Going With Your Gut: Why You Shouldn't Rush Into a Career - by: Rachel Beider for Forbes

Many people don't have the clarity of knowing what they want to do after college, and so many just wing it. Today, more Americans have college degrees than ever before, with one-third holding a four-year degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet, the majority of college graduates do not find employment in their field. 

We frequently discuss and sometimes place blame on job market trends for how we fit into our changing world of work. But what is less often considered are the changes and fluctuations within ourselves that can drastically alter the course of our careers. Often this comes after a period of feeling stuck, overwhelmed or burned out.

Instead of rushing into a career, take the time to let it find you through self-exploration, travel and diverse immersive experiences. I know firsthand that life experiences can be the stepping stones that lead you to a career you are truly passionate about.

I earned a photography degree in 2005 and spent years in working every part-time photography job imaginable. To make ends meet, I also worked as a nanny, dog walker, server and bartender, as well as in retail shops and office jobs — all while hustling to get my own photography gigs. I was exhausted and work was inconsistent.

On a chilly day in March 2005, I helped an elderly man find his route on the subway. This simple act of kindness caught the attention of a tall, cute man in his twenties, who was heading in the same direction on the L train. I later learned his name was Danny. As I entered the train, I noticed Danny looking at me as I put my headphones in, smiling to myself. I took the opportunity during the ride to steal glimpses at him. I thought for a moment about speaking to him but reluctantly got off the train at my stop. He gave me a longing look, like he wanted to say something too.

As I walked home to my apartment in the East Village, I immediately regretted my decision to not be bolder and speak to him. Feeling frustrated, I decided to write a Missed Connections post on Craigslist. It was a long shot, but as a hopeless romantic, I felt I may as well give it a try. When he wrote back the same day, I was excited, nervous and overjoyed. After some back and forth emails, we quickly realized we were both the same age and has a lot in common. We spoke on the phone for a couple of hours and decided to meet at Yaffa Cafe on St. Marks. We stayed up late, locked in the kind of deep conversation rarely had with a stranger, talking about our lives, work, friends and families, and I felt immediately connected to him.

While my romantic relationship blossomed, professionally I felt extremely lost and depressed. The inconsistent work was exhausting and gave me anxiety. When Danny asked me to join him on a trip to India and Southeast Asia, I added shifts as a cocktail waitress to save for the trip, storing my pay in the remnants of old film development canisters that lined my book shelves.

Our trip was one adventure after the next, though physically quite taxing. After carrying a heavy backpack and sleeping in cheap hostels for months, I jumped at the chance to take a Thai massage class in Thailand. I had no idea I would fall in love with the flow and movement myself.

When we came home from our trip, I enrolled full-time at The Swedish Institute of Massage Therapy. My business and career that followed would not exist today if not for that Missed Connection post. While Danny and I ended up moving in different directions with our lives, meeting him carved the path to discovering a career I fell in love with instead.

That trip changed my life and opened me up to so many possibilities that were previously unimaginable. It took getting out of my comfort zone, taking a risk and admitting what was working and what wasn't working for me in my career. I discovered similarities between photography and massage, oddly enough. Certain qualities easily translated from one profession to the other. I love working with my hands, with people and not having a standard 9-to-5 desk job. The transition felt seamless, like it was meant to be.

Most successful entrepreneurs and individuals I've spoken to over the years didn't make a career change because they were excited or happy. It came from a place of frustration, annoyance, not feeling satisfied and wanting something to change. While listening to your inner voice to find your career, it's important to be open to new ideas and directions and have a willingness to take chances regardless of where you are. Let your career find you by staying open to opportunities as they arise. Your career path will likely change as you do.

Article Written by Rachel Beider as seen on Forbes.com

The Must-Have Traits of a COO: Rachel Beider in Forbes

Hiring a chief operating officer (COO) can be a daunting task for any business. Much of the operations lean on their shoulders, and you need to have consummate trust in their abilities. You want someone who is professional, yet in touch with your customers as well as your employees. It can be overwhelming to choose.

