Runners may get caught up in the idea that in order to see gains, you have to do more. However, experts say that running is an individualised sport, and the volume and intensity to perform optimally depend on fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibre predisposition.

Running is individualised

<ul><li>Fast-twitch fibres have a more powerful force but fatigue quickly. </li><li>Slow-twitch muscle fibers are less powerful but more fatigue-resistant. </li><li>Our muscles contain both types, but your personal ratio can vary.</li></ul> A 2020 study found that runners with more fast-twitch muscle fibres were more likely to suffer from short-term performance dips after periods of higher-volume training. It means that if you’re a fast-twitch athlete trying to push the same training as a slower-twitch athlete, it may actually make you get slower.

The difference between fast-twitch fibres and slow-twitch fibres

To find your specific muscle fibre ratio, plug a recent 5K time into a race equivalency calculator, then compare it to your marathon results. <ul><li>If a 5K time suggests you can run a 3:59 marathon, but your real marathon time is 4:10, you may be stronger at shorter races that need fast-twitch muscle fibres.</li><li>If your marathon time is 3:45, you may have more slow-twitch fibres.</li></ul>

Establish your specific muscle fibre ratio

Most people aren't suited for higher mileage. Professional athletes go home after their workouts; they're eating well, they're stretching and sleeping. The average person with a full-time job is likely not sleeping enough and knows it's unsustainable to put that much volume in their running. Furthermore, pushing higher may result in getting broken down and injuries.

Lifestyle factors play a role

Examples of lower mileage training plans:<ul><li>Athletes can do two harder but longer-distance sessions per week, with a shorter recovery run the next day.</li><li>Athletes can run four or five days per week with just one hard workout, such as 200-meter intervals. Long runs with varied intensity count as a quality session. </li></ul> Expert trainers advise you don't need to supplement your days off with another form of cardio to cross-train. Cross-training sessions depend on your schedule and motivations. Other experts believe it's better to let your body fully recover on days you're not running.

How to pack more quality into lower-mileage training plans

Regular strength workouts is a key component to strong performances. For example, a combination of weight-lifting and plyometric exercises, such as 5 sets each of barbell squats, weighted box jumps with dumbbells, and non-weighted box jumps, as well as separate 20-minute banded exercise sessions.

Strength workouts

<ul><li>You’re constantly dealing with soreness, fatigue, overuse injuries, or aiming for high numbers for their own sake.</li><li>If you get out for a run, are breathing normally, and running at a pace that should be easy, but you find that your legs just don’t want to move.</li><li>Watch out for an increase in your resting heart rate. You need to make serious adjustments if it is more than 10 percent for a couple of months.</li></ul>

Signs of overtraining

<ul><li>Listen to your body and write down notes that you’ll learn from.</li><li>Comparison can steal your joy for running. Social media only tells a fraction of the picture. We continually forget what works for us and then get scared or insecure based on what we see others doing.</li></ul>

Take personal notes and avoid comparison

For some runners, from recreational to sub-elite and even the pros, less truly is more when it comes to reaping gains.

Stashed ideas

In Defense of Running Lower Mileage (Just Hear Us Out)

Researchers, founders and executives insist that running can teach essential lessons in sticking with big goals and mental toughness. Olympic distance runner Alexi Pappas's advice from one of her running coaches is to use the rule of thirds: "Whenever you're chasing a big dream, you're supposed to feel good a third of the time, okay a third of the time and crappy or not great a third of the time." "If you feel too good all the time, you're not pushing yourself enough, and if you feel too fatigued, you might be burning out."

How hard you should push yourself when chasing big dreams

The rule of thirds is for looking back at your progress and seeing if you should push yourself more or less. Feeling lousy is not a sign that you're not good enough or doing something wrong. Instead, it means you're trying to do something ambitious. To maximize your progress towards challenging goals, <ul><li>you should be well outside your comfort zone (feeling lousy) a third of the time.</li><li>Feeling lousy much more is risky.</li><li>Feeling lousy less means you're not putting in enough effort.</li></ul>

Resilience in rule form

If you don't feel lousy a third of the time, you're probably not aiming high enough, says Alexi Pappas.

