological resilience provides a greater capacity to maintain your overall wellbeing in the face of challenges. This really just means that mentally, you are strong enough to take on whatever dish life serves up. Sounds easy, right? But the bigger picture is very intriguing… Why are so many of us in the trenches? Why are so many of us facing such adversity? And why are so many of us detached from our purpose in the first place?

Following The Same Pattern

In my own life, I realized at a certain point that every change I had made - job, company, city - kept bringing me back to the same state of absolute exhaustion. I had this idea in my mind that I was going to do ‘Xyz’ or I would die trying. This meant I was going through lifeguarded - always ready to go to battle - always ready to fight. And for what? At that time, it didn't really matter. You either make the save or you die trying. Maybe this goes back to my days as a lifeguard at one of the busiest beaches stateside. Or maybe I ended up there, on that beach, because I was already clinging to that guarded mentality.

 Letting Go

Belief systems are embedded in the fabric of our being from the time we are born, so letting those go is not an easy feat by any means. The irony in my own life was that I needed to let go of the very beliefs that had brought me the success I thought I wanted. To make space for a guided life, I had to let go of my guarded life. So instead of trying to build a life I loved, I decided to hand it over, to let go, and to live my life no matter what. It seems counterintuitive but it works - for a very simple reason: when we force, we are met with force - when we flow, we are met with the flow.

Giving Grace

I’ve forgiven a lot of people in my lifetime so I find it ironic how long it took me to forgive myself. I was always so willing to understand where others were coming from but never allotted that grace for my own path. And man, once I acknowledged this simple truth, life started moving differently for me. I found that I was no longer feeling guarded like I had to defend every choice I'd ever made. I was feeling guided instead - no longer living on guard but living in grace.

 Oh, Change

Have you ever had a belief that worked until it didn’t? These kinds of beliefs seem to work perfectly in your life—taking you to great heights of success and accomplishment—until you realize they are costing too much. For me, it was a panic attack that felt like a full-on heart attack. And if I’m being totally honest, it took a few of these moments for me to actually make a change.

It seems easy enough to change our beliefs. We change our minds all the time—about our shoes, our favorite coffee, and even our goals. Yet changing beliefs can seem impossible. An entire continent of leaders tortured the first man to say that the earth revolves around the sun. The suffragettes went to jail for challenging existing voting laws.

For eons, we have been bucking change or fighting for it. But I want us to flow with change instead. I want us to see it coming and to be able to withstand whatever the change is - and even use it, like a superpower. And this pivot is how I became the “I Love My Life” guy. Rather than try to control every single thing and then stand guard in case it didn’t work out, I decided to let the change guide me, to give myself grace, and to love every step of the way - no matter what!

- Adam Markel, author of The I Love My Life Challenge

SEVEN TINY LANDING PAGE CHANGES TO EXPLODE CONVERSIONS

Do you want to know how to optimize your landing page? 

Making sure that your landing page has all the right content and triggers is the key to making more sales.

You can write great ad copy and spend money to reach a wide audience and get them to click on an ad. But it won’t mean much if your landing page doesn’t convince them to convert and cinch the deal. 

Let’s look at some powerful but tiny tweaks you can make to your landing page to win over more people. 

With these small but impactful changes, you’ll see an upspring in conversions. Especially if you use A/B testing and track the impact of different elements. 

Make your ad copy and landing page copy similar

A person who’s come to your landing page after clicking an ad needs to see a connection between the ad and your landing page. 

One mistake that you should avoid is creating a message on your landing page that is different from your ad. 

To keep users from experiencing dissonance, use the same images on your landing page that you used in your ad. Also, drive home the same marketing message through your landing page copy, especially above the fold. 

If you’d like to add other information, you can add such content below the fold once users are interested in your business. 

Create impactful copy above the fold

The ‘above-the-fold area’ of your landing page is the top half of your webpage that holds all the content a user can see without scrolling down.

This important piece of digital real estate is where you make your first and most important impression. And to make just the right impression, keep the following in mind:

• Add calls to action, attractive headlines, and the most important information above the fold
• Keep it simple and don’t overwhelm users

What’s the most important information that you should convey to your users? 

This can be the main benefit that users get from your brand or product – the reason why they should be interested in you. Your above-the-fold space should also tell users exactly what your website is about in a brief glance. 

It’s also the space where you place your call to action prominently so that you get users to do something that helps you meet your goals. 

