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li li Tagged Articles
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Becoming the Asian Superman: Li’s Business Takes Off
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| Li’s plastics manufacturing company was officially founded in 1950 and began by making plastic combs and soapboxes. He had borrowed the startup capital he needed from family, friends, and the contacts he had acquired while working as a salesman in the years before, but it still was not a lot. “The first year, as I didn’t have much capital, I did everything myself,” Li recalls, “which kept my overhead low.” From learning about everything from accounting to how to fix the gears of his equipment, Li says he “started from the bottom up.” |
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9 Elements to Help Your Copy Connect with Your Ideal Customers
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| Knowing the formula for creating a sales letter will help you connect with your ideal client. Regardless of the length of your copy you can incorporate the basic formula to ensure you’re providing all the information your customers need to make a sound decision about investing in your products and services. |
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Do Salespeople Have to Give up Control to Their Prospects?
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| I just read Why Won't Anyone Return My !*#@$% Call by Don Fornes over at Software Advice. Don's read of the current selling environment, specifically cold-calling, entry point into the sales process, and the table stakes just to play are dead-on. Most of his conclusions are good as well.
I disagree with his article when he implies that we should be resigned to the fact that there isn't much to be done except building trust until the prospect is ready to engage.
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Preparing for Sales Training - Becoming Change Ready
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| I just took a talented group of salespeople through three days of training. Perhaps you've been in a situation just like that at some point. There are several ways this group can approach integration, application and execution at the end of the training. |
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How Obama, Dan Pink, The Heaths, Steinbrenner and Kurlan Might Prepare Your Sales Force for Change
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| I was up against the time, as 6:30 AM had arrived prior to the end of my article. That's how it was yesterday when I wrote about having a change ready sales force. The only problem with yesterday's article was that I never really got to the part about being change ready! So to start where we left off you'll need to read Part I first.
How do we prepare the sales force for the four possible outcomes while letting them know that options 2-4 are not acceptable?
There are several possible approaches and Alex Bartholomaus, who spoke with me yesterday, said he would like to see me talk about these two:
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Why the Relationship is So Important to the Sales Outcome
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| Many people have written extensively on the topic of relationships and selling. One common topic is that people only buy from people they like and the other is how to develop strong relationships. There is nothing wrong with either of those topics but they surely miss the mark in two important areas. |
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The Relationship Between the Relationship and the Sales Outcome Part 2
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| Have you ever worked with salespeople that were so bad you thought, "She couldn't close a door!"? And have you ever worked with salespeople that were so good that you thought, "She could sell white to rice!"? |
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Are Your Goals SMART?
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| Research has shown that the most successful people are those who regularly set goals. Most people would not start out on a trip without some kind of a map or GPS navigational system on board, yet many people run their businesses with very little directional assistance. This can cause a lot of wasted time and energy, sometimes going in circles or going in a direction that becomes a dead end. You'll end up somewhere, but will it be where you want to end up? |
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How to Achieve Consistency on the Sales Force
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| I have always believed that in sales, the three most important attributes (not skills) are the willingness to do what it takes to succeed (commitment) the passion for being the best (desire), and the discipline to repeat the required behaviors and activities (consistency). |
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The Whiners - Salespeople Who Get Your Attention
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| Your top performers (real sales professionals) aren't the ones taking their time (and yours) to whine. Oh no. This stuff is the exclusive domain of the under achievers and they whine to justify their lack of success. Whining might distract you from their dismal performance and further distract them from performing the work they're supposed to be doing. |
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Equipment Leasing- Types and Advantages
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| The result is, With competition being too high- you get lower monthly rates. The best use of leasing is that it can also finance the soft costs often associated with equipment purchases, such as installation and training services. |
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Sales Recruiting - How Long Can You Retain The New Salesperson?
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| Back in April, I posted an article that was actually my third in a series on Sales Longevity - the science of predicting sales turnover. In that article I provided a link to my latest White Paper on the subject and suggested that this new science would someday become a new feature in our already cutting edge Sales Candidate Assessments. Well, that day is upon us. |
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Improve How Your Sales Force Sells by Phone
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| If your salespeople are unable to interest their prospects there is zero chance of reaching the goal for the call which, depending on the salesperson's role, could be anything from a qualified lead to a scheduled appointment to a transactional sale. |
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How to Close the Deal Your Salespeople Can't Close
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| Sometimes, when your salespeople are trying to close a sale, the deal stalls, gets put-off, or simply doesn't close. This is followed by, well, follow up, leading to more put-offs. There are many reasons why this happens but for the purpose of this article, let's simply assume that the prospect has every reason to buy and the salesperson did not do anything glaringly wrong along the way. Simply a closable opportunity that hasn't closed yet. In situations like this, there are usually two things going on: |
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Optimize Your Sales Force Without Spending a Dime
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| Enter to Win a Free Sales Force Makeover!
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a company that wants to grow more quickly....
If you can state your case effetively than anyone else, your company could win a Sales Force MakeOver worth between $100,000 - $250,000!
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Bench Strength - The Key to Replacing Salespeople
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| When you send your replacements into the field, are your fingers crossed hoping they don't make mental errors that help competitors close business or are you confident because your replacements are better than those you replaced?
Those are the two keys right there:
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Recruiting Strong Salespeople - The Sales Candidate Pipeline
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| Recruiting Salespeople - again?
Yes. I cannot write enough about this!
But, as usual, I'll address recruiting from a slightly different perspective this time - the candidate pipeline. Not to be confused with the candidate pool which is simply a single component of the pipeline.
Your sales pipeline should have four stages:
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How to Be with Insecurity?
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| As an inner confidence coach, I often hear clients voice their frustration about feelings of insecurity. The inner critic is angry that they’re even feeling insecure - that they can’t get rid of that old feeling following them in places where they don’t want it to go.
I understand. I, too, know about insecurity. And what I’ve learned through my years of working with this issue - within myself and with many, many people in the education, counseling and now coaching fields - is that it is natural and human to feel insecure. Everyone does - at times and usually in certain areas. |
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Trade Show Selling
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| Trade shows provide a unique but different type of opportunity to sell your products and services. Here are some tips to help you maximize your time and effectivness. |
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Overcome Call Reluctance - Get Your Salespeople to Prospect
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| By decreasing both the amount of resistance and time spent overcoming the resistance, you might be able to make it less overwhelming and therefore easier for your call reluctant salespeople to experience prospecting success. |
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Rejection Proof - The Science Behind Success in Sales
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| The stronger a salesperson is, the less likely rejection is to have a major effect. That said, there are effective salespeople who have a rejection problem but they manage it better than their less effective colleagues. There are also some very ineffective salespeople who don't care about being rejected. In fact, their lack of caring about it may even lead to their ineffectiveness since their strategy rarely includes consideration of how to avoid resistance! |
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5 Advantages That Overcome Inequities on the Sales Force
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| So let's move over to business, and sales. There are inequities there too - with territories, margins on imported versus domestic components, parts and products, various markets a company sells into, the relative size and market clout of the competition, patents and copyrights, etc.
But there are advantages that companies can, but don't all necessarily have. R & D, leadership, people, product design and quality, expertise, service and support are a few that quickly come to mind. There are five areas where the sales force can develop a huge advantage over its competitors:
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Top 5 Sales Recruiting Observations of 2010
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| Today, I'll make some observations about the sales recruiting activity taking place this summer that either reinforces some of the things I've said in the past, or modifies my original stance.
In no particular order, but of equal importance:
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Which Salespeople Use Bad Judgement and Burn Bridges?
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| You want your salespeople to get decisions instead of taking stalls, put-offs and objections. Some of your salespeople are better at this than others. I've written extensively about the difference between the required skills versus the strengths that support closing, as well as recognizing and dealing with put-offs. Today, I will discuss the difference between not getting the desired reaction or behavior, not getting a decision and burning a bridge. |
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More Sales Coaching Leads to Accelerated Growth
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| Your salespeople have the opportunity to replay their last call - one that probably had a horrible ending - and learn from it...
Your salespeople can experience a live version of reincarnation every day!