Use This Olympian's 'Rule of Thirds' to Chase Any Big Dream

<ul><li>All too often, the only time customers hear from a salesperson is when they clearly have an agenda</li><li>Give your buyers credit, and be a resource to them always, not just when there's something for you to gain from it.</li></ul>

Buyers only hear from you when you want something

<ul><li>If a customer or prospect makes a request of any kind, do your best to accommodate them. If you can't, acknowledge their request, let them know you've tried to fulfill it.</li><li>Use a content experience platform so you can organize, tag and access your content easily and quickly whenever a specific content request is made.</li></ul>

When customer requests are ignored

There are many shades of friction, but three, in particular, can sour your customer's experience fast.<ul><li>Trouble accessing the content you share. Maybe you send a link that leads to an error or a landing page that won't load. </li><li>Sending a great piece of content at the wrong time. Timing is crucial.</li><li>Unclear next steps. If your content is high quality and helps a buyer to see that they want to work with you, it should be immediately obvious how they can do so.</li></ul>

There's friction with your content experience

Many organizations are still failing to connect the dots between content and an elevated buyer experience. To help you avoid making the same mistakes, this article outlines three customer experience breakdowns that happen all the time.

3 Customer Experience Breakdowns That Buyers Hate

While many IC-level developer tools offer free trials that let developers take the product for a test drive themselves, enterprise POCs and trial periods address a different kind of buyer pain point: exploring a potential (and likely significant) in a new solution.A paid pilot sets expectations for what the period is about: evaluating your product as a long-term investment. Asking your customers to pay a token fee is an important qualifier for long-term successful deals

Frame your POC as a “Paid Pilot.”

POCs or paid pilots should be framed in the context of a full-year contract, with the ability to terminate at will. Setting the pilot period up this way means you’ve already jumped through the <a href="https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/customer-security-questionnaires-the-vra-two-step/">legal and security hoops</a> you’ll inevitably face. When the customer decides to convert from the pilot to the full-term contract, you won’t need to slow down to negotiate details. You’ll be able to keep up your momentum and build on the results you’ve shown during the pilot.

Start with a Contract

Many POCs are set for a 90-day period. But a full quarter feels like a long time, and the task of implementing and evaluating your product can easily get lost among the team’s other priorities for the quarter. Instead, aim for a 30-day paid pilot. A one-month pilot pushes your product to the top of the to-do list and drives urgency for stakeholders.You can always leave the option open to extend the POC for another 30 days if needed

Stick to a Short Time Frame

Pick a single KPI that will have a measurable business impact (e.g. engineering time saved, increased revenue) and frame the pilot in terms of that goal. Only pick one KPI; the point is to share the sharpest, most focused vision of success you can, and the more goals you have, the less clear your impact will be. It’s okay if you pick aggressive KPIs.You just have to show that you can move the needle.

Define Clear Goals for the Pilot

One of the most common mistakes that companies make during their POCs is doing all the heavy lifting for the customer. Enterprise SaaS POCs are about showing business value, and they require an investment of resources from your customer. In order for a POC to be successful, there has to work on both sides.Set the expectation that your POC is a partnership between your team and your customer’s team to ensure that they’re ready to commit the time and resources needed to get it off the ground.

Set Expectations for Shared Responsibility

A well-run paid pilot, or trial period can be the key to capturing and converting prospects, especially as you move upmarket. But POCs can be challenging to execute well.

Heavybit is the leading fund for developer and enterprise startups. From pre-Seed to Series A companies, we help teams achieve breakout commercial success. 

How to Execute SaaS POCs that Convert | Heavybit

Elon Musk is revered as one of history's greatest innovators. But what makes him so brilliant is that his genius is rooted not in an abstract complexity, but in straightforward simplicity. 
He doesn't pursue every idea or innovation that comes to mind. Rather, he fields them using his simple "innovation equation" to determine if they are indeed worth pursuing. It's a crucial step many entrepreneurs overlook, leading them into a blind pursuit of something that might be great, but not great for them.

The Innovation Equation

According to Musk, "What matters is the pace of innovation, access to resources, and raw materials." So, entrepreneurs can quickly and easily gauge whether they have what it takes to turn their wild idea into reality using this simple equation.
It breaks down into three basic questions:
<ul>
<li>How long will it take you to build?</li>
<li>Do you have access to the right resources?</li>
<li>Can you obtain the required raw materials?</li>
</ul>
For any entrepreneur, this is a critical step in the pursuit of a startup. Not only can it save you a great deal of time, money, and energy.

