Bryan Saftler

It's normal to feel defensive when someone gives you (or wants to give you) feedback. The practice of active listening, where you are giving someone your full attention and showing that you understand what they're saying, is a critical first step in taking action. Regardless of whether the feedback is warranted or justified, your ability to fully hear what someone thinks about your actions is an important perspective that can help you identify opportunities for growth. Get curious. Seek to understand what and why feedback a piece of feedback is being given. If there's a certain perception that individuals have of you, get curious and seek feedback from your peers and leadership on ways to counter and move beyond that point of view.

A simple, but effective method for prioritizing tasks is a 2x2 matrix with one axis labeled IMPORTANT, the other axis labeled URGENT (also known as an Eisenhower Matrix). Here, you divide your tasks into four boxes: Box 1: Do Place any tasks that are both urgent and important. Do these first. You'll know what they are. Box 2: Schedule Place tasks that are not urgent but are still important. Here, you'll schedule these tasks for later after you complete Box 1. Box 3: Delegate Place any tasks that are urgent but not important. If they're not important to you, delegate the task to someone else... or move it to Box 4 Box 4: Delete Anything not important or urgent. Delete.

In a world of limited resources, focus on building flywheels that can multiply your efforts. For early-stage brands, your customers are the flywheel. Create an Objective to earn 1,000 brand advocates. Think for a moment, how would you go about identifying, cultivating, and activating each advocate. This includes education, engagement, community management, focus groups, etc. These activities create their own positive network effect. The work required to build a positive network of 1,000 brand advocates is the same foundational framework required to cut through noise and establish your brand in the minds of your prospective customers. Trying to 'stand out' as a brand is too nebulous. Scope the objective smaller, and you'll see impact.

Data-driven decision making can help take ego and opinion out of the equation. It's easy to subjectively debate one person's point of view, it's hard to argue with data. Use your marketing analytics and customer funnel telemetry to help steer the conversation. If you're debating messaging, where there is no quantitative data to support one direction or another, consider running a small customer focus group. Any qualitative or quantitative data is better than no data at all. Customer research should form the foundation of any marketing campaign, and it's important to note that research can be done quickly, and on the cheap - a Facebook poll, an email survey - don't let subjective arguments cloud what the data tells you.

Looking to show career momentum in entrepreneurship, but you're not a founder / co-founder of a company? If you work for an organization, you can be an intrapraneur. An intrapreneur is an employee who is tasked with developing an innovative idea or project within a company. Here, you may not face the outsized risks or rewards of an entrepreneur; but you have access to resources and capabilities of an established company that can help innovative ideas take root and grow. As an intrapraneur, you can demonstrate a track record of success that showcases the core skills required for entrepreneurs to be successful (business management, financial literacy, storytelling, networking, communication, etc), further opening doors in your career.

Don't just report up. Consider the stakeholders of your stakeholders. How can you create air cover for your leadership by proactively informing THEIR peers? When you report up and out, you empower your leaders to take more informed action. Couple things to consider: - What is the most appropriate medium and or forum for updates? Email, Slack, all-hands meetings? - Partner with your leadership on updates. You want your updates to support their goals and objectives. Otherwise, you'll be swimming upstream. - Seek continuous feedback from all levels. What's working, what can be improved? Learn and adapt. - Struggling to get started? Scope down your updates, try committing to updates for specific a project or for a specific period of time.