This is the result of a year that has seen crypto gain unprecedented mainstream attention. The arrival of institutions in the space, culminating in Tesla purchasing 1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, was a huge moment in legitimizing cryptocurrencies in general. 

However, in the first quarter of this year retail investment outnumbered institutional investment in Bitcoin at a ratio of 187,000 to 173,000. This is in contrast to 2020 which saw institutional investment in Bitcoin outnumber retail investment. This indicates that despite the interest from institutions, crypto bull markets are predominantly driven by retail investment. 

The fact that retail is still the driving force in the market is indicative of the decentralized nature of crypto. However, it also means that for crypto to continue to grow it is important to be able to bring more retail investment into the space. Currently, most retail investors will have at least some exposure to crypto in their portfolio. 

Holding digital assets is not the same as actively engaging in blockchain protocols though. Despite the huge gains made in the DeFi market, the entire market cap of the DeFi industry is less than 15% that of Bitcoin alone. This indicates that although the mainstream are starting to invest more and more in crypto, they are still not utilising blockchain in an active way. With this in mind, crypto needs to bring a new demographic into the space that fully engages with blockchain. 

The NFT Solution 

There is no area of the crypto sphere that engages people in the same way that NFTs do and this could be the key to true mainstream adoption of blockchain. When the NFT hype earlier in the year died down, many people wrote NFTs off as a fad. However, we are currently seeing another massive surge in the market with the number of sales doubling between April and August. 

Generally speaking, crypto attracts people as a means to store wealth or as an alternative to banking. In other words, it appeals to investors and speculators. NFT collectibles on the other hand, are able to appeal to a totally different demographic. They engage people in a much more playful way and represent a totally different type of investment. Holders of NFT collectibles are looking to make returns, sure, but they are also members of an online community built around NFT cartoon apes or whales. They engage in lotteries and NFT drops trying to get a rarer version of a cartoon cat. The NFT collectible market is decentralized finance colliding with Pokemon cards. 

Lucky Maneki is a great example of different aspects of the NFT world. It’s an NFT collection on the Ethereum chain composed of 14,159 NFT characters based on Japanese lucky cats. They are programmatically generated from a combination of 410 variable characteristics so that each one is completely unique. Certain Manekis inherit “fortuitous” mutations that make them rare than others, qualifying them as either rare or Epic Manekis. An additional collection recently became available.

Holding one of these NFTs gives the owner a vote in the community and enters them into a lottery with a prize of 10% of the ETH collected from the protocol. The investor also has access to different quests (that reward players with cryptographic prizes), as well as the Lucky Bank, which contains funds to be used for community initiatives voted by NFT owners. 

The community-owned, decentralized ecosystem demonstrates the different layers of an NFT project. It’s a combination of investors and collectors that form a very active user base. It encapsulates the driving force behind the NFT boom.

Making Blockchain Engagement Necessary 

One notable aspect about NFTs is that they are not stored on centralized exchanges, which are cryptocurrency markets with all of the most popular coins. Buying coins on these exchanges is exceedingly simple. This means that NFTs force those interested in investing to learn how to use decentralized marketplaces and other basic features of the crypto world. In addition to this, NFTs can be easily minted by artists, influencers, or even normal investors. This, of course, familiarises an entirely new demographic with some key concepts of crypto. 

There are also some projects that put NFTs directly in the mainstream consumer’s line of sight. Many different films and TV shows are currently using NFT to market themselves and gain a new revenue stream. Everything from massive pop culture icons, such as characters from the Marvel Universe, to clips of NBA games. A project called TokenSociety is using NFTs called “Snippetz” to raise funds for independent entertainment projects. Snippetz are short clips of a show minted as NFTs. They launched this new program by selling Snippetz to fund the pilot of a new show called “Men of the House,” a day in the life of a father and his three sons. Snippetz can also be accompanied by real-life experiences and assets, anything from meet-and-greets with the cast to props from the show. Projects like these put NFTs directly into fan’s wallets whether they intended to involve themselves in crypto or not.

Another project will soon make NFT technology part of our everyday lives. They move healthcare data sharing onto the blockchain. That means that instead of a hospital or institution owning your healthcare data, you will own it and control how it is used. They recently revealed part of their ecosystem named NFT.HLTH.network, which is a genomic NFT marketplace. Users can store their genomic data as NFTs and give consent to research institutions to use this data for science. For a price. These NFTs can also be gifted to friends, family, and even pets. Dog breeders can use these NFTs to prove the authenticity of their pups. One day, everyone will own their own genetic data as an NFT, and no one will have the opportunity to steal or use that data without consent. 

NFT Twitter accounts and Discord servers are alive with people hunting for the next NFTs drop so that they can add to their collection. The space has mass appeal and it’s familiarising people with blockchain in an unprecedented way. NFTs could well be the technology that brings the rest of blockchain truly into the mainstream.

The post Are NFTs the Key to Blockchain Going Mainstream? appeared first on Grit Daily News.

