I remember many years ago when Tom Shoes debuted their “buy-one-give-one” business model. It was revolutionary at the time and no one else seemed to be doing it.

Back then, I was developing a business idea for my business school’s pitch competition. Two classmates and I decided to model after Tom Shoes and pitch a business called “Rice2Rice,” which would give a bowl of rice to those in Nepal for every curry bowl sold.

Our idea won by a longshot and we received first place. Why? Because we put forth something into the world that was deeply needed—a business that partnered with consumers in making positive change.

It’s 2017 and we now confront even more global challenges than we did when Tom’s Shoes was launched. This type of business model is no longer an early adopter approach, it is a necessity.

While giving may seem counterintuitive to profit, it’s actually proven to increase earnings. One 15-year study found businesses who supported a good cause outperformed the S&P 500 fourteen to one.

That’s because 83% of consumers today are making conscious buying choices and selecting companies that support social and environmental causes over those that don’t. Millennials, who represent $2.45 Trillion in spending power, are 66% more likely to purchase from brands who do good.

So just how do you make your business a force for positive change in the world?

One co-founder has created a step-by-step methodology to start a business or adapt your existing business to this “do-good model.”

Meet Dmitriy Kozlov, the co-founder of Vision Tech Team and the founder of Maverick NEXT, a network for exceptional entrepreneurs under age 25. He’s also a contributor to the newly released book “Evolved Enterprise” by Yanik Silver that has been endorsed by Sir Richard Branson that teaches entrepreneurs how to start companies that make more profit by making more impact.

Kozlov calls these do-good companies “evolved enterprises” because they are leveraging business as a vehicle to create powerful global solutions.

This week on the Unconventional Life Podcast, Kozlov shares what it takes to create an evolved enterprise.

Align With A Cause You Stand Behind

With more global issues than we can count, it shouldn’t be hard to find a cause that works to combat an issue you care about. It’s essential that you have a personal stake in it, whether you or someone close to you has been personally impacted the issue, because otherwise your business will lack real drive—if you find yourself in a rut, you may not be able to withstand the pressure and withdraw from the cause altogether, appearing inauthentic to consumers.

“Choose wisely where you invest your heart because that’s the life force that will matter most,” Kozlov says.

Make A Real Impact

The bigger the impact you make in the world, the easier it is to rally consumers behind your product. In other words, don’t be stingy—donate a significant portion of profits to your cause.  Consumers can sniff out when you’re only supporting a cause for the sake of the badge from miles away, and it may have the opposite effect of deterring them from your business.

Some of today’s most successful evolved enterprises include Bombas, a sock company that netted $2 million in revenue in its first year by donating a pair of socks to a homeless shelter for every pair sold, and Barnana, a banana snack company growing at 130% annually by eliminating waste on food farms.

Be Transparent

90% of consumers want to be informed about the concrete ways you’re benefiting your cause. They are partnering with you in using their dollar to make an impact, and it’s your responsibility to inform them about the results.

Be transparent and notify your customers when significant milestones are achieved, whether through your website, your product label, or your email list. When you share your achievements, your customers participate in the positive feeling and will continue to buy from you.

The book “Evolved Enterprise” sold 12,000+ copies within days of its release at more than double the shelf price by partnering with buyers to lift an entire African village out of poverty. In being transparent about his intended results, Kozlov was able to enlist others in his cause who were happy to help.

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

We live in the age of the smartphone. Just about everyone and their mother has one, and it is attached to them at the hip.

Most of us can’t go anywhere without our phones, let alone go just fifteen minutes without checking them. One study found the average Millennial checks their phone five times an hour, every hour, and spends a third of their waking day on their phone.

By 2020, 70% of the global population is expected to own a smartphone—that’s 6.1 Billion smartphones!

With so much of our time and attention being poured into these tiny devices, the least we can do is make positive use of it.

That’s exactly what one entrepreneur is doing with his new software that empowers smartphone users to report crime and assist in rescue efforts.

