1. Failure pushes you closer to another approach that works!

Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure yet, it just means you haven’t found a way to make it work yet  and you have just found another way it doesn’t work. You know why you should try again? You are closer to a another discovery. Good to great entrepreneurs  have failed countless times, but you only get to see and hear the one true breakthrough out of the many times they try to make it work. The successful ones do not give up easily in a single approach that failed. In the words of Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter: Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.

2. When you fail fast, you can learn and succeed faster

Most people sense danger most of the time, and tend to concentrate on thinking about what might go wrong and what the consequences could be when things go wrong. Well, what if they don’t go wrong, what if things are not as bad as you think. What if you just try, what if you give it a shot. What is the worse that can happen when you try? You loose resources, you loose your savings if you bootstrapped and unfortunately you get to start over. But the most important thing about failure is that you, you get back up again and try a new way to do it better, this time without repeating the mistake you did previously.

3. Failure gets you closer to success

Failure it’s  just one way of finding out what does not work. You have new opportunities to try again, this time better informed. Decide that you want something more than you are afraid of it, and you will give it the shot it deserves.What could not work yesterday, can work today if done differently. Failing is not the end, but a means to an end.

4. Failure prepares you better!

If you have failed in your recent project, do not give up. Your ability to bounce back from a failed business can determine your success rate in the end. Failure as an opportunity for improvement. Learn from your mistakes and do not repeat them in your next project. Startups that survive grow faster than more-established companies, according to Business Dynamics Statistics data funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

5. Failure is a tunnel with bright lights at it’s end!

Take that leap of faith and see how close you get to success. You are closer than you think. Don’t give up on yourself now. Henry Ford, the great automaker, went bankrupt four times-are you bankrupt yet?  Excite CEO George Bell rejected Larry Page andSergey Brin’s $1 million price for Google, oh they even approached Yahoo to acquire them. As of today, Google’s market cap stands at 301.63B. Thomas Edison produced thousands of light bulbs that gave no light at all! but just one breakthrough got his name in the history books. How many times have you tried?

6. Failure is a lesson, but not a mistake!

If you constantly visualize and see failure as a mistake, you will never try anything new.  You don’t repeat a mistake, you stop it in time, that is why you need to fail fast and move on. Once you realize what is not working, stop, access, measure and make a decision to end it and move on to another step to get closer to success. Don’t get stuck in your failure, make another move, this time better informed.

7. Failure is a good teacher, but success is a lousy one!

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. Bill Gates

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.-Woody Allen

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.-Abraham Lincoln

You’ve probably heard people talking about how awesome their jobs are, or the fun activities their doing for work. Who wouldn’t be envious of people who have jobs like that? Well, if you want that to be you, then the first thing you need to do is realize that your current job is not gonna cut it.

Here are three major red flags that you should never ignore about your job. If these apply to you, then it’s probably time to start sending out your resume.

1. You Dread Being There

It’s very strange that anyone would carry on working in a place they hate. If you wake up every morning dreading going to work, that’s a bad sign. If you sit down at your desk and start mentally counting down the minutes (or seconds) until you’re off work, that’s another bad sign.

Your job is something you have control of, so if you’re really miserable there, it’s up to you to take the necessary steps to find a new job. You don’t want your job to be this horrible place that you have to go for 8 hours every day. The longer you stay at a job you hate, the more time you’re wasting being unhappy.

2. No One Appreciates You

Everyone wants their hard work to be appreciated, but a lot of the time it goes unnoticed. When you work your ass off and get zero positive reinforcement from your managers, it can make you feel extremely under appreciated. Sometimes it can even make you give up and stop trying as hard if you know they’re not going to notice anyway.

Obviously your managers don’t have the time to pour over you and shower you with compliments, but a simple acknowledgement of your work can go a long way. When you feel appreciated, it makes you want to try harder to retain that good standing.

3. Zero Company Culture

Company culture or lack thereof can make or break the way you feel about your job. When a place has strong company culture, people are happy and excited to come to work because they know that the company cares about them. If your job has no company culture and people just show up to go through the motions until it’s time to go home, then you may want to rethink where you’re working.

It is so much more enjoyable when employees are friendly and relaxed and the company takes an interest in making sure there is a strong bond within the team. There aren’t set guidelines for creating company culture, but that’s actually the beauty of it. It can be tailored to different activities, perks, events, or anything that lends itself to the overall happiness of the employees.

Some companies let people bring pets to work, and others let employees take naps when they’re feeling drained. The e-commerce site Zappos has even become famous for their awesome culture and the ways in which they value their team members.

