Business Themes - Business Issues

Careers & Employment

Dealing With How Would You…? Questions

I’m always preaching about proper preparation prior to interviews. If you research the position and company carefully, you can anticipate likely questions and prepare excellent answers. But something I also tell job seekers is that you can never anticipate every single question. I once had to respond to a “How would you…?” question about exhuming a dead duck. I am not making this up. The position involved community affairs... 

Entrepreneurialism

How To Grow Your Micro-Business

If you want to grow your micro-business (defined as a business with fewer than five employees), you might consider some of the findings of a survey by Statistics Canada. 1. The Findings According to “Growth Determinants of Micro-Businesses in Canada” (Evangelia Papadaki and Bassima Chami, Small Business Policy Branch, Industry Canada), the survey by Statistics Canada revealed the following: Micro-businesses get much of their advice from... 

Goal Setting

Does Your Goal Enhance Your Overall Quality of Life?

So many people struggle with the issue of time management. “There’s so much to do!” “It takes so long!” “So many little things!” What many of these people don’t realize is that they are spending a lot of time on activities that are of little or no value to them. In this case, the problem isn’t with their time, it’s with their choice of activities. If you were to ask a time-troubled individual,... 

Leadership

Character Traits of Extraordinary Leaders

When people make a decision (either consciously or unconsciously) to follow your leadership, they do it primarily because of one of two things: Your Character or your Skills. They want to know if you are the kind of person they want to follow and if you have the skills to take them further. Yes, there are other variables but these are the bulk of the matter. This week we focus on the kind of character that causes people to follow your leadership. 1.... 

Management

5 Questions Great Managers Ask (and they arent hard!)

However hard we try, we seem to make life more difficult for ourselves; more challenging; more complex. Yet it needn’t be so. try out these five questions with a regularity; a discipline and you will reap rewards. You will certainly reap rewards. Read... 

Marketing

10 Surefire Ways to Add Sizzle to Your Brochures

Businesses rely on brochures as their front line in communicating their products or services. Yet according to Shannon Cherry, APR, many find them not as successful because they underestimate the skills and resources necessary to publish attractive and effective materials. "Most people forget a brochure is important because it represents you to the world and reflects your image," says Cherry, president of Cherry Communications, a public... 

Negotiation

Cross Cultural Negotiations

Cross cultural negotiation is one of many specialized areas within the wider field of cross cultural communications. By taking cross cultural negotiation training, negotiators and sales personnel give themselves an advantage over competitors. There is an argument that proposes that culture is inconsequential to cross cultural negotiation. It maintains that as long as a proposal is financially attractive it will succeed. However, this is a naïve way... 

Networking

Getting Leads

How many leads do you pass on? As a reminder, you must give a lot before you can expect any leads from the group. You must be able to define your best customer, give your pitch and describe what you do best. On top of this you must gain credibility. Then how do you know how many leads to expect? If you have done your homework, you will have a good idea about the expectations of each member in the group. If the group does an average of 1 lead per person... 

Online Business

Start your Online Business in 2006 with this Template

Start your Online Business in 2006 with this Template  by: Mark Bellinger You want to have your own online business but do not know where to begin, what to market or what it entails. Well, the following is a pretty good template to follow that has proved to be successful for many an online entrepreneur and will provide everything you need to get started. A. The Groundwork • Research a memorable Domain Name Finding an appropriate domain name that... 

Sales

Selling the Dr. Seuss Way

"I am Sam. Sam I am. Do you like green eggs and ham? Would you like them here or there? Would you like them in a box, would you like them with a fox?" I think most people have read this Dr. Seuss tale either as kids or to their children. What is interesting is the relevance this story has to selling. First of all, Sam is selling a product and although his prospect is not initially interested, Sam doesn’t let that deter him from asking.... 

Sales Management

Sales Marketing: 12 Sneaky Tricks To Help You Outsell Your Competition

Business can be like war sometimes. You may have to fight hard to survive. The winner takes all. But that doesn’t mean you have to destroy your competition in order to survive and win. But you can do one smart thing: outsell them, with a few smart tricks I will reveal below. One of the tricks to outsell your competition is to compare your product to theirs. When you find the differences between products, use your findings to improve your product. Below... 

Sales Telemarketing

Sales Therapy 101: Breaking Your Fear of Cold Calling

Almost every day, visitors to my Unlock The Game? website click on my live instant-messenger chat button, which invites them to “Ask Ari a selling question.” And do you know what their most common question is? Yes, you guessed it: “Is there any way I can break through or overcome my fear of cold calling?” Most of us have at least some resistance to cold calling, and some people I talk with have such a paralyzing visceral and... 

Sales Training

Increase Your Sales Without Spending Another Cent

Many home business owners lament they don’t have enough cash to pay for online advertising to propel their business forward. Before slipping down this foolhardy slope, make sure you are being the best you can be and doing the best with what you already have. By ensuring you have the following attitudes and personal behaviors it is possible to increase your retail sales without spending another cent! 1. Stop thinking about making a sale. Would... 

Small Business

3 Ways To Make Certain Your Business Fails

Most small businesses incorporated in 2005 will fail by the year 2007. No matter the industry or the economic times in which the company was initially conceived, the fact remains that businesses fail on a daily basis due to general lack of knowledge and know-how. What follows are my opinion on three very common methods to ensure not only mediocrity but failure as a business entity in today’s world. 1. Lack of vision and focus Most business,... 

Strategic Planning

When Do I Need To Hire A Business Plan Consultant

Every new business owner knows that a business plan is critical ? it is drilled into them by potential investors and every banking officer they meet. So why is something that is so important to the launch of a new venture so difficult to write? Good question! In this article I will try to address when you should go out and hire a business plan writer versus taking on the task yourself. First time entrepreneurs often cringe when sitting down to write... 

Time Management

5 Result-Getting Time Management Tips

How often have you tried to manage your time in more productive ways, and found the process to be difficult and confusing? Perhaps you simply gave up on the idea. As one friend said, “Time management takes too much time!” These tips will simplify time management with five important steps that can bring remarkable changes. They will allow you to easily customize a plan that will fit your specific objectives. Each action in your plan should... 

Wealth Building

Who Else Is Tired of Life Punching Them in the Face?

Remember the bloodied face of Randall “Tex” Cobb? He was a boxer who fought in a championship bout against then heavyweight champ Larry Holmes in June of 1982. It wasn’t pretty. He was beaten so badly his face was barely recognizable after the fight. As a matter of fact, it was so gruesome that Howard Cosell, the famous sports broadcaster who announced the fight, vowed never to do another boxing match after witnessing such an atrocity…and...