If you could go back in time and change one thing in business (aside from the lottery) would you and if so, what would you change?

There are so many platforms to grow on, and most entrepreneurs make some mistakes in the beginning in terms of where they invest their time. If I could go back to the beginning of my business, I would delete Instagram and Facebook from my phone and spend all of my time networking on LinkedIn. A few months of consuming and creating content on LinkedIn has brought my business far more than years of Instagram did. Treat LinkedIn as your watercooler and it'll pay off handsomely.

I would change the way that we value and compensate employees. Too often, businesses only focus on an employee's output rather than their input. I believe that if we valued and compensated employees based on their skill, effort and dedication, we would see a huge increase in employee satisfaction and retention.

I'd want to be more outreaching. It's probably true for a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, that you don't really know what you can do until you try. Reaching out, making connections and getting your brand known are some of the things that you always think you can do better in when you look back in hindsight. And it's pretty much true, you definitely can. If I could I'd go back and take any shots in building my brand that I shied away from just because I thought I was too inexperienced for. The worst I could do would be to fail. Knowing what I know now, that's not really a bad thing. Even when you lose you can still make personal gains.

There's always something that we wish we could go back and change in business. For me, it would be the way I handled a particular client situation. The client was extremely demanding and required a lot of my time and attention. I didn't handle the situation well and as a result, the client ended up leaving. In hindsight, I should have been more assertive with the client and set boundaries from the beginning. I would have saved myself a lot of headaches if I had just been upfront about what I was able to commit to. If I could go back and change one thing, that's definitely it.

It\'s tempting to say that I would use time travel to devote more time to another passion project. The truth is, though, that I wouldn\'t change a thing, beyond giving myself a quick break or two more often in the past. What I do is my passion project, and in order to succeed, I\'ve had to hustle and grab every opportunity that has come my way. Beyond having more time to rest and recuperate, I wouldn\'t change a thing.

It's an old saw that 'what gets measured, gets done' but we started using OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) experimentally two years ago and more consistently this year and the result has been transformational. By setting company, departmental and (in some cases) personal goals using the OKR format we have been able to measure what's important, focus more on things that matter and build transparency, accountability and ambition into the business. Also, it's a much more concise and rigorous format for business planning than the traditional wish list of things you'd love to do in the year.

If we're speaking about the business world in general and not my business in particular, the change I would make is to start diversity and inclusion initiatives much sooner in history. Our modern world has shown that professionals of every possible identity can add value to the world and make a difference. I suspect that we would be much further along as a society if leaders didn't stymie so much human potential in decades past by limiting opportunities to select groups.

If I could have changed one thing, it would have been to do more community outreach in the early days when we were first getting things off the ground. Our current business model is a product of the transformative power of remote work, connecting a network of talented artists, sewers, and technicians to create high quality sustainable products from underprivileged communities across the United States. Giving back has always been a part of our ethos, but I wish we had been able to scale our efforts sooner. In that regard, Covid was both a blessing and a curse for us as it forced us to develop the current methods in which we conduct business while also delaying its launch.

If I could go back and change one thing about business, it would be the way that decisions are made. Too often, businesses rely on a "gut feeling" to make decisions, rather than taking the time to do market research and collect data. This can lead to poor decision-making and small businesses, in particular, can find it difficult to recover from bad decisions. I believe that if businesses took a more data-driven approach to decision-making, they would be more successful in the long run. Of course, this is easier said than done, and there are always going to be instances where gut instinct trumps data. However, I think it is important for businesses to at least consider the role that data can play in making sound decisions.

If I could go back in time and change one thing in business, that would be raising my profile. However, I am the best marketing tool as a small business owner. Despite being a B2-B entrepreneur, my community comprises a specific industry. Also, I established another B2C business, whose community consisted of my town, where I could build a name for myself if I raised my profile at that time. As a B2B entrepreneur, I could have contributed by speaking or chairing panels at conferences for the community or contributing to others’ blogs.

As a perfectionist, it's quite simple for me to point out what would be great to change in my business in 2016 - the year it all started. That thing is paying attention to everything but not a company itself - all those things like pictures on the website, the color of the button on the subdomain that is not in line with the guidelines, even the font must be slightly changed because I've just read the article which says this font is not attractive enough. All those tiny things that took much of my attention, but in reality it was all unnecessary when I look at it now. Despite the fact that I wasted so much time on all those details, I wouldn't change it. Some lessons must come the hard way. Otherwise, I would not be in a position I am right now.

In 2008, the United States of America went through The Great Recession. Many might not see this as a significant event, but it had effects that affected the entire world. If I could go back in time, I could stop this from happening and save many businesses from suffering from the impacts of the recession.

It's easy to convince oneself that the idea isn't practical by conducting market research, industry surveys, market size data, competition analysis, etc., which only serves to further delay the inevitable. Currently, I believe that going into overdrive is pointless. You have to put your head underwater if you want to swim up to success: you have to create, launch, learn, repeat, fail, repeat, and succeed. If I have to start over, My time spent on this information gathering would be minimal since I would rather execute that time toward action and financial gain. Finally, I won't kid myself into thinking that I don't have any competition.

If I am given this opportunity, then I would like to change the traditional hiring process. In my opinion, the traditional hiring process was extremely complex back then and candidates used to fear the recruiters for not approving them easily and being biassed. Similarly, recruiters were afraid of the candidates being highly skilled but arrogant. Thus, there was no open communication between the recruiters and the candidates, which is why the recruitment process used to take more time than expected to get completed. Getting success was another story.

I didn’t go online in terms of business as late as 2018. I had a stable company from referrals, and I assumed my customers were not online. I was wrong. I might have grown my business faster if I had been online earlier. I regret losing out on the benefits of online community and selling. I wish I could go back and change this one thing in business.

Nothing should change. At the end of the day, everything happens for a reason. As difficult as some challenges may have been, it all plays out the way it's supposed to. We have hard days and moments as a business, but it builds character and teaches us a lesson. While it would be nice to go back and time and change something, we lose the lesson that came from the challenge.

With our company, we are in a very good position in terms of how the digital side of the business is going. However, if I could go back in time, I'd say we could have implemented a lot of things much sooner. If I started earlier, we would have had a much larger content marketing machine by this point, we would have established social media followings on several platforms (some of which are dominated by a few large competitors). By doing that, we would be quite comfortably bringing in a lot of organic traffic without having to do as much outbound marketing, or paid advertisements.

The biggest thing I would go back and change is to take bigger risks and chances. I kind of hedged my "bets" with my digital marketing business but I think if I would go back I would have gone bigger and sooner. I might have started in college (even though digital marketing was in it's infantcy) or right after. But honestly I wouldn't change much, I've been extremely blessed. I think I would have just leaned more into taking a bigger risk.

If I could go back in time and change one thing in business, I would change the way I dealt with conflict. I used being vindicated or maintaining harmony were mutually exclusive: you can't win an argument if you're not arguing. But counterintuitively, this isn't exactly true. It is absolutely possible to use conflict as a source of growth and learning, rather than as a disruption of peaceful collaboration. Avoiding all conflicts lead to overall dissatisfaction and poorer performance than learning how to both listen to other and be heard.

If I could go back in time, I would definitely change some things in business. Most importantly I would change monetization in the business world. I yearn for the days when business was purely an exchange of goods and services dependent on one’s needs. You needed not have to have money in order to get something you need. As long as you have a product or service that someone else wants, and they have the product or service that you need, then you could exchange the products and both of your needs were satisfied. This mode of business created a deep interrelationship and formed a symbiotic relationship in the business world. Monetization totally got rid of this relationship.