You have to create all this content with just the following elements on your landing page: a headline, a subheadline, a strong hero image, a call to action, and/or a form. 

The goal is to create the most impact with the least amount of copy. Keep your above-the-fold area clean and focused and you’re more likely to see conversions. 

Drive users to take action

From the perspective of a business or website owner, a landing page needs to appeal to users so that they take action and buy from you, subscribe to your newsletter, or do something that leads to engaging with your business. 

And to make this happen, the most important component you should include is a call to action. 

Make a clear call to action and position it clearly so that users interact with it. And if your landing page is long and has sales funnel text that keeps readers scrolling downwards, make sure that you repeat your C2A from time to time. 

Use contrasting colors

Colors play a critical role in highlighting calls to action and important content on your landing page. When used correctly, the colors you work with will have a psychological effect on your landing page visitors. 

To make the best impact, look up complementary colors or contrasting colors for your call to action. You can do this by looking for color wheels online. You’ll find interactive tools that show you colors on opposite sides of the color spectrum. So that when you apply these colors to your landing page in the right places, you’ll get your user’s attention. 

For example, red and greens are colors that have high contrast and are on the opposite side of a color wheel. While red and orange are close to each other on the color wheel and when seen together, create a less dramatic effect. 

Being aware of color theory to a small degree is enough to help you create an eye-catching landing page. But avoid using too many contrasting colors and focus on ones that support your brand palette. And add them to calls to action and other relevant elements. 

Add social proof

Your visitor may arrive on your page after clicking on an ad or social media post. And it’s very likely that this is the first time the user is interacting with your brand. They won’t know enough about you to trust your brand right away. 

Building trust right off the bat is challenging but possible to do. The easiest way to win trust is by adding signals of social proof. 

The phenomenon of social proof is one where people do something because they see other people carrying out a particular action. When people see a product with many ratings and reviews, they’ll feel comfortable buying a product that other people like.

Adding social proof to your landing page will create a positive impression of your business from the get-go. Here are a few simple ways you can include social proof on your landing page:

• Mention the number of products sold or the number of customers using your product
• Add testimonials by featuring quotes and pictures by real customers
• Place badges for ISI certifications, payment gateway integrations, and membership with an industry body
• Showcase awards your business has won and mentions in recognized publications

Such additions go a long way towards building trust almost immediately.

Capture exiting users’ information

If your landing page content isn’t relevant to the site visitor right then, they’re going to close the window and never return. 

One way to capture your user’s attention and email before they leave is by using optin popup form. Set up an optin popup so that it’s triggered when it detects an exit intent i.e. your user is moving their mouse to close the window or switch pages.

You can offer a lead magnet and encourage users to sign up to get updates, offers, and other benefits. When you have your users’ information, you can nurture them into paying customers at a later date. 

Leverage the fear of missing out

If you want to compel users to take action right away, then you need to create urgency and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

There are several ways to do this:

• Create a special offer on your landing page and add a time limit that expires soon. 
• Use a countdown timer to add a visual aspect that reinforces the limited time for which the offer will be available
• Use a social proof app that sends notifications to users that other people are buying and that your product stock is running out

Small additions like these will induce users to make a faster decision especially if you’re offering a great deal that your audience will benefit from. 

Over to you

Making a few changes to your landing page can mean the difference between growth and stagnation in your business. 

Along with the steps given here, be sure to do split testing on each element to tweak the impact of your content. 

As you get better results, you’ll be able to shape your landing page to grow your business fast. 

ZOOM'S BREAKOUT ROOM FEATURE IS ABOUT TO GET A LOT SMARTER

If one startup has its way, the spontaneous watercooler conversation will soon have a place in the world of remote work.

Twine, a startup that builds digital networking tools, recently acquired Glimpse, a San Francisco-based remote work startup. That will enable Twine to offer Glimpse's "speed matching" tool, which uses algorithms to strategically place participants into breakout conversations during virtual events and meetings. The technology will soon be available as a free add-on to Zoom.

Twine co-founder and CEO Lawrence Coburn believes the platform, called Twine for Zoom, will help companies re-create the natural conversations that happen around the office. "Our thesis is that remote work is here to stay," he says. "But the problem with remote work is that everybody is working in a silo. We believe there's something valuable and important about people knowing others at their company--what they're working on, but also something about them personally."