Having What It Takes To Turn Ideas Into Reality

Time matters, though it's not necessarily that you need to be able to build something the fastest. But you do need to be able to innovate in a timely manner.
Especially when those looking to innovate are typically those looking to innovate quickly and stay ahead of the competition. In many instances, it can be something of a race, and with immense competition across just about every field, being at the head of the pack can help you be successful.

Factor 1: Pace of innovation

With the right pace, you also need access to the right resources. This is because resources indicate your ability to innovate. Without them, an idea is simply just an idea, and pursuing something without the necessary resources will cause you to spend more time pursuing resources than innovating.
Ask yourself if you have the resources at hand (or within reach), from the right network to the right people, to be able to innovate the way you plan to.

Factor 2: Access To Resources

You need to have the physical resources, or raw materials, available to be able to innovate. Raw materials are often something that holds startups back in terms of speed.
But trouble sourcing raw materials can also be to the detriment of a startup that depends on them.

Factor 3: Raw Materials

This simple three-part lesson can save you a great deal of time, money, and energy.

Elon Musk Reveals His Innovation Equation. It's an Easy Way to Gauge If a Business Idea Is Viable

We’re in the best period in history to be a freelancer or solopreneur. There’ve never been more opportunities and there’s never been lesser of a barrier to entry.Portfolios of work, pitches, and resumes might still have some relevance — but they’re no longer nonnegotiable pre-requisites to attracting clients.

The Freelance World Has Changed

The best way to attract clients in 2022 is to build your own brand online.When people see your build an engaged following, when they see you write so well for yourself, they want you to do the same for them.This is just how the human brain works today. We’re conditioned by conglomerates to compare and contrast our lives with what we see online. We’re hard-wired for comparison, we see something appealing online, and we want it too.Leverage this inherent human tendency to attract clients without even trying.

Building Your Online Brand

The reason proof of work is overrated in the online world today is that your online presence — if you’re good enough, is the proof of “work”.You see, as creators — we build our following online for fun because we genuinely like the process. We sometimes forget how much “work” that process actually is. Only when we get offers to be paid for it do we actually realise how much “work” we’ve put in.Clients trust you when they see that you’ve already written a whole library of great content for free.

Proof Of Your Work Is There For All To See

<ol><li>Try out different things until you find something you love doing.</li><li> Once you find what you love doing, prioritize it.</li><li>Go a few months at the very least without getting any money or attention in return.</li><li>That’s why you have to really love what you’re doing — in order to keep going without any validation and reward in the beginning.</li><li>Practice in public and get good at it.</li><li>Focus on getting better and don’t think too much about the returns. </li><li>If you’ve stuck to it for long enough and gotten good, opportunities will finally start coming to you without you having to go looking for them.</li></ol>

A Blueprint To Follow

Pitching, scouring freelance platforms for gigs, and trying hard might work — but they’re extremely boring and demotivating. Rejections hurt.Building your personal brand online takes boredom and rejections out of the equation.You won’t get bored because you’ll be doing what you love. You won’t get rejected because they’ll be coming to you.

Branding Yourself

<ul><li>Everyone likes talking about themselves, that’s all you really have to do when it comes to building a brand online.</li><li>‘Building a content brand’ is just a fancy way of saying — speak about yourself in a way that will help your audience.</li><li>If you do this with patience and persistence, you’ll get all the rewards you can possibly imagine.</li></ul>

The Bottom Line

We’re in the best period in history to be a freelancer or solopreneur. There’ve never been more opportunities and there’s never been lesser of a barrier to entry. Portfolios of work, pitches, and…

F*ck Pitches. Do This and Clients Will Come To You Instead.