The increase is somewhat explained by the increase in overall market cap of crypto. As more projects and people enter the space, it follows that the number of cases of illicit activity should also rise. With that in mind, it is worth noting that the proportion of cryptocurrency used for illicit activities is, in fact, falling. According to a recent Chainalysis report, criminal activity represented just 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2019. This is on the lower end of the UN estimate for traditional money used for illicit activity which is estimated to be between 2% and 5% of global GDP. The same Chainalysis report stated that in 2020 the criminal share of crypto transactions actually fell to just 0.34%, making it, at least by one metric, a more lawful medium of exchange than traditional money. 

The framework recently laid out by the WEF signifies that crypo is becoming more and more mainstream. However, the presence of crime and especially hacks within the crypto sphere pose a significant problem. Highly publicized events such as the $600 million worth of crypto stolen from Poly Network can make crypto seem like an illegitimate space for many investors. It is vital that crypto shed this image if it is to attract more institutional investors, many of whom will only enter the space when they can be sure that all of the investments across their portfolio are secure. 

Because of this, projects that deal with blockchain security are vital to maintaining crypto’s drive towards mainstream adoption. These are the projects that are going to provide many institutions with the confidence to enter the markets. Here’s a look at just three of these projects as examples of the kinds of services that they can provide and how they make crypto more transparent and secure. 

Coinfirm

Coinfirm is an AML (anti-money laundering) risk management platform for blockchain. It allows users to analyze other crypto projects for transaction patterns that could be indicative of money-laundering and other illicit activities. Usings risk checks and data points that relate to financial crime or counterparty identity, it provides its users with an in-depth understanding of a project’s transparency. Every transaction can be checked and reports provided for a full in-depth view of a project’s financial vulnerabilities. Users will be identified of behavioural changes that could indicate any financial irregularities. 

For institutional investors who must be seen to operate in an ethical way, avoiding suspect crypto projects is important for their public reputation. AML platforms give them the tools they need to verify projects they work with and invest in. It allows them to prove, not just to themselves but to the general public, that they have not compromised their business ethics to enter the crypto market.

TransitNet 

Anonymity has, for a very long time, been a key feature of crypto. Even though this aspect is attractive to many crypto users, it compromises a digital asset’s security as well as limiting the ways in which a digital asset can be used. TransitNet is giving crypto investors the option to voluntarily surrender their anonymity with an off-chain title registry for crypto assets. This will turn their digital assets from a bearer asset to a registered asset and provide many new financial use cases for their cryptocurrencies. For example, with legal proof of ownership an investor can use their crypto as collateral for non-digital loans. A title registry will also provide another layer of security, allowing investors to verify if funds have been stolen and ensure that any stolen funds are unusable at legitimate crypto exchanges. 

Title registry is something that is likely to be hugely significant for institutions. Firstly, the ability for an institution to verify whose funds they are holding is vital in areas that require KYC. Perhaps more significant though, is the investment flexibility it provides. Having legal proof of ownership of a cryptocurrency opens the door to using it as collateral for off-chain financial instruments allowing an institution to utilize cryptocurrency in other areas of their investment portfolio.

OriginStamp 

The use cases of blockchain are many. As cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, blockchain can be used to secure digital assets in more and more varied ways. One such example is OriginStamp which provides the tools that a business needs to timestamp files, data, documents and more and store them on the blockchain. Doing this will prove the originality and time of existence of any digital asset and because blockchain technology is utilized for this product the timestamps are completely tamper proof. 

Transferring large amounts of funds can be a process that often requires a lot of paperwork. A lot of this can be difficult to digitize because doing so makes it easier to counterfeit. Using blockchain to timestamp files digitizes the whole process while simultaneously being more secure than traditional contracts. This allows institutions to secure not just the blockchain transactions themselves but all of the legalities that surround said transactions.

Looking for one of the hottest cryptocurrency-focused events this year? Miami NFT Summit will be held on the “eve” of ArtBasel, Miami Beach, this year. Tickets are limited for this VVIP and exclusive event.

The post 3 Start-ups Heralding A New Era of Security For the Crypto Sphere appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Grit Daily: You had your own adventures before becoming a musician. Share those.

KOKA: My whole life started as an adventure, between moving from birth country Albania to Greece, facing poverty and discrimination, and constantly moving from one school to the other, before returning to Albania.

Even though I never settled anywhere, one thing was always there – music. 

I would perform in musicals at my music school in Greece from the age of eight. I performed live on TV in Albania at the age of 13 for a singing competition between high schools. The Albanian Alternative-Pop Artist Bojken Lako featured me at the age of 16. Later, I always had a band on the side. But to go full-time into music, that was the real adventure in my life, leading through the darkness to find the light.

Being 19, I left Albania to study architecture and take on a “safe job” under the important influence of my family. Despite being filled with stress and anxiety from my studies in architecture, I went further and worked several years in that career. I became good at my job but was internally numb. Going through a journey of inner healing, my songwriting was born. 

I became stronger and clearer through daily meditation, and these songs that started being born were revealing messages packed in hooky toplines that would burst out of me with an indelible force.

Grit Daily: Inquiring minds want to know: How did you go from architect to performing musician?

