One of the worst things that can happen during a boat outing is your vessel taking on water or worse, capsizing. So many things can go wrong on the water and at some point during your boating career you may be faced with the hard truth of a sinking boat. Maybe you hit a large wave, resulting in water crashing in or you’ve sprung a leak somewhere. Regardless of why your boat is taking on water, it’s important to know what to do and how to handle the situation. Here are some life-saving tips that can help you deal with a sinking boat.

What To Do If You Are On A Sinking Boat

If you don’t already have your life jacket on, make sure that yours is secure and ensure that everyone else does the same. It’s important to make sure that you put your jacket on first before you help anyone else. Make sure that your boat has enough life jackets and ones that fit appropriately. If there are children on board, be sure that they have properly fitting life jackets.

Wear A Life Jacket

Every boat should be equipped with an emergency VHF radio. They’re inexpensive and should be a requirement for any safe boater. When making your distress call, speak clearly and slowly. Be sure to announce the name of your vessel along with your coordinance, and a description of the emergency. It’s a good idea to give a description of your watercraft as well for when help arrives. Wait 10 seconds for a reply before repeating your distress.

Put In A Distress Call

If you're sinking boat isn’t caused by a crashing wave, there is likely a leak. Use old towels, seat cushions, or extra clothes aboard to plug a leak in the hull. Depending on what kind of boat you have and which side the leak is on, you can try to tilt the hole above the water by moving everything and everyone to the opposite side. This can slow or even prevent additional flooding.If you discover a burst hose, check to see if you are able to close the seacock to prevent additional water from flooding the deck.

Find And Plug The Leak

Your last line of defence when your boat is taking on water is to disconnect the engine’s intake hose and drop it in the bilge, causing the water levels to drop. Be sure to throttle back so you do not overheat the engine. Make sure you have thoroughly read your owner's manual before heading out on the water.

Use Bilge and Crash Pumps

<ul>
<li>Head Back to Shore: Regardless of how far offshore you are, start heading back to land. Get as close to shore as possible, avoiding high surf and large jagged rocks that could make things worse. </li>
<li>Take Necessary Supplies: When it’s time to call it quits and sinking is inevitable, don’t forget to take some important supplies with you. If possible, grab the emergency radio, a cell phone, food, and water. Keep waterproof bags aboard to help protect your supplies.</li>
</ul>

Tips And Further Advice

It’s important to know that no matter how much you prepare, accidents happen and situations can get out of control quickly. However, to prevent leaks and cracks in the hull, it’s important to perform regular maintenance on your boat. Properly store your boat out of the water on a boat lift when not in use. During off season months or period of prolonged inactivity, winterize and store your boat indoors. Be sure to check the hull regularly for any corrosion or possible cracks that can be quickly taken care of.

Tips for Preventing Leaks

Here's what you need to know to survive in these extreme situations

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Science & Nature

education

Learning & Education

travel

Travel

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Survival Tips

What to do When Your Boat is Sinking

Disasters are inevitable — at some point in our lives, almost all of us will have a brush with an earthquake, flood, tornado, blizzard or storm. But there's no use in worrying yourself sick; the best way to defend yourself against any emergency is to have a disaster preparedness plan.Disaster prevention comes in many forms, from knowing what type of emergency to expect and packing an emergency preparedness kit to prepping your home and knowing how to return to it when the coast is clear. Follow these expert-sourced disaster preparedness tips to ensure you have a foolproof plan in place.

A Disaster Can Strike Anytime

<ul><li>Earthquakes: They can happen in all states at any time of year.</li><li>Wildfires: High risk in forested areas with little rain, such as Southern California.</li><li>Floods: The most common natural disaster can hit anywhere, but especially in low-lying areas.</li><li>Tornadoes: "Tornado Ally" includes the states of TX, OK, IA, KS, NE and OH, which are on alert from March to August.</li><li>Blizzards: They can occur wherever the temperature drops below freezing.</li><li>Storms and Hurricanes: The East and Gulf coasts are at high risk from June to November.</li></ul>

The Various Kinds Of Disasters

Get notifications sent to your phone from your service provider or via a free app from <a href="https://www.fema.gov/mobile-app">FEMA</a> or the <a href="https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/mobile-apps.html">Red Cross</a>. Some employers use a service such as <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=74968X1525078&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapps.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Flivesafe%2Fid653666211&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodhousekeeping.com%2Fhome%2Forganizing%2Ftips%2Fa14162%2Fdisaster-preparedness-tips%2F&xs=1&xcust=%5Butm_source%7C%5Butm_campaign%7C%5Butm_medium%7C%5Bgclid%7C%5Bmsclkid%7C%5Bfbclid%7C%5Brefdomain%7C%5Bcontent_id%7C76cf516b-0173-484c-b620-8173be279bc9%5Bcontent_product_id%7Cb68f7760-83f0-4571-8922-0169d3adbafe%5Bproduct_retailer_id%7C">LiveSafe</a> to blast emergency info to their teams — see if your company or school uses it, and if so, download the free app.