Make It Happen!

Obtaining a job you love is totally possible, but it does take a little bit of work. There’s a lot of trial and error, and it can be scary to leave a job that’s comfortable (even if you hate it). But it’s definitely worth stepping out of your comfort zone to find a company that values you as an individual. You should go to work each day feeling right at home and happy to be surrounded by like-minded people. Once you find a place like this, you’ll never look back.

Ashley Welter is a blogger from San Diego, CA. Like most of her articles, this piece was inspired by personal experience with the goal of helping others who may be in the same position. You can read more of Ashley’s work here. 

Many small firms make it through this initial period, but sadly close after just two or three years as they attempt to grow. Moving from one or two people to a larger team comes with a number of challenges that require thought, planning and strategic decisions. It’s a process I’m very familiar with as I’m currently scaling up my own business.

Challenge 1: Strategy

Whether you provide products or services, starting a small business can happen quickly. Whether you’re committing yourself full-time or aiming to build from a hobby, it can be as simple as registering as a sole trader.

But as your company and ambitions grow it can be tempting to quickly expand what you sell to try and secure every possible client that can come your way.

That can lead to two major problems. The first is that as your offering expands, you lose the focus and clarity of what makes your business special. And the second is that not every customer or client is desirable or profitable – by attempting to expand to fill every possible need you can find yourself rushing into areas which actually lose money.

This is why a business strategy and plan is so important and why it should be revisited regularly. The ideal is something which can be summed up on the back of a napkin, and in full should be contained in two or three pages which can be shared with your larger team or potential investors as required.

The importance of the strategy isn’t just as a guide to what to do, but also as a way to decide what you shouldn’t be doing.

Challenge 2: Finances

As a small business it’s advisable to spend time properly planning budgets, cash flow and future growth, but you can often manage to survive even when there are elements missing.

That’s not the case as you scale up. Employees and infrastructure require investment which needs to be covered when times are tough as well as when things are going well. Expand too quickly during a boom time and you can soon find the economic conditions have changed and you’re trapped into fixed costs which can’t be reduced quickly.

It’s important to have good financial advice either internally from a Chief Financial Officer, or externally via accountants who ideally have experience in your type of business.

Working with financial experts means you can ensure you understand all the implications of any financial commitment, and work through financial plans which can cover various situations. If you can plan financially for the worst case, moderate growth, and success, and keep the three in mind, then you can ensure you don’t get caught up in the enthusiasm to expand too quickly.

Challenge 3:  Internal Structures and Employees

As a small business, everyone is likely to be involved hands-on in all aspects of the business. And it’s relatively easy to know what’s going on when your firm is close together in a small office.

As your company grows it requires conscious decisions about the roles required, and what you should be doing as a boss. Which areas should you focus on, and which should be assigned or delegated elsewhere?  Where are you spending your time, and is it the most effective way to use it?

You’ll need to be honest about your strengths, and those of your colleagues and new employees. There are examples of successful businesses with founders who moved from being hands-on to overseeing the entire company, and other thriving companies in which the founder may stay on the factory floor and bring in expertise to focus on management. But in all cases it involves clarity for roles, responsibilities and direction for it to work.

One solution is to outsource business functions, which is aided by a big growth in cloud-based services and tools. We have a core team employed full-time, and a larger network of specialists who can be brought in on specific projects, managed via online project management and collaboration tools.

This is an attractive idea for many small businesses, but it brings an even greater requirement for clear communication and effective planning and scheduling.

Challenge 4: Physical Infrastructure

Traditionally businesses of all types have needed a certain level of physical infrastructure. Retail required a showroom and somewhere for stock, whilst services-based industries needed meeting rooms for clients.

Increasingly those costs can be reduced significantly. An eCommerce business doesn’t need a showroom to be able to sell online, and it’s becoming easier to rent meeting rooms and other co-working facilities across the country.

Do you need an office? Or is it possible to manage your business from home and save the cost of renting (not forgetting to account for increased heating, electricity and insurance costs!). In our case, 95% of our team work from home around the globe, and meetings are held at client offices.

Despite working in digital, our IT costs are minimal as we’ve invested in cloud-based solutions for areas including hosting websites, and the project management and collaboration previously mentioned. By using virtual private servers, our data is as secure as it would be on a hard drive in the office, but can be accessed as required around the globe using any suitable device.

The same approach can work for physical products by using techniques such as drop-shipping to avoid upfront investment in inventory, and to allow a company to gauge demand before filling up a stock room.