There are two keys that can't be overlooked though:
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Sales Force Compensation - X Marks the Spot
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| Compensation is usually simpler than most companies make it. Most companies seem to either over compensate or under compensate on salary. Most companies tend to do the same with commissions. |
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10 Obstacles That Most Salespeople Can't Overcome
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| An average/ineffective salesperson may not be able to overcome any of the ten with the possible exception of relationship. Some salespeople, while strategically and tactically challenged, are quite good at developing relationships. Unfortunately, while a relationship is important, people won't buy if that's the only thing a salesperson brings to the table. |
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Top 20 Requirements - How Salespeople Can Be Better at Closing
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| While salespeople can get better at closing, closing is an outcome, and with the exception of real estate and banking, not really an event. When we evaluate sales forces and look at their ability to close, they may possess some of the strengths and skills that are part of the Sales Core Competency called Closing, but most of those attributes are used prior to, not during, closing time. The ability to close depends on the following 20 variables (in no particular order) that a salesperson brings to the table - or not: |
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10 Reasons Why Sales Commitment Has Become More Important
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| A comparison of selling today with selling over the past 20 years shows that selling is significantly more challenging today than ever before. Let's take a look at 10 of the factors that explain this shift in difficulty: |
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5 Frustrations that Derail the Sales Force
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| I write a lot about the things that frustrate Presidents, CEO's, Sales VP's and Salespeople. Yesterday, somebody asked what frustrates me so I attempted to tackle that question here.
I'm very steady and what you see on Monday, you'll probably get on Tuesday and Wednesday too. That said, there are things that will make me eat faster or more often, and here you can read my top 5:
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But I'm a Sales Guy - The Story of Motivation and Compensation
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| A Sales VP and his CEO were in the conference room and each time the CEO brought up a problem, we asked the Sales VP to elaborate. Each time he began with, "Well I'm a sales guy so I know this stuff..."
Yes and No.
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There are always options ...
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| If you have ever been caught in a situation where it seems like there are no options the reality is that there are always options!
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Top 10 Video Blunders When Used as a Sales Aid
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| It should go without saying that your videos should be professionally produced and directed. The do it yourself videos made on the fly are prone to all ten of the mistakes listed above. Unless you are in the marketing, advertising or videography business, you have no business doing this yourself unless you want to give people reasons not to buy from you. |
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The Role of Preparation in Developing Top Salespeople
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| The Internet has made it easier than ever for prospects to find your company, a benefit of Sales 2.0. The upside is that your leads are coming from unexpected places and you are getting audiences with prospects you may not have found ten years ago. The downside is that this has changed the sales process, accelerated the sales cycle and in some cases, made it more difficult than ever for companies to close these new found opportunities. |
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Who Do You Call When Your Sales Forecast is Busted?
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| When your short-term sales forecast indicates that you'll come up short this period (month), what do you direct your salespeople to do in order to fill the gap? |
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Football's Pitch Count and the Connection to the Sales Force
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| Herm Edwards, currently of ESPN and formerly the Head Coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, was interviewed on WEEI, Boston's Sports Talk Radio station today. He said a couple of things that were quite compelling: |
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Anatomy of the Worst Sales Call Ever
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| It's easier to talk about some of the things he failed to do since he didn't do anything correctly. If we were to perform an analysis working backwards from the end of his (can't really call what he did a) sales process: |
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Lousy Salespeople and Great Salespeople - Line Item or Investment?
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| Lousy salespeople are a line item but great salespeople are an investment. It's actually much worse than that. The line item on your lousy salespeople is only a fraction of what they really cost. Don't believe me? Then answer these three questions: |
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One Hidden Gem in 10 Sales Management Challenges
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| The salespeople who fit the description of #5 might actually be on to something. They might be right. They're actually trying to make things better. They might even be wrong, but they're being constructive. The challenge with #5 is getting over yourself enough to listen! Here's what you can say: |
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How Do Companies Retain Their Under Performing Salespeople?
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| Yesterday, while reviewing the findings and answers from a Sales Force Evaluation with a client, the conversation turned to the possibility of replacing some of their reps. As we began to talk about the 5 factors, they wondered how they were able to retain these people who, for the most part, weren't very good and weren't a very good fit for the roles they were in. Three of the factors came up big in explaining why the tenure of their 9 salespeople: |
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Customer Service Neutralizes the Efforts of the Sales Force
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| Companies spend a lot of money on marketing and sales calls to acquire customers. Then they spend money to train and develop their sales teams to improve their effectiveness at finding and closing business. Then, because the people in charge of customer service simply don't get it, they encourage customers to walk away because they aren't wiling to address some of their customers' most basic needs. |
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Call Reluctance - Causes, Factors and Predictors
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| Historically, when salespeople have failed, has most often been because of their inability to get appointments. We are able to identify the three factors that indicate a call-reluctance problem - a malady that is career-threatening for salespeople who are expected to hunt. |
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Play Your Position
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| Learn to play to win in life - no holding back. |
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Sales Coaching - Are Sales Managers Any Good at This Function?
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| I've written extensively about sales coaching before. Yesterday, a fairly typical day, I coached 4 different sales experts and 2 clients on how to more effectively coach salespeople and sales managers. I have noticed that most sales managers believe that they're fairly good at coaching when, in reality, most of them are very ineffective at it. Why? |
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Great Sales Opportunities That Don't Close
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| If getting opportunities into the pipeline is the most universal sales challenge, then getting opportunities closed comes in a close second. I'm talking about prospects who aren't ready to say, "yes" but are still "very interested". These calls pose problems for salespeople for several reasons: |
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Home Staging is not a trend, it's a NECESSITY!
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| Home staging is just starting to gain popularity in some parts of the country. With the popularity of HGTV all perspective buyers expect a house to blow them away when they first step in to it. Staging, as the title of my article says is not a trend, it's a necessity! |
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Why You Should be Scared When Your Salespeople are Closing Lots of Business
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| Sales managers get caught up in the excitement of a closing frenzy when they should be taking a step back and asking themselves, what's wrong with this picture? |
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The Sales Assessment that Dave Kurlan Developed
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| If you have a complex technical product with a long sales cycle, would you want to use the same hiring and selection criteria used to hire life insurance salespeople who call on married couples? |
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6 Steps to Sales Mastery
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| Salespeople must evolve through six levels of development before they can consistently and successfully execute any process, concept, strategy or tactic they are trained and coached to perform. The six levels are: |
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Sales and Selling - Which Has Evolved More?
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| What I found amazed me and will surely amaze you. Ready? Salespeople have not changed in any way since the recession. The statistics are identical with one exception - the percentage of salespeople who are hitting their numbers has declined significantly. However, the skill sets have not improved despite the need for them to. And the weaknesses are just as plentiful as they were, despite the need for them to be overcome. |
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How to Get Business to Drop Out of the Sky
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| I think it's both predictable, phenomenal, and fulfilling. I'm talking about the magic that occurs when you and your salespeople leave their comfort zone and work hard to perform the very work, activity, behavior and actions that, left to their own devices, would choose not to do. Whether it's a salesperson who finally: |
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18 Business Trends for Your Sales Force
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| My guests were Mark Berezow, Gary Harvey and Rocky LaGrone. Before they handled one caller's sales force challenges (excellent stuff) , they commented on the state of business out there right now.
They see:
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3 Powerful Excuses for Maintaining Mediocrity in Your Sales Hiring Process
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| When I answered questions from the audience, the best one, in my opinion, was the most obvious. It went something like this:
"If your recruiting process works so effectively, and your assessments are so predictive, and they save so much time and money and consistently identify top performers, then why don't more companies use them?"
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The Importance of Pride, Self Esteem and Confidence in Selling
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| My guest on this week's edition of Meet the Sales Experts was Bob Sinton and we talked a lot about the importance of pride, business self-esteem and two levels of confidence: |
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Performance Appraisals
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| Ever wonder why some employees strive to do their best while others lack motivation and are just there to receive a paycheque?
This is a challenge all companies face and there are solutions, but correcting poor performance requires effort by both employees and management.
There are many reasons why employees don't reach their potential.....read the complete article to learn more...
