Succeeding in the modern business world depends to a great extent on effective people management skills. People management can be improved and studied. Having a innate skill for dealing with people is an advantage, but you can do some things that will help the process.
Continue Reading March 10th, 2010
People management is extremely important for business success. People management can be improved and studied. It can be an advantage to have a intuitive affinity for communicating with people, even so there are some skills you can do to help the process.
Continue Reading February 1st, 2010
A successful business depends on competent people management skills. You may succeed in improving in these skills. Having a intuitive affinity for communicating with people and building relationships may be a plus, but you can do some things that will simplify the process.
Continue Reading January 12th, 2010
Competent people management is very important for business success. You may succeed in developing these techniques. It may be an advantage to have a natural affinity for people, but you can do some things to help the process.
Continue Reading December 24th, 2009
You have completed college and now you are ready for your first authentic situation. Youve mailed out r©sum©s and have been selected in for your initial job interview. How can you do well at the interview so you end up being offered the situation? It is always worth considering going for a medical interview course
Make sure you are dapper. Do not look as though you just rolled out of bed and couldnt put yourself out to take care of basic personal hygiene. Nothing will make the HR Manager bring the job interview to a close faster than unwashed hair, dirty fingernails or body odor. As an employee, you will be a reflection of the company and no customer wants to do business with an unkempt person.
There are numerous other ways in which you can get yourself better equipped for your upcoming job interview. You could make sure that you know how to get to the venue so that you wont be late. You could search the company so that you can ask pertinent questions and try to appear keen and knowledgeable. You could ask the current employees what they think of the unit. That way, you will not only be able to better valuate whether the post is eligible for you, but also learn some valuable insights that could help you secure the post.
First impressions make a difference, and you aim to let the interviewer know you would like the situation, are willing to work hard and will do your best. You might not necessarily be the most qualified candidate, but still land the post for the reason that you were the most outstanding one. Good luck with your job interview!
October 5th, 2009
Ask yourself these questions. When you make any “investment” in your business, do you just “do it because you have to,” or do you figure out what it’s really worth? Do you struggle once in a while choosing between two alternatives? When you hire a new employee, do you calculate what you have to get back? How about when you spend your own time doing something? Can you explain to your customers the specific value of what you sell to them? Does your business “think” in terms of ROI?
If you’re answering any of these (or similar) questions the wrong way, you might be selling yourself short. Keeping your eye on the return on every “investment” you make is critical to the long term success of your business. If that was hard to do, or took you a lot of time, you’d have a good excuse not to bother. But, it’s not hard, you can do it in a few minutes, and it will give you a very different perspective on choices you think about every day.
Let’s take the mystique out of Return On Investment - it’s just not as complicated to calculate as it may seem. Small business owners have to deal with ROI questions a lot more often than they think and the concept doesn’t have to be as difficult as a financial analyst, or a CPA makes it sound. So, let’s define in simple terms what ROI really is.
• Investment: The amount of money you have to spend to do something - anything, really, like buying a truck or a building, starting a new product line, hiring another employee, or even deciding whether or not to spend your valuable time on some project. This investment can be cash that you have on hand, or money that you borrow.
• Return: The income, or cash stream that you expect to receive over some reasonable, predefined time period, because you made the investment.
• ROI: The average interest rate that you will earn over your predefined time period for trading the money you have today for the income you will earn in the future.
• A Good Deal: The present value of the income you get in the future exceeds the investment you make today.
When you think about ROI, it’s important to remember that you have to equate the value of the investment you are making today with the value of the cash you will receive in the future. In other words, you have to think about the present value of those future cash flows, because they are not worth as much in the future as they would be if you had them today - if you had them today, you could invest them and earn interest. So, in ROI calculations, the discount rate is the assumed interest rate you have to earn on those future cash flows to equal the investment you are making today.