Subscribe To Disaster And Emergency Alerts

If you have to leave your home in a hurry, you'll want to have some essentials packed and ready to go. Keep the following supplies, <a href="http://www.ready.gov/">recommended by the Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>, in a portable container or "<a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home-products/a33605583/bug-out-bag-list/">go bag</a>" in the area of your house where you'll take shelter.

Pack A Bag Of Essentials

<ul><li>Three days' worth of food and water (at least a gallon per family member)</li><li>Battery-powered (or hand crank) flashlights and radio</li><li>Extra batteries</li><li>First aid kit</li><li>Whistle to signal for help</li><li>Trash bags and duct tape, along with dust masks</li><li>Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities</li><li>Manual can opener for food</li><li>Regional maps</li><li>Cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger</li><li>Moist towelettes and any personal sanitation or specific family needs, like pet supplies</li><li>Some non-perishable snacks.</li><li>An extra small flashlight.</li><li>Some cash.</li></ul>

Emergency Kit List

When things get chaotic, you want to make sure that every family member knows what to do. We suggest designating two meeting places (one close by and one a little further away in your neighbourhood) and hanging a map with the spots marked near your emergency kit.Have important contacts written down if the power goes out and there's nowhere to charge your cell phone.  Leave a copy in your emergency kit, too. Establish a plan for checking in with relatives in case local lines get jammed. Text messages will often go through, even when phone lines are clogged.

Make an Action Plan

Keep important documents and papers that would be hard to replace sealed in a fireproof safe. If you have pets, make sure to include their vet records and their vaccination records; some vets and kennels won't admit your furry family without them. Veterans should make sure to include your DD-214, verifying your proof of military service. If flooding is common in your area, put documents in a zip-top bag or waterproof container as well.

Prepare Your Home

<ul><li>Passports</li><li>Birth and adoption certificates</li><li>Shot records</li><li>Social security cards</li><li>Leases</li><li>Titles</li><li>Deeds</li><li>Wills</li><li>Rental agreements</li></ul>If the power goes out and you have time, unplug appliances and electronics and turn off <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/g21286604/best-portable-air-conditioner/">air conditioners</a>, whether you stay or go. This will prevent damage when the electricity surges back on. Leave one lamp on so you'll know when the power's back.Invest in a backup home generator to keep your home running through extended power outages

List Of Important Documents

If water lines could be affected, you'll also want to fill your tub and turn off the line. Use this H2O for sanitation, like <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/a31225042/how-to-wash-your-hands/">hand-washing</a> and pouring down the toilet to flush it. If there's a risk of flooding and you have the time, move valuable or hard-to-replace items like <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/electronics/g37246593/best-laptops/">laptops</a>, antiques and heirlooms to upper floors to keep them from getting water-logged.

Take Care Of The Water

If you'll be inside for a while, weather the storm with <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/cooking/a31944889/best-non-perishable-food/">nutrient-dense, shelf-stable items</a>:<ul><li>Canned tuna/salmon</li><li>Canned black beans</li><li>Olives</li><li>Mixed nuts</li><li>Dry-roasted edamame</li><li>Dry-roasted chickpeas</li><li>Whole-grain instant rice</li><li>Boxed grains like quinoa, buckwheat or sorghum</li><li>Olive oil</li><li>Olive oil/canola oil</li><li>Low-salt veggie broth</li><li>Canned tomatoes</li><li>Canned veggies and other healthy canned foods</li><li>Garlic powder</li><li>Onion powder</li><li>Chili seasoning</li><li>Salt</li><li>Pepper</li><li>Soy sauce</li><li>Tomato sauce</li><li>Ketchup</li><li>Mustard</li></ul>

Food Shopping List

Don't let your family rush back into your home without taking these precautions.Look for damage outside. Walk around the exterior and check for issues like loose or fallen power cables, damaged gas lines and cracks in the foundation or in beams. If you have trees nearby, carefully assess their stability.Note sounds and odours: Especially hissing noises or a smell of gas.Check inside. If the power is still out, use a flashlight (not a candle — open flames can burn items or cause gases to ignite) to assess the damage.