Challenge 5:  Feedback

When you deal directly with customers and clients as a small business it’s easy to stay on top of feedback. And in a small business it’s also easy to get direct responses from your team.

But as you scale and become removed from the frontline it can be harder to get a picture of what is going on.

Many successful founders have written about their failures in growing previous companies. Their first attempts often failed as they began to scale and lost cohesion. New hires and employees didn’t necessarily feel part of the core brand values and strategy, and also didn’t have the right ways to share feedback on what wasn’t working. One famous example is Zappos, whose company culture is shared in books, talks and seminars due to the experience and work of CEO Tony Hsieh.

Tools also exist to ensure customer feedback is captured and translates into action where suitable. The rise of social networks means your customers can be recommending or criticising your company to family, friends and complete strangers, whilst more specific customer support tools can help to filter which problems need to be escalated and which can be quickly solved by changing processes or information.

Combining personal insight with data across the business means you’ll be able to judge the right level of response accurately, and see whether you can minimise the same problems in the future.

This is a guest post by Dan Thornton. Dan is an experienced writer, blogger and digital marketer. He’s worked with the UK’s largest magazine publisher, national radio stations, and consults everyone from small start-ups to global businesses, as well as running his own small network of videogames sites.

Travis Green, Product Manager, Google Wallet explained the new Gmail feature in a blog post;

Google Wallet is now integrated with Gmail, so you can quickly and securely send money to friends and family directly within Gmail — even if they don’t have a Gmail address. It’s free to send money if your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet Balance. While sending money in Gmail is currently only available on desktop, you can send money from Google Wallet at wallet.google.com from your phone or laptop. You will need to have set up Google Wallet to send and receive money.

This video explains the process in detail.

But most reasons are in total control of employers. Challenges employees face including company culture, little or no opportunity for growth, attitude of co-workers, salary freezes, no job satisfaction among others contribute to the departure of top talent in most business.

To combat this trend, a company often has two choices: engage your employees – develop, recognize, respect and listen to their views and opinions- or face high level of resignation of old employees and constant training of new ones.

The infographic below outlines five reasons why top talent leave their current jobs for new opportunities.

500 Startups is an early-stage seed fund and incubator program located in Mountain View, CA. 500 Startups  invests primarily in consumer & SMB internet startups, and related web infrastructure services. Their initial investment size is typically $25K-$250K.

The program boasts of  hundreds of experienced startup mentors around the world,  creative work space in the heart of Silicon Valley, and a vibrant community of startup founders.

Dropifi traces its beginnings back to a Startup Weekend event in Accra, Ghana during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011. The app replaces “contact us” buttons with a smart widget that allows companies to better analyze and organize incoming messages.

The widget allows companies to learn more about the people sending the message and whether the messages’ content trends positive or negative. This gives companies critical insight to respond more effectively to existing and potential customers.

Dropifi ,a MEST company won the App of the year in the TopApps Award 2012 in Ghana, and also won the 2012 Global startup Open competition. The company has also been mentioned on several lists of most promising startups in the world including the Forbes top 20  African startups List.

Since launching on WordPress and Shopify late in 2012, Dropifi has recorded  over 8,000 downloads  on WordPress and over 900 Shopify stores are using the Dropifi widget to collect and analyze their incoming messages and leads.

1. Scratch your own itch

If you intend to create a new mobile app to break into the top mobile apps, it must be really useful for consumers, otherwise you will be ignored. The App Store now hosts over 700,000 apps, (with 250,000 specifically for iPad) an increase of 10,000 from June 2012 to September 2012. And the Google Play Store has over 600,000 apps. Consumers have lots of choice, focus on building an app that solves your own problem, chances are that somebody else has the same problem.

2. Social apps are still hot!

Social apps are currently centered around Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Pinterest, expect that to change soon. People are busy thinking about new ways to innovate and change the social apps industry. Google is trying really hard to change the face of social communication with its Google+, it looks promising but  it’s still not a killer.  79% of the time spent using mobile apps is spent using social media and gaming apps. You have to build the right mobile app to make the most of the mobile platform. If you find a way to carve your own niche in a social or gaming app, the rewards are endless.

3. Social news apps are even hotter

Flipboard is killing it, it’s popular magazine style social news app is  recording downloads in millions and page views are on the roof. Yahoo wants a part of the cake, hence the integration of the Summly in the Yahoo iPhone. You remember Summly, the news summary app Yahoo acquired for $30 million. Pulse, another social news app has also been acquired by LinkedIn.

The growing use of mobile devices are now making it easier to consume news as they happen. Information can reach consumers quicker and faster on social news apps. Millions more will demand their news on a mobile device in the most perfect magazine style. Social news apps are being redefined, you could join the train with an innovative app.