Twine for Zoom will offer companies tools for strategically creating social breakouts at all-hands meetings, company socials, onboarding events, and other virtual gatherings. In one mode, organizers can tag employees according to their roles or departments, or sort them into categories like mentors/mentees or executives/new hires. Twine's algorithm then creates breakout rooms of the chosen size. 

In another mode, company leaders can create virtual tables with certain conversation topics. The tables are visually depicted as a sidebar within Zoom, and employees can see who is sitting at each table and what the topic is, then choose one to join and change whenever they wish.

Twine for Zoom will be one of a handful of new breakout room-centric apps added to the Zoom App Marketplace in the coming weeks. Zoom recently offered a select few companies API access that allowed them to build platforms on top of its breakout room technology. Glimpse was one of those companies, thanks to a relationship between executives at Zoom and one of the startup's early investors.

"They built something on Zoom that almost nobody else had the chance to build," says Coburn. "As an entrepreneur, you kind of dream of these situations." 

Glimpse was founded at the start of the pandemic by a group of Duke undergrads who soon dropped out to focus on the company full-time. At the time of the acquisition, the startup already had 150 clients and a waitlist of 700 more businesses, according to TechCrunch. 

Coburn believes that, with Glimpse's technology, Twine will help companies solve a massive problem. He pointed to research about Microsoft that showed that as employees went remote, the transfer of knowledge between departments slowed down, which threatens innovation.

"If people don't understand the context for the work they're doing, the work loses some meaning," he says. "So that's the bet. We think that being intentional about making sure your team is connected and feels like they're part of something larger is really important. It's a board-level problem." 

Twine has raised $4.3 million in venture capital from investors including Moment Ventures, Coelius Capital, and Hinge Capital. It counts companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and eBay among its clients. Zoom's competitors include Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Webex, and BlueJeans.

FOUR IMPORTANT DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS YOU'LL SEE IN 2022

Digital marketing has evolved a lot in the past few years. And as 2022 sets in, entrepreneurs and marketers are all excited to see the trends that will dominate the market.

Knowing about the new digital marketing trends is important because it helps you prepare your business for it. That way, you can not just stay ahead of your competitors but can also boost your conversions to a great extent.

If you, too, are curious about the latest digital marketing trends for 2022, this article is for you. In this article, we’ll look at some of the trends that will take the forefront this year.

1. NFTs

Many of you might already know what an NFT is, but if you’re still unaware of them, let me explain it to you.

Just as the name suggests, NFT or Non-fungible token is a token in the blockchain that can’t be exchanged with anything even of equal value.

For example, say you have inherited your grandmother’s wedding ring. This ring is a non-fungible asset that can’t be exchanged for any value you’re offered. The reason behind it is the element of authenticity and sentiments related to it.

NFTs are digital versions of such non-fungible assets that are then added to the blockchain. It can be an image, a gif, an audio or video file, or anything similar.

Now you must be thinking, what do NFTs have to do with marketers. NFTs can open up new ways to generate brand awareness and consumer interaction.

People are interested in NFTs, and you can leverage them for your business growth. For example, you can run a giveaway contest with an NFT being a prize or collaborate with other marketers to host an NFT auction and use the amount raised to support a cause, etc.

2. Metaverse

Metaverse is the next big trend that will dominate the market in 2022. When we talk of Metaverse, the first thought that comes to our mind is Facebook. But that’s not where it ends. It has a lot more to it.

Metaverse, in general, is a simulated digital environment that uses augmented reality(AR), virtual reality(VR), 3D holographic avatars, etc., to mimic the real-life world for creating a rich user experience.

As business owners, now are the time to think about how Metaverse can help you improve user experience on your website. But before that, it’s important to understand that using Metaverse for your business isn’t only about letting your users enter the existing world but about building these interactive spaces to enhance user experience on site.

So you can try using it to create a demo of your product where your users get to know about the product in detail. Many companies in the gaming and real-estate sector are already seen leveraging it to boost their conversions.

3. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is another digital marketing trend that’s going to take the forefront in the coming year. In this type of marketing, you use an external content creator who would advocate and engage with your brand message.

So based on your niche, budget, and other requirements, you reach out to influencers who would create content for your brand to increase brand awareness and boost your sales.

Influencers generally have a very strong follower base. So collaborating with them to market your business can help you gain quick exposure.

