I’ve always thought about what makes salary negotiations so stressful, partly because of my own mixed success in that exercise over the years. In most cases, I felt as though I deserved a raise when the conversation finally arrived. But when you’re forced to sit across from your boss, the situation becomes challenging. Your palms sweat,...

Does this sound familiar to you? I saw on LinkedIn that an acquaintance who is more than a decade younger than I am has made it big as a successful startup founder. She just closed a big second round of funding. The same day, my alumni magazine came in the mail with an article on one of my...

We live in a busy world. We are inundated with information, appointments and tasks, which makes it easy to be tardy to events in your life. Some of you are pretty good at this. I have struggled at times to be punctual. So, how is it that other people manage to be on time consistently? Because they make it a...

We know that, in today’s world, online customer reviews are the new word-of-mouth for your business. The better the reviews, the better the reputation of your business, and the more likely that the people who research your business online will end up being your customers. But the number of stars your business gets in the...

As you may very well know, social media isn’t always easy to handle when it comes to marketing your business. You’ve read article after article on how to succeed and maintain relevancy in the social media world, but it can be hard to keep up with the ever-changing platforms. What follows are seven social media...

When it comes to recruitment, innovative companies like Google, Facebook and IBM have raised the bar for businesses all over the world. There is now more pressure than ever before — and higher expectations on both sides of the equation — to recruit and retain motivated, talented, and friendly employees. As such, the return on...

Right now we’re experiencing a bit of a contraction in the tech ecosystem, as many companies announce layoffs and venture capitalists slow down their investing. In my opinion this is just a natural, appropriate reaction to a lack of strong business fundamentals among some companies and not a precursor to a major collapse of some sort....

In every office, break rooms serve as a gathering place for employees to get away from their work for a few minutes. Whether they’re getting coffee or eating lunch, workers eventually begin to see the break room as a retreat, especially if the room has been specifically designed to be warm and inviting. For employers,...

Customer service is one of those things that you just can’t ignore if you’re aiming for success and longevity for your startup. Customer service in general is important to your company, because it is often the only contact a customer has with your business. Since that first contact is so critical, you want to make...

At some point in every career, a professional will see someone escorted from the building with a box full of belongings. It may be a coworker or a stranger from another department, but whoever it is, it can be difficult to watch. It serves as a reminder that anyone can be fired unexpectedly. What happens...