KOKA: So many times, the life I was leading before being a songwriter felt nowhere close to a musician’s life. At the end of my 20s, I was not in a mentally healthy place, and on top of that, I was in a toxic relationship. My life felt like a shoe that won’t fit and hurts with every step. Inside of me, there was a voice roaring for a change. 

I decided to change everything. I moved out, found my own flat, and made it nice, so I had a space to rest my wounds and heal. I started an intense self-healing period with as little human interaction as possible, filled with copious reading, writing, and meditation techniques. It was very intense and full of revelations. I started getting up at night with whole hooks in my head (like “if you love someone, let them know”). 

Moreover, I took vocal and piano lessons again to become better at what was calling me towards it.

I had a longing desire to make more music and requested that I work four days a week instead of full-time. I used the long weekends to write songs and started producing my demos. 

A new job offer called me to Berlin in 2018, where I started playing solo in bars and open mic sessions. Through the artists and connections I made there, the path became clearer and clearer. I met my first producer and through him the second one. The kick of the pandemic made my decision to focus on my music final, and start that scary free-fall, which I will – most probably – never regret. 

Grit Daily: What was your biggest motivation to pursue a music career?

KOKA: All those songs coming out through me. It felt like an assignment. Nothing is given to us through divine creativity that we are not responsible for carrying out to humanity. The messages of the songs are about love, our distractive system, forgiveness, and rising strong. We all need those messages more and more these days. 

Moreover, there is also intuition. Meditating every day strengthened that in me greatly. My faith grew immensely, and I realized that the path chooses us and that there is divine timing for everything. 

Grit Daily: For the uninitiated, what’s special about your new single “Forever Goodbye”?

KOKA: With tender, soothing vocals and an air of lightness, Forever Goodbye stems from a deep love and appreciation tinged with a bit of regret and sadness. With sweeping guitars, organic drums, and music-box sampled tunes, Forever Goodbye is written about that moment when a deep friendship fades away because it fits no more. But still inspiring a deep love and memory within, shaping each for the future days to come with forgiveness and appreciation.

Grit Daily: What’s one conventional wisdom about leaving a stable career to pursue in music that’s just plain wrong?

KOKA: Well, if it is wisdom, then it is proven by life experience. I am not entitled to naming any wisdom as wrong.

What is definitely very misleading is to think you need to have a perfect plan to do it. As life experiences show, plans often don’t work because they make you focus on a necessary outcome. Thus, we become stiff. 

I believe the most important things in life find us; we don’t find them. We only need to prepare our mindset to receive them. You can only do that by looking in the eyes of your fear and let your love for music (or anything else you want to start) help you stand strong against it.

The post KOKA Says “Forever Goodbye” to Architecture with Her New Single and Post-COVID Career appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Gavin and his team at Kaon have worked throughout the pandemic with Fortune 500 and 1,000 companies to successfully navigate the ongoing American health crisis and digitally adapt to “the New Normal?”, emphasizing and ensuring ongoing customer engagement. Today he sheds light on how they’ve done it and gives us some insight into what we can expect going forward, as well as intel on what’s happening at Kaon Interactive itself.

Can companies embrace a hybrid form of work that still enables remote work for those who want it? That will define the future of business.

How did the Kaon’s platform and team work with customers in adapting to remote work and what is Kaon doing to address transitioning into a hybrid space where some people might be remote and others in person without being messy?

Gavin Finn: The Kaon platform supercharges omnichannel customer engagement by allowing enterprises to deploy and reuse interactive applications that ‘actively’ engage users in navigating complex value messages (by persona or vertical). Whether hybrid, in-person or virtual, customers are now in the driver’s seat to learn, explore, and retain information in a way that resonates, accelerating sales.

As corporations switched to remote work, sales and marketing teams were faced with twin challenges: 

(a) their own team members were now working entirely out of their homes, and did not have access to products for physical demonstrations, promotional materials, etc., and 

(b) the clients and prospects were also working from their homes, and were unable to meet in person and see product and solution demonstrations first-hand.  For companies using Kaon applications, the Kaon platform solved both of these challenges immediately. By using Kaon’s interactive “virtual” product and solution applications,

• Virtual Meetings: Sales teams were able to meet with clients in video conferencing meetings via the web and show clients and prospects everything they would need to know in order to make a buying decision
• Self-Serve: Customers were able to interact with products and solution stories themselves (without the company’s salespeople or with a sales person in an online sales meeting) – turning a passive process into an engaging and memorable experience that provided valuable information
• Virtual Events: Marketers were able to create interactive and engaging digital events, to replace traditional product launches and the physical trade shows and conferences that had been shut down

These professionals were able to adjust to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic quickly and effectively because they did not have to create new materials or solutions – they could simply transition from in-person engagements to rich, interactive digital/online experiences.

As companies are emerging from full lockdowns, they are realizing that customers often prefer digital interaction, for the majority of what were previously face-to-face meetings.  The Kaon platform has facilitated the successful transition to this hybrid environment because the same engaging and dynamic customer experience is delivered in an omnichannel manner – and is available whether people are meeting in-person or online, and even if some of the participants are physically together while others are remote.