4. It’s all about the CLOUD now

Think about it, all of your purchased or uploaded content (music, movies, books, photos, e-Books, games) are now  stored and be  accessed across different mobile platforms. You can purchase e-books or any file on your laptop, well not really, on your smartphone is now simpler and those files can be accessed on different mobile devices.

Popular file sharing apps  like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Minus, SkyDrive and SugarSync doing everything they can to make their products attractive to both old and prospective customers and have gone a step further to create apps for different platforms. Millions of consumers and businesses are beginning to trust the cloud, and they will need secured apps to store content.

The problem is, it is still difficult to access content across platforms.  The need to access all of your content in the cloud on almost every device is creating a new niche. You will want to be able to watch a movie or play a game online on your tablet, go to your laptop and still find the  movie or game in the same paused mode  on your tablet or smartphone.

5. Mobile payment is set to explode

The number of merchants accepting mobile payments is exploding, and many of these new users are trying out mobile commerce for the first time. The likes of Square and LevelUp are recording massive growth and the market is huge. Key players like Apple, Google and Amazon are also watching closely. eMarketer predicts that by 2016, the total transaction value of mobile payments in the U.S alone will hit $62.24 billion. Thinks about the opportunities this presents to mobile app entrepreneurs. The time to cash in is now.

Mobile retail apps might also present a more promising opportunity, given the recent explosion in mobile commerce and Facebook’s determination to make the most of social mobile commerce.

6. Content Curation has come to stay

Content Curation-the act of discovering and presenting digital content was  popular among  consumers and publishers in 2012. Instead of focusing on generating new content,  curation focuses on amassing content from a variety of sources, and delivering it to readers in a visually appealing and organized manner. The likes of Pinterest, Scoop.it, Storify and Paper.li have shown why content curation is still hot.

7. Photo sharing is bigger than you thought

Photo sharing is exploding. In fact there are now better ways to share images than ever. With improved smartphone cameras, every smartphone user is now an amateur photographer. And guess what, Instagram has reinvented  photo sharing. Image sharing is sexy again with new and improved digital filters. It doesn’t get simpler than that. Hundreds of millions of photos are shared on social platforms each month. Think about what can possibly be done with millions if not billions of images on mobile devices. Pinterest is all about images and millions cannot stop pinning. Infographs are also changing content creation for good.

What do you think is the next big thing?

A chunk of what constitutes a leader’s tasks involves connecting to employees, clients, and even outsiders through delivering speeches, calling for meetings, and informing workers about new policies. Therefore, it is highly important for a boss to “position” himself or herself properly before the public, i.e., the workforce. Being a boss, you must be prepared with presenting matters, especially the sensitive ones, to your audience.

Accept that there are no naturally gifted speakers

You did not come out of your mother’s womb knowing all the expertise needed in running a business, much more so the gift of being able to speak before people without having the nerves. You didn’t wake up one day having the bravado of Anthony Bourdain or the charisma of Barack Obama. Even if you’ve joined college debate teams or even the little boys’ choir during Sunday school, those things don’t automatically make you a shoo-in for the speaking superstar award.

When you’ve acknowledged the truth that there are no naturally gifted speakers, then it would be easier for you to recognize that you need patience and practice in order to master the skill. And this couldn’t be done alone, as you need a mentor or an authority figure that would help you through the process. Tom Hanks had acting coaches before he was able to hoard awards; in the same manner that Kevin Durant didn’t learn shooting hoops by himself. You need to seek help from someone who can help advance your learning in the area of communications.

Think of the benefits of being a “polished” workforce figure

Remember that you are grooming yourself to be a respected figure that has an increasingly public profile. You want to earn the trust, respect, and admiration of people around you. Besides, if you communicate well, you’ll reap rewards not only on a professional level but also on a personal level as well. Which boss wouldn’t want that? You’re not just there because you’re being paid four times more than those under you or because you parade around the building using the flashiest SUVs.

Don’t you want to be the boss that everyone greets whenever you bump into them? Don’t you want to be the boss feared by many because of your exceptional body of work and not the boss feared by many “just because?” If you still take cues from your secretary in the middle of a “public” address, or quote rhetorical statements from good-for-naught members of middle management, then something needs to be done.