Return Safely

Inspect appliances. For small appliances like coffee makers and toasters, look closely at the cords for fraying or exposed wires before using them again. Fridges, ranges and washers can be more complicated; call a service company to check the safety of connections and components, then replace anything that’s severely damaged.Document the damage. It may be hard emotionally, but if you want to file an insurance claim, you’ll need a visual record of all the damage with clear pictures and thorough notes before you clean up.

Inspect And Document

These expert disaster preparedness tips will help you weather any storm — be it a hurricane, blizzard, tornado, flood, wildfire, or earthquake — in the safest way possible. 

How to Prepare Your Home for an Emergency, According to Experts

Preparation and focus is everything. It’s better to be alert and avoid injury than worry about how or when to rush to the emergency room. <ul><li>Regularly inspect your kitchen appliances to ensure all is in working order.</li><li>Before you start to cook, ensure your work area is clean and dry.</li><li>Clean and dry floors will ensure you don’t slip.</li><li>Make sure your stovetop is clean and clear before using it.</li><li>Ensure your oven is empty and clean before you turn it on.</li></ul>

Safety Doesn’t Happen by Accident

<ul><li>Pets and kids: Pay close attention to little visitors, especially when handling anything sharp or hot. You also don't want to trip over pets hovering underfoot.</li><li>Clothing: There’s a reason restaurant cooks and chefs have a uniform: Long pants and long sleeves and slip-resistant shoes serve as protection. Loose, drapey clothing, long necklaces, and loose hair will make cooking more difficult as they can get caught on something or fall into the food.</li></ul>

Pets, Kids, and Clothing

<ul><li>Don't let flammable things sit near an open flame or heat source, such as fat or cooking oil, paper or packaging, or aerosol spray cans.</li><li>Don’t leave food on the stove or in the oven unattended—set timers to help you remember when to check on the food.</li><li>Know where your fire suppressant materials, such as baking soda, are. Ensure your fire extinguisher is in working order.</li></ul>

Don’t Start Fires

Learning the best way to handle knives is the easiest way to avoid cutting yourself.<ul><li>Learn basic knife skills.</li><li>Never cut toward yourself.</li><li>Ensure you are using the appropriate knife for each job.</li><li>Wash knives with blades facing away from you.</li><li>Knives should be kept clean and dry in storage, with the blades protected, not loose within a drawer.</li><li>Don’t walk with knives pointing out—hold it at your side, pointing down.</li><li>Don’t leave a knife dangling over the edge.</li><li>Never leave a knife in the sink with other dishes. It is bad for the blade and increases your chance of an injury.</li></ul>

Avoid Cutting Yourself

Mandolines are slicing tools designed for speed and accuracy. They’re also exceptionally adept at cutting off fingertips. Use the handguard or wear a metal mesh glove when using a mandoline. Get comfortable leaving that last nub of carrot, fennel, or union unsliced—you can always save it for stock.

Don't Cut Corners With Mandolines

The stovetop<ul><li>Never leave a burner on high heat unattended.</li><li>Never walk away from oil or sugar as it's heating.</li><li>If you’re making something that needs to cook for a long time at a low temperature, set a timer so you remember to check it often.</li><li>Don’t leave the gas on for longer than 10 seconds if it’s not lighting. Turn it off briefly to allow it to disperse before trying again.</li></ul> Pots and pans<ul><li>Always keep a potholder handy.</li><li>Open lids away from you, and watch out for steam when doing so.</li><li>Always use a folded up kitchen towel or pot holder when grabbing something hot.</li></ul>

How to Avoid Burning Yourself

While cooking
Don’t drop your food into the oil from as far away as possible. Instead, lower food into hot oil as close to the oil's surface as possible and away from you. Keep in mind that the oil level will rise when you add ingredients. Oil can quickly catch on fire if it overflows out of your pan.
While baking, roasting or using the broiler
<ul>
<li>Position your oven shelves prior to heating the oven.</li>
<li>Watch your wrists and forearms when reaching into and out of the oven.</li>
<li>When baking pies or cakes, bake them over a lined sheet tray to avoid letting anything drip onto the bottom of your oven.</li>
</ul>

Avoid Burning Yourself While Cooking or Baking

Rules for cooking safety at home: best practices for using knives, stoves, ovens, and other appliances to avoid common injuries.

