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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Valerie Cherish is back, and not a moment too soon. Twenty years after a modestly rated but absolutely brilliant first season, mega-cringe Hollywood satire The Comeback has returned to HBO for one more painfully embarrassing season (complimentary) Co-created by and starring Lisa Kudrow, it's the hilarious, dark, and occasionally moving story of a C-list celebrity determined to stay in the limelight at whatever cost. Valerie Cherish—clueless, egotistical, and all-too-human—is one of TV's indelible characters, simultaneously a victim of ageism, misogyny, and celebrity culture, and also a woman who doesn't care about any of that provided she can find a way to scrabble to the top. Likewise, these 10 shows spotlight women (mostly) of a certain age navigating career challenges with...mixed results. Hacks (2021 – ) On the surface, Valerie Cherish and Deborah Vance don't have all that much in common, but they often feel like two sides of a coin in the ways in which they battle, and concede to, the pressures of being a woman in modern show business. Hacks finds 25-year-old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) struggling to get her career back one track after getting cancelled over a tweet. She reluctantly takes a job with Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a comedy trailblazer who remains popular with an older Vegas crown, but whose career is largely on autopilot. They're an entirely mismatched pair, but their chemistry is ultimately explosive, with Jean Smart doing some of the best work of her incredible career as the often deeply unlikeable Vance, and Einbinder more than holding her own in return. It's funny, bitchy, and surprisingly moving when it wants to be. Stream Hacks on HBO Max. Hacks (2021 – ) Learn More Learn More Girls5eva (2021 – 2024) The premise is very much about a comeback: A very ‘90s group (Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, and Renée Elise Goldsberry) who made it big very briefly with exactly one hit song gets its own shot at a career resurgence (they’re Girls5eva because they expected to be in the game “longer than 4 ever”—turned out, not so much; also there used to be a fifth member, but she died in a tragic infinity pool accident). After an up-and-coming rapper samples one of their old hits, the band reunites to try to find new relevancy in the 2020s. It doesn't go great! Tina Fey is one of the executive producers, and the (very fun) '90s-inspired original music was composed and written for the show by the creators. Stream Girls5Eva on Peacock and Netflix. Girls5eva (2021 – 2024) at Peacock Learn More Learn More at Peacock Veep (2012 – 2019) There's a sweet vulnerability to Valerie Cherish absent from pretty much anyone in Veep, but the air of cringeworthy desperation hangs heavy over both shows. Veep asks: What if the very worst people imaginable had control of all the levers of power in America? What would that be like? In the highly satirical and in no way politically relevant series, Julia Louis-Dreyfus brilliantly plays Vice President Selina Meyer: part icon, part worst-case-scenario for the feminist dream. The supporting cast consists almost entirely of entitled rich people climbing over each other for infinitesimal extra bits of power while trying to appear as folk heroes to the rubes (us voters). It’s one of the funniest shows ever on TV, with the nastiest put-downs...if you can handle the fact that history has overtaken it in favor of a reality that's even more absurd. Stream Veep on HBO Max. Veep (2012 – 2019) at HBO Max Learn More Learn More at HBO Max The Studio (2025 – ) Industry exec Matt Remick (Comeback vet Seth Rogen) loves movies, and when he signs on for a high-profile role at the fictional Continental Studios, he feels like his time has come. He aims to make a real difference in returning an increasingly IP-driven movie industry to its creative roots.—until about a minute into his new job, when the CEO (Bryan Cranston) reveals his first order of business will be marketing the Kool-Aid Man Movie. Hollywood satires of yore have focused on the industry as one that eats people up and spits them out, but the spin here is that Remick yearns for those good old days, much as Valerie can never quite seem to move forward. The late Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies), and Kathryn Hahn also star, and like The Comeback, the show boasts a long list of celebrity cameos. Stream The Studio on Apple TV+. The Studio (2025 – ) at Apple TV+ Learn More Learn More at Apple TV+ Enlightened (2011 – 2013) Before The White Lotus, Mike White co-created (with star Laura Dern) this beloved, if short-lived, comedy-drama about a middle-aged woman who has a complete mental breakdown following a demotion at the job to which she's devoted her life. Following a two-month stay in an holistic treatment facility, Dern's Amy Jellicoe becomes determined to approach life with a new perspective, focusing on meditation and positive change at work and at home. The results are mixed, but there's also a rather beautiful sense that change is absurd and difficult, but also entirely possible. Stream Enlightened on HBO Max. Enlightened (2011 – 2013) Learn More Learn More No Good Deed (2024) I'm adding this one largely for the Lisa Kudrow of it all, but there's a similar vein of dark comedy here—plus, No Good Deed is a pretty great show that a lot of people missed. The setup sounds like a juicy crime thrillers: Kudrow is retired pianist Lydia; Ray Romano is her husband, Paul. The two are in rather tricky financial straits and need to sell their home without wanting to seem too desperate to prospective buyers—and also hide a secret involving a death a few years prior. For all that, it's very much a comedy, with a great supporting cast that includes Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, O-T Fagbenle, and Teyonah Parris. Stream No Good Deed on Netflix. No Good Deed (2024) Learn More Learn More Younger (2015 – 2021) Rather than a young woman seeking to make a name for herself, Younger follows Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a recently divorced woman in her 40s who finds that age is a barrier to reentering the publishing industry she left years earlier. After a compliment convinces her that she could pass for a younger woman, she lies that she's just 26 (must be nice) in order to land an entry-level job. Misadventures ensue. Think of it as a story of coming-of-age, again. Stream Younger on Netflix. Younger (2015 – 2021) at Netflix Learn More Learn More at Netflix Hot in Cleveland (2010 – 2015) In contrast to The Comeback's reality TV style and structure, this is very much a traditional three-camera sitcom, albeit one with a stacked cast of legends, though it approaches the challenges of being a middle-aged woman in entertainment in many of the same ways. Writer Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli), beautician Joy (Jane Leeves), and soap diva Victoria (Wendie Malick) wind up spending a wild night in Cleveland after a plane to Paris is diverted, discovering in the process that, while they're seen as over-the-hill back in Los Angeles, they're all Ohio 10s—though the sassy caretaker of their house, Elka (Betty White), might not agree. Stream Hot in Cleveland on Paramount+. Hot in Cleveland at Paramount+ Learn More Learn More at Paramount+ Grace and Frankie (2015 – 2022) Close female friendships are hard to come by for the driven, slightly clueless Valerie, a woman focused on staying on top. Jane Fonda's Grace, a cosmetics mogul, isn't much different at the start, but she finds a different path when she makes a truce with her arch-nemesis Frankie (Lily Tomlin), a quirky artist with whom she has nothing in common—other than the fact that their husbands left them for one another. (Valerie might take some notes.) Stream Grace and Frankie on Netflix. Grace and Frankie at Netflix Learn More Learn More at Netflix Call My Agent! (2015 – 2020) International sensation Call My Agent! shifts its focus between four talent agents at a prestigious firm who are forced to take the reins following the sudden death of the agency founder, all of them getting a second chance in mid-career—or beyond. The cast is lead by Camille Cottin as Andréa Martel, while Liliane Rovère's Arlette Azéma is in her '80s. They navigate their messy personal lives while catering to the needs of their real celebrity clients (Juliette Binoche, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, and Sigourney Weaver are just some of the name guest stars playing faintly exaggerated versions of themselves). It's soapy, addictive showbiz fun, a dishy delight even if you know not a lick of French. Stream Call My Agent! on Netflix. Call My Agent! (2015 – 2020) at Netflix Learn More Learn More at Netflix View the full article

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. François Chollet on AI benchmarks I wrote an exclusive feature this week about the launch of a new AI benchmark called ARC-AGI-3. The benchmark was created by influential AI researcher Francois Chollet, who also created the widely-used Keras deep learning framework, a simplified toolkit for building AI models. Chollet has long argued that current AI models are limited in their ability to navigate novel situations and problems. The ARC test, which humans can master but not most AI systems, is designed to lay bare that limitation. My interview with Chollet contained a lot of general insights that didn’t make it into the story. Here are some of them (with my annotations in bold.) ARC-AGI-3 asks AI agents to navigate a series of simplistic video games, without instructions. Here’s Chollet on why current models struggle to do that: “It’s because they are reliant on memorization and retrieval, and the game is something they’ve never seen before. They’ve never played that particular game before or games like it, because each one is unique. So they’re lost. But a human is generally intelligent. A human is never lost. A human figures it out on the fly because they have fluid intelligence.” I began to imagine how I would approach figuring out the games. I suggested to Chollet that my main strategy would be thinking about similar scenarios I’d seen in the past or in other contexts, and trying to apply them. “Models have a lot of abstractions encoded in them. They have in fact more knowledge than you do. But they have very low ability to recombine that knowledge at test time to make sense of something they’ve never seen before. It’s the way the entire paradigm works. We are really good at absorbing knowledge, absorbing lots and lots of patterns. Better than the human brain, and at a much bigger scale. We are very bad at fluid intelligence, which is taking those patterns and actually combining them on the fly to form a new model [of a problem].” On what exactly an AI model would need to score highly on the benchmark: “They need small amounts of world modeling and continual learning–continual learning being the idea that on one level you’re going to learn one concept, on the next level you’re going to reuse that concept but learn a new one, and on the third level you’re going to add a third concept, and so on. It’s continual learning.” Not only do AI models need to continually learn, but they also need to form a model of the world that captures causes and effects. Chollet explains: “In general, all the ingredients you need in order to solve ARC 3 the right way, without brute forcing, without training on millions of games, are the ingredients of human intelligence but on a very small scale. The control space is tiny, the sensor space is tiny, the mechanics of the worlds are very simple, and your learning time scale is very short. But it’s fundamentally about dealing with the unknown. You have to explore. You have to try things and then build, step by step, bit by bit, a causal model of what’s going on, like ‘what happened when I pressed this button?'” Then you have to figure out what you want to be doing in this world. Like a child learning to move around. They have to figure out how their sense of space works, how the environment responds to what they’re doing. And when they start being able to do things, like crawling, they have to figure out what they want to be doing. Where do I want to crawl? If I can grab an object, why would I want to grab this object or that object? On what would happen if we did incorporate these solutions and got close to a perfect score playing the games in ARC-AGI-3: The causal models you need to build to solve these games are dramatically simpler than the causal models of the world that you have in your head. And the continual learning you have to do to solve one of these games is on the scale of a few minutes–five minutes, 10 minutes of gameplay. A human does decades of continual learning. So it’s the right ingredients at a very small scale. It’s a step in the right direction, but you cannot say this is human level. OpenAI may have zapped Sora as part of a pivot toward ‘world modeling’ OpenAI has decided to shut down its Sora app, which lets users generate AI videos and then share them on its TikTok-style social feed. Its reason for doing so may dovetail with a growing trend among AI video generation players. The AI lab may be pivoting toward using its AI video generation technology for world modeling and simulation. “As we focus and compute demand grows, the Sora research team continues to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Axios. That technology which can also be used in game development, digital twins, and special effects in visual entertainment. AI video generation companies Moonvalley and Runway AI are also moving toward developing world models. OpenAI might also have been spooked by the obvious copyright infringement risk of apps like Sora. Many copyright holders, including Hollywood studios and actors, were shocked to see that Sora often used well-known faces and had no clear guardrails for controlling it. OpenAI responded by offering to give Hollywood studios and actors more control over their IP and likenesses on the platform. Disney characters were among the first copyrighted assets to show up in Sora videos. But the two companies made a deal: Disney was invited to invest a billion dollars in OpenAI, and agreed to allow the use of classic Disney characters in Sora videos. The Hollywood Reporter now reports that the deal is off. OpenAI will continue building its video generation models, and it’s possible that something like Sora will be added to ChatGPT. More AI coverage from Fast Company: What happens when an AI agent decides to email you This Microsoft security team stress-tests AI for its worst-case scenarios Why breaking news still wins in the age of AI This artist’s work has been shown at MoMA. Now it’s training AI Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium. View the full article

Stop thinking small. By Sandi Leyva The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms Go PRO for members-only access to more Sandi Smith Leyva. View the full article

Stop thinking small. By Sandi Leyva The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms Go PRO for members-only access to more Sandi Smith Leyva. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: “Who is sending new business your way and who isn’t but really ought to be?” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: “Who is sending new business your way and who isn’t but really ought to be?” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article

