Business Travels in Chicago? Here’s How You Can *Gasp* Enjoy Your Trip

architecture 1853632 1920

For those who love traveling, business trips are another welcomed opportunity to stay in a furnished apartment in a new town, bask in the culture, and try new cuisine. For others, traveling for business is somewhat of an inconvenience, usually because of commitments at home, such as family, friends, and pets and being taken away from their usual routine. However, there are ways to navigate around this.

For a few tips to help ease you into your new life in Chicago, look no further.

Choose The Perfect Place To Stay

Where you choose to stay in Chicago makes a big difference in how much you enjoy your trip, and that’s why it’s essential to pick the right place to stay. If you’re staying for a few nights, you might think that a hotel is your best and only option. However, if you need to stay in Chicago for a couple of weeks or months, booking a fully-furnished and serviced apartment will be a better option for you. You can find a range of apartment sizes and styles to rent that are available for a minimum of a month-long contract across most areas of Chicago, from the South Loop to the Old Town area.

living room 2155353 1920

The longer you need to stay in Chicago, the more essential it is to find a temporary home that you’ll love. For instance, having a fully equipped apartment with all the mod cons you’ll need will provide a much more comfortable setting for you to adjust to being away from home. Renting an apartment, rather than staying in a hotel on your trip also makes it easier for you to invite your family to come and visit or stay with you too.

Pre-Plan How To Get Around

Part of having a relaxed trip to Chicago is figuring out how you will get around the city. Whether meeting with clients, traveling to an office, or running daily errands. There is no one size fits all transport option. Some people prefer the environmentally friendly benefit of using a bike. Others like the hustle and bustle and the fast and cost-effective choice of using the Chicago Transit Authority buses and the ‘L’. While some prefer the scenic route via water taxi, others like to hire a vehicle to get around.

Choosing solutions ahead of your stay will save you a lot of hassle. How you decide to travel is a matter of preference, but it’s worth checking out the routes on Google Maps or Waze to figure out getting to and from your accommodation and workplace. Also, don’t forget to set up a backup travel solution in case there are delays with the first transport you choose.

Set Up A Routine

A handy tip that works well for those traveling away for business is to create a new routine. At home, you already have a routine, meaning you don’t have to waste time and energy thinking about what you need to do. From getting in the shower to ironing your clothes, feeding the dog, making your lunch, and so on, there are specific things you do each day.

To help you enjoy your trip and get your life in order, create a sense of stability and comfort while you’re away in Chicago. Other factors, such as finding the closest supermarket, drug store, and doctor’s office is also helpful ahead of your stay.

Socializing

It’s a good idea for you to make plans to meet with people while you’re in a new place. Whether that means reaching out to work colleagues or contacting friends/family that live in Chicago to meet up. You may even want to plan a few exciting excursions to some of Chicago’s attractions. For instance, Millenium park, the Museum of Science and Industry, or take a Chicago crime tour. By making an effort to be social and connect with people during your trip, and by taking a break and having some fun, you’ll feel happier, more content and even more productive!

Enjoying your business travels to Chicago definitely takes planning. It’s natural to feel a bit stressed when you’re away from home, but if you sort out the best accommodation that truly makes you feel at home, preplan your transport routes and develop a routine, you’ll quickly settle in with ease and enjoy your stay.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | 5 Leadership Lessons I Learned from A Billionaire Investor: Ray Dalio

5 Leadership Lessons I Learned from A Billionaire Investor: Ray Dalio

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | 5 Leadership Lessons I Learned from A Billionaire Investor: Ray DalioThe name of hedge fund billionaire Raymond Dalio triggers emotions of adoration, admiration, and even dislike. That’s the effect success has on people. You do not climb your way up without meeting people who have mixed feelings about you. This should not deter you, and if anything, it should motivate you to be a better version of yourself.

The success, and sometimes, failures of Dalio has made him an inspiration to many. He is on record for saying we make millions of decisions during the course of our lifetime. These decisions, or the logic behind them, determine the quality of lives we lead. While many of us are afraid of failure, Dalio fears mediocrity and boredom.

These are the hallmarks of a true leader, be it in business or politics.

Born in 1949, the American investor, philanthropist, and hedge fund manager is the founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer, and Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s leading hedge funds with a more than $130 billion in assets under management.

With a net worth of $18.7 billion, Dalio started investing at the age of 12 and his life has revolved around finance. There is no doubt that he has lot to teach people and you can learn to be a better leader by imitating how he has managed the investment firm he launched from his apartment in 1975, around the same time that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs founded their tech companies.

Here are five leadership lessons that you can learn from Dalio.

1. Hire people who are better than you

The self-made billionaire is a firm believer in the importance of the people you hire for your business. After many decades of hiring, grooming, and firing people, Dalio says one of the best decisions you can ever make as a business leader is hiring someone who is better than you.