What are the biggest changes and challenges companies are trying to address right now?

GF: The four significant changes and challenges facing global enterprise companies in today’s digital-first climate…

1. The dramatic increase in complexity of products and solutions has made it almost impossible for marketing and sales teams to be knowledgeable enough across all of the company’s solutions to add the kind of value that they were able to achieve in the past.
2. The increasingly rapid pace of change in technology and the business environment has made it impossible to use traditional systems and processes for communicating with prospects and clients.
3. Increasing industry consolidation and the resulting changes in the competitive landscape have changed the nature and difficulty of the company’s value differentiation strategy, and how to effectively communicate this to the market.
4. The dramatic shift to digital customer engagement has left many companies without the infrastructure and processes to adapt to both internal and external communications models. It is no longer possible to rely on customers’ seeing solutions in-person in order to understand the value they provide, or even how they work.

The combination of these key problems has resulted in a tremendous pressure on sales cycles, win rates, and customer retention.

What makes Kaon so engaging and flexible during a time when companies have to be relatively fluid in their work set-up Self-Serve or Sales Guided?

GF: Kaon’s solutions offer agility and flexibility in how companies can engage with their customers by providing one solution that allows for both a sales-guided engagement and for customers to engage by themselves online (without any sales involvement). This means that the investment in sales and marketing solutions is much lower with Kaon’s platform, because the same solution is used in multiple environments. Whether working remotely, or visiting customers in-person, the same key value stories are communicated consistently.

Unique Experiences for Multiple Audiences

The same Kaon application is used to communicate value messaging to multiple personas in a variety of regions, at different levels of detail. Customers experience the solutions uniquely, because they navigate through these experiences in a non-linear fashion, exploring relevant sections at their own pace and in the sequence of their choosing.

• When the time is right for them to dive deeper into technical details, for example, they have immediate access to the information that they need.

• When they are looking for competitive value differentiators, that information is readily available. If they need confirmation of use-case applicability, case study stories are intuitively accessible.

• When they need to validate that the solutions will offer specific value to their company, calculators are integrated directly into the solution, allowing them to use their own data to view the precise impact of implementing a new approach.

• If they need to see how a particular product would fit into a space in their environment, augmented reality is built into the application.

What are the biggest differentiators of Kaon from other services and platforms – can you utilize presentations for more than one campaign easily? 

GF: Buyer Enablement Across the Entire Digital Buyers’ Journey Kaon’s solutions are customer-facing, transforming the sales and marketing paradigm from presentation to engagement. With Kaon solutions, customers experience consistent value messaging at every touch-point, at all stages of their problem-solving journeys.

Complete Agility, Zero Waste, Total Reusability

The Kaon solution is the only enterprise customer engagement platform. There are many examples of interactive applications developed by many companies, and created in a variety of ways, but these are all individual, siloed, stand-alone point-solutions. In order to achieve sustained value over the long term, it is necessary for global enterprises to deploy solutions that apply across the entire customer problem-solving journey, providing consistently engaging customer experiences used by all. Kaon’s technology platform uniquely delivers this level of scalability and sustainability, which ensures that Kaon applications are effective over a sustained period of time.

What are the different product types Kaon offers, how does the platform work and are there specific industries it’s better for than others?

GF: The Kaon solutions portfolio consists of:

• The High Velocity Marketing Platform (a SaaS solution that includes modules for collaboration during the application development process, for global, device-independent deployment, cloud-based updates, and for measurement, analytics and insights once applications have been deployed.)

• Interactive applications solutions for storytelling
• Real-time, photorealistic, 3D interactive product tours
• Augmented reality for visualizing products and solutions in a real-world physical space
• Virtual reality for immersive product solutions exploration collaborative online digital sales tools for video and audio meetings around multi-user shared experiences

• Interactive space planning applications for configuring and visualizing digital versions of physical spaces
• Calculators to demonstrate precise customer value based on their own data and use-case information
• Multi-language and regionalization capability within the same application
• Integration with CRM systems for improving sales effectiveness
• Integration with marketing automation systems to optimize lead generation and nurturing for web-based prospect engagement

The Kaon High Velocity Marketing Platform® is the software technology underpinning every Kaon application. Built on Kaon’s platform, each customer application has the look-and-feel of the customer’s brand, telling their stories in a visually engaging interactive way. In a true omnichannel approach, the applications are deployed as native applications on PC’s (Windows and Macs), on mobile devices (tablets and phones) and via the web, available through any browser.  The same application runs in all of these environments, and whenever an application is updated, it is updated globally and instantaneously to every user on every device everywhere in the world, ensuring they have the most recent and compelling interactive experience.

The post How Can Hybrid Work Spaces Remain Collaborative? appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Jeremy has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Inc, Entrepreneur magazine, Thrive Global, Yahoo Finance, Disrupt magazine and a host of other publications on the topic of sales, persuasion and role of psychology and human behavior in the buying process.