There’s been a lot of noise in the advertising industry lately, from restructuring to consolidation to massive financial recalibrations at the industry’s biggest companies. It’s easy, in moments like this, to frame finance people as the enemy of creativity, something I’ve been reading a lot of recently. I don’t buy that. To me, the issue isn’t financial leadership. It’s the posture that financial leaders take. In a creative business, the CFO doesn’t just manage the numbers. They influence behavior, and their actions shape culture and whether a company builds or simply protects. It shows how they engage: are they leaning into tough conversations, helping solve problems rather than simply measuring them, and making it clear that they stand behind the work? CFOs AS BUILDERS I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the best CFOs, and they are builders. They understand that a creative company is not a manufacturing business or a tech company. At a true creative agency, the greatest assets walk out the door every night. And the product isn’t ads, but ideas that create advantage for brands. Which means the focus can’t be efficiency alone. It has to be about raising the bar and improving the work, not simply extracting more margin from it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t financial discipline. In fact, discipline becomes more important. But the approach shifts. The question isn’t, “How do we minimize our exposure?” It’s “How do we fund our ambitions responsibly?” There’s a big difference. The wrong kind of financial leadership narrows the aperture, and every setback triggers contraction. Profit becomes the headline metric for everything, and over time, the company plays more defense than offense. The right CFO understands that long-term value in a creative company comes from momentum, reputation, and the ability to attract exceptional talent. None of that grows without oxygen. Over the past 16 years at Zulu Alpha Kilo, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful this can be. Being an indie creative agency sounds romantic—the creative freedom, financial control, autonomy over your brand and what it stands for. But it only works if financial leadership believes in the mission. If they don’t, independence is just a structure, not a strength. When your finance team aligns with your ambitions for the company, something different happens. You can invest through a tough month or quarter instead of retreating from it. You can hire that additional creative team or invest in that brave idea that needs some extra love. You can choose to strengthen internal culture rather than cut it to the bone. CLARITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY The builder’s CFO doesn’t say yes to everything. They ask hard questions, push for clarity, and hold people accountable. But they understand that the safest path rarely builds the strongest company. In moments of industry restructuring like the one we’re watching now, consolidation and financial engineering are often positioned as the solution. Sometimes those are necessary actions. But they are defensive plays, not the ones that create long-term success. Creative companies don’t succeed when they are the most optimized. They are sustainable when the work comes first: in priority, investment, and decision-making. If you’re leading a creative organization today, whether it’s an indie or part of something larger, the most important financial question isn’t about balance sheets or budgets. It’s about whether financial leadership believes in the power of the work. Because over time, finance doesn’t just fund creativity. It either fuels it or suffocates it. And in a creative company, that difference defines everything. Mike Sutton is the president and CEO at Zulu Alpha Kilo. View the full article

The hard part in content marketing is the information—ideas, verified facts, and reference material. And that’s exactly where these tools fall short. I learned this after generating 40 articles through Claude. I’d tried the writing tools first, but they…Read more ›View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. When you’re shopping around for a massage gun, you want to focus on features that justify the price. Specifically, I focus on features like speed settings (both intensity and versatility), noise and ease of use, battery life, and size. I've learned the hard way that when you're looking for a travel-sized massage gun, you have to be extra shrewd. I was once gifted a mini massage gun that, according to the holiday gift exchange rules, must have cost less than $30. It ran out of battery within one or two minutes of weak “massaging.” All of that is to say, a cheap massage gun isn’t worth it. Even if you're looking for "mini," you still need to invest in one up to the task of hammering away the pain. And do I have the guy for you: Normally $99.99, this mini massage gun is currently on sale for $78.82 as part of Amazon's Big Spring Sale. Bob and Brad Mini Massage Gun $78.82 at Amazon $99.99 Save $21.17 Get Deal Get Deal $78.82 at Amazon $99.99 Save $21.17 At barely one pound, the Bob and Brad Q2 Mini certainly lives up to its name. Luckily, this massage gun still packs a lot of punch, in terms of both literal vibrations and my overall user experience. For me, the real selling point of this massage gun—which I review in-depth here—is the effectiveness of its heat therapy. Plus, its compact size makes it perfect for travel or bringing to the gym—something I never considered with my full-sized TheraGun Therabody. Even if you already own a larger massage gun, the Q2 Mini's heat therapy and sweet size could make it a worthwhile addition to your recovery toolkit. Our Best Editor-Vetted Amazon Big Spring Sale Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 128GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Gray) — $209.99 (List Price $249.99) Sony WH1000XM6- Best Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones — $398.00 (List Price $459.99) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $35.99 (List Price $69.99) Fire TV Stick 4K Max Streaming Player With Remote — $34.99 (List Price $59.99) Amazon Kindle Colorsoft 16GB 7" eReader (Black) — $169.99 (List Price $249.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Investing in a franchise can be a strategic move for those looking to start a business with established support. It requires careful consideration of personal goals, financial readiness, and the right franchise choice. You’ll need to assess startup costs, ongoing expenses, and legal compliance during the development of a solid business plan. Comprehending the various franchise types and evaluating opportunities will be essential to your success. So, what factors should you prioritize in your decision-making process? Key Takeaways Assess your financial readiness by evaluating your net worth and ensuring you can cover startup costs and ongoing expenses. Research franchise opportunities that align with your values, budget, and market potential for long-term success. Review the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) for detailed information on costs, obligations, and past franchisee performance. Develop a comprehensive business plan outlining objectives, market analysis, and financial projections to guide your franchise operations. Consult with legal counsel to understand the franchise agreement’s terms, conditions, and your rights and responsibilities as a franchisee. What Is a Franchise? A franchise is a structured business model where a franchisor allows a franchisee to operate under its established brand and systems in exchange for fees and royalties. In franchise investing, you benefit from the franchisor’s proven operational systems and brand recognition, which can greatly reduce the risks associated with starting a new business. There are various types of franchises, including restaurant franchises and health and fitness establishments, each catering to different markets. To franchise invest, you’ll typically enter into a franchise agreement that includes a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), outlining the franchisor’s obligations and financial performance. Initial investments can range from $10,000 to $5 million, depending on the franchise type and location, making it a viable option for those seeking passive income franchise opportunities. Why Consider Investing in a Franchise? When you invest in a franchise, you get to tap into established brand recognition, which can help attract customers much faster than starting your own business from scratch. Furthermore, many franchisors provide extensive support systems, offering training and resources that can greatly reduce your risk of failure. Established Brand Recognition Established brand recognition plays a vital role when considering an investment in a franchise. By choosing a franchise with an established brand, you can leverage customer trust and loyalty, which are key for success. Many franchisors invest heavily in marketing and advertising, benefiting franchisees by reducing customer acquisition costs. This is particularly important when exploring the best passive income franchises, as a loyal customer base often leads to predictable revenue from day one. In addition, research shows that approximately 90% of franchisees report profitability within their first two years, largely owing to the support of a well-known brand. As a result, passive franchise ownership through established brands can improve your chances of success and profitability in the competitive marketplace. Comprehensive Support Systems Investing in a franchise isn’t just about capitalizing on brand recognition; it also involves tapping into extensive support systems that can greatly improve your chances of success. Franchise systems provide thorough training programs covering operational procedures, marketing strategies, and customer service techniques, ensuring you’re well-prepared. Ongoing support from franchisors includes access to valuable marketing resources and performance monitoring, essential for profitability. Many best passive franchises offer a robust network of fellow franchisees, encouraging shared experiences and problem-solving. Plus, established supply chains simplify procurement and reduce costs. Types of Franchises Available Franchises come in various types, each catering to different markets and consumer needs, so it’s vital to understand the options available. Restaurant franchises, like Subway and Burger King, dominate the fast-food segment with their well-known brands. Business service franchises, such as The UPS Store, provide fundamental services like shipping and printing, serving both consumers and small businesses. Educational franchises, including Kumon and School of Rock, focus on child development and skill improvement, meeting the rising demand for supplementary education. Health and fitness franchises, like Anytime Fitness, tap into the wellness industry, reflecting the growing consumer interest in health trends. Finally, specialty retail franchises, such as Ace Hardware and GNC, offer niche products customized to specific customer needs, broadening market choices for potential franchisees. Evaluating Franchise Opportunities When evaluating franchise opportunities, you need to contemplate how well the franchise aligns with your personal values, as this can affect your commitment and satisfaction. It’s likewise important to analyze financial requirements and guarantee that the investment aligns with your budget and financial goals. Finally, evaluating the growth potential of the franchise can help you determine its viability and long-term success in your chosen market. Aligning Personal Values Finding a franchise that aligns with your personal values can greatly impact your overall satisfaction and motivation in running the business. Start by evaluating the franchise’s mission and how it resonates with your beliefs and interests. Research its community impact and commitment to social responsibility to guarantee it reflects your desire for positive change. Engaging with current franchisees offers insights into their experiences and cultural fit, helping you determine if the franchise aligns with your values. Furthermore, analyze the franchise’s reputation and brand values to confirm that your investment mirrors your ethics. Finally, assess the franchisor’s support for diversity and inclusion initiatives to identify opportunities that promote community representation and equity, ensuring a fulfilling business experience. Analyzing Financial Requirements Comprehending the financial requirements for investing in a franchise is vital, as it can greatly influence your decision-making process. Start by identifying the initial investment, which typically ranges from $10,000 to $5 million, with most franchises between $100,000 and $300,000. Review the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) to uncover all costs, including franchise fees, setup costs, and ongoing royalty fees. Don’t forget to factor in the need for working capital to cover operational expenses during the startup phase. Explore financing options such as bank loans, family investments, or SBA-backed loans to guarantee you have sufficient funds. Furthermore, conduct a return on investment (ROI) analysis to evaluate the financial viability and potential profitability of the franchise opportunity you’re considering. Assessing Growth Potential How can you effectively assess the growth potential of a franchise opportunity? Start by examining the franchise’s historical performance metrics, such as average unit sales and profitability rates. Analyze industry trends to guarantee alignment with market demand. Review the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) for insights on growth and expansion plans. Speaking with current and former franchisees will provide valuable information about their experiences and the support from the franchisor. Finally, consider the availability of multi-unit ownership, as this can greatly improve revenue streams. Key Elements Considerations Historical Performance Average unit sales, profitability rates Industry Trends Market demand, consumer preferences Franchise Support Insights from current/former franchisees Understanding Franchise Startup Costs When considering a franchise investment, comprehension of startup costs is crucial, as these expenses can greatly affect your financial planning. Franchise startup costs typically range from $10,000 to $5 million, with most falling between $100,000 and $300,000, depending on factors like industry and location. Your initial investment will include franchise fees, setup costs for construction and equipment, and working capital for operational expenses. To get a clear breakdown of these costs, refer to the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), especially Item 7, which details all associated fees. Moreover, remember to factor in ongoing royalty fees based on gross sales, and budget for extra operational expenses to guarantee you have sufficient funds for a successful franchise launch and sustainability. Assessing Your Financial Readiness Determining your financial readiness for investing in a franchise is essential for making informed decisions. Start by evaluating your personal financial situation, calculating your net worth to understand your available capital. Franchise investments typically range from $10,000 to $5 million, with most between $100,000 and $300,000. Assess your credit score—aim for above 700 to improve financing options. Don’t forget to take into account ongoing costs, like royalty fees between 4% and 8% of gross sales. Review the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) for a breakdown of startup costs and financial obligations. Financial Aspect Estimated Range Initial Investment $10,000 – $5 million Royalty Fees 4% – 8% of gross sales Good Credit Score Above 700 Developing a Comprehensive Business Plan When developing an extensive business plan for your franchise, it’s essential to define your business objectives clearly. You’ll