Also, influencers have a very natural way of promoting businesses. So it doesn’t appear promotional at all, which is why their audience trusts what they say. Marketers are leveraging influencer marketing already, and if you haven’t done it yet, it is time to get started now.

4. Social Commerce

Did you know that there are 3.96 billion social media users across the world and 43% of people use social media to research things to buy? That’s the reason why social commerce has become such an important part of digital marketing.

But what exactly is social commerce? It’s the process of promoting and selling your products or services directly on social networking sites.

In the past few years, social media has evolved from a socializing platform to a medium where people learn and discover new brands, products and find inspiration about what to buy.

So it makes a lot of sense to use the platform as a source where you promote products and services to boost brand awareness and increase your overall conversion. If you haven’t started using social commerce for your business, now is the best time to get started.

So these are a few major digital marketing trends that you’ll see in 2022. And now that you know about them get ready to leverage them for the best results.

RADICAL HONESTY IDENTIFIES THE FLAWS, BUT LEADS TO A BETTER FUTURE

Radical honesty is about facing the truth of what’s not working. It’s about moving from fear and denial to making more conscious choices and decisions. In business, it means telling the truth about your market, your industry, your company, and your job. It means clearly facing business challenges, anticipating future trends, and finding ways to innovate—before someone else forces you to change.

Radical honesty ultimately frees you. The hardest place to start on the path to honesty is with ourselves. It’s simply easier to tell ourselves what we want to hear or what we think will make us feel better than what is ultimately truthful about what’s going on. The issue with this kind of benevolent mendacity is that it creates blind spots. These blind spots shield us from reality and keep us from fully utilizing our keen senses and loving awareness to collect the feedback that is all around us. Without that feedback, it is so much harder for us to learn and grow; therein lies our dilemma. Without growth, we perish.

Try this: On a piece of paper, identify where you want to be, how you want to grow, and the goals you have in mind. Now, being as realistic as possible, identify why your hopes are not your reality. What’s the hold-up?

HOW TO ENCOURAGE NEW VISITORS TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR BRAND

Do you want to encourage new visitors to engage with your brand? If so, you’re not alone. We all want to grow our brands and connect with potential customers. The ability to reach qualified leads means more opportunities to secure sales and build brand loyalty.

It’s important to remember that many first-time visitors will not immediately turn into customers. In fact, very few people will be ready to buy the first time they discover a new brand.

However, if you can demonstrate value to visitors when they find your site, there’s a better chance they will come back to you when they need industry-specific information or solutions.

Today, I want to share several strategies we use across brands to keep first-time visitors interested in the company and its products. I’ll also cover actionable tips you can use to put this advice into practice.

Are you ready? Let’s dive in!

Showcase High-Quality Content

Showcasing high-quality content on your website is one of the best ways to connect with first-time visitors. Blog posts, videos, and other forms of visual content are essential tools that you need to keep visitors engaged with your site.

Remember when I said a vast majority of online shoppers aren’t ready to place an order the first time they visit a website? Compare that piece of information with the fact that over 77% of internet users read blogs. It’s also worth noting that 47% of people report reading 3-5 blog posts on a website before placing an order. These startling statistics highlight the importance of having an educational, engaging, and exciting blog connected to your online store.

The key to building a successful blog is to focus your content on your target audience’s goals, interests, and pain points. If your content doesn’t resonate with people who need your product or service, you’re going to have a difficult time generating traffic and leads.

I suggest using your customer segments as a guide when designing content for your site. Ask yourself who each written post or video is for, and you’ll have an easier time creating targeted content that keeps new visitors engaged with your brand.

If people find the content on your site helpful, they will come back to read future updates and check out your products or services.

Secure More Signups with Personalization

Speaking of customer segments, I want to talk about the importance of personalization. You may be shocked to learn that 80% of online shoppers say they expect personalized experiences from their favorite brands.

In other words, if you don’t actively look for ways to give your visitors unique experiences, they may look for a competitor that offers them this feature.

The good news is you can easily make content and offers personal, even if you’re dealing with a first-time visitor. The secret is knowing how each person spends time on your site. With this information, you can show popups and product suggestions that match each visitors’ intent.

Lead magnets are a great way to personalize the offers users see on your site. Essentially, lead magnets are either a piece of content (like an eBook) or a promotion (like 20% for first-time subscribers). Users need to take specific action to get the offer, like subscribing to an email list.