Think for just a moment about what the discount rate in the ROI calculation really means. Assume that you have $100,000 to invest and that you have three investment alternatives. You can invest the money in government bonds and get a “risk free” return of about 4.5%. If you prefer to invest the $100,000 in the stock market, you’re taking on more risk, so you need a higher return - maybe 8% to 10% to compensate you fairly. Now, what if you want to invest the money in a new product line? If you can get 4% with no risk and 10% by going into the stock market, what return do you need to risk losing all of your $100,000 - maybe 15% to 20%?
ROI represents a very useful thought process that should be applied to a lot of the decisions small businesses have to make. Doing the calculations and knowing the numbers is not nearly as important as just thinking in terms of ROI. Investments are not always those big deals where we actually write a check. Sometimes they are as simple as how people are going to spend their time, or the additional income you might realize from selling more of your product or service. We have choices about what people do, how they spend their time, and what things we are going to emphasize; applying the ROI thought process makes it easier and more efficient to choose between the alternatives that you have. And, if you invest ten more minutes looking quickly at the two examples below, you’ll see that there is an easy way to get a handle on the ROI of virtually anything you do.
Every business has a different tolerance for risk and will make different assumptions about what the investment potential of different choices might be. The point, though, is that we too often don’t think about ROI and quite often don’t look at the actual numbers. Don’t allow your business to be one that doesn’t take the time to look at this appropriately.
If you would like to access an easy to use ROI Model to calculate the return on one of your investments, just sign up for our free trial and be our guest.
Jim Deyo is the President of Business Advisor Online, an internet based service that provides small businesses with the ideas they need to grow and the resources they require to make the right decisions. As a former Sr. Vice President with a major banking institution, Jim worked extensively with small and medium sized companies and has over 30 years experience in commercial and consumer lending, accounting, finance, marketing, and strategic planning. Visit the website at http://www.businessadvisoronline.com and sign up for a six week free trial of the service, or e-mail Jim at jimdeyo@businessadvisoronline.com.
June 1st, 2008
It might seem funny for me as a wholesaler to give you tips on negotiating.
After all you might end up calling my wholesale business one day and using these negotiating tips on me!
But that concern aside, I do believe that the more knowledge there is in the wholesale business, the more all its participants will gain.
Before I offer you my negotiating tips I want you to understand my position as a wholesaler.
I buy products in large quantities. Quantities can range from a thousand units to an entire container load. Since I work on small profit margins I need to move volume in order to make money.
Given that I have a large overhead in terms of rent for a 7,200 sq warehouse and daily advertising, I need to move allot of volume to stay in business.
If you haven’t already got an idea of what my negotiating tips are, then you need to reread what I just wrote above.
Since most serious wholesalers operate the same way the tips I will give you now are universal.
Tip #1
Since wholesalers buy in large volume they want to sell in large volume. You can obtain lower prices by offering to buy a larger volume of merchandise. Even though I have no minimum order requirements, I am happy to offer further discounts for a decent sized order.
Tip #2
Wholesalers want to have long term customers. It’s allot easier to serve a steady customer than it is to look for new customers. Show wholesalers that you can buy regularly and ask for a discount in exchange for your steady business.
Tip #3
Ask for slow moving merchandise. Every wholesaler has merchandise that for one reason or another isn’t moving. Maybe the style is out of fashion or the colors are kind of funny.
You just might have the right customers for that slow moving merchandise. Offer to buy it at a reduced price.
I hope you enjoyed these negotiating tips. Try them out and see what happens.
Donny Lowy operates the following wholesale sites:
http://www.closeoutexplosion.com
http://www.salehoo.net
http://www.wholesalecloseoutforum.com
May 3rd, 2008
A while back, a potential client provided me with some general
details of the writing work he wanted me to do for his company.
Then he asked me to send him a proposal.
Proposal?! I panicked as I tried to confirm with him what he meant by that since I had never done one before, at least not as a freelancer.
I must’ve not really wanted to pursue this opportunity since I didn’t bother to do research or follow up with the company after submitting a contract instead of a proposal. A little time passed, I came across an article on writing RFPs (Request for Proposal). Ding! The light bulb went on. This guy verbally gave me his RFP and wanted a written response.
