Creating a winning SEO proposal for a new lead is hard work. You need to assess their SEO potential, identify the right strategy for them, and showcase the business value you can create. And then you need to explain it in a way that is meaningful for the client.

A lot of proposals tend to jump directly to how the agency can do that for the lead, yet an important step is missing.

To make your business case compelling, the first thing you need to do is understand what success looks like for your potential client. Then you can speak their language, whether that’s revenue, transactions, conversions, or traffic.

Kevin Gibbons, CEO and founder of Re:signal and SEOmonitor Masterclass educator, points out that what you should do is tie your activity back towards key business outcomes. If you can’t understand and explain exactly what success means and why they need SEO, then there will be no real alignment.

That’s where, Gibbons adds, a reliable forecasting methodology makes the difference. Or as he puts it, a forecast done well will help you define:

• The WHY = What success can look like for the business and its growth potential.
• The HOW = The key areas of the market that the client can grow into.
• The WHAT = The necessary actions your agency can take to achieve those business outcomes.

If the what is pretty straightforward, the why and the how become just as straightforward with the right forecast in place:

Set a realistic business development direction

If you don’t have the bigger picture behind your SEO proposal set, you won’t know where you end up. “The forecast is a great sense check on WHY you are doing this in the first place,” says Gibbons.

This is the step in which creating a forecasting scenario gives you the right overview of the size of the opportunity. You not only get to evaluate if it’s the right lead for your agency but also if SEO is the right choice for the lead’s current business potential.

“You need to give them confidence that the results are realistic. If you’re a new retail brand with very little organic visibility and poor brand awareness/reputation, it’s very unlikely you’re going to be able to start ranking competitively for “sportswear” or ”skirts” overnight,” Gibbons explains.

“Your forecast model should take into account your current opportunity versus the size of the market and break it down into achievable bite sizes so that eventually you can eat that elephant – but you start one achievable bite at a time,” he adds.

SEOmonitor’s forecasting methodology allows you to model the data taking into account all the right inputs that influence your targeted keywords, to create a realistic scenario:

• The CTR value — the average CTR curve for the top 10 positions on each individual combination of SERP features and devices.
• The inertial trend of the non-brand organic traffic, based on search seasonality only (as if the website’s rankings would stand still).
• The Year-over-Year search trend of the keywords included in the Forecast.
• The ranking improvements of long-tail keywords (that are not part of the forecast) and their impact on traffic.

Clarify the client’s growth opportunities

The “why” that fuels your forecast and the SEO proposal is also based on how you curate your initial market and search landscape analysis.

Narrowing down your keyword list and understanding where the SEO opportunities lie will be the solid foundation for your scenarios. If your forecasting input lacks the quality it needs, your estimates will be misleading.

You need to know where you’re heading, the strategic way:

From keyword research to keyword strategy

You can think of the whole framework like this:

• The keyword research is the input that you need to curate, organize and prioritize.
• The keyword strategy is the output — the narrowed-down, categorized keyword groups that inform your action plan and your forecasting foundation.

This framework will help you maximize the impact of your SEO efforts and keep you from wasting resources for both your agency and your client.

But, to do so, you need a correct diagnosis of the client’s status quo and the problem you’re trying to address with SEO.

Map the client’s business

The client’s website categories and buyer personas are crucial for your understanding of the business. You can address their product or service categories as a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and pinpoint the ones that are the most prolific in comparison to their competitors in the search landscape.

There might be the case that the client wants you to focus on certain categories, but you can be proactive in showing them where their strengths lie.

This view combined with the buyer journey will offer you the basis for evaluating demand and search intent — important for setting the right diagnosis. To better grasp the demand, you can think about what search queries the target audience used and reverse engineer the SERPs and the features Google highlights.

Let’s take an example.

Say your client is a small fashion designer with a fairly new website. It won’t make sense to battle big retailers (e.g. GAP and friends) on broad keywords like “dresses” or “jeans” from the get-go. Yet, the designer’s strength lies in customization, so you spot an opportunity for such things as “custom cocktail dresses” or “custom black dress”. Answering the search intent at every step of the journey with content marketing will prove an important part of your diagnosis and action plan: awareness (“little black dress for body shape”), interest (“best black dress”), and consideration (“custom black dress price”).

Map the client’s SEO opportunities

Apart from matching website categories with demand, there are numerous ways of spotting the SEO opportunity.

You can start with the high-opportunity keywords uncovered in your research phase — the keywords with the lowest difficulty to reach the top positions and the highest potential traffic once there.

You can evaluate the desired keywords that have missing landing pages or cannibalization issues and start fixing those immediately.

Then, there’s the problem of timing: spotting seasonal keywords and using them when their peak approaches is another low-hanging fruit, provided you get their timing right. Some, like holiday and actual season-related products and services, are straightforward. It’s the industry-specific ones that will give you the advantage.

Again, for the sake of clarity, let’s take an example.

Your client is an online bookshop preparing for the summer season. Of course, such queries like “best summer holiday reads” or “books to take on the beach” will be addressed. Yet, there might be high-opportunity keywords related to an exclusive event or book with the writer’s autograph, or new editorial launches for the summer months that will be seasonal and industry-specific.

