Traci DeForge

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Business inspiration can come from any number of places, and sometimes it's the last place you'd expect. When seeking inspiration, there are countless places you can turn to explore diverse perspectives and innovative ideas. For example, books, conferences or podcasts that cover topics both within and outside of your industry can provide fresh insights that can be applied to your own business challenges. Whether they're in a "rut" or just looking for new ideas to enhance their workflows, it's important for business leaders to find reliable sources of inspiration to guide them. Below, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members explain where they turn to for help with creative problem-solving or creating new products in their businesses and how other leaders can follow suit.

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It's not enough to simply define your brand mission — you have to live it every day. For any business, having a clear and meaningful mission is critical for success. To truly live up to that mission, however, you must ensure that it is consistently and clearly woven throughout all aspects of the business. Your brand's mission should be evident in the company's values, culture and day-to-day operations. To help you achieve this, 15 Rolling Stone Culture Council members each outline one specific step or action businesses can take to ensure their mission is fully integrated into their operations and why this is so important for the success and sustainability of the business.

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Your followers can be a huge source of creative and engaging content for your brand if you know how to ask for it. Whether it's fans writing articles for your website or submitting product photos as part of a contest, user-generated content (UGC) has become a key component of many modern brands' marketing strategies. This low-cost tactic can help you crowdsource new content ideas while allowing your audience to shine. Not only does UGC make customers feel more engaged with a brand, but it also supplements brand-generated content, saving your marketing department time and resources. To that end, eight Rolling Stone Culture Council members share smart and effective ways businesses can encourage followers to submit more UGC and make your marketing a little more customer-centric.

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As the amount of e-commerce channels and online competitors increase, businesses must choose the right tactics to stand out. The e-commerce landscape has evolved rapidly in recent years as more and more "shoppable" digital platforms emerge. Instead of only being able to make online purchases on a company's website or Amazon page, consumers can also buy products directly through popular social media apps like Instagram or Facebook. Though there are more avenues than ever to get discovered by potential buyers, there may also be a smaller chance of getting noticed among a growing sea of competitors. To help businesses stand out, 10 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share their top tactics for getting the most online sales possible.

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Tech's impact now will likely change how businesses move forward in the future. As technology constantly evolves, so too do the industries on which it has a major impact. This is certainly true of the culture space, where the way customers interact with — and the way businesses sell — food, music, fashion, film and more have changed dramatically over the years as new technologies and needs emerge. Below, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council describe some of the ways in which technology has recently impacted their businesses in the culture space and how these changes may alter the way they do business in the future.

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A new perspective could make a big impact on customer satisfaction. When interacting with customers or clients, there may be times when business leaders wish they could switch places with their customers, if only so the customers could view situations from their perspective. With their roles reversed, customers may develop a better understanding of why something went wrong or why certain things are the way they are, hopefully leading to greater customer satisfaction in the end. But while entrepreneurs and customers can’t really switch places, they can share their points of view. Below, nine business leaders from Rolling Stone Culture Council each shared one fact they wish all customers knew about running a business and the impact they think that knowledge would have.

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Encouraging growth and development sets up the employee and the company for future success. In business, creativity sparks creativity, and the more employees are allowed to learn and grow in their positions, the more ideas and innovation they are able to bring to their company as a result. Continued learning, therefore, can be a powerful benefit to the company and employees within it, offering them new and exciting challenges and opportunities for promotion and leadership. To encourage this growth and development, employers can opt for a multitude of strategies. Business leaders themselves, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council each shared the way in which they and their department managers inspire their employees to pursue continued growth and learning throughout their careers.

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Creating a mutually beneficial partnership means laying the groundwork for success upfront. When businesses partner together — whether for an ad campaign, product launch, promotion or any other reason — both should reap the rewards. But to ensure it’s a successful endeavor for all parties involved, there may be some necessary planning to do. While the process doesn’t need to be complicated, there are some important steps to be taken and considerations to be made before either business will feel satisfied. To shine some light on those steps, 13 members from Rolling Stone Culture Council list some of the key actions to take to make sure your next partnership is a successful one.

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The only certainty about the future of work is change. An important part of an agile work culture is increasing flexibility in order to adapt to the changing needs of your employees. As the pandemic and its effect on the workforce have proven, change is inevitable and it’s important now more than ever for companies to adopt more agile practices and policies. Luckily, agile work cultures aren’t exclusive to any one industry, and any company at any time can start to build one. To help get you started, seven leaders from Rolling Stone Culture Council each suggest one step companies can take to build a more agile work culture and explain why it’s important to do in order to keep up with an ever-changing workforce.

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The culture space is nuanced and unique and entering it doesn't always turn out exactly how you think. It’s easy to come into any business with preconceived ideas about that particular industry; however, many industries in the culture space are complex and ever-changing. Once you start to build a company, you’ll likely learn there’s much more to each industry than meets the eye.  Realizing you had misconceptions about your industry may lead you to rethink certain strategies and decisions about your business. Fortunately, it's rarely too late to change course based on the knowledge you learn from experience. Below, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members shared some myths and misconceptions they had about their specific industries when they started out, and how those assumptions were later proven false.

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If your messaging feels inauthentic, consumers will walk away in favor of a brand that's more genuine. Today's consumers can spot inauthenticity from miles away. They prefer buying from brands that are "real" and honest about who they are. However, it’s not uncommon for businesses to unintentionally appear disingenuous in their marketing endeavors, especially if they're just hopping on the latest trends in the hopes of going viral or getting likes on social media. To help you avoid this pitfall, 15 members of Rolling Stone Culture Council shared some signs of inauthentic marketing that a consumer is likely to spot. Here are some things your customers might call you out on and what you should do instead.