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Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Five – write and speak
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| This is the fifth in a series of six articles on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market. |
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Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Four - media
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| This is the fourth in a series of six articles on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market. |
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Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Three – share
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| This is the third in a series of six articles on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market. |
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Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Two - audience
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| This is the second in a series of six articles on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market |
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How to take your thought leadership campaign to market: One – strategic business imperative
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| This is the first of a series of six articles on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market |
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Your Sales and Sales Management Questions Answered - Part 2
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| In an article last week, I provided the post to a sales competency contest. The final question in that survey asked the participants for any sales issues they needed help with. Today I'll answer the first four of those questions below: |
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Sales Leadership - It's Not About the Title
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| We ended up spending much of the show talking about Sales Leadership and the three most predominant types we see: |
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5 Ways to Improve Communication in Meetings
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| As we all know, communciation in meetings can get out of hand. These easy tips can help your meeting to stay focused on what is important without the meeting getting sidetracked. |
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The Importance of Google Local
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| One of the most important, cost-effective, and easy ways to get exposure on Google is by taking advantage of Google Local (also known as Google Maps). This article will highlight some of the strategies to improve your Google Local results. |
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The Importance Of Time Management When Running A Home Business
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| Running a home business is not an easy task because it involves simultaneous time management on professional as well as personal fronts. Also, home business owners cannot afford to waste time like salaried employees sometimes do. This is because home business owners are fully aware of the fact that if they do not manage their time properly, they will not be able to earn enough money. In simple words, home business time management is vital because the time you spend on your business is usually directly linked with the amount of money you will make.
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Home Based Business Franchise Review: MLM v Top Tier
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| The home based business franchise industry is teeming with offers. Daily, 'too good to be true' offers seem to bombard us every hour. The 'traditions' of both MLM and direct sales are quickly becoming archaic due to the emergence of 'Top Tier'. |
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Tips for Leaders on Cross Cultural Communications
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| Leaders and followers need to understand the nature of communication in developing a good cross communication strategy. When communicating with people abroad, you'll need to know both the strategy and structure in cultural and communication patterns. As we encounter the possibilities of wars, it appears that some international disputes could be resolved by effective cross-cultural communications.
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The Time To Act is Now On Becoming a
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| Leadership is one of the most salient ingredients of a community that is searching for improvement. Today, potential leaders are scattered everywhere and all that's left to do is to arouse their leadership vein and let it run into their blood and become the best of who they are in whatever endeavor they would want to lead to.
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Cost of starting a traditional business versus online business
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| Cost of starting a traditional business or franchise versus online business.
Look at the different expenses that can occur with these businesses. Products that you are selling or promotion and the return on them. |
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Three Common Recruiting Mistakes to Avoid
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| At a time when so many people are looking for opportunities, one would think that it should be relatively easy to find great sales agents. But it's not as easy as it seems. In fact, there are three mistakes many of us are prone to make in selecting new agents which can cause a cascade of problems - for the team, for the company, for your business, and for the new agent. |
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PRODUCTS COME IN MANY FORMS, THERE IS NO NORM!
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| Information masters who possess a great deal of knowledge when it comes to their craft fully comprehend that product creation is only half the battle. It is imperative that one figures out how to present all of their material in a clean looking fashion so that they can come up with a product that is user-friendly. The bottom line is that you must develop something that buyers will want to purchase or you will not make any money. If the appearance of a product is worth a thousand words, it can also be worth 1000 dollars if it is put into the right hands of a product creation specialist. Since there are so many ways to present your product, the words below will merely focus on a few of the many methods available.
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Making the EXCEPTIONAL Normal - Part 6 Measuring Success
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| If you want your team to produce exceptional results, you need performance measures to guide your and their efforts. |
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Do you know your organization’s “Execution Quotient”?
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| “Execution Quotient” or “xQ” for short – measures the gap between an organization’s goals and how well it achieves them. It’s like measuring the organization’s IQ for achieving results. Why do so many organizations find it difficult to execute their strategies and achieve results? Harris Polling surveyed 2.5 million workers to ask about this and they found the following shocking results... |
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Leading the Horse to Water: strategies for managing motivation
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| You’ve heard the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”. What causes one horse to step right up and drink deep and another decide to take a pass? Leaders often ask the same question when frustrated by failed attempts to motivate their people. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. |
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What is a Recession Proof Franchise Opportunity
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| Recession Proof franchise seems to be a phrase thats buzzing around at the moment. But what does this really mean? Is it really possible that a business can be recession proof? |
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Marketing Rx
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| The biggest marketing mistake small businesses make is using hunches to improve their business without first diagnosing their problems. |
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So where are all the Elite Sales Performers?
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| I received yet another call today from a sales manager asking me where he could find a really good sales pefomer for his business. He complained that most of the sales people in his industry had been around the block too many times and no new skills, ideas or talent where being brought into his industry. Same old people, same old things, same old results.
Trouble is he is not alone and the Elite Performers you want are most likely working in other industries or markets and are not even thinking about working for you. |
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Sales Meetings
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| Have you ever sat through a pointless meeting and calculated how much of the company’s money was being wasted on individuals sitting around a table completely zoned out?
Sales meetings in particular are an important tool for helping you to keep your team’s performance on track. Effective sales meetings don’t just happen, and improving your meetings isn’t just a case of ordering drinks and a plate of muffins. Successful meetings require a range of skills, a disciplined approach and an effective leader.
Here are some handy tips on how to prepare for and conduct effective sales meetings so that you and your team get the most out of them. |
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12 steps field sales coach plan
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| The reality is that most sales managers do not spend enough time with their staff in a coaching capacity. Providing constant feedback and being a role model who demonstrates the right skills.
Many managers today are still focusing too heavily on short term efficiency and not long term effectiveness. Development of staff through on-the-job coaching is a critical function of modern day managers but can take second place to some of the more urgent, but less important priorities.
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Watch who you let near your mind
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| With the Sub-prime market issue in the US and its effects on countries and the world’s stock markets featuring as a daily major news item at present who can blame people for getting a bit nervous and worried about the future. You can see it with the panic selling of shares and so forth. However if we let this and other issues get to us and allow ourselves to blow things out of all proportion we can, in turn, create our own demise. Whilst it is critical for business owners and sales people to keep abreast of market changes and challenges we can let real and, more often than not, perceived threats get the better of us. |
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What affects your credit score?
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| The FICO scoring model takes into account the information in a consumer’s credit report, with different kinds of information carrying differing weights. The FICO scoring model takes into account five categories of data: |
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Contact vs Connection
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| Know the feeling when you make contact with someone and you both promise that you will keep in touch but never do? Or someone you met briefly at a function, where you exchanged business cards, calls you up asking for one favour after another never seeming to return the favour? Or others still who seem to make friends with you only to use you to get to someone else and drop you and soon as they do? Well you are not alone. These are some of the pitfalls when it comes to networking and selling.
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Sustainability – the new criteria
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| What is your position on SUSTAINABILITY?
What community improvement activities is your company involved with?
These are questions, among many others, that my team and I are responding to for a Request For Proposal (RFP) document for a sales training project with a large Australian Corporation. This is the first time we have been asked to respond to these questions in a formal manner and legitimise our position on ‘sustainability’. As sales people and as business owners, not only are we being asked to legitimise our product offering, our service standards, etc. we are now required to articulate our stand on ‘sustainability’. |
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Don’t confuse quantity for quality, or biggest for best
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| Attracting and Searching for Candidates
Just like sales, in today’s market you need a combination of ‘Push & Pull ‘ contact strategies for finding the right candidates for your business. Advertising alone is not likely to yield the candidates you seek. When you decide to recruit externally, the following methods are available to select from:
* Advertising (On-line job boards (MyCareer, SEEK, CareerOne, etc.); Newspapers;Magazines;Radio and television)
* Recruitment Agencies
* Executive search firms
* Viral Marketing email campaigns
* University Job Boards
* In-store Advertising (shop window)
* Family & Friends
* Your own website
* Information Seminars
* Search (direct contact)
* Networks
* On-line network groups (My space;Link Me;Linked in)
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The relationship of revenue growth to your job?
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| Every sales person knows the relationship of prospecting to sales is critical. Without prospecting you are not likely to get a sale. We all know the relationship of sales to revenue growth is high. But how many people in your company know the relationship of revenue growth to their specific job?
The sales people do. Owners do. They think about it every day. |
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First Impressions
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| Picking up from my recent posting We'll meet again... I thought it would be worth looking at how First Impressions can impact our opinions of other people and their opinions of us. In turn first impressions can affect the desire to work together or not. Have you ever regretted a time when you didn’t make a favourable first impression? Did you wish you could have your time over again to make a more positive impression? I am sure you are not alone. We can all think of a time when we messed up. As the old saying goes: ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression’. |
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Client Buying States
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| Selling can get quite confusing sometimes. Prospects or clients saying one thing and doing another. It’s hard enough that you put in all that effort and have your sale go nowhere.