Meet Jon Fisher, the founding CEO of CrowdOptic, a cutting-edge technology in partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprises that is leveraging the smartphone revolution to create a safer world. Fisher is a veteran inventor behind several well-known technologies with multi-million dollar acquisitions. He’s also the author of “Strategic Entrepreneurism,” and one of American City Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

This week on the Unconventional Life Podcast, I interviewed Fisher about his latest for-good software, CrowdOptic.

Fisher says the idea for CrowdOptic came to him one day when he was watching boats race across the water, his favorite pastime. He wanted a way to determine the location of the moving boats, but he realized the technology didn’t exist yet.

So he did what every ordinary person in that situation would have done—he decided to invent the technology himself.

With three successful exits under his belt, the Silicon Valley tycoon is no stranger to tech startups. He’s got a trusty team of engineers who have worked with him on every project for the past 25 years. That kind of trust, coordination, and partnership is invaluable.

“These 15 people I work with, most of them I date back to 20 years. And we wear that as a badge of honor,” Fisher says.

In 2015, Fisher and his team launched CrowdOptic.

It’s essentially a software for your smartphone that lets you determine the precise GPS coordinates of a moving target.

Pretty cool, right?

Here’s how it works—”you have a couple of satellites that look down on your phone and know through triangulation the location of your phone,” Fisher explains. “You know how you hold up your phone to take a video of something significant in the world? With this new software, we know where they’re aimed. We can find the precise location of what you’re looking at through your device, where the object of interest is.”

In layman’s terms, CrowdOptic kicks in when several phones are aimed at the same thing. In the event of a threat to public safety, like a fire or a bombing, it’s natural for people to take out their phones and hit record.

CrowdOptic is able to find the exact GPS location of what those phones are aiming at at so law enforcement and safety efforts can arrive at the scene in record time.

Fisher says the good CrowdOptic is doing is thanks to its new partnership with HPE. The Fortune 500 giant specializes in intelligent livestreaming, which, paired with CrowdOptic’s software, has applications for virtually everything imaginable: ambulance, emergency response, military, medical, and even sports events.

74% of Millennials say they want to make a difference in the world, but don’t know how. Today’s global problems can seem overbearing with no practical or tangible way to go about solving them.

Next time you see something that might be a threat to public safety, know that you’re equipped to help—the power to save lives is at your fingertips.

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

When I was twenty-three I had an idea to start a yoga retreats business.

I spent weeks building a website, finding business partners, and getting business cards made. I was sure it was going to be a big hit. The day we went live I expected the bookings to start flooding in immediately… but nothing did.

Thousands of dollars on advertising later I still hadn’t made even one sale. It wasn’t until talking to a yogi and asking for feedback that I realized my offer wasn’t what she wanted.

My story is all too common—so many entrepreneurs go all-in on an idea they thought would work, but ends up being a huge bust in the market. After putting so much time and money into their idea, they feel defeated. 

The good news is, if you’re considering starting a business, this doesn’t have to be your story.

You don’t have to go into business blindly. In fact, the most successful entrepreneurs never do.

“The most dangerous word in business is to guess. The most important word is predictability,” says Dane Maxwell, a serial entrepreneur who’s founded multiple 7-figure companies, primarily in the world of software.

At age 32, Maxwell has over a decade of experience in business, and he swears by one thing: predicting the success of a product in advance. He’s developed a methodology around idea validation that has proven to sell products with no guessing involved.

Maxwell has recently shifted gears to the music industry as a singer and songwriter, but the entrepreneur at heart is still applying the same methodology to sell albums. No matter your industry, the applications are endless.

This week on the Unconventional Life Podcast, Maxwell shares the five-step methodology to validate business ideas that has earned him millions.

1. Identify Who You Want To Serve.

Choose to serve somebody who you believe is doing real good in the world, somebody who you want to support and see succeed. In helping them, you align with their cause and become a force for that same cause to take flight in the world. A good way to decide who you want to serve is to look to your core values. For example, if you value health and personal empowerment, you might serve yoga studios.

2. Speak To Real People Within The Scope Of Who You Want To Serve.

Once you’ve figured out who you want to help, get in touch with them. This will take your business idea from abstract to concrete, by putting it to the test and actually seeing if your client finds it valuable and would be willing to pay for it.

