How much is it costing you NOT having intrapreneurs?

Most people may not realize that having intrapreneurs on their team is the most cost efficient way of adding the most value to your business- how you can really get the bang for your buck. Intrapreneurs are aware of the bigger picture- including being mindful of tactical goals, consumer wants and needs, competitive advantages and disadvantages, and the importance of unceasing development for their company. Intrapreneurs, in turn, show leadership that adds a surprisingly high amount of value through cost-reducing and revenue-increasing innovations.

Having one intrapreneur is worth hundreds of employees who are simply effective at their job.

Engaged vs Disengaged Employees

A study done by Gallup, Inc- an American research-based management consulting company that has become known worldwide for its public opinion polls- has determined that the employee engagement rate in the United States is only at 30%. This means that 70% of employees working in the United States are disengaged which results in a decline of value for their company and damages any type of structure that has been set in place. Because of this, companies are finding themselves investing (and wasting) a lot of time, energy, and money to try and change this group of disengaged employees into the engaged group. With this migration technique failing time and time again, a simple solution can be formulated:

FOCUS ON THE ENGAGED EMPLOYEE

By focusing on even a single engaged employee who has intrapreneurial potential and working with them to get into more of an intrapreneurial mindset, you can create much more value than trying to invest in migrating a large group of disengaged employees into the engaged group.

Driving engaged employees to become intrapreneurs

Not everyone has the right mindset and skillset to become an intrapreneur so it is important to be able to point out certain attributes of employees that have the potential to transform into intrapreneurs that will benefit your business.

Identifying the core skills of the intrapreneur

1. Sense of Curiosity – Intrapreneurs, being innovative people, are always thinking of ways they can improve a product, a structure, a workflow, a blueprint, an idea, etc. With this comes curiosity about the inner workings of whatever is put in front of them. This sense of curiosity drives them to keep working.
2. Proactivity – Intrapreneurs don’t wait to get started, but are rather proactive. If they see a way to get involved that seems interesting, they follow that instinct. If they run into the same problem again and again, they make a process to fix it and then share that knowledge, this benefiting everyone around them as well.
3. Sense of Responsibility – Intrapreneurs are constantly looking for ways to serve the organization and the greater good including coworkers, clients, society, etc. To them it is about taking 100% responsibility for the quality and ultimate effects of the work they do for their company.
4. Willingness to Learn – Intrapreneurs are all about innovating. Without continuous learning and improvement, there is no growth. Intrapreneurs stay sharp by always studying something new (work related or not), asking questions, doing research, and are willing to take in new ideas and help develop them into their fullest potential.
5. Fearless of Failure– Intrapreneurs are not afraid to change course or even fail a few times if it means getting where they want to be. With innovation comes a lot of trial and error, but true intrapreneurs do not give up when they truly see potential in something and they will work at it until they get it right.

Implementing and retention

Encouraging your employees to go from being simply engaged in their roles to becoming more intrapreneurial requires working with them to increase their skillset and their intrapreneurial capacity, and through altering specific aspects in the organization itself to create an environment that encourages innovation. Each company has its own unique organization structure so it’s important to analyze each aspect and how it could best be altered to support intrapreneurship.

Searching Entrepreneurship for clues to the successful practice of Intrapreneurship

When you think of an entrepreneur, you typically think of smaller scaled businesses, so how could this possibly apply to corporate America? An entrepreneurial mindset and the qualities they possess go hand-in-hand with creating a team of intrapreneurs that not only get the job done, but do so efficiently, effectively, creatively, and in a way that will spark a growth in the overall success of your business.

Whether you are an entrepreneur of a large business, or small business, it is crucial to use what you already know from being an entrepreneur (or what you have the opportunity to learn if you keep reading) to really fuel a successful practice of intrapreneurship within your company. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur but have a crucial role in your workplace development, you should use entrepreneurial skills and habits as a basis for all intrapreneurs that you work among.

Intrapreneurs should also keep in mind that practicing stereotypical characteristics of an entrepreneur could really put them ahead in the competitive business environments we value so much in today’s society. These habits include:

Entrepreneurial habits that all INTRAPRENEURS should practice

 

1. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone: If you’re not uncomfortable or scared, you’re not driving innovation.

 

2. Never lose track of your goals and visions: If you have an idea for something that can have a positive impact, don’t stray away from those goals/visions out of fear.

 

3. Be prepared for the different obstacles that will arise: To achieve your vision, know that extra work will be required to make it happen.