It might help you to know, if you don’t already, when selling that there are mainly four different Buying States. They are classified as :
1. Opportunity
2. Problem
3. Static
4. Blinkered
Two Buying States show that a sale is possible.
Two Buying States show that a sale may be difficult or unlikely. |
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Making Decisions
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| Several years ago I read a great book called ‘Kids Are Worth It – Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline’ by Barbara Coloroso.
This book has served me very well as a parent giving me guidance in how to raise self-aware and self-disciplined children. In particular, I learnt by heart the following questions which I ask myself whenever I make decisions and in turn, have taught my children to ask whenever they make decisions.
The 3 Decision Questions are:
* Is it life threatening?
* Is it morally threatening?
* Is it unhealthy?
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Daring to be Different (part 1)
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| Here is the first of two articles about recruiting top performing sales people and daring to do so from outside of your industry.
When it comes to assessing sales and sales leadership capabilities in your business do the lines blur between the cultural morays, views and perceptions, gossip and politics and the real capabilities needed to be assessed against your actual sales strategy? |
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Daring to be Different (part 2)
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| Here is the second of two articles about recruiting top performing sales people and daring to do so from outside of your industry.
Even though I have not worked as a traditional recruitment consultant for more than 14 years many of my long standing clients still talk about those ‘out of the box’ placements we made. Was it just the recruitment approach that made the difference. Well NO. What these savvy mangers is did was make sure the culture and the business could accommodate these ‘new’ types of people.
They took their current team along on the journey to the new as well. Sure it wasn’t all smooth sailing but they knew what they needed to do. As we know when we bring in difference we can often cause the current people to feel uncomfortable and if not addressed they can kill off the ‘new’ way. |
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The Dark Side
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| How well can we manage ourselves, our teams and businesses in a crisis or tough times?
Are our actions and behaviours putting us, our people and our businesses at risk?
As leaders and managers we are on show and our actions often speak louder than our words. In challenging times this is even more evident. Under pressure cracks may appear and our leadership is put to the test.
How do we cope under pressure? What happens to us when we crack? When placed under high levels of pressure, most people will rely on coping mechanisms or their strengths that help them manage in day to day activities, but due to the pressure they can actually become counterproductive tendencies. We refer to these as “risk factors” and they can emerge as our dark side. |
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Home Based Business - Benefits for People with Disabilities
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| A home based business is a great business opportunity for disabled people because a home business provides control and flexibility so that they can participate in a business of their own and have the same opportunity to succeed in business as everyone else does. They will have better control of their lives then they normally would if they were working in conventional workplaces. |
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Go E#$% yourself!
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| As a sales rep, you know better than anybody what your customers and prospects need to know. You've done your research. You know their issues, challenges and objectives. You know the value they could accrue by using your stuff. They just won't take the time to meet with you and listen! Well, maybe it's you that needs to listen up. Are they telling you to... |
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Why An Internet Marketing Business for Entrepreneurs Makes
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| The internet as a marketing medium offers several advantages to business owners over the traditional business. In this article, we will look at some of the ways business owners can benefit from using the internet as a marketing medium. |
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Creating an effective sales performance management system
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| Following on from last week’s article about managing and measuring the right things in sales, I thought it would be worth looking at some of the key principles for effective sales performance management systems.
The first place to start is to align your sales performance management system and subsequent key measures to your organisation’s strategy and goals. It’s then the job of the CEO and the Sales Leader to ensure the organisation (that means everyone else who supports the sales effort) is aligned to the sales performance management system. When this dimension is in place the organisation is best placed to sustain high sales performance. |
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Sales is a team effort
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| Sales numbers and sales processes should be understood and owned by everybody in your organisation. In today’s world if you are not directly in sales you are supporting someone who is. This is why sales really is a team effort.
Rather than being just about a feel good factor and great staff alignment, this has practical applications as well. For instance with the ability for customers (or anyone) to find and connect with anyone in your organisation through many difference channels (i.e. social networks, Google, etc.) the whole business needs to be sales fit. |
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Business Opportunity - Why The Right Domain Name?
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| All business opportunities require domain names as a vital component for the branding their business opportunity. A unique domain name helps to establish a strong identity in the virtual world.
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Tips For Creating an Internet Marketing Business for Entrepreneurs
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| The Internet marketing business is surrounded with lot of myths, especially for people who have very little idea about what it comprises. They usually assume that it is too complicated or too expensive. Both these notions are wrong and your internet marketing business can be a success story only if you do things the right way. |
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More Mangers Are Saying: “Show Me The Evidence”
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| Many managers will tell you that their decisions are based on incomplete or erroneous data. This usually leads to suboptimal results. Poor management decisions are often linked to the following six issues.
1. Using obsolete knowledge (relying on previous experience)
2. Decisions based on own strengths rather than accurate analysis
3. Hype and marketing
4. Dogma and belief
5. Blind Ideology
6. Uncritical emulation and casual benchmarking |
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Creative Ways to Market Your Business…
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| Marketing your business has become more important more than ever in this tough economic climate. I constantly hear business owners cutting costs to operate on a tighter budget. One of the biggest mistakes is cost cutting marketing costs. Marketing helps bring revenues in the door and this is the last area to cut. Below are some traditional and creative ways to market your business. |
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Increasing Your Business Through Internet Marketing
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| Traditional mediums like TV and newspapers have always been out of the reach of the entrepreneurs and small business owners who operate with limited marketing budgets. In this scenario, an internet marketing business is a bright ray of hope that has been helping business owners increase their business.
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Home Based Business - Lateral Thinking
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| Lateral thinking is a systematic approach to thinking. It teaches you to think out of the box or expand your horizons and to think creatively. Thinking laterally is a critical skill for all business owners, especially Home Based Business Owners. |
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Top Internet Marketing Strategies for Business Owners
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| If you are interested in making money online, you need to have your internet marketing strategies in place. These strategies ensure that your online marketing efforts are coordinated and planned towards achieving set goals rather than being random acts of online promotion.
Outlined are four of the top internet marketing strategies that have shown to be effective for business owners. |
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How to sell new business meetings - the greatest secret revealed
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| Do you want to know the greatest secret of selling new business meetings for sales prospecting. Its really easy to do and can double or triple your effectiveness overnight. Find out what it is here.... |
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Sales Prospecting Success - How to use Google to be a sales superstar and avoid the Gatekeeper
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| Are you still trying to overcome the gatekeeper or are you still getting stuck with a no names policy? Forget all those old excuses and find out how to get the direct dial number for any business contact you want... |
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5 Solutions to Getting a Good Night's Sleep when You have ADHD
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| Getting a good night’s sleep when you are an adult with ADHD is not an easy task. The reasons vary from not being able to switch your mind off to the medication you are taking. If you have trouble sleeping, then no caffeine near bedtime and no stimulating brain activities two hours before bed are all tips you are familiar with. This article addresses other strategies for a good night’s sleep. |
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The 5 Golden Rules of Awesome Blogging
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| Whenever you sit down and decide to write for your bog always communicate in plain language. Anyone who traveled to a foreign country knows that speaking the native tongue is much better that using a translator or a dictionary. In the land of the web, things are no different. Learn the "native language of the web" and all the web surfers will read and understand you better. |
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How to Speak With a Business Underwriter?
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| When speaking to an underwriter do yourself a favor and make sure you are prepared. You should know your business better than anyone else. Be positive; believe in your own cause. If you do not believe in your business why then would an underwriter extend your business credit? Help the underwriter to see the “big picture” and why you are successful. Do not ramble on and on with no purpose. We are all busy. Keep it short and to the point. |
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Loving Yourself First
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| Do you believe that loving yourself first is selfish? Discover why the opposite is true! |
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Life Wave: Secrets Of The Top Producers Revealed!
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| You can use these 6 key strategies to truly explode your Life Wave business. From mindset to marketing plans and working your LifeWave business on the internet, these are the techniques making the money for the top producers. Now you can use them too! |
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Business funding sources for today's business owner...
