KACHARAGADLA

Tips you can use next year to build your brand. If you aren't fully committed to building your  personal brand  yet, it's time to go all-in. I'm a huge advocate when it comes to personal branding -- it's how I built my first  marketing agency. I leveraged my personal  brand  and  bootstrappedits growth , allowing me to avoid taking out a business loan or giving up equity to an investor. To this day, I retain 100 percent ownership of every business I operate. When done right, you are able to establish yourself as an authority, create an authentic voice and attract business through transparency and expertise. I've discussed ways to  build your personal brand  in the past and mentioned some  online personal branding tools  that you can use -- and now I want to talk about effective strategies. I spoke with several  entrepreneurs  to come up with a list of a dozen ways you can elevate your personal brand in the upcoming year. 1. Launch a weekly email newsle

How to stand out in a crowded industry. In a point-and-click age, almost anyone can manage a decent photo. Heck, I know people using portrait mode on their iPhones trying to turn their tap-to-focus "skills" into a side hustle. But, if you want to start and grow a photography business and have a chance at making a name for yourself in the industry, you must look beyond the picture. According to  IBISWorld , the photography industry has grown 1.7 percent in the U.S. in the past five years, presenting itself as a $10B industry with 235,000 jobs and 195,000 registered businesses. And slow, but steady growth is anticipated in the coming years. If you want to make some headway in the photography space and be more than a part-time face behind the lens, it's important to have perspective. Your own perspective, that is. To help you figure out that unique angle, here are some pieces of advice from the artist behind arguably one of the most well-recognized perspectives of

Creating the right message is the crucial first step to making money with Facebook ads, but it doesn't end there. What was once deemed the wild, wild west of advertising has now become the mainstream method for reaching your target audience. Today, driving sales with  Facebook  ads is one of the  fastest ways to make money . No matter what type of product or service or information you're peddling, the quickest way to go from zero to hero is to structure the right ad that drives traffic to the right funnel and targets the right prospect. Simple, right? If you've had any experience with Facebook ads, you know that it takes a Jedi mindset to conquer this field and to actually churn a profit. Not only do your ads need to be on point, so to speak, but so does your entire  sales funnel . But, once you've built out your converting offer, all you need to do is to  optimize those conversions  then start  scaling your business . So how do you go about doing that?

Reading recommendations from the Stanford GSB community. A reading list of books written or recommended by Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni and faculty: A  good book  is like food for the  soul . When you want to curl up by the fire with a truly great one, look no further than this list furnished by members of the  Stanford Graduate School of Business . If you've got an entrepreneur or two in your life , these might make good holiday gifts, too: 1. Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't, by Jim Collins Collins and his team did a rigorous study of businesses that excelled as compared to those that stayed mediocre. In his words, "Some of the key concepts discerned in the study fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people." 2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things : Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, by Ben Horowitz Cofounder of VC firm Andreessen H