You can customize lead magnets on your blog posts and product pages to be more personalized for each customer. For example, if you’re the owner of an online pet store, you may want to create lead magnets for common pets like cats, dogs, and birds. Now, you can include an offer for the relevant magnet on similar blog posts.

So, if a visitor is reading blog posts about cats on your site, they may also be interested in your offer for 20% off cat food and toys. Similarly, someone reading articles about dogs might download an eBook about training new puppies.

You can keep new visitors engaged long after their first visit if you’re able to understand their needs while personalizing content and offers based on their interests.

Leverage the Power of Social Proof Marketing

Here are a couple quick questions:

Have you ever bought a product because a friend told you it was a good idea? Or, have you ever bought something online, say, from Amazon, based on user reviews?

If you answered yes to either one of these questions, you’ve experienced the power of social proof marketing. Basically, social proof in marketing is evidence from other companies and shoppers that your business is respected and delivers a top-notch experience.

There are many different types of social proof you can use to encourage visitors to engage with your site. Reviews are, without a doubt, the most powerful example. A whopping 83% of shoppers say they trust reviews over advertising, and a total of 97% of consumers say they look at reviews before buying a product online.

You can include reviews on your product pages, as well as part of your lead magnet strategy. If visitors see that your free eBook has raving reviews, they may decide to join your email list and see what has everyone talking.

Trust seals are another powerful way to show social proof to new visitors. These are seals of approval from well-known companies like McAfee and PayPal. If someone sees your email registration form is secured by a well-known company, they are more likely to complete the signup process.

Make it Easy to Connect on Social Media

Did you know that over 4 billion people use social media? If you think that’s shocking, wait until you hear this; on average, people spend around 2 hours and 29 minutes on social media sites every day.

You may be wondering what this means for your business. Well, if you have an active social presence, you can move customers and visitors back and forth between your social media and website. The purpose is to deliver value through your content, offers, and advice while amplifying brand awareness and improving recognition.

It’s easier than ever to connect your social media account to your website. You can even add a social wall plugin to your site that allows you to display your feed in real-time for people who visit your site.

Not only will this help you improve engagement across the board, but it will also help you build rapport with your audience. A stunning 91% of shoppers say they want to see more interactive content from their favorite brands, and it doesn’t get any more interactive than social media.

We also like having crossover events between our site and social media. For instance, we’ve had tremendous success hosting giveaways on our various brands for anniversaries and holidays. If done correctly, you’re bound to bring in a ton of new, highly-engaged visitors with this strategy.

Use Data to Fine-Tune Your Strategy

Finally, I suggest using data from previous visitors to fine-tune your marketing strategy. You’re bound to learn a lot about your customers as you review feedback forms, analytics data, and user reports.

For instance, if you notice that one of your popups isn’t performing well, it may be time to look at your intended audience and why this offer doesn’t appeal to readers. Your audience segments will change over time, and the only way to figure out how things will work out is by keeping an eye on user data and patterns.

I also suggest finding your top-performing posts and asking yourself what makes these particular articles or promotions work. If you can crack the code, you can test this theory with future campaigns to see if it’s possible to achieve similar results.

As your business grows, you’ll find countless opportunities to keep new visitors engaged with your brand. I believe that if used properly, the advice offered here can help you build a framework for success, regardless of your industry.

TECH RECRUITERS REVEAL TRADE SECRETS FOR HIRING HIGH-SKILLED A.I TALENTS AND MORE

While the pressures of the Great Resignation and attendant labor shortage have wide implications for business in just about every industry, it's even worse for companies looking to hire highly skilled tech workers.

Prior to the pandemic, it was tough to fill specialized technology roles. Now, it's next to impossible. Nearly 50 percent of tech recruiters are currently struggling to fill jobs because they can't find enough qualified candidates, according to a recent hiring survey conducted by technical talent analysis platform CoderPad and training platform CodinGame. This has led tech salaries to increase 7 percent on average between 2020 and 2021 alone, according to a report from tech recruiting platform Dice.

Because A.I. and machine learning skills are so specialized, companies have a hard time finding enough qualified candidates to fill roles that require them -- and recruiting other engineers and developers still presents a challenge, as businesses face an overall tech worker shortage. "More recruiters are hiring for developers, and those recruiters are hiring more developers than ever," says Amanda Richardson, CEO of CoderPad.  

What's more, demand for tech roles is only expected to increase. The artificial intelligence software market could more than double in size over the next three years, according to data from Statista. That means companies that want to ride the A.I. wave need to build up their teams, stat. Here, a few recruiting experts in the tech field share their trade secrets.