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| Yes and no. Yes if you have a strong personal credit score. No if you are typically under a personal fico score of 720. The banking industry has significantly tightened the credit requirements recently in the last 12 months. If you do maintain a strong credit score then you are in luck. |
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5Linx Scam And The Facts About It
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| There's something anyone who is looking at an MLM business opportunity should understand about the word scam and 5Linx scam is no different. |
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Establishing Family Boundaries
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| The word ‘boundary’ is one that we hear often these days, but it was not always that way. In fact the concept of establishing boundaries within families is a relatively new; and certainly one worth taking time to implement. |
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Guess What? Succession Planning is not Rocket Science
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| Managing your workforce more effectively than your competitors can give your organization a competitive edge. Putting the best people in the most critical positions means that better decisions are made more quickly, and this leads to better bottom line results. |
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How to Gain Online Recognition by Writing about Your Customers
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| You can gain tons of business recognition along with web traffic if you get in the habit of collecting Case Studies, Testimonials and Press Releases from some of your happier clients. In order to have fresh and news-worthy material, you'll need to collect pertinent information from your clients (stories, testimonials, impressions, stories, etc,). Use your creativity and talent to transform them into tangible and interesting marketing materials.
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4 Steps to Optimize a WordPress Page For Search Engines - SEO
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| The pages on your WordPress site (not posts) are your most important links to the outside world. Why? Because pages change much less frequently than posts and serve as the core message of your business. If building a WordPress website is like building a house, your pages are the foundation. |
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3 Qualities of a Good WordPress Theme - WordPress Design
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| I recommend a WordPress design for all my clients with established businesses. Once you've used HTML landing pages and one-page websites to find out if there's a market, the next step is to build out more optimized and targeted web pages to attract more attention and get more traffic. This is where WordPress comes in. |
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7 Reasons to Use a WordPress Design For Your Business Website
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| I recently saw a statistic that 1% of all websites run on the WordPress blogging platform. There is good reason why that would be the case. Here are my Top Seven Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Business Website. |
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9 Components of Good SEO - How to Help People Find Your Service Business on the Internet
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| Millions of people search for service businesses every month. When they conduct those searches, they aren't looking in newspapers or ads in the hard-copy Yellow Pages. Over the last fifteen years, the Internet has become the dominant technology for local service business searches. |
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The Value of an Annualized Business Development Plan - & How to Create One
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| Do you have an annualized business development plan for the upcoming year?
If not, please read on... because having such a plan can make the difference between success and failure, or possibly between a good year and a great one!
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Life Success in 3 Steps
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| Distinguishing between those skills that fit you naturally versus those you had to work hard to develop is the key to a life of success. Having a clear plan for the specific behaviors and skills you want to develop is important. |
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Top Tips for Beating Procrastination when You have ADHD
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| Procrastination is one of the biggest complaints people with ADHD experience. There are many reasons why people procrastinate and sometimes procrastination can even be useful. However, usually procrastination doesn’t make you feel good. You feel lazy, unproductive and the thought of the unfinished task looms heavily on your mind, spoiling any enjoyment doing other activities. |
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Hiring a Winning Team: How Three Types of Women Entrepreneurs Put it Together
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| When it comes time to hire a team to implement a business’ game plan and strategy, the business owner often has to have in place her own system for creating a team that will not only carry out what she wants, but will complement her unique style and mindset. Women in business face special challenges, and as a fast-growing segment in the business world, must work harder than ever – with a great team behind them – to be successful. |
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TIME FOR BUDGETS BUT NO TIME FOR PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT!
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| Make your performance management system work for you, or if you are still without one, implement one urgently. This means making it the driving force of your improvement plan for 2010. If you are like so many other businesses out there where by you have reduced your headcount but require more out of each member of the team now, follow this simple plan.
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Employee Turnover - What is it costing you?
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| In today's economy it is more important than ever to avoid turnover. Turnover is extremely costly. These are the factors you need to consider when estimating what the bottom line is when it comes to calculating turnover. |
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I Want To Improve Your Credit Score, But You Won't Let Me Help!
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| Credit score ignorance is just as bad as accumulating too much debt or not paying your credit cards on time. If you don't understand how your credit report score is calculated then you can't improve your credit score. read this brief primer and learn -- How do they calculate your credit score and who are "They"? |
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8 Best Practices for Online Learning
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| Many organizations are using online learning instead of classroom based training because they believe it is more cost effective, convenient, and less time consuming. For those of us that have sat through poorly designed online learning programs, however, it can be experienced as a form of torture. |
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How to Check In On What You're Attracting
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| Techniques for shifting your thoughts throughout the day. |
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4 Building Blocks of an Effective Talent Management System
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| If you reduce all the hype about talent management systems down to the bare essentials, there are only four building blocks that matter:
1. Knowing the competencies that get results
2. Managing performance well
3. Evaluating employee potential accurately
4. Recruiting the best talent
Sounds simple, but getting it right is as much an art as it is a science.
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Seven Steps to Avoid Employee Lawsuits
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| Labor and employment disputes represent the top litigation threat to the majority of U.S. corporations, so it's no wonder that a major fear for business leaders is the fear of employee lawsuits. |
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Increase Profits Without Adding Resources - Part 2
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| Are problem employees and troublesome customers draining your energy AND wallet? Here are a few tips for dealing with both. |
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The Truth About The SendOutCards Scam
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| Here's the real truth about the SendOutCards scam and what it really means in the MLM and Network Marketing industry. Read this before moving forward with any home based business opportunity. |
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Impossible Achievements
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| Last weekend, I did something that I thought was impossible. I broke a piece of wood into two pieces with my bare hand. I was in total shock afterward, but a good kind of shock. Breaking that wood was such a stretch for me that afterward, my mind started to play tricks on me. I wondered if I did really do it. Luck for me, there was a room full of people watching me and could verify that I did actually do it. AND I have the piece of wood to prove it! |
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Anti-Procrastination ACTION PLAN
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| Life is full of exciting choices. It’s easy to get distracted and do the fun, enjoyable tasks, and leave the boring or difficult ones for tomorrow. The problem is that every day there are new enjoyable things to do and tomorrow never comes. |
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How to Turn a Ho Hum Day into a Great Day
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| A client was sitting on the sofa in my office the other day and used a great expression to describe days that are rather blah. She called them “Ho Hum” days. A Ho Hum Day is when you have done everything that is expected of you, but nothing that really makes you feel, “Wow, that was a GREAT day,” and feel good about yourself. |
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ADHD and Addiction
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| Adults with ADHD have almost triple the rate of addiction than that of adults without ADHD. Alcohol and marijuana are the most common substances used. Other types of addictions include nicotine, caffeine, sugar and street drugs. |
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Decisions
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| People with ADHD often fall into two camps. Those who make decisions very quickly and those who can’t make a decision without lots of mental anguish. If you fall into the latter group, here are five tips to help make decisions easily and with confidence. |
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Tax Session
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| We are coming to the end of tax session here in Canada. It can be a stressful and anxious time, as people with ADHD usually don’t enjoy the tasks associated with taxes. Sitting down, concentrating, organizing documentation and doing mundane tasks through the year, such as opening the mail and filing paperwork when it arrives. These tasks are often thought of as boring and mundane. Even if your intentions are really good, there never seems to be enough time to do them. |
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PR for Business Start-ups
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| If you are a business start-up or a potential start-up and you think PR is just for the big boys, then think again. If you are in business you have a public - in fact you have several - and you also have relationships with these publics - so, like it or not, you have public relations. It makes sense to have a plan to nurture these important relationships and create a positive story about who you are, what you do and how this benefits the people who interact with you. Do this right and they will value the relationship and they will spread the word for you - there is no better business than by recommendation. |
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Is Your PR Firm Right For You?
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| It’s important that you choose a public relations company that you can trust to guide your company’s communications towards realistic goals, while focusing on the specific issues your organization faces. Here are 7 ways you can tell if your PR firm is right for you. |
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What Makes a Press Release Newsworthy? It's all in the news angle.
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| Here are 10 common news angles that public relations professionals use to write a press release that newspapers actually want to pick up. |
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Online PR: The Key To Building Backlinks
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| You often hear Internet marketing professionals talk about SEO and SMO as two different monsters. What's missing in the Internet marketing community is the connection between the two. Internet marketing should be about building both online visibility and individual relationships. Online PR is the bridge between those two schools of though, and it's the key to building backlinks. |
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Another 15 Press Release Writing Tips For More Publicity
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| Press release writing doesn't have to be difficult. Following these 15 press release writing tips should make it much easier for you. |
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How can you make your press release stand out?
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| Not all press releases are created equal. If you the media to take notice there are five key elements you've must have. |
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When should you send a press release? Here's 25 great reasons.
