Matt Williams MassMutual Greater Houston

: Never intermingle personal finances and business finances. Use different checking accounts, credit cards, etc. to ensure they stay separate.

: Evaluate the internal and external strategies to exit your business. Each has unique pros, cons and impacts on the business and your financial future.

: Are you a business first family or a family first business? Each differs in how the desires of the family and the needs of the business are prioritized.

: Personal financial issues can distract employees at work. Making financial education available can help increase productivity, build loyalty, and improve morale.

: Your #1 job as a leader is to make sure your team knows what you STAND for, not what you’ll SETTLE for.

: Visitors to your website judge you on its ease of use first, then by your content. Spend your website resources on improving the user experience first.

: Give your customer service team a philosophy instead of a script. This will help them be more efficient and personable when interacting with customers.

: Improve data management by ensuring all departments in your business understand how certain data sets align to their goals and are to be implemented.

: Seek to build trust first, traffic second. Focus on getting your social media content shared; visits to your website will follow.

: The "intangibles" drive business value: quality of your team, loyalty of your customers, reputation of your brand, and documentation of your processes.

: Offering too many products or services? Niche down--cater so much to a specific need that your business becomes the go-to for it.

: Prospects say ‘no’ for specific reasons: no need, no money, no urgency or no trust. Be ready to provide a solution for each.