 

4. Always market yourself and your ideas: You should constantly be showcasing, selling, marketing, and standing up for your initiatives and ideas to all levels within the workplace. If you have an idea, speak up!

 

Encouraging Entrepreneurial Characteristics

 

Intrapreneurs exemplify the same characteristics as entrepreneurs: belief, optimism, desire, passion, and drive, just to name a few. The more intrapreneurs expresses themselves, the more the company is faced with questioning its effectiveness. With more evaluations taking place, the more the company is forced to come up with solutions for weak areas that are found. If the company is supportive, the intrapreneur has one of the most important tools to succeed. Every effective worker has intrapreneurial traits that could potentially culminate in an entrepreneurial life (and vice versa).

 

It Applies to All Walks of Business

Just because you work in a corporate environment or large business doesn’t mean you can’t embrace the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Why not contribute in new, creative, innovative ways, no matter how big or how small, in order to help your company flourish? While the concept of entrepreneurship has been around for a while and continues to branch out in many directions, the idea and term “intrapreneurship” has been catching up in small businesses and now into big business corporate America.

For the inexperienced, intrapreneurship is all about endorsing and encouraging entrepreneurship within the company. An intrapreneur is an employee who has opportunities to brainstorm new ideas that will ultimately add value to specific processes or aspects of the business. Potentially, intrapreneurs have the ability to design a whole new product or routine altogether. Intrapreneurs are not the founders of the organization or may not be working on a subjective project, but they obtain some, if not all, of the essential qualities and mindset of an entrepreneur that is used to lead the company to greater heights.

 

 

Time Blocking 101: The Strategy for Success

What is Time Blocking?

In simple terms, time blocking is a technique that involves designating and scheduling specific blocks of time for certain tasks, appointments, actions, etc. The good thing about time blocking is that it’s something that we already do subconsciously- if not consciously- in our everyday lives. Time blocking applies not only to our professional lives, but our personal lives as well.

 

Tips for Time Blocking

Think of time blocking as scheduling appointments with yourself. In our everyday lives, making and keeping track of appointments, figuring out where and when you have to pick up your kids or get to work, deciding when you have time to hit the gym or get a haircut, are all examples of activities that we may time block on a subconscious level. So, how do you time block consciously?

• Start off by buying or creating some sort of calendar- figure out what type of calendar works best for you, whether it be a weekly, or monthly one, a digital or paper one.
• Before anything else, mark your days off- this way you can plan work around your vacation time instead of ending up working during it (which is something that, unfortunately, happens more than we would like it to).
• Figure out the one most important task/goal that you want to accomplish and block off time to work on that- it is suggested to put aside time for this top priority in the morning in order to make it habitual.
• Remember to also set aside time for planning- creating a time block schedule does take up some time, but it gets easier the more times you do it.
• Organize your time instead of your tasks- this creates discipline and gets rid of the stress associated with crossing out items on a to-do list.

 

Is Time Blocking for Me?

Do you create goals and find you are not accomplishing them all? Do you ever get overwhelmed with your busy schedule? Do you struggle crossing tasks off your to-do list? Do you want to be successful or increase your success? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then absolutely, time blocking is for you. In fact, time blocking would be beneficial for everyone whether it is used for their professional and/or personal lives.

Benefits of time blocking for a business/job-related setting include:

• Keeps you organized
• Provides motivation
• Completes important tasks
• Increases efficiency

Benefits of time blocking for your personal/at home life include:

• Maintains stronger relationships
• Creates more time for physical health
• Creates more spiritual time
• Decreases stress that is brought from the workplace to the home life

There are so many potential benefits associated with time blocking in all aspects of our lives. The simple implementation of time blocking can create a significant difference when it comes to balancing our work-life and home-life.

Implementation

All of this sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. Staying disciplined and keeping to your time blocking schedule is actually quite simple but it is up to you to make sure you stick with it. It is very important to safeguard your time block schedule, otherwise you will find yourself back at square one when important tasks were not being completed. To protect your time block, you must first:

• Find an ideal environment where you focus best- this will be the space you go to in order to work on your top priority task.
• Before going to this designated spot, you must plan ahead and pack everything you will need to get the job done. Forgetting even one small thing could put you off track and waste precious time towards your work so think thoroughly about what you need to bring with you.
• Next, you need to eliminate any potential distractions. For most people, a big distraction is their cellphone. While this might be a difficult distraction to rid yourself of due to the fact that others may need to get a hold of you, there is a way around it.

o   Let coworkers and family know that you will be unavailable during whatever time you set aside in your time block to work on your top task, this way they know the best times to try and contact you without being an obstacle for staying focused.