A robust rank tracker can help you work efficiently in prioritizing and segmenting your keywords accordingly, with advanced filtering capabilities to highlight keywords with issues, keywords with low difficulty, high opportunity, and so on. It will save you hours of manually sifting through your initial keyword list.

Set a shared definition of success

Once you’ve uncovered the most relevant keywords out of your research and you found your answers to the diagnostic question, it’s time to test the viability of your SEO proposal.

That’s again where forecasting comes in handy in qualifying both the lead and the size of the opportunity. You can create multiple scenarios with your team and calibrate your keyword strategy until you have a realistic, solid proposal — sharing the final version with your client will further the trust and pave the way for setting expectations.

As we’ve said in the beginning, you should always have a shared definition of what success means for the SEO campaign: additional traffic, additional conversion, revenue, etc. That way, you make sure you track what matters for your client and you both evaluate the SEO performance with the right lens.

The keyword strategy and forecasting exercise are great opportunities to uncover new business potential, as well. This, in turn, positions your agency as a business partner, not just the people executing the SEO tasks.

In conclusion

To prove the ROI of your SEO proposal you need a good understanding of the client’s business and market, the right keyword strategy in place which becomes the basis of a realistic forecasting scenario.

All of these processes ensure that both you and the client speak the same language and know where you want to go in order to achieve business goals and growth targets.

After hundreds of hours of research with our agency clients and many years refining the know-how inside the product, SEOmonitor’s team decided it’s time to distill all that knowledge into a series of masterclasses.

We’ve launched SEOmonitor Masterclass for agency people to further their knowledge with business frameworks applied to their environment and processes. The first two on SEO Forecasting and Keyword Strategy can be freely accessed at masterclass.seomonitor.com.

Both masterclasses include assignments, key takeaways, case studies, and demos for agencies to study and use in their own processes. After completing them, you’ll be able to leverage strategic frameworks for your agency, maximize the impact of your SEO efforts, and make better decisions for your future SEO campaigns.

Join our learning community today and help us bring more transparency to the SEO industry!

Building a website is laying the foundation of your startup's marketing strategy. However, a foundation alone is not enough. It’s what you build on that foundation that really matters. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most rewarding but highly competitive digital marketing channels. Due to its competitiveness, it may come across as a distant dream for many startups, often causing them to make the mistake of ignoring it altogether. Here are a few reasons why startups must incorporate SEO into their marketing strategy.

Effective SEO begins at the planning phase of the startup marketing strategy

Having a robust marketing plan gives your startup a clear direction, and it’s crucial for the company’s growth. Some of the most important aspects of any marketing plan are setting up goals and objectives, identifying your target markets, budgeting, competitor analysis, and setting priorities by focusing on strengths. SEO strategy is not one size fits all, and it’s doomed to fail if pursued in that manner. Therefore, a marketing plan must be in strategic alignment with creating an SEO strategy specific to your startup's goals and objectives.

SEO aims to improve your website's rankings on search engines like Google to increase the organic traffic to your website. But getting any traffic to your website might not be the goal and objective of your startup. Therefore, aspects of your marketing plan determine your SEO strategy. The SEO strategy serves as the framework for structuring your website and generating content that translates your startup's goals and objectives. Even the domain name you choose is related to SEO – all the more reason to include it in the pre-website marketing planning phase.

Web design: do it once and do it right

Time is crucial for startups, and a sense of urgency is a commendable trait, but that shouldn't be the cause of any complacency. Unfortunately, complacency is precisely what will transpire if SEO is not part of your website design and will cause issues down the road. Search Engines are highly user-centric. They thrive on providing high-quality, valuable results to their user's search queries, and they rank websites on top that are deemed valuable by a search engines' highly sophisticated automated algorithms. Search engines’ web crawlers crawl the internet to discover, index, and rank websites according to their relevance and quality.

Technical SEO is a big part of website design and a crucial piece of the puzzle. Its optimization helps make your website crawlable by search engine bots. And each of its optimized aspects indicates the value of your website to search engine rank algorithms, which in return increases the chances of elevating your website's rankings. The technical SEO elements you must know about and have as part of your web design are webpage loading speed, website security, mobile-friendliness, responsive web design, no duplicate content, XML sitemap, no broken links, improper use of robot.txt files and structured data.

SEO is not an entity of its own

Improving organic visibility for your website seems a plain and simple objective of SEO. But the different factors needed to achieve that objective are much broader, and their implementation can have a positive impact on various aspects of your startup. As mentioned above, technical SEO has all the elements that increase your website user's experience.

Link building and online mentions are a substantial part of SEO strategy and a ranking factor. SEO strategists build links and mentions using PR, content marketing, local citations, directories, influencer marketing, and guest blogging. These strategies can get your startup exposure that results in engagement and earns your startup backlinks from various authoritative websites relevant to your startup. Backlinks and mentions display a vote of confidence in your startup products both to your target audience and to the search engine ranking algorithms.

Keyword research is market research

You can learn a great deal about your potential customers by doing keyword research. For instance, you can learn what questions they are searching for related to your products and services, and which of your products and services has the most and least searches per month. These are very powerful insights, especially for the startup. It helps you discover new topics that matter to your potential customers and reveals valuable information about your products and services.

Keyword Research is at the core of SEO strategy. By learning popular keywords and phrases used by your potential customers to search for products and services related to your startup, you can incorporate them into your content to get relevant keywords and drive high traffic to your website.