likewise want to outline financial projections accurately, detailing startup costs and expected revenue to gauge profitability. Finally, thoroughly detailing operational strategies will help you streamline processes and align with the franchise’s goals. Define Business Objectives Clearly A well-defined set of business objectives is essential for the success of any franchise investment, serving as the foundation of your thorough business plan. Start by setting SMART goals—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. These objectives guide your decision-making and help you evaluate progress effectively. Conduct thorough market research to identify industry trends, target demographics, and competitive analysis, ensuring your franchise aligns with market demand. Include an executive summary, company description, and operational strategies in your business plan to clarify your vision. Regularly revisit and update your objectives to adapt to market changes and assess performance. This ongoing refinement will keep your franchise positioned for success and growth in a competitive environment. Outline Financial Projections Accurately Accurate financial projections are crucial for any franchise business plan, as they provide a roadmap for your financial expectations and help gauge the viability of your investment. Start by detailing startup costs, ongoing operational expenses, and expected revenue streams. Use historical data from the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) to create realistic projections. Incorporate a break-even analysis to identify how long it’ll take to recoup your initial investment. Furthermore, outline cash flow projections for at least the first three years, detailing monthly inflows and outflows to guarantee financial stability. Finally, consider external factors like market trends and competition, as these can greatly influence your franchise’s profitability and growth potential, guiding your strategic decisions effectively. Detail Operational Strategies Thoroughly To effectively navigate the intricacies of running a franchise, it’s essential to detail operational strategies thoroughly in your business plan. Begin with an executive summary that outlines your vision, followed by a detailed market analysis. Clearly define management structures and processes to guarantee efficient operations and compliance with franchisor guidelines. Set measurable goals and objectives to track your franchise’s performance. Include marketing plans that focus on local advertising, leveraging franchisor support to attract and retain customers. Finally, incorporate financial projections that detail startup costs, ongoing expenses, and anticipated revenues, providing a clear picture of potential profitability. This all-encompassing approach will guide your franchise operations and help secure necessary financing. Forming an LLC or Corporation When you’re considering investing in a franchise, forming a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or a corporation is a crucial step that can greatly affect your business path. An LLC offers legal protection by separating your personal assets from business liabilities, which reduces your financial risk in case of debts or lawsuits. It likewise involves less paperwork and fewer compliance requirements than a corporation, making it easier to manage. Many franchisors prefer franchisees to operate under an incorporated entity, as it boosts credibility. Conversely, forming a corporation can provide tax benefits, including the ability to deduct certain business expenses. The costs for setting up an LLC or corporation typically range from $50 to $500, depending on your state. Researching Market Conditions Researching market conditions is essential for ensuring your franchise investment aligns with the local economy and consumer behavior. Comprehending local market dynamics helps you identify consumer preferences, competition, and potential demand for your franchise’s offerings. Utilize government data sources, like the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, to gather insights on demographic trends and economic conditions relevant to your market. Analyzing existing franchise performance in your area can gauge the viability of your business model. Contact current and past franchisees for practical experiences. Tools like Esri’s Business Analyst and Placer.ai can evaluate foot traffic and customer behavior, assisting your location selection. Stay informed on industry trends and consumer behavior to mitigate risks associated with economic fluctuations. Reviewing the Franchise Agreement When you’re reviewing the franchise agreement, it’s crucial to understand its key components, such as the initial franchise fee and ongoing royalty fees. This legally binding contract outlines both your rights and responsibilities as a franchisee, so don’t overlook the importance of seeking legal counsel for a thorough review. Pay special attention to clauses on termination, renewal, and transferability to safeguard your investment and guarantee long-term success. Key Agreement Components A thorough comprehension of the Franchise Agreement is fundamental for anyone considering a franchise investment. This legally binding contract outlines both your and the franchisor’s rights and responsibilities, detailing terms of operation, fees, and the agreement’s duration. Key components include the initial franchise fee, ongoing royalty fees, and any additional costs for marketing or operational support. The agreement should additionally specify the franchisor’s obligations, like training and compliance standards, which help maintain the brand’s reputation. Pay close attention to the termination clauses, as they clarify conditions under which either party can end the franchise relationship. Finally, reviewing the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) is imperative, as it provides crucial information regarding financial performance and franchisee obligations. Legal Review Importance Comprehending the importance of a legal review for your franchise agreement is crucial, as it can greatly influence your business’s success. A franchise agreement is a legally binding contract detailing your rights and obligations. Having an attorney review it can highlight potential risks and liabilities. The Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) likewise contains critical information about financial performance and legal history that you need to scrutinize. Here’s a quick overview of what to reflect on during your legal review: Aspect Importance Risks and Liabilities Identifies potential pitfalls Terms and Conditions Guarantees alignment with your business goals Franchise Fees Clarifies financial obligations Understanding these elements can prevent costly consequences later on. Compliance With Business Requirements Operating a franchise requires strict adherence to various business compliance requirements, which are critical for successful management. To guarantee smooth operations, you must focus on obtaining the necessary licenses and permits, which can vary by location and industry. Compliance with local regulations is crucial to avoid fines or potential franchise termination. In addition, many franchisors mandate corporate reporting requirements if incorporated, necessitating regular financial and operational updates. Key compliance aspects include: Securing a general business license and tax registrations Obtaining health permits and occupational licenses Following operational standards outlined in the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) Comprehending and adhering to state and municipal laws Failure to comply can lead to penalties or legal challenges, so thorough comprehension is fundamental. Choosing the Right Location Where should you place your franchise to maximize success? Choosing the right location is vital, as 80% of consumers will travel up to 20 minutes for preferred services. Start by conducting a demographic analysis to understand local age, income, and buying habits. Research the competition in the area to guarantee demand without saturation. Tools like Esri’s Business Analyst can shed light on foot traffic patterns and consumer behavior. Additionally, confirm compliance with local zoning laws to avoid operational restrictions. Factors Importance Demographics High Competition Medium Zoning Compliance Critical Select wisely, and your location can greatly improve your franchise’s potential for success. Building Your Team and Hiring Staff Building a successful franchise hinges not just on the products or services you offer, but furthermore on the strength of your team. To build a solid foundation, you’ll want to develop a clear recruitment strategy that identifies the specific skills and qualities needed for your franchise roles. Utilize cost-effective recruitment tools like JazzHR to streamline hiring and improve candidate selection. Attracting quality staff becomes easier when you highlight the benefits of your well-known franchise brand. Moreover, implement an all-encompassing training program to onboard new employees effectively. Finally, cultivate a positive work culture by engaging employees and encouraging feedback. Develop a clear recruitment strategy Use cost-effective tools for hiring Highlight franchise benefits to attract talent Implement an all-encompassing training program Strategies for Ongoing Support and Growth As you navigate the intricacies of running a franchise, implementing effective strategies for ongoing support and growth is crucial to your long-term success. Leverage the ongoing training and resources from your franchisor, including workshops and updated operational manuals, to boost performance. Engage with fellow franchisees through networking events and online forums to share best practices and innovative strategies. Regularly assess customer feedback via surveys to identify improvement areas and adapt your offerings. Utilize franchisor marketing support to strengthen your brand and attract new customers. Finally, monitor financial performance metrics like sales trends and profit margins, allowing you to make informed decisions and implement operational adjustments aimed at maximizing profitability and efficiency in your franchise. Frequently Asked Questions What to Consider Before Investing in a Franchise? Before investing in a franchise, you should evaluate your personal strengths and interests to guarantee they align with the franchise’s business model. Calculate the upfront investment, which can vary greatly. Review the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) to understand financial obligations and support. Research market conditions in your desired location to gauge demand and competition. Finally, consider the ongoing training and support provided, as these can greatly improve your business success. What Are the 4 P’s of Franchising? The 4 P’s of franchising are crucial for shaping your marketing strategy. First, the Product highlights what you’re offering, focusing on its unique features. Next, Price involves setting competitive rates that reflect your product’s value. Place refers to where customers can access your offerings, ensuring convenience. Finally, Promotion encompasses your marketing efforts, including advertising and events, to attract customers and communicate your brand effectively. Together, these elements create a cohesive approach to your franchise’s success. What Are the Steps to Buying a Franchise? To buy a franchise, start by evaluating the pros and cons, focusing on costs and benefits. Next, choose a franchise that aligns with your skills and financial goals. Form a legal business entity for protection and credibility. Research market conditions using government data and the Franchise Disclosure Document. Finally, review the franchise agreement carefully, ideally with legal counsel, to understand your rights, obligations, and financial commitments before signing. Why Is It Only $10,000 to Open a Chick-Fil-A? It’s only $10,000 to open a Chick-fil-A since the company covers most startup costs, including equipment and construction. This model allows you to focus on operations rather than heavy financial burdens. Chick-fil-A selects franchisees based on character and leadership skills rather than financial capability, ensuring a hands-on approach to management. In spite of the low initial investment, franchisees can earn substantial profits, as Chick-fil-A ranks high in sales per unit in the industry. Conclusion Investing in a franchise can be a rewarding venture if approached methodically. By evaluating your financial readiness, researching franchise options, and comprehending costs, you lay a solid foundation for success. Compliance with legal requirements and choosing an ideal location are essential for attracting customers. Furthermore, building a capable team and implementing growth strategies can further improve your franchise’s potential. With careful planning and execution, you can navigate the intricacies of franchising and achieve your business goals. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Investing in a Franchise: A Step-by-Step Guide" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you're in the Apple ecosystem, and you're looking for a new pair of earbuds, you'd have trouble doing better than AirPods Pro 3. Apple's flagship earbuds sound great, come with interchangeable tips, and sport a number of intelligent, useful features. That package doesn't come cheap, though—Apple has the newest AirPods Pro priced at $249. That's why they're great to buy on sale: Amazon currently has the AirPods Pro 3 for $50 off their usual price. AirPods Pro 3 $199.00 at Amazon $249.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $199.00 at Amazon $249.00 Save $50.00 AirPods Pro 3 are Apple's best earbuds, hands down—if you prefer the design, that is. They offer the highest quality sound, the best noise cancellation, and sizing flexibility with their interchangeable tips. If you find that the "one size fits all" approach of Apple's standard AirPods don't work for you, one of these AirPods Pro sizes might fit better. AirPods Pro 3 come with a ton of features, too. The buds have Active Noise Cancellation, and Apple says these are up to four times better than its first-generation Pros. There's also Conversation Awareness, which lowers the volume of your music when you're speaking so you can have a chat, then raises the volume back up when you're done. Apple's Live Translation feature can translate conversations on the fly directly in your AirPods, and you can even use the buds as hearing aids. (They're actually FDA-approved.) But those features are also in some of Apple's other earbuds. What's exclusive here is the built-in heart rate sensor. If you have an Apple Watch, or another fitness tracker, you might not find that particularly useful, but if you don't, you can rely on your earbuds to keep tabs on your heart rate during exercises, for more accurate fitness measurements. The charging case is also Apple's first to include its second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, which makes finding the case (and your buds) much easier with Find My. Apple says you can get up to eight hours of listening time on a single charge with Active Noise Cancellation (6.5 hours when using the heart rate sensor), and up to 24 hours when you take the charging case into consideration. These are IP57-rated for resistance against dust, sweat, and water, so while they're not waterproof, they should handle workouts just fine. Our Best Editor-Vetted Amazon Big Spring Sale Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 128GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Gray) — $209.99 (List Price $249.99) Sony WH1000XM6- Best Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones — $398.00 (List Price $459.99) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $35.99 (List Price $69.99) Fire TV Stick 4K Max Streaming Player With Remote — $34.99 (List Price $59.99) Amazon Kindle Colorsoft 16GB 7" eReader (Black) — $169.99 (List Price $249.