food

Food

Kitchen Safety 101: How to Prevent Cuts, Burns, and Other Injuries

A startup is a company designed to grow fast…The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

The key to good “Cold Email Outreach” is not to come across as SPAM. Instead of trying to push a product or send a marketing message, keep the emails short and ask for help. Also, make sure you’re emailing the right person.<ol><li>Scrape lists of companies off the web </li><li>Create a list of all possible “title targets” </li><li>Provide the list of companies and title targets to a Virtual Assistant</li><li>Give the VA an email finder tool like <a href="http://sellhack.com/">SellHack</a> or <a href="https://www.toofr.com/">Toofr</a> so they can get you further details.Email Name etc</li><li>Clean the data with a tool like <a href="https://kickbox.io/">Kickbox</a> to eliminate any bad emails</li><li>Create sequenced email marketing campaigns</li></ol>

Cold Email Outreach

Keep it personal, short, and non-promotional. The subject line “{first name} — quick question” generally yields a 70%+ Open Rate after 3 touches (3 emails).Email content should be extremely brief: 2–3 sentences. Avoid formal language and business buzzwords.Personally, I find that taking the “product research” or “feedback” angle works pretty well. Gets people on the phone or clicking the link, and honestly, you should be just as happy getting feedback as getting the sale.Regardless of your strategy, AB test your messaging to see what happens to your Response Rate and CTR

Content of the email

The goal of the email is not to sell your product or your idea; generally people don’t care what you’re pitching. The goal is to get them to click, or to get them on the phone. Emails should be composed with this goal in mind

<ul><li>Brainstorm topics that would be useful or interesting to your users</li><li>Think of how that content intersects with your product</li><li>Write down the search terms that your users would search to find this info</li><li>Use Google's Keyword Planner</li><li>Cross-reference with Google Trends to find new terms that are gaining popularity</li><li>Create a content plan of articles on helpful topics using the best keywords</li><li>When you write, don't be too promotional about your product.</li></ul>

Content Creation

Start by asking yourself a few questions:<ul><li>What products/companies exist in your space that have similar client bases, but are non-competitive?</li><li>Is there a group of professionals (i.e. marketers, developers, designers, data analysts) that would find your product particularly useful and advocate for your product?</li><li>Are their agencies or other resellers of products and services that have clients who would benefit from your product?</li><li>What can you offer as a partner? Would your product drive more engagement for them? Is your client base valuable? Can you offer commissions on sales? </li></ul>

Partnerships, Affiliate Marketing, and Marketplaces

<ul><li>Set up an incentive program for selling each other's product</li><li>Find a deal that makes sense for both parties</li><li>One time payout: A lump sum of money is paid to the affiliate per conversion</li><li>Recurring: If you have a subscription plan with your client, you pass a percentage of the monthly or annual subscription along to affiliate for a period of time</li><li>Initial payout and recurring: A combination of the two aforementioned.</li></ul>

Affiliate Marketing

The process for gaining your first few clients isn’t so intuitive when you have a product that is less than a week old, and a bank account that’s at least several zeros lower than that of…

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

strategy

Strategy

business

Business

startup

Startups

How to Acquire Initial Clients for your B2B Startup

‘How’ limits you to your own knowledge, experience and capabilities. It requires you to engage your time, energy and attention into a particular task that may or may not matter. Worse, ‘how’ decreases your freedom of time.‘Who’, connects you with different knowledge, experiences and capabilities. ‘Who’ gets you desired results as effectively as possible. ‘Who’ immediately frees up hundreds of hours for you to put into stuff that really matters. Above all, ‘Who’ expands your vision for what’s possible, because you no longer see yourself as the sole entity of achieving the desired results.

The How Vs The Who

To succeed, you must put in the effort and become great at what you do. However, if you try to do everything yourself, you’ll end up diluting your energy/focus.The secret to true success and freedom is to focus your energy on the areas that leverage your strengths, creativity, and passions, so you can generate the greatest impact.

Go For Gold Using Your Focus And Energy

The “Who Not How” approach is not about exploiting others. It’s about building a collaborative network where each person can offer his/her unique strengths while leveraging others’ strengths.To find the right “Who”, you must:• Get clear on what you want.• Communicate your vision widely.• Ask “who can help me achieve this?”• Once you’ve found your Who, engage and support them to realize the shared vision.