• Lastly, ask for support from others. This goes along with the last bullet because asking for support includes asking coworkers and family members to be considerate of the time you set aside for important tasks without distracting you.

If you truly want to bring more success and balance to your life, time blocking is the perfect place to start. You will be amazed at all of the doors it can open for you (and even for those around you). Stay disciplined and stick to your time blocking schedule and you are guaranteed to start seeing improvements in both your work-life and your home-life.

UI/ UX Design

Do you think your website is functional and appealing to your customers? Chances are, it is either lacking the functional aspect or the appeal aspect (or even both). Today, in order for company websites to be successful, they must create a good experience for the user by being both easy to use and satisfying to the eye. These two aspects are part of UI/UX Design (User Interface and User Experience Design) that we use here at Brandmint for all of our website builds and rebuilds. UI/UX can be difficult to understand, but that’s why we’re here! First, let us briefly explain what User Interface and User Experience are:

UI Design (User Interface-Graphic Design)

When you think of User Interface, think of graphic design. UI is responsible for using strong visual assets to guide the user through the website. Graphic/visual presentation is important for initially hooking your customers, making them want to interact with the rest of your site and potentially investing in your company/product.

UX Design (User Experience)

User Experience design is a process in web design in which the goal is to make sure the customer has greater satisfaction and contentment interacting with the product. This is done by making the interaction between the customer and the product easy and full of clear quality. In order to ensure the user is having the best experience possible while interacting with a company’s web design, we are continually investigating, prototyping, testing, and analyzing your website.

 

UI and UX are crucial to one another. Your website might look great but is difficult to navigate- indicating strong UI and weak UX. Or your website looks awful but is easy to use- indicating strong UX and weak UI. It is crucial that your website is strong in both User Interface and User Experience or you will not get the results that your company needs and desires. Luckily, Brandmint can build or rebuild your website to incorporate UI/UX and ensure growing results. If you think your website has powerful UI/UX, it probably doesn’t. Let the most reliable web design team in Rochester, NY build or rebuild your website and make sure you have the most modern UI/UX Design.

 

Think your company’s website doesn’t need UI/UX? Think again. Check out the benefits associated with UI/UX Design:

• Drives more traffic to your site- UI/UX is crucial to Search Engine Optimization
• Causes users to spend more time on your site and interacting with it
• Ability to successfully and clearly communicate your message to your users
• Customer loyalty- if the customer has a good experience with your site, chances are they are more likely to stick with you. Over 80% of users are less likely to return to site after a bad experience
• Increases conversion
• Helps to identify your audience and goals

SEO Basics

What is SEO?

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. Essentially, it is the process of directing more traffic to your website through the use of keywords. Popular search engines such as Google and Bing collect information about every page on the internet in order to help people find whatever they are searching for. When your website has posts and content containing specific keywords that potential customers are searching for on Google, Bing, etc, your website is more likely to be one of the first recommendations listed.

Think about it, whenever you use Google to look for a service or product, you only venture through the first few sites that it recommends to you and end up choosing one of those companies to do business with. Nobody has the time or patience to go through multiple Google pages so you need to make sure that your website is a top search result.

 

Search Results

A major part of SEO is search results. If you own a website, search results are crucial and correlate to your business performance. Think of it this way: search results equal sales. Without SEO you aren’t going to get the results you need and your business will not attract as many customers. The higher your website is on the list of a search engine’s results, the more traffic you get to your site and the more likely a customer is to invest in whatever your company has to offer. At Brandmint, we know exactly how to drive more traffic to your site and improve your rankings on search engines. Trust us to transform your SEO needs- the most trusted SEO in Rochester, NY.

 

How can I tell if my SEO is improving?

Here at Brandmint, we put our money where our mouth is. We send SEO results that show that the keywords we are using are relevant by showing the keywords and where they rank on Google. To go even further, Google Analytics can show you how much traffic your site is getting and we can guarantee that number will increase by doing SEO with us here in Rochester, NY. We make sure to improve your search rankings and increase awareness of your site on search engines, give you professional recommendations for keywords to use that will benefit your brand, and provide monthly, and most importantly, relevant content containing those keywords.

MCC Encourages Students to Transfer to Four Year Institutions

Monroe Community College holds a transfer fair to introduce students to four-year colleges and further their knowledge about the requirements associated with transferring.