As companies and entrepreneurs increasingly seek to introduce more persuasive principles of psychology and even sociology into their marketing and sales efforts, the landscape of communicating has changed drastically. Here’s how Jeremy believes that less “selling” leads to more sales.

Where and how did you get started in sales?

Jeremy Miner: I started from ground zero about 20 years ago, out of college.  My first job was  selling home security systems door to door. The company hired everybody because it was a straight commission job. They trained you for about a week, handed you a script and map, then dropped you off and basically said “Hey, go make some sales.” 

At that point, I thought selling was just going to be easy,  but quickly found out otherwise and started experimenting with different techniques.

You’ve created a new methodology called NEPQ. Can you explain what that is and how it works?

Jeremy Miner: Neuro Emotional Persuasion Questions (NEPQ) is a methodology that pivots on a key principle of behavioral science:

Human beings are the most persuasive when they allow others to persuade themselves. 

This means asking the right questions, in the right sequence, with the right delivery – causing your prospect to be drawn towards you, to pull you in and pursue you – as opposed to being repelled by, rejecting and trying to get rid of you.

How is NEPQ different from other sales strategies, what are your big differentiators?

Jeremy Miner: The biggest differentiator is that most other sales methods tend to work in direct opposition to the laws of human behavior and psychology, whereas, in contrast, NEPQ originates from the question, ‘What do studies in human behavior psychology actually tell us about different forms of communication, and the degree to which each either is – or isn’t – persuasive?’

It  turns out science tells us there are three forms of communication, the first being the least persuasive,  is “telling” people things – or “pushing” them into doing something.

The second form, which is a little more persuasive is discussion, as embraced by proponents of consultative selling. Consultative selling, developed in the late 1980’s centers around asking logic-based questions to find out the needs of the client. The downfall with this approach is that logical questions invite logical answers but people’s buying decisions aren’t based on logic but emotion.

The third and most persuasive mode of communication happens when we allow others to persuade themselves. Also known as dialogue, this happens when we ask what I call Neuro-emotional Persuasion Questions (NEPQ) –  skilled questions which, when positioned within a scientifically designed sequence and structure, trigger the prospect to answer in such a way that they seamlessly sell themselves.

Does the NEPQ method work cross all industries?

Jeremy Miner:  Not only have I used NEPQ myself to sell and earn multiple seven-figure commissions year-on-year in four separate industries as a W-2 sales rep during my seventeen year sales career but since starting 7th Level we’ve also trained clients across hundreds of industries who continue to report exponential sales gains using the NEPQ process.

One of the primary reasons NEPQ is applicable across the board is because the questions and tonality we coach our clients’ sales teams to use are designed to work with human behavior – rather than against it.  Regardless of industry, every product or service out there exists to solve a problem or an emotional need.  

Using NEPQ allows you to not only help your prospect uncover their real problems or emotional needs, but more importantly what’s behind the problem, what’s driving the need, giving clients across any industry the foundation for radical results. In fact, we’ve collected thousands of examples from clients: individual salespeople – and companies – substantiating the exponential difference NEPQ has made to their sales by way of favorable responses from prospects – and close rates achieved.  It’s personally satisfying for me to see NEPQ’s persuasive power working so well for those we train. 

Is NEPQ only sales tool or can it be used in other ways/circumstances?

Jeremy Miner: We need to understand we are ALL in sales now, it does not matter what you do!  

Even if you’re not out there getting paid a commission, you would most certainly be seeking in some way to persuade, influence and convince others.  In fact,to be  human is to be hard-wired with a desire to “move others.”

To break it down – If you’re a business owner seeking to have your employees follow your vision for the company, then you’re trying to persuade, influence and move others.

If you’re an employee wanting to convince your boss to give you a pay rise, then you’re in the business of trying to convince, persuade and move others.

If you’re an attorney endeavoring to convince the jury that your client is innocent, you are most definitely transacting in persuasion, influence and moving others.

If you’re a teacher setting out to convince your class to apply themselves to an assignment, you are undertaking to persuade, influence and move others.

Heck, if you are a politician who is trying to get people to vote for you, you are doing this too.  In fact, I have a student who applies his knowledge in NEPQ to help politicians and legislators ‘sell ideas’ to their constituents and get re-elected!

So the short answer is no, industry doesn’t.  The number one skill a human being needs in order to get ahead in life, is – learning how to persuade and influence others.

Covid has changed sales and how most businesses interact with clients, how does NEPQ fit into this new normal?

Jeremy Miner: When the pandemic set in, a lot of our clients in various industries weren’t phased at all.  They simply took what they were learning and went virtual with it.

The fact is, because of the advanced questioning skills and human-behavior-friendly techniques NEPQ equips salespeople with, they are able to effect amazing results with prospects – even when they don’t meet in person.

For example: instead of the usual in-person meeting at a prospects home that an insurance rep would have, with Covid they’d just sent out a Zoom link and hop into a virtual meeting with that prospect.  Really easy.

Ironically, because of Covid the majority of our clients actually increased sales significantly.  This is because the time it would usually take reps to travel to and from appointments, is now spent meeting with more people.  In some cases – double the amount of prospective customers on Zoom per day!