The Who Approach Explained

Each of us has only 24 hours a day. How well you master your time determines how much you can accomplish. With the right “Whos”, you can focus on doing what you love and are great at, spend less time on the things you hate or are bad at, and tap on others strengths/resources. The outcome = exponentially better results, personal growth and less procrastination.

Gaining The Freedom Of Time

To really succeed and reach a higher level of performance, you have to shift from a How-mentality to a Who-mentality. By focusing on who you work with rather than trying to do everything yourself, you'll find your levels of achievement will rise at the same time as you get dramatically more freedom. It's a win-win situation.When you're thinking about a new project, or how to take your current project to the next level, think "Who Not How". Just this simple change of mindset can and will be a game-changer.

A Simple Change Of Mindset

Creating 10X or 100X results in your life and business may initially sound ridiculous, but it is fundamental to applying Who Not How. You need bigger goals. You need a bigger vision.  The only way to make your present better is by making your future bigger. Going 10X bigger in your vision, whether that be income or revenue or some other metric, forces you to get Whos involved, because the task at hand literally becomes impossible to do on your own. Those are the types of goals you need to start envisioning.

Creating 100X Results

Procrastination is the unfortunate by-product of asking ‘How’ instead of ‘Who?’ Most of the time when you’re procrastinating, you’re saying to yourself this goal is amazing, but you’re not the one to do everything necessary. There are countless brilliant and capable ‘Whos’ out there waiting and wanting to help you. But first, as a leader, you need to understand your vision well and clearly articulate it.

Killing Procrastination

To achieve the freedom of money, you must first achieve the freedom of time. And by achieving the freedom of time, you achieve the freedom of your mind and the privilege to focus on higher impact activities which automatically increase your income. Put it simply, improving how you spend your time increases your chances and ability to make money. And more often than not, what you need is the right ‘Who’ in a specific area of your life to eliminate decision fatigue in that area. Eliminating decision fatigue should be your primary goal if you want to achieve time and money freedom.

Time Creates Money

Extreme commitment comes from the clarity of vision and the autonomy to bring that vision to life in whatever way the Who sees fit. That’s why transformational leaders invest in their Whos. They challenge them, help them see the vision and ultimately get them committed as much as they do.

Committing To Specific Results

The belief that you can do all the Hows by yourself is rather a limiting belief. It’s not noble. It’s a scarcity mindset and cost avoidance. And trying to avoid costs by keeping it all on your shoulders only costs you in the long run.When you start to see Whos as an investment, rather than costs, you can 10X your results, develop transformational relationships and give more than you take. Better yet, when you start to see yourself as an investment, rather than a cost, you expand your freedom of time, money and energy.

Don't Avoid Costs, Spend To Avoid Problems

Never be afraid to say no to people and opportunities that don’t align with your vision and values. When you start to practice that and walk the talk, your team will become confident in you and your vision. And as you make even more courageous decisions based on the future you want to create, you make even bolder leaps toward your freedom and success.

Avoid Wrong Whos

It’s the collaboration, not ruinous competition, that gives birth to extraordinary results. You’ll never have all the answers, which is fine because you can always seek other people’s perspectives and solutions. Ask for help when you need it. People like to help. Why would you refuse to receive that exact same thing you give to others?

Start Collaborating

As you grow your Time and Money Freedoms, you’ll meet world-class mentors and collaborators who can bring you and your products/services to even greater heights. You’ll also have the flexibility to connect/partner with people you want to build relationships with.

The Freedom Of Relationships

With more Whos working on your goals, you’ll have more time to focus on the things that you’re good at. This allows you to increase your earning capacity and eventually attain the Freedom of Money (i.e. having enough money to solve most problems).

The Freedom Of Money

Each time you add a Who with complementary strengths/resources and fresh perspectives, you address your gaps/weaknesses, free up your time/energy for what matters most, expand your vision, and increase your freedom of time, money and relationships. You become truly free to pursue your dreams instead of getting stuck in the daily grind.

The Freedom Of Purpose

To really succeed and reach a higher level of performance, you have to shift from a How-mentality to a Who-mentality. By focusing on who you work with rather than trying to do everything yourself, you'll find your levels of achievement will rise at the same time as you get dramatically more freedom. It's a win-win situation.