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Oracle’s recent announcement about Java 26 marks a significant advance in software development, particularly for small business owners keen on maximizing efficiency and innovation through technology. The latest version of this widely-used programming language introduces a host of enhancements aimed at boosting developer productivity and simplifying application development, while also integrating advanced features like artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptography. Java, a stalwart in the software development landscape for over three decades, has continuously evolved to meet modern business demands. Arnal Dayaratna, research vice president at IDC, emphasizes this evolution by stating, “The platform’s continuous evolution enables organizations to incorporate transformative capabilities into their applications while preserving the reliability and security that define mission-critical software.” The release of Java 26 comes with thousands of improvements that can directly influence small businesses, enabling them to develop applications that not only meet today’s requirements but also prepare for future needs. The introduction of the Java Verified Portfolio (JVP) provides a curated suite of Oracle-supported tools and frameworks that can help small businesses streamline their development processes. This is especially valuable for those with limited resources, as it offers access to professional tools like JavaFX for user interfaces and Helidon for microservices, expanding application capabilities without requiring extensive internal expertise. One of the standout features in Java 26 is the simplified integration of AI functionality. With advancements like JEP 530, which enhances pattern matching and type handling, developers can create more expressive code that integrates AI inferencing more seamlessly. This could allow small businesses to harness AI technologies for data analysis, customer service automation, and other applications without needing extensive revamps of existing systems. Moreover, Java 26 focuses on enhancing application performance and reducing operational costs. Enhancements in memory management and garbage collection allow applications to run more efficiently, which is crucial for small businesses that often operate within tight budget constraints. JEP 522 improves throughput by minimizing synchronization efforts, helping developers handle more users concurrently without the need for additional hardware. Such efficiencies can lead to substantial cost savings and better customer experiences. However, with new features come potential challenges. Small business owners may face a learning curve as their teams adapt to the updated programming functionalities. Transitioning to the latest version means teams need to familiarize themselves with new best practices, which can initially stretch resources. Additionally, for businesses that rely on legacy systems built on older versions of Java, upgrading can require a careful strategic approach to avoid disruptions. Security enhancements in Java 26 also deserve attention. JEP 524 provides new APIs for handling cryptographic objects in widely accepted formats, crucial for businesses needing to comply with data privacy regulations. Security is paramount for SMBs that often feel particularly vulnerable to breaches. To implement these advancements effectively, the Java Verified Portfolio allows small businesses to access comprehensive documentation and direct support from Oracle. This structured support can simplify the lifecycle management of Java applications, ensuring that small enterprises can maintain robust, secure software solutions. Commercial support for JavaFX, specifically designed for creating interactive platforms, indicates Oracle’s recognition of small businesses’ need for sophisticated user experiences. By providing an enterprise-grade selection of tools, small businesses can enhance their application quality without the overhead costs associated with larger frameworks. As Oracle positions Java 26 as a foundation for continuous innovation, small business owners should evaluate how these enhancements align with their operational and strategic goals. Embracing the latest version can facilitate growth, streamline development, and secure applications. For more detailed insights about these features, the original announcement can be found here. With an eye toward the future and the right tools at their disposal, small businesses can leverage Java 26’s capabilities to not only meet current demands but also embrace tomorrow’s challenges head-on. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Java 26 Launches with Major Enhancements for AI and Developer Efficiency" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. A while back I switched to running while wearing bone conduction headphones (BCH), and I have zero regrets. Sure, they may never match the bass in traditional headphones, but a good pair can bring you perfectly solid sound quality—not to mention the comfort and safety that comes with an open-ear fit and BCH technology (they really do send sound through your bones). Right now my number one favorite headphones for running, the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2, are available for $139.95 as part of Amazon's Big Spring Sale, a 22% discount off their list price of $179.95. Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 $139.95 at Amazon $179.95 Save $40.00 Get Deal Get Deal $139.95 at Amazon $179.95 Save $40.00 As my colleague Daniel Oropeza noted in his review, the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 are the best set of BCHs that either of us have ever tried. They're across the board winners: Sound quality, secure fit, and battery life. (That last point is especially important for distance runners—even if I forget to charge the night before a long workout, a quick five-minute top-up gives me around 1.5 hours of listening time.) If you're looking for an even more affordable pair (without sacrificing quality), the original Shokz OpenRun are also on sale, down to $89.94 from a list price of $129.95. They might not have as powerful bass or as long a battery life compared to the OpenRun Pro 2, but they live up to the Shokz name. Our Best Editor-Vetted Amazon Big Spring Sale Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 128GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Gray) — $209.99 (List Price $249.99) Sony WH1000XM6- Best Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones — $398.00 (List Price $459.99) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $35.99 (List Price $69.99) Fire TV Stick 4K Max Streaming Player With Remote — $34.99 (List Price $59.99) Amazon Kindle Colorsoft 16GB 7" eReader (Black) — $169.99 (List Price $249.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Finding an affordable place to live right now is a challenge—but it’s one that different groups of Americans are grappling with in a variety of ways. A new report from Realtor.com explores the distinct barriers to affordable housing that renters face in an economy that has many budgets stretched thin. In the analysis, which draws on 2024 surveys of the country’s 100 biggest metro areas, Realtor.com found three distinct groups emerge in the U.S. rental market data: young renters, family renters, and long-term renters. The one thing those groups share in common? Making decisions about where to live is an exercise in financial survival these days—not a lifestyle choice. “We often hear that today’s renters are choosing to rent because they don’t want to be homeowners or are choosing to be ‘forever renters’, but in order to understand what’s holding renters back, we need to know who they are, where they are, and why they’re renting,” said Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in the report. “America’s rental landscape is being shaped by cost and geography in ways that limit flexibility for almost every type of tenant. Whether it’s young professionals moving inland for breathing room or families in high-cost markets stuck behind an affordability wall.” Young people are heading inland for jobs and cheaper housing The group of young renters makes up 32% of all U.S. renter households and includes adults under age 34. The average young renter household is headed by a 28-year-old, has two people living who make $65,000 a year living in a two-bedroom unit. Interestingly, Realtor.com found that most people in this group aren’t living in Los Angeles and New York, instead opting for mid-size cities with more affordability and reliable job markets. The top spots include Colorado Springs, Austin, and Denver. “The shift is driven by a massive affordability gap: in the top 10 young renter markets, an average of 52.6% of renters can afford a fair market rent, compared to just 32.0% in Miami and 33.6% in Los Angeles,” the report states. Affordability is a huge piece of the puzzle, but unemployment rates were also lower in cities with high concentrations of young renters, suggesting that jobs in those markets with lots of employment opportunities. Family renters face unique barriers In contrast to young renters who often live alone when they can afford to, family renters represent the biggest chunk of the U.S. rental market at 44%. The average family renter household is headed by a 42-year-old, has three members living across two bedrooms, and makes around $68,000 per year. While family renters share their average income and square footage with young renters, these often minority households face a different set of systemic challenges. Family renters are concentrated in cities with majority-minority populations across California, Texas, Florida, and Hawaii. Realtor.com’s data specifically cites Stockton, and Riverside in California and McAllen, Texas as the cities with the highest percentage of family renters in the U.S—all cities with majority Hispanic populations. Unlike the young renters, this swath of the U.S. population faces historic barriers to homeownership and affordability. Home prices now outstrip the income of the median American family, particularly in many of the markets where family renters are most common. “This affordability wall is compounded by structural barriers that persist regardless of market conditions—unequal access to credit and limited intergenerational wealth have produced a homeownership gap that remains wide and well-documented,” the report states. Long-term renters are locked in across major cities Young people aren’t headed to the biggest, most expensive markets for good reason. In cities like New York and Los Angeles, a larger share of renters stay in place for five or more years thanks to longstanding rent control policies that keep the price of housing down. But much like low mortgage rates for homeowners, that lock-in effect can be a double-edged sword that freezes people in place and limits their financial mobility. Realtor.com’s report notes that renters in “overflow” markets around some of America’s biggest, priciest urban centers see a similar phenomenon. A renter might leave Boston to move to Providence for more housing affordability only to be boxed in by rising rents in those markets too. Across the top ten cities with high concentrations of long-term renters, 39% of renter households would have a difficult time affording their housing if they had to move within the same city and pay a fair-market rate for rent. The report cites Providence, Rhode Island and Bridgeport, Connecticut as the two cities where renters couldn’t shoulder the burden of paying rent at market rates. The report notes that some long-term renters, particularly seniors, might be locked in for the right reasons, but many others simply wouldn’t be able to afford to live somewhere else. “When you look beneath the national averages, you see a market that is failing to provide mobility,” Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu said. “The lack of new, affordable inventory means that for many, the ‘American Dream’ of choosing where you live has been replaced by the necessity of staying exactly where you are.” View the full article

While initially criticized as a black box, Performance Max has evolved into a fairly critical campaign type. With each passing quarter, Google has introduced more functionality and visibility. Additional reporting is helpful, but what matters is what you can actually act on. While you can’t control everything in Performance Max, there are specific levers that can have a meaningful impact on performance. Here are the parts of PMax you can control and how to use them effectively. Control what you can: Search terms and placements One of the most exciting updates in the last year to Performance Max has been the ability to add these campaign-level negative keywords. In the past, you could contact Google to add these in. It was somewhat cumbersome and involved filling out an Excel doc, forwarding it to Google, and giving them permission to implement. With the inclusion of the search terms report, we’re now able to select a keyword and quickly add it to the campaign-level negative keyword list, just as we can with a search or shopping campaign. Another way to optimize PMax is to review and monitor the placements report. Most recently, Google has moved the Performance Max placements report out of the reporting section of the Google Ads account and into the Where ads have shown section at the campaign level. While this makes analysis easier by removing additional steps, we still only have impression-level reporting on placements. We can use this information to decide whether to add these placements as negative placements at the account level. This is found in Tools > Content suitability > Advanced settings > Excluded placements. While this isn’t ideal, there’s still useful insight we can glean from this report, such as ads appearing in kids’ programming or driving a high number of impressions from mobile apps. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Use budget signals to improve efficiency Also located in the When and where ads showed section is the ad schedule. Even if you hadn’t selected an ad schedule when creating the campaign, Google automatically dayparts performance hourly. Google typically recommends an open ad schedule, but if you have a limited budget, restricting your ad schedule during off-peak or non-converting hours is an excellent way to increase efficiency. You can do this by creating a campaign-level ad schedule within Campaigns > Audiences, keywords, and content > Ad schedule. Make sure your Performance Max campaign is selected in the top left dropdown menu. Dig deeper: Top Performance Max optimization tips for 2026 Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Refine targeting with the right constraints Demographic exclusions are a relatively new feature at the campaign settings level for Performance Max. Unfortunately, reports for these campaigns are hard to obtain, limiting informed decisions on demographic exclusions. This functionality is helpful if you’re aware of specific demographics that aren’t actively in the market for specific products or services. To make adjustments, go to Campaign-level settings > Other settings > Demographic exclusions. From here, you can turn on age or gender exclusions: While PMax initially didn’t even provide device-level reporting, a new feature lets you opt out of serving on certain devices. If you opt into all device targeting when launching a PMax campaign, you should periodically review device performance and adjust accordingly. This is best done by segmenting at the campaign or asset group level by device. Device-level data is extremely helpful for determining which device is better suited to reach your goal. Likewise, if you almost always opt out of certain devices when launching a campaign, this data makes it easier to either launch with all device targeting enabled and monitor performance, or add a device you hadn’t initially added to see how it impacts performance. Device-level targeting is also available at the campaign level, under Other settings. Improve inputs: Creative and AI assets Ad assets play a large role in the display, YouTube, and Discover network performance of a PMax campaign. For many, there’s still a gap in producing high volumes of quality image and video creative. While still evolving, AI assets are getting closer to filling these gaps — enabling us to more effectively target these additional networks. As newer iterations of LLMs emerge, this will become a primary way to generate video content and professional-looking images. Google already offers generative AI image assets from shopping feed products that look relatively impressive. But we’re still a ways out from seeing high-quality AI-generated videos without the well-known glitches we typically see in this type of content. Dig deeper: How to reduce low-quality leads from Performance Max campaigns Understand the limits of control in Performance Max The channel controls report gave more insight into where ads were serving. I have an unpopular opinion on this report. While helpful, there’s little we can do within the campaign to improve performance. Because of this, the report is frustrating. We’ll likely see channel controls available within Performance Max in the near future — similar to what we already have in Demand Gen campaigns. For now, adjust creative and bids to sway volume within certain networks. To opt out of certain networks completely and focus on shopping, then a feed-only Performance Max campaign will do just that. Performance Max is evolving from a black box to a critical asset in a marketer’s toolkit. The steady stream of new functionality, from campaign-level negative keywords to detailed placement and ad schedule reports, shows Google’s commitment to providing greater control. Use these levers — strategic exclusions, device adjustments, and budget-aware scheduling — to move beyond set-it-and-forget-it and run Performance Max campaigns with precision and efficiency. View the full article

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’m a longtime reader and huge fan of Ask a Manager. I wondered if you’ve ever done a column about people who were busted as writing in — people whose coworkers, boss, family, or friends read a post and realized the author was someone they knew. I have not, although I know of a few times when it’s happened: If you remember the manager whose best employee quit when she wasn’t allowed to go to her college graduation, the employee herself recognized the letter years later and wrote in, one of the other interns fired for writing a petition about the dress code wrote in a year later, and someone who thought they were a coworker of the person angry about cheap ass rolls also wrote in. There was also a letter-writer who was pretty sure that her employee was having an affair with a married coworker, but wasn’t sure if she knew that the guy was married — and the employee in question saw the letter on the manager’s screen. I’ve also occasionally heard privately from someone who says, “I think I’m in the office where this is happening, and here’s the other side of the story.” I will say that sometimes people think they recognize a situation and they’re wrong (there’s a key detail that’s different) or the situation happens enough that they couldn’t possibly know it’s theirs. And generally I want people to feel comfortable writing in here without having to worry that people will try to guess who they are! But it’s an interesting topic, so let’s open it up for the comment section! The post what happens when someone recognizes your letter to an advice column? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A company called Clickout Media is being called out for buying trusted news and niche sites, replacing them with AI-generated gambling content, and abandoning them after Google penalties. Some call this “parasite SEO,” but to me it sounds more like large-scale search spam. What’s happening. The company acquired sports, gaming, and tech sites, then rapidly shifted them from editorial coverage to casino and crypto content, PressGazette reported. Sites were stripped of original reporting, filled with AI-written articles, and used to push offshore gambling links, according to former employees. How it works. The strategy relies on buying domains with existing authority, then exploiting their ability to rank in Google. Content typically followed a pattern: Legitimate coverage continues briefly to preserve credibility Gambling content is introduced and scaled AI-generated articles and fake author profiles replace human writers Revenue comes from affiliate deals with casino operators, sometimes tied to player losses The impact. Several previously active publications now appear deindexed, with layoffs and closures following. In some cases, even charity websites were repurposed to host gambling content. What they’re saying. Google prohibits publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating rankings. It refers to extreme cases like this as “site reputation abuse,” a violation that can trigger manual actions and removal from Google’s index and search results. “While we aren’t able to comment on a specific site’s ranking on Search, our policies prohibit publishing content at scale for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings,” Google said about this case. Why we care. This isn’t SEO in any meaningful sense. It’s reputation abuse designed to game rankings at scale. The report. The SEO parasites buying, exploiting and ultimately killing online newsbrands by Rob Waugh at PressGazette. View the full article

If you're a regular ChatGPT user, then you're one of a crowd that's now around 900 million people strong. It seems that plenty of us are spending significant amounts of time with the AI chatbot, whether that's to get more done, search the web, work on creative or coding projects, or just have something to talk to. Are you making the most out of ChatGPT though? The web, mobile, and desktop apps come with a selection of settings and some prompt adjustment possibilities that you may not have fully explored yet. Here's how to level up. Use 'branch conversations' to explore tangents off your chatsOpenAI often rolls out minor but useful upgrades to ChatGPT that can get missed, and one of those is branch conversations. They quite literally let you branch off from one conversation and start another, while leaving the original chat preserved so you can go back to it if you need to (and maybe start another branch). It's a simple way to go off on a tangent with a discussion. Click or tap the three dots at the end of any ChatGPT response and you'll see the Branch in new chat option. A new chat is then created, based on the first. Trick ChatGPT into returning shorter, more effective results You can specify what kind of target audience you are to ChatGPT. Credit: Lifehacker The internet is awash with ChatGPT prompt "hacks" of varying quality and effectiveness, and they all really boil down to the specificity of the instructions you're giving the AI. From the length of the responses to the data format they're outputted in, tell ChatGPT what you want in precise terms, and it will oblige. One of the best of these prompt hacks I've seen lately is from u/AdCold1610 on Reddit, and all you have to do is put "extremely lazy person here" somewhere in the prompt. It often has quite a profound effect on the response: Answers get shorter and to the point, and if there are instructions involved they become simpler and more straightforward. You get less fluff and more action in general, though obviously how much impact the lazy prompt has will vary on what you're asking of the AI. Use Voice Mode to record memos or thoughtsYou may well have seen the little sound wave icon down in the bottom right corner of the ChatGPT prompt box and given Voice Mode a try, without really knowing how to make use of it or why it works better than typing in your prompts. One potentially helpful idea, though, is to use it as a voice memo recorder for stuff you need to get done; another is to use it as an audio-based personal journal for thoughts and reflections. You can keep them all together in one chat, or spread them out. There's no shortage of mobile apps that will record audio clips for you, but they don't come with ChatGPT's AI analysis brain attached. Once you've built up a library of recordings, you can get it to prioritize your to do list, remind you about something you've forgotten, summarize the main themes of your reflections, sum up your mood changes over the week, or whatever else you can think of. Use "Personalization" to tailor ChatGPT's answers towards your interests Delve into the Personalization settings. Credit: Lifehacker You can tailor the answers ChatGPT gives you by telling it more about yourself: what you know about a certain topic, how you best absorb information, how verbose or succinct you'd like the AI's responses to be, and so on. But entering these details for each and every prompt can get tiresome quickly. There's actually a place to put details like this in ChatGPT's settings, as long as you open the panel on the web or desktop: Click your account profile avatar (bottom left), then choose Personalization.The next screen not only lets you set some guidelines for the personality ChatGPT should use by default, it also lets you tell the AI a bit about yourself—which it will keep permanently in its memory. You can add details including your occupation, your ethical values, your preferred learning style, and your main interests. Use Photoshop to edit photos within ChatGPT for freeChatGPT comes with mini-apps you can connect to via the prompt box, and one of those apps happens to be Photoshop—meaning you can carry out some pretty advanced edits using Adobe's software technology, free of charge. The plug-in is currently available in all the ChatGPT apps except Android and Windows. Pick Apps from the navigation pane, then search for "Photoshop" and click Connect to add it to your ChatGPT tools. You can then call it into action via the + (plus) button in the prompt box, or by typing "@" in your prompt followed by the app name. With Photoshop enabled, you can perform all kinds of edits: blur backgrounds, remove objects, and tweak brightness and contrast, for example. Just use the same natural language as you would in any ChatGPT conversation. You do need to upload an image to edit, or provide a public web link to one. If you don't do this before you submit your prompt, you'll be asked to do it after. Use your phone camera for live help Don't neglect the Camera option on mobile. Credit: Lifehacker ChatGPT for Android and iOS comes with a superpower: access to your phone's camera, so you can feed it photos in real time as you explore the world and go about the business of daily life. Just tap the + (plus) button by the prompt box, then Camera. Even if you've realized the feature is there, you might not have realized how much you can do with it. It'll translate signs in a foreign language for you, identify movies and TV shows from images posted to social media, pick out the route you need to take from a picture of a timetable or transit map, and explain what's in a particular dish on a menu. Ask ChatGPT for questions rather than answersBack to a bit of prompt hacking: Another trick that I've used a lot recently was taken from Reviewracoon on Medium. It's a debugging prompt, which means you don't ask for answers; instead, you ask ChatGPT for questions that are going to help you get to the answers yourself. This works best when reviewing your own writing, code, or ideas. For a draft of a short story, for example, you might say: "Don't tell me what's wrong and how to fix it. Instead, act like a detective, asking questions that will help me figure out how to improve it." What you'll get back will encourage you to review the thinking around your own process, what you're trying to achieve, and why you've taken the approaches you have. Use temporary chats to run ChatGPT in incognito mode Launch temporary chats on mobile or desktop. Credit: Lifehacker Another feature you might not have come across is the very handy temporary chat tool, which works like an incognito mode for ChatGPT. Nothing in this chat will be saved—it'll be instantly forgotten as soon as you close it. To start a temporary chat, open up a new chat and then click or tap the dashed speech bubble up in the top right corner. Reduce your messaging limits to block ads in ChatGPT FreeIf you're on the Free or Go tiers of ChatGPT, you're going to see ads by default to help pay OpenAI's data center bills, but there is a way to remove them: You just have to put up with lower usage limits in return. Get to your profile page by clicking or tapping on your username, then select Ads controls > Change plan to go ad-free > Reduce message limits to make the change. (You can reverse it any time you like.) OpenAI doesn't actually specify how restrictive this will be in terms of a daily message allowance, but it's an option you can try out. The other ways to remove ads are to switch to a Plus, Pro, Business, or Enterprise account (starting from $20 per month), or to register for an Education account. These subscriptions come with other benefits too, including access to smarter models. Use 'Study and learn' mode to pick up new skills and concepts Study and learn mode will feed you knowledge and then test you on it. Credit: Lifehacker You can employ ChatGPT as a learning tool in all kinds of ways, but there is a specific Study and learn mode built right in. OpenAI describes it as "a learning experience that helps you work through problems step by step instead of just getting an answer". To enable it, tap or click the + (plus) button on the prompt box, then choose Study and learn (it might be behind a More menu). Specify the topic you want to learn, and submit the prompt to get started with your tutoring session. ChatGPT may ask you some clarification questions so the bot can narrow down its teaching material. What you'll get next is a blend of information and questions to test your knowledge: ChatGPT will mark your answers as you go, then adapt the learning experience to meet you where you currently are. View the full article