The post “Neuro-Emotional Persuasion” Made Jeremy Miner a 7 Figure Earner appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Currently, remote work has become the norm for the majority of businesses. It is not at all an option or a privilege anymore but more like a normal lifestyle of companies. Especially, right after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 reached pandemic status.

Now the remote employees aren’t physically connected anymore. As a result, they’re likely mentally disconnected as well. This is all because of the distractions at home. Looking for ways to make employees reconnect with your organization? Is it even possible? 

Absolutely!

Connect Your Remote Team Better in 10 Steps

Building strong remote employee connections is a key part of building a strong overall business. Here’s how to make your remote work team feel more connected.

It’s Time to Align or Realign the Vision

Before Covid-19, companies had different visions but now, the majority have one important vision, that is, survival. The majority of remote employees clearly understand it is a fair short-term goal. But they still seek a meaningful vision when it comes to strong connections. 

You can do two things here. The first one is, either you continue to emphasize your purpose (this can be something rooted in a greater good for the community, environment, society, and/or the people you serve.) The second thing is to realign your company with a vision that speaks better regarding the current situation.

Keep an Open Line of Communication

The most effective way to make your team feel connected is to make them feel clearly heard. When you keep an open dialogue of constant communication as well as feedback, it greatly increases the connectivity. This works amazingly for those companies with remote workforces. 

It is suggested to host regular check-in meetings. Doing so makes sure each team member has the necessary tools and ample support to give their best. When employees gain the confidence to be honest – and they feel their feedback is being valued– they feel deeply connected to the organization.

Keep Everyone Involved

The best way to help employees stay connected to your organization/company and colleagues is through shared (although apart) experiences.

Some of the creative ideas include:

• Positive #WorkFromHomes messages. 
• Photos and video tours to make employees show each other their new work space. 
• Daily Orange Alerts when colleagues praised different achievements and project completions. 
• Parent Panels on interesting topics such as working efficiently at home with kids at home. 
• Weekly videos updates about company news and pep talks.

Hold Weekly Video Meetings

One of the effective ways to make your remote work team feel connected is with limited face-to-face interaction. A lot of recent studies claim that technology has killed face-to-face interactions to some great extent. 

It’s true, but in the case of remote work, technology actually allows and brings on the possibility to make face-to-face interaction possible. Since the remote workers are unable to visit the office, you can arrange weekly video meetings with any video communications tool. Some of the notable ones are Zoom or Skype. 

Doing so will allow remote workers to get that face time they are badly missing. Ultimately, they will form better bonds with co-workers. 

Tweak what works

In case of employees leaving your facility engaged with your shared traditions, it is important to keep those alive remotely as well (as long as your employees enjoy them). All you need to do is just tweak them for offsite work.

Here is a good example. The CEO Howard Spector ensured they could still connect over the midday meal when all the employees went home. The company also set up a tele-lunch during which anyone who wished to join colleagues for lunch would get in on a daily Zoom call.

Empower Employees with Flexibility

It is critical to let your remote employees have flexible working hours and arrangements. When you let employees choose their own working schedules, it especially benefits those remote workers who have children or other family members as a responsibility during the workweek. 

Giving your employees the freedom to choose their own working hours can serve your business in a wide variety of ways. It can no doubt improve employees’ well-being as well, giving them a better work-life balance. Doing so also allows them to adapt to changes when it comes to their personal lives. These benefits can definitely help your remote team feel better connected and well-appreciated by your organization.

Break the Mold

HR professionals might want to follow the same mantra that worked on-site to engage as well as connect employees. But there are a plethora of emerging ideas now.

One of the super quirky ideas comes from Nimbus Therapeutics. It is a biotech company well-known for gardening and painting happy hours which is being the norm on-site.

At home, the company heads offered a ukulele-building class and other entertainment music lessons for their employees to join during their virtual happy hour. 

Create a Mentor Program

Assigning employees with an internal mentor is a good way to keep them connected with each other. A mentor program is specially designed to help new employees who still lack fostered close working relationships with the other team members. 

A mentor can definitely serve as a valuable resource for your remote team, especially, to turn to with any questions or concerns. An important thing to keep in mind is that a mentor is way different from a manager.

Celebrate the Team

Another great way to keep your remote employees and co-workers connected is by recognizing the accomplishments as well as improvements they are making. It is a great way to make them feel proud. It gives them the sense that they are an important part of the team. 

So, in order to make your remote workers feel more connected, take out some time to celebrate their proud moments. Not only praising them will make your team feel more connected, but also it will increase productivity. 

Make Efficient Collaborations

Team collaboration is one of the great and main elements when it comes to greater productivity. Therefore, a number of employers are working hard to improve the way their remote teams work as a team. 

Team collaboration along with employee engagement solutions are known as the best ways when it comes to eliminating remote team challenges. This challenge is faced by the majority of companies that have remote employees.