The world's foremost entrepreneurial coach shows you how to make a mindset shift that opens the door to explosive growth and limitless possibility--in your business and your life. Have you ever had a new idea or a goal that excites you... but not enough time to execute it? What about a goal you really want to accomplish...but can't because instead of taking action, you procrastinate? Do you feel like the only way things are going to get done is if you do them? But what if it wasn't that way? What if you had a team of people around you that helped you accomplish your goals (while you helped them accomplish theirs)? When we want something done, we've been trained to ask ourselves: "How can I do this?" Well, there is a better question to ask. One that unlocks a whole new world of ease and accomplishment. Expert coach Dan Sullivan knows the question we should ask instead: "Who can do this for me?" This may seem simple. And it is. But don't let the lack of complexity fool you. By mastering this question, you will quickly learn how billionaires and successful entrepreneurs like Dan build incredible businesses and personal freedom. This book will teach you how to make this essential paradigm-shift so you can: • Build a successful business effectively while not killing yourself • Immediately free-up 1,000+ hours of work that you shouldn't be doing anyway • Bypass the typical scarcity and decline of aging and other societal norms • Increase your vision in all areas of life and build teams of WHOs to support you in that vision • Never be limited in your goals and ambitions again • Expand your abundance of wealth, innovation, relationships, and joy • Build a life where everything you do is your choice--how you spend your time, how much money you make, the quality of your relationships, and the type of work you do Making this shift involves retraining your brain to stop limiting your potential based on what you solely can do and instead focus on the nearly infinite and endless connections between yourself and other people as well as the limitless transformation possible through those connections.

teamwork

Teamwork

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

books

Books

The world's foremost entrepreneurial coach shows you how to make a mindset shift that opens the door to explosive growth and limitless possibility--in your business and your life. Have you ever had a new idea or a goal that excites you... but not enough time to execute it? What about a goal you really want to accomplish...but can't because instead of taking action, you procrastinate? Do you feel like the only way things are going to get done is if you do them? But what if it wasn't that way? What if you had a team of people around you that helped you accomplish your goals (while you helped them accomplish theirs)? When we want something done, we've been trained to ask ourselves: "How can I do this?" Well, there is a better question to ask. One that unlocks a whole new world of ease and accomplishment. Expert coach Dan Sullivan knows the question we should ask instead: "Who can do this for me?" This may seem simple. And it is. But don't let the lack of complexity fool you. By mastering this question, you will quickly learn how billionaires and successful entrepreneurs like Dan build incredible businesses and personal freedom. This book will teach you how to make this essential paradigm-shift so you can:   •  Build a successful business effectively while not killing yourself   •  Immediately free-up 1,000+ hours of work that you shouldn't be doing anyway   •  Bypass the typical scarcity and decline of aging and other societal norms   •  Increase your vision in all areas of life and build teams of WHOs to support you in that vision   •  Never be limited in your goals and ambitions again   •  Expand your abundance of wealth, innovation, relationships, and joy   •  Build a life where everything you do is your choice--how you spend your time, how much money you make, the quality of your relationships, and the type of work you do Making this shift involves retraining your brain to stop limiting your potential based on what you solely can do and instead focus on the nearly infinite and endless connections between yourself and other people as well as the limitless transformation possible through those connections.

Dan Sullivan is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Dan Sullivan has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Dan Sullivan's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Dan Sullivan

Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Dr. Benjamin Hardy has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Dr. Benjamin Hardy's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Who Not How

Over the past decade, companies have struggled with organizational designs that vary widely in how centralized or decentralized they are across functions. These organizational redesigns are often prompted more by who is designing them than by objective, fact-based decisions about what maximizes value. For example, when functional leaders design functions, they are usually more centralized (in pursuit of economies of scale and skill); when business-unit leaders weigh in, functions tend to end up more decentralized (in pursuit of responsiveness and control).

Striking the Right Balance 

In large, global multi-business companies, this dynamic may result in a struggle between functional leaders trying to achieve standardization and scale, and business leaders who feel they are paying for a large corporate overhead that is not sufficiently responsive to their needs. Underlying these issues are two problems: the lack of a strategic rationale for the current design and an unclear division of decision rights and roles between business-unit and functional leaders.

Addressing The Needs of Business Units

Functions in an organization continuously shift between centralized and decentralized modes, first centralizing to achieve efficiency, then giving power back to business units to spur responsiveness and accountability.Organizations implement tenuous “we’ll both do it” models that rely on collaboration and result in large and expensive functions, with business units finding ways to opt-out and act independently. Functional organizations follow an agenda that is not tailored to the needs of business units, so business units create shadow functions that add even more cost to the organization.