<ul><li>Get owner’s compensation right and stop playing games with distributions.</li><li>Breakeven is 10% pretax profits.</li><li>Labour efficiency is the key to profitability. Manage your salary cap and build a team culture around labor productivity.</li><li>Forecasting is better than budgeting. Spend 75% of your time looking ahead at what you plan to make happen and 25% of your time reviewing actual performance.</li><li>Understand the economic value of your business so you have a baseline for equity decisions.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

<ul><li>Don’t confuse business profits with owner's salary.</li><li>You get paid a salary for what you do, and you get a return on what you own.</li><li>Until you pay yourself a market-based wage and plug that number into your financials, your financial data is worthless.</li><li>If you got run over by a bus today and your heirs decided they would keep the business going in your absence, what would they have to pay someone to do your job? Answering this question determines your market based-wage.</li></ul>

Owner's Salary: Why Your Salary and Distributions are Fogging Your View of Net Income

<ul><li>If you’re not able to pay yourself a market-based wage, then you’re operating at a loss.</li><li>Until you pay yourself a market-based wage—and make a profit on top of that you have a sick cow on your hands.</li><li>Your goal should be to create a business that generates income for you every day (cash cow).</li></ul>

Create A Cash Cow

<ul><li>Use sweat equity to compensate yourself when you can’t afford a market-based wage.</li><li>Sweat equity is the value you have created for your business through your unpaid work.</li><li>This concept helps you calculate your lost opportunity to earn market-based wages had you chosen to work elsewhere.</li><li>If you have outside investors, it gives you a way to balance the worth of your effort with the money they invested.</li></ul>

Calculate Your Sweat Equity

<ul><li>A high employee turnover rate is very expensive.</li><li>Fair does not mean equal. Two people are rarely worth the same amount of money.</li><li>Management by committee is an absolute failure as a business model. There has to be a clear leader even if the stock ownership is equal.</li></ul>

Market-Based Wages For All

Pretax Profit = Total Sales – (COGS + Operating Expense + Interest Expense)<ul><li>Pretax profit is the profit you make after you take all your sales minus all your costs, before you pay taxes.</li><li>Focus on your pretax profit. Interest, depreciation, and amortization are real numbers that you need to consider in the profit calculation.</li><li>If you can’t pay yourself a market-based wage, the first thing to focus on is getting your business profitable.</li></ul>

Profit: The Importance of Pretax Profit

Gross Profit = Revenue – COGSDo NOT include direct labor costs in cost of goods sold.Cost of goods sold typically includes pass-through costs like finished goods, materials, and subcontractors.By focusing on gross profit instead of revenue, most businesses from any industry can be compared side to side.Contribution Margin = Gross Profit – Direct Labor

Gross Proft And Contribution Margin

<ul><li>The target for pretax profit is 10%.</li><li>By the time you’re at the breakeven point, your business is already dead.</li><li>The best businesses operate between 10 percent and 15 percent.</li></ul>

Breaking Even Isn’t Good Enough

The “black hole” exists between the $1 million and $5 million in revenue.This is a time in your business growth when you’re forced to add staffing and infrastructure before you can really afford to.One of the keys to success is continually upgrading your staff.The need to add management infrastructure seems to naturally occur when you have about twenty employees typically, when you’re between $2 million and $3.5 million in revenue.

The Black Hole

<ul><li>Hire slowly, fire quickly.</li><li>Use the topgrading concept of hiring when it comes to interviewing and selecting candidates.</li><li>Use personality profiles as part of the screening process.</li><li>Beware of hiring the “been there, done that” credential. Ask yourself why that person is available.</li><li>Hire young. These young people are like sponges, and they want to absorb knowledge and information.</li><li>Don’t take a trail-and-error approach to hiring. Follow a process and make an informed decision.</li></ul>

Hiring 101

<ul><li>Your “capital safety net” is calculated by figuring how much cash you need to hire the people you need, then estimating how long it will be before your business can pay the new hires and still remain profitable.</li><li>Prepare a cash flow forecast by month for the time period of the expansion to determine your capital needs.</li><li>If you don’t have the capital, but still want to go on a journey through the “black hole” then you’ll need to raise capital.</li></ul>

Your Capital Safety Net

<ul><li>Focus on your gross profit per labor dollar as your key indicator for labor productivity.</li><li>Stay at the 10% pretax profit mark every step of the way by adding labour only at the last possible moment.</li><li>You can’t increase pretax profit by revenue growth alone. You improve your profitability by getting more productivity out of your labor.</li><li>The profit curve should ideally mirror the revenue curve. As revenue increases, you should maintain 10% profitability.</li><li>Beware of labor creep as you grow. This is when you start hiring more people than you need to take care of the annoying tasks in your business. </li></ul>