You can also target keywords or long-tail keywords with low search volumes that are less competitive to improve your page rankings quickly compared to the highly searched competitive keywords that are hard to rank on search engines. All of this is a crucial part of your SEO strategy.

Building brand awareness, trust and credibility

Achieving top rankings on search engines for keywords related to your products and services is tantamount to reaching the pinnacle of brand awareness, trust, and credibility. That's not possible when you are just getting started. But the SEO strategies you deploy go hand-in-hand with building that brand awareness, trust, and credibility. These three factors are critical both to the search engines and to your potential customers.

I tend to collect email like some might collect Star Wars action figures. OK, that's not a perfect analogy because mostly I collect email because I think I might need it later, but never do. That generally equates to me having way too many emails sitting in my inbox, most of which I've read and don't need anymore.

And that can cause problems, especially in the Gmail mobile application. When you have thousands (or tens of thousands) of emails, the Gmail app search function can get bogged down. Because of that, I tend to go eliminate the problem every few months (or every year, when I get too busy and forget the whole "every few months" thing).

The problem with the Gmail app is there's no easy way to do a mass delete. Even when you try with the web-based version, you'll find you can only select 100 emails at a time. When your inbox is overflowing, that's not a good enough option.

So, what do you do? I'm going to show you a handy trick for mass deletion. Unfortunately, this only works on web-based Gmail. The good news is that your mobile Gmail app will thank you for taking care of this.

What you'll need
The only thing you need is a Google account. Of course, you'll also need an inbox filled with previously read emails that you don't need to keep. That's important here: If you have certain emails that you need to keep, either mark them as unread or move them to another folder, otherwise they will be deleted.

You've been warned.

How to mass delete in Gmail

Open Gmail and type is: read in the search bar. At this point, you should only see those emails you have already read (or at least the first 100). With your read email on display, check the box (Figure A) to select all of the messages.

Figure A

If you have a ton of unread messages, you will have only selected the first 100 (because... Google). To select all of those unread messages, you must click the Select All Conversations That Match This Search link (Figure B). Note: This link will only appear if you have more than 100 unread messages.

Figure B

One word of warning: If you see an email listed (after selecting all unread emails) that you don't want to be deleted, if you uncheck it you will revert the Select all conversations that match this search option. In other words, you need to make sure you've collected those read emails you want to save into a different folder (or marked them as unread) before going through this. Now, we need to delete all of those read emails by clicking the Trash icon (Figure C).

Figure C

After clicking the Trash icon, you'll be prompted to OK the bulk delete of the read email. Click OK and every one of those read emails will be sent to the trash. Depending on how many read emails you are deleting, this can take some time. In the end, you'll have a much cleaner Gmail inbox.

And that's how you mass delete email in Gmail. Enjoy that reclaimed space and more efficient Gmail app search.

We are in a time where digital media has clearly replaced many traditional forms of marketing that worked in the past. eMarketer reports that digital overtook TV ad spending at the end of 2016. Companies can no longer ignore the need for a digital and social media marketing strategy. Digital marketing has the advantage of being faster, cheaper and more effective than traditional marketing. An email or social media campaign can connect a marketing message to a targeted subset of consumers for the fraction of the cost of a TV ad or print campaign.

One of the main benefits of digital marketing is the ease with which results can be tracked. Response rates for digital campaigns can be monitored in real-time. With the right analytics, companies can measure their customers’ responses in fine-grained detail.

These advances in digital marketing have highlighted the need for the appropriate technical skills.

Why it’s important to have digital marketing skills

In order for businesses to successfully execute digital marketing strategies they need to recruit, hire and train people with the right skills.

In a world where life has gone digital, marketing has to follow. Digital Marketing is one of the hottest fields in the world today, with tons of high-paying jobs available for skilled candidates.

The ideal candidate is often a hybrid who is strong in a number of areas, no matter what their specialty is. While specific strengths might be in analytics, social media, content creation or demand generation, it helps if everyone on a team has a grasp of the work being done across the company and is able to collaborate. No matter what their specialized skills are, digital marketers should understand how the different areas work together. This means that the strongest members of any marketing team are those with the skills and training across a wide range of digital marketing.

Hiring managers must evaluate the blend soft and hard skills they need in order to build a successful team. Managers need marketing departments where individual contributors think outside the box, with a combination of skills and qualities that allow them to be agile team players.

The pace of change is accelerating. Both individuals and managers need to continually review and assess their digital marketing expertise and quickly address any shortfall to avoid falling behind due to a digital marketing skills gap.

The marketing skills gap

Research conducted by Fractl and Moz (in which they reviewed over 75,000 job listings on Indeed.com) found that marketing skills are in fact in high demand but hiring managers are struggling to find talent. “Many believe this rapid rate of change has caused a marketing skills gap, making it difficult to find candidates with the technical, creative, and business proficiencies needed to succeed in digital marketing,” Kelsey Libert wrote in a blog post on the report. In a study conducted by Bullhorn, 64% of recruiters reported a shortage of skilled candidates for available marketing roles.

A survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit and Marketo highlights the gap between what marketers used to do and what they need to do today. The skills marketing professionals felt the need to develop include digital engagement and technology (39%), strategy and planning (38%), and data analysis (32%).