Common Symptoms And Scenarios

we believe companies need a new approach to set up functions that maximize business value and successfully serve business units. This approach is based on three core beliefs:<ul><li>Organizations should flip the script on traditional value assessment of functions and define functions by looking first at business-unit needs.</li><li>Defining “corporate” does not mean functions need to be one size fits all.</li><li>Not every corporate function is up for grabs. </li></ul>

Toward a New Approach

Safeguarding functions include those protecting the company from threats to survival by maintaining basic controls. These functions are almost always led by a corporate entity. Typically, they involve decisions inappropriate for a single business unit to make and often involve legal, risk, regulatory, or investor-related topics.

Safeguarding the Organization 

Shaping functions include those supporting the implementation of the organization’s strategic priorities and requiring one voice across the enterprise, such as branding, strategy and business development, communications, R&D, and centers of excellence (CoEs). The top team must always set the value agenda, but corporate functions, and to some extent the business units, should help shape it. In turn, business units should always be responsible for carrying out the value agenda.

Shaping The Value Agenda

Sharing functions serves needs across business units (for example, payroll, IT, and accounting). Sometimes, these functions can be aggregated to provide efficiencies of scale. Other times, they can be distributed within business units when needs are dissimilar. Sharing functions should be highly responsive to the day-to-day needs of business units.

Sharing Economies of Scale, Skill, and Scope

Putting these core beliefs into practice requires organizations to take three key steps: define the organizational strategy and ground it in how functions deliver value at the enterprise and busines-unit levels, take a BU-back approach to function design, and move quickly to determine how to allocate decision rights and responsibilities.

Employing a BU-Back Lens(Business Unit Needs)

Organizations must first determine the kind of business leaders they need to consult to understand the design requirements of a given function. To gain this perspective, executives must take a step back and <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/bridging-the-gap-between-a-companys-strategy-and-operating-model">consider the value narrative of the organization</a>. The overall narrative ensures all leaders are aligned on value creation and organizational strategy and enables them to make the trade-offs and decisions required to design an effective, efficient organization

Define The Organizational Strategy

Companies should identify the unique characteristics of the markets they operate in and the competitive dynamics within them. How do companies meet the needs of their core customers? How do business units differ in their response to those needs? What products do business units offer, what differentiates them from one another, and what cycle times does each one require?When this exercise is done correctly, a solid value-creation narrative for the organization will emerge.

Identify The Market

The next step is to determine how functions best fit into that narrative. Organizations must answer the following questions:<ul><li>What are the key decisions that business-unit leaders need to make, and what do they need to control? </li><li>What markets, products, and customer bases might require targeted functions? What shared needs could be addressed more effectively or efficiently if they were commonly tied across the organization?</li><li>Why are certain resources best housed at the centre? </li></ul>

Fitting The Narrative

The reason organizations struggle to define central functions is that they move too quickly to define how functions could add value rather than grounding decisions more fully in the needs of business units.Organizations often struggle to define their organizational strategies. They create an answer that sounds good but that results in a bloated, inefficient organization that often provides worse service.

Understanding Value Addition

Organizations should adopt a business-unit lens, or BU-back approach, when designing functions. Because value creation primarily happens within business units, activities of corporate functions should reflect the needs of business units. Functions should be set up only when a business unit absolutely needs them; the functions must then ensure they are fulfilling their promise to those business units.

Designing Functions

This business-unit leader has little to no control over most functions. Instead, this type focuses on pursuing business development and sales, often playing a role with a light touch in product development and in adapting products to local customer bases. This leader operates well with fully centralized functions and clearly defined service-level agreements. For example, companies with similar products across business units often choose this model.

Four primary Archetypes of Business-Unit Leaders: The Powerful Commercial Leader

This type of leader has control over functions, typically those requiring more localized oversight. Strong centralized functions best support this type of executive. For example, Procter & Gamble’s business-unit leaders are responsible for a range of functions such as product development, branding, advertising, and product positioning, but they also take advantage of global business-services groups (for example, IT support and accounting) because the needs in these areas across business units are similar and highly transactional.

Four primary Archetypes of Business-Unit Leaders: The Line-Of-Business Integrator

The empowered general manager controls most profit and loss (P&L) functions and plays a prominent role in shaping and executing the value agenda. However, this leader looks to centralized functions to support a narrow range of shared needs. There are two ways to set up functions in support of this archetype: a lean CoE in which resources may report directly to the business unit, or a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-helix-organization">helix model</a> in which business units make up the value line and functions make up a capability line that business units can tap.