 Labour Productivity: Your Key to Surviving the Black Hole

<ul><li>Determining your salary cap is the best way to achieve your required labour productivity.</li><li>Nonsalary costs include all fixed and variable costs, including COGS, that are not paid labour.</li><li>In the example below, your salary cap for the year is $500,000. This is how much you can spend in total on wages, including all salaried and hourly employees.</li></ul>

Determining Your Salary Cap

<ul><li>Managing the salary cap is the key to improving profits.</li><li>If you are exceeding your salary cap, decide what to do about it. Are you going to hold wages constant until you hit your profit target, are you going to cut staff, or are you going to do some of both?</li><li>Once you get to 15% pretax profit, then you can add employees to drive your profit back down to 10% again. Work your way back up to 15% and repeat.</li><li>If you try to raise your salary cap when you have only 10% pretax profit, you’ll drive your profit down toward 5%, which is the danger area.</li></ul>

Managing Your Salary Cap

<ul><li>Before you spend money on anything, you have to set the taxes aside.</li><li>Don’t pay taxes until you absolutely have to without incurring a penalty.</li><li>But until you pay the taxes, you have to set the money aside and get it out of your financial calculations so you know it isn’t yours to spend.</li></ul>

Business Physics: The Four Forces of Cash Flow - #1. Paying Your Taxes

<ul><li>You can’t build wealth until you get out of debt.</li><li>People who take a low- to no-debt approach can handle bad economic news because they live more stable and productive lives.</li><li>If you borrow money, you have to forgo any after-tax profits because you have to repay debt with those profits.</li><li>Do not confuse debt with capital. Capital is the cash you leave in the business to fund your receivables and inventory for normal business conditions, and debt is financing for special cases.</li></ul>

#2. Repaying Debt

<ul><li>As a general rule of thumb, your core capital target is equal to two months of operating expenses in cash and nothing drawn on a line of credit.</li><li>Your core capital target forces you to pay for accounts receivable, inventory, and equipment with capital or term debt.</li></ul>

#3. Reach Your Core Capital Target

<ul><li>Capital formation is the sum of sweat equity, the money you invest, and after-tax profits that you keep in the business.</li><li>Consistent profits over time allow you to build equity by keeping those profits in the business, which then allows you to hit your core capital target, which then allows you to have excess cash that you can take out without damaging your business’s ability to grow or deal with struggles.</li></ul> <ul><li>Most entrepreneurs who have businesses between #1 million and $5 million need to build up a foundation of $2 million of liquid, safe, core assets that give them stability.</li></ul>

#4. Taking Profit Distributions

<ul><li>Paying yourself with distributions instead of a salary to avoid payroll taxes (S-Corps).</li><li>Getting involved in offshore activities for the benefit of saving taxes only.</li><li>Intentionally miscoding personal expenses as business expenses.</li><li>Bartering by way of trading legitimate business expenses for something that is for your personal benefit.</li><li>Not filing tax forms for subcontractors.</li></ul>

Common Areas of Tax Fraud

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

<ul><li>Document your culture and how it ties into your profitability as a business.</li><li>The more you document it, the easier it is to live it and maintain it.</li><li>Send an email at the beginning of the week that highlights one segment of our culture document to let everyone know what our focus of the week is.</li><li>A company with great culture and no profits is going to die.</li><li>You have to make sure your culture doesn’t excuse people from getting their jobs done.</li></ul>

The Lip Service On Culture

<ul><li>Companies that underpay employees tend to struggle in the long run due to high employee turnover.</li><li>You also can’t assume that if you pay higher wages you’ll get more productivity.</li><li>Never give employees a cost-of-living adjustment.</li><li>What you pay them should be within a market-based range for their role.</li><li>Years of experience often don’t count for much. The important thing is what people know and if they have the capacity to produce.</li></ul>

The Salary To Give To Employees

<ul><li>Your employees need to understand what is expected of them in terms of productivity.</li><li>The best way to accomplish this is through the employee review process.</li><li>You need to have a formal meeting with each employee at least twice a year.</li><li>Focus on career planning and career path in employee reviews.</li><li>Help employees understand that they are welcome to work at your company as long as you both are getting a fair exchange.</li><li>It’s the responsibility of the CEO to provide employees with a vibrant environment, a fair wage, and a good culture.</li></ul>