Whether you are scanning the global market or looking locally for a COO, there are some innate traits that go into ensuring you hire the best. Although the costs of a bad hire are sometimes difficult to quantify, they are definitely hard to ignore in terms of staff morale, productivity, and ultimately, financial losses.

Below, leading members of Young Entrepreneur Council give some insight into what makes for a great COO, whether it’s experience, attention to detail, integrity or other essential traits.

Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share the top things every founder should look for in a COO.

1. Integrity And Honesty

Hire someone who has high integrity, honesty, and is hardworking and willing to learn rather than someone who has a ton of experience. I interviewed a few candidates for my COO position and ended up hiring someone who is extremely dependable, fair, honest, and interested in the success of my company. We have a great work dynamic and he truly compliments areas that I need help with. - Rachel Beider, Massage Greenpoint

2. Being Able To Cross The T's And Dot The I's

In general, founders are excited by big ideas. A COO should balance out that visionary tendency with practical follow-through. The perfect COO for a startup is someone who can take the ideas of plans of the CEO, break them down into actionable steps, and ensure that they're done efficiently. With the right balance of a grounded CEO and a practical-but-ambitious COO, startups can go far. - Brennan White, Cortex

3. A Lover Of Systems

I've founded two companies, and in each, I have brought on a different COO. There are a few things they have in common that made them successful: They love details, they're meticulous, they do what they say they'll do, and they are lovers of creating systems to make the company operate better as a whole, whether it's with or without them. - Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40

4. A Drive For Data And Actionable Metrics

To make sure daily operations are running in the most optimal conditions, a COO should utilize strategies based on data-driven decisions and actionable metrics. A COO should never rely on vanity metrics that show nothing valuable, such as having 800 sign ups for a service but only a few paying customers. Actionable metrics are more work, but are the only way to effectively evaluate and set goals. - Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

5. A Strategic Vision

It helps to get a COO with considerable strategic vision because they provide the framework for your overall vision and put a definition to it along with actionable steps. They can find the people to achieve that strategy and oversee their execution. I've found that a COO with considerable experience helped to direct where I was headed with my startup and offered new insights. - John Rampton, Due

6. The Visionary And Integrator Archetypes

In Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters, the case is made that a great business team requires a "visionary" and an "integrator." When these archetypes work together, they have effective synergy. Even if the founder isn't one of these, it’s good to notice what qualities they embody. Finding a COO who complements the founder means that the management team has a fuller, more diverse set of skills. - Peggy Shell, Creative Alignments

7. The Right Mindset

As a venture studio partner, I see many startups focusing on skill set when hiring an appropriate operator, which often leads to major issues down the road, like conflict between mindsets. You have to make sure the attitude of your operator is aligned with the key strategic priorities and commercial impact of the decisions that are made by the business. - Artur Kiulian, Colab

8. Experience Growing A Business

The one major skill you should look for in a COO is that he or she have experience with actually expanding and growing a small business or other venture. After all, that's going to be a major part of their work for you if you bring them on. They should have had previous experiences where they took an organization from its infancy to higher growth, and from medium success to over the top success. - Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

9. A People Person

COOs are useless if they cannot connect with people. As enforcers and systems developers, they implement and create ways to operate more efficiently. If they cannot connect with the people whom these systems affect, the chances of success and ROI are very slim. Communication is paramount, and being a cheerleader is preferred. Everyone wants solutions that make a system run smoother with less effort. - Matthew Capala, Search Decoder

10. Attention To Detail And Bluntness

I need a COO with close attention to detail. If he/she notices all the small issues, it frees me up to focus on the big picture. He/she can fix daily problems while I worry about where my company is going long-term. It's helpful to have a COO who tells it exactly like it is. If they're handling the gritty details of what's going on in my organization, I want them to come to me with total honesty. - Kevin Conner, BroadbandSearch