The key to this is the ability to recognize talented employees who bring a particular skill set on the table. This means that if you have people on your team that can perform a certain task better than you, it takes away the need to micromanage them.

This has two advantages. It gives you much time and room to focus on the bigger picture of managing your business. You can spend more time growing the business instead of fulfilling tasks that can otherwise be done by your employees. Secondly, employees are more productive when they are left to their jobs with little to no micro-management.

Real leaders know how to choose the members of their team.

2. No harm in making mistakes

Mistakes are a part of life and there should be no shame in making them once in a while. However, Dalio points out that not correcting them is a big mistake. You have probably heard making the same twice is a choice because you have an opportunity to correct it.

A mistake needs to be identified, analyzed, and lessons learned to prevent the same thing from happening again in the future. A common issue that many organizations face is the lack of courage to personalize mistakes, but more often, generalize them.

At one time in the early 1990s, Ross Waller, the head of trading at the time forgot to place a trade and cost the company some money. Dalio did not fire Waller but instead created a management tool to deal with mistakes and errors.

Dalio learned from the experience that people deserve second chances. He also capitalized on the mistake to develop new methods that can be used to achieve desired goals.

3. Be open-minded

Open-mindedness is one of Dalio’s important lesson yet the hardest. Being open-minded goes hand-in-hand with the ability to evolve fast and learn new things quickly. Some of the techniques that go a long way in helping you to be open-minded are:

  • Feedback – try to get as much feedback as you can especially from other successful people that are not in your immediate circle of mentors.
  • Spend around 90 percent of your time on what you don’t know and the remainder putting what you know to good use.
  • Be an avid reader and on the lookout for new ideas.
  • Listen to people who don’t disagree with you.

4. Taking risks with humility

Dalio became popular in the early 1980s when he pointed out that American banks were overloading Latin American countries with debt. He was proved right when Mexico’s president announced that his country was not able to repay its debt amounting to $80 billion.

He became the go-to person on financial issues. Analysts and the U.S. Congress sought his advice on what would happen next. He predicted that the American economy was headed towards a downturn.

It didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite happened. Stocks went up and the U.S. economy was in a bull market. Dalio was wrong and lost money for his clients. He had to borrow money from his father to pay the bills.

After recovering, he realized that he was not going to stop taking risks, but was going to do so with humility and a changed mindset. He became more open-minded and diversified his portfolio. He has tried to maintain a perfect balance between what he knows and doesn’t.

5. Don’t build walls in your company

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is personalizing their departments so much that the employees are isolated from each other.

Dalio suggests that employees should be allowed to mingle as much as they can in order to share knowledge and motivate each other to perform their jobs better. Having no walls allows team members to bond and increase productivity when they work together on projects.

This does not literally mean that companies have to break down walls and have an open office space. It’s all about encouraging communication amongst employees and possibly having an open-door policy where employees can feel comfortable approaching each other with their problems.

Conclusion

One of the traits of intelligent people is learning from the experiences of others. Whether it’s value investing in Singapore or learning a new language, it makes sense to learn from those that have traveled the journey before you.

The investment world is filled with successful figures such as Dalio, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and more. They have made a few mistakes along the way. We should learn from them. These great leaders also teach us what it takes to be a great leader. There is no shame in copying what is right and noble.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Setting up a Business|Why Isn't My New Business Making Any Money?

Why Isn’t My New Business Making Any Money?

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Setting up a Business|Why Isn't My New Business Making Any Money?When you finally take the plunge to escape the rat race and set up your own business, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. You have dreams of making lots of money, customers come flooding in and all of your financial worries just melting away. But of course, this isn’t the case most of the time- starting a company is hard work and things probably won’t take off as quickly as you think. Here are some of the reasons why you’re yet to make much (or any) money in your venture.

Be patient

First things first, you might need to just be patient. It can take time to build up a reputation online, for those first customers to start posting reviews and making recommendations. It can take a few weeks for any marketing efforts to show their effects. Try not to panic and give it a little time, as long as you’re sure you’re doing everything else right- you might just need to be patient.

Improve your website

Have you set up a free or cheap website as a way to get your business online but without spending much money? Even if your site looks ok, it’s always going to lack the sleek professionalism that you can only get with an experienced web designer. Customers are picky and have high expectations, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you run. If they think your site looks cheap or amateur, it’s easy for them to assume that rest of your business is run the same way. Your website really is an investment, it’s essential for success and something to consider improving if you’re not making much money.

Better images

Stock images from the internet lack the personalisation that customers will be looking for. You don’t want to look like any other bland business out there, you want to be unique and sand out. This is impossible to achieve when you’re using images that people have seen online hundred times. Invest in good images for your company’s website, this could be things like professional model shots to show clothing or products or photos of your staff on a ‘meet the team’ page for professionalism. Show whatever it is your customer is going to be buying. If you’re a corporate business, photos of your team and office can help give clients that sense of who you are- it makes things feel more personal.