The era of communicating by snail mail is long gone, and the United States Postal Service (USPS) has suffered in its wake. Now, the independent government agency has found a new way to make up some of its losses. Starting on Sunday, April 26, the U.S. post office will implement an 8% transportation surcharge on packages. It will remain through January 17, 2027, when the agency hopes to implement any necessary long-term approaches. “This temporary price adjustment will provide needed flexibility for the Postal Service by helping to ensure that the actual costs of doing business are covered, as required by Congress,” the USPS statement reads. Its implementation is subject to the Postal Regulatory Commission’s approval. Which package services will be impacted by the surcharge? The surcharge will apply to “retail and commercial domestic competitive products” sent through: Priority Mail Express Priority Mail USPS Ground Advantage Parcel Select The announcement comes less than two weeks after Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress that the USPS is at a “critical juncture.” Steiner said that, if things remain the same, the USPS would be out of cash and unable to deliver the mail in less than a year. In 2006, USPS had 213 billion pieces per year, a number now down to 109 billion pieces. “For perspective, if all of that lost volume was paid at the current price of a stamp, which is 78 cents, that’s about 81 billion dollars. No company could weather that much revenue loss,” said Steiner. The Postmaster General floated the idea of raising the price of First-Class Stamps to 90 or 95 cents, from 78 cents—a change he said would solve the agency’s “controllable loss.” However, the surcharge announcement specifically states that First-Class Stamps will not be affected by the 8% increase. The growing cost of transportation In its statement, the USPS positioned itself as a much cheaper alternative to its competitors, noting rising prices. Package delivery companies UPS and FedEx already have their own transportation surcharges. “Transportation costs have been increasing, and our competitors have reacted with a number of surcharges,” the Postal Service said. “We have steadfastly avoided surcharges and this charge is less than one-third of what our competitors charge for fuel alone, so even with this change, the Postal Service continues to offer great value in shipping with some of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.” The current war in the Middle East has exacerbated this issue. Brent crude oil rose about 4% on Thursday to more than $104 a barrel, a 75% increase per barrel in 2026. Similarly, West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose more than 3.5% on Thursday to about $93.59 — up more than 63% this year. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. One of the most expensive parts of a personal tool kit is the batteries, especially if you want to use multiple tools simultaneously without having to swap the battery each time you change tools. Moving seamlessly between drilling pilot holes and driving screws can save you time on your DIY projects, but the cost of extra batteries can add up. These deals from Home Depot are a good way to save more than 50% on a battery and tool combo if you want to expand your Milwaukee set. Battery combo 18-volt Milwaukee six-amp-hour battery two-pack Free extra battery with purchase $299.00 at Home Depot $439.00 Save $140.00 Get Deal Get Deal $299.00 at Home Depot $439.00 Save $140.00 If you use bigger Milwaukee 18-volt tools like a circular saw, or use a Milwaukee inverter in your emergency kit for temporary emergency power, a few extra six-amp-hour batteries are helpful to have around, but the higher capacity batteries can be expensive. The two-pack of 18-volt Milwaukee six-amp-hour batteries is on sale for $299, 32% off its regular price. When you open the link to the two-pack, you'll see a "free gift with purchase" menu to the right, and you can select a third six-amp-hour battery from this menu. Once you add the battery, the discount is applied in your cart for a total savings of 53% off. Tool combosI use my Milwaukee 18-volt random orbital sander daily when I’m working on furniture and other projects. Having a cordless sander is more convenient because you don’t have to drag the cord around when you’re working on delicate projects and you can bring it with you wherever you want to work, making it perfect for outdoor woodworking as well. The Milwaukee 18-volt random orbital sander is on sale for $229 and it comes with a free six-amp-hour 18-volt battery when you select it in the "free gift with purchase" menu, saving you about 46% on the bundle. On this bundle, as with the other two tool bundles, you’ll need an 18-volt Milwaukee charger to use the battery. My Milwaukee oscillating multitool has saved many of my household projects because of its versatility. I used mine when I needed to replace the drain in my 115-year-old Craftsman’s bathroom sink to cut through the plaster and lathe, to cut some PVC components, to trim the drain pipe where it came out from the wall, to trim a patch I installed, and to sand over some places after I patched the wall. The 18-volt Milwaukee oscillating multitool is $249, and right now, it comes with a free 18-volt, six-amp-hour battery when you select it in the "free gift with purchase" menu, saving you around 44% on the set. 18-volt Milwaukee oscillating multitool Free battery with purchase $249.00 at Home Depot Get Deal Get Deal $249.00 at Home Depot I use my 6 ½” Milwaukee circular saw frequently to make quick rip cuts or in places I can’t use a table saw. Battery technology has come a long way since I first started using a cordless circular saw and I had to change out my battery every 20 minutes or so. With larger capacity batteries, you can use your cordless circular saw for several hours before needing to replace the battery, depending on the thickness and density of the material you’re cutting. The Milwaukee 18-volt, 6 ½” cordless circular saw is $229, and it comes with a free six-amp-hour battery when you select it in the "free gift with purchase" menu, saving you about 46% on the combo. Our Best Editor-Vetted Amazon Big Spring Sale Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ 128GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Gray) — $209.99 (List Price $249.99) Sony WH1000XM6- Best Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones — $398.00 (List Price $459.99) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $35.99 (List Price $69.99) Fire TV Stick 4K Max Streaming Player With Remote — $34.99 (List Price $59.99) Amazon Kindle Colorsoft 16GB 7" eReader (Black) — $169.99 (List Price $249.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Like it or not, everyone is fishing in the same pond. As content marketers and SEO practitioners, we all have the same subscriptions to Semrush and other SEO tools, giving us access to the same data as our competitors. If we all have the same tools, aren’t we just writing the same content? There’s a better way. You may be sitting on a wealth of data about your target audience and your existing customers, and you don’t even know it. These insights are invisible to your competitors, yet they’re unread, unanalyzed, and underutilized by the marketing team. The problem: Third-party tools can create an over-commoditized content echo chamber While SEO toolsets are invaluable (and I’ll always be using one, pretty much daily, for the rest of my career), they aren’t a failsafe way to ensure you’re creating the best content for your audience. These tools measure existing search demand through their own data, giving the best estimate of keyword traffic and search results. However, when these aren’t viewed through the lens of your own customers, the result can be content that’s oversaturated in your market, overwhelming anyone looking for help or answers online. When your content isn’t unique to your current or target audience, your organization and its offerings may get lost in the sea of SEOs and content strategists at your competitor organizations, who are trying to follow the same best practices and strategy. It’s time to better utilize your own data to implement content campaigns that drive interest from the very audience that’s already shown a proven interest. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with What first-party data actually is For the purposes of this article and marketing content creation, first-party data is any data from current, potential, or past customers that’s only accessible internally. The top “5 goldmines” where I’ve consistently found nuggets of content foundations and insight are: Internal site search queries: What visitors couldn’t find on your site, but keep searching for. Sales call transcripts: The exact language and questions prospects say before they buy. CRM data: Spotting patterns in deal stages, objections, and lost deals. Support tickets: The issues and questions your product or service keeps failing to answer, leading to frustrated customers. Email replies and metrics: What the audience actually responds to versus what they ignore. These five areas are a great place to start collecting and utilizing first-party data to its full potential. Dig deeper: How to harness the power of data gathering for SEO Why this data wins This data is key to better, more-targeted content marketing for three reasons. It’s proprietary This data is confidential and only available to your internal team. Often, it’s not even accessible to everyone and may require favors from data analysts or web developers to pull. That’s what makes it so unique. Competitors can’t find or replicate it, no matter what SEO tools they have. It reflects real buyer language This relates to the “curse of knowledge” cognitive bias, where you know so much about a topic that you assume others do as well. One of my favorite examples is the “facial tissue” market. You may know facial tissue as “Kleenex,” even though that’s technically a brand name for a type of facial tissue. With many consumers using a competitor’s brand name colloquially, how do competitors refer to their own product? Because most people likely aren’t searching “facial tissue” with the intent to buy, it’s up to manufacturers to determine the language their audience uses to find alternatives. Even though employees at XYZ Tissue Co. know the product is technically “facial tissue,” that doesn’t mean their customers do. It maps to your full marketing funnel While third-party keyword data usually skews to the top of the funnel, first-party data captures mid- and bottom-funnel content gaps that drive conversions and brand loyalty, not just traffic. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. How to get content ideas from first-party data: The specifics We know these data sources are valuable. So, how do we use them? Let’s break it down. Internal site search Site search is one of my favorite sources of insight and inspiration. It’s active, ongoing, real-time data showing how your target audience is trying to interact and engage with you through internal site search. No matter what the data looks like, it can hold a wealth of information about what content your users expect to find on your website. If you don’t have site search on your website, you can create it using Google’s programmable site search feature. While it will provide internal site search data, it may also display ads or external results on users’ results pages. To use site search effectively, export the queries monthly, clean the data to remove spam, then cluster by theme (such as product collections or service offerings). Finally, run it through keyword research tools to flag anything with high keyword volume and low competition that’s missing from your site. Bonus: For products or services your customers are searching for that don’t exist, it might be useful to send that data to the R&D department for potential new offerings to consider. Dig deeper: Why internal site search can be your competitive edge in enterprise SEO Sales calls and CRM data Use a service like Gong, Chorus, or manual transcriptions from sales calls and CRM data to look for recurring needs, questions, and objections across customers from all stages of the purchasing funnel. If, for instance, you see continued resistance to your enterprise SaaS analytics platform due to the long onboarding process, consider creating a time-bound, step-by-step guide that makes it painless for anyone to switch analytics platforms. This can be great collateral for the sales team to address popular objections. In the CRM, you can also filter lost deals by reason. For instance, finding “went with competitor” + common objection could lead to a comparison or differentiation article that highlights your features vs. the competitors you keep losing deals to. Besides reviewing the data, ask the sales team directly on a call or email about their most common objections. Because they’re constantly in communication with potential customers, they’ll likely know immediately the top objections they receive regularly. Support tickets The support team can also be an invaluable resource. In addition to asking the support team directly what problems they solve for customers on a daily basis, look in your customer support ticket queue and dashboard to find old and new tickets with recurring issues (your top 10 most common complaints are probably content gaps you need to address ASAP). An explainer blog post, knowledge base article, or PDF guide that tackles the issue from an actionable angle can not only give you more content to promote, but also help the support team with materials to share with your customers. Email replies and metrics Depending on the industry, your email lists’ reply inboxes may be exploding with valuable customer data. At a supplements company I worked at, we regularly received customer responses to our email marketing campaigns. They asked questions about products, gave suggestions, and even offered enthusiastic reviews we could feature on our website. You can also look at the metrics. If your monthly newsletter is the highest-performing email, should you increase it to a biweekly newsletter? If your product features never get high conversions, is that because of the content, or are they more interested in value-focused blog posts and videos? Dig deeper: How to apply ‘They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with The first-party advantage Don’t take your first-party data for granted. Build automated pipelines for report generation, conversation follow-ups, and content creation from these sources to build momentum around the topics your audience most wants to hear. While competitors can copy your articles, they can never copy your customer conversations. Try it out this week: audit a first-party data source and see what content ideas you can find. View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. The Google March 2026 spam update was the fastest rolling out update...View the full article

Thanks for the memory? The stock prices of Micron Technology Inc (Nasdaq: MU) and SanDisk Corp (Nasdaq: SNDK), two of the top publicly traded memory chip storage companies, are taking a beating this week, halting a stunning rally that began late last year. As of Thursday morning before the market opened, Micron shares were down almost 10% over the past five days, and down 3.5% overnight. SanDisk shares were down more than 4% over the previous five days, and down 4.4% overnight. The broader market, on the other hand, has been flat, with the S&P 500 up barely 0.1% over the previous five days. AI-fueled RAM memory shortage The declines are a reversal of fortunes for the two chip stocks, which have had an incredible year so far, in large part due to a looming shortage of random access memory (RAM) storage. That shortage is being fueled by the AI boom, which requires a lot of memory and computing power. As tech giants build out massive AI data centers to power the boom, chipmakers simply haven’t been able to keep up. Accordingly, companies like Micron, SanDisk, Western Digital, and Seagate saw significant gains in share price. So, what’s changed in recent days? The single biggest factor may have to do with a recent announcement from Alphabet, Google’s parent company. On Tuesday, the company announced TurboQuant, which it describes as “a compression algorithm that optimally addresses the challenge of memory overhead in vector quantization.” In other words, Google thinks that it’s discovered a new method of compressing data that could reduce how much memory is required to effectively run AI models. “TurboQuant achieves perfect downstream results across all benchmarks while reducing the key value memory size by a factor of at least 6x,” Alphabet’s announcement reads. That means six-times less memory could be required to do the same amount of work for certain tasks in certain circumstances—and, therefore, less need for memory or RAM. Of course, nothing concrete has come of the announcement, at least not yet. But TurboQuant has clearly caught the industry’s attention, and that of investors, some of whom may now be seeking to lock in the profits they’ve made on chip stocks over the last several months. Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, said on X that the TurboQuant announcement was akin to Google’s “DeepSeek moment,” a reference to the arrival of the Chinese-built, hyper-efficient LLM that hit the market more than a year ago, causing a huge sell-off in the tech sector. View the full article