11. A Keen Understanding Of Your Own Limitations

A COO is an extension of your hands and the person who accomplishes what you cannot. They fill in your deficiencies, whatever they may be (sales, managerial, technical). You are hiring someone to fill the business needs created by the inescapable fact that you are an imperfect person and the business requires more than you can give. The one thing you must know when trying to hire a COO is yourself. - Matthew Nederlanden, Security Camera Warehouse

As seen in Forbes

Rachel Beider in Forbes Magazine: When to Open a Second Location

When To Open A Second Location To Grow Your Small Business 

Article by: Marcia Layton Turner for Forbes

“When you are completely booked solid, you have only two options: raise your rates or expand (or both!)” says Rachel Beider, licensed massage therapist and owner of Massage Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, NY. Beider’s solution to growing a small business was to add a second location in Brooklyn, named Massage Greenpoint.

“After raising our prices, we still had long waitlists of clients,” she explains, “and I knew that many were coming from the neighborhood just north of ours.” So Beider found real estate a little farther north from her original studio and opened her doors. Massage Greenpoint has been open now for six months and is continuing to grow. “It is the best investment that I’ve made,” she says.

Many business owners question whether it's time to open another location, wondering if they're creating new opportunities or spreading themselves too thin. While you can never know for certain before taking the leap, these entrepreneurs found that certain conditions were signs that the timing could be right.

Increasing Capacity

For Beider, capacity was the factor that most impacted her decision to open another location – her first was fully booked. She was confident that opening a second location would in no way cannibalize her first, and would allow the business to continue to grow.

Opening a second location improved customer service, by making it possible for more clients to book appointments. Since many clients were traveling south to Williamsburg, opening a location closer to their homes and offices also improved customer satisfaction.

Establishing Growth Criteria

While Beider used the fact that her business was consistently full as a sign that it was time to expand, Jeff Shapiro, owner of Spindle Fitness, set specific milestones that his business needed to hit before the company would consider opening additional locations. While the company’s goal was to become a multi-location business, Shapiro first wanted to achieve a positive cash flow and have trained staff in place, ready to train others.

Reducing Shipping Times and Expenses

In contrast, OnlineLabels.com wasn’t having capacity issues – the company could produce labels quickly - the impediment to growth was shipping cost and speed, explains CEO Dave Carmany. “To ensure people all across the country received our labels on a timely basis without having to pay premium shipping rates, we looked into opening a second location.” Its original space in Florida yields quick shipping to East Coast customers but slower delivery to the West Coast.

Evaluating the Cost of Expansion

“When we calculated what it would take to create a second manufacturing facility, hire a new set of employees, and cover the additional overhead that comes with having two locations, the benefits didn’t offset the costs. While our volume was increasing, it wasn’t at a quick enough pace to justify such a substantial business move.” Instead, OnlineLabels turned to its shipping carriers to negotiate deals that would speed delivery at reduced costs. Carmany admits it’s not a permanent solution, but it “bought our company time.”

Attracting New Business

Once you’ve decided the time is right to open another location, begin to communicate frequently with your current and potential customer base to prime the pump for future sales. Beider kept her community informed about the build-out of the second location via social media. She also emailed current clients and prospects with an offer to try out the second location. Finally, she had postcards printed up with a new client discount that she left at local stores, yoga studios, gyms, and other complementary businesses to help attract more clients. And they did.

Marcia Layton Turner writes frequently for and about small business. She is the author of The Unofficial Guide to Starting a Small Business and many others.

Rachel Beider in Forbes Magazine: How Small Businesses can Capitalize on the Growing Wellness Trend

How Small Businesses can Capitalize on the Growing Wellness Trend

Stress has always been a driving force in the wellness industry, but we seem to have moved past just personal stress to a collective, politically-induced stress. No longer are people simply seeking to remedy relationship or financial troubles; stress about politics and the security of the future is becoming more and more common. As a business consultant for wellness practices and the owner of two massage studios in New York City, I have seen this trend unfold firsthand.