Give candidates the power to pick

It's an employee's market, so why not let them do the interviewing? That's the solution proposed by the recently launched San Francisco company Talent Service. When a recruiter reaches out to a candidate about a job, the candidate can send the recruiter a questionnaire, asking questions about the role and company, through Talent Service's platform. If candidates send the questionnaire to multiple recruiters, then Talent Service uses an algorithm to rank the opportunities presented to them, based on the candidate's input preferences. Recruiters don't necessarily have to wait for candidates to send them a questionnaire, however. Employers can create a profile on the platform to gain access to a network of candidates that may be a potential fit for their roles.

Simplify your interview process

When you find a candidate you like, speed is of the essence, Richardson says, though it's important to "give a bit of a warm-up," by introducing your company and explaining what the role you're hiring for will entail. Then, Richardson recommends sending candidates a straightforward skills test, instead of a technical interview -- which she says can ultimately work more as a tool for intimidation and less as an actual proficiency check. Skills tests can also help to hire managers to fill roles more equitably, without having to judge a candidate based on a cover letter or a résumé, Richardson says.

Ideally, the whole recruitment process should take no more than about six to 10 business days, says Giovanni Lotti, vice president of people for the London-based financial services A.I. company Tractable. "We need to be very linear and very simple," he says. Tractable's interview process has just three stages: an initial screen, an interview, and a final assessment.

Amp up your benefits

To recruit highly skilled tech workers, you need to offer a competitive compensation package, and that often includes equity. But all equity offers aren't made equally, says Evan Coopersmith, executive vice president of the Los Angeles-based custom software company AE Studio. Recently, AE Studio started offering employees and candidates equity not just in the company itself but in the business's clients and its internal projects. By allowing employees to therefore diversify their equity, they have a greater chance of benefiting from it. "When you're trying to appeal to math geeks, you show them the math," he says. 

Benefits should also meet or exceed industry standards -- which is what led Tractable to recently start offering its U.S. employees 401(k) matching, Lotti says.

Expand your search internationally

The expanded adoption of remote work during the pandemic has made it a lot easier to attract tech talent, says Sergiu Matei, founder of the London-based hiring platform Index, which helps companies worldwide to recruit tech talent. "If you expand your search outside of a set of zip codes, you can find great talent with less competition," he says. Index's platform assists with this search by including an English language test and skills assessment in its recruiting process. Hiring employees in international locations with lower costs of living than tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City can also make smaller companies' compensation packages more appealing -- within reason, of course.

Look internally

"You can't finish a program in statistics or data science and say you're set for the next 20 years," says Vijay Raghavan, executive vice president and CTO of the Alpharetta, Georgia-based analytics company LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "Even if you're a freshly minted A.I. technologist, you're going to have to upskill no matter what." For this reason, he says that companies looking to fill A.I. jobs can find success by looking at the workers they already have.

The best way to do this is to have a person in a management role who has a strong knowledge of A.I., who can determine upskilling needs as technology advances, and who can work with human resources to find existing workers who may be interested in upskilling opportunities. At Tractable, about eight employees out of 100 have made lateral moves between tech teams in the past year, Lotti says.

Show real results

Here's the good news: Many tech workers are more drawn to smaller companies, even if they offer less compensation or benefits than larger corporations. But there's a catch -- your company needs to have a compelling goal that workers will feel excited about.

"Purpose does matter," says Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and co-founder of the A.I.-powered HR software company Phenom. "If you're using A.I. just so that your ad dollars increase, that's not a compelling reason for somebody to want to work at your company." What businesses need to do, he says, is provide candidates with a clear understanding of what impact their work will have and why it will be meaningful. That means being willing to show data, final products, and other proof points of a technologist's importance to a company.

When you're competing with much larger corporations, the impact is key. "We try to offer people the opportunity to work at a company that has a mission they can believe in, which is increasing human agency with technology," Coopersmith adds. "That's something a lot of people who develop technology for a living feel strongly about."

5 WAYS YOUR VOICE ASSISTANT CAN HELP YOU BE MORE PRODUCTIVE

I've long been a fan of voice assistants. Pre-pandemic, I set up my Amazon Alexa for simple tasks such as turning on the lights, waking me up in the morning, and reminding me to feed my dog. Now that I'm primarily working from home, my voice assistant has become critical for helping me stay productive during the workday. And I'm not the only one. According to Amazon, about 25 percent of U.S. households had at least one Alexa device as of 2020. 