The Economist states that successful marketers need the ability to combine the technical orientation of a project manager and data scientist with the big-picture view of a business strategist.

How to bridge the digital marketing skills gap

For job seekers with a desire to land a digital marketing job, a clear understanding of where they might have a shortfall, and what skills they need to backfill, is an essential first step.

Candidates should decide if they want to acquire ‘softer’ creative content creation skills, demand generation skills, or ‘hard’ analytics skills.

Companies require skilled professionals in every area of digital marketing. Digital video requires people with skills in scripting, shooting, and editing videos. Websites and social media platforms need people with SEO, SQL, HTML, CSS and CMS expertise (if you are not familiar with these acronyms check out the course listings!). Data Analysis is considered by many companies to be among the most important skill in digital marketing. eMarketer report that measuring content performance is a top priority for nearly two-thirds of marketers. Competent professionals need to understand the options for the measurement and the analysis of data, even if they are not the specialist running the numbers.

There are a growing number of training opportunities available for employees to acquire the appropriate skills.

While no single training delivery model works best for every learner, a learner centric model must be utilized. We’ve found that a “blended learning delivery model” coupled with 24x7 access to teaching assistants in combination with project based learning opportunities and quizzes/assessments increases competencies and proficiency.

Designed by expert authors, our Digital Marketing courses combine high-quality training in SEO, Social Media Marketing, and PPC with practical advice to ensure professional success. Also, check out our Post Graduate Digital Marketing Certification Program to learn more about digital marketing.

While healthcare technology has been an attractive space for investors and entrepreneurs over the last decade, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed in many ways how we think about healthcare. It brought to light the need for accessible remote medicine and the need for quick and reliable testing.

Startups in the space now face an altered landscape, complete with new trends and new opportunities. Here's a look at three recent healthcare technology startups that have either launched or pivoted to take advantage of pandemic-driven trends.

Kry goes global

Before the pandemic, healthcare companies spent years trying to push telehealth as the next evolution of healthcare delivery. While in some markets they began to succeed, in big healthcare markets like the US, it never gained significant traction. Despite efforts to drive adoption, the use of telehealth services by patients in the US had only reached 28% by 2019, even though it's a more cost effective option.

However, the pandemic reversed these trends. Due to social distancing and quarantine rules, millions of Americans turned to telehealth for the first time. This created new opportunities. One company, Swedish telehealth startup Kry, took notice and made a pivot by launching a free online health consultation app called Livi Connect, which offered Americans on demand telehealth services.

The gambit worked and Kry saw its usage double throughout the pandemic, leading to a Series D cash infusion this April. Their experience points to a new opening for telehealth startups in the US, which should be able to capitalize on the growing acceptance of the technology. With estimates that the market that will be worth $298.9 billion by 2028, there is still opportunity for new entrants.

Happy Seniors meets senior care challenges

Among the hardest hit during the pandemic were senior care facilities. As home to the elder who were most vulnerable to the virus, they were ground zero for its spread, and the pandemic uncovered some serious deficiencies in how many of those facilities were run.

One of the lingering effects of the crisis in the senior care industry is what experts are calling a "pandemic of despair" among residents, where they continue to face psychological trauma from the virus. It's a problem that a startup called Happy Seniors aims to solve.

The startup is working to combat loneliness among seniors by implementing direct messaging between caregivers and family members, and a one-tap solution for ordering special gifts for delivery right to their loved one's door.

In addition, they've built a digital management platform that helps senior care facility managers gain unprecedented insight into their operations. The system enables seamless communication among staff members, solicits and tracks feedback from residents, and alerts managers to operational difficulties before they get serious.

Happy Seniors CEO Alex Bubnov says, "COVID dramatically impacted senior citizens and their loved ones, as there were no dedicated tools or products that could help seniors stay connected to their family. Many seniors were just by themselves during these difficult times. With Happy Seniors, family members will be able to stay in touch with their senior relatives 24/7 and remain an essential part of their social lives. The platform is designed to help alleviate loneliness and isolation for seniors in addition to keeping and improving the connection to old friends and family members."

Happy Seniors reflects a burgeoning trend to modernize the senior care space. In a market worth around $740 billion, there are ripe opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Ava joins Covid-19 surveillance efforts

Early on in the pandemic, one of the great challenges facing public health experts was finding ways to track and measure the spread of Covid-19 among the general population. While there was still a shortage of PCR testing available to help, a variety of medical device manufacturers looked to fill the void. One of them was Ava, a female fertility-focused wearable device startup.

Their flagship product, which is a bracelet designed to track fertility cycles, recently went into clinical trials to test its ability to detect pre-symptomatic cases of Covid-19 using machine learning algorithms. In early tests, the device was 71% effective at spotting infections, which is already better than many of the rapid antigen tests in regular use today.

Ava’s foray into Covid-19 detection models reflects that device manufacturers see an opening and demand for at-home diagnostics, even when it's not their primary focus. It’s one of the reasons why Apple tested turning its watch into a mobile EKG machine even before the pandemic.

Wearables already have much higher penetration rates than conventional at-home diagnostic products and companies, and nimble startups in the space can take advantage of that.

The bottom line

The pandemic opened doors in the healthcare space and accelerated already existing trends. Smart entrepreneurs can find opportunities to capitalize on this, and more importantly, improve healthcare outcomes.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been gaining more and more traction over the past few years as connected devices and smart home and office gadgets dominate the market. According to Statista, the IoT market revenue worldwide is projected to climb to over one trillion dollars by 2030.