Sum It Up

A pleasant employee connection can greatly impact how team members view your company/organization. If they are unable to feel connected, there’s a bright chance they won’t feel connected to your company’s mission and yourself. As a result, this can ultimately lead to a high turnover rate.

Try out these 10 steps to bring a vital change to your remote team. 

The post How to Make a Startup’s Remote Team Feel Connected in 10 Steps appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Known for his work in the series’ NCIS: Los Angeles and The Twilight Zone, A-Zal’s track was featured in another American television series, Loki. Loki needs no introduction as the season 1, started airing in June 2021, was produced by Marvel Studios and is currently streaming on Disney+. Tom Hiddleston-starrer series is based on the Marvel comics featuring the character of the same name.

In addition to Loki, in his other project, he has sung and produced a song To Pu Dance for the Netflix motion picture film, Resort to Love. Starring Christina Milian with Jay Pharoah and Sinqua Walls, this pop song-filled rom-com is produced by Grammy winner Alicia Keys and will be released on July 29 this year. 

Putting another feather in the cap is the release of his feature film, Black Bud, on Prime Video -Amazon. A-Zal has composed three songs and original score of this thriller-drama film released only in the USA and the UK. 

Talking about his experience on three successive endeavors, A-Zal said, “As an artist, this is quite a bit of an achievement for me. I am exuberant my music is featured across feature films, television series, over-the-top content and streaming platforms leaving no stone unturned in my efforts to connect to the global audience. I have a dream to be loved by the world for my voice, and I am glad I am inching closer towards fulfilling that dream of mine.”

With this roaring success and the ceaseless passion for music, Atif is currently working on a solo pop album, 17&11 Nights. A single of the album – I’m Looking Through You – is slated to be released in September this year. This pop album would be Atif’s second album after his solo world music album Celebration! released by BMG, one of the popular record labels around the world, in March 2020.

To say that Atif has worked his magic in the East and the West would be an understatement. Using his versatility and immense knowledge of music styles, Atif has bowled over, both, veteran and independent filmmakers in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin and Australia.

“That’s just the first half of the story,” he concludes, “The best is yet to come.”

The post Singer-songwriter A-Zal hits a “triple” with Marvel Studios, Netflix and Amazon Prime appeared first on Grit Daily News.

The current crypto bear run was finally seeing a few flecks of green a couple of weeks ago after the big crash in May, but the two recent dips shut those hopes down. Some people believe that plunging through multiple death crosses puts us firmly in bear territory, and others believe that we have hit rock bottom, and are due for a correction. Either way, the extreme volatility has many of us on edge, particularly the influx of new investors. In this environment, any bad news has a multiplicative effect, and good news is met with skepticism. 

The main reason for this is that cryptocurrencies only give a return on investment when sold. You might consider APY and staking rewards. On one hand, it’s great that the blockchain puts the power of the banks in the hands of the people. We provide liquidity for each other and facilitate our own transactions. On the other hand, if the price of the currency drops below the value gained through these interactions, then those gains are not relevant. 

The solution to this volatility is to attach crypto to real-world goods and services that people need or use on a daily basis. Most crypto companies are designed to operate within the crypto space. DEXs, exchanges, oracles, wallets, IDO platforms, NFT platforms, and other financial or blockchain-oriented tools were all created to work together and support each other. While this has created an incredibly fertile ground for new projects to grow and flourish, the industry is completely isolated from the real world. It relies on incoming investments rather than generating its own cash flow. 

Fortunately, there are already a few projects that are breaking the mold and attacking the real world head-on. These companies create value independent from investments and can bring ROI regardless of the ups and downs of the crypto market. Soon, crypto will get into everything. You will use services you had no idea were connected to the blockchain. 

And with the new ability to tokenize equity in a company, more and more projects of all sorts will soon be moving into crypto. Companies with tokenized equity have the ability to give dividends to their token holders. By generating income outside of investments, investors can buy and hold without fear or anxiety. That’s because added value is coming from within the company itself. There is no need to hope other investors jump in so that you can sell.

It’s time for a more stable environment. Here’s how it starts. 

Illiquid Assets

Wall Street investors have found ways to convert many different assets into liquid, tradable forms. The way they minced and diced gold into a million different tradable options is quite impressive. And it demonstrates how assets in the real world can function as financial assets in a digital ecosystem. Although the atomization of gold is somewhat irresponsible, it is also inefficient to allow solid, quantifiable value to sit around and do nothing.

Crypto takes this to the next level by liquifying anything and everything into a tradeable token on the blockchain. Pandora tokenizes any asset so that it can be traded and borrowed in an open finance ecosystem. Have an expensive painting? Tokenize it into one hundred different pieces and let people speculate on the price. Someone may even take out a loan on their small piece. With Pandora, everything becomes a commodity. Instead of Wall Street sharks and hedge fund managers, individuals now have the power to leverage their assets, no matter how small.

The value of your tangible assets won’t fluctuate as wildly as the crypto market will. Even the worst bear market won’t bring down the value of a hunk of gold. They simply aren’t related.