Mostly I use mine for meeting reminders, but you can also use it to help manage your workload or put yourself on a schedule. Personally, as mentioned, I have an Alexa, but these commands and settings also work on other voice assistants, such as Google Home and Siri. If you're looking to level up your own WFH routines, here are a few tips:

Set meeting reminders.

Every morning when I check my calendar, I set reminders for meetings in advance. It's easy to lose track of time when you're working remotely, and you, like me, probably have additional distractions. I set mine to remind me 10 minutes before each meeting to give me time to catch up on what I may need to know before hopping on Zoom. 

If you want your voice assistant to serve up your calendar details automatically, then head into the Alexa app and go to "Settings" then "Calendar." There, you'll see the option to add calendar information from Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Once you're linked up, you can ask Alexa what's on the calendar, what appointments you have, or what's happening on a specific date.

Control your news feed.

If you're like me, you want to listen to the news while in the shower or making coffee. You can set your preferred news channels by asking your voice assistant "What's the news." For instance, when you say "Alexa, what's new?" or "Alexa, play my flash briefing," you'll be given a catch-up of information based on news and weather. You can also go into your settings and choose your favorite news networks to play automatically.

Make to-do lists.

When I have things that need to get done, to-do lists are a great way to keep track of projects. Instead of writing down notes, ask your voice assistant to add items to your virtual to-do list by simply saying "Alexa put newsletter write-up on my to-do list," for example. You can check back at any time by saying "Alexa what's on my to-do list." Once those tasks are completed, you can simply ask your assistant to take them off your list.

Read and send emails.

Once your voice assistant is connected to your email, which you can set up in "Settings," you can ask, "Alexa, do I have emails from Halie?" and your device will read any emails from people with that name. There are a couple caveats, though: Your device might not read emails that have been opened or are in your spam folder. You can also send emails by saying "Alexa respond to the email from Halie." But be warned, voice assistants may not translate your response accurately, so proceed with caution.

Set routines. 

Routines are the best feature voice assistants offer, in my humble opinion. You can assign a series of actions to a location or time so that you can ensure you do everything you need. My morning routine involves waking me up, reminding me to feed my dog, listening to the news, and then a countdown to my morning meeting every five minutes for 15 minutes before it starts. At night, my Alexa turns the lights off, sets the temperature in my apartment, and reminds me to turn off screens before bed. You can set reminders by opening your voice assistant app and selecting "Routines." There, you can add actions one after another.

BY BRIT MORSE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, INC.@BRITNMORSE

SICK AND TIRED OF JUST GETTING BY

Fatigue is a common symptom of many conditions. It can be present in nearly every chronic illness, whether it's mental or physical. The words ‘sick’ and ‘tired’ go hand-in-hand because they feed one another in a chaotic cyclical way that is sometimes difficult to escape. And when I say, “sick and tired” I would wager a serious bet that you know exactly what I mean, even though I don’t personally know your story or day-to-day life. The point is - we all go through these uphill climbs in life, where we feel things getting harder and we simultaneously feel so out of control of what’s happening.

Battling the BurnOut

This was me - sick and tired. Fed up. Burned out. Exhausted and unhappy. Even though I had everything I thought I ever wanted. Of course, life was teaching me a lesson because, for everything I had on the outside, I was lacking on the inside. Fulfillment, a joy that wasn’t fleeting… seemed just within my grasp but somehow kept slipping right between my fingers.

I wrote a book about this very thing. Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life were all about reinvention, reaching a point where you’re so sick and tired of being sick and tired that you lean into the challenges and use them to make a change. The irony of the situation was how I had written and narrated Pivot as an audiobook but had never listened to the audio myself.

When I reached the point I had coached so many others out of, I turned to myself - and man was it ever cringeworthy to listen to my own voice - at first anyway. But the more I listened, the more I heard, the more I felt, the more I knew that it was time for me to take my own advice and Pivot.

Fast forward, which we can’t do in the middle of burnout, and it amazes me that I went from being sick and tired to be the “I Love My Life!” guy. That’s quite a pivot. So how does that happen? How did I go from failed attorney to fire CEO to loving life, no matter what?