With this increased revenue comes a number of new ways for businesses to leverage IoT technology. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared some business opportunities they see emerging in the IoT sector. Keep an eye out for these 11 growing trends in the B2B IoT space.

1. Voice-Powered Technologies

With the growing popularity of IoT devices, the interaction of business with customers is also changing. Take for instance Siri, Alexa and Cortana — who are advanced voice technologies — to perform countless searches as the customer orders. This one area of IoT is going to expand gigantically in the future. So, the tech-savvy business is in a role to grab this opportunity. This voice technology is also going to end the role of customer representatives and virtual assistants. These automated voice technologies can be used to improve customer service, create a high, end-to-end experience and give more efficiency. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure

2. Retail Data Tracking And Analysis

Recent technological advancements have opened the door to IoT. Your watch, smart speaker and digital thermostat are all connected and the data they acquire can be used to improve your business. Because of the ubiquity of these devices, they can easily be leveraged to provide data from the world of retail. Tracking customer behavior within brick and mortar establishments can become invaluable for business owners. Data can be received from the cash register, store cameras and mobile customer apps and then integrated to form solutions for customer service. For example, if the data indicates peak levels of customer activity at certain times of the day or week, you can use this information to optimize your staffing needs or prepare your inventory accordingly. - Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance

3. Cybersecurity

Every endpoint that is connected to the internet is exposed to increased risk and vulnerability. There are many new niche cyber companies emerging and they all claim to protect you and your business in the best way. Choosing the right cyber firm is like “merging houses with someone,” so finding that right provider within all these emerging new businesses will be key for any business. From that, industries such as insurance are adjacent. More and more businesses look to insure their cyber exposure, which comes at a cost. Coverage is very quickly increasing and becoming more selective. These are industries that we'll see growth in the near future. - Fabi Hubschmid, Markaaz

4. Internet Telephony

I work in the office communication space and the office desk telephone has become a super versatile communications hub. To even call some of these devices desk phones or hard phones no longer seems appropriate because making phone calls is only one out of hundreds of features that these phones provide. In the near future, I see even more engagement on that front, where proactive use of social media based on location and proximity will trigger marketers and representatives to engage before there are questions and problems. - Reuben Yonatan, GetVoIP

5. Real Estate

With e-commerce booming, there are lots of opportunities to invest in industrial buildings. However, many investors are unaware of what most industrial businesses need. If you want to invest, make sure the building has adequate IoT devices. I own an e-commerce business and my building has automated management of inventory. We have IoT sensors and RFId tags installed in inventory systems. We also have smart shelves and temperature-monitoring sensors. These devices have made a significant difference in streamlining our business infrastructure and in the value of the building itself. Anyone looking for new business opportunities could find many opportunities in the real estate side of the IoT boom. - Shu Saito, All Filters

6. Seasonal Retail

I wouldn't be surprised if we see more people using their IoT devices to do seasonal shopping this year. More consumers own smart speakers than ever before and most people already use them for shopping. As operating systems refine their voice search software, we will see more people use this technology to shop for loved ones. This will create new jobs for SEO specialists, e-commerce marketing experts and much more. - John Turner, SeedProd LLC

7. Patient Health Monitoring

Patient monitoring in healthcare will emerge. The ability to monitor a patient without them having to come into the office or hospital will surely cut down on overall costs and improve quality of care since in most cases, it can be done in real-time. This is already being done to a certain extent but you’ll likely see an expansion of it, considering its potential. - Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

8. Virtual Medical Care

The use of IoT in the health sector is worth mentioning because medical services are using it to offer medical care at a distance. So now it's possible to perform operations or monitor the health condition of patients from remote places, even when the doctor isn't present physically with the patient. In a way, the use of IoT in medical services has revolutionized the way the health care system works. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

9. Inventory Management

IoT can play a significant role in improving the inventory management of retail companies. Storing and tracking goods is one of the most expensive tasks there is in running an e-commerce or physical retail store. IoT devices can track when a stock is down and automatically send an order for replacements. This creates efficiency, saves space and also lowers expenses. The savings are reflected in the final price the customer pays without reducing profits. - Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

10. Senior Care

I think that an important area where IoT can be applied is in looking after the elderly and other people who need care. IoT devices can be used to ensure that they have all their needs related to food and other articles kept in stock without ever running out. Such devices can also help with security and monitoring the health and wellness of people who struggle to care for themselves. - Blair Williams, MemberPress

As the boundaries between work and home continue to blur, companies are contemplating a range of models to keep teams engaged. While a growing number of organizations are bringing employees back to the office after more than a year at home, others have decided to continue to allow people to work remotely. Then there are hybrid scenarios—a new way of working to support the future of work that was in place long before the pandemic—that continue to give workers the continued flexibility they crave balanced with the need for in-person collaboration and connection. It’s a real-time opportunity for companies to learn how to foster a culture that’s remote and high-touch all at once.