Evaluation Process is Key

<ul><li>Throwing money at a problem doesn’t change the outcome.</li><li>Most entrepreneurs look to incentive plans as a substitute for management and leadership.</li><li>It’s usually more effective to use small amounts of money along the way to recognize outstanding achievements.</li></ul>

Be Careful With Incentive Plans

<ul><li>Capital (Equity) = What you own (Assets) – What you owe (Liabilities)</li><li>Capital is used to purchase assets, such as inventory and equipment, and allows you to have the proper amount of cash on hand to meet your core capital target.</li><li>Debt is NOT capital. The bank does not provide you with capital. They give you debt.</li></ul>

 The Three Sources of Capital: How to Get Money and Effort to Play Nicely

<ul><li>Look to your own resources first before you go borrow money elsewhere.</li><li>If you start a business with your own money, you’re going to defend it to the greatest degree.</li></ul>

Source #1: Use Your Own Money

<ul><li>Not all businesses can be funded with debt. Sometimes you need a long-term investor.</li><li>Use investor money as a last resort.</li><li>You tend not to be as careful because it’s not our money. It makes it easier to postpone difficult decisions.</li><li>When you use OPM, you have to be clear about the investors’ expectations and let them know you’re not giving them a salary. They get a salary only if they do a particular job within the business operation.</li></ul>

Source #2: Other People’s Money

Least understood and least measured form of capital (yet it’s the most common!)If you can’t afford to pay yourself a market-based wage for your efforts, then you’re going to have to defer payment and work for it.The trap that most people fall into is believing that because they have a low wage, they can live off the profits of the business. It’s better to live off your savings and let your sweat equity build capital in your business. Then pay yourself a market-based wage when your business reaches 2 or 3 percent pretax profit.

Source #3: Sweat Equity

Keep your reporting simple while still being able to recognize a flashing red light that indicates a problem.The more frequently you look at a report, the less data it should contain.

The Golden Rules Of Reports

<ul><li>Knowing the economic value of your business helps you identify when the business is underperforming, what price it should sell for, whether or not you should keep it, and how to structure an offer for shares.</li><li>The economic value of a business is typically based on the last three years of pretax profit plus the equity in a business.</li><li>This approach takes into account not only the economic activity of the business, but also how well it is capitalized.</li><li>The valuation will be lower if the business has a lot of debt.</li></ul>

Economic Value: How to Know What Your Business is Worth to You

There are five basic elements that combine to drive the profits that are used to establish the value of your business: customers, employees, processes and know-how, core capital, and intellectual property.Profitability, salary cap management, and the four forces of cash flow are all contained these five elements of value.#1. CUSTOMERS#2. EMPLOYEES#3. PROCESS AND KNOW-HOW#4. CORE CAPITAL#5. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The Five Basic Elements of Value

This book teaches the fundamentals of owner compensation, profit targets, labour productivity, cash flow, and data reporting. Clear explanations and helpful illustrations throughout make it a must-read guide for small business owners looking to achieve higher profits.

Simple Numbers can guide you to increased business profitability Take the mystery out of small business finance with this no-frills guide to understanding the numbers that will guide your business out of any financial black hole. Author Greg Crabtree, a successful accountant, small business advisor, and popular presenter, shows you how to use your firm's key financial indicators as a basis for smart business decisions as you grow your firm from startup to $5 million (and, more ) in annual revenue. Jargon free, and presented in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, with plenty of real-world examples, Crabtree's down-to-earth discussion highlights the most common financial errors committed by small businesses, and how to avoid them. You'll be fascinated to learn: Why your numbers are lying to you (and why you are the cause ) How labor productivity is the key to profitability and simplifying human resource decisions Why the amount of tax you pay is your #1 key performance indicator Take advantage of Crabtree's years of experience teaching clients how to build successful businesses by ''seeing beyond numbers'' with this step-by-step guide to increasing your businesses profitability.

Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits!

