Jason Peterson

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You don’t necessarily have to sacrifice one to achieve the other. All companies must eventually make sales if they want to last as a business. And to make sales, you need to work on marketing — or getting your brand and products in front of potential customers and detailing the reasons why they should pass their hard-earned cash off to you. But while earning sales is one of the main goals of good marketing, some efforts can sometimes come off too “salesy,” turning off customers with far too insistent and persistent language and messaging. Today’s consumers crave more transparency from brands, so marketers must work to balance their sales pitch with their brand’s authentic voice. Drawing on their own experiences as business leaders, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council weigh in below on how brands can balance authenticity and marketing when developing their unique brand story and why it’s so important to do so.

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Leadership skills can never truly be mastered, as they are something that should evolve over time. Professional development is often focused on improving yourself and your skills to help you move up in your career. The better you are at something, and the more skills you have, the higher on the ladder you can climb. But no one ever truly reaches perfection — not even leaders. Learning doesn’t stop once you become the boss. In fact, it’s even more important that you continue to learn as a leader if you want to grow, innovate and succeed as a business. So what are some of the things you can learn? Here, 12 business leaders from Rolling Stone Culture Council discuss the things about themselves they have had to work on improving over the years and why it’s so important other leaders do the same. 

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Letting customers get to know your brand on a deeper level can drive long-term loyalty. Customers are more informed than they ever have been before — and they’d like to keep it that way. In fact, a recent study by Sprout Social found that 86 percent of Americans believe transparency in business to be more important now than ever. They want to know who they’re buying from, what they stand for and what it truly is they’re purchasing with their hard-earned dollars. This knowledge can help drive loyalty and trust among consumers, earning businesses repeat sales and a stable customer base. But what are some of the ways companies can give customers more behind-the-scenes insights? As business leaders in the culture space, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council have a few tried-and-true tips to share. Consider their advice to incorporate more opportunities for transparency with customers and have a positive impact on your company's overall reputation.

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Don’t let a few roadblocks keep you from trying your hand at business ownership. No business is without its challenges. Even the most successful of companies today started out as simple ideas that had to be worked on and evolved over time. And with about 20 percent of businesses failing to make it past their first year, it’s not uncommon for the obstacles in the way of entrepreneurial success to become too difficult for aspiring business owners to overcome. In the culture space, where so much of a company’s success depends upon the trends and desires of the day, carving out a secure space in the market can be an even greater challenge. For those entrepreneurs willing to take the leap, the business leaders of Rolling Stone Culture Council discuss 10 key hurdles aspiring business owners will need to overcome if they want to succeed in the culture space today — and why doing so will make them stronger over time.

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Learn what it takes to turn your workplace into an environment where employees want to grow their careers. As new generations enter the workforce, a shift in employee expectations has challenged traditional approaches to retention. Offering competitive salaries is no longer enough — today’s employees want more from their workplace experience. This changing environment has made long-term employee retention feel increasingly difficult for many businesses.  To help, Rolling Stone Culture Council members share what it takes to build a workplace where people want to stay and grow. Follow their recommendations to make your workplace a destination employees won’t want to leave.

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Navigate around these common branding pitfalls to strengthen your reputation and boost audience engagement. For today's businesses, managing a strong online presence is just as important as delivering quality products or services. However, boosting your company’s brand can be difficult in a saturated online space, and there's no shortage of potential pitfalls that can undermine your reputation. Below, Rolling Stone Culture Council members explore common mistakes businesses make when promoting themselves online. Their insights can help you avoid these missteps, increase audience engagement and strengthen your brand’s overall marketability.

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These strategies can make it easier to break through productivity blocks and accomplish more during your workday. With the constant barrage of emails, meetings and distractions, finding real focus and productivity in your workday can be challenging. Many professionals struggle to maintain momentum long enough to finish a project. However, the right techniques can help boost concentration and productivity on even the busiest of workdays. Here, 15 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share their favorite techniques for staying on track and explain why these strategies work so well in a busy work environment. From using time-blocking methods to taking strategic breaks, these tactics can help boost focus and efficiency, even when you're in a productivity slump.