Sustaining organizational culture has never been more challenging. People have felt isolated, and the lack of impromptu interactions means the chance to integrate and generate ideas must take on a different flavor. Yet the pandemic has also served as a road test for the policies and technology advancements and investments that have made collaborative work possible without face-to-face interaction. Our Deloitte analysis shows that at least 100 digital remote collaboration tools were released to market or enhanced in the first eight months of 2020, and according to a recent Return to Workplaces survey of 275 executives, 68% expect to implement a hybrid model of working between physical and virtual work.

When people aren’t sharing physical space, they still need effective ways to work together. In transitioning to hybrid working, leaders cannot lose sight of the value of high-touch collaboration, and there are practical, attainable ways to prepare teams and organizations for this shift.

Create work environments that promote collaboration

Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends survey shows that executives clearly see a future where multiple scenarios—including those involving both in office and remote work—are the norm. Nearly half of respondents (47%) said that their organizations planned to focus on multiple scenarios in the future, up from 23% before the pandemic. One way business leaders are doing this is by creating immersive environments where teams can collaborate effectively at a distance. For instance, there’s an emerging category of tools that aims to enable workers to connect, share experiences, and participate in simulated real-life scenarios using augmented or virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies. In such platforms, users encounter a 3D-shared environment where they can see representations of themselves and colleagues and conduct meetings.

Companies that have made investments in such technologies stand to emerge stronger in the post-pandemic recovery: 76% of executives who said their organizations had done very well at embedding advanced technologies into core business strategies to become more agile, also said they are weathering the events of 2020 better than their peers, according to a recent Deloitte survey.

In a hybrid work model, physical spaces are being reimagined to foster better collaboration and achieve outcomes otherwise challenging in a fully virtual environment. For example, office spaces are transforming to accommodate smaller office footprints, while emphasizing spaces that are geared toward networking and culture-building. This can be achieved by campus-style hubs and an emphasis on training space, where colleagues can get together and individual spaces or offices become team spaces.

The need to support high-touch collaboration for remote workers will remain even as numbers of workers return to in-person and hybrid work models. This will require much greater flexibility in workplace planning—the process of identifying and filling predicted gaps in supply and demand for an organization’s key talent—not to mention new opportunities for workers to achieve work-life integration.

Gaining ground: New skills for the workplace

Remote and hybrid environments have enabled organizations to engage with workers on far more flexible terms. The 2021 Deloitte Global Resilience Report showed that nearly three-quarters (72%) of organizations that had implemented processes to easily redeploy people to different roles leading up to 2020 were better equipped to weather the circumstances of the pandemic.

In the survey of more than 2,200 C-suite executives, which examined how they’re managing this “new normal,” we asked whether they had already implemented or were planning to put in place a number of actions or programs to make their workforces more adaptable. That included implementing processes to easily redeploy workers to other roles or projects, offering training or rotational programs to enable reskilling, and providing workers with flexible work options.

Notably, adaptability was the workforce trait executives said was most critical to their organizations’ futures (54% of respondents). Technology savvy came in second with 40% of senior leaders saying it was the most important workforce trait.

Remote and hybrid work environments are enabling organizations to engage with workers on far more flexible terms. Whether your organization returns to pre-pandemic norms or looks dramatically different after the crisis, you can be assured the motivations of your stakeholders have changed. Consider how the following can help your company adapt to the shift to hybrid work:

• Introducing new digital collaboration platforms
• Allowing for more flexibility in how and where work gets done
• Setting new scheduling and meeting norms
• Identifying leadership and talent gaps that are standing in the way of hybrid work and activating a plan to address them
• Ensuring well-being is included in the design of virtual workspaces (e.g., apps to increase mindfulness or master distractions)

The global recovery that began taking shape in the first half of 2021 has laid the groundwork for a dynamic second half of the year. Companies that listen to their employees’ needs and build balanced, hybrid work environments can be better positioned to break down siloes between physical and remote workplaces, meet market demands, and retain talent. A focus on integration and collaboration, while leading with head and heart, can allow leaders to navigate a new world of work that may be here to stay, long after the masks come off.

Oat milk has become one of the go-to alternative milks in the market, with over $200 million in sales last year. It edged out soy and sits in the #2 slot.

UK-based Minor Figures is hoping to take a piece of that pie with their barista-style oat milk, which comes in some quirky packaging representative of the brand’s CEO and core team.

“I think people would look at me and think I’m a bit odd. And that’s OK,” jokes Stuart Forsythe, an Australian entrepreneur who was one of the co-founders of the popular KeepCup before venturing into the world of oat milk.

Aside from Minor Figures’ fun, whimsical branding, the company is keen on taking a more eco-forward approach. Given Forsythe’s background with the KeepCup, which was designed to reduce waste in coffee shops, it’s not a surprise.

That’s why Minor Figures is in the process of becoming a B Corporation, has decided to invest in carbon offsets to be carbon neutral, and is offering an organic oat milk product (in addition to its conventional offering for more cost-conscious customers).

The oats, which are procured from a variety of suppliers throughout Europe, have historically been processed in the UK and Australia for the respective markets. Now, as they expand across the US, they’re hoping to manufacture closer to their customers here in America.

Building this global brand has taken time though. Forsythe, and his brother and sister, spent years building KeepCup, slowly taking it from Australia to the European market. That gave them an opportunity to spend a fair bit of time in the specialty coffee industry, learning its ways.