Like many, I was exhausted by last year’s tumultuous election, so imagine my surprise when I learned that it was actually great for business. I first noticed an uptick in client bookings in the fall of 2016 and my sessions -- which are typically pretty quiet — became more lively as clients voiced their worries and concerns about politics. Stress and anxiety commonly manifest themselves in physical ailments like muscle tension, TMJ (jaw tension from teeth clenching), headaches, insomnia and fatigue, which are problems we treat frequently.

I had a feeling that trying to deduce electoral math and being glued to Facebook, cable news and Twitter were physically impacting my clients and the demand for my business. The numbers proved me right: We saw a 20% increase in new clients in Q4 of last year and in the week after the inauguration, we saw an additional 50% surge in bookings —and there’s no sign of it slowing down. The demand has been so high that we’re adding additional employees to our roster.

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At the same time, I saw a growing trend in the corporate world as blue chip companies like Aetna and Facebook adopted progressive workplace wellness programs, and media mogul Arianna Huffington launched Thrive Global, a wellness company dedicated to helping companies and employees reduce burnout. At a time when people were dealing with a new kind of post-election stress, I felt wellness was reaching an audience that hadn’t previously been tuned in.

Growing a business isn’t without trial and error, and there are specific challenges that small practices should keep in mind when catering to stressed out clients. Keep these tips in mind to capitalize on the latest wellness trend:

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Big Fish

Just because your business is small, that doesn’t mean you can’t work with a large company or corporation. Small businesses can reach new audiences and build partnerships by offering services to large companies and coordinating office wellness events. We have partnered with Red Bull, WeWork and Whole Foods to offer chair massages to employees for on-site stress relief.

Companies are interested in the benefits of having wellness services at work, which can keep insurance costs down and boost employee productivity. With just a few practitioners, your business can reach a new customer base that wouldn’t otherwise discover your practice. When approaching a new partner, make sure to tailor your approach and market the specific benefits that they can expect from working with you.

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

At a time when customers are becoming savvier in the wellness space, it’s important to diversify your services. Consider including massage, reflexology, acupuncture, aromatherapy, reiki and alternative wellness treatments. Before seeking new talent, look at the expertise you already have in house: Many practitioners are trained in multiple disciplines but don’t always promote all of their areas of expertise.

You Absolutely Cannot Skimp On Talent

This is imperative. For small businesses to stand out in the wellness space, it’s critical to hire excellent staff members who can provide high-quality care. This is important for all service-based industries, but even more so for practitioners who have close relationships with their clients. This is the easiest way to keep retention rates up and your clients coming back.

To make sure that your guests are getting the most out of their experience, consider using client feedback software or post-treatment surveys. A great practitioner will have a consistently high client retention rate.

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Focus On Consistency

One of the biggest challenges small businesses will face as they grow in the wellness space is maintaining consistency and a high caliber of customer service. Our clients know exactly what to expect from each visit, so we are confident they will want to return. Having a clear manual of operations goes a long way in helping keep things running smoothly, and I always encourage clients to speak up if they are unhappy with their service.

Aim To Exceed Client Expectations

When your goal is to help your clients cope with pain and stress, I encourage my team to aim to exceed a client’s expectations. Just because you provide excellent service, that doesn’t mean their ailment will vanish, so we provide clients with additional information and therapy for self-care at home. I’ll frequently recommend specific stretches or strengthening exercises that become integral to a client’s daily routine. We also collaborate with other practitioners, such as acupuncturists, chiropractors, physical therapists and pilates instructors. It’s important to create an atmosphere where practitioners feel like they can and should go the extra mile for their clients.

Though there is uncertainty about the future, it appears that the trend toward wellness is here to stay.

Article By: Rachel Beider as seen in Forbes