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Just because you've fallen out of contact doesn't mean you can't reach out and pick up where you left off. Reconnecting with someone in your professional network after time apart can feel a bit awkward, but it’s also a valuable opportunity. Rekindling these relationships can open doors to new opportunities, collaborations and insights while strengthening your professional connection for the future. According to members of Rolling Stone Culture Council, reaching out in a thoughtful, genuine way can help you meaningfully rebuild those connections. If you’re looking to reestablish relationships within your network, these expert strategies can guide you toward doing so with authenticity and impact.

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To persuade a brand to work with you, first think about how you can help them. In a saturated market, it can be difficult to stand out — especially on your own. A great way to reach new audiences and leverage resources that may not normally be available to you, however, is to collaborate with another business in, or even outside of, your industry. A product or campaign that takes advantage of both teams’ strengths may be just what you need to get you both noticed by potential customers. However, approaching another company can feel intimidating, especially if you’re a small business and unsure of what you might bring to the table. According to the business leaders of Rolling Stone Culture Council, taking the following eight steps can help boost your confidence. Here, they offer up their best tips for approaching another brand or business about a collaborative partnership and what you can do to guarantee their interest.

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Even while courts and regulators fail to act expeditiously, we as an industry can and should do more, and quickly.

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Your business should always be improving, even when things are going well. There’s no doubt that the internet has fundamentally changed the way consumers shop. In fact, Nasdaq research estimates that 95 percent of all products will be purchased via the internet by 2040. That means more and more businesses taking an e-commerce approach, and more and more competition companies will have to contend with in the online space. For those businesses already online, there are steps you can take now to begin improving your site’s overall experience and building more customer loyalty. Here, eight business leaders from Rolling Stone Culture Council each discuss one smart digital marketing move e-commerce businesses can make to improve their overall success in an increasingly competitive market and why they’ll help ensure your success now and in the future.

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These steps can help create the kind of culture that employees will love to brag about. For a business leader, to empower your employees is to give them the tools, resources, support and courage they need to do their jobs well. While constant monitoring and micro-managing may have been a popular management style in years past, today’s leaders are looking for ways to weave empowerment into the very core of their company’s culture, ensuring every employee is able to contribute their best work. However, creating such a culture may require a significant shift from what currently exists in your organization. To build more collaboration, encouragement and positivity into your work culture, consider the following advice from the business leaders of Rolling Stone Culture Council.

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The key is to focus on your cause and not your business. Whether it’s donating to a cause, giving their time and resources to those in need or partnering with a nonprofit organization, there are many ways for businesses to get involved in philanthropy. But while the main motivation behind doing good in their community may not have anything to do with scaling their business, telling stories of impact and philanthropy can be a great strategy for boosting business growth.  The trick lies in how to tell these stories thoughtfully and sensitively in a way that will resonate with consumers across the board. As business leaders and master storytellers themselves, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council have a few tips for getting it right. Below, they offer up their best advice for telling compelling stories of impact that will lead to enhanced growth.

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For leaders looking to make the most of AI while also protecting themselves, these ground rules prove essential but are just a foundation from which to begin.

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Your willingness to learn and grow has a major impact on your ability to win in business. The business world is full of ups and downs. One day you’re succeeding, and the next day you’re not. This can be especially true of the culture space, where trends can change daily and consumers’ opinions evolve equally as fast. Entrepreneurs who develop a growth mindset — or the belief that persistence and effort lead to success — are more likely to thrive in this type of environment, making it an essential trait to cultivate for culture space leaders. As leaders in the culture space themselves, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council know what it takes to succeed in today’s marketplace. Here, they discuss the top reasons why business leaders need a growth mindset and the impact that mindset has on their ability to lead well.

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A little support from leadership can go a long way. Filled with worry about the rising cost of living, the possible negative implications of AI in the workplace and increasingly unsustainable workloads, employees are feeling burned out. And with high levels of employee stress, both productivity and overall employee morale are negatively affected, meaning leaders are likely to have a growing problem from both a profit and personnel perspective if they don’t get a handle on it — and fast. However, the solution may be a simple one: support. According to the business experts of Rolling Stone Culture Council, showing your employees you care about them and their mental health and well-being is an essential first step to improving employee happiness and decreasing the cases of burnout. Here are the 11 ways they recommend you do so.