When Forsythe arrived in London in the late 2000s, he recalls that the specialty coffee scene was very small: you could probably count the number of specialty coffee shops on your hands, he says. Since then, London’s specialty coffee industry has exploded — and in recent years, so has the demand for alternative milks. Interestingly, Forsythe started Minor Figures in 2014 with co-founders Jonathan Chiu and Will Rixon to sell cold brew coffee, not necessarily oat milk (though that's what they’re becoming synonymous with nowadays).

Working with Raw Material, a London-based social enterprise, they sourced premium coffees for their ready-to-drink cold brew. Raw Material, which works much like a middleman or trader in specialty coffee, pledges to put all its profits back into the coffee farming community. Forsythe chose to work with the group, he says, because they felt it was a better option than Fair Trade, putting more money into producers’ hands and streamlining the sourcing process for them in London.

For nearly 5 years, Minor Figures grew slowly, with its profits going back into the business, and raising small amounts of capital from family and friends. Only recently did the company take on an investor —- who happened to drink a coffee with their oat milk at a cafe in New York. “He got in touch with us, said he wanted to learn more, and was shortly thereafter in London. It was not at all planned.”

With about $10 million in investment, the company was ready to broaden its reach and make a bigger push on its oat milk, not coffee this time. And then the pandemic hit in 2020: with most coffee shops shut, Minor Figures had to focus on online sales and grocery stores instead of cafes.

“That was a really hard time. We all took on additional roles in the company, juggling different responsibilities. No one was sure about their jobs. But we survived. And now looking back, we’ve built a pretty resilient team,” Forsythe says.

In the process, they continued their journey towards becoming a B Corp and are now carbon neutral through carbon offsets, which Forsythe assures are of gold-standard. In fact, they invited consumers to help them decide which projects to support through an informal survey on their blog — all of which have to do with the coffee community in some shape or another.

“Overall, I think businesses are responsible for doing something about climate changes. We can’t just put that responsibility on consumers. We have to do something as well, and lead the way.”

Oat milk has been documented as one of the more eco-friendly alternative milks on the shelf — it takes less water than almonds, is easier to source, and can appeal to a wider base of consumers (given soy and nut allergies). Traditional dairy, Forsythe says, is more of a “zombie” industry, “supported by governments.” And with Gen Z and Millennials pushing for plant-based diets, he sees alternative milks as the path forward.

Unlike other oat-based offerings that have several gums and binders, Minor Figures has tried to keep their formulation simpler: water, oats, oil, and salt primarily. Designed with coffee in mind, Forsythe says they wanted something that would enhance the flavor of coffee, not alter it.

Nevertheless, the oat milk market is competitive and crowded at the moment. So Minor Figures has chosen to stand out with some unusual branding: instead of the go-get it and hustle culture, each of their items — either on the oat milk box or on the ready-to-drink cans— features a drawing partaking in more laid back activities: having a coffee, blowing bubbles, skateboarding. Forsythe says that their social media looks like “a friend’s feed. It’s not all branded out and pretty.”

Despite embracing a slower, easy-going vibe, the company does have some ambitious goals, one of which is to get to carbon zero by negating emissions. “Offsetting, we realize, is not perfect.”

But being bullish on the environment is not just a moral stance, he says. “It’s critical for business in the future.”

It might seem like a lofty target for a global company which ships around goods. But Forsythe says that he likes to live by advice given to him by his mom: “Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew like hell.”

Back in 2009, Eva Yazhari co-founded Beyond Capital Fund, a nonprofit impact fund aimed at supporting companies serving bottom-of-the-pyramid customers in emerging markets. But that nonprofit status limited the fund’s ability to expand. With that in mind, last year, she formed a spin-off that’s a for-profit, called Beyond Capital Ventures, also focused on India and Africa. It’s about to make its first investments.

Like the first fund, the new one invests in companies in which, says Yazahari, “The impact is baked into the business model, with the ability to scale.” It focuses on health care, financial inclusion and agriculture.

Evergeen

Yazhari worked for about five years on Wall Street. But after the financial crisis, she decided do something more meaningful, that tapped into her passion for social justice. She already had deep family ties to Africa; her grandfather had moved his family and opened a health clinic in rural Tanzania in the 1960’s. So in 2009, she co-founded Beyond Capital Fund, with a focus on India and East Arica, specifically Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. She set it up to be what she calls a nonprofit “evergreen” fund making early-stage investments in startups with a financial and social impact; when profits from investments were returned, they were re-invested into new businesses.

Since then, the fund mas made 14 investments; thus far, there have been three exits of companies in eye care, sanitation and agriculture, with what Yazhari describes as, “strong top quartile venture returns and impact.”

Seed and Series A

Then, in early 2020, right before the pandemic hit, she decided she needed to form a for-profit fund. That’s because, according to Yazhari, the nonprofit model was constraining growth. That is, the original fund was unable to grow beyond “single digit million” in size, with a pilot portfolio of about $1 million. “Philanthropy has limits, donors often have very specific sector or geographic focuses, others are unwilling to get involved with grants below $1 million,” she says. With that in mind, for 19 months, she worked on raising a second fund with the goal of reaching $30 million.

Unlike the first fund, this one will target more broadly defined low-income and under-served markets, emphasizing areas like lack of access to women’s healthcare or creating pathways for smallholder farmers to get their produce from the farm to the market and receive better pricing. “We’ve seen these areas to be tremendous in terms of the opportunities they present to investors,” says Yazhari. Investments will be in the same countries as before, except for Tanzania, because, according to Yazhari, government regulations make equity investments more costly and difficult there.