When a company needs a project to be completed by a contractor or outside source, they write a RFP. This is a formal document describing the project, how the contract companies should respond, how the proposals will be reviewed, and contact information. Often, the company documents the submission guidelines to make it easier for them to compare responses. There are no specific standards or guidelines for creating the RFP, but government agencies usually strict standards they follow when conducting the proposal process.
Outside companies read the RFP and write a proposal (a bid) explaining how they can best provide and meet those needs. When writing the proposal, the company should closely follow the guidelines established in the RFP to avoid being removed from consideration for the potential project.
A typical proposal contains:
My situation was an informal version of all this. The client gave me a high level overview of what I might do for him. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve written up a description of the client’s needs and how I would complete the work in meeting those needs.
Small businesses would likely do a proposal in between the one I got and the complex government required ones. Most small businesses will be prompted to write a proposal when approaching a client. The client may ask you to submit a proposal outlining what you can do for them. In this case, write a proposal including the elements of a typical proposal and keep it short and to the point especially if the client is not a large company.
There are examples of RFPs and responses peppered throughout the Web, but which one you can learn from depends on the type of work involved. A proposal can be two pages or as big as a book. Rely on your favorite search engine and do the research to create an unbeatable proposal.
Meryl K. Evans, Content Maven, is Editor-in-Chief of eNewsletter Journal and The Remediator Security Digest. She’s a slave to a MarketingProfs weekly column and a Web design reference guide at InformIT. She is the author of the popular e-report, How to Start a Business Blog and Build Traffic. Visit her site at http://www.meryl.net/blog/ for free newsletters, articles, and tips.
April 18th, 2008
Homeostasis is a relatively new and obscure science. It is the study of the effect of time on man and on other living creatures. It is also the study of our perception and response to time. Some of the latest discoveries in this realm of science may not win a Nobel prize but they guarantee to fascinate even the dullest curiosity.
In one experiment people were placed deep in underground facilities where they had no way of knowing sunrise or sunset and they had no clocks or any other means of telling time. After a brief period of disorientation they all began develop a routine of sleep, productivity and recreation time that fell into a perfect twenty four hour period. Where did that come from? It seems that providence has placed a twenty four hour clock in the human psyche apart from external stimuli.
Another interesting fact has been uncovered through the science of homeostasis about our adaptations to time and climate. Put quite simply. man adapts to time first and always before any other natural influences. For example, man can live in extremes like cold or heat as long as the twenty four hour internal clock is working. Other species cannot do that. Some bears hibernate until winter has passed conversely there is a badger like creature in the Northeast US that can’t stand the summer heat so it hibernates until cooler weather returns.
When I was performing Celtic and American style folk music I loved a particular song called, “You Won’t Make Old Bones” In it was one of the most intriguing lines I have ever heard. “The young man sits and curses the time upon his hands…The old man sits and curses time’s slipping sands” Every time I sang this song I could hear echoes of my mother warning me about how time only seemed slow because I was young. She would always add that when I grew older time would fly so swiftly that I would be asking myself where it had gone. The line in the song is right, ma was right and I’m still seeking answers to the reasons why this is true.
The feeling that time is short comes to me daily now, and I question whether I have time left to accomplish something worthwhile in my life. The Bible tells me that the days of our years are three score years and ten. It says that, should we make it over the seventy year mark that it will still be filled with labor and sorrow. Psalm 90:10 I’m too old and well experienced to argue with the Bible at this point. I have plenty of proof to corroborate this scripture passage. Yet I see this fact as a very good thing, it is what gives me the ability to concentrate on what is good and differentiate more accurately about what is dross. Here is a key!
Perhaps the very best advice I have heard in my entire life about how to better handle time is this. Always make a distinction between the urgent, and the important. The phone ringing, the knock on the door, three children all calling to you at the same time, this is urgent, but is it important?
This is not just another tip or piece of easy advice. If taken seriously you will see a positive effect immediately in your life. Whether you make mental notes about what you need to do daily or if you’re a corporate executive with a secretary to tell you what’s next, you need to take a hard look at your “to do” list. With complete honesty sit down and remove every item that is only “urgent” and leave only those things that come under the heading of “important” and you will feel a weight lifting as you do. The functional word here is “honestly.”