Four primary Archetypes of Business-Unit Leaders: The Empowered General Manager

This type of leader controls nearly all the functions (except essential safeguarding functions responsible for risk mitigation), must manage P&L statements, and substantively drives the value agenda. These executives are often found in private-equity companies, for example, which require severable businesses that can be independently evaluated and easily sold.

Four primary Archetypes of Business-Unit Leaders: The Autonomous Business-Unit Leader

Once organizations have a clear view of what type of corporate-function setup is required, they can choose from nine different options:<ul><li>Fully centralized</li><li>Fully centralized shared services</li><li>Strong CoE, with some execution resources informally assigned to business units</li><li>Strong CoE, with some execution resources directed by business units</li><li>Helix organization</li><li>Lean CoE with enforcement ability</li><li>Lean CoE to promote sharing and adoption of best practices</li><li>Decentralized with formal networks</li><li>Fully decentralized:</li></ul>

Determine How to Allocate Decision Rights and Responsibilities

The balance between centralization and decentralization is a frequent, ongoing negotiation between business units and functions. Taking a BU-back approach grounds functional design in the needs of business units and enables organizational leaders to align on a common vision. Spending time up front on this holistic assessment will help ensure that functional decisions best meet the needs of the business and maximize the organization’s value proposition.

The Bottomline

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Economics

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Corporate Culture

Redefining corporate functions to better support strategy and growth

Andrew Chen writes in his book, The Cold Start Problem: Using Network Effects to Scale Your Product, how companies like Google, Uber, Dropbox, and Tinder use network effects to break through the competition and reach viral growth. Network effects describe how the value of a product or service depends on how many users engage with it. The more users engage, the more desirable it becomes.

How tech giants get so big

Many Silicon Valley startups have become so big because their products connect people. Products like Zoom, Dropbox, GitHub, even Microsoft Office are all different versions of this. Network effects have been around for a long time. Theodore Veil, the chairman of aT&T, stated in 1905 that the phone is useless. Its only value lies in letting you connect with people. It means that you can build a product with all the right features, but if you don't build the network alongside it that lets people connect in the right way, if your coworker's don't use it, your product will not be successful.

The key is to connect people

If two companies both build a note-taking app for personal use, it is one product vs another. But if it's collaboration, whenever one company wins a user, they possibly win their whole sphere of influence as well.

Scaling a minimum viable community

Networks have different underlying structures. The growth of companies like Uber is bound by geography. They are very successful in San Francisco, but that does not help them to gain popularity in London. Companies like Airbnb have a global network effect. A B2B example would be Zoom vs Slack. Zoom is used across organizations, but Slack is within an organisation. Ask yourself what your network looks like. Then consider how many users you need to make the network valuable.

Understanding context

Design your network features thoughtfully. You need to understand what you think your network will look like first. Is it a local network? Or a network more like marketplace companies like eBay?  Decide on how many users you need before the network is valuable. Zoom might be useful with two or three people, Slack with five or ten people in a team. Something like Airbnb or Uber needs hundreds of network participants in a hyperlocal region to work.

Don’t copy-paste other people’s features into your products

Products powered by network effects often follow an S curve. When growth slows down, you will need to find a new product. The Cold Start Theory stages:<ol><li>The problem. How do you get a team to use your product and get excited?</li><li>The tipping point. To get momentum, figure out how to get one team excited about your product so that they spread it to others.</li><li>Escape velocity. Consider how to build your product to spread inside of a company automatically.</li><li>The ceiling. Growth eventually slows down, and you hit saturation.</li><li>The sustainable moat. When everyone has network effects, how will you compete?</li></ol>

Following the S curve

First, you have to figure out the new network product that drives the rest forward. Big companies can easily get millions of people to a product launch, even if it is a bad product. But they may discover that it won’t stick over time.  The solution is to get small groups of people excited about your product, then move from network to network.

Hitting the ceiling

How to get past the "cold start problem" of zero users and build the networks that make your product successful.

Software may be eating the world, but building and scaling products is still quite a challenge. So how do you get past the awkward “cold start problem” of zero users and build the networks that make your product thrive? Andrew Chen, partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of The Cold Start Problem, joins Intercom Co-Founder and CSO Des Traynor to discuss.You can also listen to Andrew's previous outing on Inside Intercom here: https://www.intercom.com/blog/podcasts/andrew-chen-on-growth/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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On Inside Intercom you'll hear the team from Intercom interview makers and do-ers from the worlds of product management, design, startups and marketing.

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