The first turnoff is the sheer amount of information stuffed into a typical job description. Paragraph after paragraph give the history of the company, the markets it serves, the job profile, the competencies and experience required, and an endless stream of responsibilities that the winning candidate will have to fulfill.
Scale back the prose. Think of how much better you’ll look if you communicate clearly and concisely. Include information about the company and the job, but don’t include anything superfluous.

Too Much Information

It seems like it should go without saying, but job descriptions should make companies sound likeable. Too often ads have no “sell” in them. They read like a shareholder’s report. Rewrite your job description to make your company appeal to the hearts and minds of candidates.

Sounding Unappealing

Companies can also up their game in describing their culture.
A typical line from a job description: “We have a culture in which each employee is respected and valued. Every employee brings unique skills, background, and experiences.”
What companies need to do is talk about culture in terms that elicit enthusiasm.

No Information On Company Culture

Poorly written job ads often read like wish lists, rather than actual requirements. One might say you need five years’ experience, but actually, you don’t. You probably only need 6-8 months. By putting a laundry list of skills that a candidate supposedly needs, companies end up missing out on amazing candidates. Instead, companies should list only the requirements of that role, and add “nice to have” qualifications to that list.

Inflating Job Requirements

Ever seen a job ad like this? “We need a seasoned, strategic storyteller who can help effectively message, plan and execute media strategies that capitalize on our industry-leading momentum.”
Instead, why doesn’t the writer just say, “we need a candidate who can deliver effective stories about our company to the media.” The more words that are used, the less clear a passage is. Is this company looking for a candidate who comes into the interview and says, “Hello, I am a seasoned, strategic storyteller.” Not likely.

Too Many Adjectives

A related problem in job ads is their failure to use real language. This can be a huge turnoff to job seekers. 
Expressions like “strong, deliverable focus” and “execute projects” in job ads read as overly formal and lack clarity. For example, what does it mean to have a “strong, deliverable focus?”
Or what does the following passage mean? “You will define key multi-channel communications strategies to support our company’s priorities.” It’s nonsense!
A good exercise for the folks writing these ads is to read the lines out loud. If they don’t sound real, get rid of them.

Jargon

Hiring companies should include a salary or salary range in their descriptions. 
Holding back this information puts the prospective employee at a huge disadvantage, as it means that they have no idea whether the job is a good fit. This also wastes a company’s time and resources, as you may have candidates who go through the application process, only to drop out near the end.
By posting a salary range, you can set yourself apart from competitors, and qualified candidates will likely appreciate your commitment to transparency and to correcting pay inequity.

No Salary Range

Too many companies are making these common (and costly) mistakes when looking for qualified candidates.


7 things companies get wrong when writing job descriptions

Without buy-in from your company’s rank and file, even the cleverest AI-derived model will sit idle and “data-driven decision-making” will just go around in circles. Companies need to start seeing regular people as part of their data strategy. Data teams must work with regular people every day, develop a feel for their problems and opportunities, and embrace their hopes and fears surrounding data, then focus on equipping people with the tools they need to formulate and solve their own problems.

The Key Takeaway

To drive the importance of regular people home, consider the process of completing a data science (big data, analytics, artificial intelligence) project. In general, this requires five steps: understanding the problem, collecting and preparing the data, analyzing that data, formulating the findings, and finally, putting those findings to work. At each step, regular people have a critical role to play — as collaborators, as customers, and as creators of the data used — and there are serious consequences for not including them. Doing each step well depends on regular people.

The Importance Of Regular People

Many managers, unconsciously perhaps, have debilitating pre-conceptions about people. They view them as part of the problem — out-of-date, ill-suited to the rigors of data, and resistant to the new ideas. Large numbers know that data is increasingly important, have great ideas for making improvements, and want to create opportunities for themselves. Engaging them is simply not that difficult.Leaders and companies need to reboot their outlook and see people as part of the solution. Managers need to “start small,” asking people where they see opportunity.

See Regular People as Part of The Solution

Real gains come when companies and leaders start to see data as a means to empower people — a way for them to minimize the mundane parts of their jobs, take a measure of control, unleash their creative juices, learn new skills, lean into the satisfying parts of their jobs, and advance their careers. You will have to adopt a pro-active attitude, provide some encouragement and training, and help.