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| When deciding whether or not to send a press release, you need a reason. How do you know if your reason is good enough? Well, here's 25 reasons that are. |
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Date Your Customers - They'll Keep Coming Back
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| There are a few rules you follow when dating your significant other. It times time to build that relationship. You work on it through open communication and true concern. The same ideas should hold true in your business relationships. Here's 6 rules for dating your customer. |
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Don't Be a Media Bimbo - Three Rules To Media Communications
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| Many waste their media exposure with empty words and antics. To actually touch the hearts and souls of your audience you should follow these three rules. |
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Why Is Contact Information So Important To Your Press Release?
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| PR professionals preach over and over that including contact information in a press release is so important. By why is it so important to ensure that at individual at your company can be reached? Here's the three reasons it's so important. |
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How Twitter Can Further Your Public Relations Efforts
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| For the the business owner, Twitter can be a powerful tool for public relations. Here's 4 key ways you can further your public relations efforts with Twitter. |
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How Journalists Can Use Twitter Lists
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| Twitter lists to organize your contacts. Here are 10 ways that journalists can use them to keep up with business professionals, public relations specialists, and other sources. |
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Home Stagers and Liability Insurance
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| Expert home stager, Staging Diva, offers advice to home stagers concerned with obtaining liability insurance for their business. |
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Work with Home Based Business Ideas - What Limits You
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| Work from home in a global marketplace can be as dangerous as stumbling into a jungle unprepared. Global marketplace has vast potential. Average working men and women, in the spirit of current entrepreneurs, are stepping up to the plate. Is it time to roll up your sleeves and start working towards mastery in your online home business? |
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Building an Effective Talent Management System
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| Your organization probably manages its cash flow very carefully. After all, if you run out of cash you are in real trouble. But how about running out of talent? Does your organization manage its talent as carefully as its cash reserves? For most organizations the answer is “NO!” In these tough economic times attracting and retaining talented employees can be your key to competitive advantage. |
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Asking for a Raise
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| Asking for a Raise |
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Addressing Difficult situations at Work
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| Difficult situations at Work |
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How to be more assertive at work
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| Assertive at work |
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The Dos and Don’ts of Innovation
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| In his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker put forward a few simple “hard-core” Dos and Don’ts to help companies become more innovative. How does your organization stack up against Duckers checklist? |
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Are You in or Out for Change? Building Team Spirit In a Nutshell
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| The inception of a team is as indispensable as creating a work of art. It needs careful planning and a lot of preparation. Here are 5 fundamental ways to build team spirit. |
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4 Steps To Hypnotize Your Business Prospects
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| As business owners, our fantasy is to be able to cause our prospective customers to do exactly what we tell them, when we tell them: buy our products, refer more business to us, increase the frequency of orders, blog about their experience with our company, etc. Many people are constantly searching for the magic system that will easily bring piles of riches to your door easily, regularly, and automatically. We love hearing about the latest get-rich-quick guru success stories and dream that maybe this guru has our missing piece of knowledge. We are ready, willing, and able to be hypnotized by their promises. Why not use this same skill to improve your own business? |
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How To Branch Your Business
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| If you’re thinking of growing your business (or increasing its revenue), focus on your business structure first. I’m not referring to your internal business organization (e.g., marketing, sales, administration, development, customer service, etc.) – I’m referring to your external business conversations.
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Career Planning: How to Discover Your Dream Job
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| An effective job search begins by figuring out the specific criteria and values you want the job to fulfill. It may sound obvious, but before you can find the job you really want, you have to know what you're seeking. |
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Pricing in a Down Economy
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| When the economy turns sour the natural tendency is to cut prices. If you do, you're sending a message to the market. The question is "Is this the message you want to send? |
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Express Your Independence
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| Learn to love and accept yourself and "get" that you have the power to manifest any kind of life you want. This article shows you how. |
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The Assessment of Intellectual Functioning in the Work Environment
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| Most organizations need information to assist them in selecting people for jobs. A job candidate’s thinking capability is often the key to success in the current fast paced, hi-tech environment in which academic qualifications and even work experience may not be a good predictor. |
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Quick Tips to Decrease Stress
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| Life has been busy, busy, busy but good. Lots of new projects in the works and great new clients. It's definitely been a time to chunk down tasks! Yes, even I, "the life balance guru" need reminders. Living in a state of overwhelm is not healthy. I always say, you can live that way for a sprint but not a marathon!
Here are some basic steps to use to move from overwhelm to calm - or at least calmer! |
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Maybe I really DO want to appear to be an order-taker...
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| Technology has changed everything. It used to take multiple face-to-face sales calls to get a prospect up to speed on the potential value of our products and services. More importantly, those calls enabled us to acquire a broad, deep understanding of their issues, requirements and problems. Now, web 2.0 makes our info available 24/7. They don't need us to learn about us. AND, they now refuse to take the time to educate us regarding what they need. |
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10 Ways to Keep and Attract Clients
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| New and not so new methods of retaining and/or gaining new clients for your business. These 10 ways will give you some ideas about how to enhance your marketing efforts and profit from the results. No matter how the economy looks like, you can always perfect your approach towards your existing client base and attracting new ones. |
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Overcoming Resistance to Change
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| Immunity generally refers to your physical well being (particularly in the current H1N1 epidemic); but Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey have written a book that deals with psychological rather than physical immunity. |
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First Impressions
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| It is though that a “first impression” is created in three seconds. That is… one… two… three… impression created! In that tiny amount of time your appearance, body language, mannerisms and how you are dressed are all pieced together to form that impression. After that “first impression,” it can take hundreds of hours for the three second first impression to be changed. With odds like these, it’s important that that first impression is a good one. |
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Don’t take your frustrations out on your customers
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| Sales and Service roles are not for the faint hearted and can often take their toll on your good nature, your energy and your ability to deal effectively with frustrating issues, especially when you put in the effort to do the ‘right thing' by your customers and it is not appreciated, acknowledged or actioned.
At the end of a long day or week dealing with lots of people, pulling together various deals, solving problems and keeping your energy levels up and being on your best behaviour, you could be forgiven for being a bit ‘short' if things don't go according to plan and something falls short of your expectations.
To manage our frustrations, sales and service people can resort to all sorts of remedies. |
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Why Sales Coaching Really Matters
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| Without systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program 87% of skills that were covered in the sales training program are lost within 30 days
With systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program the return on the sales training program is four fold.
Lesson: Sales training without coaching is a cost liability rather than an investment. |
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Getting back to the sales basics
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| I don't know about you but recently I have found myself getting more and more distracted by the latest trend and fads, especially the social media phenomena. My reason for this is that I have been trying to get my head around social media and specifically, the impact on the sales profession.
I like to keep on top of what is current, what is emerging, and what is still an idea. This is why I make time each week to do research as it helps me navigate my way around the present and into the future. However, I am finding there is so much to read, so much to get my head around, and so much to integrate into my business that it can take up a lot of time... and it only seems to be increasing.
I read recently that 20 years ago information was doubling every 5 years, 10 years ago it was doubling every 18 months and today |
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5 C's of Marketing
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| Victory and Defeat in war depends 90% on the morale of the Army |
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Razban Golden Rule 3: Executive Coach's Game Plan
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| An Executive Coach, just like a Football or Basketball Coach, must create a Game Plan that consists of synchronized Strategic and day-to-day plans for the operation of the company. These two plans must roll into company business plan that includes market share and ROI. All three must be considered living documents and subject to change control. |
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Understand Intention to Build a Profitable Keyword List
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| Build a powerful keyword list by understanding the INTENTION behind search terms. |
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Data Money Online Scam
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| How do you know if the company you want to join is a scam? |
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Rethinking Cognitive Skills Testing for New Hires and Promotions
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| Hiring managers need to make accurate assessments about the cognitive capabilities of potential new hires and those up for promotion (e.g. handling complex information, identifying priorities, and making effective decisions). A hundred years of IQ testing has, however, distorted the image of cognitive assessment to the point where it has largely gone out of favor. No single score can reflect the complex interaction of cognitive, motivational, psychological and contextual factors that impact on thinking. |
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Sales Success: Do You Have the Top Qualities of the Most Successful Sales Professionals?
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| Relating to your prospects in the right way will make all the difference in your sales results. In this article we'll look at eight core competencies of the top 1% of all sales professionals so you can make sure you're developing these skills as well.
