Entrepreneurial leadership is all about growing a business with the help of a team. No matter the business environment or context you are operating in, entrepreneurial leadership will be central to your success.

Entrepreneurial leadership ensures that organizations quickly adapt to changes in today's fast-paced business environment and to the changes in today's volatile and moving global economy. 

Lisa Banwell had dreamed of starting her own brick-and-mortar boutique since she was a little girl – and two years ago, that dream came true. She started up as a mobile pop-up store back in 2016, and in 2018 she took the leap of faith and opened her very own permanent storefront in Minneapolis. Queenie & Pearl features new, handmade, and vintage clothing, vinyl records, and a creative studio.

We chatted with Lisa all about her rock ‘n’ roll vintage boutique, her experience running a brick-and-mortar store, and her big goals for the future. Read on – there’s a lot we all can learn from her!

Why did you start your boutique?

Ever since my grandma let me loose in her closet to try on her crushed velvet peacock blue pumps, elbow-length gloves, and silk slips, I’ve always been passionate about refining, remixing, and collecting.

With updated lockdown restrictions meaning that a lot of us will be spending an increased amount of time working from home, it’s important to ensure that your makeshift desk-space feels a little less, well, makeshift. For those interested in building an ideal home-working situation that’s free from distractions and intrusions, here are a few tips that might help you to stay focused. Read on to find out more!

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has caused a lot of businesses to make changes to their marketing strategies. Some who still relied on traditional marketing was either forced or voluntarily embraced digital marketing to help their business stay alive. But, really, there's no reason to stay behind as digital marketing is simply marketing done online.

Running a business can be an insane gamble, given the odds of failure. But it doesn't have to be that way--not if you discover your company's X factor. That's what allowed ventures such as Starbucks, Apple, and McDonalds to dominate their industries. By finding their X factor--that is, an exponential advantage that put them at least seven times ahead of competitors --they left their rivals gasping for breath and unable to catch up.

Want to spread the word about your business far and wide? If so, it’s absolutely imperative that you devote time, effort, and money to the all-important task of optimizing your advertising campaigns. The way in which you market your company will have a profound impact on the number of leads that you generate and, in turn, the number of customers that you attract. It doesn’t matter how good you are at providing your product/service range — if your marketing isn’t up to scratch, you’ll never truly be able to grow your company sustainably.

Whether you’re running a local café or you’re combining the perks of existing online with your brick-and-mortar business, human nature plays a crucial role in how you approach your customers on all fronts. Simply put, you want to appeal to their preferences and habits, and you want to naturally build your brand as part of their everyday existence. Now, it’s one thing to provide a wonderful set of products or services online and offline, but a whole other issue to portray them as an invaluable part of their lives.

Packaging design might seem like a simple thing, but it carries a lot of importance. It can affect the way people perceive your products, company, and your whole brand. That’s why you should consider your package design very extensively before making a decision.

A lot of customers make their decision on which product to buy based on packaging. It’s especially true if they are looking for a product they never purchased. If they see several options without knowing any one of them, chances are they will choose the one that has the most appealing packaging.

If you're running an eCommerce store, then the chances are the metric you care about more than almost any other is conversion rate. If you're getting this area of your store right, then the sky's the limit, so what can you do to boost your conversion rate?

User Experience/ Speed

You work hard to bring people to your store, so don't lose them because of simple user experience errors or the fact your site doesn't load quickly. People want a fast, clean experience, and if your website doesn't offer this, then your conversion rate will suffer.