If you liked the irony of me recording an audiobook and never listening to it until I was in dire straits, here’s another kicker for you: I employed a process way back then that I just wrote about in a new book, and it took me pivoting again to realize how I had escaped my sick and tired routine.

The Flat Out Truth

Most people don’t pivot or accept the challenge of loving life, no matter what, because they don’t know what that entails and they assume the process will be long, difficult, and exhausting. I am here to tell you that is simply not true. I escaped my own cycle of burnout with simple steps that required a few minutes a day. Slowly I built on that, but just to begin, took less effort than everything else that was eating away at me took.

Choose YOU

So in that sense, it’s a choice, right? Because we get to choose the alternatives to each thing that is burning us out, but so often we are so afraid of the unknown, we stay in the place that is making us sick and tired. Imagine it - we would rather stay sick and tired than step into unknown territory. This blows my mind because I know what the human spirit is capable of. And this is part of my why - teaching people how easy it is to love life and to live a life that loves you back.

Part of this pivot is choosing yourself. In the morning, when my feet hit the floor, I make a declaration. “I love my life!” And even on days when there are parts I’m not thrilled about, I’ve already declared it, decided it, for me, so my mindset is to make things better, not just soak in the parts I’m not happy with. You see, this is a tiny thing, a small pivot. Instead of punching the alarm clock and groaning to the coffee pot, I intentionally choose me. And more than that, I choose not to be all of the things that were making me sick and tired before.

This whole, “I love my life” thing became a very real thing that became a very real workbook, and now a guidebook. It’s that time of year when we collectively feel sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we gather our battle-axes or gym memberships. And we put on our battle gear, or declare a new diet - and then we slowly let fear strip us of our choices.

But I don’t want that for you. Not this year. I want this to be the year you love your life, no matter what and I want to help you make that your own truth. I know you’re ready because I know what you’re capable of. And I know you don’t deserve to be sick and tired for one more day. And ultimately, I know that once you make this pivot, you will bring others with you.

This is how we change the world in 2022. By making new declarations, and accepting simple solutions over fear. By becoming so sick and tired of being sick and tired that we vow to love life, no matter what.

 - Adam Markel, author of The I Love My Life Challenge

SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTIONS: WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING NOW THIS YEAR

With havoc at ports showing no signs of improving, it's likely that supply chain disruptions that plagued businesses across the country won't be slowing down anytime soon. At least not until 2023. 

That's what many in the logistics industry are banking on. Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, recently told The New York Times that he didn't think conditions would free up this year. "My crystal ball gets murky further out," he added.

Case in point: The landmark infrastructure legislation, which Biden put into law last November, offers to do the yeoman work of fixing up the nation's coastal and inland ports, replenish rail network grants, and provide funding for roadways and bridge repairs. However, the planning and distribution of funds will likely take months, if not years, especially for grants, which states have to apply for.

So if until now you've only considered short-term measures, it may be time to start thinking long-term. Here are a couple of things you should start thinking about to deal with ongoing issues:

Prepare for higher costs

Just because there are fixes on the way, it doesn't mean you should run your business as usual. Businesses have limited options when it comes to transport, most of which require you to pay more for less space. Container and air freight shipping could be three to four times more expensive than last year, Bill Thayer, co-founder, and co-CEO of Fillogic, a New York City-based logistics service platform for retailers, told Inc. in September. He notes that businesses that plan for this increase, both monetarily and logistically, have a better shot at keeping products available. 

Establish a plan B

It might also be time to shift production. Manufacturers are moving away from large factories to smaller facilities closer to cities, Andy Binsley, VP of manufacturing and ALM strategy at Oracle, wrote for Inc. This may also be happening without your knowledge, so putting in a quick call to your vendor may be all it takes to shift manufacturing to a facility closer to your customer base. At the very least, establishing a connection to one of these smaller factories can serve as a backup if supplies start to dwindle. 

Place orders far in advance

If you sell seasonal or holiday items, be extra cautious--and order products from a variety of vendors. If you order products just in time for a holiday and there are delays, you may just be out of luck and miss the holiday season entirely because of items being backlogged for reasons out of your control. And, if you can, order these items months ahead of schedule.

Streamline your products

You can also examine your current inventory to see whether you can standardize your sourcing, notes Binsley. Instead of seeking customized parts from a single manufacturer, use standardized, widely available parts that are available from multiple factories for the assembly of products. You may have to make some alterations to products to do so, but it may be worth it to meet demand.