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3 Reasons Sales Training Doesn’t Work
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| The fact sales training doesn’t work isn’t exactly a news flash. Neil Rackham uncovered this fact years ago. Yet sales people and business owners continue to invest millions of dollars a year on sales training in the hopes... |
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7 Questions You Must Ask Before Buying Sales Training
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| Before you whip out your wallet or sign on the dotted line there are seven questions you should ask to make certain you are making the best decision for you. After all, you wouldn’t be investing in sales training unless you expected to get real value. So... |
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Why Use Feedburner for Feeds
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| Feeds have become second nature on the internet today. Almost every news source provides a feed to grab that data. So how can you grab feeds but do it in a way that makes it simple. FeedBurner of course! |
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Healing Social Phobia
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| Do you suffer from social phobia? You don't need to stay isolated or go your whole life suffering from this debilitating anxiety. There is a way to heal! |
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Motivating Employees
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| These days, retaining your top talent may not be your biggest challenge with your staff.
With these economic challenges in our midst, many individuals are happy just to be working so they can continue to support themselves and their families. However, continuing to keep your employees motivated should still be foremost in your strategic goals of running your business.
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Job Descriptions
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| We’ve all heard someone say “It’s not my job.” Not that this portrays a very positive attitude from an employee, but have you ever asked yourself how that person know it’s not their job? |
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Human Resource SWOT Analysis
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| With many smaller sized organizations not having a full-time in-house Human Resource representative, the choice may be to outsource this function to an HR Consultant. Choosing to go this route is a wise investment. But how does one know where to start in terms of the organization’s human resource requirements? Well, complete a S.W.O.T. Analysis, of course! |
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Michael Moore, Capitalism, and Dead Peasants Insurance
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| Michael Moore's new movie shines light on corporate insurance practices called Dead Peasants Policies. Learn more about those policies here. |
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5 Ways To Get A Job
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| No more simple career advice. You're smarter than that. You deserve honesty. |
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Who Do You Think You Are?
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| The more you understand your authentic vision for yourself, the more successful you will be and the more effortless it will feel. Ask yourself these 10 questions to get started crafting your perfect vision. |
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What you need to know about starting home business.
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| Why start a home based business? Job security, time freedom, write your own paycheck, Set your own working hours, no layoffs and no downsizing to name a few. Of course, if it was that easy everyone would be quitting their current jobs to start a home based business. |
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Secrets to Becoming an Online Network Marketing Entrepreneur
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| Online Network Marketing secrets and the key strategies to become a successful online network marketing entrepreneur. |
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Secrets to Becoming an Online Marketing Entrepreneur
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| The secret key to look for when setting up an online business. |
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Why Companies Should Embrace Social Media Marketing
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| Online users are flocking to Social Media sites in their millions; "net savvy" marketers are busy looking into ways and means of capitalizing on these mass markets and are at the forefront implementing marketing strategies that are designed to be cost effective and easy to change when market dictates.
The bottom line is that online and offline companies are waking up to the fact that they need to appeal to Internet users in many ways if they want to get their piece of the internet pie.
In this article I look at a few of the strategies that anyone looking to get into the social media scene should consider. |
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Lifting the Hood of Your Small Business Engine: An Introduction to the Business Diamond Framework
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| Entrepreneurs need to understand their small businesses in order to fix problems and optimize their companies for greater profitability. However, when most business owners view the engine of their business, they see a complicated mess of moving parts. In this article, you will learn about the Business Diamond Framework, a strategic tool for small business success that helps business owners understand their business. |
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A good business opportunity for difficult economic times
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| When the economy is bad, what can you do? Fast food, Wally World or standing in line for the better paying jobs along with the 1000s of others? Or - maybe rethinking having your own business?
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Tough Times Demand Tighter Retail Security
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| Every retailer has a unique set of security challenges and, in the retail world, your security challenges never end.
More retailers are realizing that using perimeter and anti-virus technologies alone are not enough. As someone once said, it's like locking your doors but leaving your windows open. Now retailers must take a lot more security measures.
Here are some vital strategies retailers need to take for preventative measures against retail loss... |
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Don't Slash Prices, Do In Store Promotions
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| How to get more customers in the store? These days it seems to be the question that most retailers are asking and is a much more optimum solution than the slashing of prices.
Yes, buyers may be looking for bargains, but they also value a fun and entertaining shopping experience. If you provide that, the customers will come.
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Is Social Networking an Effective Recruitment Strategy?
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| Is it high time for organizations to think on the real worth of social networking or do they still have to wait? Nowadays people are using social networking as an effective tool in recruitment. Does this mean that we should give more importance to social networking than other recruiting tools?
Social networking these days is considered to be one of the most sought out solution for sourcing and recruiting employees in an organization by recruiters. However, the potential that lies in social networking still needs to be tapped to a greater extent
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Collaboration- A Challenge for You
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| Collaboration- A Challenge for You |
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Doing The "Right" Thing, Just A Little Too Late
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| There are so many missed opportunities because we fail to act and do what we know is "right" or would be "best". Why? Maybe because we fear having to go to bat for an employee, or because we don't want to cash in our chips for that particular person, or because of our own fear or insecurity. Don't let opportunities go by. |
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Making The Rubber Hit The Road- "Re-Branding" HR
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| Description of how to rebrand Human Resources. |
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A Pig In Lipstick? Let's Focus On The Right Things
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| The key is not forgetting what you are in business to do, what your company values are, and the core competencies needed to achieve the goals of the company. |
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Squidoo - A Fast Way to Promote Your Website or Blog
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| A not so "new kid on the block" - Squidoo is a medium where you can promote your website or blog fast on the internet. Google indexes Squidoo lenses more often than your site is indexed and a presence on Squidoo will take your products and services to the front row of the internet.
A serious marketer should become very active on this platform by finding their niche and write about it. There is no limit to how many lenses you create. The more the better.
This article will explore the advantages of writing Squidoo lenses. |
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Franchise My Business UK
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| You have a successful business and wonder how to expand it and make the most of your winning idea and business model. This article looks at if franchise might be a viable way forward to expand and grow your business and the basic steps to go about franchising your business. |
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10 Secrets to Team Development
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| Teams must work harder and smarter than before in order to be recognized for their achievements. Right now is not an 'employee's market'... so how do "teams" build and grow and succeed? |
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How Powerful are your Press Releases?
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| A Press Release is an important element of your promotional campaign. It helps in driving traffic to your website but also in generating lots of back links and thus kicking your Google Page rank higher. As a direct result your website is selected easily by other major search engines (Yahoo, AltaVista, etc.).
This article will go into the fine details of creating a successful Press Release and what it means for your business as a whole. |
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An Organization’s Number One Asset
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| The continued progress of an organization depends greatly on the effectiveness with which it develops its greatest asset – it’s employees. |
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Outsourcing Your Human Resource Needs by: Dinah Bailey
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| Many small to medium sized organizations aren’t in a position to have a full time human resource role within their company. By outsourcing this function, organizations get the support and guidance they need, when they need it, at a cost that is reasonably affordable. |
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Can a Manager Be Too Nice?
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| Managers can make or break motivation and productivity for employees. Having the right employee in a management position is crucial for any company. |
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Happy Barcode Invention Day
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| Let's celebrate the birthday of barcode that is on almost everything. To celebrate google has changed it's home page to feature the barcode on October, 7th. |
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The Art of Lifestyle Design: Cultivate Business Around Your Life
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| Are you wondering what you need to do so your business will support your lifestyle? I was. I was tired of working by the hour and lacking free time.
I embraced these 5 steps, and fast tracked my life and my business to the way I wanted it to be. I re-defined and designed how I was going to spend my time. I took back control, and you can too.
Here are 5 steps to design your life and business the way YOU want it to be. |
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5 Personality Traits of Action-Oriented People
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| I'm an action-oriented person. I take on big goals and go after them full force. I don't like to take too much time to plan and prepare. I believe in the "ready-fire-aim" approach to life. I'm alright with making mistakes and fixing them after the fact. I believe it builds character. In this article, I give you 5 personlity traits of action-oriented people. |
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Boot Camp Training for Conflict Resolution Skills
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| A few hours of conflict resolution training can help work groups and teams to better manage conflict levels in the workplace. Providing employees with a common conflict resolution language and process can pay dividends in maintaining productivity and morale. Eight key skills of conflict resolution are... |
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Email Marketing Tests to Get You Started
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| If you’re utilizing email marketing, you should be utilizing email testing. But it can seem complex and costly, and many small business owners aren’t quite sure where to start. If you’d like to use email testing, but aren’t sure where to start, here are 4 of the easiest tests to get you going: |
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Become the LEADER in your home business
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| Free advice on what it takes to make your home business successful and profitable. |
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Do You Think CEOs Flying Blind in their Executive Jets?