We are traveling through something we all recognize as time and space. In youth we are mostly involved with the space aspect of life. Later in life we all realize that our travels through time are far more important than we had ever thought. It is our consciousness of this traveling through time that raises some of life’s most important questions. Questions that have to do with quality of life, relationships, love and true productivity.
Rev Bresciani is the author of two books and many articles in print and online. His website is americanprophet.org
April 17th, 2008
Our personalities are the key to finding out what kind of time
manager we are. Whether we tend to do too much or too little,
overwork or underwork, buzz around like a bee or freeze through
procrastination, all comes down to one thing: which of the
following Time Travellers are you?
1. The Perfectionist. The Perfectionist is one of the
worst examples of a workaholic. They fill up their days with
work activities in the belief that everything they do has to be
as perfect as possible. George Bernard Shaw was a typical
workaholic. He wrote mechanically every day of his career.
Looking back on his life, he said, “When I was a young man, I
observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I
didn’t want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.”
2. The Socialiser. The Socialiser is not a good time
manager. If you are in conversation with a Socialiser, you’ll
know this for they are the hardest people to break away from.
Socialisers simply love to be with people, talk about people,
and be of service to people. This invariably means putting time
and other duties into second place.
3. The Achiever. Achievers have mastered the art of
looking like perfect time managers. They seem to be good at
everything they take on, seem to manage things with effortless
ease, and seem to enjoy themselves in the process. But, beware,
a lot of the impression may be false. Achievers are good at show
and not so good at substance. When you are dealing with an
Achiever, always look under the surface at what they’ve actually
achieved.
4. The Artist. When you are dealing with an Artist time
personality, you’ll know it. They look different, dress
different, and behave different from others. They also have a
cavalier attitude to time which they regard as a constraint and
restriction. They thus arrive late or early, ignore rotas, and
frequently miss deadlines. But the work they produce is
invariably one of a kind and in their eyes makes up for their
lax attitude to time.
5. The Analyser. The Analyser has a touch of the
absent-minded professor about them. They can easily get so
wrapped up in their thoughts and ideas or in conversation with
others that they can forget the routine details of daily life -
such as preparing a meal, going to bed on time, keeping
appointments. But while their outer life may be muddled, their
inner world of thoughts is invariably rich and gifted.
6. The Procrastinator. The Procrastinator is a person who
hesitates to act because he or she is unsure whether they
should. It may be because something hasn’t been decided, or
information isn’t yet available or because a higher authority
hasn’t sanctioned it. Procrastinators are the great doubters,
questioners and hesitators. In workplaces, Procrastinators
prefer to let others own their time rather than own it
themselves. They will therefore drop anything at any time if
asked to, no matter what the cost in piled-up work or stress.
7. The Hurrier. The Hurrier is a person who manages to
combine a wide range of activities in a short space of time.
Everything they do is done at a quick pace: they move quickly,
talk quickly, think quickly. They are multi-talented and never
say No to any job that comes their way even if they move on to
something more interesting before they finish it. They are the
human equivalent of the Hare in Aesop’s fable.
8. The Rebel. Rebels are life’s fighters. They believe
that time is something to be challenged and beaten. They thus
like to run late for deadlines, coming to life in the tension
this creates and knowing that they will beat it in the end. They
push time to the limit. They embody the sentiments of Edna St
Vincent Millay who wrote: “My candle burns at both ends; it will
not last the night. But, ah, my foes and oh, my friends: it
gives a lovely light.”
9. The Wanderer. Wanderers are people who enjoy the
freedom to do what they like. In organizational settings, this
can cause a problem. They may not be totally committed to the
work ethic and may go at their own speed which makes them appear
lazy. On the other hand, Wanderers are far more in tune with the
pace of the world and may achieve a far higher level of
contentment than the rest of us.
When you know the kind of Time Traveller you are, you can make
adjustments in your plans to iron out the features that don’t
serve you well and enhance the ones that do. That’s the secret
of successful Time Travel!
April 16th, 2008
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||