Another difference: the new fund will include both seed and Series A rounds, so Beyond Capital will be able to follow on with later money. That means larger check sizes—investments were around $50,000 and now will be $250,000 to $700,000 for seed funding and $400,000 to $1.1 million for Series A—and the ability to be a lead investor. The plan is to fund 21 businesses, about 15 in seed stage. About 70% of those will also probably receives Series A funding. Companies will be sourced from over 100 places, such as accelerators and business plan competitions.

A Stake for Founders

The overall approach is to be collaborative. “It’s not, we’re going to give you money and you have to do what we say,” she says. One important element: Founders will get a portion of a 5% to 10% stake in fund profits when they reach the Series A stage, what Yazhari calls “equitable ventures”. That’s because the for-profit status will provide a larger pool of capital that can be allocated to founders.

Most important is investing in founders who are what Yazhari calls “conscious leaders,” meaning those focused on the full gamut of stakeholders. “They’re the key ingredient to impact investing,” she says.

First investments will be announced soon. Also, a number of companies from the first fund could receive additional money from the second.

As a potential example, Yazhari cites women’s health startup Kasha, based in Kenya and Rwanda, that provides access to products ranging from contraceptives to soaps and lotion. Kasha also employs local women to sell its products and earn a sustainable livelihood. The nonprofit fund contributed $60,000 in 2018 in a seed round; Kasha has gone on to raise what Yazhari calls a “sizeable” Series A.

In the age of sustainability impact investing and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), the non-financial factors that investors apply to identify material risks and growth opportunities, have become buzz terms. But not for everyone. According to research from new investment fund manager DUGUUD, this industry jargon leaves many people mystified and this is holding them back from investing in businesses that help the environment and society.

The survey of 3,000 adults found that just 10% were aware of the term impact investing and could explain it, yet when it was explained to them 60% agreed that it could create positive change in the environment and society. And three times more people agreed than disagreed that if they had funds to invest, they would want to invest in this area.

“It’s time for the whole financial services industry to ditch terms like impact investing and ESG and to start talking in a language everyone can understand,” says DUGUUD’s CEO and serial entrepreneur David Scrivens.

DUGUUD, the trading name of Amberside Capital, is an FCA-regulated fund manager launched this month, with a focus on climate change, increasing biodiversity, improving public health, reducing inequality, and improving education. It was born out of a need to create a platform that allows the general public to invest in companies that make a genuine and positive difference to the world.

“It is difficult and costly to create a fund that’s open to the public, and it takes a lot of marketing spend to reach them,” says Scrivens. “Most fund managers get institutional investors, such as pension funds, to meet the minimum investment level required to launch a fund, but this route is often to the exclusion of the general public.”

The research also revealed a significant level of cynicism, with 58% of respondents of the opinion that most businesses claiming to be doing good are actually spending more time and money marketing their environmental and societal intentions than on taking tangible actions. Two-thirds (67%) also agreed that there are now so many businesses claiming to run their business in a way that is better for the environment and society that they find it difficult to trust the real impact of most of their claims.

“It is extremely difficult to prove environmental and social change, and comparing organizations is also tricky,” says Scrivens. “There is no easy solution to this without government intervention to create tools for measuring impact.”

However, he insists that DUGUUD will not allow the companies it invests in to focus on just the one area of good they may be doing, but will hold them to account for all aspects of their business. They will also show investors tangible examples of what companies are doing, for example, how the company has moved to greener energy, not just by paying an electricity supplier to certify that they are getting green energy when it just comes through the grid, but by building additional green energy generation.

The team has already invested in several projects, including £17 million in Sterling Suffolk, which produces tomatoes in what has been dubbed ‘Europe’s cleverest greenhouse’. The semi-closed hydroponic glasshouse is considered 25% more energy efficient than a traditional one and allows for greater carbon absorption, and potentially creates better-tasting crops.

Wildanet is a Cornwall-based fiber company aiming to bring much-needed high-speed internet to rural communities in the region to improve digital inclusion. DUGUUD has raised the company around £50 million to help them achieve this goal.

Other investments include Virti, which trains medical staff remotely using virtual reality, and which has been incredibly valuable during the pandemic, and Ateria Health, which has developed a way to improve gut bacteria in humans that could help with common issues such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Another key finding of the research was that 67% of adults who were asked about investing would expect independent financial advisors (IFAs) to understand this area and supply options as part of the funds they discuss with customers, while 59% would also expect any pension provider to consider these kinds of investments in how they manage, invest and report on the pension fund.

This highlights the role that IFAs and pension firms have to play in creating more clarity for their clients around investing for positive change. “We believe that all professionals should be helping to spread the word about investing to make an improvement for society, and we aim to work with as many of them as possible,” says Scrivens.

Looking ahead, the plan is to create a fund that draws on the investment team’s infrastructure experience to make larger environmental and social projects come to fruition, and to launch a science-based fund focused on investment in technologies that can make a huge difference to the planet or society, but preferably both.

Scrivens adds: “We are also considering whether to offer a small part of our own company for individuals to invest in so that people can join us on our journey to make a real positive difference and help more companies that do good get the investment they need.”