Articles by Upendo Ventures

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Our team loves to share our thoughts, research, experiences here in our blog. Please enjoy our articles and leave a comment to let us know what you think.


About the Author

Will StrohlFounder & CEO
Upendo Ventures
Overall, Will has nearly 20 years of experience helping website owners become more successful in all areas, including mentoring, website development, marketing, strategy, e-commerce, and more.

The Challenge of Wearing Multiple Hats

Hiring Manager's Desk Full of Résumés

There’s few people these days that don’t wear multiple hats where they work.  You might be applying for and holding the title of events coordinator, but you’re probably also dabbling in website updates, PPC marketing, marketing automation, and who knows what else.  Employers love to do this for many reasons, not the least of which being that you might be very good at those other things too.  This makes you much more valuable to your current employer.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t do you any favors for your personal branding.  You simply look like the proverbial “jack of all trades, master of none.”  Don’t forget that you’re one of many in a sea of applicants trying to vie for the attention of the great employers out there.

3 Ways Blogs Will Improve Your Personal Branding

Kids playing flag football

Wherever you are, when you were growing up, there was a sport that was more popular amongst your friends than others.  For me, we primarily switched between basketball and football (with an occasional straying into wiffle ball).  We would play as long as there was light, and sometimes when there wasn’t.  It was a great time full of memories.  However, there was always the tenuous moments before you began playing where teams would need to get chosen.  How did you get on the team you wanted?

Two Self-Confidence Hacks to Promote Yourself

Hack Yourself

As we live our days, we get consumed with the monotonous…  We have to get ready for work.  We might be getting others ready too.  We eat breakfast (hopefully).  We make it to work.  We spend 8 or more hours almost consecutively crossing off tasks on our to-do list.  Then we reverse this to make it back home to our family, pets, or Xbox.  Throughout all of this is a large series of decisions and actions we’ve accumulated throughout the day.  How many times did you stop to ask yourself, “Am I capable of doing this?”

A Leadership Lesson in Brevity

Leader leading a meeting

No matter how short or long you’ve been “the boss,” communication will always be your most challenging aspect of the job.  You’ll go through recurring phases of focusing on direction, feedback, motivation, correspondence, and more.  (That is, if you’re worth your salt as a leader… You’ll be bettering your leadership skills daily.)  Communications are always tricky.  If I learned nothing else from Daniel Goleman’s Working with Emotional Intelligence, it’s that we need to focus on communication and that communication will always be different for the situation, person, and medium.

Do You Want to Be a Leader or a Manager?

Being a leader and being a manager is not the same thing

There are tons of topics and ideas where people feel confused.  For some of us it’s financing.  For others, it’s stocks.  Some people get confused with sports.  Not everyone understands why or how football works the way it does.  In fact, nearly all of us use English words incorrectly every day.  Simply put, we often take knowledge for-granted.  In addition, if you hold a management or leadership title, it’s possible that you might not realize the difference.  Being a leader and being a manager is not the same thing.  Not by a longshot.