Marketing efforts

If you’re not reaching the right people, it doesn’t matter what your business does or sells- you’ll simply never sell enough to make a profit. Don’t just wait for customers to stumble across you, use a marketing agency or a hire a professional to run things for you since they will have the skills and expertise needed. In many cases, a lack of sales can be fixed by marketing. If you know you’re selling good products or services that people want, it might be a case that you’re just not reaching the people who are likely to buy from you. Marketing can fix that.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership|Three Ways to Become a Better Leader

Three Ways to Become a Better Leader

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership|Three Ways to Become a Better LeaderLeaders are made and not born. That’s a saying that has stood the test of time and is true whether on the sports field or in the boardroom.

If you don’t consider yourself a natural leader but need to find ways to inspire your team on towards success, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we take a look at three great attributes of a leader, attributes you can learn as you go.

Step out of your comfort zone and start making a real difference to your business.

1 Get Organised

With your time, with your paperwork, with your approach and with the details, such as appointing your business immigration attorney. Seeing someone in control and on top of the details shows your team that you take them and their roles seriously.

Not being up to speed on their annual leave requests and so on, sends out a signal that you’re not interested or don’t care about the small details that mean a lot to them.

Instead, show them that you’re the kind of person who leads by example. Who is able to prioritise and who pays attention.

2 Lead, not Boss

This is where so many managers fall down. Quite simply you will get the best from your staff if you lead them, if you’re in the thick of it with them. Gone are the days of the boss sitting several floors up in a glass office away from the hub-bub. Now, you need to be available and to be involved.

Demonstrate your tenaciousness by driving forward sales and working to the best of your ability but also back your team. It’s true to say that sometimes things go wrong and people get things wrong but that doesn’t mean you then have to start throwing your weight around along with blame.

Instead work together to look for solutions and to move the situation forward. This is the kind of behaviour that will inspire loyalty and hard work.

3 Respect Boundaries

When work is over for the day, it’s over. Your team members should see you leading the way by leaving work at a consistent time and making it a priority to spend time with your family. Respect the home lives of your team members too and try to avoid having them spend too much time working late but instead encourage a healthy work/life balance.

You might even give them the option to work from home when childcare is an issue or the trains are not working as they should.

Being in charge is a tough role and a lot of responsibility lies on your shoulders, so give yourself time to grow and relish the role of becoming a leader. Treat your staff as your best asset and find ways to motivate and inspire them as they give their all and help you to achieve your business goals.

As you grow into your leadership role, your team will respond with even greater good will, so work together and become the leader you know you’re capable of becoming.

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |HCM|5 Ways HCM Can Improve Talent Recruitment

5 Ways HCM Can Improve Talent Recruitment

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |HCM|5 Ways HCM Can Improve Talent RecruitmentThe right talent is essential for the success of any organization. However, sometimes it can be difficult and even time consuming and expensive to find the right people to work for you. Choosing the wrong person for the job can ruin your reputation and bring your profits down. Thus, no matter what it takes, you have to do your best to find the right talent. One of the steps you can take to make the recruitment process more successful is to use a human capital management (HCM) system. Such a solution can be helpful in five key ways

Job Posting

An HCM system can simplify the process of sending out job posts or Ads. With most systems, you can share the post to job forums and even social media directly from the platform. You will also get an option for employee referrals. Referrals from your employees have higher chances of turning out right because they are like recommendations from people you know. However, you still need to do thorough screening for the referrals, just like you would for the other applicants.

Applicants Experience

Another key benefit of using an HCM system is that it can give the applicants a great experience during the entire process. As a business, you should strive to build a good reputation, not only with your customers but with potential employees as well. You can make a good impression on potential employees by providing a smooth application process and proper communication after one has submitted their application. When you offer something short of that, applicants will have a bad impression about your business and may leave before completing the application or getting feedback. By investing in a good system, you can avoid losing top talent along the application process.

Timely and Personalized Communication

Generic messages aren’t good for both the employees and the applicants. With a good system, you can send personalized messages to all your applicants. A personalized message shows that you appreciate the effort of your applicants. And with such appreciation, the applicant may be disappointed if they don’t make it but they are less likely to walk away bitter.

One Dashboard

Another benefit of having an HCM system is that you can track everything from one dashboard. With one dashboard, you can avoid duplication and repetition. Also, when everything is being coordinated from one centralized place, there will be better collaboration among the parties involved in the hiring process.

Background Checks

HCM software (also referred to as human capital management) includes background checks. Examples of checks you can complete using the software include criminal record checks, identity, and employment checks. However, note that while these checks are useful, they may not be comprehensive. You will have to do more checks by yourself before making a decision to hire someone.

With the right HCM software, you will be able to recruit and hire the best talent without spending so much time or going through so many struggles. However, it is important to remember that not all systems have the same features. The benefits you get will depend on the features of the system you choose. Thus, check the features well when shopping for software for your business.