Maxwell says the quickest way to do this is to call them. For example, if you’re serving yoga studios, you might select a specific yoga studio chain and call one hundred studios within that chain.

3. Get Your Foot In The Door.

When someone answers the phone, you might say, ‘I’ve got this idea I’m working on. I’m not sure if it’s any good, but I wanted to pitch it to you to see if it’s good.’ “I use that opener ever time,” Maxwell says. “I’ve never gotten a no from that.”

This line is powerful because it sets the other person up to listen from a place of gratitude and appreciation. They immediately shift gears into being open to receive value, willing to work with you to develop an idea that they would benefit from.

4. Find Their Biggest Pain.

Pitch your initial idea to the person you’re speaking with, but don’t be attached to it being the product or service that’s the most needed by your client (and thus the most profitable). After you propose your idea, listen to what the other person says—does your idea solve their biggest problem, or is there another problem they’d really like help with? Your goal is to identify your client’s deepest source of pain and to develop a product idea that will remove it for them.

“Here’s the truth about real businesses,” Maxwell says. “The common thing is that they all solve a painful problem. If you’re not solving a painful problem, you’re coming up with this nice-to-have idea. As soon as you come up with something painful you’re in business.”

In Maxwell’s new music venture, he’s still solving pain with his music. His newest album, The Vow, is designed to help people discover their life purpose.

5. Price Your Product.

While you’ve still got your potential client on the phone, ask them what they’d be willing to pay for your product. Does this price seem fair to you? If not, have a conversation to negotiate a fair price.

“You want to charge based on the end result you deliver,” Maxwell says. “You generally want to charge about 10% of the value. Say that you want to gravitate towards what feels fair for the both of you. With that you build so much trust. If the person says a price you don’t like, say you’d feel taken advantage of at that price. Be honest. You can literally just say that.”

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a minute of video’s worth 1.8 million, estimates Forrester researcher Dr. James McQuivey.

He’s speaking to the dramatic power of video in today’s age—with its ability to transmit infinitely more, dynamic, and fluid information per second than photo and text, video is becoming the gold standard for content today.

Between Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, 23 Billion videos are watched each day. Facebook posts with video get the highest engagement, with two-thirds of Millennials preferring to watch a video over reading text.

By 2019, video content is projected to make up 80% of all global Internet traffic.

Shifting to video as a primary mode of communication is no longer an option—it’s a must.

If you’re a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, leveraging video can help you spread the word about your business and ultimately gain more clients and sales. Sharing videos about your product or service can be an extremely effective marketing tactic, with 77% of consumers saying they’ve been convinced to buy a product after watching a video.

Incase you’re camera shy, I’ve consulted an expert about how you can be the most effective in crafting and delivering a message worth spreading.

Meet Cloe Shasha, a content and program producer for TED who works on speaker research, talk development, and TED’s newest audio series with Audible, Sincerely X. She’s also a contributor for the newly released book 3 Billion Under 30, which profiles influential Millennials who are changing the world.

On the Unconventional Life Podcast this week, Shasha provides insight into public speaking based on her experience with developing speakers’ talks at TED. She shares tips on how to think about what to speak about and how to share it with confidence and impact.

Learn From The Best

If you have little formal speaking experience, Shasha says the quickest way to become an expert is to watch and listen to skilled public speakers. One of her biggest role models is former President Obama.

Watch TED talks and other kinds of speeches, paying attention to things like body language, hand gestures, eye contact, intonations, and pauses. So much of communication is nonverbal, so it’s important to be aware of how you’re holding your entire body and what this is conveying to your audience.

Tell A Story

Our brains are much more engaged by storytelling than a list of facts. We remember stories easier because our brains can’t distinguish between an experience we’re hearing about and one that is actually happening.

Create an unforgettable experience for your listeners by telling a story. The best stories evoke emotion and the five senses to create a visceral experience. “What will people remember about your talk?” Shasha says. In addition to remembering the main idea of the talk, she also has seen that “people will remember the visceral things.”