A business objectives template is a structured framework that helps you define, measure, and track your organization’s goals. It standardizes terminology and roles, which improves team collaboration and accountability. By using this template, you can align your objectives with the company’s vision, streamline planning, and monitor progress effectively. Comprehending its key components and benefits can greatly impact your strategic planning. So, what steps should you take to create an effective template? Key Takeaways A business objectives template provides a structured format for setting clear, measurable goals aligned with the company’s vision. It enhances team alignment by standardizing terminology and clarifying roles and responsibilities across departments. The template streamlines the planning process, allowing teams to focus more on execution and achieving results. It includes sections for key performance indicators (KPIs), facilitating progress tracking and necessary adjustments. Regular updates to the template ensure objectives remain relevant and aligned with evolving market conditions and organizational goals. Understanding Business Objectives Comprehending business objectives is crucial for any organization aiming to achieve its long-term goals. These objectives serve as specific, measurable outcomes that align with your company’s overall vision. You’ll find that they can be categorized into strategic objectives, which are long-term and mission-driven, and operational objectives, which support those strategic goals in the short term. Utilizing a business objectives template helps you define these goals clearly. Incorporating the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based—can further improve your objectives. Well-defined objectives encourage accountability and boost employee engagement while providing a framework to evaluate progress over time. Regularly revisiting these objectives guarantees they remain aligned with changing market conditions and your organization’s priorities. The Purpose of a Business Objectives Template A business objectives template streamlines goal setting by providing a clear structure for defining specific and measurable targets. This clarity improves team alignment, ensuring everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in achieving the company’s objectives. Streamline Goal Setting When you implement a business objectives template, you create a structured approach that simplifies the goal-setting process. This goal setting template provides a clear framework for establishing measurable objectives that align with your company’s strategic vision. By standardizing terminology, it improves consistency across departments, facilitating better communication and collaboration. Utilizing a goal planning template that incorporates the SMART criteria guarantees your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Documenting these objectives allows for easy tracking of progress, enabling you to make necessary adjustments as needed. Overall, a business objectives template greatly reduces the time spent on planning and reviewing, allowing your team to focus more on execution and achieving meaningful results efficiently. Enhance Team Alignment Implementing a business objectives template not just streamlines the goal-setting process, but it also plays a crucial role in enhancing team alignment. This template provides a structured framework, ensuring all team members are on the same page regarding specific, measurable goals that drive broader organizational objectives. By clearly outlining roles and responsibilities, it encourages accountability and transparency. Furthermore, using a goal setting plan template promotes effective communication, reducing misunderstandings and enhancing collaboration across departments. Regular updates keep the team aligned with company priorities, allowing for quick adaptation to market changes. Finally, a well-defined template improves performance tracking through consistent metrics, enabling you to measure progress and adjust strategies effectively, as can be illustrated with business planning ppt slides. Key Components of an Effective Template To create an effective business objectives template, you need to start with clear objective definitions that adhere to the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Incorporating a framework for measuring progress, including key performance indicators (KPIs), allows you to track success against set benchmarks. Furthermore, outlining team responsibilities and establishing a timeline for each objective guarantees accountability and timely evaluations. Clear Objective Definition A well-crafted business objectives template serves as a roadmap for achieving your company’s vision and strategic goals. For effective objective definition, you need to outline specific and measurable outcomes that align with your overall strategy. Your goal development template should include defined timelines, relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), and a clear categorization of objectives, such as financial and customer-centric. Incorporating elements from a smart objectives template guarantees your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Furthermore, assigning responsible parties promotes accountability and encourages collaboration among team members. Regular updates to the template are essential, as they help reflect any changes in strategy and maintain alignment with your evolving business objectives. SMART Criteria Application When considering how to create effective business objectives, applying the SMART criteria is essential for guaranteeing clarity and accountability. This framework helps you define objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. By using this approach, you improve your goal-setting process. SMART Component Description Specific Clearly define the desired outcome. Measurable Include quantifiable metrics for tracking progress. Achievable Set realistic goals that consider resources. Using a smart goals template free download can streamline this process. Furthermore, a goal setting sheet can help you organize your objectives effectively. Embracing the SMART criteria guarantees that your business objectives are well-structured and aligned with your overall strategy. Progress Measurement Framework Establishing a progress measurement framework is crucial for ensuring that your business objectives remain on track and achievable. A well-designed goal sheet template should include clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your objectives, ensuring measurable outcomes. Incorporate timelines and milestones to help you track progress and adjust strategies when necessary. Consistent data collection methods are fundamental for regular reporting and analysis, whereas roles and responsibilities must be clearly delineated to hold team members accountable for monitoring progress. Moreover, integrating regular review intervals into your goal setting template allows stakeholders to assess progress, celebrate achievements, and recalibrate objectives if needed. This structured approach encourages a proactive environment focused on achieving your business goals effectively. Benefits of Using a Business Objectives Template Utilizing a business objectives template can greatly improve your goal-setting process by providing a structured framework that emphasizes the SMART criteria—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This goal-making template boosts accountability by defining roles and responsibilities, making it easier to track progress. It also streamlines planning, saving you time and resources with a consistent format for documentation. Here’s a quick overview of the benefits: Benefit Description Improved Accountability Clearly defined roles help track progress. Streamlined Planning Consistent format saves time and resources. Enhanced Communication Unified comprehension encourages teamwork. Adaptability Quickly revise objectives in response to change. Using a smart goal setting sheet guarantees your objectives align with organizational goals. Steps to Create Your Business Objectives Template Creating a business objectives template begins with a clear comprehension of its purpose and alignment with your organization’s strategic vision. Start by outlining your objectives, ensuring they meet the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This is where a goal template becomes crucial. Use a smart goals template excel to organize your thoughts effectively. Include sections for key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress, along with timelines and assigned responsibilities for accountability. Remember to involve team members in this process to gather diverse insights, which can improve acceptance of the template. Finally, regularly update your template to adapt to any changes in strategy or performance, promoting continuous improvement in your goal-setting approach. Aligning Objectives With Organizational Goals Aligning your objectives with organizational goals is essential for guaranteeing that every team member contributes effectively to the company’s overall mission. Using a business objectives template helps you systematically categorize and prioritize your goals, making it easier to see how each one contributes to the broader strategic vision. This alignment boosts accountability, allowing for clear tracking of progress against defined targets. Regularly updating your goal worksheet template guarantees that your objectives stay relevant as organizational strategies or market conditions change. Additionally, a well-defined business objectives template encourages collaboration among departments, promoting cross-functional teamwork toward shared goals. In the end, this coherence drives company-wide success and helps you navigate challenges more effectively. Measuring Success With Key Performance Indicators How can you accurately gauge the effectiveness of your business strategies? By utilizing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), you can measure progress in relation to your objectives. These specific, quantifiable metrics provide insights that align with your strategic goals, helping you make informed decisions. To guarantee clarity, your KPIs should follow the SMART goal form—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Regularly tracking these indicators allows you to assess performance trends and adjust strategies as needed. Furthermore, employing a goal chart template can keep your KPI data organized and accessible. This balanced approach not just monitors financial performance but additionally evaluates non-financial metrics, giving you an all-encompassing view of your business’s overall success. Common Mistakes to Avoid Setting clear business objectives is critical for steering your organization in the right direction, but several common pitfalls can undermine this process. Avoid these mistakes to improve your effectiveness: Mistake Impact Misaligning objectives with vision Leads to misdirection and wasted resources Ignoring SMART criteria Results in vague goals lacking clarity Overcomplicating objectives Confuses employees and hinders engagement Don’t forget to utilize a monthly goals template to keep your objectives on track. Furthermore, consider incorporating a smart goals printable to guarantee your objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Regularly review and update your goals to adapt to changes in the market and maintain alignment with your organizational strategy. Resources for Further Learning Many organizations benefit from seeking additional resources to improve their grasp of effective business objective setting. To boost your skills in this area, consider the following: Online Courses: Platforms like Coursera or Udemy offer courses focusing on business strategy and goal alignment, helping you comprehend the nuances of performance measurement. Workshops: Attending business strategy workshops can provide hands-on experience in using tools like a yearly goals template, allowing you to practice setting measurable objectives. Literature: Reading books and articles on goal-setting can deepen your knowledge of creating a goal list template, along with the importance of defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for tracking progress. These resources can greatly improve your ability to set and achieve effective business objectives. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Business Objectives and Why Are They Important? Business objectives are specific, measurable targets that help you steer your company toward its long-term goals. They’re essential since they guide decision-making and resource allocation, ensuring everyone is aligned. By focusing on areas like financial health and customer satisfaction, you not just track progress but additionally promote accountability among your team. When objectives follow the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based—you improve your chances of achieving your strategic goals effectively. What Are the 4 Types of Business Objectives? You can categorize business objectives into four main types: economic, social, human, and organic. Economic objectives focus on financial performance, aiming for profitability and cash flow. Social objectives emphasize customer satisfaction, targeting market share and brand awareness. Human objectives center on employee engagement, seeking to improve retention and workplace culture. Finally, organic objectives prioritize innovation and efficiency, ensuring the business adapts and grows in a competitive market. Each type plays a vital role in overall success. What Are the 5 Main Business Objectives? The five main business objectives you should focus on are economic, social, human, organic, and compliance objectives. Economic objectives prioritize profitability and financial health, whereas social objectives aim to improve customer satisfaction and market share. Human objectives emphasize employee engagement and retention. Organic objectives drive innovation and efficiency, and compliance objectives guarantee adherence to regulations. Together, these objectives create a balanced approach to achieving long-term success and sustainability in your business. How to Write a Business Objective Template? To write a business objective template, start by defining clear fields for specific, measurable outcomes that align with your company’s goals. Incorporate SMART criteria to guarantee each objective is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Include sections for key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress. Make certain to allow for regular reviews and adjustments, and provide space for team collaboration to cultivate ownership and diverse input in setting objectives. Conclusion In summary, a business objectives template is crucial for effective goal-setting within your organization. By providing a structured approach, it guarantees that your objectives align with broader organizational goals and facilitates measurement through key performance indicators. Utilizing this template can improve collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement, eventually leading to better business outcomes. By following the outlined steps and avoiding common pitfalls, you can create a robust framework that drives your business forward in a competitive environment. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Business Objectives Template and Why Need One?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