Data As A Means To Empower People

Companies simply must realign a substantial portion of their data science, quality, architecture, and monetization programs to engage regular people.To do this, data teams must work with regular people every day, develop a feel for their problems and opportunities, and embrace their hopes and fears surrounding data. They must focus less on big data and more on equipping people with the tools they need to formulate and solve their own problems. Data teams must seek joy not in a clever model, but in business results and the successes of those they serve.

Re-Orient Your Data Programs to Get Everyone Involved

Every data project should start with two questions:Who will this effort touch?How do we get them involved as soon as possible?Then ask those people to work with you — and have a good answer when they ask, “what would you like me to do?”

Two Questions Before Any Data Project

A small team of regular people, having been trained and supported by an embedded data manager, sorts out the data it needs to complete its work, measure the quality of that data, identify, then proactively attack the root causes of their data quality issues, making them go away, forever. There is a resonant theme for data teams here — a shift from an “inside-out” to an “outside-in” perspective. And it will lead to a redeployment of personnel: towards strategic problems, towards small data, towards rooting out quality issues, and towards empowerment.

A Better Way Than Cleaning Up Of Data

Regular people are fully involved with data everyday — they are customers of data created upstream and they are creators of data that others will use; they use data to make decisions and complete their work; they are guardians of the company’s data assets; and they can be small data scientists and collaborators, customers, and data creators in larger data science, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation initiatives.

Clarify Expectations and Get on With It

Companies need to design projects around the employees who actually use them.

Your Data Initiatives Can’t Just Be for Data Scientists

Perfect storytelling through childhood stories helps us get what we want. Humans love to listen to stories because they entertain and captivate us as well as trigger essential hormones. Oxycontin causes us to build trust, generosity, and a personal connection. Endorphins can make someone laugh or help them deal with fear, pain, or uncertainty. Dopamine leads to a desire to know what happens the next time you tell a story with peaks and cliffhangers.These hormones are helpful for product managers as they can allow them to use stories to plan and solve problems

Why Stories Are Important

A story can be used to unite people as it allows one person to get others excited. Companies with iconic brands are good at telling stories, yet most organizations are unaware that good storytelling can help solve problems.<a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/why-every-product-and-ux-leader-needs-to-be-a-storyteller/">Stories are a perfect design tool</a> since everyone can create one, they’re easy to iterate on, and they help you gain more clarity. Storytelling might be the missing piece when a product isn’t going to plan, not another addition to the roadmap.

What Stories Do

A good story paints a picture of a desirable future. It makes it clear why someone should become part of this future and suggests a common goal with just enough information to make the next steps clear for listeners. For product managers, this means getting others to buy into a strategy and make trade-off decisions during the product creation process. It also helps users and customers understand the value of the product and how it could upgrade their lives.

Creating and Telling a Good Story

<ul><li>Make time: A good story can save hours of meeting times trying to convince stakeholders. </li><li>Overcome the fear of the blank page: Start with a simple solution of “We want to ___. In order to ___. Because if we don’t, ___.”</li><li>Decide who is at the centre: This can either be the customer or your team. </li><li>Check if the story is painting a desirable future: Explains why the audience should want to be a part of that future.</li><li>Run casual interviews: Talking to your team can enable you to get a sense of any internal reservations they may have. </li><li>Create a sense of urgency and present information that enables action.</li></ul>

Craft Your Story: Tips

There are three ways to get your message or story across: written, spoken, or illustrated. A short story should be no more than 150 words or 75 seconds. A medium story should be 900 words or 6 minutes long and can be broken down into three acts of a play of 300 words each. In this approach the simplest thing to do is to tell the audience what you will tell them, tell them, then repeat what you told them for emphasis. Finally, a long story can be broken down into three acts of 800 words each or no more than 18 minutes long. Here pictures and illustrations can be useful.

Making Your Message Stick

The key takeaways from this talk are that humans automatically think in stories and <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/hooked-connect-engage-and-inspire-with-storytelling-by-yamini-naidu/">good stories trigger something in us</a>. They can be useful to facilitate group work, and storytelling is a skill that everyone can learn; it only takes a few ingredients and structures to get started.

Product Leadership Coach Petra Wille provides tips and frameworks for product managers to improve their storytelling capabilities. 

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Jessica Delgado
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Jessica Delgado
@jessicadelgado