MCC’s Transfer Fair

Monroe Community College will hold a second Transfer Fair for the Fall 2017 semester on Wednesday, November 1st from 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM in the R. Thomas Flynn Campus Center Atrium. At this fair, students will have the opportunity to talk with a select list of college representatives and learn about the specific requirements for each school. The Transfer Services Center at MCC is committed to assisting students in successfully transferring to four-year colleges and universities with ease. Each four-year institution has its own specific requirements when it comes to transferring into different degree programs so, transfer counselors encourage student to begin planning for transfer early in their academic career. The upcoming Transfer Fair is a tool available for MCC students to get a head start on preparing for transfer.

 

What is a 2+2 Program?

2+2 Dual Admission Degree Programs are guaranteed transfer programs that are organized between Monroe Community College and participating four-year colleges. Upon completion of specific courses over a span of two years at MCC that correlate with the degree programs at specific four-year colleges, students are assured transfer with full junior year status. The 2+2 program only requires students to fill out one application to MCC and if the student meets and satisfies the program requirements, he/she is automatically admitted into the 2+2 participating college of their choice.

MCC student Chris Perna, 19, of Pittsford, is currently enrolled in a 2+2 program with SUNY Geneseo. He plans on transferring to SUNY Geneseo in the fall of 2018 to complete their Accounting Degree Program with a minor in finance while playing for their NCAA Division III Men’s Hockey team. “I would’ve had no clue what steps to take if it wasn’t for the transfer center at MCC. I think many students overlook the importance of all they have to offer,” Perna said. “It is way less stressful knowing that you’re taking all the right classes and meeting the requirements in order to transfer”

 

Additional Transfer Services

MCC’s Transfer Services provides many resources for their students outside of transfer fairs. Students can meet with a transfer counselor one-on-one to go over academic preparation for transferring, the transfer process, guidance on which colleges and universities offer certain majors, options for transfer scholarships, and much more. Transfer Services also organizes college information tables where representatives set up tables in the Atrium to answer questions and give out information regarding their school.

 

Related Pages : https://www.monroecc.edu/depts/transfer-services/

 

New York Institutes a Scholarship Unique to its State

by Alicia Dioguardi

New York State has established a program that qualifies all middle-class families and individuals that make up to $100,000 per year to attend college tuition-free at all CUNY and SUNY colleges.  

The Excelsior Scholarship was created under Governor Cuomo and became available to all New York State residents starting in the fall of 2017. In order to be eligible for the scholarship, students must be residents of New York State, enroll in a two or four year program at a SUNY or CUNY college, take 30 credits per year, and must reside in New York State after graduating for the amount of time they received the scholarship.

“When you start talking about financial aid, it gets a little personal and embarrassing because you don’t want anyone knowing your family can’t afford to send you to college,” said a Monroe Community College student who preferred not to be named. “But for someone like me who has to pay for college all by myself, the Excelsior Scholarship is a dream come true. Everyone needs help sometimes, right?”

Sarah Greive, 40, of Rochester has one college-aged daughter and her family qualified for the Excelsior Scholarship this fall. Her daughter attends Monroe Community College and plans to transfer to a four-year institution upon graduating with an associates degree.

 “It has taken off a lot of the financial stress that comes along with sending your kids to college. It was a long application process but it was definitely worth the aid it provided for our family,” Greive said.

This one-of-a-kind plan will be phased over three years, starting with eligibility for New York residents making up to $100,000 annually in 2017, increasing that amount to $110,000 in 2018, and reaching its peak of $125,000 in 2019. The income calculation is based on federal adjusted gross income, as reported on federal income tax forms. There are over 940,000 families in New York State with college-aged students and over 75 percent of those families are eligible for the Excelsior Scholarship.

The program strictly covers tuition costs but does not necessarily cover 100 percent of tuition for everyone. It does not cover other costs associated with college such as fees, room and board, meal plans, and text books. However, students can still receive other NYS financial aid packages such as FASFA and TAP on top of the Excelsior Scholarship.

 

For more information about the Excelsior Scholarship, check out these websites:

https://www.suny.edu/smarttrack/types-of-financial-aid/scholarships/excelsior/

https://www.ny.gov/programs/tuition-free-degree-program-excelsior-scholarship

https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/financial-aid/types-of-financial-aid/nys-grants-scholarships-awards/the-excelsior-scholarship.html