A business objectives template is a structured framework that helps you define, measure, and track your organization’s goals. It standardizes terminology and roles, which improves team collaboration and accountability. By using this template, you can align your objectives with the company’s vision, streamline planning, and monitor progress effectively. Comprehending its key components and benefits can greatly impact your strategic planning. So, what steps should you take to create an effective template? Key Takeaways A business objectives template provides a structured format for setting clear, measurable goals aligned with the company’s vision. It enhances team alignment by standardizing terminology and clarifying roles and responsibilities across departments. The template streamlines the planning process, allowing teams to focus more on execution and achieving results. It includes sections for key performance indicators (KPIs), facilitating progress tracking and necessary adjustments. Regular updates to the template ensure objectives remain relevant and aligned with evolving market conditions and organizational goals. Understanding Business Objectives Comprehending business objectives is crucial for any organization aiming to achieve its long-term goals. These objectives serve as specific, measurable outcomes that align with your company’s overall vision. You’ll find that they can be categorized into strategic objectives, which are long-term and mission-driven, and operational objectives, which support those strategic goals in the short term. Utilizing a business objectives template helps you define these goals clearly. Incorporating the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based—can further improve your objectives. Well-defined objectives encourage accountability and boost employee engagement while providing a framework to evaluate progress over time. Regularly revisiting these objectives guarantees they remain aligned with changing market conditions and your organization’s priorities. The Purpose of a Business Objectives Template A business objectives template streamlines goal setting by providing a clear structure for defining specific and measurable targets. This clarity improves team alignment, ensuring everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in achieving the company’s objectives. Streamline Goal Setting When you implement a business objectives template, you create a structured approach that simplifies the goal-setting process. This goal setting template provides a clear framework for establishing measurable objectives that align with your company’s strategic vision. By standardizing terminology, it improves consistency across departments, facilitating better communication and collaboration. Utilizing a goal planning template that incorporates the SMART criteria guarantees your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Documenting these objectives allows for easy tracking of progress, enabling you to make necessary adjustments as needed. Overall, a business objectives template greatly reduces the time spent on planning and reviewing, allowing your team to focus more on execution and achieving meaningful results efficiently. Enhance Team Alignment Implementing a business objectives template not just streamlines the goal-setting process, but it also plays a crucial role in enhancing team alignment. This template provides a structured framework, ensuring all team members are on the same page regarding specific, measurable goals that drive broader organizational objectives. By clearly outlining roles and responsibilities, it encourages accountability and transparency. Furthermore, using a goal setting plan template promotes effective communication, reducing misunderstandings and enhancing collaboration across departments. Regular updates keep the team aligned with company priorities, allowing for quick adaptation to market changes. Finally, a well-defined template improves performance tracking through consistent metrics, enabling you to measure progress and adjust strategies effectively, as can be illustrated with business planning ppt slides. Key Components of an Effective Template To create an effective business objectives template, you need to start with clear objective definitions that adhere to the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Incorporating a framework for measuring progress, including key performance indicators (KPIs), allows you to track success against set benchmarks. Furthermore, outlining team responsibilities and establishing a timeline for each objective guarantees accountability and timely evaluations. Clear Objective Definition A well-crafted business objectives template serves as a roadmap for achieving your company’s vision and strategic goals. For effective objective definition, you need to outline specific and measurable outcomes that align with your overall strategy. Your goal development template should include defined timelines, relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), and a clear categorization of objectives, such as financial and customer-centric. Incorporating elements from a smart objectives template guarantees your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Furthermore, assigning responsible parties promotes accountability and encourages collaboration among team members. Regular updates to the template are essential, as they help reflect any changes in strategy and maintain alignment with your evolving business objectives. SMART Criteria Application When considering how to create effective business objectives, applying the SMART criteria is essential for guaranteeing clarity and accountability. This framework helps you define objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. By using this approach, you improve your goal-setting process. SMART Component Description Specific Clearly define the desired outcome. Measurable Include quantifiable metrics for tracking progress. Achievable Set realistic goals that consider resources. Using a smart goals template free download can streamline this process. Furthermore, a goal setting sheet can help you organize your objectives effectively. Embracing the SMART criteria guarantees that your business objectives are well-structured and aligned with your overall strategy. Progress Measurement Framework Establishing a progress measurement framework is crucial for ensuring that your business objectives remain on track and achievable. A well-designed goal sheet template should include clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your objectives, ensuring measurable outcomes. Incorporate timelines and milestones to help you track progress and adjust strategies when necessary. Consistent data collection methods are fundamental for regular reporting and analysis, whereas roles and responsibilities must be clearly delineated to hold team members accountable for monitoring progress. Moreover, integrating regular review intervals into your goal setting template allows stakeholders to assess progress, celebrate achievements, and recalibrate objectives if needed. This structured approach encourages a proactive environment focused on achieving your business goals effectively. Benefits of Using a Business Objectives Template Utilizing a business objectives template can greatly improve your goal-setting process by providing a structured framework that emphasizes the SMART criteria—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This goal-making template boosts accountability by defining roles and responsibilities, making it easier to track progress. It also streamlines planning, saving you time and resources with a consistent format for documentation. Here’s a quick overview of the benefits: Benefit Description Improved Accountability Clearly defined roles help track progress. Streamlined Planning Consistent format saves time and resources. Enhanced Communication Unified comprehension encourages teamwork. Adaptability Quickly revise objectives in response to change. Using a smart goal setting sheet guarantees your objectives align with organizational goals. Steps to Create Your Business Objectives Template Creating a business objectives template begins with a clear comprehension of its purpose and alignment with your organization’s strategic vision. Start by outlining your objectives, ensuring they meet the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This is where a goal template becomes crucial. Use a smart goals template excel to organize your thoughts effectively. Include sections for key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress, along with timelines and assigned responsibilities for accountability. Remember to involve team members in this process to gather diverse insights, which can improve acceptance of the template. Finally, regularly update your template to adapt to any changes in strategy or performance, promoting continuous improvement in your goal-setting approach. Aligning Objectives With Organizational Goals Aligning your objectives with organizational goals is essential for guaranteeing that every team member contributes effectively to the company’s overall mission. Using a business objectives template helps you systematically categorize and prioritize your goals, making it easier to see how each one contributes to the broader strategic vision. This alignment boosts accountability, allowing for clear tracking of progress against defined targets. Regularly updating your goal worksheet template guarantees that your objectives stay relevant as organizational strategies or market conditions change. Additionally, a well-defined business objectives template encourages collaboration among departments, promoting cross-functional teamwork toward shared goals. In the end, this coherence drives company-wide success and helps you navigate challenges more effectively. Measuring Success With Key Performance Indicators How can you accurately gauge the effectiveness of your business strategies? By utilizing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), you can measure progress in relation to your objectives. These specific, quantifiable metrics provide insights that align with your strategic goals, helping you make informed decisions. To guarantee clarity, your KPIs should follow the SMART goal form—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Regularly tracking these indicators allows you to assess performance trends and adjust strategies as needed. Furthermore, employing a goal chart template can keep your KPI data organized and accessible. This balanced approach not just monitors financial performance but additionally evaluates non-financial metrics, giving you an all-encompassing view of your business’s overall success. Common Mistakes to Avoid Setting clear business objectives is critical for steering your organization in the right direction, but several common pitfalls can undermine this process. Avoid these mistakes to improve your effectiveness: Mistake Impact Misaligning objectives with vision Leads to misdirection and wasted resources Ignoring SMART criteria Results in vague goals lacking clarity Overcomplicating objectives Confuses employees and hinders engagement Don’t forget to utilize a monthly goals template to keep your objectives on track. Furthermore, consider incorporating a smart goals printable to guarantee your objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Regularly review and update your goals to adapt to changes in the market and maintain alignment with your organizational strategy. Resources for Further Learning Many organizations benefit from seeking additional resources to improve their grasp of effective business objective setting. To boost your skills in this area, consider the following: Online Courses: Platforms like Coursera or Udemy offer courses focusing on business strategy and goal alignment, helping you comprehend the nuances of performance measurement. Workshops: Attending business strategy workshops can provide hands-on experience in using tools like a yearly goals template, allowing you to practice setting measurable objectives. Literature: Reading books and articles on goal-setting can deepen your knowledge of creating a goal list template, along with the importance of defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for tracking progress. These resources can greatly improve your ability to set and achieve effective business objectives. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Business Objectives and Why Are They Important? Business objectives are specific, measurable targets that help you steer your company toward its long-term goals. They’re essential since they guide decision-making and resource allocation, ensuring everyone is aligned. By focusing on areas like financial health and customer satisfaction, you not just track progress but additionally promote accountability among your team. When objectives follow the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based—you improve your chances of achieving your strategic goals effectively. What Are the 4 Types of Business Objectives? You can categorize business objectives into four main types: economic, social, human, and organic. Economic objectives focus on financial performance, aiming for profitability and cash flow. Social objectives emphasize customer satisfaction, targeting market share and brand awareness. Human objectives center on employee engagement, seeking to improve retention and workplace culture. Finally, organic objectives prioritize innovation and efficiency, ensuring the business adapts and grows in a competitive market. Each type plays a vital role in overall success. What Are the 5 Main Business Objectives? The five main business objectives you should focus on are economic, social, human, organic, and compliance objectives. Economic objectives prioritize profitability and financial health, whereas social objectives aim to improve customer satisfaction and market share. Human objectives emphasize employee engagement and retention. Organic objectives drive innovation and efficiency, and compliance objectives guarantee adherence to regulations. Together, these objectives create a balanced approach to achieving long-term success and sustainability in your business. How to Write a Business Objective Template? To write a business objective template, start by defining clear fields for specific, measurable outcomes that align with your company’s goals. Incorporate SMART criteria to guarantee each objective is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Include sections for key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress. Make certain to allow for regular reviews and adjustments, and provide space for team collaboration to cultivate ownership and diverse input in setting objectives. Conclusion In summary, a business objectives template is crucial for effective goal-setting within your organization. By providing a structured approach, it guarantees that your objectives align with broader organizational goals and facilitates measurement through key performance indicators. Utilizing this template can improve collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement, eventually leading to better business outcomes. By following the outlined steps and avoiding common pitfalls, you can create a robust framework that drives your business forward in a competitive environment. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Business Objectives Template and Why Need One?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article