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| The Global Financial Crisis is proof positive regarding the unlimited power and potential that our business executives have. This is an immense power and potential for doing good, or bad! |
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Razban Golden Rule 2: Steady Giant and/or Baby Steps in Executive Coaching
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| Breaking Executive Coaching goals to step by step well define process can guarantee success and reduce frustration and aggravation. |
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Knowing When To Say YES Or NO
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| With so many invitations and opportunities to grow your business, make money, enhance the quality of your life, knowing when to say yes or no can be confusing and overwhelming. Learn how to make wiser choices. |
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Employee Testing and Assessments
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| According to the US Department of Labor all assessment tools used to make employment decisions are subject to professional and legal standards. For example, both the evaluation of a resume and the use of a highly standardized achievement test must comply with applicable laws. Assessment tools used solely for career exploration or counseling are usually not held to the same legal standards. |
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Let your feelings lead you and others
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| The human being is rather a 'human feeling'. |
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Increase Productivity and Profitability by Simply Eliminating Gossip
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| Do your employees gossip? Have you ever considered the financial impact to your bottom line? What can you do to eliminate it? |
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To Grow Your Business Requires Closing the Gap Between Sales and Customer Service
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| For many businesses, there is a distinct line between sales and customer service. To ensure that the sales process is executed without problems, separate departments have evolved addressing what are perceived to be sales issues and customer service issues. Yet is this really effective given the research about customer turnover, the time to earn a signed commitment and how quickly sales leads become cold? |
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How A NICHE Market Strategy Approach Increases Sales
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| Much is written about having a niche to improve your selling success. A niche is a narrow target market where there are few competitors and allows you to be the Red Jacket in a Sea of Gray Suits. Use this acronym to help you strengthen your niche in your marketplace.
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5 Tips to Improve Your Sales Approach When Recognizing Prospects
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| How do you recognize a prospect or what I prefer to call a potential customer? These 5 tips may help both improve your sales approach and increase sales. |
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How to Be True to the Purpose of Professional Business Cards in Today’s Business Marketplace
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| What is the purpose of your business card? How does it affect your ability to increase sales? Learn if you card passes the AIDA Reading Test. |
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Top 5 Tips to Increase the Effectiveness of the Most Important Sales and Marketing Tool
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| What is the most important sales tool that you have? And more importantly, are you losing opportunities to leverage this key tools? These 5 tips will help you use that tool more effectively as well as to increase sales. |
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No Business Card Simply Means No Business
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| Have you attended a business networking event or a business conference and attempted to exchange professional business cards with another professional but he or she did not have one? What were your thoughts? |
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Helping Staff Recover After A Layoff
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| Layoffs are wrenching for companies in many ways. First, there is the sobering reality that layoffs are necessary for the bottom line. Next come the anguishing decisions about what areas to cut, followed by the unpleasant task of sharing the news. No wonder company leaders want to wash their hands of this matter once they hand out the severance packages. |
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10 Tips For Dealing With Employee Attitudes
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| Valuable tips for dealing with employee attitudes. |
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Managing In The New Economy
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| Business leaders and managers should be developing a strategy about how they will lead and retain employees who are impacted by the economic changes of the past year. Following are tips for managing in this "new economy". |
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Developing High Potential Employees
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| Every company has rising stars - the select groups of employees with the potential to one day lead the company - and most realize that these "high-potential employees" are critical to their future success. The challenge for managers lies in motivating, retaining and ultimately developing these high potentials into leadership positions. Here are some ways for you to address this challenge. |
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How to create Buy-in when cold calling
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| How to create Buy-in when cold calling |
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Book Review: Ogilvy on Advertising
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| David Ogilvy (the creative head of Ogilvy & Mather) describes in plain language in his classic book what it takes to create great advertising and lead an organization. He also includes lots of advertisements that work – with a description of why they were effective. |
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How we can learn Master Sales lessons
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| Like many people in Australia, my family and employees have been captivated by MasterChef Australia.
What I love about MasterChef is that it can be seen as a metaphor for expressing our talents and being the best we can be. Given my interest in everything to do with sales, personal mastery and performance, I particularly love the parallel I have been able to draw about what it takes to be an elite master chef and an elite sales person and elite sales leader by the observation I have made in MasterChef. |
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Who's delivering your sales training?
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| You cannot fake real sales experience and sales wisdom. It is one of the professions that is the hardest to teach and train because without real life sales experience you are at risk of being seen as inauthentic.
To help you make the best choice when it comes to selecting the right sales trainer let's consider the following: |
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What do your sales people really need to know and apply?
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| In today's market selling skills training does not equal product training or pressure tactics. If product training or pressure selling (the hard sell) are on the top of your sales training agenda or the only training you offer your sales people then you may want to rethink your sales training strategy.
What is expected of sales people today by way of skillful thought and action goes way beyond the product or the hard sell.
Let's first look at what clients want. This will then help us determine what sales people need to be able to do. |
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The Magic is in You
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| Today I want to share a little inspiration and let you know that your leaders do care about you and that they are here for you. Ok you have finally choosen your business and have found the one that is going to change your life forever Yes Great – Lets analyze that -
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Light Employees’ Passion for Jobs
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| The door to positive and permanent change opens from the inside rather than being absorbed from the outside. Each of us has a purpose and a challenge, but we must uncover it to bring passion to the surface. Managers who ask workers what they “want” to do instead of what they “can” do are better equipped to put people in the right positions. |
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We Really Should....
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| When you hear someone say 'We should', it's a surefire flag that we're thinking in the wrong direction |
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Enjoying Life: How Discovering Your Natural Skills Can Keep Things Looking Up
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| Determining whether a particular skill you possess is natural or acquired is an important step to doing more of what you do best. Discovering and developing skills that come naturally to you brings feelings of fulfillment and joy, and a sense of greater life success. |
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How to use Targeted Keyword Phrases to improve your rankings
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| The purpose of this article is to introduce the beginner marketer to the use of targeted keyword phrases related to article writing and search engines. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo, scan all their sites looking for keywords so your site can be ranked for the people searching for information. Keywords are the words entered into that little box labeled ‘search’. I’m sure you’ve used that box to find something on the internet before. |
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Passion Trumps Engagement...And Annihilates Satisfaction
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| Employee satisfaction may not be a bad thing, but it could be a huge distraction from giving people what they really need at the core - to make a difference, to do valuable work, to count. And it could be a bad thing if it shrinks people's souls and the organization's performance.
With regard to people, passion does indeed trump engagement. And it annihilates satisfaction. And really, everything else.
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Competing with Big(ger) Business
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| How do we compete with big business?
Given the size advantage, how can we win?
The first key is being the right size—right for your customers, right for your market positioning, right for accomplishing your vision, mission and strategy. |
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The Art of Virtual Leadership - 4 Keys to Leading Remote Workers and Managing Virtual Teams
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| There are 4 main keys to leading remote employees. These tips for distance management will help you work more successfully with your mobile workers and virtual teams. |
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What makes a good franchisee?
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| Considering franchising as a route to self employment? Not everyone is cut out to be a successful franchisee. Nick looks at what qualities make a good franchisee and what don't. Don't miss this essential franchise reading material if you are seriously considering buying into a franchise in the near future... |
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15 Ways to Create High Visibility with FaceBook
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| Facebook can generate a lot of traffic to your site and it should be taken seriously if you intend to be active on the Social Media realm. This article enumerates 15 rapid ways to be visible on search engines by using FaceBook.
It is estimated that the network will have more than 500 million by the end of next year. Shouldn't you or your business take a front row seat on this ride? |
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8 tips to increase bill value for every customer
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| How many of these 8 tips are you applying to increase sales of your retail business? These also help you in building better customer relationship increasing lifetime sales value in addition to the current bill. |
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I'll Try
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| Commitments have become something we keep if they are convenient for us. |
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The Missing Keys to Great Negotiation Skills
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| Improve your negotiation skills and drive more dollars to your bottom line. Enhance your ability to achieve your desired outcome by understanding these basic negotiating skills. |
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Kick-Start Your Motivation!
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| Procrastination and wasting time are common ailments. Avoid procrastination and make profound improvements in your business by asking yourself a few questions about your motivations. |
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