There’s a big difference between being busy and being effective.

For most of my early entrepreneurial journey I often found myself spending hours at my computer only to look at the clock mid-afternoon to realize I hadn’t really accomplished anything.

It turns out this is a common thing for entrepreneurs—entrepreneurs work 63% longer than the average employee, working an average of 52 hours a week.

If you feel like you are always working but not advancing in your career one successful entrepreneur has a solution. He says there’s three skills he mastered to build his business to 7-figures in annual revenue in just two years. If you can master these skills, you’ll be able to put an end to “busyness” and advance your career in a fraction of the time.

Meet John Lee Dumas, founder of the daily business podcast for entrepreneurs “Entrepreneur on Fire,” which gets 1.2 Million monthly listens and generates 7-figures in yearly revenue. Entrepreneur on Fire has featured distinguished guests like Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Tim Ferris, and was awarded ‘Best of iTunes.’

This week on Unconventional Life, Dumas shares the three skills every entrepreneur should master to advance their careers in 2017.

Dumas says he can relate to feeling challenged in the early days of his entrepreneurial journey. When he first launched Entrepreneur on Fire, he had no experience with podcasting and had been told by his mentors it was a bad idea.

Though the odds were stacked against him, he saw a need for daily content for entrepreneurs and wanted to fulfill that need. “I wanted more content, fresh content every single day waiting for me and I didn’t understand why it didn’t exist so I decided to be the change I wanted to see in the world,” says Dumas.

Roughly four years later, Entrepreneur on Fire has become one of the most listened to and valued podcasts by entrepreneurs. Dumas has released over 1,500 episodes, which collectively have over 43 Million listens.

Dumas accredits his success to three key skills—productivity, discipline, and focus. He says these skills are the horsepower behind execution and separate those who follow through from those who don’t.

In mastering these skills, you can be sure you’ll be able to conquer anything in your path. Below, Dumas shares his tips to master productivity, discipline and focus.

1. Operate In Your Genius. Being productive is effortless when you enjoy what you do and you’re good at it. Dumas calls this your “zone of genius.” You can uncover your zone of genius with a simple 5-day exercise. Draw a line down the center of a blank piece of paper and label the left side, “things I enjoy,” and the right side, “things I’m good at.” For ten minutes each day, write down as much as you can on each side. Repeat the exercise for five days in a row.

2. Own Your Strengths. “We have way more weaknesses than we have strengths,” Dumas says. “The problem is people spend their time on all those weaknesses trying to be ok at something they’re crappy at. Nobody wants ok, you might as well stay crappy.” Forget your weaknesses; identify what your natural strengths are and work on developing them to a level of mastery. You’ll work your “discipline” and “focus” muscles in the process.

3. Outsource. You can free up a tremendous amount of time and energy with outsourcing. Check yourself by calculating your “hourly wage,” or the amount of money you make divided by the hours you work. If your hourly wage isn’t what you want it to be, consider hiring someone to do simple things like website maintenance or responding to emails that aren’t an effective use of your time.

4. Put The Blinders On. Those who try to do too many things at once rarely get anything done. Select one project you want to see to completion and make it the sole object of your focus until it is complete. Eliminate distractors and execute your project with laser-like focus for maximum productivity.

5. Plan. Your goals can feel overwhelming and unattainable when you don’t have a concrete plan of action to achieve them. Determine what your goals are and create a realistic plan with daily action steps that will take you to your goal. In creating your plan, make sure your roadmap is guaranteed to work. You don’t want to waste your energy doing things that don’t produce results. Your plan should give you confidence and peace of mind that every single day you are making progress and are certain to arrive at your goal.

6. Stick To A Routine. Routines are a great way to establish structure and hold yourself accountable to your best work. Dumas says he starts every day with running, meditation, and journaling to put himself in the frame of mind he needs to be successful. Maybe your daily routine involves coffee and rejuvenating breaks. Design a framework that will enable you to do your best, day in and day out. For even greater structure, check out Dumas’ Mastery Journal designed to guide you to productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days.

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com