When you tune-up your communication abilities, you can:

• You get rid of the nerves, the trembling voice, and the butterflies in the stomach
• You can’t be sidetracked by hostile or off-point questions
• You create magnetic messages that allow you to take control of your audience
• You get rid of negative and body language; no more eyes rolling and teeth seething
• You free yourself from misquotes

Sometimes, it’s hard to get your message across even if you have a CBS anchor’s voice, impeccable grammar, and the side-slicked Superman hair (with even a few strands hanging on your forehead). It’s not even enough that you get your message across – you need to be understood. It’s important that you firm up and communicate in a way that you’ll be able to turn a “no” into an enthusiastic “yes.”

For more leadership tips, read more articles on best practices for business  from the RingCentral blog.

Author’s Bio: Henry Conrad is a 29-year-old game developer from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Aside from gaming and being a tech junky, he also dabbles in creative writing, which allows him to create great storylines and backgrounds for his characters. . Follow me on Twitter and join me in Google +

Before today,  users were restricted to 10GB of free storage in Gmail, and 5GB for Google+ and Google Drive but today’s announcement removes that cap completely.  You now have access to buy  more data when you run out of the initial 15GB free space. Users can upgrade to 100GB of storage, for instance, for $4.99 per month.

In a blog post announcing the new changes, Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management said:

Life gets a bit easier when your Google products work well together—whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing a photo from Drive on Google+. As this experience becomes more seamless, separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So instead of having 10 GB for Gmail and another 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos, you’ll now get 15 GB of unified storage for free to use as you like between Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

These changes to Google Drive storage will roll out over the next couple of weeks.

Image courtesy iMore

Don’t just maintain a dormant profile on LinkedIn because business professionals are supposed to be there, but spend quality time to make your profile attractive because believe it or not LinkedIn is the closest online resume  you can have online. The top 10% LinkedIn users are making the most of LinkedIn, how then do you use LinkedIn effectively like every successful user of LinkedIn. These are the 6 important ways successful people use LinkedIn.

1. They optimize their profiles for search

The basic thing you should have done the moment you created your LinkedIn profile was to complete it with every information required. LinkedIn keeps making it’s business social network better everyday with great features to make it easy to build and maintain a great public resume. And the good news is that you can use every feature to your advantage.

If your profile is well optimized for search, you will end up in most searches for professionals in your field. Somebody could be searching  for a business partner, experts in your field, freelancers, connections for a business opportunity or job prospects. Don’t waste time, make sure the title of your profile describes exactly what you do or who you are.  In general optimize your  headline, job description and summary. Don’t forget to use a professional photo on LinkedIn, it’s not an option but a requirement.

2. Professional LinkedIn users get involved in groups

Every professional LinkedIn user gets involved in LinkedIn groups — industry groups, subject matter they are  interested in and guess what they also hang out in groups that talk about what they do to be able to effectively contribute to topics. Oh and they share knowledge freely with group members. When you do that, you open doors to great opportunities. Members will know what you are worth and could contact you in the future about opportunities. For businesses, being in groups where prospects hang out is what you need to focus on.

3. They know how to stay educated and informed on LinkedIn Today

LinkedIn today  is the new resource on building a professional life and creating successful businesses available to LinkedIn users. LinkedIn Today allows you to discover what the world’s professionals are reading, sharing AND tweeting. Today aggregates the best articles shared by the company’s more than 200 million users, and each edition is personalized based on your connections. Successful LinkedIn users constantly stay updated on new articles shared by global business and political influencers. This feature  pull  trending articles that are being shared by members on Twitter.

4. In a big networking room, successful networkers make it count!

Just like any network event, LinkedIn is  more like a huge room of professionals. Take advantage of  the people your network, introduce yourself to somebody, join interesting groups, ask for a recommendation, tell a connection to introduce you to someone you want to meet, start a discussion and join a discussion. You can also identify the type of  people you want to meet most, find a way to connect to them, introduce yourself and build a meaningful relationship with them.

5. LinkedIn users have purchasing power, and businesses know it!

Businesses are generating the best leads on LinkedIn. Your small business can use LinkedIn to connect with prospective clients, announce new product launches, do research on prospects, build awareness of your new company, and make sales. LinkedIn could likely generates the most customers for B2Bs. Create a company page, turn on company status updates, educate and inform your prospective customers and you could be authority in your field.

6. Power users connect frequently on LinkedIn

Take advantage of the “People You May Know” feature and connect with new professionals in your field or industry.  Based on your connections, LinkedIn suggest people you could connect with who can be an important network in the near future.  By connecting with people you are opening up potential networks so that others can see and reach out to more like-minded people. Don’t forget, you can also invite your email contacts to join you on LinkedIn.

Invite your offline connections to join you on LinkedIn and start connecting today. Now that’s NETWORKING!