The Legal System

Unless you have strict personal business with the courts, you’re likely to have very little contact with the legal system outside of mundane interactions. The only people making a profit from the legal system is the lawyers running the show. But in fact, there is a way for those unaffiliated with a law firm to get involved. Litigation finance allows investors to help fund lawsuits against large entities to help under-funded plaintiffs engage in legal battles. However, only rich investors are allowed to play.

Until now. Liti Capital tokenized the shares in their company, drastically lowering the bar for the average individual to invest. Litigation finance has some of the largest payouts of any asset class, and that payout is not any larger or smaller based on the size of the crypto market. Holding a LITI token gives the holder dividends when the litigators win a case on behalf of the plaintiff. Liti Capital also pursues crypto scams perpetrated against their token holders, which makes their token a sort of insurance that many investors will want to hold onto.

Litigation finance existed before crypto and will continue to make profits no matter what happens to the crypto world.

Solar Energy

As mentioned above, crypto is seeing hard times, and Elon Musk isn’t a small factor. A mere tweet can send shockwaves through the market, but it’s not entirely his doing. There are environmental concerns surrounding blockchain mining, and if those concerns are validated by a trusted public figure, the spark hits the kindling. And although the blockchain isn’t as bad as popular opinion seems to think, it is still a problem and will turn into a bigger problem in the future. 

iM Intelligent Mining offers a way to invest in solar energy infrastructure and blockchain mining at the same time, moving the network to a renewable energy source and decentralizing those profits. Holding their token also provides a form of dividends, but as a high APY instead. The profits from the mining rewards are redistributed to token holders who stake on their platform. Staking gives them access to a second token, which then can be used to buy bitcoins that can be sold for cash.

Putting your money into real, high-end equipment generating real value is a solid investment. The sun isn’t going away any time soon.

Tokenized Equity: How Any Company Can Go Crypto

The exciting thing about crypto is its ability to innovate and how it drives legal innovation as well. Regulations need to be able to keep up with blockchain tech without slowing it down. The Liechtenstein Blockchain Act and Swiss DLT Amendments opened up a new avenue for new projects of any kind to transform the equity in their company into tokens and give their investors dividends as a reward. Up until this year, any token or coin that had even a hint of the markings of a security would be shut down immediately. We’re finally moving into the next stage.

Companies like Mt Pelerin, Amazing Blocks, and Blockchain App Factory specialize in turning equity into tokens. These platforms have other services as well. They take care of some of the legal leg work and create easy-to-use templates for founders to fill in the rest of the legal structure. They also facilitate many of the interactions needed for a new company to get started. Investor interface, crowdfunding, ETOs (Equity Token Offerings, which are akin to IDOs or ICOs), and other tedious administrative tasks are all automated and simplified.

Not only do these platforms make it possible for anyone to turn their idea into a crypto company, but they also make it an extremely attractive option. The ease and simplicity are hard to ignore. 

These new companies will be impervious to the ups and downs of the crypto market because their value is linked to real-world assets and services. They will simply be companies that use blockchain technology to generate income independently of any single event or market. And the people who invest in and hold these tokens won’t have to worry about selling when things look grim for everyone else. Their tokens will provide them with passive income, and a $1000 dollar token will give just as much as a $1 token. 

One day, when every kind of company is a crypto company, the volatility will drastically decrease. No one is going to want to sell their tokens. 

The post DeFi is Getting Into Everything appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Led by industry experts, such as Bryan Guerra, the Founder of Invert Media and pro in eCommerce, online marketing, and customer acquisition, this master class bundle brings you all the tools to open your own online store. With eight courses and over 200 lessons, you’ll dive deep into proven strategies to launch, sell, and grow products online and increase your performance dramatically to make a profit. 

What are some of Amazon’s FBA benefits?

Amazon FBA will handle the fulfillment process, manage returns, reduce shipping costs, eliminates the need for a warehouse and sell worldwide.

Learn techniques 

The Ultimate Amazon FBA & Dropship Master Class Bundle will ensure you learn techniques used by successful eCommerce entrepreneurs that have turned their businesses into massive profit generators on Amazon — and how exactly to apply them to your online strategy. Topics such as finding the best manufacturers for your products and SEO techniques for ranking your product at the top of the Amazon searches are all jam-packed in a digestible format that you can visit whenever you need.

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While The Ultimate Amazon FBA & Dropship Master Class Bundle is usually priced at $1,292, you can purchase the top-rated course today, for a limited time only, for only $20! But hurry, this offer won’t last long.

Prices subject to change.

We hope you enjoy these products! But keep in mind, Grit Daily might take a small commission on the items recommended here—but that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in them. We only recommend products that we would buy or use ourselves, so don’t be wary of our suggestions.

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This 14-course master bundle helps you achieve your online business goals — no matter how big or small. Access to over 400 lessons and 50+ hours of updated content enables you to build your online strategy with the right tools. Each course will take you through a step-by-step roadmap that includes everything from Search Engine Optimization to email marketing for your brand. Improve the way you communicate with your customers and target the right audience specific to your needs to get the quality traffic you seek. The industry experts are here to assist you along your digital journey.

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